B021001: Blogger Experience

Status	Date	NOTE





analysis	2004-07-02	There are a number of interesting incoherencies that show up on the current Professor von Clueless pages: 1. The "Preceding Posts" expression is only that on the individual posts, not on the default page and archive pages. This is a great problem of using a descriptor that doesn't work in every context in which it appears. 2. The use of B and I buttons leading to <strong> and <em> elements is pretty funny, exposing the usual clash between wanting a syntactic effect and making a semantic assumption. 3. The great example about the confusion of syntax and semantics is <blockquote> elements, where Rounders 2 displays all of them in gray, but that is not all that someone would use blockquote for, and blockquote isn't even a button on the editor as I recall, so there is no agreement of this kind. 4. There are also some differences around text and around using divisions to organize the material. The right strip doesn't work when the content causes the content strip to widen. It works better to have the fixed-width strip on the left and stick to it. This kind of thing shows up on Clueless and Wingbat. All of this could be turned into little demos and repairs, and as illustrations about thinking globally and acting locally.
analysis	2004-07-02	There is a process in contemporary software development called slip-streaming where updates of various kinds are made to the shipping software and the newer versions just go into the distribution stream. There may be no formal update and these intermediates, just like patched software, are often not made generally available. When slip-streaming is done with a web-served application, like Blogger, there is a strong risk of disruption and user befuddlement along with it. It happens that I am distrustful of mediated applications like Blogger and while I get the benefits, I have ways to backup and repair. These ideas need to be brought forward into nfoWare and how nfoWare releases and utilities are slip-streamed. Open-source also tends to slip-stream, especially with those folks who work with the latest builds, and the Microsoft warm-up and beta process has a some of that smell. I want to make sure that I have identified safe slip-streaming. This reminds me of my barbershop convresation on 06-30 where Mike was talking about how the first thing one is taught in judo is how to fall (something I remember from ski instruction and early high-school gym classes too). Learning about falling and getting up needs to be more in the forefront of software development, especially for web-based applications and data systems of all kinds. [dh:2004-07-02 I did a slip-streaming in changing the template on clueless to Rounders 2 from Rounders 3. Then I had those consequences to deal with. We forget that we are impacting the experiences of others as well as ourselves, and we don't know what those happen to be.]
analysis	2004-07-02	As the last step of my experience with Blogger, I sent a note to Anderbill warning him not to post to Numbering Peano and I also tracked down the right thing to do on Blogger (which has been cleaned up a little) and made a trouble report. There is a nicer acknowledgment page after posting, and the e-mail confirmation was speedy. No ticket number in evidence.
analysis	2004-07-02	After posting the rolled-back pages, I did a complete synchronize of all of my blogs as a defensive measure. I will check out working of updates using Muddleware Lab and not touch anything else until I am sure everything is working. I deleted the unnecessary files 2004-06_27_clu-chive.asp and 2004/07/why-learn-assembly-language.asp. I have copies on the development configuration and I should move them to /BlunderDome renamed too, as part of a forensic analysis package.
analysis	2004-07-02	I restored my site by rolling back the versions of default.asp and clu-atom.asp (saving the bad ones as default.bad.bin and clu-atom.bad.bin in BlunderDome. I was going to modify the atom feed (using the jEdit XML plugins) until I noticed that the content comes from Blogger and is not in the feed stream directly. In the restored default.asp, I added a warning in the header, which will disappear the first time a good posting is accomplished from Blogger.
analysis	2004-07-02	I determined that some bogus binary data had been uploaded for the clueless default.asp, clu-atom.xml, 2004-06-27_clu-chive.asp, and the article, why-learn-assembly-language.asp. I got my hands on the files by synchronizing the development site to the published site. Fortunately, I had done that recently and the only change was this erroneous post. I was able to inspect the files on my computer, using console mode and hexadecimal viewing of the files.
analysis	2004-07-02	Working at 04:40am (I woke up earlier and couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd do some light work until I was drowsy again), I did a new Clueless post only to have it produce a blank page at /clueless, at the post page, and also produce an invalid atom feed. I don't know if Blogger has been hacked or what, but this is very interesting. I am going to do some forensics on Professor Clueless to see what is going on.
analysis	2004-06-21	When a <a>-element is created in a comment, Blogger changes its href to one that relays through blogger.com. There is no good reason for this to have been done silently like that.
note	2004-06-14	There's also FlexWiki, an ASP.NET Wili solution. This "community" has some overpowering requirements for developers, and I glaze over. It looks like the kind of thing I would come up with. It turns out they haven't got a license yet (though want to use the IBM one) and haven't moved to SourceForge until they get that pounded out.
note	2004-06-14	dasBlog is a BSD-licensed, .NET-based weblogging package that I must benchmark as part of wanting blended tools for building blogger and wiki solutions.
analysis	2004-06-10	I noticed that Blogger allowed anderbill to post a comment with an <a>-href in it. I wonder if that is because he was not posting anonymously. I have to try it again. Also, there needs to be a way to allow comments to hit the feed. Not automatically, because it is important to screen comments against blam and there is the issue about commentors knowing that their words will become part of the feed. On the other hand, it would be useful for a moderator/administrator to mark comments as feedable so that their is feeding of useful comments. Even separately, so long as context as provided. More blending.
analysis	2004-06-01	Blogger handling of presence is very poor. This needs to be factored with ways to provide 3rd party intermediation of things like sending e-mail, people wanting to connect in some way beyond commenting on each other's blogs. Nancy White and I just did this interesting thing that had us leap-blogging back and forth in comments on each other's blogs as a way of having a conversation. I was able to connect with her by figuring out her Microsoft Passport e-mail address and sent her a mail and then connected with her in MSN Messenger later. This puts me in mind of a kind of game that bloggers could play, but they probably have already.
analysis	2004-06-01	Blogger uses a <$ ... $> form of elements to identify places in templates where various substitutions and expansions are to be made. This can be screwed up when monkeying with items, especially <a>-elements, in FrontPage. There needs to be a form of templating that works and that could also be handled with XSLT. I suspect that namespaces can handle part of it, but there may be more involved too. And make sure that a template or an expanded template works in XHTML even though there may be extra tags from a foreign namespace. Consider having any created page work as a template, sort of like Microsoft Office templates.
note	2004-06-01	When a comment is deleted using Blogger, a tombstone is left in place of the deleted comment. This leaves an unpleasant residue when (1) I am deleting one of my own comments and (2) when I am deleting inappropriate comments, especially from blam assaults.
analysis	2004-06-01	The permalink system is too funky. It would be cool if the main article body and the comment elements all have "#"-type permalinks, since they serve as purple numbers and the #-type can always be to the article on an archive page. (I am ambivalent about the thingy in full context versus as a separately-located article. So long as there is a way to do either navigation, I think that would work, and users should have easy-to-understand preferences available.
note	2004-06-01	The comment facility provides e-mail notification of the comments that have been accepted. The problem is that the em-mail notifications do not have links to the entry against which the comment is made. This makes it difficult to find the context, and it makes it difficult to quickly delete comments, as when fighting off blam (blog spam) assaults.
note	2004-06-01	Blogger no longer produces separate archive-index pages for the archive set. The index can be included on the page, This doesn't scale. I also don't quite know what the impact is on the weekly archive pages, all of which have the same template (and archive index) as the current blog page.
note	2004-05-26	I activated my blogger profile so that people could link from orcmid to something useful. I don't mind what I revealed there. I do mind that Blogger, out of some sort of spirit of cuteness, added my astrological sign and a Chinese year name that I presume is from my birth date. This presents me in a way that does not represent me and that I find mildly offensive. At least they didn't ask me for a Myers-Briggs type. I was able to suppress that information by clearing my birthdate.
analysis	2004-05-26	The use of diffs and the ability to administratively roll back pages is very important for blog as well as wiki maintenance. Recognition of who is logged on and offering options about what can be done based on that needs to be handled way differently than the way Blogger handles identity, authentication, and authorization. This must be captured and the requirements stated at the proper level with regard to non-intrustiveness, sovereignty of the user, and competent exposure of context and assistance.
note	2004-05-26	The comment deletion mechanism requires 3d-party cookies to be enabled when accessing my blog page, and it apparently requires the cookie to be current too! This is very weird.
note	2004-05-21	The comment route is making me always log on to comment on my own blog. I am not sure what that is about. [dh:2004-06-01: It's apparently about cookies and having them enabled in enough places.]
note	2004-05-21	The comment form that invites me to log in says that this blog does not accept anonymous comments, though I last said that I wanted to. It also shows the anonymous link anyhow. And when I checked my settings, it says that anyone can post to my blog. What gives?
note	2004-05-21	It is very difficult to comment when the comment page only shows me a trivial summary of the entry and none of the comments
note	2004-05-21	When someone comments, the e-mail notification does not show me the entry that the comment is about. [See 2004-06-01 note too.]









	2002-10	Getting Orcmid's Lair Blogger Working
blog entry	2002-10-31	Just one more little change - more tidying up
blog entry	2002-10-31	Orcmid's Lair - anchor page - cleaning up the template
blog entry	2002-10-30	Starting a New Day - Cleaning Up the Blog - Reformatting the first posts
blog entry	2002-10-28	Well, Not So Fast, Sparky - Turning on Archives
blog entry	2002-10-28	Arriving at a New Location - Moving the Lair Blog to a More Convivial Place
blog entry	2002-10-28	Using the "Blog this" options to quickly capture links to other sites and pages
blog entry	2002-10-28	My First Morning with Blogger Exploring Formatting Capabilities Tearing myself away?
blog entry	2002-10-28	Reflections on progress so far
blog entry	2002-10-28	Love pats and imagined improvements
blog entry	2002-10-28	My Blog Is Being Published! More variations show that it all works
blog entry	2002-10-28	Flushed with Victory, Let's Try New Things
blog entry	2002-10-28	Uh, Publish Is Suddenly Working. So, uh, What Happened?
blog entry	2002-10-28	I can edit and blog, but not publish to Orcmid's Lair
blog entry	2002-10-28	I practice Post&Publish on small postings
blog entry	2002-10-28	I get help back
blog entry	2002-10-28	I post the entry
blog entry	2002-10-28	My first blog registration and effort at posting.