Friday, January 12, 2007

Weekend Maintenance

I just wanted to pass on to you, faithful reader, that I plan to do some much needed blog maintenance over the weekend. Blogger has long been owned by Google, and recently the many-headed beast has decided to beef up the service a bit. This new version has been out of beta for a bit and appears to be no more problematic or unstable than the current version that I employ. Moreover, there are a couple of these new features that specifically appeal to me. To hear “them” tell it, I should soon be able to use a legitimate CSS with my template, have greater flexibility with my meager RSS feed, and even be able to actually use my current domain name as my URL. This last part really appeals to me, as domain forwarding is so passé.

Now, before anyone mentions it, let me go on record as saying I know I should be using WordPress. Yes, I should be using WordPress and I should actually pay for some genuine storage and bandwidth and whatnot. I know this. I accept this. I also summarily dismiss this. (Shit, I’m still mooching off of poor Beefy for podcast hosting.) I guess what I’m saying is, I know that Blogger is not an ideal place for me to do business, but I’ve got a lot going on and I’ve come to understand and accept the service’s shortcomings. To quote the (poorly translated) king of El Dorado, “When you are pretty comfortable somewhere, you had better stay there.”

So, for the foreseeable future, I’m gonna stick to the service for it has gotten me this far. And if switching up versions makes things a bit more scalable, then gravy. Of course, it also opens up the door for a whole new set of catastrophic incidents. Such is the nature of technology, even with regard to incremental upgrades.

In the meantime, I wish you all a delightful weekend.

And feel free to wile away those hours by listening to my latest podcast and reading a very interesting interview with My Parents Favorite Music. That is, of course, if my meddling with the fabric of space and time doesn’t cause the blog to disappear into the internet ether from whence it came.

EDIT: Okay, so my man Matt from Headphone Sacrament just hipped me to a few more little issues with the new Google-Blogger interface. Taking these into consideration, I think maybe I won’t be updating over the weekend. So, you know, just disregard the above.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a warning. I tried to upgrade to the new system at Blogger only to find out to late that it breaks all third party clients.

They changed the way your log on credentials authenticate and as of about NYE, only Fickr could actually log into Blogger.

So, if you are using a third party app to write your posts, instead of using the web interface, you may want to verify that it'll still work.

Z. said...

Thanks for the tip, Matt. I mostly just paste my posts into the interface from Word, but you have given me something to think about. Mayhaps I should do a bit more digging before I take the plunge.

Anonymous said...

Wait, you have an RSS feed? What is it?

Anonymous said...

church, under Other Stuff, the button that says XML. :)

Z, if you're just posting your stuff through the web, then I'm not sure if it really will cause you any problems. I know from personal experience that the web interfaces just don't do it for me. (I need a big canvas for my rambling) So, when I switched and found that I couldn't get in because Blogger had screwed things up, I started looking for other options.

BTW, for anyone else who may care. It is a huge pain the ass to find the help file, so here's a direct link

Oh, and Z? Nerd Music is passing you by on CES info. I thought you had the connections? :) jk

Matt said...

I guess I should have clicked the links before posting that last comment. Research was never my fortay. Neither was spelling and grammar.

Z. said...

Truthfully, Matt, you and Glenn have both been smoking my ass when it comes to CES coverage. I’ve been caught up in prepping for my next feature interview and another little project that just fell in my lap, but I do plan to do a little wrap-up tomorrow.

Of course, now that I really look at Headphone Sacrament and Nerd Music, it appears as though there might not be any stones left unturned by the time I get around to it! ;)

Anonymous said...

church, under Other Stuff, the button that says XML. :)

Oh, frak. Thanks, Matt. I completely missed that.