Blogiversary: 10,000 Posts! 70 Months! I'm Still Here!

It's been a long time since I wrote one of these self-congratulatory, back-patting posts. And truth is, I'm a little bit late. This is actually my 10,034th post. But you know, there have been a fair amount of repeats in there along the way. But since I almost always include updates and additions even to reruns, I'm going to count it!

My mission at Greenlee Gazette has always been a bit fuzzy, which is probably why I don't garner a heavy following out there on the internets. I'm happy for every set of eyeballs I get, and truthfully would probably get stage fright if I ever broke through to big numbers. But I'm still having fun, even if it isn't quite as prolific fun as my first couple of years. In those days, I posted everything in a frenzy of blogging. But as the years go by, you get more discriminating, and there are more outlets (Facebook, Twitter, both of which I discovered years after the blog started), and more demands on my time.

Click Here for Greenlee Gazette on Facebook  •  Click Here for Greenlee Gazette on Twitter

I still spend an obscene amount of time in front of my computer(s). And my political angst-o-meter is somewhere between the boiling rage I was feeling during the waning days of the Bush years, and the placid relief I felt after President Obama was first elected. I've even felt relief when going back over some of my early posts, that even though I was a sufferer of Bush Derangement Syndrome, it was a far more honest and reasonable disorder than I see in the right's Obama Derangement Syndrome. I was even fair to Dubya when gas prices spiked to over $4, and the country was wigging out.

So, no, the Obama Era isn't perfect, though I never painted him as a messiah. There's still plenty to bitch about, whether it is disappointment with Harry Reid's lack of spine, or whatever right-wing wacko is calling gay people evil. And of course there are fun things to talk about, and pleasant distractions. I struggle to balance the serious stuff with some good ol' frivolity, to the point that I've actually had complaints that I'm not "newsy" enough. But I'll continue to put up new installments of Blast from the Past every weekend, whenever I have time.

So, as long as Google is still supporter the Blogger format, and I still get a couple hundred readers a day, I'll continue this little hobby. As always, thanks for stopping by, and please bring your friends!

S'cuse Me, I's Bin Bizzy

Schedule has been crammed. . .no time to blog. Back later today! I hope!

Problems With Blogger and with Links

Image found at Wolf-Howl

This post is a general query out there to anybody who uses Blogger. It's the Google-owned service for creating blogs. I've used it for over five years for Greenlee Gazette, and have recently encountered a problem. After I've posted a blog with source links, I've found that my link is broken. On a couple of occasions, Dan from LasVegasBadger.blogspot.com has pointed out that my link didn't work. On each of those occasions (and on several others I've found myself), it wasn't so much that the link was broken, as that it was just flat-out wrong.

I just went through two pages of my posts, and found at least half were this way. Now, I've been doing this blog since 2007. . .I know what I'm doing! So, I wonder if any other Blogger bloggers have this issue? In each case, I get a nonsense link with "blog" in the name, and in each case, the usual "open in new window" command that I always use is not employed. Here are a couple of the false links I've found: [http://goog_624617935/]  [http://draft.blogger.com/~mdexpatinpa/] [http://draft.blogger.com/goog_1613533033]. Obviously, I didn't come up with these things by myself. Something is going on that is inserting these bad links. Anyone know what it is?

Thanks!

UPDATE: Since this post, I have written two posts with excerpted and linked articles. In both cases, I paid close attention to my copying and pasting of links, and the boxes I checked in the posting process. In one case, the link worked, in the other it was that garbage I mentioned above, and no checked boxes. So, this is definitely happening in the software, and is not a user problem!

Blogger: If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It!

All right, over the last couple of months, there have been a couple of problems with Blogger (the Google-owned software for producing this blog), sometimes resulting in the service being totally out, and posts have disappeared. Things have been back to normal for a little while, but they just pulled a switcheroo on me. The "compose" page where I write all of my blog posts, is suddenly all cattywampus. There are buttons where there didn't used to be buttons, semi-non-responsive areas in which to type. An unnecessarily LARGE window. It's not prettier, it's not easier, and it's not an improvement. BOOOO! But it's free, so I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

It's a Google World, We Just Live in It

This video is a little creepy. And if you think you're eluding the Google beast. . .hello! This blog is hosted by Blogger. . .a Google company. My question is, how do they keep making all of these free services, and still be worth so much money?

Greenlee Gazette Milestone

As a few critics have been delighted to point out, this blog does not receive a massive amount of visitors. Fortunately for me, I don't really care. This is a one-man show (pretty much), and done as a hobby on my own time. I don't make a cent from it, and have no publicity outside of Google. So, I'm rather happy with what small audience I do manage to pull in. It's a little over 100 people per day, in addition to a fluctuating amount of RSS readers, maybe 30-50 more.

I happened to check my SiteMeter account at an opportune moment this morning, and grabbed the page at left. 88,888 visits! Nifty.

YouTube Videos Not Playing? Here's the Fix.

It came to my attention a few minutes ago that none of the YouTube videos I'd posted here were working. They had a black screen, a funny new button, and clicking on them did nothing whatsoever. I thought I'd done something to irk the Google Gods, but it turns out that Adobe has updated some settings in their Flash and ShockWave software, and the Blogger software didn't like it very much.

If you're having a similar problem, here are links to get the latest updates:

Flash Plug-in download:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

Shockwave Plug-in download
http://www.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer/index.html

Blogiversary: 14 Months! Over 3,100 Posts!

Tooms photo from source, Wikipedia

Wow, that was a fast month! Summer seems to be zipping by this year. And given the tedium and stupidity of the ongoing Presidential election, that is probably a good thing. Unless of course, we're speeding into a McCain victory. In that case, I'm thinking of holing up like Eugene Victor Tooms of The X-Files and staying in my nest until it's all over. But I don't think I'll be eating any livers. Bleccch.

Anyway, I'm up to 14 months of blogging now. At what point do parents stop referring to their kids' ages in months? I suppose if this blog should survive past 2 years, I'll stop doing monthly "Blogiversary" posts. As it stands now, much like in the early stages of a relationship, I'm always pleased, proud and a little surprised that it has lasted yet another month! And what a month for me, blogwise. More people visited my blog in July--more than 3,500 hits--than in any other month since I've been posting. In fact, the visits tripled over last July.

I realize that still puts me in pre-peewee league by the big blog standards. But it makes me happy, and gives me reason to continue. I'm still enjoying this alot, though I'll bet I'm starting to irritate my friends. When you follow politics closely enough to blog about it, you find you can't just leave it on the screen. It seeps into your language, and you find yourself bringing up political minutiae to friends, only to be answered with blank stares.

August will likely be a slower month than usual here at Greenlee Gazette. The Other Half and I are having a wedding reception (6 weeks after our wedding in Palm Springs) next weekend, so half the world is descending upon our household. I'm going to depend upon good friend Stupid Monkey Planet to sub for me for a good chunk of a week, while we prepare for, receive, and entertain guests for a long run of days. But the Monkey has an active and full life, as well as a Mrs. Monkey, so the posting will be more sparse. I'll still be stopping in whenever I can.

Anyway, thanks for reading this far. I ain't done yet. And I'll try (I keep saying this) to bring a little less of the serious, and a little more of the fun around here! Bring your friends!

Blogger Alert! SiteMeter Fixed

UPDATE 08/02/08: SiteMeter is working again. Too bad it was out too. At the time I removed the meter, I was on the road to my best day ever for visitors. Rats!

ORIGINAL POST:

Apparently, the cause of my Blogger woes was a problem for many of you too. If you're using Internet Explorer and the site you're visiting contains a SiteMeter. So, this is a public service announcement:

BLOGGER ALERT, BLOGGER ALERT!

The SiteMeter service--which I love, and a complete addict of--is apparently being upgraded right now. But something is causing Internet Explorer (and AOL) to crash, if the site contains the SiteMeter script. Use FireFox to open your blog (FireFox seems unaffected), remove the widget for SiteMeter, and your blog will work again.

It breaks my heart to do this. I love and probably obsess too much over my "hits" for the day. I'm pretty sure removing the script will halt them completely. I'm definitely going to be going through withdrawal! I'm not sure if SiteMeter itself knows about this glitchy little problem yet. I'll be sending them a letter forthwith.

The error message that appears when hitting a blog with a SiteMeter is: "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet Site"

Computer Woes: Internet Explorer 7 Issues

I may not have much up on the blog tonight, due to computer issues. For some reason, every time I try to load my blog, I get an error halfway through loading. I read that installing Internet Explorer 8 (Beta) might solve the issue, but that keeps hitting a glitch as well.

I'm using FireFox, but unlike many, I'm not as fond of that program. Once I get this all sorted out, I'll be back. Thanks for visiting anyway!

Blogiversary: 11 Months! 2400+ Posts!

I'm closing in on a year here at Greenlee Gazette, and have achieved or am approaching another handful of milestones. April, my eleventh month blogging was my biggest month so far, with just a hair under 3,000 hits, beating out my second-best month by a squink. I also posted more than in any other month, 263 posts.

In the next month, I will very likely hit a total of 25,000 hits and 2,500 posts and beyond. It won't be easy. I'm going to Ohio next week to visit my nephew, who will be celebrating his first birthday. So posting will be light for at least five days. Stupid Monkey Planet will graciously be filling in.

I can only hope that over the next month, we will at least approach naming a Democratic nominee in the Clinton/Obama race. Some days, with such heavy focus by the news media on the minutiae of that contest, it can be quite difficult to dig up interesting things to write about. And, no, I do not find anything the Rev. Jeremiah Wright had to say remotely interesting.

So, stick with me readers, as we plow through this tedious process. I'll continue to try to find things for you to read and watch that the media isn't covering. And along the way, hopefully some fun stuff too.

Thanks for reading, and bring your friends!

You Get What You Pay For: Blogger & AOL

I've been blogging now since June 2, 2007; not a long time, but long enough to know the ropes a little. I started the blog on a whim because there was a handy "create blog" link, and it was free. It turns out that much of what you can pay for on the internet you can also get for free.

But there is a trade off. Who do you complain to when a free service isn't working right? And do you really have any right to get indignant when they take forever to fix a problem when they are providing you with their service?

I have used America Online as a service provider for about 13 years, give or take. For years, AOL has had a terrible reputation as "internet training wheels," a service filled with newbies. This reputation has been replaced with, "AOL? Is that still around?" But I happen to like the interface. Especially now that I have a wide-screen monitor. It works great in tandem with Internet Explorer's or Firefox's tabbed browser when I'm blogging.

AOL has always had usability issues, but now that the service is free (to people bringing their own high-speed hookup), the problems seem to be worse. Chief among the problems is the program's tendency to get stuck in an error-loop that clogs up your whole computer until it is resolved. For me, this happens any time I've had the AOL program open for several hours. First you lose your right-click menus, then almost any action leads to the Windows error sound, and a meaningless dialog box with an "OK" and a "Cancel" button. No matter what you do after that, click OK, Cancel, the shut down X. . .you get another error box and sound. Hold the "ENTER" key in for several minutes, and (usually) eventually the errors will stop, and the program will close. And sometimes it will take Windows with it, leading to the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death."

Blogger's problems are not so severe. It has an awkward posting interface, with quirkiness in both its "compose" and "html" windows. Linking, adding pictures, and other options sometimes take two or three clicks and other tricks to get them working. Adding a picture to your post will invariably lead to extra spaces between paragraphs. It's as awkward as early page layout programs.

But right now, and for at least five days now, Blogger's spell check feature has stopped working. They are aware of this, but quite silent on the issue. For now, I can copy and paste into Microsoft Word or another program that has a spell checker. But since Blogger has a sort of arcane interface, anything I type loses its formatting (italics, bolding, links). Sigh. Do I have any right to complain, when this whole service is free?

Greenlee Gazette Milestones

I noticed a couple of minor milestones today. This is my 1,500th post at Greenlee Gazette. I should note that while I wrote most of them, I've also had help from contributors, Nevada Joe (The Other Half) John Asmussen and Stupid Monkey Planet, as well as having been inspired by them for my own posts.

Along the way there have also been a couple of reruns and rewrites, especially during the holidays. But the little post counter says 1,500, and I'm going to count that!

The other milestone was captured by chance, when I checked my sitemeter to see how many visitors had dropped by. By blind luck, I got one of those "odometer moments" when the numbers look sort of cool. 13,333 visitors! It's up to 13,400 now, but I caught it at just the right time.

Now I understand that some blogs might log numbers like that in a week or even a day, but I'm thrilled. In fact, I might just panic if I got that many hits in a day! Blogger's fright.

Thanks everybody!

More Blogger Problems, but I Think I've Got It!

OK, I know a lot of you use AOL to view my blog, and I'm pretty sure you've all had trouble with only a partial display of the features and posts. After much bumbling around, I believe that this post may actually set things right. We'll see, after I hit "post."

Problems with Blogger

If anyone out there in the blogosphere is having trouble viewing Greenlee Gazette, please let me know. On my computer, I cannot make the entire blog appear. The sidebar and bottom posts simply will not display. If you're having similar problems, please let me know at greenleegazette@aol.com. Thank you.

UPDATE: I don't have this problem using FireFox, only with Internet Explorer 7 or AOL. This leads me to suspect a settings problem--though I haven't changed any settings. If you have ANY clue what's going on here, please let me know.

UPDATE II: I just tried again using IE 7. No dice. I'm ready to make a recommendation. Use FireFox! Go here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

UPDATE III: Safari works too. Only having a problem with Internet Explorer 7. What's the deal?

UPDATE IV: OK, weirdly, IE 7 is now working, but the AOL browser isn't. This is maddening.