PhiLLy RoLL

If I Wrote Blogging Software

I would create an option that would let readers go back to an earlier post and then read later posts in regular chronological order - without always having to start from the bottom of a page and read up.

(And if I wrote iPhone software, I would make it possible to go back one page (or more) in the web browser even if you exit out or turn the phone off.)

What's a Lactating Cat To Do?

While my parents and J's family now read my blog regularly, for a while I think everyone just thought it was this weird thing I do, posting my life online for strangers to read. In truth, not that many strangers read it and I don't actively go seeking new readers - it would take too much time and it's not really who I'm writing for anyway. Mostly this is an outlet for myself, logging my daily life and experiences. But I'm also writing for family and friends who follow along, and even though I don't feel like I'm writing to them directly, they make up the "audience" of people who would actually care about the things going on in my life. But I do have some "strangers" who read regularly - most of them are people I've found online or through blogging communities in Baltimore and Philadelphia, but after a while they don't really feel like strangers anymore and some have become friends.

But it's about this line that gets crossed, and on the other side of that line are true strangers who find my blog via Google searches or perusing random blogs looking for something interesting to read. I think some people think this is strange and wonder why I would put my life out there for anyone to see. Well, first of all, like I said, I don't get that many random visitors to this site. And if strangers read my site, I don't really care - it's not like I know them. And I actually think it's sort of cool, that my experiences may be informative or interesting to other people.

I started thinking about this today because I noticed this hit to my blog in my stat tracker:

Click the image above to enlarge.

When I saw that, I stopped to wonder, what in the world made this person not only wonder whether a cat could use a breastpump, but actually to sit down at the computer and look it up. I'm sorry I don't have the answer.

(Well actually, I'm sure it could be done, but you'd have to adjust the flanges - the part that goes on the breast - to fit cat nipples...)

So there you have it - it's not that weird that I write about my life and post it online for all the world to see and then strangers can search for information about cats using breastpumps and they end up at my blog. ... Wait, yes, that is weird.

I Just Wanted to Leave a Comment

Recently I ran into some trouble trying to comment on Blogger blogs. It seems that, without notifying its users, Blogger suddenly changed its default comment system and now the default doesn't allow people to comment without using a Google/Blogger account. Think you can just log out when Blogger tells you what Google/Blogger account you're currently signed in for and it's not the one you wanted to use when you left a comment? Well, if you click log out, expect to also be unceremoniously logged out of whatever gmail account you were currently using in a separate window. And no, you don't now suddenly get the option now to sign your comments with your own user name and URL. You still need to use a Google/Blogger account if you want to do that. Which means you'll actually be linking to a profile page, not your own blog. (At least, I think that last part is true. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Anyway, tonight I got fed up with this, so I Googled to find out what was going on. A regular Google search didn't bring up anything helpful, but searching through recent blog posts, I did find that this is a "known issue" with Blogger. See here and here. Apparently this is a "feature", but since it's in beta, they didn't actually tell bloggers what was going on.

So I convinced my two Blogger friends (ianqui and jkirlin) to change their comment settings to allow me to sign comments using an OpenId, which apparently I signed up for a while ago when I was looking into Zooomr (I ended up not using that site). If you need an OpenID, here are other ways to get one.

And then I needed to set up OpenID to link back to my blog, and here are some straightforward instructions. Basically you have to edit the header section of your blog's main template.

Hope that's helpful to anyone who has recently found themselves in this same situation...

Microsoft Seadragon

Something seems to be up with Microsoft and Seadragon today. I'm not officially in the know, of course, but I do get some spillover from people all over the world who are searching for "microsoft seadragon" today. This post I wrote last year shows up on the first page of search results, and so now I'm getting hits from all over the world. I usually get a few hits here and there for this search, but today there is basically one per country - looking down the list, I see Hungary, South Africa, Sweden, Canada, France, Scotland, Poland, Belgium, Indonesia, Holland, England, Germany, Australia, .... (I can only see the last 100 hits at a time.) Anyway, I am so curious. One person's search was for "microsoft seadragon stock". Is there something I should know and jump on?

If you don't know about Seadragon, you should definitely watch this. I have visions of a much prettier and more usable web after watching that. (And think of what I could do to my photoblog...)

CrAsh

There was a major database error at Typepad yesterday, and my blog was one of the ones affected because I was posting as they were crashing. When I loaded the page this morning, I could see the two posts I'd made, but only half of the comments and my photo album was missing from the sidebar. Reloading the page half an hour later, I saw all of the comments, but now only one of the posts. The photo album is still missing from the sidebar and I can't access it from within my account, but it apparently it still exists.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to fix everything now. I'm hoping some of these things just rematerialize (like the photo album, especially since Typepad won't let me recreate it since it thinks it exists).

It's sort of ironic that I decided to stick with Typepad when I moved my blog because of the convenience. :)

Update: The photo album and yesterday's post are back!