Over The Top, Or Underneath?

People in Western nations have been arguing this topic, for years.

Should the roll be hung, with the paper falling over the top, or underneath?

Both choices have their logical reasoning.

When this question is politely debated, the discussion goes on endlessly - and when the question is freely debated, the discussion generally degenerates into ad hominem insults and name calling. It's likely that this question will never be answered, authoritatively.

Blogger has a similar question, resembling the toilet roll controversy.

Should new list items be added over the top (as the top entry), or underneath (as the bottom entry)?

Until this month, the only option, provided by Blogger, was "over the top".

Earlier this month, many blog owners reported problems updating their LinkList and List gadgets. Last week, the ability to update the gadgets was restored.

Having fixed the gadget problem, Blogger has also changed the new item position. Previously, new items were added to the lists, as the top entry, pushing everything down. Now, new items are added as the bottom entry.

This change is enraging some blog owners. Similar to the toilet roll issue, however, other blog owners are now happy.

Both sides, in the ongoing arguments, acknowledge that the other side exists - and would possibly settle for the other answer - if it was easier to rearrange list items.

• You can only move one item, at a time.
• Each time you move one item one row, you have to move the cursor, and hit the arrow one more time, to move that same item one more row.
• If you overlook the need to move the cursor, you sit there and watch the same item move up, then down, as you hit the same screen spot over and over.
• Then you move to the next item, and you move it one row.
• You cannot "wrap" the moves. An item at the bottom, and needing to be at the top, has to be moved one row at a time, to the top.

I have seen similar function wizards, with different design.

• The GUI uses a single pair of Move Arrows, and selector boxes for each item in the list.
• You select the items to be moved - then you hit the move arrow once, to move the selected items up, or down.
• If you need to move the selected items more than one row, you hit the move arrow again - but without having to move the cursor.
• By selecting all items, excepting the one that needs to moved to the top, you can move everything selected down one row - which moves the newly added item up to the top in one click.

Given the ability to "wrap" the move - ie, hit the down arrow once, to move an item from the bottom to the top, either choice ("at the top", or "at the bottom") could satisfy more people. But this is an enhancement, that can be only provided by Blogger Engineering.

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New Custom Domains Purchased From A Registrar, And Lacking The Transition Period For New Domains

We've known about the Transition period, which has applied to domains purchased through Blogger, for a few years.

Under Transition, domains purchased using "Buy a Domain" were only partially published, immediately after the domain purchase - with the publishing process completed, several days later. The Transition period allowed for the domain, newly setup by "Buy a Domain", to become fully visible on the Internet, before blogs subject to Transition were re published.

The Transition period was originally applied to blogs re published using "Buy a Domain", to delay redirection of the BlogSpot URL to the domain URL, until after a new domain was fully visible, to all Internet DNS servers.

Transition was designed to apply to new domains, purchased using "Buy a Domain", with the hope that domains purchased outside "Buy a Domain" would not need Transition.

When "Buy a Domain" was active, most blogs being published to domains not just purchased using "Buy a Domain" did not require Transition.

• Blogs published to domains, purchased directly from a registrar, would be owned by people with experience setting up domains. People with experience would be able to cope better with the DNS Latency, and inherent instability, involved with new domains.
• Some blogs would be published to mature domains, which would not need Transition at all.

With the ending of the "Buy a Domain" feature, we now have every new domain owner, experienced and not, purchasing domains directly from registrars.

In many cases, Transition is not needed for newly purchased domains, when the owner is not experienced. Inexperienced domain owners make mistakes, when setting up their domains. The domain setup process creates its own limited length "Transition" period, for inexperienced domain owners.

Recently, some domain owners have reported a new symptom, when using the Publishing wizard, to publish their blogs to their newly purchased domains.

This operation failed. Try again later. If the problem persist, please file a post on the help forum.

This new symptom may be replacing the long dreaded "Another blog or Google Site is already using this address.".

Most domain owners, seeing "This operation failed.", have domains with bad DNS addresses. They are generally instructed

You need to correct your DNS addresses.

Those not instructed to correct their DNS addresses should probably be advised

Your DNS addresses are righteous. You now need to wait 24 to 48 hours, for the newly purchased domain to be visible, everywhere on the Internet.

The latter advice will be necessary, simply because the domain was properly setup, immediately - even with the domain not fully visible across the entire Internet.

What happens with gadgets, which need updating, is yet to be observed.

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Blog Owners Reporting Custom Domain Setup Showing "This operation failed."

This week, we're seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken from blog owners, trying to publish their blogs to custom domains.

I'm trying to use the Publishing wizard - and I'm seeing a new error.

This operation failed. Try again later. If the problem persist, please file a post on the help forum.

What has Blogger changed, recently?

It appears that we are now seeing a new phrasing of the well known error

Another blog is already hosted at this address

The majority of the domains showing this error, when checked, have bogus or missing DNS addresses. We see the usual demurrals.

I just got off the phone with the registrar. They say everything is fine on their end.

This is simply more of the same - registrars that still do not understand the importance of using referral, as opposed to forwarding, for custom domain publishing.

Once again, I cannot over emphasise the importance of righteous DNS addresses, when setting up a custom domain. It appears that, contrary to current instructions from Blogger Help, there is still just one working DNS address model, for custom domain publishing.

If you try to publish your blog to a custom domain, and the domain has any DNS addresses defined, the addresses must be righteous. If the defined addresses do not match the one known DNS model, expect now to see a new monolithic error.

This operation failed.

In some cases, it's possible that newly purchased domains, not subject to the Transition period earlier provided by "Buy a Domain", may display this error because of DNS propagation latency. New domain owners, even when they are able to setup a domain properly, may see this error because the new domain is simply not visible to all Internet DNS servers.

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YouTube Hosted Videos May Not Be Visible, On Some Mobile Computers

We see occasional reports from owners of blogs with lots of video content.

My readers can't view the YouTube videos in my blog, on their cell phones or iPads.

YouTube video content, as uploaded through the Blogger Post Editor, uses Adobe Flash embedded code. The native browser, on Apple based mobile computers, doesn't support Flash content. Many non Apple mobile computers may be similarly limited.

Before Flash became a part of the Adobe Products multimedia suite, some security experts believed it to cause security vulnerabilities. Some owners of desktop and laptop computers have blocked Flash in their browsers also.

There is probably no 100% accepted or used solution, for blogs which contain videos uploaded using Blogger Post Editor.

If your blog contains videos, uploaded using Post Editor, and your readers have problems viewing your videos, you have several possible solutions.

• Replace all video content, in your blog, with the YouTube embedded player.
• Instruct your readers, who use mobile computers, to view your blog using a custom, non Apple browser.
• Instruct your readers, who use desktop and laptop computers where Flash based content is blocked, to allow Flash on their computers.

Neither solution will be universally accepted or usable.

Editing the posts in the blog, and replacing each Flash based video with the native (non Flash based) YouTube player, embedded in an iframe, is going to present a fair amount of effort, for blogs with lots of videos. Each blog post will have to be edited, in HTML mode - and the code for each video replaced by the code provided on the YouTube website.

The alternative, having your readers use a different browser, on their mobile computers, may not be widely accepted. Not all mobile computers will support installation of additional browsers. Also, not all mobile computer owners will want to install a custom browser, simply to view the videos on your blog. And casual visitors to your blog may not even understand this solution.

The bottom line here is that you may have some decisions to make, if you upload videos to your blog posts, using Blogger Post Editor. This is one more example of the challenges involved, in supporting mobile blog access.

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The Google+ "Auto Enhance" Photos Feature Is Causing Problems For Some Blog Owners

We're seeing a few questions about photo quality, from blog owners using Picasa photo hosting.

Why do my photos look brighter?

and

Why has the background colours on my pictures changed?

The recently added Google+ "Auto Enhance" and "Auto Awesome" features do not appear to be painless, for some blog owners.

If you have a Google+ account, check out the Settings - Photos section. You'll find two recent additions.

Auto Enhance
Automatically enhance new photos Learn more


Auto Awesome
Create awesome new images from photos in your library Learn more

Interestingly, these settings appear to be enabled automatically for some blogs, without warning to the owners - including a few blogs that are not associated with a Google+ profile.

If your blog contains many photos - and you are concerned with the attention to accuracy / quality of your photos - you might do well to verify this setting, in your Google+ profile.

If you are currently using a Blogger profile with your blog, it's possible that you can edit your Google profile, without Google+. The Google - Settings wizard, under "Photos", supposedly provides a similar setting.

If neither of the above works for you, you are going to have to temporarily setup a Google+ account - then upgrade your blog to use your Google+ profile. From any dashboard display, find the "Gear" icon in the upper right corner of the screen, beneath your personal icon. Clicking on the gear icon, the menu should include

Connect to Google+

Click on "Connect to Google+", and follow instructions - including setting up a Google+ account, if necessary.

Once you have your blog associated with your Google+ profile, find, and de select the "Auto Enhance" option.

Finally - if you wish - use the Gear icon again, and select "Revert to Blogger profile". Alternately, you might read the writing on the wall, and start using Google+.

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Why Do We Need Four DNS Servers?

Occasionally, we see a perplexed blog owner asking a popular question about custom domain setup.

Does my domain really need four servers?

Some even seem to think that newer domains, with less readers, can get by with less - even one - servers.

Won't one server do - at least, for newer blogs? Theoretically, yes. But not one server is going to be 100% reliable, or last forever. Every computer ever made, like every human born, will die, one day.

Your blog (and your domain) depends upon DNS, to resolve its address. Address resolution is an essential part of helping your computer (your readers computers) connect with the computer where your blog is stored.

If you specify just one server for your domain, and that one server goes down, your domain will be out of service.

With a single name server used, the domain may be online to you, right now.

Just because the domain looks OK, to you, right now, that does not mean that it is OK, to everybody else - or that it will remain OK, next week.

The named DNS server "ghs.google.com", that provides addresses for the published URL, is a redundant server array.

www.mydomain.com. 3600 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.

We use "A" records to address the domain root, consistently.

We use a "CNAME" to reference "ghs.google.com" - though we can't always use a "CNAME". Some registrars will not let you use a "CNAME" to address the domain root.

Google provides the 4 x "A" addressed server set. These servers are used to address the domain root - when you wish to simply redirect the domain root to one of the aliases - or when your browser or computer uses the domain root.

Most domain owners will redirect the root to the "www" alias - though you are allowed to redirect to any one alias, at your discretion.

Redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com

Google provides the 4 servers, to give us multiple redundancy.

Google provides four mutually redundant individual servers, each responding to a specific IP address, for custom domain clients to access in a round robin sequence.

mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.32.21
mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.34.21
mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.36.21
mydomain.com. 3600 IN A 216.239.38.21

Here. we see the mysterious 4 x "Points to" values (for GoDaddy) - and similar labels ("Destination", "Target") used by various other registrars.

If 1 of the 4 "A" addresses servers is not responding, another is used.

If any one server in the array of four becomes overloaded or goes out of service, and doesn't respond to a DNS query, the DNS resolver, on any client computer, will try the next server defined - if there is another server provided.

If your domain provides just one server to resolve its address, and that one server goes down, your domain goes out of service. Your readers will see, yet again

404 Server Not Found

But wait - - there's more. Since Google provides four servers, and only one is out of service, they won't regard that as a major emergency. They still have three servers online - and nobody is losing sleep. Except, of course, you.

Google will repair or replace their one down server, when it is convenient to them. Maybe that will be next week, when their DNS server technician gets back from vacation.

Is that not convenient to you? Sorry.

With 4 x "A" addressing, you can't publish to the domain root.

With an asymmetrical configuration, you may not publish to the domain root. Your only valid choice is to publish to "www.mydomain.com", and select "Redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com". If you publish to "mydomain.com", you will eventually see

Another blog is already hosted at this address.

or

Blogs may not be hosted at naked domains.

or maybe

Key already exists for domain (your domain URL).

If you see any of these, your domain may require more extensive work.

If you want to publish your blog to a custom domain using an ASymmetrical configuration, always publish to "www.mydomain.com" - not to "mydomain.com". If you want to publish to "mydomain.com", you'll have to use a Symmetrical DNS configuration - and risk losing services hosted by your registrar.

You need to use all 4 servers, for domain stability.

If you go with the first option, you will need all 4 servers - if you want a reliable and supported custom domain. Note that "different" / "more" is not always "better" - and different / more servers will make your domain unstable.

If your registrar or hosting service does not support 4 x "A" DNS addresses setup, you may want to use a (free) third party DNS host. Now, here's hoping that your registrar allows easy configuration of third party DNS service.

The Text Gadget Is Broken

For over a week, we've had anxious blog owners unable to create or update the Text gadgets on their blogs.

The "Save" button is not working, on my Text gadget!

or maybe

I see Javascript void(0) when hitting Save!

Blogger actually fixed this problem, earlier this month - and it broke again, shortly afterwards. Not everybody understands that seeing "javascript:void(0);" is a symptom of the problem - not the problem itself.

This problem, fortunately, has a reasonably effective workaround.

The HTML / JavaScript gadget, and the Text gadget, are virtually the same gadget.

If you add an HTML gadget, using "Add a Gadget" - and you select "Rich Text", when setting the gadget up, - you will have a Text gadget.

Just be careful - when you have a Text gadget, the place where you selected "Rich Text" will read "Edit Html". If you click on "Edit Html", you'll have an HTML / JavaScript gadget, which will then read "Rich Text".

If you want a Text gadget, make sure that the gadget label reads "Edit Html". It's that simple.

This will not resolve every problem.

• The inability to update existing Text gadgets continues to be a problem.
• The similar inability to update Linklists has no workaround.

This is simply a small workaround - but a useful one, where applicable.
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Export / Import Requires Administrative Control Of Both Blogs

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, we see the naive query

How do I merge my two blogs, using Export / Import?

When given the simple advice

Use the "Export blog" and "Import blog" wizards, both in the dashboard Settings - Other menu.

the immediate response is

I don't have that menu item!

This person has, most likely, lost control of the Blogger account.

In order to avoid encouraging scraping of blog contents, both the Export and Import wizards are only available to blog administrators. Not everybody wishing to use "Export blog" has blog ownership, however.

Too many people, denied immediate recovery of control of their blog, just start another blog.

With a new blog, the first thing needed is the content from the old blog. This is not easily had, however - because both "Export blog" and "Import blog" are part of the Blogger dashboard - and can be accessed only by blog owners.

If anybody could use "Export blog", and export the comments and posts from any blog, "Export blog" would be a very popular wizard - to blog thieves. To encourage Export / Import to be used for legitimate purposes, Blogger made it part of the Blogger dashboard - where it is accessible only to blog administrators.

This does not provide a solution for people who have lost control of their Blogger accounts - and who naively figure to start a new blog, and move the contents of the old blog to the new blog. If you're in this situation, you have only two possibilities.

1. Recover comments and posts using blog feeds and online cache.
2. Cluster the new and old blogs - but asymmetrically.

You can link from the new blog back to the old blog, using any combination of imaginative techniques - but without control of the old Blogger account, you're simply not going to be able to link from the old blog to the new blog.

Sorry. Once again, you have to always retain control of your Blogger account.

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Team Blog Ownership, And Abuse Classification

We see some people, posting in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, who have problems with blogs under team ownership, and abuse classification.

My blog was deleted as spam but I don't spam! BTW, one of the other administrators of my blog recently had his Google account blocked.

We've observed, a few times, that team blog relationships create interesting complications, with various Blogger issues - and this appears to represent yet one more complication.

In most cases, when a Blogger account or blog is deleted or locked, the owner of the account or blogs affected should see an online notification, and / or receive email informing of the action taken.

There are several reasons why notification - email or online - may not always be provided.

• Blogger accounts, based on bogus or inactive email addresses, will not provide email notification.
• A person who uses multiple Blogger accounts, accidentally or intentionally, will only see the dashboard for the account currently logged in.
• An owner of a Blogger account, recently unlocked after detected suspicious / unusual activity, will see only an empty dashboard, when logging in.

The team blog ownership relationship appears to provide one more reason for lack of notification.

• Administrators of blogs under team ownership may not see notification, when one of the team members has a Blogger account deleted or locked.

Both Blogger accounts deleted for non repentant abusive activity, and Blogger accounts locked when suspicious / unusual activity is detected, appear to present this complication, with blogs under team ownership.

When a Blogger account is deleted after the owner repeatedly produces TOS violations, all blogs owned by the account are apparently deleted. It's possible that, when a blog is deleted, team ownership issues are overlooked in the blog deletion process - and the blog simply disappears from the dashboards of the other team members. It's also possible that this is a predictable group action - comparable to affiliate network detection.

When a Blogger account is locked after suspicious / unusual activity is detected, all owned blogs simply disappear from the dashboard of the owner. Blogs owned by a locked account are under automatic security review, with no appeal by the owner being possible. Team administrators are unlikely to have any alternative appeal opportunity, for a blog under review when an owning account is locked.

The latter two scenarios represent two reasons why, if we see the complaint in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken

My blog has disappeared from my dashboard, and is not online!

One initial question should be

Was the blog under team ownership?

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Publish New Posts Sooner, And Edit After You Publish, To Avoid AutoSave

Many blog owners spend hours - or days - composing a new post.

Occasionally, we see the complaint in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken

I had been working on my post, for days. Just as I accidentally erased everything, AutoSave kicked in, and saved my empty post. Now, I have to spend days rewriting!

Given the right reflexes, and presence of mind, recovery is simple. Most browsers provide an "Undo" command, which will back out the erasure of the contents - as long as you react properly. Just hit "Undo" - and you're back in business.

If using "Undo" is a problem for you, avoid AutoSave. As soon as you have a basic post written, publish the basic post. Then, edit what you just published.

Unless you have a lot of readers who read each new post, immediately - and who would be bothered by reading an incomplete post, this strategy will help you avoid problems generated by AutoSave.

Spend some time observing reader activity, using the visitor log / meter of your choice. Then consider

• How long it takes you, to publish a finished post.
• How many readers would typically read the post, during the time you spend publishing a finished post.
• How many readers would typically read the post, after you publish a finished post.
• How many more readers are you likely to get, if you can publish your posts without worrying about AutoSave ruining your efforts.
• How much easier it would be for you to publish, without dealing with the annoyances of AutoSave.

Unless you have more than a few readers who jump on each new post immediately after publication, you'll gain more, in the long run, by publishing sooner - if you have frequent problems with AutoSave.

This is another technique in progressive publishing. Publish sooner, and edit later.

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