Thursday, March 31, 2005

Blogger stinks

I'm getting really tired of all the glitches and hiccups of Blogger. You may have noticed double posts at times on this blog. That's because you never know whether clicking something on Blogger will actually accomplish what is intended. Lately it seems like clicking does nothing but bring up a "document contains no data." Maddening.

Update: Welcome Wired News Readers. Thanks for the link. At least I didn't use the word sucks. That would have been unoriginal apparently.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why don't you download some free blog software like Wordpress, get yourself a paid hosting account with PHP/MySQL and set up your own blog.

Wordpress has pretty much all the same features you are used to, is really easy to install, and doesn't cost anything. And YOU have total control over it.

Blogger is for people that can't be bothered learning the little required to do it properly.

Unknown said...

My main blog hasn't been particularly affected by what's been going on. It's not like I'm writing hourly or anything. Also, it probably helps that I write my stuff in an editor first before I submit it.

My linkblog however is another issue. I use the email to Blogger gateway for that. I can't say that it's ever been 100% reliable, which is why I made sure I didn't just throw the submissions away. But yesterday, I tried to clear out what I had pending, and maybe 1/3 of what I was sending didn't get posted. I didn't get any kind of error bounce like I usually do either. They just got dropped. They have at least seemed to have solved the problem of the last item sent not being published.

As a result, I've got PHP, MySQL and Apache installed on my machine and I'm going to write up my own linkblog software.

My problem is that my current host doesn't offer MySQL or PostGRE or anything like that. I can't complain, as I'm getting it free. So for the linkblog, I'll run all the software on my computer, and then FTP the resulting static files to my host. It's something I've been wanting to get done anyways (that way I don't duplicate myself, which I'm sure I've already done.)

I'm not going to throw in the towel on Blogger yet. They're going through some growing pains. It's just as painful for us though, as it is for them!

Chad said...

So you hit it right on the money... Blogger does stink. And you made the news too. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67138,00.html
I thought about moving to Wordpress a couple months ago because I was fed up but then I realized that my host (brinkster.com) doesn't support PHP... they only support ASP. Ugh...

Anyway... I am guessing that since you have been in Colorado for awhile that you know Rich Swanson. I was at the first Vail Summer Project when Rich led it. In fact... after looking at your picture I am pretty sure I met you at DCC Jan '03. I spoke on stage about Vail and if I remember correctly you were running stage ops or something. Anyway... it's cool to find a fellow blogger whom I have a minor connection with... even it is just that we are both involved with CCC. If you run into Rich when you move out to the East Coast (I heard that is where he is these days) tell him Chad Johnson says 'hello'.

Anonymous said...

congrats for making the news - we fellow theoblogians applaud you!

i moved from blogger to typepad 18 months ago and have been spoiled by personal attention and a better system.

liambyrnes said...

Yep I can sympathise Ryan, Blogger is very up and down. Though I think it does hold some grass roots appeal. Although Im now considering following Andrew to typepad.
For a start the interface is a real pain in blogger, not as user friendly as you might expect from the Presidential Corp Google!
Ive got to agree with Byte Head though
"I'm not going to throw in the towel on Blogger yet. They're going through some growing pains. It's just as painful for us though, as it is for them! "
The Blogging Adventures Continue...

Anonymous said...

I got fed up with blogger real quick and switched to Wordpress.

My host is hosting.matt-fletcher.co.uk who only charges £25 a year for some great webspace. So using wordpress didn't harm my budget.

Unknown said...

My pal Justin, of RadicalCongruency, is now offering very reasonable WP hosting. Check out http://www.webbleyou.com/

$4 a month, tons of space and bandwidth, and he's excellent about support. Check him out.

Anonymous said...
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