A few of you have written to me to let me know my little email notifications have been showing up in hieroglyphics. “Murrmurrs,” it starts out, and then elaborates thus: !–[if gte mso 9]!–o false 18 pt l8 pt o false false false…
Et cetera.
Well, it’s catchy, all right, but it’s not ideal, from the standpoint of communication. I admit that. I feel a twinge of apprehension, and then I launch my standard response to anything I don’t understand, which is to pretend everything’s fine. Walk in bleeding from the armpits and pixilated with a purple rash, and I’ll tell you “oh that! I had that before. It’s nothing. You’ll be right as rain in no time.” Then comes the whump sound and soon you and your suit are stretched out in a box. I embrace denial as a life strategy.
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| My computer’s view of me. |
And in things related to computers, sometimes it works out. Sometimes you just have to turn off the machine and give it a good night’s rest and everything’s sunshine and waffles the next morning. I wrote back to my concerned readers. “Yeah, I don’t know what that’s all about,” I wrote. “Sometimes the Google Blogger platform just has an epizootic. There’s no explaining it. Anyway, it’s nothing in my control. Thanks.” It suits me to think that nothing is in my control. The alternative is to consider that it might be, but I’m too stupid to fix it. And my preference leans strongly toward feeling not stupid. It’s odd: I’m comfortable being ignorant of the mysteries of the universe, with no urge to make up a cast of deities to give it some order, but when it comes to computers I believe in a whole pantheon of gremlins and bogeymen and eagerly await the Armageddon wherein the mighty glitch-slayers prevail against the viruses and hackers and we all live happily ever after in the Cloud.
So I kick the can down the road. “I’ll look into it,” I say, “just as soon as we get to the bottom of this fiasco in Benghazi.” I have been led to believe this is a grown-up approach.
Besides, it’s not really a problem, I tell myself. People can still click on the title and it will go straight to my blog. They know that, right? Then I remember the people who complained that my posts are funny but they’re really short and end in the middle of a sentence, and I realize that no, some people don’t actually get that at all.
You can set up your email notifications to deliver the entire post, or just a snippet that cuts off after a certain number of letters. I chose the snippet because I want people to go to my blog where they trip the magic people-counter. But I’ve never been completely thrilled with the notification. For one thing, although I put my posts in at 3AM every Wednesday and Saturday, Google doesn’t fire off the alert until later in the evening. “Let’s do dinnertime,” Google says, with the sensibilities of a telemarketer.
Then I looked at my people-counter and discovered that my audience has dropped off quite a bit in the last couple months. So I logged into Blogger Help Forum and typed out my question. I had no real hope this would work out. Even if someone did hammer out a reply, it would come with instructions that I’m thirty years too old to understand, and I would give up, feeling irritated, which I prefer to feeling stupid. “First, determine the ID or class of the relatively positioned column, clear your browser’s cache/cookies, and then simply add the following between your style and /style tags…” it would say, and I would say, “go fuck yourself.”
But, miracle of miracles, the next morning I had an email in the King’s English from a glitch-slayer explaining that it appeared I was cutting and pasting my posts into my template from a Microsoft Word document, and that led to a formatting problem. And gave me a set of intelligible instructions to counteract this. I don’t know what “formatting” means, but they had me. I do write my posts in Word and when I first started blogging I tried to paste them into the template, but they went straight to hieroglyphics, so I got in the habit of retyping them instead. But faced with putting in six posts in advance of my trip to New Zealand, I tried the cut-and-paste again, and lo, this time it worked. Cool! Sometimes Google improves things on its own, and it appeared it had. Except, apparently, it still sent all its spare hieroglyphics to the email notification.
So if some of you are reading your first Murrmurrs in months because you read “–[if gte mso 9]!” and you thought I’d lost my touch, settle in! You’ve got some reading to do. Pootie and I will be here playing Scrabble Twister until you’ve caught up.
There use to be this big argument about whether it was best to turn off your computer or let it run continuously. The argument being that the most likely time for something to break is the initial electrical surge of turning the thing off and on. But, my dear Murr, you have hit on the reason why I turn my computer off every night… so that the damned thing can re-boot, re-load, and re-right itself and the hieroglyphics will go away! Let's hear it for Windows!
I leave mine on all the time unless I'm going away for a few days. It's a Mac. I try to turn the cat off too but usually she manages to reboot herself.
I always compose in Microsoft Word because it works best for me. I learned how to translate some things (like "smart quotes") into html. I'm not very good at it, but I'm still learning. So when I see code in a notification, I know I can get to your page even if I can't translate the code.
By the way, I am more than a little older than you.
There are smart quotes? And there is hope I can still learn?
I think I'm beginning to talk in "computer speak." This is worrying.
I'd go right to bed until it passes, if I were you.
Oh goody. I'm not the only one confounded by computers. But you are light-years ahead of me in figuring out their mysteries. I have a Personal Geek (my son) to whom I run for help. "Help" I will say in the subject line of an email. Or I will just trot two houses down and fetch him.
He is a Mac person and believes that Microsoft is Evil and Bill Gates is the Anti-Christ so we both are Mac households. I have found them to be much less troublesome at home and at work and less prone to suddenly seize up in the middle of a big project. But what do I know – I'm a computer sissy.
See, I'd never considered that offspring would come in handy. Best we can do is stock the rental house next door with young people. So far it's worked out.
"First, determine the ID or class of the relatively positioned column, clear your browser's cache/cookies, and then simply add the following between your style and /style tags…" it would say, and I would say, "go fuck yourself."
Amen.
Well, I would.
Also, if you cut and paste from Word (or anywhere else), it helps if you first click on the HTML tab (rather than the Compose tab). That seems to bypass all the formatting language.
Yeah, the guy who answered me said something like that. I might try it some day when I'm in a hurry, so y'all let me know if the hieroglyphics come back.
LOL! I was forced to get a Blackberry for business, and by default it's set up so that if you accidentally touch the side button (which is the only damn way to pick it up), it starts talking to you. "Say a command!" it says in a chirpy voice. Which is really annoying after the third time, and insanely irritating after the 30th (or more). I tried to find a way to program it to respond to my default response of "Fuck off!", but in the end, I had to settle for reprogramming the buttons so it stopped talking to me.
Don'tcha just love technology?
You remind me of my neighbor who always makes her PIN number "Oh shit."
Now THERE's an idea!!!
BC
Have you cut your hair again? (Oh, I did read your post—I'm just going "lalalala–can't hear you, not my problem!" about computer issues this morning, having spent a good part of my work week dealing with them.)
I did! First thing in the morning I look just like the kid in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest–the one who kills himself in the end.
"Epizootic"–thanks for the memories! My dad used to use that word to cover every illness. We all got the epizootic regularly.
Do you think it also covers things like snits and hissies?
Now you have a glimpse into why glitch-slayers view Word as an abomination: like most Microsoft products, it does not play well with others. Microsoft's attitude has always been: "if you didn't buy it from Microsoft, screw you." Of course, the hapless user blames the software that *seems* not to work — in this case the notification — and not Microsoft, and says, "gee, I better buy more Microsoft stuff, because *it* really works!"
You know, since everything I'd ever written was in Word, I got the Word for Mac program when I got my Mac, instead of seeing what they had. I still don't know if I can take Word docs straight to a Mac without it. Maybe I should make a change?
Never worked with Macs, so I don't have a clue!
Ah, you're not alone. About a half dozen of the blogs I read appear that way in Google Reader. It's not a biggie to me but I can see where some folks might not think to click onto the blog.
It probably doesn't behoove me to assume that all my readers are really really smart, even though they are.
Well, I don't see the problem. The link to the blog is right there in big blue letters. Blue. Link. Maybe I'm just cranky because I just spent an hour on the phone explaining to a friend that her new computer screen looked funny because it was Win 8, not Win 7. And I'm not a geek. Well, I am, but I don't know anything special about computers. If people didn't go all sweaty-handed their common sense would work better. Grumble.
You spent 58 minutes too many explaining that to your friend. That's why you're grumpy.
I leave mine on all the time unless I'm going to be away from home for a few days. I haven't had any problems….that I know of.
See, you don't know what it's doing behind your back.
The HTML tab? Formatting language? Cache/cookies? Style tags? Well, I don't know, I just type out a post and publish it. No problems. Apart from the usual personality problems of course….
So you type directly into your blog? Mine need a lot of polishing before I'll set them on the table…
Now that you can "save as draft" on blogger, there's really not much reason to compose elsewhere, though I still do, by paranoid habit…
There's one reason. I have a big fat honking Dell in my writing room, which has a window, a two birdfeeders nearby, and, most important, a door. The Mac is a shared item downstairs in the kitchen.
You could use Notepad as your text editor or save your Word doc as text. Then copy and paste without Word's hidden fancy-pants formatting.
Maybe.
See, what you said just there? No idea what you said just there. Notepad. Text editor.
Oh, when I say I just type out a post, that's after I've handwritten it first. For some reason I find the creative juices flow better when I write by hand.
Well, geez, if you wouldn't LOOK at your computer that way (see picture), it would probably be nicer to you!
Scrabble Twister: Pootie's doing it right 🙂
The boy is limber. It's like he has no bones at all.
I do like my Toshiba lap top (it loves to come on vacation with me.)and I've never even used a Mac.But every time a Microsoft blip appears I grind my teeth and promise the next chunk of money will go to the Jobs Gang. It always ends up feeding the travel agent…
And yes, I type directly onto my post page.If I want to do any polishing there's always the draft folder.
I've had things end up there by accident and not get published when I think they should. I never open it on purpose. I'm always visualizing Clydesdales.
As a WordPress user, I simply see a notice of a new post on your blog in my reader. I can then click on that and come here to read the whole post and the always great comments. I can also type in my new posts to the blog, hold it in draft form until I can edit to satisfaction before posting it. I have a middling knowledge and ability with computers, but still am nervous that I will do something which will lose everything. The "kids" seem to feel free to noodle around and don't fear catastrophe, and then they can actually remember what they did. It takes me longer, but I have figured out a few things here and there. But haven't quite figured out the HTML thing. Love the haircut!
Thanks! I don't fear catastrophe as much as I used to, but I will be damned if I ever change the template on this thing. That's just asking for it.
Change the template! I believe that's just asking for it, too. I see other blogs changing, looking great and I just think, no bloody fear. I can't believe I've managed to get the first template right. Boring but right…
You can't get a more boring template than this one. I love it.
Denial (not just a river in Egypt) is my friend. On a whole range of issues, including technospeak. I love that blogger talked to you and even helped you. It seems that they like you as well. As they should.
They like me! They really like me!
Hey Murr! I write in Word, but heroically code it directly in HTML. And, being lazy but gifted, I have set up all manner of clever doohickeys to do the hard bits, like colouring the text in. Okay, okay, maaaaybe Max did them. But when I paste it into blogger, all the actual words are mine. Apart from the occasional bit of ghost writing by the badgers. Still, I'm proud. So there. Roth x
Oh shoot, your site has color and flavor and anything else a person might want Your blog would have no problem asking anyone to the prom. I'm sitting in the corner with a glass of punch.
I'm the "turn it off and run screaming from the room" kind of person. I figure I'm fluent in German and English and don't want to learn HTML or some other such language. Of course, half of the comments to your post were in Greek.
I type, press "publish" and then close my eyes and cross my fingers. So far, so good.
I do know how to make a link to things right in my comment section, like this, to Lo's singing debut.
OK – I'm checking out Lo's blog. Will you tell me how to put a hyperlink into the comment section?
I'll email you. I think if I put the code in here that you need, it will make something blow up.
I have not had that problem with your posts. Guess I am one of the lucky folk. I have to tell you that a few friends who saw me ready your book thought I was reading porno!!! LOL
I usually just write my blog posts through the site.
It could possibly be the cover that kept my book out of the family grocery store I was trying for.
It's the whole book that keeps me from reading it at night in bed. I laugh so hard that I shake the supposedly unshakeable Tempurpedic mattress and that wakes up my husband. And I can't read it in public because I laugh so hard that people stare. I love the book and the artwork. You are very talented!
Aw jeez! Thanks. Now pop on over to my book page and/or amazon and toss in a comment or review! (No, that is not an order.)
Oh,and hope to see you at Chrysalis sometime again!
Someone may already have mentioned this, but if you write your posts in Notepad, cut and paste into the Blogger editor, then add the formatting and images there, it will solve the problem. An alternative is to use an editor like Scribefire that will post direct to your blog when you're done, formatting and all.
Somebody did, and SEE, DANG IT, Bill, that's the problem–I have no idea what you just said! Write my posts in Notepad? Is that something I'm going to find in my pajama drawer, or is it a place to grab some coffee? An editor like Scribefire? Huh?
Bill. Please come hold my hand and stroke me lightly on the head. Don't push your finger in the soft spot.
Notepad is a very cut down version of Word, it has none of the fancy bits, and comes already installed on your computer. You can find Notepad like this:
1. Go to your START button found on the lower left hand side of your screen.
2. Click the START button. A box will open with a list on it. Ignore the list. At the bottom of the box on the left hand side is a search box and above that is an arrow pointing at a statement that says, "All Programs" (without the quotation marks).
3. Click on "All Programs". A list will appear. Scroll down to "Accessories". Another list will appear and on that list will be "Notepad".
4. Click on "Notepad" and the program will open.
5. When Notepad is open, Click on the Format button, found with the other buttons at the top, left hand side. A two word list will appear so scroll down to "Word Wrap" and Click.
5. Done. Now type to your heart's content.
To get quick access to notepad without going through that sequence every time, you can right Click on Notepad and, (yes, you guessed it) another list will appear that gives you the option "Send to" and this will put a shortcut on your desktop. (Thinks to myself: I must do that right away!)
Because Notepad does not have spell check I write in word first, then copy and paste to Notepad, then cut and paste to Blogger,
Hope all that helps. 🙂
Sweet fried muffins on a stick. Really? Well since I do use a PC to write on, I'll have a look. Maybe. I don't use spellcheck. It never likes any of my words. You're a peach to write all this out, so even if I don't do it, I'll say I did. Thanks Tez.
For you, Murr, anything. Very BIG smiles, Tez
I can't understand why you don't write your posts directly onto your blog and edit it there – seems an awful lot of trouble writing in Word first. I have never used HTML not sure what it's for even.
Aaah–they take a lot of editing. Sometimes I have them all kenneled up for a year or more, waiting for them to funny up. And I write in a different room with an un-internetted old PC in it, and transfer my stuff to the Real Computer downstairs with a thumb drive. It's not efficient, but it works.
We "creative types" are not supposed to understand all that other shit. When I have a tech problem, I call a 12-year-old boy. Any one will due.
Now I'm wondering where you keep your kennel of 12-year-old boys, Jayne.
If you cut and paste a Word document into a plain text program (I use Notepad) it will strip the formatting and then you can copy and paste from the plain text into your blog editor.
La la la la la la…
Thanks for visiting me today. Goodness, what an interesting blog you have. I'll be back!!!x
We will leave a nice platter of cookies out for you, my dear. Welcome!
It wasn't the glitch that kept me away… it was the "30 Minus 2 Days of Writing" challenge. (I may have been better off with hieroglyphs, considering how most of those posts turned out.)
THAT was an undertaking. If you notice, I never join in on those things. So much pressure! I hope it was fun for you.
I create usuaLLy blog posts in HTML mode because I may start the text in iPad or iPhone Notes, but inserting photos is nightmare-ish-ly precarious, almost pre-curious.
I am under coffee-ed, sorry, that should have been "I usuaLLy create …"
Oh poo. Inserting photos is a compete crapshoot at all times. I think I'll put this one HERE…no? You want it down there?
Now I wonder why a mac user needs Word when Pages is out there for macs. Word being a Microsoft product why merge it with a mac?
Time in Googleland seems to be Pacific and not user specific but I sense you are in that zone.
Love the game of scrabble! What happened to your tweets? None since December??
Ahh, ya caught me. I figgered no one would notice. I know I'm supposed to be tweeting, but I can't even get it together to tweet my own blog posts. I think Twitter is not for me. Maybe for you I'll give it another go…
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