So, Blogger has decided that they need to change the way we can write our blogs ... and are removing the option to be able to revert to the legacy method that I have been using for the last few years. This is all being done to 'help' users ... even those who don't need help.
I actually write my blog using html, which I had to learn how to use when I used to teach Information Technology. I find that it keeps my brain ticking over, and it means that I end up with a blog post that looks like I want it to look, and not like what some bright spark at Blogger 'thinks' that I want it to look like.
I managed to write this entire blog post using html, and without the 'help' of the preset commands that Blogger have kindly provided for my use. I am already feeling decrepit ... and thnks to Blogger, I feel even more 'over the hill' than I did.
Thank you Blogger for making an old man feel even more past it than he actually is! I'm now going off to have a sulk ... if that's all right with you, of course.
I actually write my blog using html, which I had to learn how to use when I used to teach Information Technology. I find that it keeps my brain ticking over, and it means that I end up with a blog post that looks like I want it to look, and not like what some bright spark at Blogger 'thinks' that I want it to look like.
I managed to write this entire blog post using html, and without the 'help' of the preset commands that Blogger have kindly provided for my use. I am already feeling decrepit ... and thnks to Blogger, I feel even more 'over the hill' than I did.
Thank you Blogger for making an old man feel even more past it than he actually is! I'm now going off to have a sulk ... if that's all right with you, of course.
New Blogger is farcically bad - lots of little changes apparently aimed at making using it more awkward. Almost impossible to send feedback - screen whirs and freezes.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, you can still switch to html mode.
ReplyDeleteI took the hard route and have been learning how to find all the hidden tools and to make the best use of the new system. Gotta keep those grey cells alive!
Some censored words have been used but I've come to like the new version.
Ross Mac,
DeleteBeing able to still use html is a bonus as far as I am concerned, but I still don’t understand why they had to change something that worked for something that is - in my opinion - more cumbersome.
I’ll get used to it with time, but after the recent problems I’ve had with Lulu.com’s most recent ‘upgrade’, I just wish that I didn’t have to.
All the best,
Bob
I was amazed by the amount of clutter and lack of structure to what it added when including pictures!?!
ReplyDeleteCertainly goes against what I learnt about writing code for ease of correction/maintenance.
Fire at Will,
DeleteFor some reason, programmers seem to think that creating programs that include huge amounts of unnecessary code is better than keeping the amount used to the minimum.
Some years ago, I queried this with a programmer, and their reply was that computer memory and processing power were growing at such a pace that writing programs that were larger than the minimum size necessary to do the job was the norm. He also mentioned that people commissioning programs were often so lacking in basic IT knowledge that - when given a view of the coding - they were more impressed by the vast amount of code included that they would have been by a simpler, slicker program that used less code. In this instance, size mattered!
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteWell- I had no choice- Blogger automatically changed me over to the NEW Version. I've been using the NEW Version for about three weeks and am quite use to it and I do think now that it is very good and very usable- and I have a hard time trying to remember how the old one went. A change is as good as a holiday. All the very best. KEV.
Kev Robertson (Kev),
DeleteI know that eventually I’ll get used to the new Blogger ... but I just wish that they had not changed the existing one. It worked, so what was wrong with it?
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
DeleteYes you are right - what was wrong with the original version? Seems the tech people had other ideas- sometimes the new version of things can be annoying and inconvenient...I cannot get over the fact that all the Telcos seem to think everyone has a Mobile Phone- I don't and don't intend to get one - my PC is it...I saw something on the News that when people 'Log In' to a Restaurant or Cafe- they can use their Mobile Phone ...what is wrong with a Pen and Paper to leave your Name and Phone Number? Anyway -Best Wishes. KEV.
Kev Robertson (Kev),
DeleteMobile phones are a wonderful invention ... if used properly! On far too many occasions, they seem to render the speaker and/or listener instantly immobile as soon as they start to use it (the number of times that I've had to stand in a queue behind someone who is using a mobile phone and not moving or paying attention to their surroundings is innumerable!) or - if they are texting - oblivious to everything around them. They are no longer just mobile phones, they seem to be everything but!
I often have conversations that go something like this:
Member of staff: 'Do you have a telephone number for our records?'
Me: 'Yes. It is 012 345 67890.'
Member of staff: 'Is that a mobile number?'
Me: 'No.'
Member of staff: 'Do you have a mobile number?'
Me: 'Yes.'
Member of staff: 'Could you give me your mobile number?'
Me: 'Yes ... if I can remember it.'
Member of staff: 'Don't you know your mobile number?'
Me: 'No.'
Member of staff: 'You don't know your mobile number?'
Me: 'No. I only use my mobile phone to phone people, so I don't need to know it.'
Member of staff: 'How do people phone you if they don't have your mobile number?'
Me: 'Because I only give my mobile number to people I want to phone me, not to everyone who thinks that they need it for their records.'
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
DeleteWell put! Yes, the number of times that Telcos require a Mobile Number is astounding. "You can use your Mobile.." to do this and this...just nuts- I've got a Land Line! Having a laugh. Cheers. KEV.
Kev Robertson (Kev),
DeleteUntil I bought my Lexus CT200h, I mostly used my mobile phone as my satnav. It was cheaper than buying one, and updated every few minutes. I now hardly ever use my mobile phone other than to make calls and to occasionally look something up on the Internet,
We still have our landline ... and if we are at home, we use it rather than use our mobiles.
All the best,
Bob
IMHO a typical example of fixing things that were fine as they were, for the sake of saying it was updated and improved. They are gradually improving it, and with use I dislike it less. :-)
ReplyDeleteGonsalvo,
DeleteIt is all getting a bit like soap powder back when TV advertising started. Nothing was every ‘Just as good as it always was!’; No, it had to be ‘New and improved’ in order to sell.
Change for change sake isn’t progress; it’s just a way to try to get people to think that the ‘new’ product is better.
All the best,
Bob
You are sounding remarkably like the bitter protests from Wordpress users a couple of years ago when faced with their new Gutenberg editor. At least they have an official Classic Editor plug in that they can use instead of the widely hated new system.
ReplyDeleteI blame developers with two much time on their hands, plus the almost universal management love affair with change for change sake.
Mike Hall,
DeleteI understand that Wordpress has recently ‘upgraded’ their blog editor as well ... and that the change has not been universally welcomed.
I totally agree about the apparent desire for change for change’s sake. It seems to be the norm in many areas of modern life, regardless of whether it is needed or not.
All the best,
Bob
Apparently the new Blogger is to make it easier to use on mobile 'phones. I could be wrong of course. Frankly the old Blogger worked perfectly fine, so why change something that's not broken? I'm dreading using the new version for my first post which will be an AAR of a campaign I'm running!
ReplyDeleteSteve J.,
DeleteI wonder how many people look at blogs on their mobile phone. I certainly don’t ... but then, I’m an old fogey, and I am probably more the exception than the rule.
Good luck with writing your blog post using the new version of Blogger.
All the best,
Bob
I find this change most inconvenient.
ReplyDeleteI will write a stiff letter of complaint.
If I can figure out how.
Jim Duncan,
DeleteGood luck finding who to write to!
All the best,
Bob
Just as I get to master a system a 'new improved' one comes out - I'm told it's progress ......
ReplyDeleteThe Good Soldier Svjek,
DeleteIsn’t that true of so much of modern life? I certainly find it so.
All the best,
Bob
I am an enthusiast on New Blogger, not so much for what it does, but that the significant amount of work needed to make it Mobile platform friendly, shows a real commitment by Google to the platform and secures its future .... It is the alternative of course that is much worse!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I can now manage blogger from my iPad instead of having to resort to my ChromeBook, so that is a big step forward in terms of blogging and mobility.
Old Blogger would of course have to go, as Google would be stretched to maintain two platforms doing the same job and keeping them secure. I doubt all of the changes have been properly formalised yet, as I not picture management has seen some more changes in just the last couple of days. It will settle down for all of us and at least now it has a future and is seen by the yech companies as still being worthy, even against the giants of Facebook and Twitter .... thank goodness!
Norm,
DeleteYou are right about the changes making Blogger more mobile platform friendly, although I’ve never had any problem viewing blogs on my iPhone or viewing or writing blog posts on my iPad. In fact, I’ve been using my iPad to blog since I acquired my first one ... and I’m currently on my third.
Interestingly, whilst I was still working, I designed applications where the front-end (the bit you see onscreen and interface with) remained the essentially same whilst the actual way the application worked (the bit you cannot see) was completely different. The designers of the ‘new’ blogger has at least done something similar, and no doubt I will soon get used to its little foibles. By retaining the option to use html, I can at least continue to write my blog the way I like to.
I must admit that I had not considered the fact that by making these changes, Google were guaranteeing that Blogger will be around for a bit longer, and will not disappear in the near future like YahooGroups.
All the best,
Bob
I was pretty miffed today to find that the option to revert to legacy blogger had been removed as I really don't like the new not-yet-developed one. I did manage to send some feedback a few weeks ago suggesting they test it first before making the users into guinea pigs but somehow I doubt anybody would actually have read it! I'm sure this is being done to make it 'mobile friendly' but I do wonder just how many people write blog posts on their mobile?
ReplyDeleteStryker,
DeleteThey did give a warning that the legacy Blogger was going to go ... but I thought that the deadline wasn’t until the end of the month.
Google obviously think that the new version of Blogger is going to work without problems from the off ... but there still seem to be a few bugs that need to be ironed out. In the meantime, I’ll carry on trying to learn how to get the best out of the new version.
All the best,
Bob
PS. I don’t know anyone who actually blogs on their mobile ... but no doubt there are some.
I am trying to make it work but am finding it challenging to say the very least. I will have to persevere.
ReplyDeleteTradgardmastare,
DeleteIt would appear that we are not alone in finding the new Blogger as easy to use at the legacy version. I’m sure that we will get used to it ... eventually.
All the best,
Bob
I’ve updated my blog using my phone. I can’t say I’ve noticed it being any easier or harder with new blogger. Just indefinably different. Same applies to using a Mac, apart from not being able to make comments on other’s blogs from the Mac but I can from the phone.
ReplyDeleteNundanket,
DeleteYou are the first person I’ve come across who has blogged using their mobile phone. I’ve used mine to view my blog (and other people’s blogs), but not to actually write blog posts.
I like to write my blog posts using html, and since the introduction of the new Blogger, I’ve found that it works more like my website editor than the legacy version. It also requires the use of additional html commands, so as far as I am concerned, it is significantly different.
I don’t understand why you cannot make comments using your Mac. You can using an iPad (I’m writing this comment on my iPad) and iPhone, and I thought that the Mac and iPad/iPhone were supposed to use the same basic software.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
DeleteI don’t understand why making comments from my Mac no longer works. I can write the comment and then when I post it, it just disappears. Previously I used Firefox because I couldn’t comment using Safari, then it did work in Safari, and now it doesn’t. All part of the Tech Wars I suspect.
I’m not at all a techie, so the thought of learning HTML or understanding why is something that on balance I will leave alone.
Nundanket,
DeleteThe tech 'war' between Microsoft and Apple goes back a long, long way.
I suspect that its origins may well lie in the fact that Apple was the first to develop an icon-based interface, which Microsoft then matched (or copied!) with Windows. (I am old enough to remember having to type command lines in Microsoft programs rather than just clicking on an icon!) From then on, it has seemed to be a rather tit-for-tat contest between the two for dominance. I ended up firmly in the Microsoft camp because I worked in educational establishments where Windows products dominated ... thanks to some very good marketing by Microsoft whereby the PC suppliers supplied you with PCs which had Windows OS and products pre-loaded onto them.
Html is not that difficult to learn, especially if - like me - you started out learning BASIC. I suppose that I use no more than a dozen or so html commands to do almost everything that I do on my blog ... but I've always been a bit of a 'techie', so it is going to look easier to me than someone who isn't.
All the best,
Bob
Updating the blog on my iPhone was a bit easier this morning.
ReplyDeleteI would simply like an option to page through my 50, 100 at a time rather than the never ending scroll from the bottom. I’m a bit of a packrat for material, and have stowed it all away in the blog as Future dated drafts. Ten years later, that’s 350 drafts to go through to reach my current projects vs three quick clicks in old blogger.
Viscount Eric,
DeleteThank you for your interesting feedback. As you will gather from the other comments, you are only the second person I’ve come across who blogs using their mobile phone.
I agree about the change to the way one accesses previously written blog posts being a retrograde step. The new method is tedious, especially when - like me - one has over four thousand blog posts to go through!
All the best,
Bob
Yeah, like, I know I am being directed to a link thank you
ReplyDeleteIrishhighlander,
DeleteThat seems to be the way things are going these days,
All the best,
Bob
If there's one thing I can't stand about technology it's when it thinks it knows what I want.
ReplyDeletereminds me of a little poem my high school BASIC programming teacher had on the wall;
I really hate this dumb machine
I wish that they would sell it
It never does just what I want
Just only what I tell it
It never dawned on me that you used HTML to write your blog. I guess that's a sign of craftsmanship?
Mr. Pavone,
DeleteIt is the assumptions that program designers make as to what you want to use a program for that drives me mad. For example, the assumption that you will always want to use a template to do anything rather than starting from scratch ... and making starting from scratch as difficult as they can to force you to use their templates!
I love your little poem, which sums up the joys and pitfalls of trying to write a computer program. I used to tell my students that writing a program was like giving detailed instructions to the most stupid person you would ever come across. Unless you got it absolutely right, then they would not be able to do the task you had set.
I've used html from the very start of my blogging as I prefer to have some level of control over what I post. A sign of craftsmanship or of anal retentiveness? I know that my wife would say it was the latter rather than the former, but then she knows that I am on the autistic spectrum, having been an educational special need expert!
All the best,
Bob
Change is not good just because it is change. The be worthwhile change has to improve the status quo by an increment greater than the trouble and effort that goes into effecting the change.
ReplyDeleteSecond gripe. If one ever finds a product one likes, odds are its about to go off the market.
Snarl.
Archduke Piccolo,
DeleteHow very true!
I suspect that there are quite a few people who would not understand this exchange of comments. For them, new must always equal better, even if 'better' really means that I have more things that I can do with the new product than I will ever use it for ... and that it will cost me more, even if I am not using them!
All the best,
Bob
I'm one of those people who do look at blogs and update my own, mainly on my phone, so I can see some of the changes are quite helpful. Having said that, like you I was very familiar with the old format and could easily find my way around it. Now I'm having to re-learn where things are again which is always a pain.
ReplyDeleteAlastair,
DeleteI rarely look at blogs on my iPhone, but I am beginning to realise that quite a few people do ... and also blog using theirs. I must admit to being a bit surprised at this, but there again, I'm no longer quite as au fait with current developments in social media as I was when I was still working.
I am sure that in a couple of weeks I'll be extolling the virtues of the new Blogger ... once I've learned to use it.
All the best,
Bob