Taking The Plunge

Yes, I’ve been talking about it for a while… wrestling with my own doubts… To sum up the story, I’ll soon be running out of space in my first Picasa web album; and instead of paying to upgrade, I decided to continue my two main blogs in a new account. I started with the Picture Book three weeks ago and I think that has worked out quite well so far. About 50% of the previous followers have already found their way to the new blog.

I’m a little more nervous about moving on from this one. But hey, the old posts that are already here aren’t going anywhere; that’s part of the point. There will be links back from the new blog.

We have just passed New Year, and what better time to take the plunge into “new waters”!

So click on the duck, or on the link below, to follow me…

Beyond the Lone Islands

See you there!

The Invisible Are Visible Again!

Welcome back, Followers - I'm glad to be able to SEE you all again today!

I'm a little concerned, though, that yesterday's post may have been misunderstood by some who perhaps were not having the same problem that I had...

So I'd like to clarify that my complaints yesterday were all about a pure technicality: the Followers widget boxes kept showing up empty for a couple of days, without any avatars in them, both on my own blogs and on other people's that I visited, and whichever browser or computer I used...

I did not really think I had lost my followers, and I did not really feel all that "out of touch" with you; I was just irritated about wasting a lot of time trying to find the fault in my own computer (or head), while really it was with Blogger all the time. When I turned to the Help forum, I found lots of people having the same problem since two days back - and Blogger rather unhelpful, not even including it among "known issues", in spite of  lots of complaints about the same thing. Today, however, it seems the problem has been resolved (although Blogger still has not properly commented on it).

So that was really what it was all about; even if I might have happened to add a more philosophical undertone to it when writing my blog post yesterday... That was just meant to lighten up the mood of irritation with technology!


(click on image to be transported)

With the new Picture Book blog, I'm actually more than happy that some people have already found their way to it. After all, it has only been a day or two since I put up the first link! It would truly have been a miracle if anyone had found it before that. (Actually, I did not even particularly want anyone to find it before that, because I wanted to take my time figuring out what it was I wanted to do...)

I'm not saying there aren't days when I keep checking my email for comments, and wish there were more of them. And certainly there is room for a few more followers yet in my widget boxes. But I'm not complaining about those I already have - just so you know!!! I never expected everyone to read everything, or even less comment on everything... (I don't do that myself, so how could I expect it of others?)

If anything, I'm still truly fascinated that I've managed to connect with a number of people "out there" (in cyberspace) at all. When I wrote my first blog post back in January, I really had no idea I would be meeting so many interesting people. Now I'm talking especially to you who are sometimes commenting here, and who know that I sometimes read and comment on your blogs too: You're all amazing, you know! Each in his or her own unique way... I have learnt so much from you already, and I expect to learn more as we move on!

I'm glad I found you, or you found me (whichever came first). That's why I complain (to Blogger) when you disappear out of sight.

And So We All Went Missing

Click on image to be transported.
 Also see yesterday's post for more info.

I just spent a looooong time trying to figure out why Followers weren't showing up at my new blog.

Not that I expected a lot of them, yet - since I did not even tell anyone it existed until yesterday! - but I knew I was at least following myself... and when I first put the Followers gadget in place, I showed up. Now I don't. Not yesterday, and not today.

Then I went back to this blog and found that there was no one here, either. Then I went to Soaring Through the World, and the world was empty. Then I went looking for the people who used to hang around, and thankfully I find them all at home each at their own place; but no one seems to have any Followers any more.

Do you all feel as lost as I do?
(It seems from the Blogger Help forum that a lot of people are having the same problem. But no Explanation.)

Picture from our walk in the woods on Sunday afternoon,

compare Sunday and Monday posts. (We did not get lost.)

Back On Track

It seems I have managed to reinstall the Followers gadget. (Had to remove it last week because of technical problems, see posts from 27 February and 1 March.) However, when I tried putting it back at the bottom of the margin, below all the other gadgets, it evidently got upset and again blocked the whole blog from access. I had to move it up a bit to get it to cooperate. Now we seem to have agreed on a compromise solution (somewhere in the middle)...

I have recently been watching the British TV adaption (from 1981) of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the behaviour of this widget/gadget thingy here sort of reminds me of the depressed robot Marvin... Quotation from Wikipedia:

Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold. He was built as a prototype of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's GPP (Genuine People Personalities) technology. Marvin is apparently afflicted with severe depression and boredom, in part because he has a "brain the size of a planet" which he is seldom able to use. Indeed, the true horror of Marvin's existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect.

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Quotation of the Week 10/09

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The weather outside (still rather wintry) + yesterday's post about computer trouble made me think of this passage from Winnie-the-Pooh:

One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking.

'Hallo!' said Piglet, 'what are you doing?'
'Hunting,' said Pooh.
'Hunting what?'
'Tracking something,' said Winne-the-Pooh very mysteriously.
'Tracking what?' said Piglet, coming closer.
'That's just what I ask myself, What?'
'What do you think you'll answer?'
'I shall have to wait until I catch up with it,' said Winnie-the-Pooh. 'Now, look there.' He pointed to the ground in front of him. 'What do you see there?'
'Tracks,' said Piglet. 'Paw-marks.' He gave a little squeak of excitement. 'Oh, Pooh! Do you think it's a - a - a Woozle?'
'It may be,' said Pooh. 'Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You can never tell with paw-marks.'

Troubleshooting

Yesterday, suddenly I could not access my blog at all through Internet Explorer. I kept getting an error message saying the address could not be found, and the search process was aborted. Every now and then, though, I could still see the page behind the error message, so it was obviously not gone... And my other blog was still accessible. Switching to Firefox, I could also enter this blog that IE stubbornly maintained did not exist. Big mystery...

I was kind of hoping the problem would mend itself during the night, but it did not. Reading some help messages at Blogger Help Group this morning revealed that other people "out there" were having similar problems, and some blamed the changes recently made to the Followers function.

So I removed the Followers gadget in my margin and now I seem to be rid of the problem. I will wait a while before I try to reinstall it. If many users are having the same trouble, I'm guessing it's a bug that Blogger/Google will have to find a way to fix.

The computer is a wonderful invention, but not always a time saver. I wonder how many times I have said "I'll just take a quick glance at..." - and ended up spending hours trying (more or less successfully) to fix some kind of error...!