blackandwhiteandcolours

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

2012-03-31T10:58:00.000+02:00

Short version:

blackandwhiteandcolours moved here.

Long version:

I am leaving blogger ...

I have been using blogger for almost five years now and most of the
time - really, 99.999% of the time - I was really happy

with it.

Not much to do, just drag a gadget here, arrange some gadgets
there and voilà ... website design was done. No worries

about security, patching, databases, php and all the rest.

In January things started to break and they don't seem to ever get fixed.

Like so many others in the Internet and elsewhere (there is a world
elsewhere, yes!) I am convinced Google is neglecting many

of its other services because of google+ - but, alas ...

At first blog roll didn't work anymore.

I couldn't edit, couldn't add or delete any new blogs. I subscribed to
a Google Help forum thread.

Nothing happened.

Many

other bloggers described the same issue.

Sometimes bloggers complained about their critical comments being deleted (true, I always checked - and these

were never impolite or rude comments).

Today  (3/29) I checked  - the thread doesn't exist anymore.

Only thing left is a dysfunctional "Save" button in the blog roll
widget since January.

Did I mention the blog roll issue never made it to blogger-status?

Next thing was the "captcha" incident.

Suddenly the captchas were illegible.

A preceding announcement on
blogger-buzz? Nope.

One of the important things of blogging is communication, isn't it?

There should be an easy way to comment for everyone. I

didn't want anyone of my readers to get a headache because of trying
to decipher some white-on-black gibberish.

I deactivated the captchas.

The way to do this was not that obvious since you had to go back to
the old editor. Some other bloggers asked me how to do

this. Not documented.

Google simplified matters one or two days later - but really.
I_was_annoyed already.

Then it was activated again by default in the new editor. Duh.

The
only way right now to have things running smoothly is to visit your

own blog daily as a different user, try to comment and generally have a look at it.

Then suddenly I wasn't able to subscribe to comments on other blogs.

Another Google Help forum thread.

Another one that

doesn't exist anymore.

What I learned when the thread still existed
was that subscribing to comments was only available with

the embedded comment form.

A comment form many bloggers don't use
because of some other issues.

I know that moving from blogspot to some other system won't help me
with this issue - but: how do I know how long subscribing

to comments will work on my blogger blog?

Blogging lives on the communication between people.

I want to read
what other people are saying.

I want to know about

different views.

I want to hear the answers to my questions.

It's simply not manageable to do all this without the ability of
subscribing to comments.

We are blogging.

Not monologuing.

(Is this a word? If not it should be :-)!)

A blog without a nice easy comment system isn't a blog. It's what we
had some 20 years ago when we made our own websites with

an editor and uploaded the files via ftp.

However ... there ain't no such thing like a free lunch.

So I am moving.

I have
moved already, to be honest, and you can find my new

blog here.

I would be happy to meet you all there!

Feel free to comment or email about
glitches, issues, wishes ... whatever :-).

I am the captain of

my own blog.

I do hope. ;-)

I kind of imported the blogroll to a page with static links and
I am using my pinterest board as another means

to show my appreciation for your blogs.

I have no idea how long
pinterest might live but right now it is very nice and

convenient as a link site for photography blogs. Just ignore pins that
want to sell you some new perfume.

If you don't find your blog on my pinterest board it might be you are
using a dynamic blogger template - they can't be

pinned.

Or it might be I simply made a mistake - don't hesitate to contact me
about this!

Or because you/your hoster/your website provider simply denied
pinning. Can't do anything about this.

I also tried to import all old blogger posts to the new blog - comments didn't work
out, thumbnails didn't work out, layout didn't work out.

I'll try to fix some of this   in the future. Not sure if things can
be fixed, though.

The scrappress ... hum, I think I might move it, too.

But not today.

Here comments will be closed on April 1st - not joking, ;-)

This blog will be open until ... someone (not me) shuts it down.

Right
now I am more interested in taking photos and posting

photos.

And have fun.

Martina

04/01/2012 I am closing comments now. Feel free to comment on the new blog, perhaps on the about page if your comment doesn't deal with my wonderful German garden gnome photos, ;-).

See you all there!

"The party was ending"

2012-03-30T22:47:00.001+02:00

"The party was ending" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"Everybody said what a nice time it had been"

2012-03-29T23:13:00.000+02:00

"Everybody said what a nice time it had been" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"What in the world are you doing?"

2012-03-28T22:58:00.000+02:00

"What in the world are you doing?" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"Did I scare you?"

2012-03-27T22:38:00.000+02:00

"Did I scare you?" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"Forgive me for running off like that"

2012-03-26T22:33:00.000+02:00

"Forgive me for running off like that" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"It seemed they were going to be friends for the night"

2012-03-25T23:21:00.000+02:00

"It seemed they were going to be friends for the night" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"Did you have any luck?""Not a bit"

2012-03-24T23:26:00.000+01:00

"Did you have any luck?""Not a bit" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"I don't know what to say"

2012-03-23T23:26:00.002+01:00

"I don't know what to say" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"Sorry, I was trying to avoid someone"

2012-03-22T23:02:00.002+01:00

"Sorry, I was trying to avoid someone" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"You can't just drop a bunch of rocks in a pile to make a stone wall"

2012-03-21T23:21:00.000+01:00

"You can't just drop a bunch of rocks in a pile to make a stone wall" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"I'm only suffering minor embarrassment"

2012-03-20T22:42:00.000+01:00

"I'm only suffering minor embarrassment" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"The world is incredible at this time of day, isn't it?"

2012-03-19T22:30:00.000+01:00

"The world is incredible at this time of day, isn't it?" - Ever Since by Donald Antrim

"Gone fishing"

2012-03-09T22:18:00.002+01:00

"I will be back around 3/19" - Gone fishing by Martina :-)

"And you don't even have to remember how it feels, if you remember how it looks"

2012-03-08T23:32:00.000+01:00

"And you don't even have to remember how it feels, if you remember how it looks" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"Loneliness is a mask"

2012-03-07T22:54:00.002+01:00

"Loneliness is a mask" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"No different than anyone else, we were young. Once."

2012-03-06T22:10:00.000+01:00

"No different than anyone else, we were young. Once." - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"Something there is that doesn't love a happy ending"

2012-03-05T23:30:00.000+01:00

"Something there is that doesn't love a happy ending" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"Let me just slow this down a little bit here"

2012-03-04T22:23:00.001+01:00

"Let me just slow this down a little bit here" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"It was always your light that I saw at the window"

2012-03-03T23:11:00.000+01:00

"It was always your light that I saw at the window" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"I see you leaving for the blue end of the sky"

2012-03-02T22:51:00.001+01:00

"I see you leaving for the blue end of the sky" - fourteen threadless needles by vito pasquale

"We live in a city of (rough) approximations"

2012-03-01T23:02:00.001+01:00

"We live in a city of (rough) approximations" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"All poems cause side effects"

2012-02-29T22:00:00.000+01:00

"All poems cause side effects" - fourteen threadless needles by Vito Pasquale

"I was hoping there might be a clue here"

2012-02-28T23:07:00.001+01:00

"I was hoping there might be a clue here" - Citizen Conn by Michael Chabon

"And you were hiding from the photographer?"

2012-02-27T22:22:00.001+01:00

"And you were hiding from the photographer?" - Citizen Conn by Michael Chabon