Blogger Beta Update

Now that Blogger Beta is no longer *in* Beta (in other words, the Beta format is now the standard), I've been looking at some of the things a Blog owner can do now that they couldn't before. Did you know that you can make your Blog subscription-only ? You can choose who is allowed to view your Blog (via the Permissions link under the Settings tab) - if you select the "Only People I Choose" option, you can email those to whom you're giving permission to view your Blog and they will then have to login to view it. Personally I can't imagine why I'd want to do this, but I guess that it's comparable to LiveJournal allowing one to make one's LJ "Friends Only"... Also in the Permissions section is the facility to *easily* add one or more new authors to a Blog...

The new version of Blogger also now supports the use of a custom domain for serving your Blog. If you already own a domain named, for example, mysite.com and want your Blog to be served at that address, instead of at a blogspot.com address, they can host your blog on that domain for you — for free. Your old Blog*Spot address will forward to your new custom domain, so the switch will be seamless for readers.

They've also added some additional feed options for more advanced users so now you can have a feed for all the comments on your Blog, and even individual feeds for all the comments on each separate post. And they've added support for the RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 standards...

Did you know that you can retrospectively label older posts ? If you Edit a post, you can add a label to it. Obviously this would be a lengthy process if you've had a Blog for several years, but you might want to label certain posts - for example I'm thinking of editing all my movie reviews to add a Movies label.

The Ogre Downstairs - Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones' The Ogre Downstairs is an interesting book. The Ogre is Casper, Johnny and Gwinny's new stepfather whom their mother Sally has recently married. He is a large, stern man who is not at all interested in children, despite having two sons of his own: Douglas and Malcolm. His first wife left him years before - and Sally's children aren't at all surprised to learn this. The five children and two adults are living together in the same house, but uncomfortably because a four room house isn't really big enough for 7 people. One day, however, the Ogre brings home two chemistry sets, one each for Malcolm and Johnny. That's when the fun begins, as each side of the family discovers that these are no ordinary chemistry sets. The second layer of chemicals in the box contain various powders and potions that give the "users" the power to fly, become invisible, shrink, or change colours, and one turns inanimate objects into animate ones - with quite startling consequences. The experiments have other side effects too, quite unexpected side effects that are positive rather than negative. I don't want to say any more as I'd rather not spoil the entertainment that can be drawn from this is a clever and funny book. Suffice it to say that I recommend it.

* * * * * *

As you will have noticed from my post on Friday, the Blogger Beta team and I resolved the issue of posting pictures on my Blog - which is a definite plus, and the thumbnail that you're shown of the picture that you're posting is very helpful, especially if you forget to save a picture with an obvious filename !

Blogger Beta Update

I've just been taking a look at the Known Issue for Blogger Beta blog and note that they report that users who are seeing errors when posting comments with current Blogger accounts to blogs on the new version of Blogger in beta should preview the comment before publishing. You only need to preview once per account.

Apparently they've released an additional change to the Blogger beta which shows users thumbnails of photos after they've been uploaded. And it looks terrific - but when I just tried adding a photo to this post, I discovered there's no "Done" button on which to click so that the photo will upload !! I'm hoping they'll have fixed this issue before Halloween as I've some graphics I want to use for the Eighth Carnival of Children's Literature !

One good thing about the new Beta version of Blogger is that it will notify you if your links aren't correct - and actually highlight the incomplete link IN the post so you don't have to go looking for it ! So it's not all bad news - thankfully. But I still wouldn't recommend anyone to switch to Beta just yet...

Blogger Beta Update

OK, on the basis that it helps to know at least a little of what's going on, I've had word that some people are having trouble in posting comments on my Blog. Checking through the Blogger Beta "Known issues" pages, I found the following:

Users who have not switched to Blogger in beta will not be able to login to comment on blogs that have been switched. Commenting using the "anonymous" or "other" options will still work.

What this basically means is that for those of you who are not on Blogger Beta yet, you may have trouble commenting on my Blog as yourselves (ie. with your Blog identity) - but if you select Anonymous or Other (both of which are available as I've not set my Blog comments to be acceptable only from Blogger users - 'cos that's darned unfriendly, I feel !), you can still leave a comment - but please leave your name or a link to your Blog so I know who you are ! I hope this won't put people off leaving comments - I value getting feedback from my readers, so if it's having a hissy fit and telling you "We're sorry but we're unable to complete your request" try switching your "identity" to Other or Anonymous and leave me a comment... If you're still having problems, my email address is over in the right-hand pane (you'll have to scroll down for it, until I move it back up the pane - I was having trouble getting it to even sit IN the right hand pane last night, so once it went in, I decided not to push my luck and move it up, but I'll try that shortly !)

Five Children and It film

Yesterday I finally got around to borrowing the movie of Five Children and It from the library. I've been meaning to watch it ever since seeing Freddie Highmore in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland. It's a funny and entertaining film (Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Izzard, who voiced the Psammead were very good), but it bears very little resemblance to the book on which it's allegedly based - I felt the same sort of bewilderment whilst watching it that I felt on watching the movie of Howl's Moving Castle ! I can't imagine why the writer, David Solomons, and the Director, John Stephenson, felt it was necessary to set the film during World War One, or why Robert (Highmore) was so much at odds with his siblings. I could have understood them modernising the story to make it appeal to modern children, but this was just baffling, and frankly odd.

If you want a good adaptation of E Nesbit's book, then I would recommend the BBC Five Children and It miniseries which I remember watching on the television back in 1991.

* * * * * *

One positive addition to the Beta version of Blogger is that I can now label posts (as LiveJournal users can add tags to theirs) - which means future movie reviews can be labelled as such. But it's not retrospective - so I will have to go ahead and gather my film reviews together and listen them on my PBWiki at some stage...

Apologies

I just want to apologise for any weirdness on my Blog (and over on the Scholar's Blog Spoiler Zone) - Blogger's Beta is not working well tonight - I keep having to log out and then back in again to get changes saved ! Here's a tip, if you're thinking of switching, don't do it YET !! Wait for them to iron out some of the worst problems, like the fact that you can't post a picture - which is pretty typical since I rarely want to post pictures, but I thought I'd post the cover art for Wintersmith - and couldn't ! (Picture me rolling my eyes at this point !)

Since today has been less than fantastic one way or another (including a cyclist who ran a red light and tried to run me down, then got bitchy with me when I shoved her bodily away from me to stop her knocking me over !), I'm going to go to bed with a book and some music and calm down !