Blogger API v1 or Blogger API v2?
March 2, 2008, 03:34 PM by
This message brought to you by the letter A and the number π.
But please, Tabulas, you have to give me just a little more. Not much. Just enough to help me remember why I love you.
I want to support Tabulas and its community as much as I can. First up: make sure my account stays paid, because the hosting costs money. (Also, only paid accounts get that little music player and I love mine to itty bitty bits. NO TAKE FROM REE. Ahem.) But where do I find when my paid account time runs out? I thought it was at http://tabulas.com/accounts/ but that's... I'm not sure what that is, honestly, but it's not the account information I want to find.
I poked around a bit and gave up. Hopefully I'll get an email in time to re-up my account. If I don't, maybe I'll get a grace period before my extra features go kaput? Maybe? Maybe not, but I don't know what else I can do about this. Frustration ahoy.
What else can I do for Tabulas? I could finish polishing my Tabulas template, a port of a WordPress design (actually 3 WordPress designs - there's a style switcher) released under the GPL. I'd love to see some really fantastic designs circulating on Tabulas.
But every time I edit my CSS, I have to manually escape some strings to work around a bug in the Tabulas parser. If I don't, the layout will break in IE. I can't expect Tabulas users, some of whom don't speak fluent English, to understand that it's important to do that every time they edit their template, or how to fix it when they forget to. After all, I still break the damn thing all the time and I'm perfectly aware of the annoying consequences. I also check the Tabulas support forums enough to know that even straightforward instructions and features can be confusing for people in a hurry or with less than fluent English.
I've been frustrated for awhile over being able to use Semagic and other accounts to edit my LJ, WordPress, and other accounts, but not my LJ. The only blogging client I knew for sure would work with Tabulas was w.bloggar. There are lots more out there, but they don't support the Blogger API any more because it's an outdated standard, and too easy to confuse Blogger API v1, Blogger API v2, and the new Blogger GData system for each other. I don't even know if Tabulas' implementation is v1 or v2, that's how hard it is to tell. And there's nothing anywhere saying which one Tabulas uses. Anywhere.
So I found a list of recommended blogging clients. Out of 10 clients, half definitely don't work because the Blogger API (any version but GData) is not in their list of supported protocols. I downloaded the remaining clients. One's readme said it did not support the Blogger API; this information was not on its official site, but at least I found out before installing. Out of four, one was so buggy it crashed and had to be un- and re-installed in order to get it to do anything, another was just buggy, one was actually kind of okay but designed for the type of blogger who monetises everything right up the wazoo — and the last was w.bloggar.
All 10 original clients work with the MetaWeblog API. Of the ones I installed, all seemed to handle MetaWeblog without problem even if they plotzed on the Blogger API. Not that I have a personal crusade to get Tabulas on a more widely supported API or anything except that it's about time to get it there.
Some clients supported autodiscovery through RSD, but Tabulas doesn't support RSD even though it would make setting up a client much easier because users would not have to locate the API endpoint themselves. In the interest of saving myself some time, create my own RSD file and uploaded it to Tabulas. This is it. I don't know how or why Tabulas completely transformed it, but now it's a completely different file that with a worrisome "Access Denied" all over it. I'm used to editing XML files, but I think I somehow broke something really badly this time, and I have no idea what I did wrong.
So Tabulas, I love you. You've got spirit. You don't jabber legalese at me like that MySpace guy. You're not obsessed with cheap gifts like Facebook. You're uniquely you and I love that about you.
Do you think you could find it in your heart, Tabulas, to get just a little more together? You could totally win over all my friends if you'd just play nicely with Semagic and their other already installed blog clients, if you wouldn't break CSS hacks every time the file is edited, if you would link to the right documentation instead of to 404s or broken pages.
I know that deep inside, you're so much better than I'm making you sound; it's just that you're a little shabby right now. That's okay. Everybody has down times where they hang around the house in the sleepwear. I see the greatness in you even when you haven't brushed your teeth all week.
But don't you think you could stand to wash your hair, put on a clean shirt, and present yourself just a little better, so everyone can see how wonderful you are?
EDIT: Tabulas, this really is not the best time to stop ferrying my crossposts to LJ. You're breaking my heart.
This message brought to you by the letter A and the number π.
hiatus
March 5, 2008, 12:13 AM by
short stature = long life?
March 6, 2008, 06:45 PM by
I'm not back to 100% yet, but I think I'm at about 80. That is totally a passing grade and good enough to get me back online.
Do short women live longer? Oh dear, play on my height, why don't you? (For reference, I'm about five foot ten (~177.5cm). My favourite shoes have four-inch heels. I like being tall — usually.)
I'd be a lot more convinced of this if I didn't have a bevy of elderly average-to-tall relatives.
Screw this height business. I'm going to hit 100 years of age. Between fairly good genes, a renewed and ongoing determination to get healthier, and constant advances in medical science, I think the odds favour me.
Do short women live longer? Oh dear, play on my height, why don't you? (For reference, I'm about five foot ten (~177.5cm). My favourite shoes have four-inch heels. I like being tall — usually.)
I'd be a lot more convinced of this if I didn't have a bevy of elderly average-to-tall relatives.
Screw this height business. I'm going to hit 100 years of age. Between fairly good genes, a renewed and ongoing determination to get healthier, and constant advances in medical science, I think the odds favour me.
some software isn't trustworthy
March 8, 2008, 08:19 AM by
of sermons and sorrow
March 9, 2008, 11:36 AM by
Then for the sermon, the pastor immediately mentioned Lazarus. No, I thought in shock. Oh yes. An entire non-Easter sermon on involving death and burial. I felt my eyes water. Stop it, I ordered myself, and I mostly obeyed.
I don't remember anything of the pastoral prayer. I tuned it out and prayed my own heart instead.
I had myself pulled more or less together when the final hymn came. It turned out to be "The Old Rugged Cross." I thought, I'm going to scream. Or cry. I don't know. My lower lip trembled throughout, but I forced myself not to cry so I could sing and sing well as I could manage. I sang to honour the absent.
I moved quickly out of the sanctuary, but my ride wasn't ready to go yet. I tried to explain that I had to leave right away. "Lazarus," I said brokenly, and "Rugged Cross." I managed to convey, or she managed to otherwise pick up on, my train of thought at the same instant that my face flooded with tears. The tears wouldn't stop even though I tried and tried.
I am ready for the punchline to this horrible joke of a morning, so it can be over.
spring approaches
March 12, 2008, 12:51 PM by
And after the rain will the be crisp, clean scent that only comes after rain, and eventually the grass will be green and my jackets put into storage. That will be my favourite time of year.
hormones and alcohol
March 13, 2008, 12:05 PM by
What does that mean for people who aren't male or female? Would an intersex person have alcohol tolerance between male and female, or would the intersex person's sex chromosomes push their tolerance to one side or the other? Would an FtM have their original level of alcohol dehydrogenase, or would it increase with the addition of testosterone?
No, I don't know why I'm hung up on this, but I certainly am.
poem #56
March 19, 2008, 11:45 AM by
In search of things that you already knew.
It ultimately fell on me to ask,
"I thought we did not speak then, me and you?"
You found your past had slipped free of your grip;
Your point of reference went a bit askew.
That didn't give you call to let it slip:
"Back then I never thought too much of you."
Your desperation led you then to cling
To anything connected to a clue.
Must I suggest with all the care I have,
"I don't think I was anyone you knew?"
Your burst of passion warms my lonely heart.
It's nice to feel befriended and renewed.
Below the mask of friendliness, you start.
"I don't think you're the person that I knew!"
That's what I tried to tell you all this time.
Till now you never listened - nothing new.
Though I became your friend and wrote this rhyme,
Your friend was never anything to you.
