Ree’s musings

Testing Zoundry Blog Writer. Cannot set categories; based on Semagic being unable to set categories, this may be an anamoly in Tabulas' implementation of the MetaWeblog API. Possibly Tabulas is following the spec but the blog clients are not - would not surprise me.

When trying to edit existing entries, entry bodies are blank but titles and dates appear correct. Again, since Semagic had the same problem, may be due to differences in interpreting (or "working around") the API spec.

WB Editor correctly picks up my list of blog categories (that might be a plus for the program or it might be a recent change in Tabulas' implementation of the MetaWeblog API; I'd have to retest clients from earlier today to determine that). I'm not keen on the interface but that's personal opinion.

WB Editor displays the same oddly empty bodies on existing entries that all other clients have shown today - that's WB Editor, Zoundry Blog Writer, Semagic, and DeepestSender (so far). Either they all have the same bug or the bug is on Tabulas' end, or maybe it's not a bug but a difference of opinion between developers that just so happens to leave me grinding my teeth in unmitigated frustration.

EDIT: Posting through WB Editor works but causes an error to pop up: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." That's useless for my purposes but thanks for playing.

DeepestSender let me login but my post hung without going through. I find DS generally more reliable than its direct competitor, ScribeFire (which is absolutely pants), but there's a distinct possiblity that DS is merely the less bugridden of the two rather than bona fide good software.

I caved and installed Windows Live Writer. Bleh, MicroSoftware, right? But it actually seems pretty nice.

I wish I could access previous posts (those not made through WLW), but it's not a dealbreaker. At least it's intended to be this way instead of being bugridden. The categories list isn't populated though and that one is vexing.

EDIT: Trying to edit a post made via WLW earns a popup error: "Unable To Retrieve Post From Server". Botheration. I was liking the program otherwise.

I know Roy's already tried out w.bloggar on the MetaWeblog API, but I am sick of installing software and figured I'd take what I already have for a whirl. So far it's looking good. It reads my categories and lets me set more than one (assuming this post goes through). I can access previous posts to edit them offline! Yay! Either that's a recent improvement in the Tabulas implementation of MetaWeblog or w.bloggar is my new (and old) best friend. w.bloggar doesn't seem to locally cache posts at all; if I ever want to edit an entry and have already lost Internet connection, I'm out of luck. Still, it's much better than no way to edit old posts.

EDIT: I forgot to markup my post. Gotta get the hang of that.

I already wrote this post once but it vanished into the ether when I tried to edit it. Crazy. So here's the upshot: w.bloggar works, categories work, editing posts works BUT there's at least a chance of the entry disappearing entirely from your blog, hard drive, and the universe as we know it.

The unfortunate part is that a chance of completely losing a post is still the most functional arrangement of Tabulas' MetaWeblog API + a blog client that I've found.

Trying to edit old entries via DeepestSender sometimes brings up a window with blank title and blank body, while other entries appear correctly in the edit window. I haven't the guts to try editing and saving a post through DS in light of that apparent bug. No category support even though DeepestSender has it and it's checked in account options. And last time I tried to post through DS, the posting window hung until I closed it myself; the post never went through. Too bad, because if DeepestSender could work, that's a cross-platform client right there: Windows, Mac, Linux — anything that can run Firefox, Seamonkey, or XULrunner can run DeepestSender. Eh, even if all else should fail, I'll still have w.bloggar and Blogger API support. Aw hell, I should've figured. Checked the Firefox error console:

Error: cats has no properties Source File: chrome://deepestsender/content/protocols/blogger/metaweblog.js Line: 40

Followed by a bevy of:

Error: catsnode.firstChild has no properties Source File: chrome://deepestsender/content/protocols/blogger/editing.js Line: 25

Looks like DS is hanging because it doesn't handle the error from the categories problem. Botheration. Oh well, at least now I know that. Didn't some other client also hang when trying to post? That's right, it was Qumana. Aha. Maybe Qumana hangs for the same reason DS does. Woohoo, knowledge!

DS doesn't support standalone Blogger API; it uses some of it in conjunction with the MetaWeblog API, but there's no way to use only the Blogger API methods. Qumana claims to support the Blogger API but actually appears to only support blogger2 methods, which Tabulas doesn't seem to use. I can test DS with category support turned off, though!

EDIT: Unchecking category support for the Tabulas account (done when logged out of any DS account) lets it work. I'm still wary of the seemingly random and totally blank entries when I go to edit them via DS, though. That's just eerie.

Cherished readers, I have a little favour to ask of you: recommend me a free (or budget-priced) antivirus program for Windows XP, please?

I'm familiar with Bitdefender and AVG Free.  I'm leery of using either again, Bitdefender because it forces me to re-register on a regular basis, AVG because I'm pretty sure its TOS only allows me to use it on one computer at a time and I'd rather not violate that.  (I know I could and I'd get away with it, but I hate to rulebreak when Grisoft is willing to let me use their software for free.  Otherwise I would run AVG on all my PCs — it's served me quite well.)

I've also heard vague positivity about F-Prot, ClamWin, and Avast! but I'd like to hear user experiences before I install something.

My throat is driving me crazy.

I am insanely over-sensitive to tobacco smoke. Meanwhile, my grandfather is of a generation that got packed off to war with boxes of cigarettes and came back with an addiction. Houston, we have a problem.

I love my grandpa to itty bits pieces and I don't turn down a chance to hug him. But. I spent several hours yesterday at my aunt's birthday party, with Grandpa. And then headed home, in the same direction as Grandpa, and ended up meeting him again at a restaurant. In the smoking section, since that is where a smoker will naturally sit, and he got there before I did.

I'm not the least bit sorry, but my throat sure is. This particular body part seems certain that I deliberately arrange my life to achieve maximum respiratory inflammation. Accordingly, it has decided that I must be punished. Again.

Unfortunately, I've looked time and again for something to help me be less sensitive to smoke, but nothing works. Symptoms are similar to allergies but the immune response isn't the same as an allergy would cause, so allergy medications have no effect.

If my choices are angry throat or sad Grandpa, I'm quite satisfied with my decision – but if there's a third option where I can enjoy my grandfather's company while maintaining healthy airflow, then want!