Suck It, Photobucket

I was doing as I normally do when I check email, replying to a few in my inbox, checking the recipe newsletters, reading some sales circulars from Amazon and a local grocery store, then went into the Spam folder to clear it out.

I always scan the subject titles and the addresses just in case something important has been accidentally flagged as junk when I saw one from Photobucket.  At first I thought it was Spam, but it seemed to be from the website, so I opened it to find this:

WE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN USING
PHOTOBUCKET FOR 3RD PARTY HOSTING*

*What is 3rd Party Hosting?

Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo onto another website. For example, using the tag to embed or display a JPEG image from your Photobucket account on another website such as a forum, Etsy, eBay auction listings, a blog, etc. is definitively 3rd party hosting.

And some other crap, mainly that they wanted to charge me some insane amount to provide hosting for my graphics.  Now, I use the Blogger albums they provide for any jpegs, but they don't support animations and I use some in posts in here, as well as the day-date calendar and border.  I also use the service for forums that don't supply image hosting for non-paying users like me (read: cheap bastards like me)

I didn't get a notice until this one that they were changing their TOU (terms of use).  Since they had always supplied the code, the HTML to embed images, I always thought it was OK, but apparently it's not now.  My "library" with Photobucket is only 1% full and they used to show a bandwidth meter and it was always set at around 10% or less, so I never worried.  I did keep an eye on it after having a few websites directly link to images and got a warning from Photobucket that I was over the limit, so I made it private and that was the end of the thieving. 

There are lots of people complaining about it online and I don't blame 'em.  Some people relied upon it for their image hosting, esp. people uploading them to Amazon for reviews and people trying to sell things on eBay. Now their entire websites and/or posts are affected and have this placeholder where their photos used to be:

So, if you see that in any older post or on the animations I use for things, then that's the reason. I've already signed up for a new free image hosting service and hope they'll not go the same route as Photobucket...which I predict is going to go out of business soon, because I think - as do many others - that they're in financial trouble and this is one last grab for some quick cash.

Anyway, I'll be doing the changeover soon, hope it works.  If not, I suppose I can live w/out any flashing signs or animated GIFs.  I'm sure the readership of this pathetic excuse for a blog won't suffer any...how could it?  We're only something like the 12,784,987th ranked blog in the world, after all.

Caricature of the Day

Do you recognize this star of Caricature Zone?

Give up? View the answer!

HINT: It's (usually) the celeb's birthday.

European Cookies

No, not the edible kind but the ones put on your computer.

I was checking my Blogger dashboard and saw this notice:

European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities.

Since this blog is sited on U.S. servers, I never had seen the notice here, but I have seen it on other websites. I dislike it, especially having to close the nag notice. To see if the notice had been included and to make sure I was complying with this idiotic rule, I amended the blog's URL, like this.

Sure 'nuff, there's the notice.  What a relief!  I'd hate to have Interpol after me!

(Note:  I checked the UK link after I posted this and didn't see the notice- which means I now have a cookie telling my browser I've already seen it.  Not sure if that's the definition of ironic, but it's certainly funny.  If you don't see it, then it's probably because you've either recently visited a UK or other European blog and the cookie is still on your computer)

CURRENT CAPCHA CRAP

I went to reply to a comment under a post and saw this:

I noticed this new - and much better than previous versions - verification process on other Blogger blogs I frequent, but this was the first time I had been required to do it on my own blog.  At first I thought it was just a setting that needed to be changed, but apparently it's not something I CAN change, so I'm sorry for the extra step.

I have required OpenID or a Google account in order to post, but that's just to keep my blood pressure down and not have to delete asshole anonymous comments from anyone who wants to criticize me or something I've posted in here.  I don't intend to be offensive in here and don't think I am, but it IS my blog and if someone wants to curse me out or rebut what few controversial things I've said, then they can get their own damn blog and do it there, not in here.

So, again, I'm sorry for the extra step.  I wish I could change it, but at least it's fairly easy to read and is only 3-4 digits to type in.  Maybe this will keep the spam I get now 'n then to a minimum.

October Analytics

Just got the blog stats for October.  If I were trying to make money off this thing or justified the time spent on it by the visitor count, it would be depressing.  As it is, nearly 20 unique visits/day isn't bad, at least not to me.

I've had counters on the page before, but got rid of them because I started trying to minimize the loading time - I post so many videos and have some modules in the right-hand column that slow it down, that I wanted to streamline the other content.  The bounce rate would alarm some other bloggers or webmasters, but it doesn't bother me - heck, I don't put much in here these days that people can't find elsewhere. 

ToTG is definitely "ego-centric" - it's the stuff that I like.  I really do need to change the description of the blog because I've moved away from it being about where I live to it being more about me and the things that interest me.  I'll change it one of these days, when I get a "rountuit".  Procrastination really should be a keyword/post label. - grin-

I used to look through the stats to see what people were searching for and where they came from, but now don't bother with it very often.  It's not that I don't care about the small number of people who visit, it's just that it's a hobby, not something I HAVE to be "successful" at.

Droopy May Flowers

This is a post from 5/13/08, but the exact same thing happened again, too weird.  I changed out the flower, but this time Photobucket appended the URL with a bunch of characters at the end, so I had to change the code in the script to point to the new URL.   I'd show the example of the non-working animation, but I deleted it.  It looked the same, but the flowers would open once, then stop.  I don't have a clue as to why they would do that, but I'm going to have to find out.  I guess the link code gets corrupted somehow on Photobucket's servers, that's the only explanation I got.

I dunno;  maybe the animation got tired after five? six? years of working.  It only had to work one month out of each year, though, so....

---

Not for sure why, but my May flowers aren't blowing in the breeze.

The images for the day/date script are in my Photobucket album, and the .gif is animated on the album view, but not in the individual view.

There's got to be some logical explanation, probably a very simple one that my simple mind cannot comprehend, but for the life of me, I cannot figure it out.

Funny thing: this same animation has given me some problems before. When I first found the script five + years ago, I noticed that the "May" ani wasn't moving. The month animations are from Animation Factory and I already had the disks, so it was n/p to replace/rename the animation to work in the script.

Funny GIFs

Photobucket has been sending me "You should see these!" types of emails lately; I've used the service for a long time, since MSN Groups, but Blogger lets me add photos using Picassa, so I don't use it much anymore except when I want to put an animated graphic (GIF) into a post. (I guess I "use" it every day because that's where the graphics for the month images at the top of the page are hosted)

I followed a link in the email to see this: Animated_GIFs I would link to the slide show, but there are over 400 graphics and even with my fairly fast connection, the animations wouldn't load fast enough until it was cycling through to the next one. There are some funny ones, worth a look!

(Did you know GIF isn't pronounced "gif" but rather as "jif", with a "J"?  So says the creator of them, but there are people arguing that he's wrong.)

March Stats

A few months ago, I decided to add a StatCounter as so to keep a better running count of visitors than the Feedjit Counter. Google Analytics seems to do a decent job, but I wanted to check those figures against another site counter.  StatCounter sends a monthly total, too, where as I have to go to Google to view the numbers.   I'm lazy, what can I say?

I also am not obsessed with the numbers, but just find them interesting.  I *might* be obsessed if this blog got thousands of hits each day, but....

As I have mentioned before, I was a little disappointed that page loads does not equal visitors.  (I thought this blog was more popular than it actually is.  Wishful thinking, I guess.) The new StatCounter keeps up with those, but it also counts first time visits as well as returning visits.  I have it set to ignore my own visits to the blog, but have to reset it when I clear cache and cookies. (the counter is "hidden" in the right-hand nav bar in the box at the very bottom. It's not actually hidden, but I have it set to a tiny size as so to not be so obvious to the casual visitor.)

Here's a screen shot of last month's stats:

What Took You So Little?

I was checking out the StatCounter statistics; since this blog isn't monetized, it really doesn't matter about the number of visitors, but I have the counter mostly to satisfy my own curiosity as to just who - and to a lesser extent, how many - people visit. It's also interesting to see where they come from and what they're searching for.  I also like to see what browser and operating system they're using.  It doesn't keep a running total like the StatCounter does, but my Feedjit counter does a good job in "real time" letting me know who is visiting, what they were looking for and what country they're from.

I've only had the counter for a couple of months and learned something after going by the Google Analytics page statistics; I used to think this blog had about a hundred visitors every day, but that was "page loads" and not unique visitors.  That figure is usually from 30-40. Oh well. (the counter doesn't give detailed stats on the https traffic;  for that, I'd have to pay for it and I certainly don't want to do that!)

One statistic I hadn't checked before was the length of stay and I was a little dismayed to see how little time most people spent here. Here's a screen capture of that particular stat:

As you can see, nearly 80% spend less than five seconds after they get here. One thing I'll give 'em...they recognize a worthless blog when they see one.

The 9 that stayed longer than an hour must have fallen asleep at their computer.

Rare Error

One of the very few errors I've had here on Blogger. I've had this blog for over five years and I haven't had more than five errors in all that time. Back in MSN Groups, I could get five errors in a day, even that many in an hour. Facebook is better, but they have more glitches than I think I want to tolerate.

Oddly enough, I got it the other day when posting this.

Big Hits

More than a little annoyed at the end of the Cowboys/Giants game, I got online to try to take my mind off it. I wasn't going to visit any of the rash of doom 'n gloom posts that have hit my reader and were being posted on the Cowboys website and Facebook pages so I decided I'd pop in here and check the stats, see who has been visiting and what they were looking at.

I'd noticed quite a few hits yesterday on my Cast Away posts and the movie must have played on TV and I didn't notice it in the listings. The Feedjit stats showed that, but don't tell the entire story; many people have the Do Not Track extension on their browser so their visits won't show up on it or have some other "stealth" application or add-on. Unless they have Blogger cookies blocked, however, it will show up on the Blogger stats. (and I've previously blocked some of the tracking stuff, but I won't be able to see the top navbar and have to go in via the dashboard to create a post or look at the stats) Looking at the day's stats, I noticed there had been quite an increase in traffic earlier.

As you can see, there was quite a few visitors, relatively speaking, that came to this blog. ("relatively", because ToTG doesn't get all that many visits.  200/day is fairly avg., sometimes more, sometimes less.) I have it set to not track my own page views or the visits would double on the days I have nothing better to do than come in here.

I decided to switch to the "day" mode on the stats and saw this:

90+ visitors in a matter of a few hours. Wow. Wish it would be like that all the time; I would put in some paying ads...which would probably drive the traffic away.  I also wish the Cowboys had put that many hits on Eli Manning.

I'm glad I'm not trying to make a living at this blogging thing.

Rare Error

This popped up earlier when I was trying to edit a post; it's very rare to get Blogger errors, one of the first I've had in a long, long time.  Blogger is so much better than MSN Groups, where I quickly learned to copy any post before hitting "send" because sometimes they'd go off into the ozone, never to return.  That's happened only a couple of times here in my blog.

I do get HTML errors in posts, but they have a feature that allows you to ignore it.  It "fixes" any tags not closed for you, though.

I love Blogger, wish I had discovered it earlier. 

Marquee Tag

The marquee tag works in Blogger.....
Works for scrolls too!



Also works with images!

Of course, it depends upon the browser, but I was pleased to see it works w/ Firefox.

Not that I could ever think of a reason to use it, but I always thought it was cool that a line or two of code, some simple tags, could manipulate text and images.

When I first got a computer, I sussed out email, then I figured out how to navigate, then found out I could search for something, mainly those "movin' pictures", animated GIFs. I thought those things fascinating. (as you can tell, I'm easily amused) I'll never forget the day that made me want to learn how to create a page; my friend Garazon made a simple little Halloween page and had embedded some music. I thought that was the coolest thing and decided I needed to know how to do that stuff, too.

Well, it's been nearly ten years since that first computer and by now you'd probably think I should be able to create some sort of deluxe website, but like everything else in my life, I just wanted to know the basics. I've done that with all sorts of things, from auto mechanics to juggling to playing the harmonica. I can do those things and many more, none very well, but I CAN do them.

I guess I was and always will be satisfied to be a "jack of all trades, master of none." I can live with that.

---

Note: This was first posted in July '09.

EDIT: I've noticed several hits on this post from a post in the mozillaZine forum. I'm glad no one took me to task for using the marquee tag; as I said, I don't really see the need for it, unless one wanted to create a headline of sorts, but it would depend upon the user's browser whether it would work or not.

And, as I said, I'm easily amused and love to see the doggy run across the screen. Magic!

Big Change for ToTG

No, not an early April Fool's joke. Just a tiny exaggeration. Tiny is right.

A while back, I noticed Blogger had introduced the ability to add a favicon to blogs. I kept meaning to create one and upload it, but kept forgetting until last night. I tried several different ones, but finally settled on the shape of Texas in the ToTG logo.  I also didn't like the white square on the blue-ish grey background on my Firefox browser, but when I made the white  transparent, it made the entire thing almost invisible. 

A webmaster I'm not. (nor a graphics artist or a decent blogger, but....)

For some reason it doesn't change from the orange "B" Blogger one in my bookmarks menu.  (and I've deleted the old bookmark, cleared cache and cookies but still no-go)

Anyway, did you notice?  What do you think?

Blogger Bookmarklet

I have a "Share This" bookmarklet for Facebook, but since I've decided to do less there and return to my blog, I wanted a way to share articles in here without having to come to the blog and starting a post, then adding the link. There are add-ons for Firefox that will do that, but I wanted an easier way. I did a search and found a bookmarklet that allows me to do that.

What is BlogThis! ? - Blogger Help

Just go to the above page and drag the link to your browser's bookmark menu. It should open up the menu and just drop it in, easy!

The only thing that the Blogger post window lacks that the regular one has is the add photo feature, but that's not really a problem unless I was wanting to upload a screenshot. (which I was going to do for this post to show the way to add the bookmarklet) There's also no preview feature, but that's just a minor inconvenience. It's still a nifty way to share, though, and if you have multiple blogs, there's a drop-down menu to choose to which blog you wish to publish the link.

Oh Well

I had to remove the "What I've Been Reading" module from the right-hand column.  Google Reader recently updated and the share feature to add it to the module is gone.  I can still re-post articles to Blogger or on Facebook, but the ability to add it to my reading list is gone.  They now have a feature to add it to Google+, but I don't use that...and doubt I will. 

Oh well, I had too many modules anyway.  I probably should do away with one of the "counters", but Feedjit shows what people are looking for when they arrive while the Flag Counter shows a total of visitors per day/month/year, plus it's cool. 

I COULD get rid of the weather module, but I like it.  This blog is, after all, about this area.  I'm sure people don't visit just to see the weather, but I like to think my friends look at it now 'n then and think "Wow, I bet Mike is cold/hot/wet!"

I could probably do away with the Trivia module, but I've noticed several people come directly to the blog to then go to the quiz.  I've got the quiz bookmarked, but I don't expect others to do so.  I also would like to keep the Word of the Day, Quote of the Day and Today in History modules because I always look at them every day.  I could probably do away with the Dallas Cowboys headline module, but again,  I like it, even though I visit that website every day anyway.  I think I'll keep the news because it's local.

So, maybe this blog will load a little quicker for a while, until I find some other module to slow it down.  Blogger keeps adding things and I haven't checked them in a long time!

New Blogger Feature

Those of you who use Blogger might already know this, but Blogger has a new feature that I've just noticed.  The reason I just noticed is because after I publish a post, it takes me to a page that gives me the option of viewing the post or the blog.  (same thing, really, because viewing the blog will show you the post at the top, while viewing the post just shows the post)

There's also a small box giving hints or announcing a new feature that's just been rolled out. I noticed the other day that Blogger now offers up "stand-alone pages", which I'm thinking means we can put most any feature Blogger offers on a page and then link to it in the side nav-bar.  I'll have to go look, but I believe it says we can have up to 20 of these type pages.

I remember when it was announced that MSN Groups were closing and in a thread in Community Feedback people were discussing the alternatives. I had just discovered Blogger and mentioned that while it had pros and cons, I liked how one could add third-party content and embed videos and use some basic javascript.  One person replied to my post and said that blogs were too "egocentric".   Good grief, as if a person's Group wasn't egocentric? (some more than others, granted)

Anyway, I'm off to take a look at this new feature.  There are probably other new features I've missed.  There are a few I cannot use since I use a custom template, but I don't really care about at least one, having people "rate" my posts.   I don't think my ego could handle the criticism. -bg-

And I Thought it Was Worthless

I've checked this blog's "worth" several other times in the past, but found this new website that evaluates a site's worth: How Much is My Website Worth?

As much as I enjoy my blog - even though I'm not so good about keeping it updated - I'd sure as hell sell it for that.  I'd sell just about anything I got for 800 bucks ...except for the Beej.

Gross Countries Visit This Blog

Uh, I mean a gross of countries.

From the latest Flag Counter stats

Lazy Sunday

I haven't been doing much in this blog - as you can tell, huh? I really haven't felt like it, plus I really need to run a new line to this computer and increase my speed back up to where it's supposed to be. In fact, the snail's pace of my DSL connection has kept me from doing much at all online. I've got some photos to upload, but I don't care to play a half-dozen games of Hearts waiting on the upload and I can forget having more than one or two tabs open at a time. I really enjoy listening to my Launchcast radio, but it takes so long to load the player I've almost given up on that.

Yesterday was really a lazy day for me and other than playing the ToTG Triva Tournament, I didn't check in here, not even to check the visitor stats from either of the "counters" I have. It must have been a lazy Sunday for everyone else because we had the least amount of visitors since I started the blog, unique OR repeat.



Still, there were a few visitors to the Cast Away threads and a couple for my post on "The Short Bus" but I was surprised there was no one checking out "My Sister's Feet" or the Gay Dwarfs.