Blogger FTP Service is SLOW SLOW SLOW

So I updated my post about Flickr and mobile media posting about 45-minutes ago, and I'm still waiting for it to publish. Let's see how long it takes for this post to publish?

I'm growing rather impatient with the Blogger system, and might seek out alternatives if this system isn't going to be reliable or truly fit my needs.

Flickr, Picasa and the way I host my blog.

Ok. So I've had some time this afternoon to play around with some of the third-party tie in's that exist between blogger and the rest of the web. The idea behind all these "Web 2.0" services is interaction and data exchange, right? I want in on the game.

Anyway, the outcomes so far have been fairly disappointing, not directly because the third-party extensions aren't well engineered; indeed, the mobile offerings from Flickr and the software from Picasa (Google) are very nice and extremely easy to use.

There's a hitch though. I host my own blog on my own web server with my own FTP information, and for some reason when I post media items from third party sites on my Blogger-driven blog, I need to manually "publish" everything via their web interface before my new materials become apparently on this site.

On its face, that isn't a problem if I'm using Picasa as that's a Windows-based software package. (Translation: You use Picasa on Windows, ergo you're probably also in a position to manually publish your blog through the blogger site from that Windows system).

But the attraction that I see for Flickr, in particular, is the mobile aspect of their service. You see, I should be theoretically able to use my camera phone to take a photo, which I can then MMS to Flickr which in turns posts it to my blog.

Now, if I was using the traditional Blogger service, I'm sure this would work. But in my circumstance, the new post is created by Flickr once my photo MMS is received, but it isn't published. Meaning, the new post is logged into the Blogger system and is ready, but isn't visible to readers because it isn't published. To finish the job, I need a net connection and a PC, which sort of takes the point out of mobile publishing of photos directly from my camera phone. After all, if I had a PC handy, wouldn't I just use it for publishing the photos directly?

Anyway, I'll continue digging and see if there are ways around this limitation, either through the Google Blogger API or via some client-side scripting to digest the Flickr feed directly. Neither represents an ideal scenario, in my opinion, but these two options could yield a method for posting photos (and eventually videos) remotely. This isn't game over yet.

HTML Code Rap

I'm impressed.

When you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker...

CNN Powered T-Shirts?

Over the past few weeks, a few things have hit my RSS feeds and captured my attention; none so much as the recent revelation that CNN has started selling T-shirts with news headlines emblazoned across the front.

No. I'm not making this up.

I suppose the truly unfortunate component of this story is simply that you cannot purchase any headline, only those that seem to have been arbitrarily selected by editors at CNN. They do appear, however, to be willing to let some interesting headlines through the net, though I'm a bit disappointed to note that the recent "There is an alligator in my kitchen" headline did not make the cut.

I certainly wonder how long this promotion will last, or if its envisioned to be a long-term addition to the site. If the demand is high enough, I'm sure they'll retain the project -- novelty factor alone (and Obama/Ron Paul supporters) are probably sufficient to keep the T-shirt office at CNN extremely busy and profitable for quite some time.

My former career as a soccer goalie.

Its a little known fact that I was once a professional goalie for a Japanese soccer team.



Ok, not really... the video was somewhat amusing though, wasn't it? Is it possible to be that bad at goal keeping and play for a professional team? The video would suggest that it is.

Darth Vader, Master Blues Harmonicist

Who knew Darth Vader could lay down such a funky blues rhythm on the harmonica?

Fresh Start

Ok. So its been a while.

So long that I now see that where I once had traffic to this grand site, there is none to be presently had. Nonetheless, the posting begins again in earnest.

Some years ago, this space was occupied by my first blog, more of an experiment in what was - at the time - a new technology in web publishing. Its certainly an understatement to say that blogging has come a long was since my last attempt at it, and frankly this space has long since been left by the personal wayside.

In the intervening years (!), I suppose I've accumulated some knowledge worth expressing in this space. We'll see.

Softball Sunday

I spoke with our league commish this morning and explained the situation from Sunday’s game to her. Nothing I told her “was new” so apparently there have been some other complaints against our opponents. She didn’t go into any real detail, and I didn’t ask...

What is important is that our second game versus this particular squad has been rescheduled against Orange Crush. I don’t have the details on the game time yet, but that should be coming out today in the revised schedule.

My rationale for requesting the reschedule is simple: the game this past Sunday wasn’t fun for anyone on our team, and I don’t want a repeat performance. This is especially important when our opponent's behavior on Sunday confirmed our original position that they were not able to play sporting or with even a modicum of maturity; additionally, we now know that our team is going to be sensitive to the negative behavior when we next play her team, and I don’t want that to lead to another miserable game. The other team is already accumulating a reputation for poor sportsmanship, and I don’t intend to have that negatively impact the remainder of our season.

Altogether, removing the negative situation and game is better all around, and it’s what we requested in the first place. I’m much more comfortable playing Orange Crush, even if they are a more difficult opponent – at least we know they’re a good group of folks that we can have fun with.