Tuesday, December 29, 2009

HTLM and Haloscan catastrophe!

UPDATE:  I give up!  Trying to follow haloscan/echo instructions I went back to the old template.  Blogger failed to save the template I had.  Then haloscan wanted me to pay BEFORE I could try the solution they supposedly were offering.  Of course, if it did not work and if I asked for a refund, you can imagine the risk on my CADIVI card: credit cards are blocked for less than that (I mean it is not a matter of many bucks, echo only asks for ten bucks, but after the initial setbacks, I sort of lost trust in their tech support and their skills...)

So eventually I was left tonight to set up back the new template I worked these past days.  At least by some  quirk blogger gave me back the widgets I had installed.  Still I had to restore fonts and colors and I did not get back what I had yesterday.  But too late tonight to worry about that.

I made a decision:  I am going to forget about the 50,000 + comments of haloscan/echo.  Many were excellent but it is just going to be too much of an ordeal to recover them.  Besides, few people ever show a disposition to dig for old comments.  For those who do, I have them backed up and with the appropriate indications might be able to retrieve them.
I am still weak, I tire easy, and my job is not to design fancy sites but to provide content.  In addition after this experience I lost trust in Echo and I do not want to be tied with them forever.  That is, with them I have no warranty they will be around next year whereas blogger comments belong to Google, if you see what I mean.  They are simpler than haloscan, do not allow me to ban people or edit trolls, just to erase them.  It will be less fun but more reliable: the features offered by Echo so as to post videos or tie comments to social networks are not really something that this blog cares much about: if people really want to point a video, the link is fine, and if they want their comments to appear in their twitter or facebook, well, they can link to the post........

Let's just say that with the change of year we changed to new blogger.  On one side we lost a treasure of comments (I am still going to write them a last chance note)  but in the other hand we get to put as many widgets as we want, including better link lists and polls.  And a lighter design that still respects the intention of the old one.  In addition we get rid of "the end " in blue at the end of truncated posts since now I get an automated post cutter in my editor.  Small compensation perhaps but times are a changing and if I ever make a book of posts I can still scavenge for the comments of the time to include the most telling ones.

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And the day of reckoning cometh....

Haloscan is closing and going out of my blog in barely 24 hours. The replacing system, that supposedly saves the old comments only works with the new blogger version, not the old classic one that I have been holding until now.

In other words, I am screwed. There is only a small chance to save my comments and thus I had to update my blog fast. All the look and feel of the old blog is temporarily lost. Over time I will recover some of the design but it will never be quite the same. I am a victim of advancing technology. True I had the option to open a new site like Miguel or Quico, but all that work would be really worth it if I could locate it out of Venezuela and find a way to pay for it in spite of CADIVI. Amen of security options....

But I have links in too many places and the look is, hate it or love it, an institution of sorts. So I chose blogger upgrade. Over the next few days I will try to recover my comments and slowly but surely recover what can be recovered from the old design (the flag is already up!). Meanwhile you can write to me for comments, or post on the blogger comment system whihc I have a feeling we might get stuck with.

Wish me luck!

19 comments:

  1. Good luck! Hope you get it straightened out.

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  2. Anonymous5:19 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. J.I.

    I had to erase your comment because you put your e-mail address in it. You need to write to me privately in such instances!!!!!

    But thank you for your offer anyway. I will not need it since I decided for the time being to go on blogger comment system, until haloscan fixes the mess they put me in. If they want me to pay, they need to fix it otherwise why should I pay them for a system that swallowed it all?

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  4. I like the look of the new design. It's significantly lighter.

    However I must warn you that coding while recoverying is a dangerous business.

    :)

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  5. Anonymous12:29 PM

    Daniel if needed I'm sure your readers are all in to support you.
    Keep on going.
    Thanks Claco

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  6. Hola Daniel,

    I hope that you have have more luck then I.
    I also switch to Echo, exactly for the same reason you talk about.
    But....now I am busy for 15 days with the support from Js.Kit and it still does not work perfectly.
    The support is fine from Js.Kit. They really give all the help, but every new solution brings another problem. I even send the whole HTML template from my blog to them, so that they could change it. Well they did and now all the comments are embedded, no pop up in a new window and the options don´t work any more.
    But comparing with the problems I had, .... is this (I think) a small one.

    The good thing is that they save all the comments, nothing was lost.

    But ....we are still busy with Echo.

    saludos

    Alpha

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  7. US YT3:12 PM

    Not sure if I am the first and only one to report this, but Haloscan on my screen often (not always) didn't format correctly having text line overruns to the right of the sreen (window maximized) and then generating a scrollbar on the bottom. Very cumbersome to read and definitely technically not acceptable or some kind of a glitch.

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  8. the demon in the details we truly know
    which is why "upgrades" are not just for show
    we won't reject it- you will see/
    though its purpose is not to placate me and thee/
    the tyranny of technology seems to prevail/
    no time to loose or stop and wail/
    May our day of reckoning cometh in regale

    Good luck!!

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  9. Island Canuck5:32 PM

    The new format is not unpleasant. In Chrome it views perfectly.

    That's all you need right now Daniel - more problems.

    It will all work out - don't worry.

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  10. 1979 Boat People6:06 PM

    You have not fully recovered from danque and now another ...headache.

    You must be extremely tired after getting the site up again.

    Good luck! Have very good rest after this headache.

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  11. I prefer this design than the old one...I never told you that but the other one was a bit heavy. So do not use up your energies trying to get it back....

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  12. Well, I never wanted to tell you this but your site was and is a memory hog with that orange background and a few other heavy items. Have you considered taking some lessons from Quico and Juan Cristobal? They have made a great decision and change to their funky old system.

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  13. I meant visually lighter. I don't think a back ground color makes much difference.
    (none)

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  14. Daniel; to me its about the text and the pictures. I would still read it if it was telnet text! Unless your going to put advertising on it I would not get too concerned about the graphics and such. Also, you do not want a site that requires a hi performance computer. People read this site all over the world and many not only don't have the computer they also don't have the hi speed connection needed to view complex sites. I think safeguarding your archives is of primary importance. If your having any problems saving them say so we can find some help for you.

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  15. Glenn

    There was a poll run by yours truly over a year ago and the majority did not want a change. Some even defended the orange background (it should be yellow to respect Venezuela color scheme but yellow is impossible as a background).

    In other words, hate it or love it, the web page was very distinctive and immediately recognized; not to mention how often the flag picture was stolen by chavista sites even though it was taken by me on January 2003 during an opposition march.

    I think this new version (still unfinished) is lighter than the preceding one, the more so that the red background on the right was removed. My only regret so far is that I cannot yet put the flag picture larger because of the "gadget" system of blogger. I need to go HTLM editing for that.

    As for taking lessons from Quico and Juan. Do not forget that their objective is to have hundreds of comments per post whereas mine is not. Since I monitor comments I do not have the time to monitor extensive discussions, nor the interest, for that matter (personally when I see a post anywhere with more than a couple of dozen of comments I tend to ignore those outright). Thus the simplicity of blogger is just fine with me whereas Quico and Juan must move to more complex systems even though their overall design remains generic white ;)

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  16. I have a hard time reading the white letters on dijon mustard background...Hate to be be persnickity

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  17. Oh! Come on cochonette en feu!

    There are way less white characters and only as titles!!!!

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  18. Well... it happened with me too. I lost three days to remove haloscan comment system and trying to restore the original blogger what I got but I lost thousands of comments made in haloscan. I export the comments to a file but how to restore them in blogger?

    If you discover a solution put me at current, Thanks and don't worry
    the life isn't only blogging

    Have a Great New Year!!!

    From Portugal
    Fernando

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  19. Daniel,
    Forgot my emoticons! Sorry I was just teasing!!

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