Sunday, February 04, 2007

GOOOOOGLE-SCHMOOOOOGLE




By now, most of you may know that Google is building (maybe) a facility in western North Carolina. I haven't fully followed the stories in the paper, but I know there has been some consternation at the tactics Google used to get the "powers that be" to give them all sorts of perks.

This cartoon in our paper, by Dwane Powell, speaks to the massaging that politicoes in NC were providing the people representing Google.

In light of the recent massaging that Google + Blogger has given all of us using Blogger (and not a good, relaxing massage, I must say), I found this amusing and apropos. The words in the middle, which Powell has the Google rep saying, could be turned around on them - and I would if I was able to figure out how to contact them directly.

Talk about hassles and inconvenience! The ONLY way I have been able to access my Dashboard or to moderate comments is to first leave a comment on a blog on which I can sign in with the Google email address and password. If I do that, I can access the account for about 30 minutes. If I leave it, the next time I come back I have to go all the way through the process again. It is time-consuming and completely aggravating, especially when I have less time than usual. There is no way I can sign in the way everyone else does; when I try to, the page goes blank.

Picasa, the Google photo service is also at odds with my new Blogger status. I used to be able to post directly from Picasa, but now they pretend not to know me (although I can send email from there, and I can access my web albums, etc.

Wouldn't you think that since Google-Blogger-Picasa are now all part of the same conglomerate, they would work smoothly together? Me too.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


This caricature of me was drawn by the same man who drew the cartoon above. He was doing them as a favor to a local charity; we paid $5 each for a drawing that would have cost much more had we hired him individually. He asked me what I did for a living and I said florist. He thought for a minute and then started drawing - and I was amused at the result. Seems he is creative in several areas of his life.
(I just now realized I had already posted this caricature before. Bear with me while I try to complete this phase of "Senior Moments" I've been in lately!)


26 comments:

David Edward said...

i am with you on the blogger thing -
they threaten , and cajole and whine - but I will not switch to the "new" blogger, until michele tells me its ok....
have a nice week

Beverly said...

Boy, if I miss a day of coming to your blog, I get way behind. I was reading below about your hair color. I've been afraid to let mine grow out. I'm not sure what color it would be. I used to be a redhead (still am.) I have freckles, so I figured I need to remain a redhead.

I love the photo of that house. My daughter and I have been looking at a photo of a house for sale in Virginia that looks a lot like that.

Raggedy said...

I for one hope that all will work smoothly together soon. It has been very frustrating.
I love the caricature of you planted in the flower pot.
Have a wonderful day!
*^_^
(=':'=) hugs
(")_ (")Š from
the Cool Raggedy one
PS. Thank you for taking the time to make me feel special. :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sending Old Lady of the Hills by Sacred Ordinary. What a nice introduction to a like-minded local woman! As for Google coming to your neck of the words, it will bring jobs, but given all the hassle you all have had with Google, I can understand your leariness. Like the caricature. Can you show Mr. Kenju's, too?

Anna said...

Cute Judy...

I think I have one of me from Kings Dominion or someplace like that from when I was little.

Merle said...

Hi Judy ~~ Loved the pic of you sitting in the flowerpot. I hope your
hair is settling down and you get
used to it. I like Mr.Kemju's Steve.
Thanks for your visit Judy. I am having strife today with my line dropping out - continually. Take care, Love, Merle.

Anonymous said...

A great cartoon of you!
I just finished polishing my new Wordpress 2.1 compliant blog. I wish I could have saved myself the hassle. Of course, now that it's over, I'll admit it looks better, but I wasn't asking for anything. And yes, you would think that blogger, google and Picasa would work seamlessly together in some ideal blogging world. But I guess it just doesnt happen this way.

Anonymous said...

Although my blog uses WordPress software, I tried all weekend to set up a new blog on BlogSpot so I could check out their "new" features but to no avail. I could get the blog setup and all but once I signed out of my Google Account I could not get back into the blog. I could get back into my Google account but not my blog. I finally cancelled my Google Account and all that went with it.

Judy said...

I'm knocking on wood down here. The only problem I've had so far is I can't post directly from Picasa any more (I don't remember before the "friend" name being: bloggerbotisdead). And, on some of the blogger comments I have to sign in with my google account instead of my blogger account. Hopefully the evil blogger bug will stay out of south Georgia.

bluemountainmama said...

where in western nc? i wonder if it's near where my parent's live. sorry you're having so many issues with blogger..i know it can be extremely frustrating. oh..and last time i checked, the link on my site was working.

Anonymous said...

I'm with David! Love the cartoon it's beautiful which is rare in a cartoon.
Here's what I have discovered re the comment box. When it asks you to 'Choose an identity' -tick 'other'.
This alters the box. Add your name and for 'web page' put your URL.
It took me a day to work this out but many people are stil floundering.

Unknown said...

These login problems are crap. It is really cutting back on my comments when I can't get in. I keep having problems seeing the verification word too. You'd think that a company whose stock is selling at $472 could afford to assign a guy or two to take a look at it.

Maybe Me said...

Because my blog is relatively new (only two months), I updated almost immdediately to Google/blogspot and had almost no problem. However, I had to switch navigators: if you are using Safari, it will never work; Mozilla is faring a bit better it seems; with Netscape, I have had no trouble at all. Maybe that's the problem?

Anonymous said...

So you finally posted a picture of yourself?! I don't rememeber seeing it before.

I cringe at the breaks millionaire and billionaire companies get while so many of us balk at giving the poor a leg up.

Lois Lane said...

It seems like everyone is having trouble with beta and new blogger. I've avoided both switches. So far so good.
I hope all of your troubles go away!!

utenzi said...

Blogger has been very annoying, Judy. I don't blame Google for going after tax perks and other incentives though. All big companies do that. It's unfortunate that politicians buy into the game by competing against one another to try to lure the companies with those perks.

awareness said...

I am such a dweeb when it comes to techie things....so when blogger gets a hiccup, I'm a confused missy. I still havent figured out how to put the links to others on my sidebar......and I have had directions, then I sit down to complete the task and the whole lesson has gone from my brain.

You're a florist? I would love to do that! THAT is how my brain works :) I have done a couple of weddings for friends....even the bridal bouquets...the church and reception and i absolutely LOVED doing it. In fact, I would love my own greenhouse.......

rosemary said...

Either I get booted off commenting or two magically appear!

brendalove@gmail.com said...

I was getting ready to say....I know I have seen this before!!!!

Shephard said...

Sounds like it's time to jump ship, save your stuff, and create that new blog called "Imagine What I'm Leaving Out!" Maybe starting fresh from a new blogger template will solve everything?

~S

Unknown said...

Hi!
I have a blog called A LITTLE BENT which is my memoirs of growing up gay in the straight suburbs of New Jersey. I used a pseudonym because I was a school teacher (currently disabled, but hoping to teach again some day) and didn't want my students to be able to Google my name and read all about my private life. Well, when I switched over to Google Blogger, that all changed. My A LITTLE BENT avatar was arased and replaced by my Bhakti avatar. I had no idea that switching to Google would collate my two (at the time) blogs.

You know, I just got this DELL laptop last week and the entire thing is riddled with Google this, and Google that! It's insane. I was starting to wonder if DELL owned Google???

Unknown said...

PS With the new Google Blogger, I can't go into my template and change the name of some of the widgets. For example, I created a new blog to highlight my poetry, and I can't change the "0 Comments" link to something more creative.

I just learned HTML and now the new Blogger makes it so that everything is just a click away; for example, adding something to your sidebar. I liked it better when it was more 'organic'.

srp said...

David may not have a choice. I was tooling along just fine yesterday. I had posted two sets of pictures with Blog This from Picasa and was in one set, working on the posting. I tried to open the other set in another window and it wouldn't let me... then I tried to save what I was working on as a draft and it wouldn't let me. I hit the proverbial brick wall with them.... whatever I tried... it came up with the "enter password to switch now" page. So, it was either loose everything I had typed and not be able to log in to old blogger again or switch. Fortunately I had already made a test blog to practice on so I switched.

At least it left the main blog in the old template till I could play with it. But even that didn't work.. I played with the test, got it like I wanted, downloaded it and saved it, went to my main blog template, chose the new one, uploaded the one I had fixed and ..... PRESTO! All the fixes from the test blog were gone. So I have been tweeking most of the day... just finished fixing the expandable post feature... the Blogger Hacking the Matrix instructions were as clear as mud and the code they gave was in the end wrong... so went to the Blogger Forums and got help there.

I must say I do like the new archive look on their templates...no more searching through to find one... but now all my old expandable posts are wacked out....I feel like Charlie Brown.... Sigh!

Granny Annie said...

I received a clue from Jill to email support@blogger.com. I have done that but have not received a response. It sounds like everyone believes this too shall pass. I certainly hope so because they keep tricking me on the photo posting. Yes, I agree that Picasa and Google blogging should be compatible. Who knew!

Cris said...

Sorry, I am soo far behind, trying to catch up, with the news. :-)

Biff Spiffy said...

We have a Google operation in Lansing, MI (state capitol). They were wooed aggressively by the governor... they say they'll have 1000 jobs here eventually, but so far they employ about 30.

Yeah. They own us.