Testing OpenLiveWriter’s connection

So, last time I tried to post here from Open Live Writer (I am vaguely recalling) it failed with an intensely frustrating lack of explanation.

The recollection is vague because it was so long ago, resurfacing patchily now that the same thing is happening again.

Today I stumbled upon a possible explanation and maybe a fix by Dave Burdick . {Crossing my fingers}

Now when I’ve hit publish (several times today)
If the pop-its_gone (is there a better word for a message box that doesn’t hang around long enough to be read?)
___ might have been the error message Dave refers to
&&& for which the solution appears to be loading images to a Google Pictures file before copying into the post
=== then will I finally throw in the towel on blogging ?

Before I go messing about with Dave’s suggestion, I’ll see whether I can at least post without pictures.

Can I get '<'p'>' tags in Blogger? (Test 1)

Test 1: Write post in Docs with space before paragraphs & copy across?

Remember to either: never edit the html in Blogger, or if I do edit the html, do not return to Compose view before publishing.

This is a bit of a nuisance, but could it be a way to keep my first blog, and my tags too?

Result: NO

Back? Maybe

I had forgotten the problems managing post content in Blogger, because <p> tags keep disappearing. I seem to recall reading a suggestion that it is the Blogger editor at fault.

And I forgot how *&^%$#@! bad that gets when I want to structure my content around images:

1. put tags in HTML editor

2. switch to Compose view = no paragraphs



3. switch back to HTML view = tags gone.


This seems like a fairly significant problem--one that may send me looking elsewhere, maybe switching to WordPress.com if I leave WordPress.org .

However -- if it is possible to blog here easily using a better editor, perhaps I could happily return. Do you have any suggestions?

What the? DDC class note confusion

Could someone make sense of this for me:

Class works of more than one sculptor in the same geographic area, region, place in general (not limited by continent, country, locality) in 730.91

I'm puzzled, how can the same geographic area not be limited by at least continent?

Could Flickr's "Blog This" feature be improved?

Reflecting on signs of decay?
Originally uploaded by moonflowerdragon

Absolutely!

Where to start?

1. Save to draft. I appreciate that Flickr might need to keep it simple so it remains cross-platform. We can style our post up according to our own blogging platform's editing methods. BUT, the way it is at the moment, blogging a photo directly from Flickr means a Publish without any polish, and that means autofeeds like Twitterfeed let people see a post in a state that we would probably *not* prefer, like this one was before I began this post-publication editing. 
2. ALL proper attribution data.  As well as the image's title and uploader (which is all I get now) I need the date the image was published at Flickr and the licence by which I may publish it.  The description might also contain important information - unfortunately it might also contain too much information, so I'd at least like the option to include the description.
3. Show me what will be sent.  When we set up our blog for Flickr we can choose a layout template for our posts - but unless we're blogging from Flickr often, who remembers how they chose?  And who remembers how to find the page that enables us to change the template, not that that page shows what our current choice is.  So, while composing my post (that I want to be able to send as draft) I want to see all the proper attribution (and optional) data laid out according to the Flickr-template I've chosen. Unfortunately this is what I was shown while composing, but not what was sent:

So are there alternatives?

AddThis enables save to draft, but doesn't grab code accessing the image - Perhaps there are other browser add-ons, or platform plug-ins & if so please tell me about them.

ImageCodr endeavours to provide what Flickr should in terms of proper attribution for Creative Commons licenses but doesn't, although as Flickr has not updated CC licences to 3.0, even ImageCodr cannot fix that fault with Flickr.

  by  moonflowerdragon 

Unfortunately, for some reason the generated code only includes the image title on hover, not with the photo. And I still don't have the upload date or any relevant information that might have been provided in the description.

Use Embed code available from All sizes screen

Unfortunately this is what we get from that embed code:


Just the photo and link, no attribution data at all.


kwout
If I kwout (with an image map) from the photostream I can select to show Title, licence, and date, and you can deduce uploader from automated title. However, description is missing, it is small, and it doesn't quite meet Flickr's terms because it doesn't directly to the photo's own page:

Flickr: moonflowerdragon's Photostream via kwout

Alternatively, if I kwout (with image map) from the photo's page: the date, uploader and licence data are not within range of the image for kwout to grab, although you can see amongst the miscellanea in the description there is other relevant attribution information:

Cardboard cuppa with Troy Aristocarnas on Flickr - Photo Sharing! via kwout

- = + = -

And because it was fun... the stimulus for this contemplation of problems blogging from Flickr ... was a post I created at Tumblr solving a puzzle for The Clueless Librarian:

moonflowerdragon, I believe I have an answer for the: ... via kwout

Related articles by Zemanta (and me)

• Blogging challenge to CULLB602C@UB (moonflowerdragon.blogspot.com)
• Creative Commons Licences

Sulking... come back later #blogeverydayofjune

Am grumbling... blogger templates... and my lack of sufficient expertise.

Amelia's beautiful Ink Stain blog theme from Deluxe Templates: ...

Information Literacy with Amelia: Joy! Joy! Joy! via kwout

...motivated me to look for a template for my blog that would suit me better. I found one that looked perfect.

Unfortunately it wouldn't work for me. :-( Sigh

After uploading the new template file, I would have lost a bundle of widgets and so had the option to keep them. Unfortunately the choice was to keep them all, or none. And for some reason the old header and posts sections were considered widgets. I did keep all widgets but I cringed in wonder at what would result.

The posts in the main content didn't have my AddThis button or edit pencil or the date and each post's "Links to this post" appeared closer to the next post than the one it related to. But there was a second set of posts in the side bar where all those features were. The other widgets in the side bar were all mixed up - now they were easy to reorder but for some reason their spacing did not match the display template's spacing and I noticed that the template sourced a spacer gif from photobucket I think so I guess that blogger wasn't able to retrieve that gif for my blog.

I fiddled and fiddled for hours trying to sort it all out, but I clearly just do not know enough to fix it.

Now I must hie to bed, still so many things to organise for our trip.

Faulty example by APA for citing weblog posts

Update 25 May 2010

With corrections to the first printing of the 6th edition, APA have not only cleared up their example of citing a blog post, but added an example for citing a comment to a blog post (APA, c2010, in pdf sorry, p. 6). The examples are only slightly better: three factors are still missing without explanation:

1. Blog title. Although the post, and comment from it, that have been chosen for examples, the blog (which remember is a periodical) title does appear in the URL - however it must be remembered that not all blogs are hosted such that their titles show in the URL, and that sometimes blogs are moved. In such cases the title of the blog in which the post appeared might make it easier for other researchers to find the post (or comment) if the blog is moved after you have cited it. While in many cases author and article title might be sufficient, authors do write in different blogs, and over time might conceivably use the same article title in two or more different places.
   *By default I would encourage people to provide the Blog Title unless it would only duplicate information contained elsewhere in the reference (such as for this blog, where my name as author is the same as the blog's title).
   
2. Retrieved date. Blog posts and sometimes blog comments are editable and removable, a retrieval date is advised when our source may be changed.
3. Precise URL, the comment APA cite was one of a multitude, and I think that commenter did comment more than once on that date, the specific URL to the specific comment would be useful.

Originally posted:

Just over two years ago I explored how I would cite and reference a weblog post in APA style.

I discovered some time since that APA published in 2007 a revised and updated version of section 4.16 (Electronic References) of their Publication Manual, however I didn't want to pay for a copy to see whether it said anything about citing blogs. So it was only recently when the library in which I work processed a print copy of the new guide that I was able to see whether my guesses are compatible with official APA style requirements.

Following the principles and guidelines spelled out in the guide, I stand by my guesses.

Unfortunately, APA provided an example labelled Weblog Post. Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

In my opinion APA's example 49. Weblog post is a Fail ... for a start their citation is for a comment to a post, not to the post itself... but more on that later.

I first suspected a problem when I saw that APA had decided that a weblog is more like a message board, discussion group or forum than an online periodical or even a well-organised regularly updated website. I think that decision is a mistake, maybe resulting from a writer/editor who did not understand the nature of blogging, or hadn't viewed very many?

APA's example reference for a weblog post citation (p.24) does not follow APA's principles for directing readers as closely as possible to the source you used and using a retrieval date when content may be changed or updated (p.2). See for yourself:

Their example (I haven't worked out how to give the first line a negative indent):

bfy. (2007, January 22). Re: The unfortunate prerequisites and consequences of partitioning your mind. Message posted to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Reading the URL you'll immediately recognise a lack of post-specific URL... perhaps Scienceblogs did not have post-specific URLs when APA found this alleged weblog post, when was that? Oh that's right, for some reason APA have decided not to mention when they retrieved this alleged post from the weblog.

Well there is a date, so lets go to the blog and just chase down the post. Hm, the first thing I noticed was that PZ Myers is the author of the blog Pharyngula. That's odd, well maybe bfy was a guest blogger that day? Scrolling through previous after previous within January 2007 we eventually reach January 22 and find that indeed at 5:59pm that day PZ Myers himself posted The unfortunate prerequisites and consequences of partitioning your mind. What is going on?

Perhaps you guessed before I found the next problem with a text search for bfy: APA have referred to a comment to a blog post. Now maybe when APA accessed the blog its comments did not have their own URL, but how could they mistake a blog post for one of its comments? Is that like mistaking the author of a poem or short story with the editor who compiles an anthology, or a letter to a magazine with the original article on which they comment?

So, APA?
Please redo your work on citing weblogs:

1. Distinguish between posts and comments upon those posts.
2. First example should be for a regular post with its own URL.
   
3. Is any other example necessary? ie are there blogs that do not give posts their own URL?
   

On a better note:
I think the example is probably almost suitable as a reference for citing a comment to a weblog.

Almost. :) But I'll write about that in an update to my earlier post on citing a blog post comment.

Blogging to productivity?

Diigo has some work to do on its blog post feature (with which it offers to help one post about a page to one's blog).

First problem:
By providing the link to bookmarked page at the top of the post, to insert my own comments before the link I went through a fiddly process of copying in some non-hypertext. Perhaps they could provide some default plain text preceding the link.

Second problem:
When creating the post at Diigo, while the difference between my annotations (sticky notes) and quotes (highlights) appears relatively clear, I don't see a differentiation between my post and the quoted (highlighted) components from the bookmarked page. Unless this gets fixed, I guess I could just continue to send as a draft ... which is probably a wise and elsewhere-advised move anyway. Having done so and looking at it later, I've tried using Blogger's quote style but it just looks messy now.

Third problem:
In forming this post, snippets I have sticky-noted have jumped ahead of snippets I only highlighted. I think I'll leave that as created so it can hopefully be witnessed.

However, that wasn't why I began blogging today.

Jumping between research for a current assignment, and feed-reading, Library Voice pointed me to Leo Babauta's post at Web Worker. I'm curious how it is going to appear.

10 Ways to be Productive with Your Blog Annotated

Leverage the power of a blog and an online audience — even if it’s just an audience of your friends and family — and become more productive.

• such hopeful promise - post by moonflowerdragon

1. Post goals.

• potential conflict with # 3 below: one would need to consider whether a stated goal 'looks good' - post by moonflowerdragon

Once you’ve committed to a goal on your blog, you should also use the blog to report your progress.

• I see how this might be useful... although there is a risk for procrastinators - what if career-related future readers lack compassion for the value of procrastination? - post by moonflowerdragon

2. Log progress.

3. Networking. The more people who read your blog, of course, the better it can be for networking.

If you’re ever short of ideas, post a question to your readers, asking them for ideas.

• of course, for success in this you do *need* readers in the first place. - post by moonflowerdragon

4. Ideas.

5. Get help

• I've certainly seen bloggers express gratitude for help they've received from their readers. Wouldn't I just love to have someone show me exactly how to prepare a consultation plan? - post by moonflowerdragon

7. Crystallize your ideas.

• I've certainly found this to be the case. Unfortunately (for my posting rate) many times I also crystallize a realisation that I don't really want to reveal my discoveries so publicly. - post by moonflowerdragon

Problemoj pri Esperanto

Problems with Esperanto

Maybe I will continue to study Esperanto because it has been fun. However I continue to be irritated by the keyboard-unfriendly accented letters: even pre-keyboard by accent another letter to create the symbol for a different sound? Then there is the 'ts' sound of the letter _c_: why? Also why an accented _u_ for the sound for which a 'w' would better serve?

As it happens, I buzzed by an Esperanto page on Wikipedia, and thought I would check out the critiques. While there are at least two criticisms I consider trivial (ie some complaints about difficult pronunciations which don't seem too difficult to me, and complaints that Esperanto words resemble English words that they are *not* - {so!? that happens between languages and can help stimulate memory}) many I definitely recognised from my own experience.

Last night I was pondering how to represent the sounds with common keyboard letters. Geoff Eddy, among criticisms on phonology and orthography, offered a solution:

• There really isn't much point in an accent which is used on only one letter; why not spell the accented U (which comes from Belorussian) as W?
• There's no need to write the affricates as single letters. Replace C by TS; you can now spell SH as C and CH as TC.
• There's no harm in replacing J with the otherwise unused Y. This allows JH to lose its accent, and GH can now be more sanely spelt DJ.
• Assuming that HH is really necessary, the unused X (from the Cyrillic alphabet) can be used for it.

Whether X or Q or C is used instead of ĥ (HH) or ŝ (SH), another letter is available to represent another distinctive sound which could be used to create new words, or in suffixes to avoid homonyms. (Is there another distinctive sound that would be useful? I was thinking of 'th' [as in the] or 'th' [as in thin] but perhaps they are too similar to 'v' and 'f'?) Although going back a little... ĝ (as in gem or january) doesn't sound like dj to me.

I like the potential simplicity from word-building but it is regrettable that Zamenhof did not logically ensure that roots did not end similarly to his suffixes (or I guess begin similarly to prefixes). Throughout the criticisms were examples of compound words that could be translated in diverse ways because of this lack of distinctiveness. Justin Rye, among his detailed criticisms, discussed problems surrounding various word-builds.

43Things to Blogger not working?

43Things entry
Originally uploaded by moonflowerdragon.

Before finally being allowed to switch, I couldn't get this 43Things entry to go to either the old blogger (because they no longer support it) or the new blogger (which I had created in case I was never to be permitted to switch). And the latter did not work even though 43Things said it did:

43Things Reported Post
Originally uploaded by moonflowerdragon.
How annoying - for all that fiddling I did compiling it with the ultimate intention of it ending up here, I'll have to copy it across, double-checking the html (because 43Things allows some nifty little tricks that I doubt will be permitted here).