Tag Archives: bug

Coolbook Mail

Posted on 18.11.2006 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Etrange. Mon Gmail s'est transormé en Coolmail. Exprès ou pas?

[en]

I just wrote my previous post about Coolbook, want back to my Gmail, and saw this:

Bug? Hijacking? (I visited the Coolbook site to write my post.)

It’s weird, in any case.

Google Reader: I’m Officially Pissed Off

Posted on 22.10.2006 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Trouvé la source des pubs pop-up: les extraits de ma page de "diffusion de billets" Google Reader. Je suppose qu'il y a des trous et que les pubs s'y glissent.

[en]

Update 28.10.06: Fixed.

First, excuse the strong language. Second, note that I’ve removed my latest shared items from the sidebar.

Why did I do such a thing, if I love the sharing feature of Google Reader so much?

I did it because I finally identified the culprit in the mystery of the pop-up ads on CTTS. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen: the little piece of code I had added to display the headlines of my latest shared posts.

Now, I suspect this isn’t something Google did by design. I mean, I don’t suspect Google of wanting to display pop-up ads on any page which uses this kind of “clip” (that’s what they call it). However, I do suspect that there is a hole in their code somewhere that allows ads to creep in.

Google Reader people: this would probably be worth fixing.

Thanks again to LLoyd who drew my attention to the pop-up and Chris who assisted me in narrowing down the problem.

Testing Hosted Blog Solutions

Posted on 05.12.2004 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

J'ai ouvert des blogs-tests à divers endroits qui offrent blogs et hébergement. Voici une liste de mes blogs-tests avec quelques commentaires.

[en]

I’ve started setting up test blogs here and there to try out hosted blogging solutions, as I’m eager to encourage people to start blogging, but I’m aware that getting server space, a domain, and installing WordPress isn’t something the casual user will do.

So, very brief review here, more details on the blogs themselves (which tend to be lists of complaints and problems I ran into while functioning in my lazy-lambda-user mode).

ViaBloga

My test blog is Chez Steph. ViaBloga is a cousin of Joueb.com, minus the community emphasis, which appears repulsive to some. (Think LiveJournal.)

I’ve run into a few bugs and usability problems there, which have always been quickly responded to and addressed by the staff. I should add that I’ve known Delphine and Stéphane for quite some time now, and that the latter personally asked me if I was interested in testing ViaBloga when they were starting with it.

ViaBloga has got wiki-like features I haven’t really managed to get into. One thing that really has me enthusiastic (and I discovered that today) is the list management system. Just add the url, it fetches the title of the link, the rss feed, and creates a thumbnail. Here is an example of what it can look like — look at Delphine’s blogroll, too. I’d love to see something like this rolled into a plugin for WordPress — it makes me feel like adding all sorts of links to my blog.

Skyblog

I’ve decided to go public with my skyblog, and I hope you appreciate my courage. Skyblog is clearly aimed at a very young public (teens), and even the language in the admin interface reflects that. Many of my pupils have skyblogs on which they post photos of their friends and make brief comments in sms-talk.

I find the blogs themselves ugly, and the admin interface is kludgy, though it seems it works, because my pupils always complain that WordPress is so hard to use and that skyblog is so much better and easier. One thing to be said, skyblog makes it really easy to upload photographs, so many of these skyblogs ressemble a vaguely commented photo album.

I hardly posted anything to my test blog, and upon checking it out again today I was amazed at the amount of (a) visits (nearly 1000) it had had, and (b) nasty aggressive comments complete strangers had left me. I’ve added a photo of my cat, I wonder what the reaction to that will be.

Blogsome

Blogsome is clearly my favourite. Here is my Blogsome test blog, complete with a Pink Lilies theme. It took me less than 30 seconds to open my weblog (a username, an e-mail address, and a title for the weblog — done.)

It’s WordPress, so I’m in known territory, and I’ve been busy posting bugs and comments in the forums. Blogsome is still young, and my biggest gripe for the moment is the caching problems — for example, changes to the template or links are not immediately reflected on the blog (though “publishing” a post helps).

If you’re looking for a free hosted blogging solution right now, Blogsome is the one I would recommend, along with Blogger, of course. I used Blogger for years, before Blogspot existed. I left mainly because it lacked certain features I wanted (like categories) — and I’d say that still now, it’s a little bit poor on the feature side. But it’s a good, reliable service which has been around long enough to be trusted without too many second thoughts.

MSN Spaces

I just opened a test blog at MSN Spaces. My first two posts complain quite a bit (my biggest gripe for the moment being that it doesn’t convert line breaks into paragraphs — a showstopper, if you ask me). My positive experience was changing the template — that worked fine.

So, if you’re interested, keep an eye on those blogs. I’m always happy to try things out and complain about all the problems I run into.

Edit 06.12.04: Got another test blog at NRJ blogs — though in my opinion you can barely call it a blog. I had to log out to figure out what my blog address was, and it seems totally impossible to make outgoing links. Keep an eye on the individual test blogs for comments on the different systems.

Edit 2: OK, got one at CanalBlog too. The admin interface completely takes over the browser, but it seems really usable (I didn’t run into any problems!) and the default layout is clean enough. Just an ad banner on top. That’s enough for tonight, folks!

Edit 3, 07.12.04: Add a 20six.fr test blog to the list. Follow-up post coming.

Edit 4: HautEtFort, and I think I’m done with creating test blogs. Gah.

Edit 5, 08.12.04: Hopefully the last bunch, but you never know. I seem to be suffering from some obsessive-compulsive blog opening disorder. LiveJournal, BlogSpot, Joueb and U-blog. Have I forgotten someone? I count 12 test blogs. Now let me go and update all my blogrolls.

Edit 6: A fresh new French service, open since yesterday: Mon-Blog.org, based on DotClear.

WordPress wp-login.php Problem

Posted on 04.12.2004 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

La solution au problème qui fait qu'on se retrouve parfois régulièrement expulsé de la partie admin de WordPress, et qui implique des URLs d'une longueur indécente, ne menant nulle part. Il suffit de supprimer deux lignes dans wp-login.php.

[en]

Yesterday, without a warning or an explanation, my WordPress install started acting funky. Even though I was logged in, I would be faced with very very long URLs showing me a broken login page when I tried to go back to the admin section (something like http://climbtothestars.org/wp-login.php/wp-admin/wp-smilies/wp-content/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=xxxx). Deleting all the cruft after wp-login.php allowed me to log in, but a few clicks later I would find myself faced again with the same nasty situation.

This is caused by a bug in wp-login.php. What happens is that the Blog URL option gets changed to that long funky line in the database, and of course, it messes everything up.

The first thing I did was correct the siteurl value in the database (options table), because I have direct access to the database and like sticking my hands in there. If you don’t have access to the database, you can probably (I’m not certain) set this right through the Options screen in the admin section for your blog. (Remember, if you feel locked out, go directly to http://example.com/wp-login.php to log in.)

There is a forum thread about this problem, but the solution isn’t presented very clearly to my taste — hence this post.

Now for the fix: if you are not going to be moving your blog around (ie, changing the blog address) without having direct access to the database, you can edit the file wp-login.php and delete a couple of lines. Open wp-login.php in your favourite text editor, and do a search for get_settings(‘siteurl’) — that will bring you to the right place in the file. Delete these lines:

// If someone has moved WordPress let's try to detect it
if ( dirname('http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])
!= get_settings('siteurl') )
update_option('siteurl', dirname('http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] .
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) );

I’ve had a similar problem with my Blogsome test blog — with the URL for the CSS file going all funky. It seems to be back to normal, but I’ll check that they are indeed aware of the problem.

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