WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get. This is a journal blog, an explore-blog, a bit of this and that blog. Sharing where the mood takes me. Perhaps it will take you too.

Menoducational - one of those things.

Last Thursday we covered the basics of cookies, and that was rounded off on Monday with a few helpful links to assist in blocking. There is just one more very useful and informative link I would like you to have. CLICK HERE. On that front page you can plug in the url of any site and learn what type of cookies and the spread of them applies when you visit it. A nice visual. There is also a lot of easy-to-understand info. (Would have been nice to have found this before I got all lyrical... hey ho...)

One last thing on cookie-related matters. Cookies are written into software by every webmaster and are nothing to do with any single operator. Therefore, to rage against any one operator just because they are bigger or more visual is misdirected anger. Sales and marketing are a general tool common to all, just as cookies are to all the online chains. Every store has the right to put up whatever sales notices it wishes. Equally it can push which goods it chooses to online. The high street upon which the stores sit can charge rent for them being there but has no say in how they run business.

Yes Google has to comply with the cookies regulation...because so many blogs have advertising on them and advertising brings cookies - not the blogs themselves. Utilising widgets and such like apply in this category too.

Now, onto matters more directly Blogger related. Touching again on the https://... for the few who may not have caught up, the letters stand for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (the original) and the 's' is just a short hand for Secure Socket Layer. As it suggests, this means the extra layer of code ensures an increase in security of the sites which employ it. Only other people who have 'joined' the site concerned can enter and use that site. This is the protocol which has been employed by banks and shopping sites and other highly sensitive pages. Whilst there are a few folk wondering at the benefit to a hobby blogger as to this level of security, it is also good to remember that it minimises, significantly, the chances of rogue code corrupting pages. Frankly, I'm in favour of that; aren't you? If you go somewhere you used to visit regularly and now find you can't get the page, it is possible that you did not 'join' (the followers gadget on sidebars); of course there are quite a few bloggers who don't use that for some reason... Anyway. It's a good thing peeps. Trust me on this.

That out of the way, what about this change of the dashboard? Well, after a couple of weeks working with the thing over three blogs, I have decided there are both pros and cons. It certainly doesn't look quite as sleek; unfinished even. Why on earth they just didn't leave the 'pencil' instead of writing 'new post'  beats me. The visual prompt would have been much easier to locate without the blue air expulsion. There is no real advantage for swapping between blogs as such - in fact it is downright frustrating and if one wishes to edit after posting, it drops back to reading list instead of to posts, which is idiotic.

Did I say there were pros? Well there is - a pro, singular. Finally I can access blogger dashboard reader on my YAMroid. Previously, if out and about, I had to go to my blog and pick you all off the side bar. Very tedious. For some reason the dashboard would not scroll in Android. Now it does. THAT at least is a positive. Overall, though, we are talking ugly and clumsy. I have accessed the feedback button (bottom right of your screens when in dashboard or edit post mode) to beat my chest a bit. There is also the Blogger Blog, where they indicate (as I had suspected) that this is just the 'first stage' of a larger shift. It is possible to leave your views and comments there too. The louder we shout, the greater the faint possibility we will be heard.

I am not against change per se, but let it be for genuine benefit. This does not appear to be it.

Having said that we are stuck with it and of course we will adjust, as that is the human nature...sigh... There is a large call from bloggers for having the choice as to which dashboard we use so you never know; it might happen.

Continue breathing though. For goodness sake, keep breathing.

7 comments:

  1. Oh dear I have heard rumblings from blogger before about changes but these sound like big ones. Not sure TOGM is ready for them.
    PS Madi might have more cards but thus far Bcat and I have the largest one
    :-)
    Hugs HiC

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  2. WE think that UGLY is the BEST Description of this "CHANGE" Blogger has made..
    Back in THE GOOD OLD DAYS.... 87 days ago... When we went to our Blogger Tab... it took us to a Nice Looking place... Our HEADER Pic was Right on Top... and the Blog Reading roll was Right there...on the Left Paw Side... and the BLOGS we Follow were in the CENTER...
    There were places to click to Make a New Post... To Check the Comments left fur us... to See our Stats and Settings (BORING)... butt we only do those thingys Once in a while... we want to see OUR BLOG HEADER again...with OUT having to go to our POSTS... Throughout the day we open and close our Laptop 87 times... and when we OPEN it again... NOW we have to deal with the TEDIOUS Task of scrolling down to the Tiny and difficult to click on... Reading List thingy.
    GACK... UGH ... THIS is Ponderous and UGLY.. BUTT... we like Cookies... esp. Warm Peanut Butter ones... right from the OVEN.

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  3. Sounds like Blogger isn't listening to the users at all.

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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  4. I am breathing! Thanks for the clearest explanation of these technical things like cookies and https that I've ever read. Thank you!!!!!!

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  5. More excellent info! I loves that you explain it for Ma, cause even though she can navigate pretty well, she really didn't know what the https meant! BOL
    and nows I'm hungry for cookies....
    Kisses,
    Ruby ♥

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  6. thanks so much, we will read more to get smarter. since yesterday blogger has a new challenge for me... there is not only one captcha where I have to click on street signs or food or storefronts, there are two...I'm grateful for any entertainment to cheer me up, but that is a little overdone LOL

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  7. Yay change! What can we do about a free service??!! Cannot complain.

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