Margaret Rose Stringer's Blog, page 102
August 22, 2013
Well, there IS a TypePad answer ...
...but I'm not carried away with enthusiasm on its account. Still, TypePad, as ever, and as represented by their excellent Help team, have replied to my heated rave regarding the radical change made to opening up one's blog.
I have to give ’em a tick for putting up with me and my issues over the months without once losing their cool. They're very good at that. And I'd guess they're all given instruction in dealing with customers like me ... although, in my own defence, I'm never actually rude – just forecful. When I get stuck into ’em it's because of something I really care about, or really can't grasp, or really feel irritated by. Come to think of it, I suppose those are the things that make everyone edgy ...
Anyway ... Their suggested solution is the one I'd already come up with for myself; and in the absence of something of greater brevity, it will have to do.
The fact is that I actually do consider my blogging platform company to be good, sound, professional and extremely respectable. My remaining whinge is that I don't know why they made the change they did (although I do know it's something technical), and I don't like the way it was foisted upon us without notice and in a manner far too abrupt. All that being said, I have no wish to move elsewhere – for starters, I know beyond doubt that I'd never get at any other platform the kind of assistance I have here – and the prospect of starting over would mean I didn't. If you get my drift.
Perhaps the bottom line is that I hate change. And I especially hate it when I don't know why it's being wrought.
August 21, 2013
Something strange going on
My blog environment is TypePad, as I clearly show by the insertion of the TypePad logo in my sidebar. Until this-morning (AET), I was a big fan of the company; I was proud of ’em. But they've just done something so inexplicable – and done it so precipitately! – that I'm beginning to have my doubts.
TypePad's Help team have been, until now, a paragon of all things good: I received responses to all (and they are legion!) my requests for assistance, promptly, fully and without irritation – or at least without showing it.
More or less overnight they have taken an extremely radical design ... no, not design – access step, and it is both silly and infuriating. They have offered a kind of rationale for this; but the fact is that it is far from complete, and does nothing toward explaining why they made their decision and put it into place without reference to their clients (regardless of an 'advisory panel') and virtually instantly.
I think I may have to abandon my blogging efforts. There doesn't seem to be a place wherein one can post as one wants without being subject to one's blogging platform's being played around with by the company that offers it. WordPress behaved badly, and I am now looking at Typepad's behaving ... not badly, but incomprehensibly.
I have spent quite a long time (for me, anyway) in building my site – achieved only with the willing help of the TypePad Help team. I have finally reached the point where I can look about and cherry-pick things of interest from the All Things TypePad area. I can experiment and see if I'm able to manage their new design offerings.
But now ...
Well ... unless I get far better input than that I've received to date regarding modus operandi, and also regarding what's given rise to all this weird behaviour, I think I'll be obliged to call it a day. I started this blog as a support mechanism for the release of ATLMD; but I'm not prepared to maintain a blogsite wherein the simple and logical method of logging in to it is summarily removed and replaced by something requiring several more steps. Consider: whereas previously I could access my landing page to edit it with a single click, I have now to
go to my dashboard
click on 'posts'
when the list appears, click on 'pages'
and then click on the landing page title !!!
Give me strength ...
