Picture Size: Update and iPad Comment Tip

Nephew-in-Law and computer programming whiz, Mark, has worked his magic.

Anyone with any equipment, platform and browser (which, for the most part amongst my readers who had problems seems to be iPad users) should now see my photos fitted into the available space for the blog.

If you return to the post Picture Size: A Test the top picture should appear on your post the same size as the second one.

Thank you Mark!

Most, perhaps all, iPad users, and that includes me some of the time, have problems when making comments on blogs if they make a mistake.  Carol in Cairns explained to me why and how to solve the problem.  I can't remember why and I can't find Carol's email with the instructions but here is the how:

When you make a mistake and the program will not let you make any alterations to a draft comment  simply touch the 'keyboard remove' key in the bottom right of the on-screen keyboard.  Then touch the comment box to re-instate the keyboard.  It should then work.

Perhaps I Won't See You Tomorrow!

I was a bit disturbed when I logged on to Words With Friends when I was having a late morning coffee today.  What do they know that I don't know?

The purpose of this post is to see if I can manage to get the photo to load properly from my iPad having had some help from Carol the iPad guru.

Thinking Ahead

Okay so by ahead I only mean this coming week but that's quite an achievement for me these days. That doesn't mean that I don't plan.  I do.  Sort of.  But this time I've done no planning apart from booking my flights. The rest is all being planned for me.

I'm going to Sydney to stay with a close friend of over 50 years who lives in Canada but who has a daughter living in Sydney.   The last time we were all together was when we all holidayed in Italy in 2012.  Her daughter has been on at me for years because we meet in Europe or here in New Zealand but I've never been to visit her in Sydney which is less than 4 hours away across the Tasman from New Zealand!

It is more years than I can remember since I have been away for more than a day or so without my laptop: especially if there were photos to be downloaded and blogs to be written.  Well the next eight days will be different.  I leave here at crack of dawn tomorrow morning.  Me, my iPad and my iPhone and no Macbook!  I have, however, decided that by the time I get to Sydney I will have learned more about using my iPad.  I know that at the moment I do not realise its full potential.  I've even downloaded the Apple manual for it.  My intention is to carry on blogging as if I was doing so on the laptop.  I suddenly decided this because of a post by Carol in Cairns.  Thank you Carol for that and for the subsequent information.

Why the photo below?  Simply because I wanted to see if I could do this post with a photo from the iPad.

A rather large hearse with a 1929 Austin 7 tucked in behind.

Addendum:

Well it didn't all go completely to plan.  The picture downsized itself and you can't take photos off the iPad using Blogger in Safari on the iPad which is rather odd.  However I'm sure I'll overcome these difficulties and carry on blogging.

Do You Ever Wonder?

Well perhaps it doesn't happen to you so you've never had to.  Perhaps you are not a curious person.

When I opened my dashboard one morning last week I noticed that instead of 129 followers I only had 128. 

I wondered whom I had 'lost'.  I wondered why whomsoever it was wasn't there any more.

Perhaps it was because he or she took umbridge at a perceived criticism of a couple of Royals.  Perhaps it was because the person was fed up of my blog.  Perhaps he or she is like many, perhaps even the majority, of my 'followers' who don't actually follow at all any more but did at some time.  Perhaps the person was one of those who followed me in the hope that I'd then follow their blog and perhaps I didn't.  Perhaps the person has gone to Google+ or is a Facebook Follower.

Life's full of perhapses. 

Why Comment?

Red wrote a post a few days ago entitled Confession.  In it he said that he did not read 'very many comments that are made on other bloggers's (sic) posts'.  Reading the comments made on that post it would seem that few people do.  I know that when I was discussing this with someone last year he surprised me by saying that he didn't because he didn't have time and rarely ticked the 'Notify me' box either.  So what, I wonder, is the point of commenting in those circumstances?  Do some commenters (for those who would correct me and say that I should use commentator please see here) only want and expect their comments to be heard by the person who posted?

The most common reason given for not reading comments was lack of time. 

My Blogland is deliberately small.  I follow blogs for various reasons.  Some educate me (perhaps geographically or artistically for example).   Some challenge and stimulate me by being interesting and perhaps provocative (no, Adrian, your name never even crossed my mind).  Some fascinate me.  Some I follow for purely personal reasons.  A few I follow but am not actually sure why.

I don't manage to read every blog I follow every day and even when I do I don't always have anything to say so I don't always comment.  Generally speaking though if I read a blog then I do commenters the courtesy of reading the comments as well even if only cursorily.

Of course on some blogs the comments (especially on weekly set task posts followed by dozens or hundreds of people) often consist of nothing more than something like 'nice pics thanks for posting'.  Why bother?   I just skim the comments more in hope than expectation.

Almost all the blogs I follow merit a 'proper' comment for one reason or another and many elicit comments which are either controversial (no, Adrian, I wasn't thinking of you again) or really are worth reading.

For me the comments are an integral part of the posting and reading process because blogging is so often an exchange of thoughts.  So if you comment on a post on a blog that I read then you can be pretty much guaranteed that at least one person in addition to the blogger will read your comment.

I wonder if a poll of my readers would elicit the same response as those who follow Red (whose posts are frequently interesting and thought provoking).

 

Who's Graham Edwards? Where's GB?

I've just noticed that I'm no longer GB.  This is not good enough.  I don't want to be Graham Edwards.  Blogger has substituted my Blogger persona with my Google+ persona.  It's my fault for ticking some request box or other in an email yesterday.  Caveat Blogger!

Now how do I remedy that I wonder?

Done it.  Blogger really didn't like me doing that.  I'll no longer have all the benefits of the thousands of extra people who would come flocking to read my blog having seen me on Google+.  Do I care?  No.   I'm quite happy being just plain GB in my small corner of Blogland.  For the time being anyway.

Post of the Year - So Far

I get a little irritated when the Car of the Year 2013 is announced in September 2012 or the Book of the Year 2012 is only open to books published before the middle of the year.  Which is why Pauline's post Introduce a Friend gets my nomination for Blog Post of 2012 - So Far. 

Of course there are so many posts of considerable merit even in my tiny corner of Blogland but this one really struck a note and it's not just because I know the writer and her friend.

I can think of quite a few posts by many Blogland friends which have gladdened my heart at the moment I have read them and sometimes they come back to me but just occasionally there are posts which really make me stop in my tracks and stick in what passes for my mind.  Of course it's a very personal choice and it's nothing to do with any particular post being 'better' than another one.  It's all very subjective.

So, for example, I can never forget Jenny's Objects in the Background from her blog An English Travel Writer.  For many that might be a very ordinary post compared with many of Jenny's long and interesting descriptions of her travels but to me the photo was magical and memorable.

Then there was the post a few months ago by Jaz of Treacy Travels who has stopped blogging for the moment (which saddens me because it was Jaz who started Thankful Thursday and she has been inspirational) but who posted  in August Thankful Thursday: The Power of Words.  That post contains so much from very useful advice to sentences to stop you in your tracks when you know what Jaz has gone through in the last few years.  (I've just noticed that I never commented on that post.  I must have been overcome at the time.)

I'm rather sorry that I started this because the more I think about it the more I realise just how many wonderful posts there are amongst those whose Blogworlds I inhabit and there will be posts I come across or remember which I wish I had mentioned.  Most of us write perfectly ordinary posts which are usually interesting or entertaining and have photos showing us each others worlds.  Some of those posts have inspired me to look at physical things more carefully or look at my ideas from a different perspective.  Some like Adrian's have been educational (geographically and politically!), amusing, controversial, always entertaining and with superb photos. 

Are there posts out there which you would nominate - so far?

Happy Anniversary and Plus ça Change

Five years ago today this blog was born: two years after I first went to New Zealand.  I say 'went' instead of 'came' because at this moment I am not in New Zealand.  Nor, in fact, am I in my 'other' home of Scotland.  I am hidden away in the Italian Tuscan countryside.  It is a Sunday morning and all's quiet, very quiet.

I was wondering how to commemorate the day.  I could search for my favourite posts or photos or a summary of some sort.  I even contemplated writing about why I love New Zealand and my life there.  I've decided, though, just to seize the moment and post a few ordinary reminders of my life in New Zealand.

Blogging has become such an important part of my life and, through blogging and particularly in New Zealand, I have made some truly wonderful friends.  I won't use the word 'real' because some of my blog friends are as real to me as those I meet face to face.

Most of my reminders are to do with thoughts of my friends and my special New Zealand family but there are some other reminders:

The hills of Hawkes Bay

A picture of a Kingfisher in pastel which hangs in my study by Catriona aged 9

Some of the things which make The Cottage my home

The Cottage

And, of course, croquet

Back in Blogland

Hi.  I'm back in Blogland.  The posts since I left NZ have been scheduled and there are still a few more to come.  I'm still in Glasgow but I'm hoping that I may get a few real live posts done and comments and blogfriends' blogs read over the next few days before I get back to Lewis on Sunday.  Time will tell.

Blog Appearance on Cellphones

A number of people have mentioned that when they are using their cellphones/mobiles the blogs do not appear in a phone-friendly format.  Unlike many people I've been using the new Blogger interface since its beta days and I think that it's a considerable improvement on the old interface.  One of the things that I did as soon as it became possible was set my template to mobile format for use on mobiles instead of the usual template which we see on our laptops or PCs.  It can be found on the following page in the new interface.

Thankful Thursday

It's raining.  I've got bloggers block.  The irony is that the rain gives me time to blog.  An additional irony is that I have so much material for blogs stacked up that I should have had enough done and scheduled to take me to the end of the month when I return to my other life in Scotland.

Do you like molasses?  When I was a small child having been brought up with food rationing Mum and Dad had this idea that a spoonful of molasses each day was good for you.  I see from the label that it's rich in iron, calcium and potassium so they were probably correct.  Dad actually liked it.  It's one of the very few foods that I can actually say that I detested.  I assume that if I tried it today I would still detest it but as I don't have to try it I have no intention of so doing.  I have a jar of it in the pantry because I used it in a cake recipe a while ago.

So why have I introduced molasses?  Well partly because I was thinking that my brain felt like it was wallowing in the stuff and partly because when I saw it this morning I thought to myself how thankful I was that I didn't have to eat it.

Today's The Day

I get back into Blogland.  Mind you I thought that yesterday but 'twas not to be.  The forecast for today is heavy showers and then rain and the rest of the week is supposed to be worse.  C'est la vie.  Hunkering down is something I can do for a few days quite happily.  I know that I need to be back.  Usually I wake to 20 to 30 emails (a lot more if I've been very active in Blogland) in the in-boxes spread amongst my 17 email accounts (I use different accounts for different purposes and it restricts the spam to the one I use for travel - travel companies seem to be targets for spam or some of them sell their huge email subscriptions).  Today I woke to not a single email.  I can't recall that happening before.  I had to refresh my POP mail 3 times before I'd believe it.  Mind you a friend has emailed me whilst I've been writing this paragraph so at least I know that my mail is working.  One thing I have noticed over the years is that, as a rule, I get far fewer emails at weekends and I have a perception that there is less blog posting too at weekends.  I wonder why.  Do people spend more family time and/or go out more at weekends?

A Hiatus?

Today was the first day of the 78th Annual Hawkes Bay Croquet Tournament.  It's been going for quite a lot longer than I have!  It's been a warm, sunny and enjoyable day.   Mike, a friend from Gisborne who is to be one of the team representing New Zealand at Croquet versus South Africa, is staying with me for the 9 days of the tournament.  I'll be partnering him in the Golf Croquet Doubles in this week's tournament.   

I'm hoping that blogging and blog reading will continue without much interruption but that may be an over-optimistic hope.  I try though. 

I Don't Believe It

I have dozens of half finished posts spread out over the last year or so, perhaps longer.  Every now and then I go into Posts>Drafts and haul them out, look at them, use the odd thought and close them again.  I last did that a day or two ago.  I have, somewhere a half-written post I was just going to finish but when I went in to Posts all there is is All.  The other filters have gone.  Excuse my French but Le Blogger m'a vraiment pissé outre du de premier rang cette fois.

Blog Comments

I've been here before in my post on 24 February How Big is Your Blogland?  That post wasn't specifically about comments but out of it arose the fact that on certain blogs which don't use embedded comments or have templates which allow it, comments cannot be followed by subscribing to emails.  I have no idea what the critera are because quite a lot of blogs still permit embedded comments.  I know that most people don't follow up on comments and some are not interested in other people's comments.  Apart from the 'I was here' comments made on the weekly posts like the Friday Shoot Out I am interested in the comments and in following what some of my Blogland friends say in reply to my comments.  Unfortunately some of the most interesting fall into the 'can't follow' category.  This means that if I wish to follow up I have to go into their blogs and re-trace all the posts in which I was particularly interested.  Especially as some people have a habit of posing questions in response to comments.  I do hope the problem is solved soon.

Giveaway Time

By that I do not mean that I am giving away time.  Would that I could.   It's just that Scriptor Senex aka CJ and also known to me as Bruv is running a giveaway on his blogs Rambles From My Chair and several of his other blogs this week.   Many of you who read this blog will also read CJ's but just in case you don't then I suggest that you will find much of interest in his corner of Blogland.

It seems to be catching because Jenny Woolf on her blog, An English Travel Writer is also running a giveaway this week.  I'm a fairly recent devotee of her blog but I've found it to be a very interesting and independent way to learn about places to which I might contemplate travelling.  I was certainly so impressed by her article on Visiting Cairo recently that I am seriously considering the possibility of a visit to a place that our Mum always wanted to visit but which has not, until now, ever had any appeal to me.

PS I'm not sure what happened.  I wrote this days ago but it never posted.

Am I The Only One

who is unhappy with the new arrangement for comments on Blogger?

This relates to blogs which have now had 'subscribe to this post' removed by Blogger.

Now when I make a comment on a blog which is moderated (quite a few that I follow) I have no way of knowing whether the comment has been put on the blog unless I go back and look.  I have no way of knowing what other comments have been made unless I go back and look.  And it would appear that I have no way of knowing whether the original blogger has replied or commented on my comment unless I go back and look.

I know that quite a few of you from the comments on my recent post on the subject of commenting didn't tick for replies anyway and have no interest on what others say on a blog you have commented on.  

So what is the point of commenting if the comment is simply seen only by the original blogger (in the case of a comment made on a blog with moderated comments when none were showing when the comment was made?).  Or is that what most bloggers want?  

On many of the blogs I follow the bloggers always follow up on a comment.  Will I now have to scour their posts to see what they have said?  Will they bother?  Will I bother?

This seems totally at odds with Bloggers new threaded commenting.

Is this a knee-jerk reaction to something that is going to alter again?  Is there a way around it?

One Good Thing from Blogger seems to be the inclusion wef three hours ago of gadgets on the new Dynamic Views.  I've been a bit puzzled as to why we have profiles when they can't be seen on the blog in dynamic view.  Presumably you have to join Google + or go via the Followers (which are to be removed did someone say?).

It used to be so simple.

Rant over.  For now!

How Big is Your Blogland?

CJ made the comment in his post yesterday that "I couldn't cope with the hundreds of e-mails that I'd get if I ticked the little box on people's blogs! I know GB does but he has access to the internet on his phone and seems to follow about 200 blogs and read their replies as well. He always did manage his time better than me."  Oddly that's the first time I have realised the big difference between our Blogland lives and the way we follow bblogs.  I actually follow very few Blogs (excluding family I follow around 20 or so and not all contribute regularly) but those I follow I follow in detail and I try to read all the comments made on them and I try to follow up on all the comments made on mine.

So although my Blogland horizons have slowly expanded over the years my Blogland is still very small.  I do, however, feel that I know my Blogland friends quite well. I also enjoy the discussions which posts and comments can lead to both within and without the comment box on a blog itself.

I think that I realised just how different my approach to Blogland is when I read a post recently after being directed to it in someone's post on word verification.  The blogger said "Just being 100% point blank, here.  I follow between 300 and 400 blogs.  I leave a TON of comments all over Blogland every day.  I CANNOT CONTINUE TO DO SO IF I RUN INTO WORD VERIFICATION AT SO MANY SITES!  I don't mean to be rude, but my time is better spent in other pursuits than decoding and typing nonsense.  Let's face it, we all have limited time to give to blogging (and I already give too much!)"  With over 700 followers and 156 comments on that post alone I could see where she was coming from.  But it certainly is not where I want to be!

Writing

I started a blog post this morning around 0710.  It's now 1145 and it's hardly progressed at all.  I have, however, read lots of blogs, got the washing out, researched the internet for information on the subjects of some of my photos and have indexed and titled some as well.   I've written the odd email or two and a birthday card.  I've done two crosswords and had breakfast and drunk my morning coffee.  All in all it's been a thoroughly enjoyable and lazy morning.  All because I can't go and play croquet or, for that matter, do anything which involves moving my body other than slowly and carefully.  However what sprung to mind was SP's comment that her posts were just done off the cuff and rarely took more than 10 minutes.  It takes me longer than that to decide what the post is going to be about!  And then I came across the following which I'd drafted back in April last year but never posted.

How long does it take you to write your average blog post?  Or your average email?  Or a letter?  Or, indeed, anything.   Of course there isn't really an answer to that question other than responding by asking 'How long is a piece of string?'.  I've just written a post which has taken nearly two hours but that's not the whole story.  I had to download the photos from my camera and my phone.  I was, sort of, watching the TV News and making dinner too and in true AAADD fashion I managed to do (and not do) a number of other things as well.

I was thinking of the time it's taken because in a recent post, Terminology, on her blog, Katherine remarked quoted, in context, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” It would appear that Mark Twain made the comment.   Apparently, however, nothing is ever truly original because Blaise Pascal (French mathematician and physicist 1623 - 1662), in his "Lettres provinciales", letter 16, 1657 said "I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short (Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue parceque je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte)".

The point of all that rambling is that I spent my career making sure that letters, cases, reports, legal documents, the words spoken by politicians (but written by their civil servants) etc were always clear, precise and, hopefully, open only to the interpretation (or in some cases interpretations!) that were desired.

In many ways I would have to agree with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes in the 1891 novel ‘A Case of Identity’  when he said “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

However now that I am supposed to be writing more entertaining prose where, let's face it, no one really cares whether I have crossed the is and dotted the ts (er that doesn't sound quite right correct does it?), I find it very hard to break old habits.

On Secretly Skint and Stalkers

A number of people who follow SP, some of whom do not blog or comment, have asked me if I know what has happened to her given that when you go to her blog you get the following:

On the 14 February SP posted the following:

I Get to Have My Very Own Stalker!

by SP

I've often wondered why, when I've posted a comment on someone else's blog,  it doesn't appear instantly, but is saved  "for approval."

I've always had open comments on my blog, and have never had a problem. Well, apart from getting an email pointing out that as none of the writer's friends were experiencing problems with their French tax returns,  the ongoing problems that we're having with ours, must therefore  be a figment of my imagination. I WISH!

So, today I've had a few comments left, of course by "Anonymous"  and with an @noreply email address.

I was accused of many things, including being a liar and recycling a blog that I wrote at the time of, and about, Laughing Boy's illness, when things were at their bleakest for us.

I'm not going to go into detail about Laughing Boy's illness, it's not something that he would thank me for broadcasting, but for many months, we were just about at the end of our tether, and I wrote to try and make sense of what was happening to our lives.

It was an awful period, when we both withdrew from just about everyone around us, and spent our days going on long walks together and researching how we could cope with his illness.

As I wrote before (here) had it not been for the French health service, who eventually diagnosed correctly, and treated his illness, our lives would have been very different.

As for recycling, if I've alluded to events that happened at that time, I've always written "three years ago" before writing about them.

So, I, like Britney Spears and other celebs, get to have my own stalker, hence the "saved for approval" on my blog too.

Can't help thinking that whoever" Anonymous" is, (and I suspect that I know) they must be a bit of a wuss, if they daren't put their name to something that they have written.

Between that post on the 14 February SP posted a number of other articles until the 16 February and then nothing.  I think, given the posts between the Stalker post and the last post on the 16th, SP is taking a break until things settle down with the stalker, with LB's problems and the various other things that are happening.

Given the number of her Blogland friends who supported her after the Stalker post I think SP knows she is not alone.  I, for one, will not be removing SP from my blogroll just yet.