Mom & Me Four Archive

...especially when on an ftp burner.
    So, I'm done over at the movie site. I like the labels facility. Each of the movies now has it's own post. I've set up a nice little Label Index. Some of the labels are specific to Mom & Me: "Dream", for instance, "mom-favorite", "me-favorite", "dad-favorite" (only one, there, but it's worth its own label). Some of the labels appear to be understandable but are idiosyncratic: "Haunting", for instance, which isn't applied typically.
    I've become aware that my CSS templates could use some tweaking in order to allow Blogger Beta to work more smoothly. I've known they could use some tweaking for some time, but Old Blogger has been so forgiving I haven't bothered. Now, it might be advantageous to cut out some of the miscellaneous fat. I'm not sure how smooth the process will become, though. Publishing continues to take forever (especially, it seems, if I'm sitting right at the computer). I've discovered some work arounds that are handy to know if you're using an "old" template that you've modified:

• I finally wandered over to the Firefox site to see if they'd upgraded the Mac OSX version. They had, so I downloaded it, and it works much, much better than the old version; just as well as the PC version. So, I've been using that on my Mac.
• If you get the message "...published with errors", view your blog to see if what you were trying to publish made it. If it did, 99 out of 100 times you can ignore the message, as, the next time you publish the errors will correct themselves.
• The same technique works when you get the "...taking longer to publish than expected..." message. Because Blogger Beta republishes the entire template every time, whatever it missed the one time it'll usually catch the next.
• Clearing your cache and history seems to help speed things up and redirect Blogger Beta, as well, but it's not a reliable technique.
• Deleting Blogger and Google cookies, a technique Blogger suggests, works only under very limited circumstances.
• If the problem involves getting the previously mentioned "image-ined letters" message, then you can be sure that the post or direction you just published is corrupted. The corruption may not be obvious, even upon looking at the post on your ISP server or editing the post. The only work around for this is, copy all the text in the post, including timing and dating, if retiming and redating the post is going to make a difference you don't want made, delete the post within Blogger Beta, then ftp your server to make sure the post has disappeared from there. If it hasn't, delete it there. Then, recreate the post.
• Blogger Beta continues to have a character limit on titles. It's more inclusive than Old Blogger, but I ran up against it once.

    Tweaking my old templates will be easy. I'll probably tweak the rest before I switch. I still haven't addressed the corrupted archive listing problem. These two fixes, though, will give me some slack on figuring out how to recreate my templates (which I don't want to change) in the skin/variable/widget format. Apparently, as well, widgets aren't all that hard to invent, since there's actually a little area in Blogger that invites users to create and share new widgets, and a limited overview of how they work. There are also lots of people, out there, who are blogging every day about the new templates and how to hack them. Some of the posts and articles are extensive and detailed. Some are even divided up into lessons. Typing "'Blogger Beta' template" into your search engine will bring up loads of stuff. I even ran across a few sites that are inviting people to download templates they've constructed and are using.
    Well, shit, it's late/early. I'm going to bed. Want to remind myself, though, of a curious conversation Mom and I had tonight while watching Heroes on TV. And, I guess, I've got some other stuff to "make up", as well. And, some visiting to do...and other things...all of which will happen...as soon as I figure out how to stretch days from 24 to 36 hours...
    ...later...