Seven Things: Some Ramblings

01 - Blogger's autosave's silliness — I have a heck of a time formatting one of my L.M. Montgomery post (This one here). I usually only make small text edits in Blogger's post editior otherwise headaches. When I use undo (command z on a mac), it sometimes works and other times, it removes all the text and images and leaves a blank page and then Blogger autosaves it before I had time to close the window which is really the only way to stop autosaving a post but somehow I never was quick enough. This happens a lot which means I have to redo the entire post or forget about it. But I've learned to save a html version as a word doc when I make long posts or posts with a lot of images. This saves me some headaches.
    I really don't understand why we don't have the option not to autosave especially if a robot cannot tell a blank page from a page full of content. (And Blogger continues to randomly pick published comments and mark them as spam for no reason, even for comments I have replied to so that my reply comment just hangs there talking to no one.)

02 - There are cats among us — From time to time, cats wandered through our backyards. There's only a low fence between yards and nothing else so the cats can easily go from yard to yard. The cats are so agile that they can walk on the top of the fence, leap from place to place and causally eat people's garden or even litter on them. Then there were those fights between them that sounded really nasty - cat squeals and screams galore. I wouldn't want to try to break them up or I'll lose an eye. They gather together now and then and I swear they are making plans to take over the humans. Occasionally in the middle of the night, I can hear them whining like babies or are they signaling their leaders it's time to take over the world?

03 - When a blog becomes a website — The other day I noticed a blog that I known previously had redo their blog or what they called rebranding. Lots of bloggers has become a brand in themselves and have websites but they keep a blog also which I appreciate but I just hate it when a blog becomes a website and then they lose the blog format altogether. Instead of a blog, they have menu options aka links that you can browse/check out but all the blog posts are categorized and tucked away so the only choice is to select a menu option. And they continue to post like a blog which makes no sense to me. I don't know how branding works but losing the blog format is just not the way I would do it.
    I guess I just don't see how I can read a website on a daily bases when I can't find their recent posts nor can you link to any particular page to see the latest post. So yes, maybe they highlight their latest post (on the front of the website) but how can you tell when you don't see dates? I guess I'm too use to blogs to want to deal with websites. I'll check them out once in a while but don't count me as a faithful reader if you insist on keeping your website like a website. And all this we did this, we did that is just weird when you're only one person behind the website or do rebranding means you talk in we's or get yourself a team to work on the website?

04 - Charts are not my friend — I'm not a fan of chart making. No school ever taught you how to make charts, at least, the ones I attended. In art school, charts are not a priority either. I had to make a chart from a batch of numbers the other day. It's the most annoying and panic-filled thing I ever do for work. There's really no way to make charts exciting looking unless you use a lot of illustrations/graphics but charts with a lot of illustrations/graphics doesn't always work especially when it's a serious subject matter and some things cannot be represented with an image. I guess I find chart making a bit out of my league because it involves numbers and sometimes math and I'm not into make precision graphics where everything has to be set a certain size, length, width or that everything had to be perfectly aligned. It's too much like being back to school, I guess.

05 - The April A-Z Challenge 2023 is coming — I might or might not do the A-Z Challenge this year. It just didn't seem as fun as it use to be. For this challenge, I essentially write a post a day because I don't prepare like most people. This March 12, is reveal theme day but I never do themes. Although the A-Z team theme this year is resilience. I like the idea but I keep thinking they really should try to promote the challenge as something fun and not something serious but that's me.

Not the official badge

   
     I did enjoy making my own badge. The four colors (yellow, green, blue, orange) are supposed to represent the four seasons, sort of representing things that are constant or resilient but now I don't think it works but I like the colors. I could redo this but I don't have the patience for that now. If you're a participant, you are free to use my badge if you like.
    Would it be rude of me to say the header at the the A-Z blog is looking a bit too unpleasing? I wouldn't say this header cause some visual assaults but it certainly could do better. The text is too large and since it's all in caps, it means the text is screaming a bit too loudly and having the text almost all the same size, means it's a bit challenging for viewers because they don't know what to read first. Plus the text treatment with the gold colors and the way they are askew shouts casino/Las Vegas which I'm sure that's not what they are going for. Plus the tree in the background to represent resilience is too lost to get that point across. (I'm a snob when it comes to such design matters. When there is a chance to create better looking graphics, why not do it?) Go here if you want to know more about the A-Z challenge.

06 - Behind in technology —I am behind in technology since I haven't brought a new computer in years and my computer can only be updated up to a certain point as it's too old for the newest operating system. It used to be I do a lot of updating and upgrading but now I just don't care to use the latest anything. If it's working, why change? One reason that makes sense would be security. Older software is vulnerable to all sorts of attacks but I rarely had any problems but I probably should update because the longer I wait, the harder the change and the more expensive it gets. Not that it makes a difference since whenever you upgrade, it cost money anyway no matter what since you have to not only upgrade hardware, there's also software.
    I like a new computer but why did Apple have to keep removing all the useful things from their computers? (I have only ever use a Mac so I can't even think of switching to windows or other operating systems.) I'm still annoyed when they removed the cd/dvd drive and many other features that was useful in said security and even computer system health. It's the little things that really adds up.  I guess their motto is: Take away things little by little until we get so annoyed that we accept whatever they want us to accept or else live in the stone ages. Yep, that's what's call progress.

07 - Reading taste — I don't know why but my reading taste seem to have changed. I am not reading fantasy as I usually do. I've been reading nothing but murder mysteries. I still want to read fantasy, science fiction, adventure, etc but I guess I'm just not in mood for them these days. I'm also not finding new books that interest me. It's almost as if the universe is telling me I should read less.

Do you have anything on your mind? Share them in the comments.