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6:48:00 AM EDT
Hearing Nothing -- Athena is still asleep
More on Tech Glitches
Well, this has not been a fabulous week for glitches here on AOL Journals. Here is an update on things:
* The AOL Journals Tech people are still at work building a fix for the HTML coding bug, but they have tracked down what triggers the bug: single and double quotation marks. So if what I am told is correct, as long as you avoid using quotation marks in your entries, you avoid triggering the bug, and can therefore use whatever HTML coding you like.
So -- and yes, I am aware how entirely ridiculous this sounds -- try to see if you can make it through the next couple of days without contractions, quotations or possessives. Call it the AOL Journals Grammar Challenge 2004. Alternately, use all the quotes and contractions you like, just avoid any coding. Believe me, it does not thrill me to offer this advice, and hopefully that bug fix will go in (much) sooner than later. I will absolutely stay on top of this and let you know when/if a bug fix is going in.
* I noticed I had trouble getting into my older entries, and I thought it was me, but now e-mail is coming in from other people saying they have the same problem. So I took a closer look at it. This is what I noticed on my end:
First, clicking on the Older Entries link off the front page does not work. It brings up a page saying that AOL Journals is unavailable. Likewise if you enter the archives through alternate means, you will discover that trying to call up the monthly archive pages for any month in 2004 will get you nowhere. The monthly archive pages for 2003 seem to be fine.
Second, archived entries are still there; they have not been zapped into oblivion. They can be accessed individually through searching. If you want to find an entry in which you talk about, say, apples, go to your favorite search engine and enter both your screen name and that word. That will likely get you to the archived entry. Also, of course, you can just click back through the directional links at the top of every archived entry.
No, I have no idea what is the cause of this particular glitch, although clearly the same install that generated the HTML coding glitch would be a likely suspect. I will of course note it to the AOL Journals tech folks to put it on the list of things to do. And just before a major holiday, no less! Hope they have fun with it.
Let me also thank the AOL Journalers who took the time towrite me to alert me to problems they have had, and to encourage the rest of you to let me know when AOL Journals starts acting screwy for you. We rely on you to let us know when things get wacky. Always feel free to drop a note.
No contractions, possessives or quotations in that whole entry. Yes, doing that is harder than it looks.
Written by johnmscalzi Blog about this entry |
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The 'Older Entries' link works on my blog. However, it doesn't work for me on yours or andreakingme's. Doesn't appear to be broken across the board.
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John, I just wrote an entry last night with lots of quotation marks and contractions and the entry is fine. What causes me problems are italics. I would appreciate you passing this on to the tech peeps.
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I say we all write journals in which everything is either in quotes or has a contraction, and then we hand-code each word to a different typeface and/or size and/or color.
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mmmmmm - MY blogs are about to become The Blogs of a Deranged Person, not because of tornado watching but because of this html thing. are you saying it's any of those punctuation marks that casue this to happen? i've been experimenting with the quotes and sometimes yes, sometimes no. if the quotes are in a previous paragraph you can sometimes get coding into the next paragraph. on the other hand, i have one entry where i can't code one set of words, yet in the same paragraph - a few sentences later - i CAN quote the next set of words. i use lots of book titles and lots of quotes and lots of links. this is paralyzing to my ability to write anything!
5/28/04 8:51 PM
Just says Sorry, AOL Journals is unavailable.
Please try again later".
Sorry but for the almost $30 a month Im paying AOL I really don't think this is fare as they sure don't credit us for lost time and not being able to use AOL %100.
It's always something it seems to mess us up.
Anyways, needed to rant a little.
John G.