How Much I Care

I saw this notice on Blogger this morning as I was starting to log in to my blog.

European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities.

When I clicked on the 'Learn more' link, I got this:

Cookies notification in European Union countries
European Union (EU) laws require you to give EU visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.
 
As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to help meet these regulations. The notice lets visitors know about Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies on your blog, including Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. Learn about Google’s privacy practices and how Google uses data on partner sites.
 
Change the notice
How to change or disable notice
If you have edited your blog in a way that hides this notice, it will be your responsibility to notify your visitors about cookies used on your blog and if necessary, obtain consent. Also, if you have added other blog features that set cookies, including third-party analytics or advertising services, you’ll need to provide additional or a different notice.
It is your responsibility to determine, based on your cookie use, what else would be appropriate. If you choose to use a different notice, be sure you still comply with Google’s EU user consent policy. Learn more on generating cookie notices.
 

See the notice
To see the notice if you’re outside of the EU, view your blog and change the country code, for example blogspot.fr or blogspot.co.uk. If you use a custom domain, you won't see the notice outside of the EU.

The last sentence quite fixes things. I use a custom domain - Winjama.net. So, I guess no one outside of the EU will see the notice Blogger provided. Ok. Who outside of the EU would want to see it anyway?

I guess my answer, is, if you're in the EU and you come to my blog, if you see the notice fine. If you don't see it, that's fine too. I don't care. If you want to visit my blog, you're welcome. Let me tell you that Blogger has placed some cookies that may affect you. I haven't placed any cookies. I may have used a couple of widgets that might place a cookie, like the flag counter and such. Again, I don't care.

If you want to visit the blog, feel free to come in. If the cookies offend you, in short, piss off. Go visit someone else's blog. I'm not in the EU. I highly resent someone, in this case, Blogger, telling me that European Union (EU) laws require me to give EU visitors information about cookies used on my blog. I don't give a rat's ass what the EU wants or requires. I'm not writing only for people in the EU. I'm writing for my own entertainment. I thought folks from anywhere might find my and my wife's experiences in Belize to be of interest.

If you are from the EU, and read this, you're most welcome. If you did get the notice, or if you didn't, please let me know. I don't intend to do anything different with the blog than I have been doing, but it might be nice to know.

If I'm supposed to get your consent (for what, I have no idea) then, by visiting this blog, and staying here, or going to other pages on the blog, I'm going to assume you've given your consent. How's that? Ok by you? Great. It's Ok by me too. I hope you enjoy your visit to my blog and that you find a lot of value in it, or at least some entertainment.

If you don't like cookies, or at least how they're used on this blog, then I suggest that you go someplace else.

As far as the EU government, as my cat's do when they're displaying displeasure at me, by flicking their tails, consider that I'm doing the same.

Just for your information, the only cookies on this blog are one that is a Blogger cookie and five that are Accuweather cookies. I don't know what any of them do, and I don't care.

It's Getting There

Finally. Some of you might think the format resembles how this blog used to be, and you'd be right.

I got my fill of trying to work with WordPress. Yes, it's a powerful program, with all (and more) of the bells and whistles and stuff, that you could possibly hope for in a blog-writing environment. It just got to be too much for me. I wanted to write. I didn't want to have to re-learn how to be part of the IT crew again.

WordPress was taking all my time (well, all the time that I wasn't spending in the pool) and that simply was not fun. So, I dumped WordPress and InMotionHosting and went back to Google and Blogger, with a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff with Yahoo, or as I affectionately call them, 'Yayhoo.'

InMotion, I'll have to say, had the best tech support I've ever seen. In fact, too much of a good thing. It was really overwhelming, but in a good sort of way.

I had kept the old blog at Google's Blogger, because I was still having some import and formatting issues (read nightmares) with WordPress. It's a good thing too, because I want back to Blogger and revamped the blog. You'll notice some font changes and whatnot. The URL is almost what I want. That would be http://winjama.net. Right now, it's http://info.winjama.net. As soon as I figure out some things, it'll go to winjama.net.

I mentioned Yayhoo. The blog is maintained  or housed at Google and Blogger. The domain, winjama.net, that I own, is housed at Yahoo Small Business. It took me a day and a half to figure out the interface between Blogger and Yayhoo. Lot's of techno-babble to get there. I knew going in that Yayhoo's tech support sucked big time, from my previous time having tried having them host the blog when I first decided to leave Blogger. I didn't expect any changes this time around. And I wasn't surprised.

I spent about two-hours on the phone with Yayhoo's tech support. Language problems cropped up throughout the session, as Yayhoo's tech support is in India (or maybe Pakistan or somewhere). That was very frustrating. I finally gave up on them after 1) having my cell-phone battery discharge, and then after I recharged it, 2) my pre-purchased time expired.

I took that as an omen and tackled it on my own, figuring that if it blew up, not much was lost. Anyway, I managed to get stuff entered in the proper sequence, more or less, and it functions. All transparent to you the reader, but trust me, there's some magic going on between Blogger and Yayhoo to enable you to read the blog.

It's a start - er, a re-start, I guess. I hope you like it. Now, I can concentrate on writing and doing fun stuff. I'll still work at tweaking the layout and such but on my own time, when I feel like it.

Cheers,
Dave

Change Been A Long Time Comin'

For better than seven years now this blog has been resident on Google's Blogger servers and using the Blogger software. We actually started the blog in March 2007, about three months before we left up north.

For those of you who want to read the full story, it's there, from the very beginning - packing, moving, and all. In short, the whole nine yards.

Blogger Logo

Overall I can't complain about how it(Blogger) has worked. It does have some limitations, but for general day-to-day use, the Blogger software has done what I wanted it to and more.

Nine hundred thirty nine (939) posts, well, with this one, 940 posts and I can't say there have been any major problems. Over the years, some formatting issues have come up here and there of things I wanted to do but was unable because the feature wasn't offered in the Blogger environment.

I've drooled for a long time over WordPress. It seemed to offer a lot of features that were things I wanted to do, along with a lot of formatting advantages, and some behind-the-scenes tools.

WordPress Logo

But, it seemed that every time I tried to install WordPress, I entered the foggy landscape of murky instructions, poor brain functioning, laziness and the feeling, kind of like in a dream when you're trying to run, but the ground has become a sea of molasses.

At which point, I just backed out of trying to deal with WordPress and became content, once again, to do my thing using Blogger. That is, till a few weeks ago. Suddenly, the light turned on, the fog went away, along with the molasses, and I was able to set up WordPress and actually start doing some stuff with it.

For example, I was able to import all nine-hundred-thirty-nine posts, including pictures and other images (all told, there were about 4,000 images successfully imported). In addition, all the comments that readers have posted (over 1,700 of those) imported fine.

Right now, I'm working on fine-tuning the indexing of all the posts (I'm about a third of the way through that chore), making sure that all the photos are located as I want them with the right captions, and a myriad of other housekeeping items.

I've picked a format that gives the blog a really clean and up-to-date look that I think readers will really appreciate - I know it's easier for me to look at it.

Not only is there new software, a new look, and all that, but there's going to be a new URL, or address for the blog. It will be under its own domain - which it's OK if that doesn't mean anything to you. It's just that it makes the URL shorter and easier to use and remember. It's part of a domain that I've owned for several years now and really, other than some email stuff, have done very little with it.

The new URL is:

http://winjama.net/blog

Part of that fine-tuning I mentioned is blowing out some of the cobwebs and dust-bunnies that have accumulated in the domain because of lack of use. Maybe I should get a virtual Roomba to help keep the domain clean.

Anyway, I'm guessing that it's going to be a couple of more weeks, give or take, before the new URL is completely ready. One way I've found to encourage myself to complete a task is simply to dive in and do it. So, that's what I'm going to do.

The only downside is that I'm going to virtually drag you along. You'll just have to put up with some missing things for a bit, as and until I figure out how to do them in WordPress. I've still got several hundred postings to go through, one by one, to get the indexing firmed up, along with a bunch of widgets and other plug-ins that I'm figuring out how they work and where on the blog they need to be stashed.

Even though it's not quite ready for prime time, it's up and functioning (I think). So, if you would, go ahead and change your bookmark for Winjama to the new URL above. I probably won't make but a couple more postings on the current URL. I'll put in a simple page advising folks to go to the new URL and I'll leave that up for a month or so. Eventually, I'll pull the plug on this URL and then it'll be all moved to the new site and that will be that.

We look forward to seeing you at the new site.

Cheers,
Dave and Dianna