I'll be moving this blog to my own domain soon*. I actually tried it for few minutes but I encountered some missing files (images). This is probably because of how my current template refers to the images. As soon as I find the time to fix them, I'll be at mark.gamis.info (the real thing, using CNAME records in my domain provider's DNS server). Right now i'm just using redirect to point requests to mark.gamis.info to my blogspot address, so everything is still under blogspot. Hopefully that changes soon :)
(You don't have to worry about updating bookmarks / feeds though, may dear (sigh) three readers. Blogspot will be properly redirecting requests to the new domain as soon as I flick the switch)
Quick: without hitting CTRF - F, what's the most abused word in this post? (besides "the" and the likes you smart-a**)
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
The CAPTCHA Thing
CAPTCHA was invented in an effort to fight the war against spamming, and other shady activities that involves bots pretending to be humans. So when this feature was added to blogger's comments, i immediately added it to my blog. I remember getting one or two spam comments before that, so I reasoned that it was perfectly reasonable. Everybody else seemed to have done the same.
But then blogger's captcha started to act up. I haven't really identified the problem, but nowadays when I'm commenting on a blog with CAPTCHA, it's almost always the case that my first attempt to enter the challenge code will fail and I will have to re-enter a new one. It can get really frustrating sometime.
I realized that a CAPTCHA challenge, though trivial to use, (for a human, that is. ;p) poses an irritating usability barrier to a feature that's used very often, such as the blogger comment form. It is perfectly necessary in sign-up pages and other sensitive pages that a user will use once or a few times while using the web service, but beyond that, I think we have to find of a perfect balance between being spam-proof, and being user-friendly. Now in the case of this blog, which is low-traffic, the serious problem of spam is yet to really show up. And frankly I think I can get away without having CAPTCHA in the comments.
So a month ago I removed CAPTCHA from Wandering Geek to make commenting easier and faster. I realize that I'm monitoring my comments anyway (both thru blogger's comments feed, and the comments email notification) so in case any spam gets through, I can easily delete it. Honestly, if it makes things easier for readers, I don't mind doing that.
This is a lesson in designing a user interface: sometimes we think too much about solving an "expected" problem that in doing so we alienate the very people that we are designing the user interface for.
But then blogger's captcha started to act up. I haven't really identified the problem, but nowadays when I'm commenting on a blog with CAPTCHA, it's almost always the case that my first attempt to enter the challenge code will fail and I will have to re-enter a new one. It can get really frustrating sometime.
I realized that a CAPTCHA challenge, though trivial to use, (for a human, that is. ;p) poses an irritating usability barrier to a feature that's used very often, such as the blogger comment form. It is perfectly necessary in sign-up pages and other sensitive pages that a user will use once or a few times while using the web service, but beyond that, I think we have to find of a perfect balance between being spam-proof, and being user-friendly. Now in the case of this blog, which is low-traffic, the serious problem of spam is yet to really show up. And frankly I think I can get away without having CAPTCHA in the comments.
So a month ago I removed CAPTCHA from Wandering Geek to make commenting easier and faster. I realize that I'm monitoring my comments anyway (both thru blogger's comments feed, and the comments email notification) so in case any spam gets through, I can easily delete it. Honestly, if it makes things easier for readers, I don't mind doing that.
This is a lesson in designing a user interface: sometimes we think too much about solving an "expected" problem that in doing so we alienate the very people that we are designing the user interface for.
Because I Love My Readers
The Wandering Geek is now easier on your eyes...
I did a quick css hack-a-thon for an hour (I started at around 6 am) to finally fix some of my peeves about this blog's design
I did a quick css hack-a-thon for an hour (I started at around 6 am) to finally fix some of my peeves about this blog's design
- 1024 x 768 is the new 800 x 600. That's what my Google analytics data tells me. So I took the liberty of increasing the widths of my main content and the sidebar to allow for well, more content. :)
- Small is out, big is in. I've been wanting to increase the default font size here, because I know, being here can totally hurt your eyes (and the dark background doesn't help that much either). Now we're 1.2 em big. Not as big as how I originally wanted it to be, like this and that, but I think this as big as I could go for now without really changing the rest of the design.
- I've been using Trebuchet because that's what came with the Emire blog template (damn you.. :p ). When all this time I've been really into Georgia. Finally, The Wandering Geek is now Georgia-powered. Yeah. :)
- Comments. I still can't find a way (read: didn't even bother to google) to change the style for alternate comments. But for now, I hope the little improvements i did in the comments will ease your eyes enough that you wouldn't be turned off to comment. What comment-bait?
- So that's it. I hope you these things help, that is if you still read The Wandering geek outside an RSS reader, and, I have to add, if you're not on a suck-ass, pixel-y OS like Windows 2000.
On a (minor) Blogger Design Flaw
I just noticed that if you have a single image (and no words) as a blog post (think post-secret), showing the "original post" in the comment form has no real value. You will just get a text that says "[photo]". What's that?
I think it will give more value to the readers if Blogger uses the alt attribute of the image posted instead of just sticking the word [photo] (which gives almost zero information). That way, bloggers who do this kind of blog posts will be encouraged to make use of the alternate text attribute to give more information for the readers. :)
In the end, commenting readers will be happier (saving a click on the back button to take a peak at the post again).
Until that's fixed, i would suggest the use of the pop-up version of the comment form.
I think it will give more value to the readers if Blogger uses the alt attribute of the image posted instead of just sticking the word [photo] (which gives almost zero information). That way, bloggers who do this kind of blog posts will be encouraged to make use of the alternate text attribute to give more information for the readers. :)In the end, commenting readers will be happier (saving a click on the back button to take a peak at the post again).
Until that's fixed, i would suggest the use of the pop-up version of the comment form.
Blogger Draft
Ey kids. Want to upload a video to your blogspot blog? Then go try Blogger in draft, featuring a direct video upload.
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