Chicago Boyz

Steven Den Beste has some thoughts about Blogger and blogging that are worth reading. As a longtime Blogger user I certainly agree with him on most points, though I think Blogger can be adequate if one understands its limitations. For example, it’s true that Blogger sometimes eats posts – which is why I have always composed (and saved) mine in a text editor. But my approach works less well for a group blog, because it’s prohibitively difficult to restore archives using multiple contributors’ saved text files.

Blogger’s rickety archiving system is also a problem, not because it doesn’t work but because it requires a great deal of time and attention to keep it working. Permalinks didn’t function on our blog for a month or two. I thought it was a system-wide Blogger problem and didn’t do anything about it, until Joe Katzman suggested that I rebuild our archives, and suddenly everything worked again. What a relief. But then, the fact that to solve a recurring problem I had to take a particular action, and didn’t know what that action was before someone knowledgeable told me about it, does indicate a system-wide problem.

Fortunately, the situation is probably not as bad as I initially feared, because I’ve got our blog’s archives backed up in HTML format on my computer. Also, Sylvain tells me that he was able to access our archives by figuring out what their URLs should be and entering those URLs directly into his browser. OTOH, I don’t know how stable our archives are on Blogger’s server, and restoring the blog from my saved HTML files would be a big pain in the ass. The bottom line is that it isn’t worth sticking around on Blogger to find out the answers to these questions, and Blogger was a time sink even when it worked properly.

Steven likens Blogger to training wheels. That’s a good comparison. When I think of Blogger I remember what a Russian programmer acquaintance told me, about how it was once common practice in the old country to improvise PC data-backup systems out of VCRs. Sure it works, but you shouldn’t use it if better technology is available. For non-geeks, Blogger was pretty much it a couple of years ago. And Blogger is still safe enough if you back everything up and take the time to practice various defensive rituals to avoid Blogger’s pitfalls. But it isn’t worth it.

We got much more than we paid for out of Blogger, but it’s time to move on.

While we are rebuilding our shattered e-world, we Chicago Boyz manifest our stolid determination to overcome all disasters by singing jolly tunes as we e-dig out of the e-rubble and begin e-rebuilding this site. Let me share with our dear readers a particularly apropos tune to help restore a tired but sincere smile to their lips, evidencing interior serenity and joy, in these troubled times.

This page has a link over on the right to the song Magic 8 Ball by cub. You should listen to it. More than once. It is good. It is catchy. It is sweet but not cloying. It has a killer chorus. It is a neglected classic. You should then not resist the urge to sing it tomorrow morning while bathing or driving in your car. You should not be alarmed when it lodges in your brain and won’t get out. You should ask yourself, is that a great song, or what?

Decidedly so.

Watched “Hardball” with Chris Matthews other night when he had Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Steven Hayes, and Celia Sandys, granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill as guests. I was laughing out loud watching Vanden Huevel’s head almost pop off, raving about how George Bush has committed high crimes by lying to the country and dragging the U. S. into war. I encourage you to read the show transcript
The exchange I refer to is in the lower third of the page. See the fun you miss when you do not watch TV Lex?

Well, a systemic catastrophe is never to be desired. But, the Blogger blow-out we’ve experienced has caused us to start this new and hopefully better site earlier than planned. Let us go forward together.

Last night, Blogger updated its user interface for our account. This morning, Sylvain logged in to post something. Apparently he forgot to sacrifice a goat or say the proper blessing, because the entire contents of the ChicagoBoyz blog, going back to Sept. 2001, disappeared. (The template is still there.) I am not inclined to wait for a resolution of whatever the problem is, so I decided to move the blog to this new site, which we were going to do soon anyway. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to transfer the old site’s archives, but I am working on it.

I apologize for any inconvenience to readers. I suspect, however, that your ChicagoBoyz blog viewing experience will be smoother on this new site than it was on Blogger. Don’t forget to update your links.

Thanks.