The site is starting to bog down and get stale, so I am toying around with a redesign. So if you see random errors (more random than usual) that do not involve my spelling and verb tense issues and half finished thoughts, that is what the deal is.
My crack team doesn’t have what it takes to come up with something like this:
BTW re: the redesign, we are working to make it more social media and mobile friendly, while still keeping much of the same feel of the current site. I know you all are like me and don’t like change, but shit happens.
Keith G
But where will you be keeping the server?
That’s a mighty big bill.
eta
BTW Cole, shouldn’t that be “your quack team”?
Baud
I don’t like the new design.
east is east
Bring back the guy with the bullhorn. He was my friend.
Hal
Just don’t use Marco Rubio’s people.
Also, I saw a story trending on Facebook about a couple who had the first all female quintuplets since 1969 and clicked the link. Perusing the story links I came across this jem:
This is what you think of when you read a story about babies being born? It just caught me off guard for being so Debbie Downer meets Pat Robertson. This person must be a thrill at holiday parties.
srv
@Baud: It’s like Benghazi and Iraq rolled into one.
Shell
Hey, speak of the devil. I just posted this in the last thread…
Question for the Balloon Juice blog masters. Suddenly today, when I try to log on to BJ, I get an error message along the lines of ‘can’t recognize..ad.stitcher..’ Can never get the whole thing cause my browser (Safari) then immediately crashes. It’s okay if I use Firefox. Has something changed with the website since yesterday?
ReplyReply
Baud
@Hal:
I hope you are SAVED…because if YOU are not SAVED…this GUACAMOLE dip is coming home with me.
NotMax
Translation: More cumbersome/troublesome for PC users.
May not be the intention, but is all too often the result.
Corner Stone
The last time you killed Recent Comments.
Who do you plan to fucking murder like a pay for play cop this time?
Woodrow/Asim
As a techie, I 100% feel your pain. I’m working on a site for my life-partner, and it’s been very, very slow going.
Shell
I guess Cole’s got more time on his hands now that Lovey moved out.
Hawes
“Change? Fuck your change.”
BJ Mance Rayder
JPL
I assume this,
means there will be no vote on the redesign.
Suzanne
Just please make it work on iPads when it in the mobile theme. And bring back comment numbers in the mobile theme.
Villago Delenda Est
The problem isn’t so much that shit happens, it’s when self-inflicted unforced error shit happens.
You must be cautious.
east is east
@JPL: There will be a free vote. Hangings will follow.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
I loved “Recent Comments”! A godsend on the night shift.
I’m sitting here waiting for some “last mile” delivery company—BumbleShip or something—to get me my little box of Amazon goodies in the next hour. USPS and UPS have keys to the building, but for the lesser outfits I have to scrupulously track the package on line, then amp up the spidey sense to 11 and be ready to race downstairs when they get here or else go into “We tried to deliver it, now let’s play tag for a while” mode. First World problems.
One of the goodies is a (relatively) cheap gizmo to mount my cell phone on a dashboard vent grille for GPS-ing when I’m out and about. Bought one before that was awful, but this one was cheap enough, and the reviews good enough, that I thought I’d give it a shot.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Mobile numbers definitely. And recent comments. And date and time stamps on posts.
Violet
The social media part of this scares me. You kids get off my lawn with your Facebookings and Twitters and Snapchattery and Instagrammery.
SuperHrefna
@Hal: They are everywhere and they are very, very unwell. Nothing is innocent of their bizarre obsessions. I used to hang out on Ravelry a lot and we got these kooks getting upset about knitting patterns of all things: I remember one completely hilarious instance when they declared a mitten pattern was satanic because it involved a little pocket you could put your train ticket in. Apparently Satan is all about convenience in knitwear.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m sure your mother will alert you to any of these issues.
WaterGirl
@Shell: I will repeat (from the other thread) that I am getting the same thing. Safari doesn’t crash for me, but I do get the error box. And the error box will not allow me to select the CANCEL button. My only choice is to click CONTINUE (hell no!) or ignore the box.
01jack
@east is east:
Yeah. Striped pants. Loved the striped pants.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Who ever it was(also Amazon last mile) that delivered the replacement battery for my wife’s S4 delivered it to my neighbor out in front. Good thing I ran into him walking the girls last night.
kc
DON’T DO IT JOHN.
Roger Moore
@Hal:
ITYM Christmas parties. They sound like the kind of person who deeply believes in The War On Christmas and will insist on attending only properly Jesusy parties.
WaterGirl
Cole, if you’re listening… more threads would help with the staleness issue. (hint, hint) Seems like a lot of folks have stopped coming to the site because threads are often so few and far between.
I have probably annoyed you with that, so it’s probably a bad time for me to ask for a pupdate, isn’t it?
JPL
I’m streaming the Chris show and he is talking to Bob Graham about the Saudi connection for 9/11. I’m shocked that there was a Saudi connection. Actually he does know what he is speaking about. It’s sickening that Bush covered that up for a war in Iraq.
also, I’m not shocked.. lol
mai naem mobile
@Hal: When I hear about these multiple births I think.of the expenses and i don’t think they’re celebrities like before so I’m sure they aren’t getting sponsors like Pampers and J&J. The medical expenses. All on one income for several years.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
The Balloon-Juice comments section. You will never fine a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Major Major Major Major
That is the most culturally aware 404 page I’ve ever seen from a politician. She really is listening to Mook.
Steeplejack (tablet)
I didn’t finish all my required preseason MLB research, so someone tell me if it’s still okay to hate A-Rod. I see he’s DH-ing in the Yankees-Orioles game.
SuperHrefna
@mai naem mobile: Even if the medical expenses are covered, just image having that many kids and not being able to hand clothes down from one kid to the next. Or helping five toddlers tie their shoes all at once. Or living in a house with five hormonal 12 year olds.
I honestly think doctors who implant that many embryos at once should be had up for malpractice. Or maybe taking a leaf from the ancient law that put an architect to death if their building collapsed and killed people, doctors responsible for mass pregnancies should be forced to move in and help raise the children they helped create,
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
Oooh, I’ve got a First World problem too! I urgently needed a replacement charger cable thingy for my iPad (old one broke beyond redemption yesterday) and I went to Target earlier today to buy a new one. They had in stock only one color, and it is truly disgusting: Bright day-glo bubblegum Pepto-Bismol pink. Every time I look at it, I want to barf a little. I mean, it works fine and all, but that’s hardly the point now, is it? Puts the whole anniversary of Lincoln’s death into perspective.
Librarian
You should make it so that when you click on a link, it comes up in a new tab. I really would appreciate that.
kc
@kc:
Seriously, you can redesign all you want, but it’s no substitute for posting more pet pics. And other stuff.
Mike E
Heh, on The Big Bang Theory Penny wore a Hillary ’08 t-shirt because she literally had nothing else to wear…much like the rest of us.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
Beyond the silly family photo and groaner of a pun, I love that she says “Well, as long as you’re here, why not sign up to volunteer?” and provides a link so you can do exactly that. That’s smart.
SuperHrefna
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, it’s giving me some real hope that this campaign will be a good one. It’s smart, charming, and down to earth.
Major Major Major Major
@Librarian: ew. No. Horrible for mobile.
Or you could change the template so that the link rules automatically change based on device. That’s more interface design 201 than 101 tho, a little tricky.
Major Major Major Major
@SiubhanDuinne: oh for sure. That’s the kicker at the end there. Very zeitgeisty.
Incidentally, I’m currently having a beer at Zeitgeist.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Right. I’m dreading it.
bemused
Bring back balloon guy. I miss him.
MomSense
@SuperHrefna:
Thankfully I missed that. Ravelry is my happy place online.
Quicksand
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I’m no fan of A-Rod and I don’t really appreciate his personality or sportsmanship, but I’m utterly appalled at how MLB and the Yankees have treated him. So I want him to succeed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations and wring as much bonus money as possible out of ownership.
Major Major Major Major
@Quicksand: designated hitter is bullshit. You can hate anybody who does it.
Bill E Pilgrim
If “I decided the site needed a redesign” is anything like “I decided the floor needed mopping”, I can’t wait to hear what happens next.
How do you write “then, with the bucket somehow on my head with all of the animals inside of it, we all went flying out the door…” in XML?
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
Cheers!
NotMax
@Wgogol’s wife
Yup. “One size fits all” has eternally been a falsehood.
Getting to the point that am shunning sites which utilize Facebook Social Plug-ins. Complete clusterf*ck.
Major Major Major Major
@Bill E Pilgrim: surely you are aware that you already did
Mike J
@Librarian:
It already does that for me. I just hold down control. If you add javascript to do it, you lose the ability to copy and paste links and is just a general pain in the ass.
geg6
@Baud:
I totally agree with you and Suzanne.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Quicksand:
I hate the Yankees, too, so it’s not an either/or proposition.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Major Major Major Major: Got me there.
Actually the first casualty seems to be the edit function, I was going to change it to how do you do that in XML, but edit was gone not after the promised 4 minutes, but next time I reloaded.
Mike E
@bemused: The mobile version has a teeny tiny version of megaphone man.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Suzanne:
I need scalable fonts on the mobile version. My eyes are too old to have to read that itty-bitty font all the damn time. Also, get off my lawn.
geg6
@Mike E:
Yep. Best thing about the mobile site.
Mike J
@efgoldman: The NL is much, much, much, much more likely to get the DH than the AL is to get rid of it.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: you’d be hard pressed to find somebody who feels more than me that we have standards for a reason. DH just always bugged me. So does javascript, but I still write it.
Major Major Major Major
@Bill E Pilgrim: xml is turing complete if you count xslt :)
Roger Moore
@Quicksand:
This. Unfortunately, you see this kind of stuff all the time in sports. Once people have decided a player is a bad guy, everything he does is interpreted in those terms. He can do exactly the same thing that somebody considered a good guy is doing, but it will generate totally different reactions because of who’s doing it. Worst of all, sportswriters will bend over backward to justify all kinds of awful behavior toward the guy because they think he deserves it.
Cookie Monster
Current mobile theme is awful; can’t long-press to open links in another tab, which is something I do all the time…
Mike E
@geg6: Worst: no bottom of page toggles to get back to the top/navigate to previous and next threads.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
The problem being that on way too many carelessly slapped together or ineptly tested sites, javascript writes you.
(Not you personally, the collective you.)
NoScript rules.
Bill E Pilgrim
I wouldn’t give most DHs more than a C, C plus plus, tops.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
On Soviet website, Javascript write you!
Hal
That Hillary, always trying to upstage someone…
https://vine.co/v/euIJZXteuMB
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: I shed no tears when Eich got fired for the prop 8 thing. I think I shed like anti-tears, because I saw nothing wrong with his firing and it got rid of the guy who wrote the ECMA spec.
scav
All I hope for is a way to opt out of the mobile-optimized version: I generally hate them. But sera sera.
OT happy tidbit of old-news for those needing follow-through: Puppy-kicking Des Hague, former CEO of Centerplate, sentenced for animal cruelty. The penalties imposed by his former employers were far more harsh, but at least something is on the books. Now if we can only get LEOs to take their treatment of people as seriously this side of the border.
RandomMonster
Have all pages default to ‘Hilllvetica’: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillvetica-clinton-font-rick-wolff
Bill E Pilgrim
@Major Major Major Major: I once had a touring complete. Well almost complete, I lost one of the hubcaps.
Mike E
@Steeplejack (tablet): Hate the game; not the player. Sez spiteful Philly fan! Heh.
SuperHrefna
@MomSense: Oh we turned it into a very merry knitalong, the Mittens of the Beast KAL :-) You can read about it here: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/knit2gether/subway-mittens
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Paint it with nailpolish.
RSA
@Hal:
Try Rand Paul’s people instead. DocDawg, writing on Daily Kos, describes Paul’s funding Web site, which displays a rotating banner of the most recent donor’s name and home town. DocDawg scraped the page at couple-of-minute intervals for a few days and built a statistical picture of the demographics of Paul’s donors. Not a rigorous piece of work, but clever and interesting.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
And people are perfectly happy to back him doing it, even though it’s patently obvious that the only reason he’s trying is financial. Hell, people will even say straight up that it’s fine for him to try to weasel out of the contract because Hamilton hasn’t lived up to expectations. Those same people would roast a player if he ever tried to get out of a contract because he had outperformed expectations and could get more as a free agent.
max
@muddy: Paint it with nailpolish.
Eats plastic. Wrap it with electrical tape.
At any rate, if I remember correctly, Cole, there was a site update not but a year or two or three (?) ago. I figured that experience was enough.
max
[‘Fine, can we have less power blue?’]
Steeplejack (phone)
@Cookie Monster:
Long-press works for me—mobile site, Chrome, Android. Maybe the problem is specific to your platform or browser.
MomSense
@SuperHrefna:
Oh my. All that drama over mittens? Wonder if they’ve stumbled on the wee willie warmers yet.
In one of the linked discussions they were talking about all the signs that the rapture was coming any day now–and that was seven years ago!
I’m happy to find an atheist and agnostic group on ravelry.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense:
We’re still waiting on mittens tax returns.
Violet
@max: Yeah, electrical tape. There are so many colors of it out there these days, you can make it pretty much whatever color you want.
MomSense
@BillinGlendaleCA:
heh
Violet
@efgoldman: There’s paisley duct tape.
Violet
@efgoldman: And the one I linked was only one of many paisley duct tape options.
Major Major Major Major
@Violet: will use always for everything
Gin & Tonic
@Violet: OK, you’re talking about wrapping a charger cable with colored electrical tape. As opposed to spending a whole $3.99 to buy a new one in a better color and, for that price, having it delivered to your door by a uniformed, unionized employee. How long will you spend wrapping the thing, and how useless will you make it when you’re done?
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
Ha! It’s 5′ long!! And I’d need primer, and two coats of enamel.
See, the First World problems, they just keep a-comin’ and a-comin’…..
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
Please tell me where I can get a cable for $3.99. I spent $20 bucks for this one, and was thrilled because they usually cost $30.
muddy
@max: “Eats plastic” – oops! Once I made a sculpture out of styrofoam and tried to paint it with spray paint. I guess latex would have been the better choice.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s why I included a URL in my previous post.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Well under ten bucks at Home Depot. Their prices on cables of all sorts are surprisingly good.
With a hot pink one, if you do misplace it, gonna be easier to spot it.
muddy
@efgoldman: I’ve messed up watch faces with bug spray too.
Suzanne
It would also be nice to be able to copy text while using the mobile site.
Violet
@Gin & Tonic: Well, she might have some black electrical tape lying around, in which case the cost would be almost nothing. Otherwise, she could buy some in whatever color she wanted and then she’d have electrical tape to use another time.
@NotMax: I agree, the hot pink one is way better because you can see the damn thing. Won’t disappear like white or black.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The mobile site is crappy. I can’t copy text from other comments, it doesn’t show post numbers, and it just sucks.
However, on my iPad, the regular site is unusable in portrait mode. Instead of the site just scaling to fit the regular width and showing more of the page below, the middle column instead shrinks while the two ad columns on the left and right stay the same size. THE MIDDLE COLUMN IS THE CONTENT. It shouldn’t scale! Each line ends up being just a few words long! It works in landscape orientation, but not portrait.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I can copy text on the mobile site. Is that an ipad limitation?
Gvg
a lot of the cheap iPad cables don’t actually work which I find kind of annoying. I have had success without paying Apple prices at the Att store and Home Depot. Home Depot also had a 6 ft version which I really wanted. I don’t understand why Apple thinks 3 ft is ever a good idea.
Ed
I read it in feedly. I only go to the site for the random quotations at the top and to comment ( rarely ) . Some color might be nice.
Violet
@Baud:
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I can copy it on my non-Apple phone. Copy and paste.
Baud
@Violet: Me too. Copy and paste. I didn’t realize Apple didn’t permit that. That would be frustrating for mobile site users.
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Getting to the point that am shunning sites which utilize Facebook Social Plug-ins.
Firefox and NoScript are your friends.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Baud:
There does seem to be a specific “iPad Theme” since that’s what it says at the bottom of my screen with the on/off switch. And it has all of the limitations Suzanne is complaining about.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: Or, as he’s known in the Puget Sound area, Pay-Rod.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: If you hate Edgar Martinez, well, that’s your problem, not his.
Suzanne
@Baud: Yeah, on the iPad and iPhone, you can’t copy text, but only on this mobile site. Every other mobile site seems to have this shit worked out. But I use the mobile site because I prefer portrait orientation to landscape, and the regular site on portrait orientation is unusable.
Cervantes
@Baud:
Not here.
delk
@Shell: The identity of the website “audiocdn.stitcher.com” cannot be varified .
This certificate for this website is invalid. You might be connecting to a website that is pretending to be “audiocdn.stitcher.com” which could put your confidential information at risk. Would you like to connect to the website anyway?
pattonbt
Maybe better trolls? BOB, Matako, etc.? Pray for another young energetic Democtratic firebrand to join the D primary race and re-live 2008 all over again?
Otherwise it’s probably just GOP primary / general election clown car antics to keep things afloat (and prayers that whichever D emerges wins).
Rachel in Portland
John, I am just an old lurking mom, but I just love you and your site, and good for you for attempting a refresh. Just saying.
James E Powell
If I use Chrome, the site freezes before it is completely loaded.
If I used Explorer, it stalls for 10 seconds or so before I can scroll.
This is something that began about a year ago, maybe a little more.
NotMax
@joel hanes
Well, duh.
Of course use those, and have for many years; the point is that Facebook Social Plug-ins still freezes up the site for 90 seconds or more.
daddyj
John, please, please, please, please, please don’t go the route of presenting just headlines to your mobile users. Marketing pukes and SEO juju men love making us lab rats press the little levers, ’cause it gives them numbers for PowerPoint, but it sucks for users. Listen to the suits and your site becomes a wasteland of “click crack” headlines that lie about story content (cough! Salon cough! Slate).
Scrolling is easy on a smart phone, even for the fat-fingered!
In the last mobile push, even well-intentioned sites, not under the sway of SEO-Svengalis, fell prey to the they’re-just-mobile-users-feed-em-the-first-50-words-and-make-em-click-for-more mentality. I’m looking at you, Hullabaloo (but only on desktop because I can’t abide it on the phone).
Start with any “responsive web design” (RWD) WordPress theme. All the recent WP installs provide good RWD default templates. It looks like you are already using RWD in the current site, but it’s not optimized for tablet/iPad users. Your sidebars should start to get out of the way or consolidate at about 900px instead of 650px. This is tricky for BJ because of the ad content in the sidebars and banner, but it can be done.
Remember: everything can scale! You can even increase body font size on the narrowest device widths, which I see some folks here are asking for.
I do this for a living; would be happy to beta test.
samiam
You can say at least one depressingly postive thing about Hillary. The “if it ain’t white it ain’t right” crowd won’t have a problem with her. That picture is about as honkey white as you can get.
Of course a lot of the haters get their energy from a potent mix of politics, race, and gender. So take away one with her but add another.
Aleta
Perhaps a feature that would automatically enter animal comments, since the cats type theirs while I am trying to read. (The evergood dog just helpfully scrolls up the Ipad screen with his nose.)