Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The choice is between normal and crazy.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Democrats are back in array!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Site Update: Theme Update finally finished, SSL issues, mobile site is back!

Site Update: Theme Update finally finished, SSL issues, mobile site is back!

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Folks,

The theme update is complete and most issues from that are fixed. The mobile site is back, and SSL is close to fixed. That means tomorrow I’ll do a bit of tweaking to spacing, font/etc. appearance, and we’re doing one last go on the ads to get them setup correctly.

Then I’ll make another post with the remaining issues I’m trying to solve. Late month, we’re getting a new commenting system and that’ll be the last big change. After that, it’s just streamlining the files, and assisting Mistermix in optimizing the caching and CDN (Content Delivery Network) settings.

Unfortunately, the site’s hosting company is not a big fan of the HTML2 Apache plugin as it has too many issues right now, so we won’t be deploying that. Regardless, I think the site’s performance and such will be great going into this crazy election year.

Feel free to post issues and such, and I’ll add them to the list. I will monitor this post for the next couple of days so feel free to add comments and I’ll see them. I will make a “I’ve read everything up to here” comment every once in a while.

 

There will be lots of mini tweaks, but really, except for comments and streamlining, this whole upgrade – the big stuff – is done! Thanks to all for your patience.

 

 

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    elmo

    YAY! The “comments” button is back at the bottom of posts! YAY! Now off to check the mobile site…

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    SSL cert remains borked.

    Win 7, Firefox.

    Very minor, but again strikes one as odd that Bernie has 2 separate listings in the Categories. While on the same subject, seems redundant to have both a Cooking and a Food category in addition to one for Recipes. And none for Gardening.

  6. 6.

    BGinCHI

    Great work, Alain. You have probably saved humanity.

    Or at least the part of it that Cole is in charge of.

  7. 7.

    Alain the site fixer

    @mai naem mobile: Please pass them my email address as I don’t have a flashy demo site yet as I have been more the back end person and technical writer. I have am starting/have started a new self-employment approach that I hope, in a few years, will be lucrative, but many hurdles remain. So I’d love to talk to your friend; my email is [email protected]

  9. 9.

    Gin & Tonic

    I like the vertical and horizontal lines in the comment area, but I still prefer The Other Chuck’s alternating light/dark backgrounds. Is this something you’d consider implementing in the base CSS, or do I still have to use his?

  10. 10.

    Alain the site fixer

    @NotMax: I didn’t design the categories, but I will see what I can do.On the back-end, they’re in some strange order – of creation maybe? – so it’s tough to find things you want in a small listbox. I hope to clean that all up.

    SSL is in the works. I had provided the incorrect password for the ssl cert and so things were in limbo. I just sent the correct on and now I think it will be fixed soon. As soon as it is, there will be permanent redirect and internal links should be SSL as well.

    So, as someone who would likely notice such things, please let me know if you see any insecure content once it’s active!

  12. 12.

    Anne Laurie

    Still can’t get to Balloon Juice, except through Ninjaproxy; Pale Moon browser ver. 20.1. I’ve restarted my machine, and am using an Avast VPN — doesn’t help. Presumably part of the SSL fix?

  15. 15.

    scav

    @Anne Laurie: Cleared all your web history? Had to do that on Mr IPad this am to find the site. (Mr. Laptop had no problem for some reason). Not sure the exact same issue.

  16. 16.

    p.a.

    @Anne Laurie: I have to go to w…com/page/2/ to get to Balloon Juice. If I just try the trad. URL I get:

    SORRY!
    If you are the owner of this website, please contact your hosting provider: (webmaster url)

    And so far mobile site locked at last night’s posts, won’t update.

    Samsung GalS5 android v 5.0 Chrome

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Alain, many thanks to you and everyone who has been part of the site upgrade. For me, it’s easy to look at and easy to navigate.

    One thing I hope you can answer for me: What, exactly, is supposed to happen when I go to Contact — not the “Contact Us” tab, but the “Select an Author” thingy. It used to be that if I selected a front-pager’s name, it would immediately create an email form from me with the FP’s email address already populating the “To” line. Now — nothing. Am I inadvertently skipping a step?

    ETA in case it matters: iPad, Safari

  22. 22.

    p.a.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: ditto. Thks for heads up.

    Next issue: mobile site, can’t get to ‘desktop’ button. Site just keeps adding old posts as soon as I see the button. Scroll down, repeat process. Kinda like whack-a-mole!

  23. 23.

    Scout211

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    He did say that it was the fault of browsers with pop-up blockers. I guess they use a pop-up for that feature to work now. Safari and Chrome for iPad have pop-up blockers, which I like.

    So I guess if we want that feature to work here, we have to change the settings our browser for this site.

    The same thing happens on my Mac but it tells me that a pop-up was blocked. On the iPad–nothing happens.

  25. 25.

    Alain the site fixer

    @SiubhanDuinne: I think that works much the same as the blog roll function – it makes a pop up and in iOS, pop ups are blocked by default. Go to Settings/Safari/Block Pop ups and disable it.

  27. 27.

    Alain the site fixer

    Oh yeah, and I’m using my iPad and iPhone for commenting and testing. I will be tweaking things tomorrow. But at least it’s back!

  30. 30.

    mark

    I’m not trying to be snarky, but the site is close to unusable for me right now. I use non-apple mobile and tablet, but note-like 5.5 and 7 inch. it used to scale for screen size perfectly. now, it does not, like fixed width… but it isn’t on desktop. and, I never use the mobile version, can’t read anything without tap, load, wait, back, etc. then, with the auto-load at the bottom, you can’t turn off mobile version without using the top menu, go square block view, which bumps you onto desktop mode, then switch back to regular view.

  31. 31.

    p.a.

    @Alain the site fixer: now I’ve cleared history, everything aok. Maybe I’ll fire up iPad next to have something to compain about. (It’s the BJ way.)

    I occasionally get orange margin lines now. I asked for orange weeks ago. Thanks Alain.

  34. 34.

    RSR

    Basically just a test post from a Samsung S5 running Android 5.0 via Chrome browser for same.

    Site looks good on mobile for me right now.

    Thanks, Alain! (And that’s not in the thanks, Obama voice.)

  36. 36.

    Alain the site fixer

    Ok fixed auto scroll and post has the name I had made but got eated when I lost Internet briefly. Gonna go have fun away from tech for a bit but I will check back to make sure that issues get resolved asap.

  40. 40.

    Alain the site fixer

    @mark: mark, I also just enabled zoom on the mobile site. Hope that between that and disabling the endless scroll, you have a much better experience!

  41. 41.

    Suezboo

    Thank you very much, Alain.
    My problem is that I want to refer to an earlier post (last week) but when I try to “turn the page” at the bottom of the front page, it just stays on page 1. Will this only be fixed in the Great Comments Revolution or am I doing something wrong?
    Thanks again. Desktop. Win XP. Chrome.

  42. 42.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Suezboo: wow that’s weird! I saw someone else report that and I tried it and it was all ok and now when I click on that stuff I always see same content, weird! Lemme look into that.

  44. 44.

    Boggled

    Thanks for all of the work that you have been doing–the site looks great!

    One small request: The posts and comments on the mobile version of the site (iPhone 6, iOS 9.2) no longer have a time stamp; only the date is visible. Could the times be added back? Thanks!

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Scout211:
    @Alain the site fixer:

    Thanks. I disabled “Block Pop-Ups” and that took care of the Blogroll but has not fixed the Contact issue.

    Not that I have many occasions to email our front-pagers. Well, except Cole. He LOVES getting emails.

  47. 47.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Suezboo: Ok, so after some more investigation, I can say…nothing conclusive. I know I tested that earlier, upon seeing a report of this behavior, and it worked. So I am not sure if it’s intermittent or if it’s now permanent. I will likely not be able to fix it tonight as I am tired! All I can suggest is to go to the oldest post you can see, then use the arrow control on the left side of the screen to then go back, post by post. Not pretty, but not impossible.

    Meanwhile, I will investigate. It will be interesting to see if it is truly intermittent, or if it is permanent and still happens tomorrow/ And, if there is a specific point that we can’t go back from. That will tell me a lot – again, in the morning.

    ETA: Of course, it’s likely that the SSL rollout so we can use https is causing this for some reason. Anyway, no progress on this issue will occur tonight unless I can’t keep myself away from it!

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Suezboo:

    You can get to earlier posts by date, e.g.:

    www.balloon-juice.com/2015/12/08/

    gets you all posts from December 8.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    When I click on a “reply” nym in a comment, I don’t get taken to the comment being replied to, I go to an indefinite spot about three comments below it.

    Desktop site on Android phone, Chrome.

  53. 53.

    Alain the site fixer

    Ok, I’ve got everything reported so far. I’ll check back later to see what else has popped up and I’ll work on them tomorrow. I’ll check then for additional issues. Some may come easy, some may be a little tougher. And some are likely the side-effect of doing some other tweak, so that’ll be lots of fun to handle!

    Enjoy the debates, I’m afraid of all these monsters and prefer to read your snark (about them, to be clear)

  55. 55.

    Alain the site fixer

    A final note – I added some compression and such so that things should be even zippier when you refresh pages. If things load slower than normal, please let me know. If they are improved, I’d love to hear that too!

  56. 56.

    A Humble Lurker

    This is a real stupid nitpick, but the black line on the right makes the comments look kind of squashed. Or at least it makes the reply button look that way. Everything else looks really good though.

  57. 57.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Alain the site fixer:

    It works properly on the mobile version of the site.

    I am using the desktop version because it has comment numbers and time stamps for comments, which the mobile version doesn’t right now.

  58. 58.

    J R in WV

    I think the back button still does not work within a comment thread. So if I reply to a comment, that was itself a reply to another comment… I can’t get back to the original comment using the back button. It used to work just fine. Maybe that’s an issue not worth spending time on until the “new comment tool” is installed, which is OK too.

    Just don’t want nice functionality to fall through a crack and be lost forever.

    Thanks for all your hard work!

    Oh, yeh, I agree that the right edge looks crowded by the vertical line, which is exactly zero points from the text/reply button. It would be great if a single space was provided to separate the text from the trim line. Thanks!

  60. 60.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Thanks Alain, for both your hard work and thoughtful communication about the ongoing update.

    Please take no offense when I admit I eagerly await (hope for) the MBBJ CSS adjustment.

  61. 61.

    BruceFromOhio

    There will be lots of mini tweaks, but really, except for comments and streamlining, this whole upgrade – the big stuff – is done! Thanks to all for your patience.

    A small shrine has been commissioned in the woods in your honor. People will be invited to stop by and bitch about how much it sucks because they get to visit it for free.

    Seriously, thanks to you and company for keeping it fresh.

  65. 65.

    Satby

    And on mobile the nyms of those of us with our own websites aren’t links anymore. Or at least mine isn’t. I can’t think who else in this thread has a site.

  67. 67.

    DaddyJ

    I’ve requested this several times: delele the inline-block on content paragraph anchors! Makes for horrible line breaks on long links. Line 1440 I think, but I am on my phone and cant check source code.

  68. 68.

    TheMightyTrowel

    Hey Alain – thanks for the hard work. Checking in from down under to say that I still can’t get the mobile site to open. The regular site works fine on mobile devices, but on mobile it pops up with errors and says something like the DNS address might have changed.

  70. 70.

    Debbie

    The mobile site isn’t working on my iPad. I can’t switch at the bottom. There aren’t any numbers either.

  71. 71.

    mark

    thanks, things are working better now!

    the zoom, or reflow, or fit/dynamic-width on desktop version on mobile isn’t working for me, but otherwise everything else seems peachy now! thanks

  72. 72.

    reality-based (the original, not the troll)

    @Alain the site fixer:

    I have the same problem -click on page two, or try the arrow key – it says i”m on earlier page, but i”m not – still seeing the front page

    I use firefox, if that makes a difference –

  73. 73.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m concerned about the comment system to come, since it’s where all my interaction with Balloon Juice takes place. It seems that each renovation of the website has required weeks of subsequent tinkering to restore the look and feel of the comments to something commenters like me were comfortable with. I don’t look forward to that.

    And I am particularly concerned about the ideas being mooted of late — paginated comments; threaded comments; liking/disliking comments, or voting them up/down; photos and videos in comments, not necessarily safe for some readers’ environments — that might take us out of this comfort zone. We can be a quarrelsome bunch here; I am especially leery of anything that might make us even more so.

  74. 74.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Amir Khalid: I hear you. As I, and Tommy before me, have said, a number of things relating to comments on this site are kludged together and rely on the basic commenting engine in WordPress and a chain of plugins. This is a rickity, creaking ship that needs some improvement so that it’s in stronger shape going into 2016 and beyond.

    I am sure that you’ll find much to like and much to dislike about the new system, and we’ll work to minimize what many dislike. The features I mentioned are all not necessarily going to be used; I was mentioning a number of aspects of the new system that were features of interest (to some, not you, apparently!).

    As for the “changing something, then a delay for fixes” – we are reliant on developers who make the themes and plugins, and when we encounter an issue that needs their help, we ask for it, and then await their response; this can take days. This is life in tech.

    And, as there is no central project manager to absorb all the comments, complaints, and suggestions, and give me a prioritized list, I am filling multiple roles, often having to research and learn before then trying to solve an issue. And I am the one making the judgement calls on what to fix or work on, what is the priority, so an issue that affects you may not be that important on my list compared to items that you are unaware of. I’m not complaining, but I assure you that the end is in sight, and once we get there, these changes will be but an unpleasant memory.

    This whole things was to be complete by the end of November, as we had a demo site, developed, and tested on it in October, and were given the ok to launch, only to then have a never-ending series of complaints that have required tons of extra work and time. The plan was for Tommy to take care of those front end tweaks as I awaited the new commenting system as my last contribution. Instead, things happened, and I was given the responsibility of addressing all the outstanding issues and requests, not to mention back end and performance things. To soothe many folks’ feelings, I have endeavored to address all the issues (many of which I’m sure Tommy or John would shrug off), even adding in things like functional aids to support screen readers (for those with no/limited sight). So yes, it’s been a painful process, and I too cannot wait until it’s complete, but my goal was, and remains, to get the site in as good shape as possible to reduce future issues, make user happy, and to provide the best performance during the election season.

  75. 75.

    Alain the site fixer

    @cdcarr: I don’t plan on it! I also have support on the non-mobile site for screen readers, in case you use one. There’s a skip to content function.

  82. 82.

    Alain the site fixer

    @mark: The last item for me, priority-wise, is tweaking the desktop site for mobile screens – I’m afraid that other changes might affect that, so I’m leaving it as a last step. Sorry – the mobile site is at least improved. I will look at the menu for iPad as I don’t like the interplay between it and the content area when you zoom in – it’s a little crazy. But at least you’re ok for now!

  83. 83.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Satby: I’ll fix that – the mobile site is a different beast that I know zero about. So it may be a day or so….

  84. 84.

    Surreal American

    Not able to call up the front/home page on Chrome. Maybe this has been addressed, so sorry in advance if I missed the steps to remedy this.

  85. 85.

    Juju

    Thank you. I changed the address to the https thing in my bookmarks and now it works. I was getting that sorry message as well. It was exasperating.

  86. 86.

    Alain the site fixer

    Brief hiccup from typo and then worse mis-paste due to panic from the original typo.

    Anyway, SSL should be enabled and forced for all.

  89. 89.

    Kevin McGee

    Alain,
    I can’t access my bookmark for Balloon Juice; it takes me to a site labeled webmaster balloon-juice with a bunch of instructions I’m too computer illiterate to try. Is there some easy fix to get my bookmark back so I can access the front page? It has been three days so far and I’m wondering how the commenters above accessed the site. Thanks in advance.

  90. 90.

    Scout211

    The “https” shows in the url on both the mobile and desktop versions but the green padlock shows only on the mobile site. No padlock at all on the desktop.

    Is this right?

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    Hi Alain,

    When I use the new URL for B-J “https://balloon-juice.com” I get a Firefox message that Firefox has prevented this page from redirecting to another page. when I allow it to continue, I get this url “https://balloon-juice.com/cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi”.

    If I type in the new url and add today’s date, I get the regular front page.

    I’m using Linux/Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Firefox V 42 and haven’t had problems much so far.

    I’m at [email protected] if you have questions.

    Thanks,
    JR

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    A randomly occurring thing on iPad running Chrome: Sometimes when I click the comments link, the site makes me open it in a new tab.

  97. 97.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker:

    The same thing happens to me on the iPad with Chrome, but it happens randomly, and on most sites. I think it is an iPad thing–if you press too hard or too long on a link, it acts like a right-click.

    I just start over with a new touch on the screen until I get the link to open.

  98. 98.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    FF Win 10 here, and when using link to previous comment, back button takes me out of thread (to previous thread I was reading).

  99. 99.

    Chris

    I think I’ll just move this over here, he said sheepishly. Thanks for all the hard work.

    “Open thread so… I don’t see a post about site problems on the front page so maybe it’s on Page 2 but I can’t get there. When I click on the arrows or the little numbers at the bottom of the page it just goes to the front page even though the address bar says Page 2 or Page 2991.

    (Desktop, Ubuntu Linux 15.04, Chrome)”

  100. 100.

    Alain the site fixer

    Mobile users, enjoy the tweaks. I’ll get the link in your nym tomorrow. I’ve got a short list of cosmetic items also on the list for tomorrow.

    Enjoy the debate everybody!

  102. 102.

    Lee

    I cannot get the mobile site on my phone no matter what I do.

    Chrome running on the latest version of Android.

  103. 103.

    Mike J

    The cool kids comment club is working again.

    For some pictures, if you click on the picture itself, you’re taken to a comment section unrelated to the post.
    Example

  104. 104.

    delosgatos

    On this iPad, the links to subsequent pages of posts beyond the front page just takes me to a reload of page 1.

  106. 106.

    sharl

    One very minor thing, a matter of convenience more than anything…

    As I think everyone knows except for the newbies, once the mandatory Name and Email fields have been filled out by a commenter for the first time, those fields are automatically filled in later, as long as the same device and browser (and OS) are used in future comments.

    For all those subsequent comments (where Name and Email are already filled in), it would be slightly more convenient to have the {Post Comment} button/link closer to the commenting text box, to minimize the need to scroll down to access it. This probably applies mostly to those of us who, um, get a bit long-winded sometimes.

    No big thang though…

  108. 108.

    Scout211

    @delosgatos:

    See comment #102

    Alain is aware of the problem and is suggesting a temporary work-around until he can fix it.

    That function appears to be broken at this time. The work-around works.

  109. 109.

    Mike J

    in a category based view of posts, the next and previous arrows should direct the user to the next and previous posts in the category. The problem with this is making the single post view page aware of the context in which it was called.

  110. 110.

    Mike J

    @Mike J: Since the editor still doesn’t work for me, I’ll reply to myself:
    By category based view I mean if the user clicks on site maintenance or insurance below (or presumably any other category.)

  111. 111.

    Glidwrith

    Roughly an inch of screen is missing on the right side, cuts off part of John’s tweet feed. This is on a mini iPad using Safari browser.

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack

    The desktop site (Win10, Firefox here) is doing an interminable chat with syndication.twitter.com (2½ minutes before I cut it) on every page load. No likey. This has been happening since sometime yesterday.

  113. 113.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Using Safari on iPad. If I’m near the bottom of a long string of comments and hit refresh, I’m taken back to the top of the thread instead of returning to (more or less) where I was when I refreshed. Unless I notice and remember the comment number, it means some annoying scrolling around.

    In a similar theme, we already have an arrow that returns is to the top. Is it possible also to have one that will take us to the bottom of the page?

    Thanks, Alain and team! Overall I’m very happy with the various upgrades and think you all have done a great job.

  114. 114.

    dr. luba

    I have a weird thing going on. I am using Chrome on a three+ year old MacBookPro that runs 10.7.4 (can’t upgrade because of a piece of software I need and use).

    When I click on either margin, I get a blue line on both sides–straight on the right, little box-like indents to the left (on th eleft) in the line below the number. It runs between the two headers (or header and bottomer–not sure of the correct lingo).

  115. 115.

    dr. luba

    And if I click in the comment box, or on the “reply” button, it goes away. That’s the only way to get rid of it.

  116. 116.

    Gvg

    In the last couple of days the look of the site changed dramatically. iPad 3 safari. Black wide left border mobile site setting and compacted front page posts with a down arrow that used to open the front page so you could see more than the title, but now that won’t open. Only way to read th front page is open the comments then back up above the first comment. It’s much nicer to switch to the desk top version but the site does forget pretty often and I have to change it back again.

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