Here’s a little fuel to the fire of those of you who want to complain about our beloved FYWP. This person/company from Finland found a pretty serious bug that they’ve been trying to tell the maintainers of WordPress about for months. They were ignored. So, yesterday, they released it as a “zero day” – in other words, they told the world how to hack a WordPress site using the bug they found. Oddly enough, the WordPress maintainers then issued a patch. I just patched Balloon Juice, only after working around another WordPress bug. So, PSA for those of you who run a WordPress site that fails to update: Patricia BT’s comment in this thread has the little fix I used to make it work here. YMMV. Open thread for the rest of you who don’t give a shit.
(BTW, don’t get me wrong. I think WordPress is an amazing achievement, and I’m grateful for the hard work of the maintainers, a lot of which is unpaid and unheralded.)
Cervantes
Thanks for fixing.
greennotGreen
Is Word Press a different program from FYWP?
/snark
greennotGreen
BTW, sometimes when I don’t comment on a thread, it’s not because I’m busy or uninterested; sometimes, like the previous post with the Ta-Nehisi Coates quote, the subject matter is just too depressing for me to engage. And Coates said it far more eloquently than I ever would, anyway.
MazeDancer
Will pass news to those who can use, thanks.
Perhaps FYWP commenters of knowledge have a suggestion for building small business web sites that is not WordPress. Specifically art directors and designers from ad biz who are now going entrepreneur but don’t code. But want to do everything themselves.
Unlike InDesign, PhotoShop and the Adobe Empire, it is not so easy for creative types without coding skills, especially coming from a Mac “it just works” environment, to teach themselves WordPress just by trying it. Intuitive, it is not.
Have several clients of the “maker” ilk who want to blog, sell products, and update the site themselves. Some are stepping up from Etsy or IndieMade. Some starting new. But after a lot of FYWP are looking for alternatives.
Seems that Shopify is great for selling. And truth told, the blank templates at Wix can be coddled by any art director to look great for a low volume, non blog, non selling site. Squarespace is not as easy, but is a maybe, and looks pretty, but doesn’t take PayPal, which some people like. And the Adobe Muse/Business Catalyst (even venerable Dreamweaver) option is also a maybe. But not so great for selling products. And wasn’t built for easy responsive, and mobile devices are required now.
But beginning to think the reason WP is over a quarter of the world’s sites is because there is nothing else.
Many thanks for all ideas.
chopper
and yet, still: fuck you, WordPress.
WereBear
Ironically, I started a new blog on BLOGGER, because while my cat site is WordPress on a self hosted domain (and I do love it so) I can’t afford another bandwidth bill, and the fact that WordPress.org doesn’t allow plugins? Whut?
In any case, for those interested, my second post.
Those of you who have followed my health struggles — I’m getting better, at last. It only took some wild and unorthodox methods, and how better to detail that than in a blog?
It’s the American way.
Bobby B.
I’ve been complaining for months that this site crashes my Chrome. Fortunately it works today so I can spread my joyful sunshine to all.
Mustang Bobby
I switched from Blogger to WordPress a couple of years ago and couldn’t be happier. Actually, my brother did all the backstage work (he’s a recovering MS employee) and he said the transition was relatively easy. WP beats the snot out of Blogger, and the ISP we’re on, A Small Orange, is really good. We did the same with our car club site, going from MS Front Page or its derivative to WP and the ease of use is amazing.
sharl
I’m not a blogger myself, but thanks mm, for what I’m sure is useful input for those who are.
And it’s good to see you in these here parts again! A few of us had been wondering about your absence. Hope all is well.
Another Holocene Human
@WereBear: Love what you said about “natural”. Huh. Male pattern baldness is “natural”. ED is “natural”. Knee and hip joints blowing out … oh, heart attacks, how about that one?
Why is it that every female trouble up to and including the fatal ones is “natural” and should be grimly endured–and it’s not just doctors who say this, clergy are waiting to say it too–no, not just clergy, let’s enshrine this in law–while any male complaint is attacked with the most aggressive medicine on Earth?
Menstrual pads. Are taxed. In most of the US and Canada, instead of being tax free like similar medical items.
ps: I believe they were untaxed in MA back in the day, possibly because they were classified as clothing, which was tax free under $100, perhaps because they replaced the farmgirl’s rags?
Redshift
@Bobby B.: Have you tried disabling Chrome extensions and seeing if the crash doesn’t happen if a particular one is disabled? I load BJ in Chrome frequently, and I’ve never seen a crash. Since that would have to be a bug in the browser that’s triggered by something in the site, a buggy extension is the most common cause.
WereBear
Yes, that’s kind of it.
Between the impressive plugin library, the army of coders who work on it, and the transparent interface that is search engine friendly, it is highly versatile for most uses. And with the right template, you can have any LOOK you want, which is vitally important for some venues.
I think looking into the world of customizable templates might cut the Gordian knot for you? I use Weaver II and I’ve been VERY pleased. It cost, in the words of Jackie Gleason, a “mere bag of shells” but has offered great flexibility, there’s a forum to figure out the fiddly bits, and it has a lot of premades that do much of the theme look for you to hit the ground running.
And this is just one example. In my experience, getting a professional WP theme company on board covers 90% of what you want to CODE for, leaving room, and money, for getting more extensive help as needed.
WereBear
@Another Holocene Human: Ack! Thank you. Another topic for me to expound upon.
And really, women is my lead-in, but I believe medicine is in a crisis that affects us all.
WereBear
@Mustang Bobby: For my cat site, I started with Blogger, and switched to my own domain for looks, the WP plugins, and the freedom to run ads that weren’t Google ads.
I swear, Google has an algorithm to display ads which directly contradicts whatever advice you are giving on the blog. I couldn’t stand it. BJ can get away with ironic ads (though I welcome the Wonkette feed, love it) but I don’t think I can go that way.
R-Jud
♪Pony trekking or camping
Or just watching TV
Finland, Finland, Finland
It’s the country for me♫
MattF
Some WaPo stupid for those who are looking for their fix, but no links from me.
There’s Richard Cohen, who thinks Donald Trump should be taken seriously. Um,… apparently because Trump makes the other Rs look good.
There’s Chris Cillizza, who thinks commentary on Hillary Clinton’s appearance may not be completely OK, but it’s mostly OK. And who also nominates Hillary for the coveted ‘Worst Week’ award.
There’s Elliot Abrams, who finds a way to give Pinochet good press–e.g., because Pinochet murdered only a few hundred people more than the current Egyptian dictator has.
That’s all for now.
Germy Shoemangler
@WereBear: So that explains all the right wing, libertarian and NRA ads I see on liberal blogs.
Here’s something my wife found: Amy Schumer discovers her heroes having a party celebrating their last f•••able day. Interesting that male actors are considered sexy no matter how old they get (“spiders can be crawling out of them”) but actresses have a short shelf life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPpsI8mWKmg
cahuenga
That’s not all… Resize your browser window to around 700px and watch the formatting of this site imploded spectacularly.
It becomes quite unreadable.
Germy Shoemangler
Just saw the news:
Jayne Meadows, a glamorous redheaded actress who starred on Broadway, in the movies and on television, but who was probably best known for her 46-year role as Steve Allen’s wife, business partner and frequent co-star, died on Sunday at her home in Encino, Calif. She was 95.
sharl
@R-Jud: That video is blocked in the U.S., because it contains “content from SME” (whatever that is).
There are U.S.-available alternatives though. I’ve now had my Monty Python fix for the day.
MattF
@cahuenga: Well, I’ve been using the OS X Accessibility Zoom feature for a couple of years, particularly since my eye surgery, and it works very nicely in all the applications. I’m somewhat surprised that WP has any awareness of current pixel density– sounds to me like an OS function.
MazeDancer
@WereBear:
Thanks for your thoughts. And some solace in learning, really, there is nothing else than WP.
There is a common thread among art directors of wanting to teach themselves. Take a few hours and be able to do what they need.
Hearing so much FYWP about its inaccesibility, I thought, well, guess I’ll check it out, myself. And found, indeed, WP is not beginner friendly. Hiring people to teach you is not the same as “I’ll just figure it out”. Even if you give in and agree to RTFM, there is little good FM to find.
Most of the online videos are painfully slow and boring.
Now, I was teaching myself InDesign, eons ago, about the same moment as Quark started its tumble. And no one thought Quark could be knocked off the pedestal. When printers weren’t happy to take InDesign docs and PDFs did not rule printing. Quark was wretched, arrogant, frustrating, and bloated. Though many loved it because there was nothing else. Quark deserved to die. Having a moment of WP=Quark and wishing for the InDesign.
But since zillions love WP and are committed to the “community”, maybe it’s not Quark, it’s just a secret language of another country, and instead of screaming FY, I’ll have to, one day, if needed, embrace WP, and get taught. Maybe one of my clients/friends who are biting the bullet, holding their nose, and forcing themselves up the “Mother May I” steep curve of WP interface will teach me.
Enjoyed your new blog, look forward to the “…and then I found” resolution.
jibeaux
For months, this site has worked on my phone but not my computer. Too lazy to figure it out, but probably FYWP.
In open thread news, would like to repost a random and totally free bleg for Facebook votes. Middle school that is approximately half free and reduced lunch is trying to win a tuba for their band and we are neck and neck right now with another school. Did you know that tubas are like five grand? If you’re so inclined and are on FB, the page is The Tuba Exchange in Durham,NC. About the fifth video down on the page, the all start with “this is one of five finalists…”, it’s called “band commercial.” If you like it on the FB page, it counts as a vote. This school is on the upswing from years of neglect and it would be a great morale boost.
Violet
Thanks for fixing it!
@WereBear: I don’t know if medicine is in a crisis but our current medical system doesn’t work for a lot of people. I have had to become my own case manager in some situations, which has saved me thousands of dollars (avoided a surgical procedure that wasn’t needed because I insisted on and checked the bloodwork prior), as well as saving my own life (correct thyroid diagnosis–thank you person on the internet). Those things should not have happened. Doctors should be making those calls and diagnoses. The patient should not have to know everything before they walk in the door.
Germy Shoemangler
My experience with doctors has been they aren’t very good at diagnosing a problem. If they know exactly what you have, they’ll treat you more or less effectively. But if you present the same list of symptoms to three different doctors you’ll get three different opinions.
TV doctors really spoiled me. I grew up believing doctors were medical detectives who could solve any mystery.
And my experience has been they are extremely contemptuous of patients who try to google their own problems.
Cervantes
@Another Holocene Human:
Tampons and pads are exempt from Massachusetts sales tax.
Amir Khalid
@sharl:
SME is Sony Music Entertainment. It’s an evil corporate intellectual-property owning behemoth that exists to make your YouTube viewing experience a misery of blocked videos.
Germy Shoemangler
What irritates me is when a doctor tells me a previous doctor made the wrong decision.
Five years ago I had pain in my left ear. Went to the GP. She said I had a wax buildup. Called a young nurse’s assistant in with a water syringe. The girl put it on full blast and syringed both ears. I’ve had ear irrigations before, but never at this intensity. Sure enough, lots of wax came out. But the left ear still hurt.
A few months later I saw a specialist who diagnosed the ear infection and told me the previous doc should NOT have injected water in there.
Bobby B.
@Redshift: I tried something like that a while ago but just got confused and gassy.
The Other Chuck
FYWP is reminiscent of MS Word: too many features of dubious value, but everyone uses a different subset of those features, so none of them can be eliminated. And because of that, making a clone with feature parity is nigh impossible for any kind of hobby project to accomplish.
Still, have you ever seen the source for WP? It’s monstrously bad even by PHP standards.
The Other Chuck
BTW, if I were replicating FYWP’s functionality, I’d start not with the web UI like most do, but with a web API, the kind of thing the WP folks have never gotten around to finishing. Make that API work with an existing WP database for a long established existing site (like BJ), tested by running a WP site on top of it. Then you start implementing the API with code that isn’t awful.
Incidentally, this had to be a separate post because FYWP’s mobile functionality is, well, take a guess.
NotMax
@Anotherf Holocene Human
Varies by location.
Menstrual pad and tampon purchases are taxed here.
As are all medical products and medicines, excepting only artificial limbs.
NotMax
@The Other Chuck
Still sorely miss Corel WordPerfect.
WereBear
Let me guess. You were one of those folks who would show me a ten-key-finger-move and tell me it’s so easy?
WereBear
My experience too, and I have also found that people wouldn’t do that so much if they got answers in the doctor’s office!
NotMax
@WereBear
Um, no.
It did what it was supposed to do, provide a platform for composing, formatting and saving documents without the outre, bizarre proprietary coding utilized by MS Word.
sharl
@Amir Khalid: Ah, thanks. I’ve seen the “SME block” before, but was never curious enough to figure out what SME actually stood for. And the evilness of Sony is on full display in all those internal corporate e-mails leaked by a hacker – I’m guessing disgruntled former Sony IT nerd – that have provided so much schadenfreude to us online news consumers.
Fourten
I SAID: “ENGLAND“
WereBear
@NotMax: Oh, MS. You know why people don’t say FYMS?
It’s implied and implicit.
J R in WV
@WereBear:
Visited your new Blogger blog, and liked it a lot. But can’t comment there because I have none of what ever those are in the dropdown you need to select one of before publishing your comment. So here’s what I was gonna say at that blog, here where I can post it:
Does WordPress allow the “Leave a Reply” method used here on Balloon-Juice but Blogger has no substitute? How sad. Maybe you could set up a Blogger account for “anonymous” posters to use, and a couple of fields edited like the Name and E-mail fields here on FYWP?
Because I’m never gonna have the ID types in your Blogger dropdown to use to post over there.
Best wishes for your success both medically and Bloggeriffically!
JR
WereBear
@J R in WV: Thanks so much for the feedback.
I’ll have to check the options on commenting.
Oh, the housekeeping on a brand new blog!
J R in WV
Having read the Klikki.fi post about their discovery of the vulnerability in WP, the lack of response from the WordPress team seems really irresponsible and unprofessional.
Of course, they didn’t act like governmental security when vulnerabilities are reported in (for example) banking software, by arresting those trying to fix things by contacting the vendor / support team. So there is that goodness.
But still. Months and months of silence when contacted by major IT entities like CERT-fi is just not a good thing at all. SQL-injection is not that hard a thing to code around, which I assume is how come their patch came out in roughly 24 hours. Very sad.
WereBear
@J R in WV: Fixed! Thanks very much.
Been a while since I blogged with Blogger. Mostly, there’s upgrades. When I started, you could even schedule posts! I had to be there to press the button!
One of the reasons I switched to WP.
weavrmom
@werebear: Nice blog! I have managed my own menopause for many years now, because modern medicine has no clue what to do. John Lee’s books basically saved me.
I now use OTC bioidentical hormones and feel totally normal: no more stabbing abdominal pain, no more insomnia, and no more aching horrible depression like I just want to shrivel up and die. And my OBGYN is afraid to prescribe anything bc he seems to think that every human female hormone is as carcinogenic as the PREgnant MARe’s urINe/progestin combo. Poor baby,I Ieave him alone now. I also see there is a new local MD billing herself as the “Menopause Maven” who will actually deal with hormones. And another OB_GYN told me that if she didn’t give the prescriptions her patients asked for, she would lose most of them. This is in an more affluent, educated area of CA, so don’t know if that helps.
But really, it is the Dark Ages right now for women’s health. Wishing you excellent health!