Day: April 12, 2021

TMP — Another Letdown

Fandango24 Comments

Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. Are you ready for another rant about WordPress?

On Sunday I was really excited that the WordPress iOS app version 17.0 was available for uploading. I figured that by now, five and a half months after releasing version 16.0 last November, and with 11 interim releases up to 16.11, version 17.0, a major release, would surely have fixed the annoying bug that surfaced in version 16.0. I installed the new version, tried it, and the problem was not fixed. So I reached out to the “hapless” engineers. I wrote…

This morning I was very psyched to upload WP-iOS version 17.0, thinking that, after more than five months since the release of version 16.0, a new major release will have finally fixed the problem. But yet again, disappointment, frustration, and anger. I’ve had countless exchanges with various happiness engineers over the past five-plus months, explaining the bug, providing screenshots, and even a video clip illustrating the issue. Over the months I have been told that the developers had been able to replicate the issue and were working on a fix. Meanwhile. You keep on releasing enhancements to that stupid block editor that few people like, you add the head-scratching ability to mark a post as “seen,” a functionality whose value I can’t understand, and add a SnapChat or Instagram-like “stories” feature that most bloggers don’t want or need. But you have still failed to fix a critical bug in your iOS app. WTF, WordPress?

I got a response yesterday saying…

I’m sorry to know it’s not working for you even after updating to the latest version of the WordPress app. We’re not able to reproduce this with our own test sites/accounts. Can we have your permission to log in to your WordPress.com account on the app to perform testing for troubleshooting purposes?

What? After all this time, they’ve done nothing? We’re back to square one. I gave them permission to log in to my account and this morning I saw this…

Thank you for giving us the permission to access your account. I was able to reproduce this on your account and my test account. I have reported this to our developers for a fix.

So, how likely is it that you think this will be my last post complaing about this as yet unresolved bug in the WordPress iOS app?

WDYS — Message in a Bottle

Fandango14 Comments

I saw a glass jar with a cork stopper in its opening sitting on a random spot on the wet sand. It seemed to have a glow coming from the inside of it. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

I decided to sit down on the dry sand not far from the strange jar and gaze at it for a while. It was mesmerizing. Sitting there quietly contemplating the glowing jar offered me a bit of a respit from my hectic life.

After a while, my curiosity got the best of me. I walked over and picked up the jar. It was warm to the touch and the glow seemed to come from little pieces of iridescent paper. I grabbed the twine attached to the cork stopper and pulled with all my might. The cork stopper finally came loose and as soon as I removed it, all of the glowing strips of paper slowly floated up and into air above the jar and, one by one, started to explode into what looked like miniature fireworks.

I dropped the jar back into the wet sand and stood there, transfixed, watching the sparkling pieces of paper disintegrate. But one piece of paper remained intact and as it slowly fluttered back toward the ground, I reached out and grabbed it.

I unfolded the paper strip and saw that there was was something written on it. I unfolded the strip of paper and read what it said.

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Photo credit: Andrew Morris @ Unsplash. And for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (glass), MMA Storytime (random), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (never) Word of the Day Challenge (hectic), and The Daily Spur (rebirth).

Share Your World — Weird Questions

Fandango18 Comments

Share Your WorldFor this week’s Share Your World prompt, Melanie admits that her questions are “weird.” That they are, almost like those that Di and Frank alternate weekly and ask in their Fibbing Friday prompts. Nonetheless, here are Melanie’s weird questions and my straight answers.

What would be the worst “buy one get one free” sale of all time?

Um, vasectomies?

Have you ever gotten a really bad haircut? Do share!

It’s been so long since I actually had someone else cut my hair that I can’t remember, although I’m sure, back when I still had hair on my head to be cut, I got plenty of really bad haircuts.

Aren’t Disneyland and Disney World (and all the variants) just a people trap operated by a mouse?

Probably, and an expensive people trap at that.

What if Batman got bitten by a vampire? What would happen?

He would be a blood sucking vampire batman who would only come out at night and who would have to have his bat cave outfitted with a coffin for him to sleep in during the day.

What do you want your final words to be if you could choose?

“It was fun while it lasted.”

Blogging Insights — WordPress in the Time of the Pandemic

Fandango11 Comments

Blogging insightsFor this week’s edition of Blogging Insights, Dr. Tanya wants to know…

How satisfied (or not) are you with WordPress during the pandemic?

Up until August 2020, when WordPress decided to decommission the classic editor and force the block editor down our throats, I was very satisfied with WordPress. But I’m not a fan of the block editor and so my level of satisfaction diminished considerably.

The good news, though, is that, while the block editor is not a viable option for me to use on my iPhone if blogging on wordpress.com using a browser, I can still use the WordPress iOS version of the classic editor on my iPhone. However, WordPress has recently announced that the classic editor option will soon be removed from its iOS app, as well. And that, as far as I’m concerned, will suck.

The other consideration that has lessened my satisfaction with WordPress is that when WordPress rolled out version 16.0 of its iOS app this past November, there was a major bug in it, which I wrote about in this post on November 3rd.

Since that time, I’ve had countless exchanges with various happiness engineers, explaining the bug, providing screenshots, and even a video clip illustrating the issue. Over the months I have been told that the developers had been able to replicate the issue and were working on a fix. And yet here we are, five and a half months later and that bug has yet to be fixed.

So, overall, I have not been very satisfied with WordPress. I’m disappointed, frustrated, and pissed off.

But none of that has anything to do with the pandemic. It’s more about how the powers that be at WordPress don’t seem to give a shit about how we feel about the removal of the classic editor and their insistence that we embrace the block editor. Basically, they’re telling us that it’s their way or the highway.

And it’s also about how the happiness engineers and developers at WordPress are terrible when it comes to fixing bugs.

Unfortunately, as far as other blog hosting sites, none of them have the blogging community that WordPress does. It was that blogging community that landed me at WordPress to start with and it’s that blogging community (i.e., all of you) that is keeping me on WordPress.

J is for “JAG”

Fandango23 Comments

“JAG,” which is the U.S. military acronym for Judge Advocate General, was an American legal drama television series with a U.S. Navy theme, created by Donald P. Bellisario, and produced by Belisarius Productions in association with Paramount Network Television. The series originally aired on NBC for one season from September 23, 1995, to May 22, 1996, and then on CBS for an additional nine seasons from January 3, 1997, to April 29, 2005. The first season was co-produced with NBC Productions and was originally perceived as a “Top Gun” meets “A Few Good Men” hybrid series. In total, 227 episodes were produced over 10 seasons. At the time of the original airing of its fifth season in the United States, JAG was seen in over 90 countries worldwide.The series followed the exploits of the Washington metropolitan area–based uniformed lawyers in the Department of the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General, who, in the line of duty, can prosecute and defend criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Almost all episodes of the series feature scenes filmed aboard real United States Navy ships.

Like “Law & Order,” the plots from many “JAG” episodes were often “ripped from the headlines,” with portions of the plot either resembling or referencing recognizable aspects of actual cases or incidents.

While there was an ensemble cast, the two main protagonists were USN Lt. Harmon Rabb, Jr. (David James Elliott) and USN Lt. JG Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie (Katherine Bell). Rabb and Mac’s obvious attraction to each other, which couldn’t be allowed to interfere with their professional relationship, was a long-running thematic element.

“JAG” creator Donald P. Bellisario was developing a spin-off in 2003. The spin-off was focused around the work of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). It was aired in April 2003 and focused on the NCIS team, with most of the JAG regulars as supporting characters. Whereas the episodes of “JAG” were primarily oriented on a mixture of courtroom drama and military activities in the field, “NCIS” episodes were more focused on criminal investigations. “NCIS” also followed a different storytelling format from “JAG,” emphasizing character humor to a larger extent than its parent program.

Since “JAG” first aired in 1995, it and its spin-offs, “NCIS,” “NCIS Los Angeles,” and “NCIS New Orleans,” these series have been powerhouse network shows for CBS.

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