Category Archives: blogging

say #%*@! to the new wordpress block editor

29 Friday May 2020

Posted by in blogging, internet

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block editor
When the new Worpdress block editor became available (maybe a year or so ago?) I gave it a spin and immediately HATED it. It was so faffy, unintuitive and frustrating that I opted to install a classic editor plugin on my websites with WordPress installs, and continue using the classic option here. Then the other day I got an email from WP with the chirpy title Say Hello To The New WordPress Block Editor and my heart sank. Turns out that as of June 1st, WP is retiring the classic editor and that even now it shows up as the default editor. Gaaaah.

I suppose if I wanted to do all that fancy stuff then I would find the new bells and whistles interesting, but in fact it makes just putting up a regular post with a photo or two much harder, takes way longer, ruins the experience for me. Happily they still have a “classic editor block” that I can choose, but again it’s extra clicks just to get to where I want to be to start. I’m not sure if or how this will affect the other hosted sites but here’s hoping the plugin keeps working after June 1st. What do you think of the new editor?

moving on from picasa…

20 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by in blogging, photography, work

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Moving on from Picasa… but where to?? Actually, this change came about in early 2016, which basically meant that there would be no more updates or support for Picasa, but it didn’t affect the existing versions. In fact, Peter downloaded the last version for his new laptop last month and it’s been working fine. That is, until Saturday.

I uploaded some photos from the day out, planning to do some editing and hopefully get a couple of review updates posted (my massive backlog is ALMOST cleared!!), but while the photos were uploaded properly into the file, they didn’t show up on Picasa. I thought it might just be a glitch and so I just shut things down, thinking that things would probably be back to normal after a reboot. But nope.

It occurred to me to reinstall Picasa, but then I thought I might screw up my present Picasa “library” which is showing everything I uploaded before Saturday. I also checked with Peter and his Picasa also wasn’t showing new photos he uploaded, so the possibility of losing everything seemed likely. Damn.

The thing I have always liked about Picasa was its simple editing options, and also that it was easy to scroll through the library that showed all my photo files. It also had a text option, so I could add my watermark, a collage maker, plus I could export the edited photos to other files at smaller sizes, keeping the originals in the original files. Google Photos, the recommended substitute for Picasa has only basic cropping and filter features, so it’s useless for me.

What to do?? I mean, photo editing is a HUGE part of my job, and I’m really stuck if I don’t have some means of doing this. I tried downloading the Windows Live editor, but that one doesn’t appear to be working either. I also tried GIMP and have just spent the last two hours totally frustrated with it, which is the same experience I had with it a few years ago. I’m sure it does wonderful stuff if you know how to do them, but it is not a user-friendly platform at all, and is very “clunky” in terms of finding the uploaded files and then exporting them.

I honestly don’t know what to do next. Any ideas?

no more facebook

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in blogging, social media

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I had to open a personal Facebook page a few years ago in order to have FB Pages for my business(es). But I never used the personal page because, well, I just don’t like Facebook. Then a while back I noticed that I could publish my Casa Azahar blog post links on other platforms (FB, Twitter, Tumblr) and so I started doing that. Then I started getting occasional comments on my FB, even though to see the entire blog post you have to click through to WordPress. And so it became just another way of connecting with people, especially those whose only social media is FB.

But that’s all about to end. As of August 1st Facebook will no longer allow third party publishing on personal pages. Why? Who the fuck knows. So my FB personal page is soon to go dark. Apparently you will still be able to third party publish on FB business pages, so my option is to either change my personal FB page to a business one (and why would I do that?) or else start publishing directly on my personal page. But you know what? I simply don’t have time. I don’t use FB, rarely scroll through the timeline, etc. Even on my business pages (Sevilla Tapas & We Love Tapas) pretty much everything published there comes from my Instagram accounts.

I was actually surprised when I started getting all kinds of new FB friend requests on the personal page, since it’s just links to my blog (making it probably the most boring FB page out there). Because my blog, now more than 12 years old, went through a change starting in 2008, while recuperating from various cancer operations and going through chemo twice. It took on another meaning for me, and became almost like a daily “therapy session” when I gave myself the challenge to post something every day, no matter how sick or scared or lost I felt, so that at least each morning I had something to get out of bed for and to work towards. Which meant it turned it into a “daily scrapbook” (dear diary?) kind of blog, and I’ve kept it going that way ever since, mostly because if I ever stopped posting something every day I would feel pressure that the NEXT post will have to be about something interesting or important. 😉

I’ve never been sure how that translated on the FB format, to be honest, or if anyone actually clicked through to read entire blog posts on WordPress, but as of next week I won’t have to think about that anymore. This will be good news for those of you who friended me on FB only to discover that – eek – I just posted a bunch of crap all the time. And for those of you who enjoy reading my stuff, well, you can still find me on the Casa Azahar blog and chat with me here. You can even subscribe (link in the footer) so a wee notice pops in your email when something is posted, in case you forget to look. Well, I guess that’s it. Back to work now…