I moved it to WordPress when the editor here at Blogger became increasingly clunky and difficult to use, but even a clunky editor is better than none at all.
I seem to have been locked out of my WordPress blogs Khanya, Notes from Underground (that last a replacement for this one) and Hayes and Greene Family History. Though I can still read them, I can't write to them, edit them, or approve new comments. Whenever I try to access them for those purposes, I get this message:
I'll still post links to the WordPress blogs from time to time if they answer questions that people ask and so on, but won't be able to post any new stuff there until WordPress fix their user interface, which they've showed no sign of doing so far.
9 comments:
From that screenshot, it looks like they just now require particular Javascript functions which you've either disabled, or aren't supported by your browser.
To be honest, knowing you, my money's on the latter - and you probably can't upgrade your browser because nothing that supports those functions will run on your out-of-date operating system. :-(
It's time, Steve. Get yourself Windows 10 (or a modern flavour of Linux, or even MacOS; anything will do). Then install a 16-bit FreeDOS / Windows XP VM on it to run your legacy software. And keep that VM off the Internet.
It's only a matter of time. More and more sites are going to stop working completely if you go on the way you have been.
... Alternatively, maybe you can use one of these browsers instead: https://appuals.com/the-5-best-browsers-for-windows-xp/
Firefox is there, but they say the latest version does not support Windows XP. The others, I've never heard of before, but they might be worth a look....
Graham Downs,
The problem is that, being a pensioner, I cannot afford to buy a new computer every couple of years to cope with the planned obsolescence of the software industry.
I realise that lots of people are employed in that industry, and that they therefore have to keep changing things to justify their continued employment, and so planned obsolescence keeps the economy moving.
Perhaps I should try crowdfunding...
But there's the other thing as well. I use computers to make my life easier, but even if I could afford to follow your recommendation, if I followed that line, instead of using computers to facilitate creative work, I'd be spending more and more time serving and maintaining the computer. Computers, like the Sabbath, were made for man, not man for computers.
I see where you're coming from, I really do. And I think it'd be a different story if the operating system you were running still served your purposes 100%. But it clearly isn't serving your purposes anymore; every time a developer makes a change to a website, or posts an update to a piece of software you use (which you can't get because it doesn't support Windows XP), or sends you an email which takes advantage of new features in HTML/Javascript which isn't supported by your software, you end up having to work around those things just to do what you need to do.
That's not making computers work for man. That's going out of your way to make your own life MORE difficult. Especially when all these changes are designed and intended to make computers work BETTER for man by making it easier for him to do the things he needs to do.
And by "man", I don't just mean end-users here. I mean developers too. Every new release of the HTML/Javascript specs are designed to make it easier for developers to code for the modern web. Newer Javascript functions enable us to write faster, smaller code to do the same thing (which translates to benefits for the end user), or to implement new and exciting features which potentially make the end user's experience easier and better. Not ALL end users' experiences, obviously. Some, like you, will sometimes rail against those things and say they actually make your lives more difficult. But we have to cater to the majority.
Furthermore, we DO spend a lot of time and effort on ensuring that the code we write is supported by as many browsers as possible, but when the only browsers that DON'T support a particular thing only runs on an operating system that isn't even supported anymore, we take that as a sign that it's safe to stop supporting it ourselves. ;-)
It's similar with native desktop apps. I work for a company that develops a native Windows application to facilitate automated testing of the JD Edwards ERP system. And our software doesn't work on Windows XP. It's not as if we went out of our way to make it NOT work on XP; it's just that the version of the .NET Framework that we rely on won't install on XP, and many of the functions that we call into simply don't exist in the Windows XP API.
It happens to run on Windows 7 (proof that we don't go out of our way to make it incompatible with certain operating systems), but if we ever need to rely on something that's not supported on 7... well, Microsoft doesn't support 7 anymore, so we'll probably just shrug and go "Meh. Use a supported operating system."
Then of course there are serious security loopholes in Windows XP, which will never be fixed by Microsoft. I know it's unlikely you'll ever be hacked, because few hackers expect any users to still suffer from those vulnerabilities, but still... it may just be that those holes are the first things an automated hacking tool tries to exploit.
At the end of the day, you're running an operating system that's at least six releases old, and expecting it to still do everything you need it to do.
Cost is a problem, of course. Every new release of an operating system is going to need higher specs than the last. Particularly in the case of Windows, which is well known for going out of their way to use all the resources available (and there have been rumours over the years of shady underhanded agreements with Intel, where Microsoft would deliberately milk processors to encourage users to constantly upgrade their hardware). :(
Other than that rumour (which was never proven), it's not just about planned obsolescence keeping people employed, and keeping the economy moving. It's that the older the technology gets, the other the people with skills to WORK on that technology get. People are dying (literally), and those that remain, and are willing to keep developing software for those older systems, want exorbitant salaries. I mean, even the BANKS (famously the last bastion of resistance for the COBOL programming system) have rewritten most of their software to run on .NET by now. :P
But you don't have to stick with Windows and Microsoft .NET. As I said, you could go with a modern Linux distribution. Of which there are literally thousands, catering to lots of different hardware. I have very little doubt you'll find a desktop Linux distro that runs just as well -- maybe even better -- on your current hardware than Windows XP. Then, like I suggested, install Oracle Virtual Box (which is free software), and create a Windows XP virtual machine which you can boot up when you need to run your legacy software... but only your legacy software, mind. The ones you absolutely cannot get to run on Linux, and which you absolutely cannot find acceptable alternatives for. For everything else (including your browser and mail client), download and install native Linux versions.
I also understand that there's a certain amount of "stubborn pride" involved in being one of the few people still using old tech like that. Because I've felt it, too. Newer operating systems tend to "dumb down" the user experience, and shield the user from having to understand certain things. Things like the meaning of a kilobyte, for example. Or what an IP address is. Or how DNS works. In many cases, you can still get to that information, but it's harder to find with the newer user interfaces. And when it's not in people's faces, they're not going to bother to learn what it means, you know?
And it's a GOOD thing for people to learn those things. But they don't want to. So you get to feel a bit superior because you understand what a kilobyte is and nobody else does. It's sad, but, particularly in the Windows ecosystem, it's the way things are moving (again, because computers were built for man, and man doesn't want to have to understand a whole bunch of stuff just to connect to the Internet and download their mail).
Depending on the distro you choose, though, Linux is inherently more "techie", but even they, in their quest to earn more mainstream adoption, are dumbing down their UIs. At least with Linux, the UI is completely decoupled from the underlying OS, so if you really want to, you could run the latest Ubuntu, but throw out the GNOME UI in favour of something completely different. ;)
No offence, but it seems to me that you're leaving yourself behind and making yourself irrelevant. You can't subscribe to authors' newsletters because they're all in HTML and use tags that your mail client doesn't support. And many YouTube videos just won't play for you because your browser doesn't support them (I dunno if that's still the case; I remember you had that problem some time ago).
You say you don't need that stuff, and maybe you don't, directly. But the Internet is becoming more multimedia focused every day, and people are learning by example, and readers are also expecting authors to provide them those kinds of experiences.
But maybe in the short term, you could stick with XP, and try to find a different, modern browser to run on it, as per that article I shared?
Try Linux. Say Xubuntu running live off a USB. There are good instructions on-line. It is free and up to date, and one can make it 'persistent', to remember its previous states. Here's just one example. https://www.wikihow.com/Install-Xubuntu
Steve, you could use a 3rd party remote editor to access your wordpress blog.
In Firefox there should be an extension/add-on called Scribefire. You can enable that and then you can edit existing posts and also add new ones. The Scribefire editor should work fine for you.
Ouch, seek the help of https://wordpresswebsitesupport.com.au/sydney-wordpress-website-support-development-maintenance/
"Hi there! I’ve faced similar issues with WordPress before, and it can be really frustrating. If you’re looking to revive your blog and fix those WordPress issues, consider checking out some solid WordPress support services. They can help troubleshoot and get things back on track quickly. Good luck with your Blogger revival!"
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