Announcement

 

 Dear faithful readers,

I am considering something that I've avoided for a long time, and this is a direct result of some decisions that Google has recently made regarding the back-end of their blogging platform, Blogger.

In the past, I've had a fairly good idea of what visitors were interested in, and tried to tilt my content somewhat - within my own interests - toward readers.  Recently Google made some major changes to the Blogger interface, and it reduced my ability to see what subjects readers are interested in.  

For example: I could get a lot of information on where readers arrived from, which pages got read, and what readers searched for using the search tool at the top of the blog.  That information is now very limited and nearly worthless.  

It may be that Google is nudging people toward installing Google Analytics, to get better data, and more information on you readers.  I don't know the answer to that.  I have a deep mistrust of Silicon Valley and don't like the idea of deep-monitoring people's behavior or reading habits - nor of sharing that information with unknown parties.

Nevertheless, since they have sharply curtailed my ability to better serve readers - again, within my own knowledge and interests - I am considering installing Google Analytics, to get a better idea of what reader's interests are.  

I do not intend to allow ads or try to make money from this - I do it to try and inform and educate readers about the handful of things that I sorta understand.  Google Analytics is designed more with retailing in mind, so I don't know if it will be useful to a lowly blogger.  Anyway my mind is not yet made up on this.

Let me know what you think and I will make a decision and let ya know.

Cool or Useful Phone Apps

"Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you." - Epictetus

Recently I was forced to replace the old Android phone, and I have been going through the new one,  force-stopping the pre-loaded bloatware.  I'm pretty sure it's now impossible to get root access to a modern phone and delete the bloatware from it. While I was deleting their apps and adding my preferred ones, I thought it would be a good idea to share ideas for cool apps.  Please suggest good ones or favorites in the comments!

 First of all, I'm still lamenting the loss of my beloved NEXT 3D Launcher.  Below are screenshots taken from the previous phone, the Droid Turbo.  Gorgeous interface.  The most-often used apps are on these screen shots.

Missing Blog Images

I've noticed in the last couple of days that several images on the blog are not showing up - including the main image for my Blog!!!  It's a little irritating...

I checked using a couple of different PCs, and tried three different browsers, but the same images came up missing each time.  The images still show up in the original files, but re-publishing them does not make the images appear in the re-post.

These are not copyrighted images either.  Most of them are my own photos.  It's not clearwhat's up, but hopefully Google straightens it out.  I'm dead-certain that Google doesn't have a call center full of helpful people just waiting to help me fix these issues.  Also I don't have a lot of free time, so I'm not keen on trying to figure it out on my own.

If things aren't back to normal in a few days, I will look into it.