Category: Blogging

Media buttons not displaying in WordPress.com Add New Post screen in Safari

I’m new to WordPress.com (though been a WordPress.org user since 2004) so forgive me if this is old news but the WordPress.com New Post dialog box doesn’t display properly in Safari (version 5.03 on OS X 10.6.6, at least).

If you look at the image below you can see that the Media buttons normally to the right of Upload/Insert are missing – in fact the only button displaying there is the Add Poll button.

WordPress.com Add New Post in Safari
WordPress.com Add New Post in Safari

Viewing the same screen in Firefox (version 3.6.13 on OS X 10.6.6) does display the buttons. Note also that under the Media menu item on the left, the Library and Add New items are correctly aligned in Firefox, but they are not in Safari.

WordPress.com Add New Post in Firefox
WordPress.com Add New Post in Firefox

One thing that the Safari screen does get right however is that it displays the Alt text for the buttons on rollover, whereas Firefox doesn’t.

One other thing I did notice (which is non-obvious, but helped by the appearance of the Alt text) is that while the media buttons don’t appear in Safari, if you rollover the space between the Upload/Insert and the Poll button, the functionality of the buttons is there, it is simply that they don’t display!!! How bizarre.

As I said at the outset, I’m new to WordPress.com, so if this is a well worn topic, forgive me – it is just new to me.

Looking for a great Green domain name…

On the back of a suggestion from James Governor I am going to set up a blog dedicated to Green issues. I have a strong interest in this area and have presented internationally on the topic but I don’t post much about it (and when I do post here, I feel I am polluting the stream with unrelated posts).

So, any suggestions for a great (available) domain name?

I have a Fire Eagle invite code as a prize! I will decide on a winner tomorrow (Friday 7th at 6pm GMT).

Don't enter this competition – I want to win!

Just saw over on Frank’s site that Glengariffe Lodge, a Luxury Self Catering destination in West Cork, are running a competition with a prize of a weekend away worth €1175!

Full details are on the competition page but basically, as well as linking to the hotel in your blog post, you also need to link to a friend who may be interested in a luxury weekend away in beautiful West Cork (making the competition a bit viral – clever sods!).

Please don’t anyone else enter this competition as you will reduce my chances of winning!!!

My interview published on Channel 9

When I was in Barcelona for TechEd last year Charles Torre did a video interview with me. We had a wide ranging chat about data centre energy efficiency strategies, blogs/blogging and the Death Star!

Charles emailed me last night to let me know that the interview has now been published on Channel 9 (Channel 9 is a very high trafficked online forum where videos are posted and discussions on those videos take place).

It has already been viewed over 600 times!

The player is SilverLight and doesn’t appear to work on the Mac for some reason but there is a link to a .wmv version of the video so you can download and watch locally.

Blame it on the Twitter!

I have been very quiet on this blog for the last few weeks – apologies for that but I can’t promise on the pace returning to the two or three posts a day I was averaging at times last year.

Why? I have been spending a lot of time on the micro-blogging site, Twitter.

Twitter is a site where you have a maximum of 140 characters per post but instead of a traditional blog site, these posts are typically conversational. Because of the immediacy of writing 140 characters, reading and responding to ‘Tweets’ is relatively trivial and so conversations are born.

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote a great article last year explaining how Twitter is now paying his rent.

And because of the still early nature of the application, it is possible to very quickly build up a powerful network of highly influential users who are only too happy to converse with you. I have met several people recently who, up until now I only knew through Twitter.

Another way I use Twitter is I often pose questions to Twitter and get great replies back from highly qualified people in minutes.

My Twitter Replies tab

Twitter has an open API so it is possible to use third party applications to post to and read from Twitter. Currently I am using twhirl on my laptops (twhirl is a cross-platform desktop client for twitter, based on Adobe AIR) and twibble on my phone. Snitter is another cross-platform Twitter desktop client which gets a lot of good reviews.

Dave Weinberger called it “continuous partial friendship” but I think it goes beyond that. The term Ambient Intimacy has been coined to cover one of the aspects of Twitter – it brings you a lot closer to people you might ordinarily never get to know (if you decide you don’t want to know them, you simply stop following them!).

Whatever it is, it is growing in popularity steadily and it was how I and many others chose to remain connected over the holiday period.

If you want to follow me, here is my Twitter profile.

Is Blognation in a meltdown?

Blognation seemed to be a great idea when it launched. Get great bloggers from all over the world, under one banner, pay them well and the advertising money will follow the quality content.

Unfortunately, the money part seems to have proven a little problematic.

One of Blognation’s authors, Oliver Starr wrote an open letter to Blognation’s founder, Sam Sethi, on the Blognation US site today where he claimed none of Blognation’s authors have yet been paid. That post has since been deleted off the Blognation US site.

Oliver Starr has since re-posted the open letter on his own blog.

The allegations Oliver makes against Sam are pretty damning. He says, amongst other things:

You made promises that people took to the bank and then you defaulted on them leaving everyone that trusted you to face the consequences. I am not kidding when I say that there are people on Blognation that probably won’t have a Christmas thanks to believing in you. There are people that are going to be late on car payments and there are people that are going to have to think twice before they go to the dentist because they are out some $10, $20 or even $30,000 dollars of income that they were expecting, for which they HAVE A CONTRACT and for which you have an obligation because you told us that you had the money when in fact you never really did!

He goes on to further add:

that’s a pretty ugly litany of yours up there; lies, more lies, still more lies, exaggerations, evasiveness, manipulation, usury, fraud even – honestly Sam I think there’s a good chance that what you’ve done is actually criminal not just pathological and antisocial – perhaps even psychotic behavior. Sorry to have to recount it – I never would have expected that I would have had to write anything like this to you. It goes to show that you just never know people until you’ve been down the road with them a few miles, huh?

Read the entire post – it is long but extremely well written and worth the time.

I was in touch with Sam over Twitter direct message since this broke and he said he was working on his own response. At time of writing I haven’t come across his response. I tried phoning him but the number I have no longer appears valid.

I spoke to Nicole Simon, Germany’s Blognation editor, and she basically confirmed everything Oliver said and Nicole has her own post on the matter up now too. I tried talking to Conor O’Neill, Ireland’s Blognation editor, for his perspective but failed to get him.

If what Oliver says is true, and given that Nicole backs it up, I have no reason to doubt it is, Sam’s reputation is in shreds. The Blognation brand is also in serious difficulty. No investor will touch Blognation now with Sam still involved unless Sam can come back with a seriously credible explanation for these posts.

If Sam cannot explain adequately the accusations against him, Blognation can still be saved, I believe. There is a value in the group of authors Sam gathered, in the material they have written so far, and the material they may yet write. If someone credible can step in and take ownership of Blognation from Sam then not all is lost and the brand and all the work to-date might be saved.

That is a big “if” though!

UPDATE – Sam Sethi has said he is unable to raise funding and he is closing Blognation. As I mentioned in the piece above, there is still a chance that the brand can be saved if a buyer steps in.