To publish this post took me over two days, because it required digging out all the literature for all these events (both what I pick up at venues, as well as hyperlinkable info online). Plus, my computer has a nasty habit of rebooting of its own accord; something which extensive troubleshooting has put down to overheating, which cannot be remedied unless some major renovation (adding a fan above the PC) or reordering (putting the PC under a fan; yeah, right; it would be easier to install a wiring extension and fit a new fan!) happens.
In addition to that, the UPS is just a bypassable useless appendage in the circuit-it does nothing-at least it used to beep its head off, though not staying on for a proper shutdown; it would just turn off; but now it doesn't do even that.
I often edit in MS Word, or am writing in MS Word anyway (not necessarily for the blog), so Word is supposed to be my friend. But guess what? I hear (on troubleshooter groups etc.) that it's a sin to post from Word to Blogger, because it adds all sorts of useless confusing formatting. So the html just goes for a six.
Then when I started using GoogleDocs (GD) I thought they would be a saviour (the desi cyber cafe in Delhi I go to-it's called Phonewala, in Amar Colony five minutes' walk from college, charges 15 bucks an hour-is so sasta [cheap] there's no A/C, it's a furnace, it has Windows 9?, god only knows 95 or 98 and MS Word 97. So the only way to standardise formatting, etc. was to use GD). Well all I can say is, there ain't no such thing as Standard Formatting-it stops right up there with A4 size paper. The freakiest of the freaky screwups have happened to me.
(For instance, the bullets in a bulleted list were all of the same size and type [duh!] in my original, but in GD and that old MS Word they were of different sizes. 0_0. I mean, what? Are you kidding me??)
What is up with line breaks in Blogger? And does this damn server have amnesia or what? Drafts that are saved never look the same when you revisit them. Hell, neither do published posts. Line breaks vanish into thin air. But that I can still stomach. When I found a nice solution (not the most elegant, but under the circumstances) I tried it, and it worked-to replace all the "^p" marks with "<br>". I was happy, but should have known better. Like the mosquitoes that get immune to DDT after a while, I think I've caused Blogger to mutate into this weird creature that EVEN EATS UP THE "br" MARKS in Edit Html Mode!!??!!
As it happens, and as Murphy would have it, I happen to be a stickler for formatting. It irks me no end when something looks off.
Oh did I mention the Internet connection? It's BSNL Broadband, and there is something just so wrong with it, nobody even knows what it is. It's like those Victorian novels in which there's always one girl who is puny, pale and of a weak constitution. Nobody knows what it is. Or the older age group people who have mysterious aches and suddenly suffer from excruciating pain. (I think I should write a paper on the first mentions of AIDS and cancer in literature. Muahahaha [that's a diabolical laugh, in case you didn't know already. Think Skeletor.]) So what happens is, it's gets disconnected arbit.ly on its own. (Ah yes, you think, the PC and its Internet have a certain kinship, oui?)
The way to get it working (aka the workaround [yes, spending too much time in help forums!]) is to turn the modem on/off/on/off a couple of times, disable/ enable the connection a couple of times, pray, curse, yell at family members who have no clue what to do, try the "Repair" option on the connection (it will always show, at least once, that the Repair operation failed, that the ISP address could not be verified or some such thing) till it says "Completed".
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
In spite of all this.
Oh, and it shows as connected even when it's not, so BEWARE!
The good thing about GD and Blogger is the "autosave", which has saved my life on many occasions. In fact, my MS Word setting used to be to create AutoRecover versions every one minute, but I guess that has been returned to default by some freak accident caused by all the other screwups that happen to my poor comp. Yesterday when my comp rebooted yet again I found my file corrupted. The one I had been working on all day. By some stroke of luck, there was an extension-less file called "~WRD2284" on the desktop next to the icon for the corrupted file. With great trepidation I opened it as a .doc file and it WORKED!! Whew!
Anyway, this was a rant which was spewed in original on Blogger in the Nemesis-like "Create" window. So hopefully I won't have any problems here. Oh before I forget (there is no WAY I'm coming back to this post to re-edit it!), how come one can't save a new post within a little gap after an autosave? the SAVE NOW button doesn't light up!!
Au revoir, this has been a good vent! Bootless, but good!
P.S. Sorry for no links to the troubleshoot pages, but I'm tired now! If you're a Blogger user, just go to Help and then select Google Groups. That should do for most problems. Be sure to look for Known Issues if it's not a high-funda [advanced] problem.
P.P.S. I DID have to return to this post. Bloody hell. The line breaks were chewed up again!
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