New Look, New Problems

I've wanted to overhaul my blog for a while, so I decided to do it today. I've saved my old template html, just in case I totally hate this, but in the meantime, I'm going to try this out. The problem is that it's been so long since I did this thing, I can't remember my haloscan username, and blogrolling is defunct, so if you were on my blogroll before and you're still active, drop me a line and I'll add you to my new one. If you've made comments within the last few days, I've read them but now they're lost in haloscan land. I've enabled comments for blogger but they don't seem to be showing up in old posts, so I'm still trying to figure that out. Anyway, here's to a new year and a new look.

I quit

I keep telling Blogger Beta "Still Seems Like Beta to Me" to remember me, but I must have somehow offended it. No matter how many times I sign in, even if I JUST. SIGNED. IN. two minutes ago, it still doesn't recall who I am. Yet, like some insane person hoping for a different response, I have been clicking that little "Remember Me" box every single time I log in. And every single time, I hope that it will be the last time I have to type in my WHOLE Gmail address in order to post, or upload a photo, or change my settings. I'm no fool, Blogger Beta, I will not fall for this again.

And here's the other thing. What's going on with the photo features? I used to be able to upload photos and then customize my blog sidebar, header, whatever, using the URL of the uploaded photos. But no more. That's why The Baby no longer has her sweet face next to her bio in the sidebar. I tried to put a more recent photo there. Blogger Beta was just like, "Uh. No."

I don't think we're going to get along very well. This customizable blog isn't as customizable as it used to be, if you ask me.

For instance, I can't change my banner now. No new photo banner on my blog because, even though I know the URL is right, a little white box with a red square shows up whenever I try to include a new, nifty banner.

Does anyone have advice on how to get along better with my blog? Pretty please?

::: gone, gone, gone :::

I'm so angry.

I just spent an hour writing an essay on Blogger only to have it disappear when I hit "publish." This is the third time this has happened since I've switched to Beta, and the "recover post" and autosave features didn't work. Very frustrating. For some reason, Blogger Beta won't save my login, so, apparently, if I take longer than 15 minutes or so to write a post, I get logged out and have to sign in again. And it seems that every feature I try to use on Beta makes me log in with my gmail account again, even if I just did so and asked it to remember me.

Boy, am I bummed. That really stinks. I actually wrote a post I liked, and it's been sucked into internetworldland.

Sigh.