YJL

In Blogger

I have mentioned that my labels has grown out of control, 2,119 labels as of 5/8. It's always been a daunting task whenever I need to apply a label to multiple posts or remove therefrom. See for yourself:


See how short that blue grip is? A slight mouse movement could skip dozens of labels easily. When writing, it's basically fine, because it has filter and auto-completion. But in the posts management, no label filter. I have to scroll down carefully.

I added a user style in Pentadactyl to expand the list box's width:

" maximize Labels popup in Blogger
style http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g* <<EOF
div.blogg-menu-popup {
    left: 0 !important;
}
div[role="listbox"] {
    max-width: none !important;
}
div[role="listbox"] > div > div {
  display: inline-block;
}
EOF

This resolves the issue. Now it looks like:


Even expanded in post writing, too:

In Google Reader

The same situation happens in Google Reader as well, though it's not as severe as in Blogger.


And the following code is similar to one for Blogger:

" maximize Labels popup in Google Reader
style https://www.google.com/reader/view/* <<EOF
.subscription-folders-menu {
  left: 0 !important;
}
.subscription-folders-menu div[role="menuitem"] {
  display: inline-block;
}
EOF

The folders listbox now looks like:

This is how the future is, Google+ centralized. It used to be linked to Google Reader, if I recall correctly.

I just spent around 30 minutes to click on profiles on Google Plus, trying to find some profiles who has Blogger blogs listed in Contributor to section. But I can't find one, even Blogger's Plus.

I have been seeing a few traffic from Google Plus (http://plus.url.google.com/...) and the URL link attached to that referral link is FeedBurner's. So, it's clear to me someone was able to click a link from my blog's feed on Google Plus.

But I have never posted my blog posts on Plus when I published a new post, so it can't be me, can it? And that might not be a link via FeedBurner but a direct link, not sure what Blogger will put in the Plus post for the blog post link.

Anyway, it's not me after 30 minutes of trying to find a profile. I was thinking to add a profile to a circle (follow?), so I can see what it is, well, actually, I have no idea anything about Plus. I just want to reproduce by finding a profile like mine.

I didn't find one, but finally I realized that I could just search for the post title, then I found the source. It was someone who shared via Google Reader. Duh, all mysteries are solved at once.

Google Reader uses my FeedBurner feed and it can post on Plus when you want to share, which I stop using because I don't want to share on Plus. I used to add my comments, but since Google started pushing and squeezing everything of Google into that 4-letter word P-L-U-S, I don't like doing so any more.

During the profile hunting, I saw a few posts are about programming. Some of them have code included. Heck! That's just like reading NASA launch procedure programming code in variable-width text. It's gonna crash, at least in my brain. And...

Wait, where was I? Oh, right, the referrer thing...

So, what does this post tell you?

Simple, only two things:

1. I wasted 30 minutes on clicking profiles.
2. You just wasted 3 minutes on reading this post.

When Google Reader started to recommend blogs and then some special items for your own personal tastes. I like them. But there is a problem still unresolved for recommendations of blogs, some just keep showing up in that list again and again even everyday. (Google Reader gives your new recommendations everyday)

Recently, I started to read recommended items.


I have problems with it too, that Not interested has no shortcut key, I have to use mouse to click on it after I opened it using o shortcut key, hence I rarely use that function and that would cause the recommendations become less interesting to me.

The other issue is more common for both recommended item and recommended sources, we should have had a blacklist feature something like Never show this source again.

I have very special requirements for feeds I would like to read in Google Reader. First, the feed must not be an excerpt-only feed. Second, the representation of feed must remain a good style in Reader. The opened item in the screenshot above is an example. It's an excerpt and the layout has been removed, and it's not an interested item to me.

And the recommended sources should never give you sources which have no recent items, you will see empty page unless you switch to All items mode. Well, a new option to choose if we want those sources would be great.

Just few thoughts about Google Reader, but wgasa, just use Mark all as read.

I have been using this snippet for the authentication on Google Reader and get the unread list, but it had been failing for a while. It turned out SID (Session ID) authentication is not allowed anymore, it had been announced and it effected recently.

Now, you will need to get the Auth token, which is exactly same as you get the SID. But you will have to include service=reader in your request data or you will only get SID and LSID. I think this new Auth token might be issued by per service base.

Here is my final script: