If It Ain't Broke - Web 2.0 Customer Service

I love how corporate crapmongers make life more difficult for clients in order to make life easier for themselves.

Case in point? Google's new Blogger (tbka Bloggle). The new Blogger - which we are required to adopt if we wish to continue with this website - is not designed with clumsy John Q. Public in mind. So one is - shall we say - stuffed, when one provides something like an email address for the purpose of registering the new account, and is not informed that the address is immutable, unchangeable, nor that the user is TSOL when the blog changes hands, or when the she/he wants a different email address. Of course, this is exactly what happened here.

• I write a post, using a client, sent it, checked the blog to verify.


• No post.


• Log in to the Dashboard.


• Cannot log in without migrating.


• Migrate.


• Post again.


• Post still fails.


• Copy post to Bloggle WebEditor.


• Post entry.


• Check the blog.


• Entry is online, but the formatting is a bit messed up.



• Reconfigure blog client.


• try to post again. No such luck.


• Connection refused by Bloggle.


• Go searching for some information.


• Useless useless useless.

I haven't time to muck about with it.
So this account is just going to sit here until someone provides an easy fix - like an updated client, a fix to Bloggle, whatever.

Neighbourhood Fix-It

Here’s an interesting and useful new service from the civic-minded folk at mySociety: Neighbourhood Fix-It. I don’t know what the mechanics are, e.g., how the Council is notified, but this will become apparent over time. I did sign up and provided an example of something that needs attention: this street sign at the corner of Greenhill Road and Billesley Lane.

The reporting process requires location information like a postcode, so I supplied some info and was shown this nice Ordnance Survey map in return:

There’s also a listing of other locally-reported problems, and an RSS feed to alert users of updates.

So now it’s a matter of wait and see...

Note: This is my first post since Google introduced the new Blogger, and I’m having some problems logging in... Not sure what’sTechnorati Tags: mySociety up with that, but at the moment I can only write posts from within Blogger. My blog clients can’t get past the sentry.

Update. Have created a new user ID, installed a new blog client called Post2Blog (via Gotd), and am just testing it to see how it works.