As readers may have noticed, the Weebly service that operates this website had another of its meltdowns over the weekend. I wasn't able to post for a while, and once that got "fixed," some material was still missing. I've just noticed a new problem related to this "fix." The home blog page is working mostly-normally. (The background wallpaper is gone, but all the links are fine.) However, when you go to the bottom of the home blog page, and click the "Previous" link, that's where it all goes haywire. On that next page you've clicked through to, there are now no longer links for “Previous” page and “Next” page. So, there is now no way for a reader to keep scrolling there through the blog any further, but can only read that one, home page and whatever new material has been pushed over to the next page as new material is added. Moreover, other than on the home blog page, you'll notice on this "previous" page that there is now no longer the "hyperlink listing" on the right side that shows all the months the blog has been active, nor is there the hyperlink list of all the different categories that have been associated with each blog post – so there is no way there for a reader to jump to any other month and read anything else in the blog except from the one, home page. You used to be able to do this from every page. For that matter, other than on the home blog page, everything on the right side of the next page is missing, like my bio and a notice/link about Amazon Associates (and graphic links to my books for sale on Amazon, as well as links for following me on Twitter and Facebook ) – and additionally, there is nothing at the bottom of the page, like the copyright notice and personal page information. In other words, other than from the blog’s home page, everything else on the site is pretty much inaccessible. (Some material can be reached through links in the sections at the top of the "previous" page, but that’s it. ) And the background wallpaper has disappeared completely from every page. Happily, there is an odd semi-workaround for this. When you're on the home blog page (as you no doubt are now) and find that list of months on the right side of the page displayed under "Archives" -- I have a screenshot below -- and click on the previous month (or click on any month other than the current one of March), then the page for that month (or any month you choose to click on) will appear as normal along with "Next" and "Previous" at the bottom of the page and all the sidebar material! While this works perfectly, it is also not something I expect most people to try on their own as a whimsy guess. It also means that most of March's content is missing. Here's that graphic of the Archive list of hyperlinked months I referred to -- I hope that this is a “known bug,” and that it can be fixed incredibly soon. Although that hope is held on a gossamer wing. I say that because Weebly has had many big problems the last few years, like when the Search engine went out for a year, and also that I can no longer schedule a blog post that has embedded code in it (like the Piano Puzzlers and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! and Al Franken podcast audios), but can only post such articles at a "Immediately" moment. This has been a known-bug to Weebly engineers, but tech support says there are no plans to fix it, which is terribly inconvenient. (As is another long-standing issue that if you write an article and save it to post later, it won't appear when you post it, but will show up in the timeline when it was initially written and saved. Well...gee, that's really stupid and useless.) There are others, most of which have occurred after Weebly was sold to a company called Square. I've been told by Customer Support (when I can reach them...) that Weebly is phasing out tech support for the blog feature, and that they also may even phase out the blog feature entirely in 2-3 years, though nothing has been decided. I've been searching for ways to port my site here to another service, though I'm not 100% sure if that's even possible since Weebly uses proprietary coding, though I think I can and think I've found a good company that can do such a thing. But it's a convoluted process, not inexpensive, and they may only be able to port over just the blog, not the full site with all the various sections. I haven't figured out yet what I'll do, if anything even can be done, other than hope for the best. (By the way, if anyone in the West Los Angeles area knows of somebody who is expert at porting websites, all recommendations are welcome. There is a "Contact Us" link in the top menu bar and also at the bottom of the home page.) For now, the site is running and I can post new articles. Hopefully the "Previous" and "Next" links will return -- along with full access to the site and its several thousand articles over the past nine years. I know that that can be fixed. (Since it all exists when you click on links to other articles under the sections at the very top of the page under the "ELISBERG INDUSTRIES" banner.) Whether Weebly will fix them, or when...ah, that's the question. Hopefully very soon, but -- who knows? I certainly apologize for all these issues that are unfortunately beyond my control and have worked hard over time to keep them in the background as much as possible so that they are unnoticeable. That isn't always possible, but hopefully it's been kept to a minimum. Just keeping you all informed. Updates as they occur.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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