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Just what we needed, more TypePad improvements
The TypePad people have decided it's time to "improve" their WYSIWYG editor, whether it needed improving or not. The most likely effect you're likely to notice is text -- in particular hyperlink text -- they've automatically color coded. When I remember to I can override their changes by using MS Front Page to create HTML that looks like I want it to look but I can't promise I'll remember to do it every time I update a post. Fellow Dogs, if you want to you can just do what you can with the "improved" editor, then if your posts don't come out looking like you wanted them to shoot me an email and I'll clean them up for you as soon as I have a minute. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on November 19, 2008 at 06:59 PM in | | | |
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(Written 2008.10.13, postdated. Details below the jump. -- Updated 2008.10.22, 2008.10.23) I just got email a little bit ago informing me that TypePad is implementing some "improvements" that, at best, are going to require some tedious and time consuming programming effort on my part to react to properly and, at worst, may mean I have to switch to one of their "canned" formats either temporarily or permanently. In the short term I'm probably going to not do anything till I see how bad the problem is, then switch back and forth between a custom and a canned design for a while while I massage the custom design as best I can. In the worst case I may have to just give up and live with one of their canned designs permanently but I really don't want to have to do that. I'll update this post occasionally as the situation develops. *** 2008.10.22 Apparently TypePad has implemented the changes I mentioned above. As a result, the category and monthly archives on this site only display the most recent 50 posts of what they should display. To make them work right I'd have to devote more time to recoding the site than I'm willing to spend between now and the election, or I could switch to a "canned" site template and lose the site banner and several sidebar items in the process. For now I'm going to ignore the situation. If I don't end up packing up and leaving the country after the election I may get bored some cold winter night and recode the necessary page templates to make thing work right, or I may be too busy documenting all the reasons President Obama should be impeached the day after he's inaugurated to bother. *** 2008.10.23 I took another look at what would be required to fix our Category and Date Based archives and decided it didn't look that tough. As far as I can tell they're working right now. There's apparently something I'm supposed to be able to do so when you get to the bottom of the main page there's a link there to take you to the next most recent posts but I'm not going to worry with it right now. If you want to read older posts than those on the main page use the Archives links on the sidebar. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on October 23, 2008 at 01:10 AM in | | | |
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Please join me in welcoming our newest Dog
Welcome ! In addition to posting here Ron will continue to post on his own blog, , and on the Eagles Up site. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on July 19, 2008 at 04:26 PM in , | | | |
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It's our blogiversary!
... and I almost let it go by unmentioned. , right after the "Disclaimer" and "Who Are We?" posts, was posted at 9:32 PM CDT one year ago tonight. *** 2007.06.30.21:42: I forgot to look right on the minute but as of now our SiteMeter reads 197,617. It would read a lot higher than that if your not alway so friendly neighborhood webmaster hadn't had a stupidity attack and run off some good bloggers about half way through the year. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on June 30, 2007 at 05:29 PM in | | | |
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Guest Dog
OK, so here's the deal. The post just below this one was written by someone who isn't listed on the sidebar or in the post. How'd that happen? Glad you asked. I've been a regular reader at Antimedia's "Media Lies" blog for as long as I can remember and he was leaving comments and trackbacks at way before Old War Dogs was here. I'd noticed the MilBlogs button on his sidebar way back but had it in my head for some reason he was younger than he is. Figured out I might be wrong about that when I read the Gathering Of Eagles post he wrote a couple of days ago. U.S. Navy, '68 - '74 as it turns out. About the time I was ready to feel him out on joining the pack his site got hijacked, possibly as retribution (my theory, not his) for that GOE post. So, here we have a vet on his way to DC for GOE and no place to write about it. We'll talk about long-term plans later but for now my fellow vet and blog buddy Antimedia will be posting on Old War Dogs. Kick off your boots, Anti. Sit a spell. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on March 16, 2007 at 10:36 PM in , | | | |
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I guess the SiteMeter problem isn't anything personal
According to SiteMeter, the last time anyone visited Old War Dogs or any of the satellite sites was early last Wednesday morning. This in spite of the fact OneStat says traffic has been about normal. I was just about to the point of taking it personally when I read at Big Lizards. It's still not doing our EcoSystem standing any good or helping our chances of getting BlogAds business but at least now I can quit feeling like the Lone Stranger. I want my money back ... Oh, we're using the free version? Yeah, guess we are come to think of it. *** SiteMeter was apparently recording visits all along, just not showing them on the daily, weekly, etc displays. now shows reasonable amounts of traffic for several days when it was saying for a while that no one had visited the site. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on March 11, 2007 at 07:25 AM in | | | |
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Comment moderation
I've been forced to temporarily implement comment moderation on this site. Relevant comments will appear after I've had time to approve them. I really don't give a rat's ass how many student deferments Dick Cheney had or whether some libtard is capable of understanding that Air National Guard service does not constitute "dodging the draft." Get a KOS diary. Start your own site. You're done polluting this one. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on February 2, 2007 at 07:34 PM in , | | | |
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Our Comment Policy
Apparently we've become popular enough to need one. To our readers: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution gives you the right to provide your own soapbox and stand on any street corner in the country saying damned near anything you feel like saying. It does not give you the right to walk into my home uninvited and shit on my carpet. Likewise, you have the right to start your own blog and write damned near anything you want to. You do not have the right to waste my bandwidth on attacks on me, my fellow veterans, our currently serving military personnel, or the nation we risked our lives for and they are currently risking theirs for. I am not a nice man; never pretended to be. Save yourself some time and just don't bother trying. *** I've turned on comment moderation. Relevant comments will appear after they've been approved. I really don't give a rat's ass how many student deferments Dick Cheney had or whether some libtard is capable of understanding that Air National Guard service does not constitute "dodging the draft." Get a KOS diary. Start your own site. You're done polluting mine. *** Let me try to put this in simpler terms since traffic has picked up enough for the occasional lefty to wander by the site. I'll try not to use any big words. When you send a letter to the editor of your local paper it may or may not get published. The paper isn't obliged to publish it just because you took time to write it. If you call the editor or one of his top reporters dumb names your letter probably won't be published. The same goes for letters claiming the world is flat, we've never been to the moon, George Washington was gay, etc. The fact that you chose to honor my poor little blog with a comment does not obligate me to post it. If I like it I will. If I don't like it but it reflects some thought I probably will anyway. If you try to tell me Bush lied, the Jews blew up the World Trade Center and we need to invite Osama and the Iranians over for afternoon tea you're wasting your time and mine. I'm a Viet Nam combat veteran with a Master's degree in Engineering; I don't need some snotty nosed kid whose biggest accomplishment in life is saving some Nintendo princess telling me what's wrong with our foreign policy. Don't waste your time and mine trying. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on January 12, 2007 at 11:09 PM in , | | | |
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What is it with TypePad recently?
I've spent a good 5 hours out of the last 72 waiting for the TypePad gang to get their act together so I could blog, most recently over two hours today. Moving off TypePad would cost me money and be a hell of a lot of work, but if this goes on long enough I'm going to have to give it some thought. Don't start packin' yet, Dogs. Just thinkin' out loud. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on January 9, 2007 at 10:26 PM in , | | | |
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How I spent my last three days
Well, not every minute, obviously, but a lot more time than I realized I was getting ready to invest, and I still have some tidying up to do. I'm pleased to announce that both and Old War Dogs are now accepting BlogAds. For now I'm just advertising each site on the other to prove I know how, but I'd gladly kill those ads to make room for paying customers. I'll also discount ads on Old War Dogs by half for anyone simultaneously running the same ad on Bill's Bites. ... Better yet: just till business picks up some if you buy an ad on one site I'll run it on the other site free. Write me for details; my address is on the sidebar. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on January 3, 2007 at 03:49 PM in , | | | |
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Please join me in welcoming our newest dog!
I mentioned that we had invited Command Sergeant Major (USA, Ret.) J.D. Pendry to join the Old War Dogs pack. I am thrilled to be able to announce that he has accepted our invitation. J. D. is an experienced blogger and writer with his own site and and a book available . I know he'll be a great addition to the pack. Welcome, J. D. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 27, 2006 at 07:07 AM in , , | | | |
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Two from our newest Dog (We're hoping)
I'm setting myself up to end up with major egg on my face if some people turn us down or don't follow through, but what's the point in living if you never take risks? First, I'm going to put off doing a formal "Welcome" post till he actually writes something but those of you who've paid really close attention may have noticed that (That's "Captain" as in "full bird" for you Army and Air Force types.) has accepted our invitation to join the Old War Dogs pack and has been duly added to the roster. A lot of you will recognize Larry's name from his contributions to keeping Jean Fraud Kerry out of the White House and his more recent efforts to redeploy Mad Jack Murtha. Welcome aboard, Captain. OK, here's where I stick my neck out: We've just invited Command Sergeant Major (USA, Ret.) J.D. Pendry to join our little pack. He hasn't accepted yet but we're optimistic (Please don't embarrass me, Sgt Major.) Here are a couple of examples of why we did that:
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 26, 2006 at 03:37 PM in , , , | | | |
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New blog on the block
I'm very pleased to announce that Rurik's and my friend Eric Bogolmony, who has emailed us that ended up on this site, and on before this site was created, now has his own place. Check out ; you'll like it. I've added a link to our sidebar to make it easier to visit frequently. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 18, 2006 at 10:23 PM in , | | | |
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MILblogging.com Claim
Thank you Gray Dog for alerting me that Milblogging.com has this site listed as "Unclaimed." This post contains some code to prove I have the ability to update the site. After I see what it looks like I may copy it to the sidebar.
*** Actually, I can't see that that code ads a lot of value to the site. I think I'll just leave it here and forget about putting it someplace more prominent. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on December 4, 2006 at 04:59 PM in , | | | |
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Anthony William "Aussie Bard" Pahl, OAM
I finally got Tony Pahl's bio added to the site. Click . Seems like every time I'd follow a link to something else from his site I'd get lost and forget what I was supposed to be doing, or stop to shed a few tears for mates I never met. Half a world apart, but we have so much in common. Like me he draws a Veteran's pension and pours himself into his website and writing as a way to keep being of some use to the world; if I had his ability with words I'd consider myself a very lucky man. Do follow the link to his bio, then follow the links from there to learn about his Medal of the Order of Australia and read some of his writing. This site will still be here if and when you find time to come back. G'day, y'all. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on November 25, 2006 at 09:09 PM in , , | | | |
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Please join me in saying G'day to our newest Dog
Remember when I posted I told you I had my reasons for picking that particular poem but I couldn't tell you yet? Please join me in welcoming Anthony W. Paul to the Old War Dogs pack. I'm in the middle of trying to track down some template problems that may make the site not look right under some conditions and I'm anxious to get Tony started posting so I've deviated from my normal procedures and given him a key to the site without adding his bio to the "" post first; I promise to do that soon. In the mean time, here's a snippet from a short-short bio he gave us earlier:
Do check out Tony's site when you can; you can get lost there for hours. I have, and I know he'll be a wonderful addition to our team here. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on November 23, 2006 at 10:51 PM in , , | | | |
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Open Posts
I'm doing away with the "Bark Back At Us" posts that never really generated a lot of interest anyway. Instead, please visit . |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on November 6, 2006 at 03:58 PM in | | | |
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"Bill's Bites" has moved. (Bumped)
[Originally posted 2006.10.12.00:01. The Chief Operating Dog has given me permission to backdate this a couple of times to increase the number of people who see it before it drifts down and off the page.] Effective as of this post, things I might have posted in a "Bill's Bites" post yesterday or the day before will now instead be posted on my new blog, called, amazingly enough, "." Please consider that blog to be part of this one. Actually, the new blog will consist of two new blogs, which I'll call "Page 1" and "Page 2," corresponding to the separate "Bill's Bites" and "Soft Bites" posts I recently started doing here. I am pleased also to announce that George "Rurik" Mellinger has agreed to take over as Chief Operating Dog and will now be making all major decisions concerning the Old War Dogs blog, alone or after consulting whatever Cabinet he chooses to assemble. I've cheerfully demoted myself to Chief Engineer to allow me more time for other activities. Oliver Stone called; I hung up on him. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on October 15, 2006 at 12:20 AM in , | | | |
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Please Join Me In Welcoming Our Newest Dog
Welcome Bobbie "OWB" Craig! Bobbie's been leaving comments signed "OWB" for a while and come to find out she's someone a couple of the Dogs have known and trusted since the '04 Kerry Wars. Since I don't know a lot about her yet myself I'll let and the two posts just below this one handle the introductions for me. I mean what do I need to know? With two dogs I didn't even know knew each other (if they do) vouching for her, added to the proof I've seen of her writing ability, who am I to ask questions? Just as long as she doesn't start wanting to paint or rearrange the furniture or something we'll be fine. (No, that wasn't a "sexist" remark. Master Sergeants just make me a little nervous.) Just one question, Sarge. Just where the hell have you been? We've been here over three months and you're just now showing up? Glad you could make it. Oh, the "OWB" thing? I wouldn't touch that line with a 10-foot Shiite. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on October 5, 2006 at 12:27 AM in , , | | | |
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Our Newest Dog
Back in the day, the stage just barely shy of "heap highly pissed" was "torque-jawed." Jaw muscles tight, chin stickin' out just a shade, somewhere between "If you weren't wearing those freakin' stars I'd tell you what I think" and "Dead man walkin'." Friends and neighbors, meet our newest Dog, TorqueJaw
TorqueJaw don't say much about his past, sorta gives the impression it's safer not to ask. We think he was a Gray Beret but he won't say. TorqueJaw gets his way a lot. Already parked hisself on our banner, now he wants his own signature line in our store. Heard he's after Bolton's job but everbody's afraid to ask him. TorqueJaw was created by Mr. and Mrs. Mike "The Gray Dog" Connelly. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on September 25, 2006 at 01:17 AM in , , , | | | |
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The New York Times...Not That Again?
[Content deleted -- See explanation below.]
*** Friends and neighbors, your friendly neighborhood webmaster Murthad up big time. To mark this propitious occasion, maybe it's time to explain a little about the webmaster's "editing" function on Old War Dogs. Your friendly neighborhood webmaster does not:
Your friendly neighborhood webmaster does routinely:
So, here's what happened in this case: John wrote what I considered to be an excellent post and I selected it to be a "Best of Old War Dogs Featured Post." Shortly after midnight this morning I attempted to move part of it "below the fold" and backdated it to move it to the top of the site. In the process I lost a substantial part of the post but didn't realize I had. John saw the remainder of the post at the top of the site a few hours later and an email exchange ensued. Since neither of us has a copy of the portion of the post I lost John has asked me to remove the remaining portion, which I've done, since without the missing portion it really isn't a very good post. My apologies to all, and to John in particular. The fault for what happened was all mine. |
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Contributed by John Werntz on September 13, 2006 at 06:17 PM in , | | | |
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TypePad problems
TypePad's doing strange things again. Don't know if it's system-wide (if so they haven't admitted it) or just this site. Don't know how many tries it will take to post this. Thank you for your patience. (Finally got this post up a little after 1:00 but got an error message -- Things still ain't right.) *** The problem seems to have gotten enough better that I can do some posting about 15 or 20 after 1:00. Still getting timeout errors but the posts seem to be getting to the site before they happen. Analysis(?): a problem notifiying Technorati or one of the other tracking services that the post has been updated. Don't guess I'll be scattering around a lot of trackbacks today. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on September 7, 2006 at 12:49 PM in , | | | |
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Coming soon to a blog near you ...
It is my pleasure to announce that Mark Skulborstad has accepted our invitation to join the pack. Welcome aboard, Skul. And thank you for your service. And welcome home. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on September 2, 2006 at 02:54 PM in , , | | | |
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Changing how I handle Featured Posts
One of the dogs emailed to point out that the Featured Posts at the top of the site were beginning to get out of hand, taking so much space that scrolling down to the newer posts was taking more time than some readers might consider it worth. After he brought the subject up a couple of the other dogs, including me, agreed with him. We're still talking about the details of the best answer to the situation but in the mean time I've gone ahead and taken some steps in the right direction. From now on Featured Posts won't stay at the top of the site as long as they have been, and there won't be as many of them as there were to begin with. I just got done moving some down farther on the stack and I may not be done yet. What happened here, folks, is that when I first started the Featured Post thing I didn't realize how many really good writers we were going to end up with and I set the "exceptional" bar lower than I should have, then was pleasantly surprised to realize how many of the Dogs were clearing it on a frequent basis. I guess it's time to move it up a ways. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 21, 2006 at 12:21 AM in , | | | |
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Light posting from an Old Dog -- My excuses I don't know what the hell's going on with TypePad but it could get real old in a hurry. I just went through another extended period when after I clicked Save to publish a post TypePad would display "Publishing ... " for about 5 minutes and then display a "502 Proxy Error" message. Sometimes after two or three tries the post would actually even appear on the site. Their status blog doesn't acknowledge that there's a problem and so far they haven't responded to my trouble ticket.
It looks like I may be taking some time away from blogging sooner than I'd originally thought to make Boomer a key to the site. 30 years, would you believe? Damn! Boomer, thank you for your service. All of it. Welcome to the pack. *** Update and bump. Original timestamp 2004.08.06.12:49 Just went through a period of time when this site was unavailable, and a longer period when it was available but not properly reflecting my templates and stylesheet. I currently have two open trouble tickets with TypePad and I suspect someone there may have been doing some clumsy poking around. I hope they're done. *** Another update and bump Let another "nap" stretch all night. Guess I'm not Superman after all. I heard back from TypePad's tech support people and I'm in a better mood than I was. They've admitted there's a problem and they're working on it. Another "Growing Pains" situation. I wish they didn't have so many of those but they've been good about admitting to them and working hard at fixing them. Please, don't anyone let anything I've said about this steer you away from using TypePad if you decide to "get serious" about blogging. If I had the energy, felt smart enough to pull it off and thought it would be worth the extra expense I'd buy a copy of Movable Type and install it on a GoDaddy server (personal to Bob Parsons: I have a key for you if you want it.), but I really don't feel the need to do that. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 17, 2006 at 08:22 AM in , | | | |
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Just call the new Dog Moose
It is my pleasure to announce , LTC USAF (Ret) as the newest member of the Old War Dogs pack. Watch for Karl's first post any day now. |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 15, 2006 at 01:30 PM in , , | | | |
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This is getting ridiculous
I really don't want to move off of TypePad. Really I don't, especially after just launching a new site and having the problems I did getting TTLB to recognize it. Really I don't. OTOH ... This is getting fucking ridiculous. I've had extended periods of time this morning when I couldn't post, and even when I can it takes forever. If TypePad can't even handle the traffic surge from a couple of primary elections, what's going to happen in November, or the day the Israelis bomb Damascus, or ... Developing ... |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 9, 2006 at 11:30 AM in , | | | |
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A ripple in The Force?
(See my previous related post .) I'll admit up front to the possibility of a temporary glitch in the system, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get right now. I swear these aren't Reutered.
I haven't seen Playful Primate since two blogs and one presidential election ago. John, you didn't really figure out how to do that cyberterrism thing after all, did you? |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 6, 2006 at 11:26 PM in , | | | |
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TTLB finally loves us
It looks like I finally found the secret button to get the TTLB Ecosystem to admit we're here. Overnight we went from "Insignificant Microbe," rated # 55,xxx in the system, to "Large Mammal," rated # 535. The new ranking isn't entirely honest but it comes a lot closer to the truth than the old one did. Apparently the Ecosystem software isn't capable of treating Small Town Veteran, at , as a separate entity from Old War Dogs, at . I finally grokked what was going on last night and took Small Town Veteran out of the ecosystem altogether. The ranking on our sidebar is for Small Town Veteran and Old War Dogs combined; as the dust settles on Small Town Veteran it will come closer and closer to reflecting just Old War Dogs. I think it's the best I'm going to be able to do. Sometimes it seems to take changes a couple or three days to ripple clear through the Ecosystem database and I'll be surprised if our numeric ranking doesn't climb a little as they do; I was in the top 500 blogging by myself at Small Town Veteran and I can't believe this blog won't get at least that high soon. *** See also: |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 3, 2006 at 10:41 AM in , | | | |
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New site feature: Best of Old War Dogs
I remember a meme that made the rounds a while back about "thinkers" and "linkers" in the blogosphere; I wanted to credit Steven Den Beste, the ultimate "thinker," with starting it but I can't find any documentation to back that up. I think there's a continuum, not a simple dichotomy, involved but the terms are nonetheless useful, and there are definitely representatives of both groups on this blog. Some days I write over 90% of the posts on the site, but most of my posts are examples of spending 3 to 5 minutes posting an excerpt and a link to make sure you don't miss something important I saw somewhere else. There are others, I'll use and as examples since I'm currently featuring examples of their work at the top of the site, who don't post nearly as often as I do but can take one link to a recent news item, add several paragraphs of their own words around it, and create a post worth reading and coming back later to savor again, and of course I can't forget to mention Russ, our Poet Laureate. After some discussion within the pack I've formalized something I'd been doing already and started routinely featuring one or two "thinker" posts at the top of the site to showcase the writing skills of some of our better authors. I've also created a "Best of Old War Dogs" category, which will include any post I showcase at the top of the site and some others that don't quite make the cut due to stiff competition but are nonetheless worthy of special notice. . |
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Contributed by Bill Faith on July 28, 2006 at 06:05 AM in , | | | |