My text typed into Internet Explorer looked odd. It typed right-to-left, beginning from the left. Virus? Too many martini’s? A stretched cache? Temp files gone amok? A computer joke?
No, a known problem caused by depressing the <Ctrl> + the Left Arrow Key.
How this happened I do not know, except these keys are next to one another on my laptop. What is more significant is the terms I had to enter into Google to finally find and troubleshoot the error: “typing right to left,” Internet Explorer words right to left,” “type right to left Internet Explorer,” and so on.
What was the combination I used (in Firefox, as Internet Explorer was not allowing me to type correctly at all)? I finally hit upon “internet explorer text right to left”
What are the lessons learned, especially in terms of adult and organizational learning?
- If it is out there, finding the right technology search string will find it. Keep plugging away and expand the possible terms by trying to get into the mind of some unknown author.
- Have alternate ways of searching. If I did not have Firefox installed, I would have been trapped and unable to escape (at least using my own computer).
- Be patient. Getting upset and more frustrated will not help.
- Technology has some unusual quirks, and it sometimes requires finesse and stretching to make the most of it.
This makes me more aware and sympathetic to many adult learners, who often struggle away on whatever assignments and expectations we give them without, at times, the skills and abilities to work through the tasks at hand. Should learning be so much of a puzzle? Do we (me?) expect too much at times without assistance? What is the balance between andragogy and pedagogy?
I think the right search terms may not give the answers–this happens through experience on all its levels.
Do you use Twitter Tools, the wonderful WordPress plug-in that integrates Twitter feeds into and out from a blog? I do, and the main reason I like it is that it allows me to capture my Tweets on a daily basis as a single blog post.
Why, in turn, might I want this? Two reasons–firstly to capture my words and thoughts as I process life and work, and secondly because the daily blog post generates an email notification that in turn gets sent to friends and colleagues who read emails and not blogs or RSS feeds per se. This allows people who are interested in my life (there are a few of them, at least!) who do not live in the active world of social media, to still get a sense of what I am doing via a daily email push.
However (and here is the issue), I do not like having the front page of my blog filled with (at least) every other post to be a Twitter-post from the previous day. Looking for ways to handle this I finally stumbled upon the great WordPress plug-in Simply Exclude. This plug-in allows for a great amount of control of what sort of content to exclude from parts of a public blog. Go ahead, look down my homepage and see if you can see any Twitter-based posts. No? That is because I had Simply Exclude prevent the daily Twitter post from appearing on my front page. They are still there, such as right here, fully searchable (via keyword, month, category, etc.) and present enough to generate the RSS and email notifications, but flexible enough to make my blog appear more than just a Twitter archive.
While I actively try to have inclusive and engaging instructional events, I like having the option of excluding things from where they really do not fit. Simply Exclude may have some creative uses for WordPress-powered blogs that are more oriented to content management systems than traditional blogs, and I would like to explore these further.
I spent part of this morning troubleshooting the complete breakdown of my RSS feeds and new post email notifications. I have been using Feedburner (a part of Google) and Subscribe2, a WordPress plug-in.
It turns out that neither of them have been working in the past few weeks, so anybody who follows my feed via email notification or some feed reading software, it does not appear I have been doing anything! These subscribers missed my Liveblogging ASTD and the recent reflection and thinking I have been doing regarding Learning 2.0 (among other things).
I finally learned that when I upgraded to the most current version of WordPress (2.5.1), the default rss feed has changed, and this change had to be adjusted in the Feedburner system. Did not see this anywhere on their site, and finally stumbled across it on the Group page (and simply am not able to find it again after searching and searching). I have still not solved the Subscribe2 plug-in, though have left 2 questions on the developer’s site and, by the vacation notification he posted and the number of comments and responses, I am sure they will be responded to).
What did I learn in this troubleshooting?
- Google no longer adequately supports Feedburner. The one previous time I had a challenge with this service, I immediately received a reply and some assistance. They have since removed this wonderful help resource, and replaced it with a Google Group for Feedburner. Three days and three questions later, I have still not received a reply. None. Nothing. I wonder if this is Google’s strategy moving forward–put the onus of support onto the community and then step back. While this makes sense with open-source applications like WordPress or Firefox, this is hard to swallow with a huge profit-making company.
- Things can be broken without anybody mentioning anything for some time. With the deluge of emails and other forms of notification, it is easy to stop receiving something without noticing it. This seems to be a symptom of information overload.
- I was getting more comments than normal, though I am not sure where those were coming from. Perhaps the Twitter integration with my blog, which continued to work, is the reason? It most certainly was not from the population with the RSS and email notifications.
- Web 2.0 technology is more integrated than I initially thought. These programs seem to be so connected that if one thing breaks or changes or upgrades, then it is very possible that the whole thing will fall apart. I upgraded WordPress, and they made one small change (the default WordPress RSS feed) that I did not notice (after all, who would look for that sort of change?) this, and it caused lots of problems.
- Plan for more time than it seems it should take. No matter how small an issue appears, it can always take much much longer to troubleshoot it than it initially appears.
So, now that I at least have some RSS capabilities, I wonder what changes I may notice?
Here goes another few tweaks . . .
It seems Subscribe2 which I have been trying to troubleshoot as well is again working, but only for new subscribers since I upgraded the plug-in. I posted a few help comments (and expect they will be faster than Google in returning my Feedburner comments).
Let’s see if it works this time.
Yes, I am convinced Google has stopped supporting Feedburner, so am still testing a plugin.
I hope if this plug-in notification is working properly, you will bear with me as I hopefully conclude the testing.
Thank you.
Email notifications have not been going out, as Feedburner no longer appears to be working. I am testing a plug-in that I hope will resole the issue. The main difference? I am not relying on Google’s free (but buggy) RSS notification features anymore.
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