organizational

I’m home again

The road home

The road home

… But it will take me a day at least to get back to normal. Lots of questions have piled up, and I’ll start answering them tomorrow.

on the road, briefly: upcoming readings

readerI leave early tomorrow to read at bookstores in Oakland, Portland and Bellevue (details below) so you won’t see much of me online until the weekend.

In case you are wondering: I plan to close the current contest next Monday, 

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

7:00 PM  A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS A GREAT GOOD PLACE, LLC

6120 LA SALLE AVE
OAKLAND CA 94611-2802

Thursday, September 10, 2015

7:00 PM  POWELL’S BOOKS

3415 SW CEDAR HILLS BLVD
BEAVERTON OR 97005-1337

Friday, September 11, 2015

7:00 PM UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE

990 102ND AVE NE
BELLEVUE WA 98004-4196

Having trouble commenting? Two fixes. I hope.

subscribeI think I’ve identified the problem some people are having with  leaving comments.  It seems that the only time this is a problem is when people are on a mobile phone using a browser.  The weblog is set up to be mobile-responsive, but clearly that isn’t working for some people.

Joelle has run into this and worked out a solution:

I have found that if I am reading the post through the bloglovin app or if I link to it from Twitter or Facebook then I don’t see the comments or the comment form. But I’m always on my phone when I do that. And if I click to view full site it all works just fine. Ironically, if I try to view the website from the laptop it always defaults to the mobile version so I have the same problem. Again, clicking to view full site fixes it.

 Another solution: if you routinely read the weblog and comment by iphone or android, this would be solved by subscribing to get posts by email. You could then comment (and enter giveaways) by answering the email, avoiding mobile browser complications completely. If you try this out could you please leave a comment here (assuming you can) to tell me so? Thank you for your help with this.

Email, Comments & Technology. Cha cha cha.

I have heard from more than a few regular readers about their discomfort with commenting on this (or any) weblog. I don’t think this is uncommon in general — I know I think very hard before leaving a comment, for all kinds of reasons. 

Given that fact, and also given the fact that I would hate for anyone to miss the chance at a drawing, I have installed a program that should, if it performs correctly, allow anybody to comment on any post from the privacy of their own computer screen, wherever they may be.  Postmatic is a well established, very reputable software company, and they take privacy and security very seriously. As do I.

One thing I haven’t figured out yet is this: I can send whole posts or post excerpts to subscribers, so you can read what’s going on without ever actually stopping by the weblog, if that’s your preference.  On the one hand that seems like a good option, but on the other, I can imagine that people would get irritated with a lot of notifications showing up in their ethereal inboxes.  So I’m looking into how to fine tune that and with any luck, there will be a solution. 

The sign-up is on the right hand sidebar, just about in the middle.

As soon as I’ve sorted through the fine print, I’ll give you what information I have. In the meantime your thoughts and suggestion would be very welcome.