601

“Kirstin Maldonado” was my 600th post on Blogger. And that's not counting the many posts I’ve removed for various reasons. This is post 601. I don’t know if there will be a post 602 on this blog. It’s kind of up to Google. They are the company that owns and runs Blogger.

This writer, like many others, uses a popular blogging tool called Windows Live Writer. Writer is a small program that makes blogging a lot easier than using Blogger’s built-in editor. But one day (May 26, 2015 to be specific) Google decided to change Blogger’s “authentication protocol.” (Don’t ask; I don’t know what it is either.) And suddenly, Writer was no longer able to publish a post to Blogger. Every time the Publish button is clicked, a small message window pops up and declares:

Blogger returned the following error:
NotFound: Not Found

And that’s that.

Oh, there was a great deal of wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth from bloggers everywhere who demanded Google undo whatever manner of evil they had perpetrated on Writer. But it seems that it’s not just Writer that no longer works. From the complaints I’ve read on Blogger forums, it seems every blogging tool is no longer able to publish to Blogger.

Google’s response, so far, is to blame Microsoft. They say that Microsoft needs to fix Writer. With thousands of complaints pouring in, Google’s response can be summed up as, “Meh – not our problem.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn’t said anything. But Writer is a freebie, and I think support has been discontinued. I suspect their attitude is, "Google broke it, let Google fix it." So it isn’t likely to be fixed.

I have options. I can post articles on Blogger using their built-in editor. Simple text-only articles wouldn’t be a problem. Articles with pictures would require more time and effort to create.

Or I can pick up my posts and trot them over (metaphorically) to another blogging platform where Writer still works. And I’ve done that. VirtualWayne has migrated to Wordpress, and you can view the blog here. It’s new and improved, as they say. Migrating to Wordpress is an action called “voting with one’s feet” (hence the “trot them over” metaphor).

601. It sounds like some kind of computer browser error code.

“404: Not Found.”
“503: Service Unavailable.”
“601: Something somewhere is broken.”

That's it. "601" is going to be a part of my lexicon.

Car won't start? You have a 601.
Battery blew up? 601.
TV won't turn on? "You got a 601, dude!"
Engine on fire? 601!!!

I like it already.

View this blog on Wordpress!

[Edit, June 2, 2015: Google has rolled back the “improvements” it had inflicted on Writer, and Writer is once again able to publish to Blogger. Woot, woot!]