Sorry, I hate it, I hate it already, the unjustified right and left margins. If the left margin isn’t straight the blog loses credibility. I’m superstitious, I’m not kidding, believe me. And there is not even a preview option. What is going on here!

Fitz Them!

What host does Crooks & Liars use?

This is the Milwaukee daily’s coverage of Feingold today and unfortunately, it hits the lack of Dem support, not emptywheel’s point.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=408006

Hi Jane,

I’m an avid reader of your blog, and have posted comments a couple of times. My company provides web design and hosting services, and I’m familiar with Word Press. If there’s anything we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Funny enough, we realize the center justification isn’t right.

How do you really feel about Bluehost?

Jane –

You may be busy with other things, but when you get around to it the justification issue is fairly easy to fix. You just have to know where to look.

In the theme editor go into “presentation” go into the “stylesheet” and scroll down a bit until you see some code called this:

.post {
[there will be other code in here]
text-align: justify;

Change justify to left. Should work.

Glad to see you’re moving up in the world, however painfully. Those Haloscan comments truly suck ass. Well, not truly, as in literally, but you know what I mean…

Oh sorry! I see you fixed it already. Looks wonderful!

From Froomkin, re: the WH atmosphere:
“‘But senior staff members insist that Mr. Bush is in good spirits, that calls from his party to inject new blood into the White House make him ever more stubborn to keep the old, and that he has become so inured to outside criticism that he increasingly tunes it out. There is no sense of crisis, they say, even over rebellious Republicans in Congress, because the White House has been in almost constant crisis since Sept. 11, 2001, and Mr. Bush has never had much regard for Congress anyway.’ “

Great, so he isn’t listening to Congress and doesn’t care what they think, he’s just telling them what to do and they’re bending over and taking it. Oversight? We don’t need no stinkin’ oversight, just point us in the direction of your choice and program in the 12 hour plan, Mein Fuhrer!

Jane and Redd, we love you dearly and will be patient until things get figured out, won’t we gang?

Also, just great to see Monk’s post on the last thread!!

Sorry about our gripes about the stupid justification — of course you know. It’s just that we’re so used to virtually seamless perfection, it’s a shock. Keep up the great work, and don’t let Blue Host get you down. Or keep you down. Know you’ll get it worked out, and yes, I voted every time I could for you on the Koufaxes. Go girls.

Left justified!!! Fantastic!
FYI – there’s an infinite loop if you press on the pro-choice / firedoglage categories. Goes into perpetual re-direct. I suggest disabling those catagory links.

Infinite loops are CPU hogs. So if people press them, that might be what’s driving your utilization so high.

Nothing’s ever easy anymore.

“Questions

BlueHost specializes in customer
satisfaction – Call us with your
questions Toll free.”

Yeah, right.
Get on the stick and satisfy our queen, wouldja?

Looks nice Jane! You all must have worked hard.

I love pair.com for hosting. They don’t have rock-bottom prices but their hosting and customer support are completely solid. Just FYI.

This is like moving into a new house. There is always a list of items that need to be repaired/touched up/corrected.

Is Blue Host telling you the issues with the scripts Jane?

If not, point them to their home page where they list “Superb/Responsive Support Engineers” under “What’s Included”.

Oh hey, what a relief!

I thought that you guys had been hacked!

Excellent!

left alignment? well it is a progressive blog after all.

It seems that bluehost has a blog…. with comments…

http://www.mattheaton.com/

Contact Wordpress.

According to them:

We’re committed to helping create a wholesome and hassle-free WordPress hosting environment. If you feel there are issues with one of the hosts listed here, please send a note to hosting@wordpress.org. If the situation warrants we’ll work with you and the hoster on a solution.

zennurse: If this “tin ear” thing Froomkin is writing about is true, it’s one more reason Bush is headed for extra-early lame duckism. A President has power over his party only as long as he can help them get re-elected (assuming, of course, that he doesn’t know where the bodies are buried). A guy who doesn’t respond to criticism or advice isn’t going to help them.

anotherpawn, nice catch.

I’ve been using site5 as a host when my prior host got acquired by another company and then started to suck big time. Site5 even offered a credit for coming onboard from a competitor. Their support is fantastic and I’ve had really good experiences with them thus far.

Thanks for fixing the justification!

By the way: Frist thinks that censuring a wartime president for illegally spying on Americans and then lying about it is a “crazy political move”.

But when it came to punishing Bill Clinton for winning the 1992 and 1996 elections, censure wasn’t anywhere near harsh enough for Frist and his Republican buddies.

I thought it was weird that the bluehost CEO blog is hosted at mattheaton.com, but it is.

Love the looks of the site! Nice re-design!

BlueHost….
1. I assume the time represents Universal Time when it should be set to the time where the server is located.

2. Their site states “Professional Web Hosting for $6.95 per month. Look out, if that is what they are charging! The traffic that firedoglake generates will drive them crazy and result in some major performance problems.

No apology needed. Fixing a website is easy. Fixing our country? That’s the real challenge.

Hang in there, Jane (and Redd). We will, too.

The hosting issue. There is no good answer to this one.

Part of the problem is that the hosting company often leases facilities from someone else. I don’t know about Blue, but that is pretty much the case. The tech support weenies at Blue could be trying to debug issues on a computer that a couple of thousand miles away.

My host is no winner either. They are ‘down for maintenance’ even when the company from which they lease resources is up.
-

Jane – I’m starting to think all of us should be doing a little ActFiredog for you and Redd. Transitioning from Halaoscan to whatever else is not just frustrating, but is costing you and Redd extra $ each time you have to revamp.

Just a thought. I’m not independently wealthy, but I did get a little bit of a windfall last year…And now that we’re all part of the the “Firedog Brigade”…

My frustration is the tag that reads: Shoephone says: your comments are awaiting moderation. Hope it doesn’t keepo happening. Clearly, I’m missing some detail here.
egregious, any suggestions?

Hi, folks.

Just got back from some meetings.

Looks like we trashed the place so bad in Jane and Redd’s absence last week they decided to move out.

It’s nice here. Doesn’t feel lived in yet, and I don’t know where to put my paraphenalia, but all that will work itself out soon enough.

I hope the old comment threads cross over in good order. We have so much there.

I much prefer this set-up to the old one. HOORAY!

Great, comment moderation at bluehost blog. Whatever – let him moderate our comments….

I guess you have good reasons for the switch, besides the one my ex would use after I stubbed my toe on the sofa that used to be over there.

Kewl. At least we got rid of the nosey moderator dude. Is he back at the NSA?

Yay!

MoveOn just sent out an email to get people to sign Feingold’s petition.

Shucks, you turn away for a few days, and everything’s changed.

I liked the old look. I loved the little red highlights, the feeling of things as they were.

Call me a blog style conservative, I’m still a political liberal.

Our favorite line when engaging any customer service: “we apologize for the inconvenience…”
We don’t want an apology- we want the GD thing to WORK!

do wingnut blogs use right justification?
’cause they’re never right, and what they do is never justified.

Breaking: Feingold accuses dems of “cowering” to Bush:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/…..d-accuses/

I’ve been looking at Bluehost’s features page. They don’t mention anything about limited CPU time.

I have no idea why you’re using so much CPU time, other than that there are many people here who reload the page fairly often to see new comments. Presumably, that keeps the PHP and MySQL pretty busy.

The difference between then and now is that none of us was ever going to have President Clinton’s penis in our mouths without our knowlege and consent.

I am also very glad you weren’t hacked, but I really hope that you didn’t give up the old site-somebody will stick a porn site there for sheer manevolence.

Ok, Russ is making me horny.

Pachacutec, about that MoveOn email. I signed a petition on Censure from Feingold yesterday. I wasn’t sure if the MoveOn petition was the same or different. I signed it anyway, once I decided that Feingold’s was saying I supported the Censure, and MoveOn’s was telling Senators & reps that they should support Feingold. Is that how you figure it?

We’re back to needing moderation for some reason.

BTW that’s not referring to your apology- just hate corporate phone drones parroting that line!

Tried to post this in another thread. Where did it go? Into “moderation”?

—————–

And thanks, Vivian Darkbloom and others, for the map links.

I found some duzies to try to illustrate different viewpoints of whether, in terms of individual rights, we are one country or 50.

As always, I was counting Justices as well — and came to the conclusion that the new Supreme Court majority could well rule (5-4) that Congress cannot pass legislation that allows women to sue state governments that discriminate against women.

The question is whether the States have “sovereign immunity” even against federal remedies that Congress adopts under its 14th Amendment powers to ensure equal protection of the laws.

3 justices (Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy) who voted in 2003 to block such lawsuits by women seeking to enforce their rights under the Family Leave Act were outvoted by 6 supporting their rights, who included Rehnquist and O’Connor. Now, instead of R and O, we have A and R. I expect Alito to vote against women’s rights. Don’t know about Roberts.

Significant changes are underway. Thank you NARAL and Planned Parenthood and Joe Lieberman and Lincoln Chafee and . . . .

new thread

Ok, Russ is making me horny.(pach)

Pach, please – Russ is mine.

Left a note at mattheaton’s blog requesting assistance; seems he’s the owner of BlueHost.

Hello, Matt-
Great posts and interesting perspective, especially this from a previous post:

†How you might ask? By LISTENING to the customer!

The web hosting industry in my opinion is completely driven by the market. We do what YOU the customer wants. Those that can provide what the customer needs for a low and fair price thrive. Those that can’t fade into the sunset…â€

There is a problem currently with one of your customers who is attempting to move to BlueHost from Blogspot, and I’m hoping you can help. http://www.firedoglake.com is an extremely popular blog with a fabulous and activist comment section. Our “fearless leaders†seem to be having some difficulty getting what they want from your coustomer service department, maybe you could check the most current post and help out. Link below.

I liked the old layout better. The center justified text doesn’t do it for me because after the ads at the top in the left column, it winds up with a really narrow band of text, lots of scrolling, and lots of blank space on either side. To me, that’s annoying. I kind of like longer lines. It’s easier to flow in the reading.

I’d rather the old layout, tweaked a little – the new typeface is nicer and a bit easier to read.

Just sayin’

And, BTW, check out Tom Tomorrow’s take on the Claude Allen Evil Twin defense. I spat my coffee when it came up on my screen. And the NYT article today – the best part is near the end, where it exposes him as the window dressing so many thought him to be.

Pachacutec — wow, Feingold tells his party to grow up. About time! If Rove or Frist can threaten these wimps, why can’t Feingold?

The wannabees better move to get in line, fast. The party has a grownup for a leader.

Let’s see who tries to take him on in public, and then how he responds. If they criticize him, he should shame them, and that’s the message he just sent. This could be a big moment.

By the way, I got a call back from the legislative aid in Warner’s office, following the voice mail I let yesterday. I was unable to take her call because I was in a meeting.

But I returned her call, got her voice mail again.

I said something like this:

I’m extremely disappointed in comments I have read attributed to the senator, describing Senator Feingold’s resolution to censure as the “worst kind of political grandstanding.”

Senator Spector, in his comments on the floor yesterday, essentially made an argument that FISA itself was unconstitutional and an interference with the president’s Article II powers, an extreme argument, never before validated or advanced, that essentially places the president outside of the rule of congress or the law. This is breathtaking in its extremism, and I cannt imagine a senator of the experience and integrity (ack!) of Warner associating himself with that kind of argument.

The fact is, to characterize Senator Feingold’s motion as a stunt is to run from and evade the central issues of constitutional balance brought on by the presid’sts’ choices to ignore the law. I sincerely hope that Senator Warner will reconsider his position and change his statement, notwithstanding his current position to echo the majority leader’s preferred talking points.

Let’s see if she calls me back.

Speechless says:
March 14th, 2006 at 8:21 pm

I didn’t read it that closely. Just sign everything!

;-]

Pach:

Linky to Feingold petition?

tx

jane,

did you just pick this provider based on wordpress recommendation?

Based on their website it is impossible to understand what kind of bandwidth they support.

I don’t mean to state the obvious, but you made a bad choice! frankly, i don’t understand how any technology company can survive in Utah (b/c they don’t let you have coffee there!)

The simplest thing might be to go with one of the big providers, ie: godaddy.com or there are some good smaller providers: i have been considering going with Dreamhost http://www.dreamhost.com for a project i am working on.

You guys must have a demand for a large amount of bandwidth. that will cause problems for systems folks that don’t have their shit together!

Here’s the MoveOn link:

I think it only fitting to place the photo of bluehost CEO on the website…

http://mattheaton.com/photo1.jpg

That’s the CEO of bluetoast

I think everything looks great, but there’s one flaw that’ll drive me crazy, and I’m hoping it can be corrected. (Or is this only happening to me?)

Clicking the “back” button on my mouse just reloads Firedoglake again, instead of returning me to the previous site I visited. Going back now requires a couple of steps instead of a single click, which is a little annoying.

Otherwise, it’s thumbs up for the remodel.

Hate to rain on the parade, but the old format was more user friendly as you could just scroll down and read the complete entry. Now have to keep opening new windows to go below the fold.

I smell a Late Nite FDL: Blue Host coming …

I’m glad to see the site back up. The wrinkles will be tended to, I’m sure.

FDL is a great site, Jane and Redd. Thanks.

I’ve been hearing great things about DreamHost. I’m thinking of migrating there myself, since my current hosting has been crashing consistently on account of administrators’ inability to set user limits on resources.

I went WordPress on my site recently and changed the look a little and, let me tell you, you can’t win for losing. Some people will love it, some people will hate it. Listen to suggestions, take those you like, and move on. Pretty soon people will stop bitching about it.

Maybe this is the cause of your problem:

Bluehost Inc.
1548 North Technology Way #D13
Orem, UT 84097

And they don’t give Sunday tech support. Stick with the blue states.

Needlenose has been on DreamHost for about a year and a half, and we’ve been very happy with them. I know Billmon was on DreamHost as well.

Feingold’s petition is at a site called Progressive Patriots. MoveOn’s petition is separate from Feingold’s I think. Feingold’s demonstrates citizen support of censure, MoveOn’s petitions Congress to support.
Something odd though, did anyone else see the link to (or mention of) FDL’s action plan in the MoveOn petition? I just looked back to see if it was a link, and now it’s gone.

I went WordPress on my site recently and changed the look a little and, let me tell you, you can’t win for losing. Some people will love it, some people will hate it.

And heaven forbid you change the shade of orange….

I’ve been hosting with pair.com for over 6 years now, and I love them. I think the prices are fair and services are excellent. They aren’t one of those companies that sublets rack space from someone else. They own their own datacenters.

Nice new digs…It’ll take some time getting used to it. I loved the feel and simplicity of the old FDL, but, hey, I know you’ve got to host yer own blog due to high traffic…

Let’s try a photo:

FDL Blogmistresses:

Please take your time — we will continue to let you know how the new FDL looks and feels (apparently, you can’t stop us from that reporting!). Nobody’s gonna die if it takes a day or two to work this out. [Deep breathing recommended!]

Your credibility isn’t on the line — everybody’s just concerned that you don’t see what we see, so we’re letting you know what we see out here looking into the funhouse mirror.

We all wish it were going better, too, especially for you, but we know that all the effort you’re putting in will pay off for all of us. For me, I gotta say, it all looks great, I see none of the problems others are reporting, altho that might change when I get home. Certainly, these commenters’ reports are intended to be helpful, and from your side of things may very well BE helpful! But, I know that no one means them in the slightly panick-y way they appear on first read, to me at least. FDL’s a community, right? No one is meaning to complain, we’re all trying to ease your pain — and build your knowledge base with regard to what we see here.

Oops, client coming, gotta run!

See ya later, fdlaker!

well…no photos in the coments…

I have been using http://www.u2-web.com/ They are great. No discernable downtime, cheap, and great customer response. I have found that blog software recommended hosting is not always as good as it should be. Love the site. Say no to the tyranny of justification.

Sigh, first Kos, now this. At least I can figure out to post here – at Kos (took me 1/2 hour) you have to preview.

Bartcop sure likes Mark Perkel as his web host:
Computer Tyme Web Hosting

I second (or third) the dreamhost.com recommendation. And second (or third) the offer for free help with wordpress.

Been reading for a few months (though not posting) and am ecstatic to see this stellar blog move off blogger.com. There will be growing pains but the added control will prove its worth soon enough, I’m confident.

The bluehost CEO blog seems to moderate comments….what are the bets that all the negative ones never see the light of day?
I just got the bandwidth exceeded message a couple minutes ago.

Looks like all the infinite loops are gone.

Testing, 1-2-3, testing.

Got here late in the day, and am not computer-savvy enough to understand lots of the lingo being used to describe different hosting scenarios.

But I know how to be patient! And maybe I’ll pick up some knowledge along the way.

The comment preview function is definitely needed. It is hard enough to get HTML tags right, even when you can see what you’re going to get. Also, there are some definite bugs in the posting. I had part of a post eaten earlier, possibly because of some mal-formed HTML, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

Yo, WordPress doesn’t include comment previewing, but you can easily install a plug-in that will allow this option for commenters. Here’s an example: LiveCommentPreview

i likes, but a narrower center column would be much easier to read…

Avid reader though I may be, Jane, I have to rain on your parade: the new layout is just plain horrible.

* The ‘Read the rest of this entry’ links are clunky and slow. Compare with “expand/collapse post” links at Think Progress.

* The background is straight out of M$ Frontpage – as used by every kewl 14 year-old.

* The indents on quoted material are unnecessary and unattractive. And you haven’t got room for them: for example, the fixed space occupied by the outer columns means that the user’s browser window must now be more than 900 pixels wide in order to accommodate the graphic in “How Much Do Senate Democrats Like the President?”; otherwise the graphic is truncated. (Pity those who use 800×600 resolution.)

Oh, and as others have commented, you *really* need a preview button (God knows how the above thinkprogress.org link will appear).

so, i’m no longer on your blogroll?

gee, i remember a time when i got an email from someone named jane asking why some new blog called “firedoglake” was no longer linked to on skippy.

how soon they forget.

The new design of FDL is a template I recognize, since I use it at one of my websites. It looks like FDL is using it straight out of the box. It’s not poorly written code at all — actually it’s very well written. No reason for Blue Host to have a problem with it.

The backgrounds, margins, and various other settings can be easily changed by the user. Comment preview and things like that are plugins that FDL will need to add in (as with any Wordpress template).

I love FDL, but really dislike your new format. In a word, it sucks. The old one was great, why change it if it isn’t broken.

testing smiley

:evil:

It’s understandable that some regulars don’t like the new design. People like the familiar.

Personally, I think the old design was holding FDL back, keeping it from growing even faster than it was. People coming from Daily Kos had to content themselves with great writing, and just endure the confusing site design and godawful haloscan comments. I know a few who gave up.

As fast as FDL has been growing, I’m positive it will grow even faster with a more robust design — which this is.