Now here's a sad thing

Would it not be great if one could take this as one of those correspondence-exchanged issues reminiscent of the late, great Henry Root? How funny was he!
How not funny is this.
This is the story of a sincere sucker being time-wasted because she was too busy to read too closely. And she was under the impression that she was working with something which seemed to identify itself as "The Society of Professional Journalists".
You can see the cause of this exchange on the right=hand nav bar of this blog.

Dear WebRing,

I have kept your email open on my desktop for a long time, periodically returning to the blogspot address I have inhabited these nigh 12 years and trying to work out why your promotion corrupts my columns.
The bad news is that I don't know.
I am not a web designer or a coder, albeit I was inaugural online editor of my metro daily newspaper and have mastered quite a few evolving print media programs, the latest being the paywall version of Fatwire.

I have managed to keep everything neat and tidy on my wee blog over the years - until now.

Suddenly the penny dropped.

I cannot make your ID conform to the blogspot column sizes because I need to "upgrade" to WebRing Premium.
And then I will get my own FREE blog?

Good grief.
Now, with the "luxury" of a (sick) day off my work on a busy metro daily, I have a moment to solve a problem. And the problem is not me and my blog, but Internet bottom-feeders looking for my dollar.

Fie.

The Internet was a better place before your sort came to parasite it.

Samela



On 17/07/2011, at 12:18 AM, feedback@webring.com wrote:

Hi saline,
You recently created a WebRing account. We noticed you haven't joined any of our thousands of WebRing Communities.

Perhaps you haven't figured out how to add the WebRing NavBar to your site. Or maybe you don't even have a website. Whatever your reasons, take a moment see what you can do at WebRing.

Need Help Adding the NavBar? Depending on how you edit your website, adding our unique WebRing NavBar can be tricky. Luckily, there are several ways you can get help:

Try this basic Code Installation Tutorial: http://dir.webring.com/h/installcode
Try our list of video tutorials http://help.webring.com/h/editor
Enquire at our Memerb Support forum http://g.webring.com/forum?forum=webringsupport
Upgrade to WebRing premium and we will add the NavBar for you! http://webring.com/h/benefits
Premium members also receive:
Better placement in rings for more traffic.
Free webring.com email account
Custom member profile page to attract more traffic
Your websites are included in WebRing searches
Personal account/support repreentative
Double affiliate payouts (if you invite new members for example you can earn up to $13.20 per individual)
Don't Have a Web Site? We have a solution for you!
Webspace
WebRing members have a place to create a website, store private files, and more. Check out your Webspace area if you have not done so already. It's flexible and FREE.

Blogs
We have hundreds of WebRing blogs. As a WebRing member, you get your own FREE blog. Blogs are a great and easy way to communicate any message or sell any product. Plus, we have built a NavBar into the blog.

In addition, nearly everything you do on WebRing earns you Activity Points! What can you do with these points? Redeem them in our Rewards Room for products or services.

We love hearing from our members. Feel free to contact us with any comments or suggestions at feedback@webring.com.

Sincerely,

WebRing Member Services

To manage receipt of email, or cancel this account, please visit your My Account area - http://www.webring.com/mbr - This is an account you created, so there is no "unsubscribe". This is a transactional email under CAN-SPAM guidelines, not commercial or unsolicited email.

Botox for blogs

I've finally done it. I have given angrypenguin a facelift, thanks to Blogger's upgrade-to-Google facility. I am pleased with the crisp, clean look.

Of course, I am having problems in this new, much-overdue template change. Blogger says one can access the original blog to get at template adds, but now I can't find it. Maybe this is because I made more than one change to the template as I moved over. Seeing my original choice in full-screen, I realised the column width was too wide for easy online reading and sought a narrower column - this template. That is a flaw in the preview facility - the small window gives a skewed perspective. The design looked dramatically different when I adopted it.
So, all my logos, my counter and illustrated links are gone - along with the link Blogger originally offered to my archived original blog. I've scoured the Help lists - to no avail.
One always dreads making any changes online - it is never problem-free and ends up being really time-consuming. I am a content expert, but never claimed to have much aptitude for the techie side of the WWW. So here I am, floundering.