Unable To Access Blogger/Blogspot From Raven/RavenPlus

I am going to be offline for the next few days, hopefully. Google changed the authentication protocol for Blogger/Blogspot and I can't post anything from Raven/RavenPlus since yesterday 27th May 2015. From what I know, this affects other offline blog editors as well.

This is the error message that I received when I tried publishing to my Blogger blog yesterday:

Not very informative, unfortunately.

A Night Shot Of A Large-Tailed Nightjar

The month of April 2015 must be a lucky month for me. For some reason, I began to get regular visits from a Large-Tailed Nightjar, almost daily for over a span of a month-and-a-half. I don't have the slightest clue if this is just one particular bird. But one thing is certain: when it does come to my front yard, it will very much likely perch on the telephone wire at a distance of not more than 10 feet away from my bedroom window. Without a doubt, an ideal position for taking some photographs with my low end compact digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix L27.

My Daily Prayers

Here's an ancient relic from my alma mater. A card measuring 10.5" x 5.5" with a list of prayers printed on both sides. It is neatly folded in thirds so that it fits nicely into a student's shirt pocket.

The "Save" Button When Switching Tabs In RavenPlus?

I thought I had found the last remaining oddity with the "Save" button in the Raven/RavenPlus editor 3 months ago. Unfortunately, I found another one recently.

I am a bit paranoid while composing my blog post. So, not wanting to lose my work, I have this habit of regularly saving my post after every couple of minutes while editing. I also have a need to dive into the "XHTML" tab from time to time; to insert an Amazon affiliate ad, for example. So this means me regularly switching between the "Design" and "XHTML" tabs while composing my blog post.

Did I Just Modify My Content?

I got confused when I first encountered this flaw in Raven/RavenPlus: The "Save" button in the editor became enabled when I switched from the "Design" tab to the "XHTML" tab. It won't happen the first time round when I made the flip. But it definitely will from the second time onwards, even when there is NO content in either the "Design" or "XHTML" tab. This can't be right.

Do Monitor Lizards Climb Trees?

On the left is a picture of a Water Monitor Lizard clinging onto a mango tree in front of my house. If one needs proof that they do climb trees, well here it is.

In fact, not only do they climb trees, but they can also climb up (on the inside) of vertical cast-iron sewage pipes. I know because one actually entered my bedroom, via my attached bathroom, not too long ago. Not a pleasant thought considering that it had to submerge itself in raw sewage in the septic tank before ending up in my room

Taking This Shot

It is not possible for me to take a close-up photo as Monitor Lizards are shy creatures (but not aggressive as far as I can tell). As soon as they caught sight of me, they will bolt. And they can run at amazing speed.

The picture on the left was taken from my bedroom window upstairs, at roughly about 10 feet away with my Nikon compact camera set at 5x zoom and the scene mode set to "Dusk/Dawn". I don't think it was aware of my presence as otherwise it would have climbed to the other side of the tree, away from me.

Check out that tail length.

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RavenPlus Version 1.0.504

If you have been following my blog, you would have realised that I have made a couple of improvements and bug fixes to RavenPlus since the release of RavenPlus Version 1.0.503. After about a year, I think it is about time I release a new version of RavenPlus - Version 1.0.504 .

My Checklist When Releasing A New Version Of RavenPlus

Dear ME,

I have noticed that you were struggling with yourself while trying to build the updated release of RavenPlus version 1.0.504 yesterday. RavenPlus version 1.0.503 was released roughly about a year ago, and it is quite obvious that you have forgotten the steps.

To prevent this from happening again, I have taken the liberty to write down and document the steps for you. Confucius say : "the palest ink is better than the best memory". Keep this safe somewhere. I'm sure you will need it - again and again.

RavenPlus: Getting iframes To Work Correctly

Here is an update to my previous work on iframes in RavenPlus. If you recall, my first attempt only allows iframes to be placed at the end of a blog post. Well, not anymore with this fix, as you can see with the Amazon iframe banner ad above.

Closeup Photography With A Compact Camera

I must admit, I am a greenhorn in photography. To be honest, the camera that I bought about a year-and-a-half ago is actually the first I have ever owned. Not surprisingly, most of my pictures were taken using the 'Auto' mode on the camera. But at times when my shots of flowers, for example, were bad, I will put my camera into 'macro' mode, hoping that somehow I will get some improvements in my shots since they are meant for closeups. But unfortunately there was none, despite me following the instruction as written in the user manual. And this includes the zooming part, i.e. the zoom indicator on the LCD display was always green.

My First Winning Closeup Shot

But about 2 weeks ago I did something different. I decided to do my own zoom by physically positioning my camera at about 6 inches away from the subject - a butterfly on a flower. I was take aback when I first viewed this picture on the camera's LCD display. The result was stunning; my first winning shot in 'macro' mode as you can see above. The fine details captured were just staggering, something that I have not expected since I was using a low end digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix L27. I think this shot could have been even better if I were to have used a tripod since I do not have steady hands. Obviously, camera with fancier macro lenses would give even better magnification and thus better closeup shots.

Mentioning Someone From Google+ Mobile

+Mention-ing someone in a Google+ post or comment is a neat way of grabbing someone's attention; whether to ask them a question, to give them credit or just simply to thank them. When we +Mention someone, a link will be created between our post or comment and the person mentioned. A notification will also be sent to the person mentioned.

Call me weird but I have always liked accessing Google+ (Facebook too in fact) via its mobile site on my Windows desktop PC. Google+ pages on the mobile site just loads faster compared to its desktop version because of its minimal bandwidth requirement. But there was one problem - I had never found a way to +Mention someone from Google+ Mobile. This has subsequently led me to wrongly assume that it was not possible to +Mention someone from Google+ Mobile. But after something like 2 years, I have finally found a way. I accidentally stumbled upon this workaround about a week ago when I clicked on the About page of MacroAddict on Google+.

I have tested it out by Google+ mentioning myself in a test post and found that it actually works. I have tested it on Google+ Mobile running under both Opera desktop (just remember to use the URL for Google+ Mobile: https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream) and Opera Mini. I guess I must have not looked hard enough previously.

The Steps To +Mention Someone

To Google+ mention someone in a post or comment, just type '+' followed by the person's Google+ numeric ID (A Google+ profile custom URL will not work; it must be a Google+ numeric ID).