27 Saturday Feb 2021
The story about the Brown Wood Rail is now available on BirdwatchingDaily. Thank you, Birdwatching Magazine!
Thanks also to those of you who shared tips on working around the new Block Editor. (The ‘Add Link’ does not seem like an improvement either!)
Some people have adapted and show us by example that adaptation works – but is there anyone who absolutely loves the new Block and prefers it over Classic?
See the story about the Brown Wood Rails here: BirdWatchingDaily.
31 Monday Jul 2017
Posted in Using WordPress - When Things Go Wrong!
Knock Knock, who’s there?
This post went out about an hour ago, and it’s on the reader but not in either of my email inboxes…
https://playamart.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/visual-hiccups-from-the-past-month/
Pingbacks and ‘New Commments’ for first-time Moderation only show up in the little notification icon in the top right of the screen. Is anyone else experiencing ongoing gitches?
Until the next online session, sometime tonight –
Z
12 Sunday Feb 2017
Tags
challenges with computers, computer freezes, Cracked computer screen, jama ecuador, Staying Positive
“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” ― Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being
Even the tin roof and nails came with the donated house!
Jama Ecuador – Lots of stories and images are in queue here on the Pacific coast. There’s a very special bird sighting – awaiting confirmation on its identity, and there are encouraging stories of those moving forward, poco a poco now ten months after the earthquake. The rains have been heavy, and many streets are more dirt than gravel, so mud boots are almost mandatory in some towns!
What follows is a ditty that will explain why future correspondence might be brief!
Continue reading
01 Wednesday Apr 2015
Tags
Hacienda Guachala, holy week in ecuador, nicaragua canal, rabbit rabbit, troubles with wordpress, wordpress new editor vs classic
(Ecuador) Otavalo Market – Rabbits
Late last night as I was painting, I remembered we were approaching another Rabbit-Rabbit Day, and I visualized writing a post with a picture of a rabbit. (See Rabbit Rabbit May Day.)
While guests were sleeping, I painted this ginger in the breakfast room of Hotel Andino in Quito. (No, I did not drink four bottles of wine!)
Because I painted late, and because I get weary arguing with the WordPress ‘Improved’ Write-New-Post options, I selected slumber over writing this post. Continue reading
21 Wednesday Jan 2015
Posted in Using WordPress - When Things Go Wrong!
“I’ve looked up, down, and all around and still cannot find —-“
Many of us are creatures of comfort, and we like “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Sometimes our brains need little hurdles that test our abilities to ace unexpected road blocks.
However; why is it that many times things are fixed that are not broken?!
I am trying to adapt to the Windows 8 changes, but I’m not very impressed with the unnecessary steps I sometimes have to take to find something’s that’s out of sight. I join many people in a collective disgust with the continued changes over at Yahoo. This post is about WordPress glitches, so bail out now if you’re not experiencing any! Continue reading
18 Thursday Sep 2014
Posted in Using WordPress - When Things Go Wrong!
New Albany, Mississippi – Museum Grounds – Totem detail – artist Clyde Mcdowell
Numerous spam comments on images are slipping through the filters this week. Is anyone else finding an inbox full of wannabe comments in moderation?
All’s fine here in William Faulkner and Elvis country! Will be back soon with the Timeout for Art!
Z
25 Tuesday Mar 2014
A few of my WordPress friends will relate to the following message that often appears at the top of an “Add New Post’ page: “Connection lost. Saving has been disabled until you’re reconnected. We’re backing up this post in your browser, just in case.”
Slow connections can test the patience of Job! Sometimes the above message remains on the screen for hours as images upload or backfire with snitty red Error messages. Last night’s “pink” images took three hours to upload, and I worked on Thursday’s Timeout for Art in another window while battling with the uploads. Emails loaded slowly, comment and like options failed to load. Notification stars blinked in the upper right corner, yet the drop-down box revealed a white field.
Although I had typed several hundred words, the Timeout for Art/Save material was still idling with a 31 word count from hours before!
The headlights work; I wonder if the clutch and brakes are dependable! Slow internet is like an ancient vehicle!
Comments in moderation arrive in the inbox, and the final jump to approval rolls to a dead end! Other comments that I attempt to answer often swirl for a minute or two before either leaping to the proper place, or they vanish – poof! – or I can sometimes hit the ‘back’ button and return to my comment, let the page load again, then send it a second, third,fourth, and hopefully it reaches its destination!
Today as I watch my comments swirl in neutral space before they sail into a dead zone, I reflect on the time spent trying to move forward. It’s like having a road-weary vehicle that’s lost its transmission fluid or gets stuck in neutral! The blank screen reminds me of the odometer stuck on zero! Instead of raising the hood and searching for solutions, I place the USB modem in a stainless steel bowl or metal colander, and the speed usually doubles… juggling that with an external keyboard while trying to keep the homing device on the cell tower is a balancing act, but it’s still too slow in daylight hours.
07 Sunday Jul 2013
Posted in Using WordPress - When Things Go Wrong!
Tags
Copyright Infringement, google images, Google Images are not public domain, hot to transfer photo from google images, how to share images from pinterest, how to transfer photo to pinterest, how to use google images, how to use photos from pinterest, Is it alright to use Pinterest Images, Is it ok to use Google images, Pinterest copyright infringement, pinterest images, Right clicking photos, using pinterest
Who asked permission to upload this to Pinterest? No one did, yet it’s there!
This past weekend some friends and I were discussing how some people use images from Pinterest, Facebook and Google Images. I shared a copyright infringement story with them, and told how shocked I have been recently to find so many of my images ‘shared’ on Pinterest. But I should be honored, right? Flattered that an award-winning photograph had been ‘pinned’ without my permission and uploaded, and basically been given to the world wide web to be used however they’d like! I think that that person who pinned the above image agreed before adding the image that they owned or had permission to share it.
This past week WordPress put their spotlight on reblogging and also on Using Other People’s Images. Both posts received a lot of interesting feedback, including a link to DON’T STEAL MY STUFF, DUDE – Laura at ‘Lolabees’ states her clear case and managed to make me chuckle at the end as well! Please read her post, a real eye opener for any blogger.
Sometimes people truly don’t realize they have violated a copyright; One of my friends this past week gasped when she realized that Google Images is not a grab-bag of public domain goodies!
Here’s a story from Roni Lauren who innocently used a “Google Image” and paid a very unfortunate price: “Well on one random post, I grabbed one random picture off of Google and then a few weeks later… ” Continue reading
26 Tuesday Mar 2013
Tags
botanical gardens, computer woes, internet speed in latin america, museo loco guayaquil, things to do in guayaquil
Hammocks represent well-deserved slices of rest, though one has to remember to squeeze the marrow from each day.
“The first symptom of the process of killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The Truth is, they are afraid to Fight the Good Fight ” Paulo Coehlo (From Coehlo’s Blog, The Good Fight)
Connection Speed Envy!
Sluggish internet is one of the major complaints about living off the grid in Latin America. Uploading images, opening or sending emails, and opening new pages can be quite frustrating. Many times the “like” function will not work, and one can forget trying to comment or read the drop-down box that brings comments into your space. Ask your computer to do a simple task, and then sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee while it churns before kicking it back! In the wee hours of the morning when most of the internet users are sleeping, my connection gets an injection of energy! That’s when I catch up, if my schedule allows extra snoozing time after I’m finished! Here are some screen shots from a few weeks ago: Continue reading
17 Monday Dec 2012
Tags
Copyright Infringement, Facebook Image Licenses, It Started with one Light Pole, Pinterest Copyright Issues, Spam Pingbacks, WordPress Pingbacks
Speaking Up For Copyrights!
My post about the pingbacks received interesting feedback and presented new subjects to ponder about responsible blogging. We appreciate when someone mentions one of our posts and guides the reader to us via pingback. Everyone agrees that those are great pingbacks! The image below shows five pending notifications of pingbacks. The question for me is, “Are these from people who have visited my site, or will I find another person in pursuit of more hits?”
Which is real and which is borderline spam?
Those of us who enter the photo challenges sometimes receive a different kind of pingback, With a right click, a small number of bloggers copy from the challenge site and paste to theirs; this past week one of these bloggers presented one photo, no text, linked to the WordPress challenge then listed 125 sites and received 66 likes!!!!! He also received several thanks for the pingbacks, so go figure, not everyone is bothered by these posts.
Those border on spam and join another type of borderline of spam. Some people visit sites and leave a string of suspicious ‘likes.’ How can one hit the ‘like, like, like, like, like’ button in a few seconds and say that they read the posts?!
A lovely REAL comment (right) awaited my approval!!!
Linda of Shoreacres contributed sound feedback and addressed her concern about copyright infringement from re blogging I’ve had my own brushes with copyright infringement, so I had no problem agreeing with her concerns.
Who Wants To Challenge A Sneaky Snake? –
Years ago I was shocked to find one of my photos featured in an international magazine. Challenging a copyright dispute is an arduous task, and several attorneys I consulted seemed to pull away as if it was taboo to challenge a well-known periodical. I regret not pursuing that infringement violation. (Living off the grid does have its disadvantages!)
I have frowned on Facebook because one signs over licensing rights for the photos. People have uploaded my photos without asking, and I wonder how they clear that ethical question about having permission to use the images before uploading. Angela West of PCWorld states in a February 2012 article, “Facebook asks each time you upload a photo if you have the permission to use it. The legal burden lies with the original person who posted the photo rather than those who share links to it.
Pinterest does not ask users to consider permissions before each “pin,” aiming to make the user experience seamless. While having your content shared arguably helps popularize it, many artists and photographers may want to be asked or paid first.”
I suspect that people do this with images found on Google searches and rarely remember to give credit (or ask permission!) before using the images. I’ve watched someone pull up images for iguanas, find my paintings then quickly right-click without any qualms! Others have said, “I saw the photos on facebook!” (Facebook?) and they told how a friend right clicked from my post and uploaded to share with others. This disturbs me a lot, though most do this with a novice’s innocence.
It all started when Luchy asked for suggestions for improvements to his cyber cafe.
IT STARTED WITH ONE LIGHT POLE
The above post, It Started With One Light Pole, received a lot of attention and praise, and I am now slightly amused at the the irony of the title. My most recent frustration goes back to this post, and yes, it started with one light pole!
While researching licensing and copyright infringement stories about Facebook and Pinterest, I wondered if anyone had right-clicked any of my images and posted them without my permission. I went to the Pinterest site and typed in my name, and viola! there were some of my photos! Most linked back to a feature article from Virtual News. that referred back to the light pole story. Paul’s article was a nice one, though he right clicked and wrote the article without asking permission to use the images. He DID write me and shared the link when he published it.
Someone else right clicked and wrote another article, this time with little reference back to my blog. They did give me photo credits, but never bothered to tell me they’d used them in the post. I found it by finding the image on google images, which took me back to that post.
Finding the images on Pinterest worried me, especially since one of the photos doesn’t have my copyright notice. (My mistake) So next I searched “Zeebra Designs” and found a photograph of a howler monkey. Again, full credit and a link back to the post was included, but I wonder who might right click it next into a periodical or greeting card or…?
Next I found one of my Playa San Miguel images from a search in that name, and it had two ‘repins.’ As with one of the street art, this image did not bear my copyright notice. (My mistake again!)
I have also found images of mine that friends uploaded to Google Earth to pinpoint a location. They surely claimed that they owned the image during the upload prompts! (They probably thought they were doing me a favor!) Discovering all of this sort of makes me want to butt heads with a few people!!!
Head Buttin’ Time
Before you right click an image, please consider the person who most likely devoted many years to hone and develop that talent. It’s unfair to insert it into your site without giving credit and a link back to the photographer, who might or might not stumble upon it one day. If someone else right clicks it and shares, eventually someone will assume it’s in the public domain. That might be a grand honor for someone whose profession is outside of the arts, but it’s a huge disappointment to the artist who has worked hard to gain respect and earn an honest living!
If the issue of copyrights interests you, here are a few details:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-28/tech/31106641_1_repinning-copyright-entire-image
http://thephotoletariat.com/does-facebooks-copyright-policy-worry-you/
http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Copyright-Infringement
http://copyright.laws.com/copyright-infringement/infringement-remedies
https://shimworld.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/facebook-copyright-and-user-discontent-know-your-risks/
Thank you for sticking with me if you reached the end of this post!!!
Z
Zeebra Designs & Destinations 