Your Blog, And Its Dual Personality

When I write a blog post, like this one, Your Blog, And Its Dual Personality, it has a known URL - http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html. It also has a second URL - http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html. Try the two links, and see for yourself.

(Note): This post has been replaced by (and substantially rewritten, to reflect major changes to the custom domain product) The Real Blogger Status: Schizophrenia and Custom Domain URLs. You may also find insight in The Real Blogger Status: Your Browser Cache, and Web Sites With Dual Addresses

That's real, but it's not terribly useful. I advertise this post as http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html, not as http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html, intentionally. This blog is "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com" - "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.blogspot.com" is not necessary.

But what if this blog was "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com"? That would make this post http://bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html. If properly setup, it should also be addressed as http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html.
(Note): Since I haven't setup a domain "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com", don't expect to click on any of the latter links, and get anything useful. Sorry.

The point here is that "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" and "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" should be synonymous - for a domain that only contains a blog. For other domains, this may vary.

For many domains, the "www" prefix will be synonymous with the root - but not for Google Custom Domains.

1. I pay for the DNS listing, which tells your computer where my blog is.
2. I setup a DNS entry, pointing "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to "ghs.google.com".
3. I setup Blogger to publish to the custom domain.

From what I see, redirecting "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to a web site on a Google server involves two address records.

1. A CNAME record at my DNS service, forwarding "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to "ghs.google.com".
2. A pointer at "ghs.google.com", forwarding "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" to the actual physical website.

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=55373

Google hosts lots of blogs, so we have to make sure the right one is associated with this domain.

My guess is, when I tell Blogger to publish my blog to "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com", and to host the content on their server, they do three things:
1) Create the content, with links using "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" as the base URL.
2) Copy the content to the web server, in the proper location.
3) Create a pointer, on "ghs.google.com", indicating where the content was copied.

The result is that I have a pointer indicating the location of "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com". I'd bet that also setting up a pointer for "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com", indicating the same location, was a detail that Blogger overlooked.

The bottom line? I can setup a pair of CNAME records in my DNS service, both pointing to "ghs.google.com" - "bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" and "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com". But, without a pointer on "ghs.google.com", indicating the server where "www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com" is located, I'm out of luck for addressing this post as http://www.bloggerstatusforrealbeta.com/
2007/01/your-blog-and-its-dual-personality.html.

(Edit 1/15): Using "martinezumc.org" as a publishing target for "martinezumc.blogspot.com", I see complete agreement with the above.

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Custom Domain Names and the DNS Settings

The Google Custom Domains, and the possibility of having a non-Blog*Spot address without the lack of functionality from setting up an external published blog, are a major improvement over plain old Blog*Spot to some folks. But be aware - some technical expertise is required.

Setting up a DNS entry is not a normal task for Bloggers. The draw of Blogger One Button Publishing is that you

• Choose a Blog*Spot address.
• Choose a template.
• Post and publish (and for New Blogger, forget the "publish" too).

So what's up with setting up DNS?

There's some occasional confusion in the forums.

The site says to create a CNAME for example.com.. CNAMES are not for DOMAIN NAMES, they are for subdomains.. i.e, www, pages, users. DOMAIN NAMES use A records to point to an IP address.

But the difference between an A record, and a CNAME record, is pretty simple.

An A DNS record directly equates a hostname to an IP address.

A CNAME DNS record does not directly resolve to an IP address. Instead, it refers to a relative or absolute hostname.

When a DNS query is made for a CNAME, the hostname that is pointed to is used to obtain the actual IP address. The pointed-to hostname may itself be another CNAME, or it may directly provide the IP address using an A entry.

As an example, let's look at Google Apps for Your Domain: Creating Your Canonical Name (CNAME) Record: GoDaddy.com.

• Click Add New CNAME Record. If you've already created a CNAME record for your website's address with Google Apps, click Edit next to the existing CNAME record.
  
• • Enter the part of your website's address that you picked in your Google Apps control panel. For example, if you picked urban.mydomain.com as your address, enter urban for step one.
    
  • Enter ghs.google.com as the host name.
    
  • Leave as default selection.

Not too much confusion there. As long as you decide upon your domain names before you start, it's just another recipe. Mix a, b, and c, and serve.

(Note): For some detail about DNS records, see PCMagazine Definition of: DNS records. For still more technical detail, you can see FAQs.Org: How DNS Works. Or see my case study, Google Custom Domain - Case Study #1

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Monolithic Errors

Long ago, on a computer that exists only in the memory of its users, you might be running a program and everything would come to a screeching halt. And the system console would print a brief and fearsome message

MLTP EAC

And what that cryptic message told you was that you were done. You had done something so stupid, that the computer, with even its infinite (!!) wisdom, could not recover. There were only 2 actions possible now.

• Power the computer off, and back on, and restart. And pray.
• Call the IBM Service Engineer.

And neither action was guaranteed to be 100% effective. But for a MLTP EAC, those were the choices.

Later, when Microsoft Windows was just becoming the dominant operating system on personal computers, it was even more unstable than it is now. If you had just installed new code, or tweaked the system settings to unacceptable values, occasionally the system would likewise throw up its hands in anguish and refuse to go any farther.

That was called a Black Screen Of Death. Unlike its predecessor, the MLTP EAC, the BSOD provided a puzzling series of letters and numbers, that could be translated by your super geek in residence (were you so lucky to have one) to indicate that your hard drive had died, or that you had loaded a bad driver for the latest installed accessory card.

In the newer Windows, Windows NT, 2000, XP, and now Vista, the black screen of death was replaced by something just a bit more user friendly, the Blue Screen Of Death. Using the official colour Microsoft Blue, you're told, in a more friendly way

Your're Done.

With Blogger, we are recently seeing two monolithic errors too.

• 404 Page Not Found.
• We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

This puts us in mind of the old

MLTP EAC

If there's anything in the Blogger experience that causes FUD, it's these two errors. When you see one, there's nothing you can do but fill out yet another problem report, and join the gang at Google Blogger Help - Troubleshooting.

Doing the former, you fill out a form, and wait for botmail in your Inbox. After you reply to the botmail, you wait some more. Maybe one day things will start working again, and maybe not. After a while, you move to the latter.

In Google Blogger Help - Troubleshooting, troubleshooting is slightly more interactive. There, you describe your problem, and one of the Google employees who occasionally enters the forum will ask a few questions to diagnose the problem. If you're lucky, an answer may be in the latter article.

If you are lucky, a Google employee will later reply in your thread

You're good to go.

Another monolithic response for sure.

You check your blog, and it's working.

Now, both the Black Screen Of Death, and the subsequent Blue Screen Of Death, offered just a small bit of detail. Detail that let you diagnose the problem, and at least decide whether you might have caused the problem by installing a bad driver, or a memory module just went belly up. At least save you the time spent downloading and installing a new driver, when you should be traveling to the nearby computer store for another memory module.

With the current "Page not found / unable to complete your request" messages, we're back to the MLTP EAC level. Nothing to do but call the engineer.

We need the ability to figure out what we are doing wrong. Without knowing whats going wrong, any of us may be subject to either problem, at any time. And that is the FUD.

Let me put this briefly.

We need to know what is going on, so we can avoid causing the problem.

Right now, all we know is

We are using Blogger as a web site.

And the only way to predictably avoid the problem is

Don't use Blogger as a web site.

As solutions go, this one sucks. Please give us just a bit more diagnostic detail, instead of

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Come on, Blogger, admit the errors, so we can avoid making the same ones over and over. Don't make Blogger like the Sword Of Damocles.

(Note 2/1): Please tell us that the below mentioned fix wasn't the one applied 1/31 late evening!!??

(Note 1/11): Blogger Buzzer states

Your blog is affected by a bug that hit others also and it is being worked on. Expect a fix in the next few days.

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Another Cache Refresh Needed?

From some of the problem reports in Blogger Help Group: Login Issues, it appears that some login scripts may have been changed again.

As in Blogger Alert 12/2: Missing Toolbar Buttons, if you're having any problems logging in, or if you're missing your blogs in your dashboard, you might want to try clearing cache and cookies again.

(Edit 1/31): The bX-68tbuv problem with image uploads, which appears to be related to this issue, has been fixed. Here's a definition of the lack of uniformity of the problem - this specific problem was unique to sessions starting from "beta.blogger.com".

This has been fixed. Regardless, use www.blogger.com and not beta.blogger.com.

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Blogger Maintenance January 9 Morning

In Blogger Help Group: Scheduled Blogger Outage Tuesday, January 9th, 2007, Helper warns us

Just wanted to give you all a heads-up that the old Blogger will be down for a couple hours tomorrow (Tuesday, January 9th, 2007). This scheduled outage applies to the old Blogger from 7:45am-9:45am PST. You will not be able to post to old Blogger blogs or access any old Blogger blogs on Blog*Spot during this time. We also will not be allowing any new accounts or new blogs to be created on the new Blogger during this outage. Google Groups will be also be undergoing planned maintenance on Tuesday the 9th. Accordingly, some features may be temporarily unavailable (including the Blogger Help Group).

Old Blogger, New Blogger, and Blogger Help Group all down at the same time. Might be a good day to take off.

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