Because LiveJournal has again broken its support for OpenID, I am again locked-out of reading Friends-only entries.

This time, instead of struggling to find a work-around (while the LJ support team does nothing but collect information which will be ignored by the LJ programmers, and then eventually expresses regrets at the lack of action), I am simply done with it. I won't be reading LJ entries.

I won't even bother with the more public entries at LiveJournal. If there's something that my LJ Friends want me to read, then it will have to be written elsewhere.

I am presently undecided as to whether I'm willing to enable LiveJournal to the extent of allowing it to continue to access my RSS feed. If you find that entries from this 'blog stop appearing on your Friends pages, then you might check as to whether that's simply because the 'blog has become quiescent, or because I've blocked the LJ server.

[Addendum (2013:02/06): I am informed that LiveJournal's alleged feed of this 'blog hasn't delivered any of the entries from this year anyway, so the question of whether to permit it to do so might perhaps be put aside.]

More than a year after finding that I could no longer log into LiveJournal with my OpenID, I am now again able to do so.

The server software that I had been using has long been orphaned. But, with some assistance from Kelvin Mo, I was able to get his SimpleID functioning properly for the most part. I worked around a final glitch yester-day. (I still have a problem with Blogspot/Blogger; but, for practical reasons, that is of less concern than was the problem with LJ.)

I am still trying to figure-out how to get the original OpenID for the Woman of Interest again working. She uses a different sort of directory structure and WordPress configuration than do I, and this is breaking something.

Since some time in April, a bug in the software at LiveJournal.com has kept me from logging into it, and from logging into other sites using that same software, with my OpenID. To-day I received an admission that the problem hasn't been worked and is not likely to be worked any time soon. If you're an LJ friend who posts nothing but Friends-only or otherwise filtered entries, then you might as well write me off.

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More generally, my experience filing bug reports has not been very happy. I've recently reported my problems with the formula editor of OpenOffice.

Rather longer ago than that, I noted how WordPress, after letting two dead-lines slip, had just un-scheduled a bug-fix by setting a milestone of Future Release. This morning, I discovered that a spurious claim that the bug was not manifest had caused the report to be closed about three weeks ago. After I was compelled to jump through some otherwise superfluous hoops, it was plainly established that WordPress indeed had exactly the bug that I'd reported (on 29 April 2008), and that, from my initial description, the point of failure could have been quickly found and fixed. A patch was filed, and I thought that the fix would be scheduled for the next bug-fixing release (3.1.4 or 3.2.0, whichever came first), but then the milestone was instead re-set for Future Release. It might still be fixed in the next release, but there is simply no assurance of that. (I can hack my own installation, of course.)

FWVLIW, for the last few days, I've not been able to log-in to LiveJournal using my OpenID. I submitted a support request when it seemed that the problem would persist.

Investigation suggests that the very same problem has affected other OpenIDs at LJ, beginning at least as far back as earlier September, with access never restored once it is lost.

I am not sure, however, that this is actually a bug in the LJ code; I think that the problem might be in the interaction between my OpenID server code and the version of PHP installed by the hosting service that I use.

Until-and-unless the problem is fixed, I cannot read Friends-only entries there, nor comment where anonymous comments are disallowed.

At LiveJournal.com right now, the site reports

LiveJournal is currently down due to migration to a new server facility. The window of planned downtime is from 8 AM to NOON PST (4PM to 8PM UTC) on Tuesday, November 18, 2008.

For more information, bookmark our status site. Thanks for your patience during this time.

(The status site, meantime, is claiming Scheduled Maintenance: Feb 4, 05:00 - 07:00 UTC/GMT, though 07:00 GMT has come and gone.)

LiveJournal has been failing in its attempts to fetch various feeds, including that for this 'blog. When I first saw that the feed to my 'blog was not being fetched, I examined the profile pages for various syndication journals on LJ; quite a few were reporting a parsing error, and next check times were passing without those next checks.

So far, there is no report at LiveJournal Status, at LJ Support, or at LiveJournal Maintenance indicating an awareness of the problem.

Up-Date: Well, the previously unretrieved entries have now been fetched, and now they appear one immediately after another on Friends pages.

Up-Date (2008:10/29 02:23 PDT): The fetching is failing again.

On 17 July, LiveJournal, Inc, announced the return of Basic Accounts. As previously noted, what was actually happening was that Basic Accounts were going to be replaced with a new sort of account with the same name.

The essentials of the new programme have now been reported:

• Journals of Basic Accounts will display advertisements to anyone not logged-in, but will not display them to those who are logged-in.
• New Basic Accounts cannot be directly creäted, but one can creäte new Plus Accounts, and then downgrade these to Basic accounts. (The official report is somewhat confusing on this matter, because it is inconsistent in its conceptualization of Account.) The objective of blocking direct creätion seems to be to get new subscribers to try a Plus Account before trying (and often before discovering) the Basic Account.

The report does not discuss what happens when Permanent Account journals are viewed with Basic Accounts. In the case of community journals where the subscription is internal (eg: lj_2008), banner ads are shown when individual entries are viewed with Basic Accounts. In other cases, ads are not being displayed by Permanent Account journals viewed with Basic Accounts.

Based on some experiments, the advertising policy for registered external IDs appear to be same as for the new Basic Accounts.

Speaking of LJ, the behavior of legomymalfoy, the member-elected representative to the Advisory Board, is raising eyebrows and ire. Upon her election, she cut herself off from those not on her Friends-list. adameros is polling members about how they feel about this behavior.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group has been promoting Dr Pepper with a sweepstakes. Entry codes are obtained from bottle caps or packages. The promotion claims 1 in 6 WINS!.

The Woman of Interest has ostensibly won five times, but the award has each time been an advertisement — two Dr Pepper screensavers and three Dr Pepper wallpaper graphics.

Which brings me to СУП.

As previously noted, they are eliminating Basic Accounts, under the pretense of responding to popular demand. Basic Accounts will be replaced with accounts such that advertising is to be presented to holders or to visitors, though the precise details might not yet be decided.

Perhaps СУП should copy a page from the Dr Pepper Snapple Group playbook! СУП just needs to stop referring to these advertisements as such, and start calling them prizes!

G_d knows that lots of LJ members would thank mustela prima for the bounty.

LiveJournal has announced the return of Basic Accounts. Unfortunately, what they are actually going to do is

1. Introduce a new sort of account, with advertising, though with less than Sponsored Accounts have.
2. Eliminate all existing Basic Accounts, moving every user who presently has a Basic Account to this new sort of account.
3. Give the new sort of account the name Basic Account.

For example, if one now has a Basic Account, then starting in August one's LJ will probably present ads to visitors who are not logged-in. (I'll let readers know whether ads are also present to those logged-in with registered external identities.)

Most of the comments that I saw to the announcement were the usual, clueless words of thanks, and I'll wager that most holders (even most active holders) of present Basic Accounts will either have missed the announcement altogether, or simply have taken it at face value where it says

Back by popular demand, Basic Accounts will be available to all users again by the end of the (northern hemisphere) summer.

There will be anger in August, when the changes are put into effect and thus discovered, but СУП will claim that users should have voiced their objections during the two-week feed-back period.