Post-Migration Issues & Fixes

Updated on May 15, 2008, at 4:55 PM (UTC-4 America/New York):

We have completed the migration of the site and the latest version of BlogPatrol is now online. Thanks to all of you for your feedback identifying the following post-migration issues:

• INVESTIGATING as of MAY 15: Resetting of the "Today's Visitor" value to zero at certain times of the day, as reported by users of various time zones. Fixing this error may take some considerable development, so we will be focusing on this issue over the next several days.
  
• PLANNING as of MAY 15: After we fix the "Today's Visitor" issue, we will be adding the ability to ignore, or ban, up to four different IP addresses (home, work, mobile and other).
  
• IMPLEMENTED on May 15: Amidst the bug fixing, we are working on a cross-promotional agreement with a company doing exciting things on the Web. This cross-promotion required us to develop some new graphics, so we decided to develop and install a BlogPatrol favicon as part of that graphics development project. Enjoy!
• INVESTIGATION ON HOLD as of MAY 14: The "Details of Last 25 Visitors" report is sometimes displaying incorrect data, such as visits for dates and times that have not yet occurred -- relative to the user's selected time zone. It is also not displaying data provided in related reports such as "Last 10 Referrers" and "Last 10 Pages Visited".
• INVESTIGATION ON HOLD as of MAY 14: BlogPatrol accounts are sometimes increasing their visitor counters with NON-UNIQUE PAGEVIEWS (i.e., HITS), instead of UNIQUE VISITORS based on IP address of the visitor's computer. BlogPatrol counters are intended to count each IP address as a unique visitor during a given 24-hour period.
  
• INVESTIGATION ON HOLD as of MAY 14: Some users' Country reports are showing the error message 'Invalid XML data' instead of the correct country data.
• FIXED on May 13: We think we have resolved the problem with logging in or staying logged into their account. Please let us know if you find otherwise!
• FIXED on May 13: We think we have also fixed the password reset function. Please let us know if you find otherwise.
  
• FIXED on May 9: Review all reports to make sure stats data match from report to report. Correct any errors found as a result of analysis For example, verify data for search engine and keyword search reports.
  
• FIXED on April 21: The "Daily Visitors for the Week of MMM DD to MMM DD" still needs to display the current day when that day has zero (0) visitors. Otherwise, it looks like the report is malfunctioning and not tracking visitors for the current day.
• FIXED on April 21: Formatting of URLs in the reports named "Top 10 Pages" and "Last 10 Pages".
• FIXED on April 18: In the Stats Dashboard, the display of the time zone's UTC code needs to change with the user's time zone selection.
• FIXED on April 17: Made sure that the start and end dates in the title bar of the “Daily Visitors” report correspond exactly to the start and dates of the bar graph data for that report.
• FIXED on April 17: Improved formatting of the BlogPatrol reports that contain URL links so that the links no longer line break too early, which left too much empty space on the right side of those reports.
• FIXED on April 17: On the BlogPatrol signup form, corrected the username validation routine so that it works properly in Internet Explorer v6+ to notify a new user that they have selected a username that already exists.
• FIXED on April 17: Centering of new "Account Settings View Stats Change Password etc." links and placement as one row of data.
• FIXED on April 17: The Demo Stats reports were not rendering unless a user was logged into their BlogPatrol account.
• FIXED on April 16: The "Top Blogs" list is not rendering in some web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox.
• FIXED on April 16: Homepage and other pages become unavailable due to other bug fixes.
• FIXED on April 14: "Today's Visits" has a different value than the current day of the "Daily Visitors for Week of MMM DD to MMM DD". When displaying correctly, these two report elements should display the exact same value.
• FIXED on April 11: Another issue with the "Details of Last 25 Visitors" is the multiple counting of unique IP addresses. (BlogPatrol is designed to count any given IP address as being a unique visitor over a 24-hour period.)
• FIXED on April 10: Many of the web pages are displaying the text in a red font, which when fixed will be a standard black font.
• FIXED on April 9: Removal of the display of the User ID # at the top of the login.php once that user has logged into their BlogPatrol account.
• FIXED on April 9: On the My Account Settings page, the "Ignore my Computer" (formerly called "Ban my IP") function is not working because it will not save any data in its corresponding data field. Also the "my IP address is..." button is not working.
• Opened April 15 (problem identified and resolution pending): An object required error is appearing on the stats.php page in Internet Explorer v7.x browsers.
• Opened April 7, (verifying error): For some accounts, the referrers on the "Referrers" reports are all being listed as "self-referring/bookmarker".

Our current estimates are that we will resolve all the above-mentioned issues, one by one, during the week of April 21.

We also will continue to post daily updates as we resolve the above-mentioned issues and/or identify new ones.

Resolved: Homepage and other webpages currently unavailable

RESOLVED on April 16:

It seems that our latest bug fix to the stats report has caused a number of our web pages to go offline. This should be a relatively easy fix, but our web developer will not be available to fix it until about 11 PM Eastern (UTC-4 America/New York).

The good news is that you can still login to your account and view your stats at:

• http://www.blogpatrol.com/login.php

The pages that are unavailable at this time are:

• http://www.blogpatrol.com/
• http://www.blogpatrol.com/contactform.php
• http://www.blogpatrol.com/lostpass.php
• http://www.blogpatrol.com/topblogs.php
• ...as well as other minor pages on the site

I apologize for this added inconvenience, and plan to have these pages restored within the next 24 hours.

Work in Progress: New Release of BlogPatrol

Updated on Apr. 6, 2008, at 5:02 AM (UTC-4 America/New York):
We have completed the migration of the site and BlogPatrol is now back online. We are now testing the web pages for any residual issues. So far, we have noted that there are issues with:

• "Today's Visits" has a different value than the current day of the "Daily Visitors for Week of MMM DD to MMM DD". When displaying correctly, these two report elements should display the exact same value.
  
• Certain timezones are causing stats reports to report strange data, such as visits for times that have not yet occurred.
  

We will continue to post updates as we identify more issues and/or resolve existing ones.

Updated on Apr. 6, 2008, at 3:19 AM:
We have completed all but the final step of bringing the bug fixes online. The final step will require that BlogPatrol remain offline for a short time. We will post another update once the final step is completed.

Posted on Apr. 5, 2008, at 12:30 PM:
Beginning at 12:30 PM UTC -4 (America/New York) on April 5, 2008, BlogPatrol will be offline for up to a few hours while we load the new release of BlogPatrol, including many bug fixes, onto the live site.

News on Upcoming Release of BlogPatrol

Updated on Apr. 3, 2008, at 10:16 AM (UTC-5 America/New York):
We'll be releasing all the work we've been doing by Saturday, April 5, 2008. Thanks for everyone's patience with our efforts. The release should fix the "login problem" for everyone.

Updated on Mar. 5, 2008, at 4:26 AM:
Another step forward: I have started to create new editions of the support pages that (a) provide sign up instructions for new users and (b) help current users to manage their BlogPatrol accounts.

Updated on Feb. 28, 2008, at 6:44 PM:
The work continues with progress being made each day. A few bugs remain, and we'll continue with our development and testing until they are all removed.

Updated on Feb. 21, 2008, at 11:42 AM:
Our web development consultants have done great work to resolve the problems with the password reset function and user login process on our development and test servers.

Now that testing is starting to wind down for this major release, we are turning our attention to re-doing all the support pages on our blog so that the screen shots will reflect the improvements in the BlogPatrol web pages. The work is tedious and the progress is slower than I would like, but it's important to do this work correctly. I've decided not to give any more predictions on when the work will be done (because my schedule predictions are almost always wrong), but I will continue to post regular updates.

Come to think of it, I also need to put a list together for you to see all the improvements and bug fixes that we have made... well over 50 of them in all!

Updated on Feb. 13, 2008, at 12:01 AM:
Just wanted to let everyone know that we have moved ahead with asking our web development company to do a complete anlaysis of the problems that a lot of people are having with the password reset function and user login process. The idea is to identify and deliver a solution to this issue once and for all as part of the release of our service enhancements.

Updated on Feb. 11, 2008, at 1:01 AM:
Well, still testing here. Sometimes it just takes longer than you think it will to get things right. I apologize for the delay in what (eventually) will be the release of exciting improvements to the service.

Updated on Feb. 4, 2008, at 5:07 PM:
Our test results so far have shown that we still need to work through several more rounds of testing, so the release of our improvements will be pushed back probably to the end of this week (Saturday, February 9).

Posted on Feb. 1, 2008, at 9:04 PM:
Just wanted to post a quick update to let everyone know that we are completing the final stages of testing to provide you with improvements to make it easier for you to update your account info and to use your BlogPatrol reports stats.

Hopefully, if all continues to go well with the testing, we can release the improvements by Monday, February 4.

How do I change the Time Zone of my BlogPatrol Account?

Question: How do I change the time zone of my BlogPatrol account?

Answer: You can change the time zone of your BlogPatrol account at any time by (1) logging into your BlogPatrol account, (2) opening the list of timezones, (3) selecting a different timezone, and (4) clicking the "Modify" button to save the change(s) you have selected.

For more information, see the screen shot below. (Click on the picture to view an enlarged version of the image.)

Server Issues

Updated on February 17, 2008 at 6:31 PM UTC-5 (America/New York)
We have completed some maintenance on the server, which should restore your BlogPatrol accounts to normal performance levels. Please let us know if you have experience otherwise, thanks!

Posted on February 17, 2008 at 5:19 PM UTC-5 (America/New York)
We are currently experiencing some issues with our server that are causing the pages to render very slowly. We are working to resolve this issue, and will post updates soon.

BlogPatrol Server Up

Updated on Feb. 12, 2008, at 11:37 AM (UTC-5 America/New York):
We've resolved the issue with our server and BlogPatrol is back online. Thanks for your patience!

Posted on Feb. 12, 2008, at 10:04 AM (UTC-5 America/New york):
Our server is currrently experiencing problems, and we are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. We will post an update when we have more information.

How do I change the style of my BlogPatrol counter widget (icon or logo)?

Question: How do I change the style of my BlogPatrol counter icon (i.e., BlogPatrol widget or BlogPatrol logo) to a different style? or from an icon that shows the number of visitors to a stealth icon that does not?

Answer: You can change the style of your BlogPatrol counter icon at any time -- without having to re-install the code -- by logging into your BlogPatrol account, selecting a different style, and then saving the change(s) you have selected.

For more information, see the screen shot below. (Click on the picture to view an enlarged version of the image.)

How to Fix your BlogPatrol Account

Originally posted on January 22, 2008 at 4:47 PM UTC-5 America/New York.
Last updated on January 25, 2008 at 4:12 AM.

BlogPatrol users are reporting that BlogPatrol has stopped working on their Blogger (blogspot.com) blogs as of last Friday, January 18, 2008.

Symptoms:

1. Not all BlogPatrol accounts are affected. It appears that those Blogspot.com blogs which have the BlogPatrol code installed in the footer (i.e., along the bottom) of their blog template are the ones experiencing problems.
2. When you view the Layout and Page Elements of your blog on Blogspot.com, you do not see any Page Element label where you have installed the BlogPatrol code. (Prior to 2007, Blogspot.com used to allow insertion of code like BlogPatrol's directly into the HTML template. Since 2007, bloggers now have to insert BlogPatrol code as a Page Element.) It appears that Blogspot.com has done some kind of refresh where "legacy installations" of BlogPatrol's code that used to work now no longer work after January 18, 2008.

To get your BlogPatrol account working again:

1. remove the BlogPatrol code where you have it installed now
2. install it on your blog again using our instructions

In case you need it, the long form of the URL for our install instructions is http://thepatrolblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Install%20on%20Blogger

If you would like personalized assistance from BlogPatrol Support, please contact us using our web contact form. Thanks as always for using the BlogPatrol service.

Improvements Coming Soon

It's not only a new year, but a new day, coming soon, for BlogPatrol. I've been quiet on the blog lately, but actually very busy finding a new web development company to deliver improvements to our services. I'm pleased to say that Ive found a great company with whom I've been working since early December 2007.

By the end of January, we will soon release improvements to:

• New User Signup form
• Account Settings page
• Stats Reports format

We will then confront and hopefully overcome the long-time problems with:

• Users not being able to login (or stay logged in) using Internet Explorer

Once the system is bug-fixed and improved for greater user-friendliness, I'll commission work for enhancing/adding more reports and new features:

• Adding the "hit count" to the existing Weekly, Daily and Hourly reports
• Banning (ignoring) multiple IP addresses (for example, many of us have at least two computers: one at work and one at home)
• Naming IP addresses that belong to the people you know so that your reports are more meaningful to you
• Adding some mapping reports to graphically show the locations of visitor's IP addresses

I'm also reviewing your comments on this blog to find other requests that we can take on that are within our resources at this time.

It's an exciting time, as BlogPatrol works toward improving our services!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all our BlogPatrol users. Peace on Earth and Joy to All.

Thank you for helping BlogPatrol to turn 2007 around into a fantastic year. We look forward to an even better 2008.

Scheduled Maintenance and Site Restoration

Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007, 9:06 AM (UTC -5 America/New York)
BlogPatrol.com is currently offline while we make some updates and patches to our web server to enhance the site performance and increase server security. More updates to follow.

3:38 PM -- We have run into unexpected difficulties while making the updates and adding the patches to our server. We are still working on bringing the site back online. We apologize that the site is still offline.

6:52 PM -- The BlogPatrol website is restored and back online. We will provide a full update on what happened and how this outage will be avoided in the future.

Wordpress Tutorials

I just learned about the following resource for Wordpress bloggers at Wordpress Tutorials. The site is very friendly to non-techies with sections addressing bloggers who are:

• New to blogging?
• New to Wordpress?
• Using Wordpress?

The homepage also features answers to frequently asked questions:

• Why blog?
• Do I need to speak geek?
• Will blogging help me get better search engine rankings?
• Can blogging help me get more visitors, sales and profits?

BlogPatrol Net Tools Site Temporarily Disabled

We have temporarily disabled the BlogPatrol Net Tools site while we make some changes to our server configuration over the next few weeks. This is the site that was published at the URL http://tools.blogpatrol.com.

We will post an update when this service is back online.

Best Help Available for Blogger Blogs

Please check out this incredible resource for bloggers using Blogger blogs (i.e., yourblog.blogspot.com): Tips for New Bloggers.

I can't believe how many tips, instructions, guides, and resources this blog consolidates into one location. Personally, I used the instructions to install the Digg widget within each post on The Patrol Blog.

If you don't know how to do something on your Blogger blog, chances are you'll find what you're looking for on this awesome blog.

BlogPatrol adds more capacity on Nov. 8

After just completing an upgrade on October 19, we added even more capacity on November 8, 2007, to keep up with the steady growth of BlogPatrol users in recent months.

Thanks everyone for choosing BlogPatrol as your web stats provider.

Oct. 19 - Scheduled Maintenance

On Friday, October 19, 2007, BlogPatrol.com will be down for about 30 minutes sometime during 5:00 PM to 7 PM (UTC -4 America/New York) for a hardware upgrade.

Website Up | Server Online

10:26 AM UTC-4 America/New York: The server is down at the moment. We will post an update when we're back up and running.

11:31 AM: We're back online. Thanks for your patience.

Paint-Your-Disclosure-Policy-By-Number

Thanks to one of our member bloggers, Society for the preservation of MY sanity, who helped us to discover what we're calling the Paint-Disclosure-Policy-by-Number approach to disclosing a blog's intent and policies.

We found this cool resource just be reading the Society's disclosure policy, aptly titled the Society's disclosure policy. We were intrigued enough to check out DisclosurePolicy.org , which walked us through six straightforward steps to creating a disclosure policy for The Patrol Blog:

• Step 1 of 6: Type of blog
• Step 2 of 6: Compensation
• Step 3 of 6: Advertising & content
• Step 4 of 6: Compensation
• Step 5 of 6: Conflicts of interest
• Step 6 of 6: Your policy

The proof of our effort is found on our newly created disclosure policy. Thanks, Society!

The Patrol Blog Disclosure Policy

This policy is valid from 06 October 2007

This blog is a sponsored blog created or supported by a company, organization or group of organizations. For uestions about this blog, please contact thepatrolblog@blogpatrol.com.

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post will be clearly identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

We are employed by or consult with: BlogPatrol.com, Inc.. We serve on the following corporate or non profit boards: BlogPatrol.com, Inc.. We have a financial interest in the following that are relevant to our blogging: BlogPatrol.com.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

Don't take freedom -- or blogging -- for granted!

If you haven't caught the news about what's going on in Myanmar, you've got to take a minute to check out these articles:

• Internet cut in Myanmar, blogger presses on (cnn.com)
• Myanmar's blogs of bloodshed (atimes.com)
• Myanmar’s Internet link broken (Roundup Blog)
• Nine killed in Myanmar protest crackdown (Reuters.com)
• Myanmar: turbulent days of mass protest (int.iol.co.za
• Myanmar blogs (globalvoicesonline.org)

In particular, CNN highlights the incredible power of blogs in its news story:

The Internet connection in Myanmar was cut Friday, limiting the free flow of information the nation's citizens were sharing with the world depicting the violent crackdown on monks and other peaceful demonstrators.

Myanmar-based blogs went dark suddenly. But London-based blogger Ko Htike -- who has been one of the most prominent bloggers posting information about the violence -- has vowed to keep up the fight, saying where "there is a will, there is a way."

Newschallengeblog.org also discusses The Importance of Citizen Journalists in an article published earlier today.

The Patrol Blog doesn't normally comment on world events, but the importance of people risking their lives to get images and news out to the world should not be ignored -- and needs to be shared whenever and however possible. From Ko Htike's blog:

Latest news burma time 16:17 - i got news that 3 groups of protester are marching on the Ahnawrahta Streetv(which is near Sule pogada) toward Sule. it is around 4000 people. ...in this group we found some foreigners, as well. ..... said eyewitness. ...Burma time 14:28 - Thousands of protester are on the street of YGN, now.

BlogPatrol admires the courage of Ko Htike and his country men and women...

System Maintenance

7:45 AM, Wednesday, September 26, 2007: We are doing an integrity check on our database tables to verify and remove any corruption in our database. We will be online again shortly.

8:18 AM, Wednesday, September 26, 2007: BlogPatrol.com is back online after finding and repairing some errors in our database.

Scheduled Maintenance

On Sunday, September 23, 2007, BlogPatrol.com will be down for a few hours starting at 9 AM Eastern (UTC -4 America/New York) for site maintenance.

Around 12 noon, we completed our scheduled maintenance which included two activities:

1. Purging the database - We purged the database of detailed information older than 48 hours in order to keep the database small enough for the system to load your stats reports as quickly as possible for you.
   
   
2. Deleting spam/abusive accounts - We deleted numerous accounts that were registered for abandoned blogs and/or not in compliance with our terms of use and conditions of service. Many of the accounts removed were so-called 'large accounts', each of which were logging thousands of hits a day. This move also will help the database and the system to perform faster for you.

BlogPatrol Net Tools Website Restored

I'm pleased to announce that we have restored the BlogPatrol Net Tools Website that's been down due to the boot drive failure on one of the new servers.

Net Tool is a companion website that provides Connection Tools (Ping) and Host Information Tools such as Resolve Host / Reverse Lookup, Get Country, Whois (IP), Whois (Domain), Dig, and HTTP Request.

Scheduled Maintenance

11:45 AM Eastern (UTC -4 America/New York): The BlogPatrol website and free blog counter service will be down for up to 2 hours of scheduled maintenance starting at 11:45 AM Eastern (UTC -4 America/New York). We will return the site to service as quickly as possible.

12:53 PM: The maintenance task is complete, and we have brought BlogPatrol.com back online. Thank you!