Biscuit at the Bridge

Two Fridays ago, at the end of a post, we mentioned our new friend Biscuit (Safe At Last).  His Mousebreath interview posted the same day.  It was different than the others we have done. He didn't have a blog and wasn't on social media, so he wasn't promoting himself.  He was a senior cat with an interesting story.

Two weeks later, on Saturday, June 3, he left for the Bridge.

As all of us who have lost a furry can imagine, this is a painful time for his mom Leslie.  Whenever there is a loss in the community, pet bloggers support one another.   Since Leslie doesn't have a blog for Biscuit, we thought we would do this short memorial post. 

Biscuit, you may not have had a lot of years in your new life with Mom Leslie, but you left a big hole in her heart when your time came to leave.  You were loved - from the moment she met you.

You can read his interview, The Story of Biscuit, on Mousebreath.

Two Right Feet

Percy:  Hey, Marcus, you love to have your picture taken.  Why are you not looking at the camera?

Marcus:  Because Jan said this post is not about me and I'm looking to see who usurped my post.  

Percy:  Then who is this post about?

Buddy:  It isn't about anybody.  It's about this pot of lovely petunias.  Someone named Alice gifted them to Jan last week.

Percy:  Someone actually gave Jan living flowers?  Didn't anyone tell Alice Jan has a black thumb and everything she touches dies?

Buddy:  I guess not.  And surprisingly, they're still alive. 

Percy:  It was really nice of Alice to give Jan the flowers to enjoy.  Oh, you can look at the camera now, Marcus.

Marcus:  Not really.  There has to be someone hiding in the bushes to protect these flowers.

Buddy:  I doubt it.  We would have caught a whiff of his scent if anyone was hiding there.

Marcus:  By the way, did you happen to notice anything funny about the flowerpot?

Percy:  I didn't.  Did you, Buddy?

Buddy:  No.

Marcus:  Take a closer look.  The pot has two right feet.

Percy:  Hey, you're right.  That is funny.  Who ever heard of a flowerpot with two right feet?

Marcus:  Actually, who ever heard of a flowerpot with polished toenails wearing flip flops?

Buddy:  Don't laugh.  It's the perfect gift for Jan.

Percy:  Why?

Buddy:  Because Jan has two left feet.

Marcus:  I never noticed that.  Are you sure?

Buddy:  Of course.  I've heard her say many a time over the years that she can't dance because she has two left feet.

Percy:  Well, now she has a flowerpot to dance with.

Marcus:  This I have to see!

PS -  Remember our post on Our Mystery Guest?   Drop by Bacon's Travels in the South post from yesterday to see some familiar faces.  Without the pictures, we would think we imagined meeting a couple of pet bloggers in the flesh. 

We are joining Pepi Smart Dog and friends for the Thankful Thursday blog hop.

Our Mystery Guest

Micah: There was a strange woman in our house taking pictures of us.  Who let her in and why was she here? 

Buddy:  Oh, that was our mystery guest.

Micah:  Her being here was sure a mystery to me.  I was napping.  And then I wasn't. 

Cyndi:  I know how you feel.  Percy, Taylor and I ran and hid, but the rest of you got caught napping and had to pose.

Buddy:  It's okay.  If you remember Jan had an email last month from Bacon's mom asking to come meet Jan and bring a mystery guest.  Jan had no idea who it would be until yesterday morning when she saw the news on Facebook. 

Marcus:  Well, I think she was a nice lady.  She took my picture.  A lot!  She's my friend.

Micah:  Anyone with a camera is your friend.

Marcus:  But she's special.  She had TWO cameras so she could take twice as many pictures of me.

Buddy:  Jan thought we would never meet any bloggers in the flesh since we live too far off the traveled trail and don't travel.  But yesterday Jan got to meet two.  

Merci:  I remember her.  That's Bev a.k.a. Fozziemom from the blog All Fur One and One Fur All. She lives in Australia and takes pictures of native wildlife.  She just lost her dear dog Forrest recently. 

Rusty:  Bacon's human June (and husband Jim) drove Bev and Fozziedad Phil here and took Jan to lunch. 

Buddy:  Bev brought Jan some presents.  A handful of her wildlife cards with kangaroos, birds, even a porcupine.  Also, a copy of the book, Kangaroo Dundee.  And chocolate bars.   I suggested at least one of those bars should belong to us furries, but Jan refused.

Marcus:  Here's a picture of June, Bev and Miss I Don't Want To Share My Chocolate Bars.

Merci:  After a leisurely meal and a Funny Farmer photo op, it was time to snap Jim and June's picture before the visitors headed North. 

Buddy:  Jan had such a good day with these humans, she appears to be walking on air.  We hope she doesn't trip up there 'cause it would be farther to fall and you know how she likes to fly and crash.

We Love Poppy Q Day

WE LOVE POPPY Q DAY!

We Funny Farmer Felines did an interview with Poppy Q last Friday, the same day she posted she'd been told she had to buy more more photo storage for her blog.

In a strange coincidence, quite a number of bloggers seem to have run out of storage at the same time. We've posted on this a number of times in the past and even wrote a "tutorial" on how to lower your storage usage.  A Blip On the Radar and Miss Peach are just two of the others who have been caught in the Picasa storage trap.  So we again warn you to check your Picasa storage and if you don't know how, read our "tutorial" post on it - .Vibrating Dogs and Picasa. 


We sent Poppy's mom the link to our Picasa "tutorial" but when she tried to get into Picasa, she could not enter without signing up for Google+.  Why this happened to her when others have been able to log into their Picasa account without being forced to sign up is beyond us. She didn't want to create a profile for Google+, as many of us don't, and it is just plain wrong to bully folks into joining!

Sadly, her mom typed in Poppy's birthdate and since she is 6, the entire Google account was deleted.  That's why you can't find Poppy's blog online.

Google wants copies of personal ID and way too much personal information to get the blog restored, so her mom will be making a decision in the next few days as to whether to continue blogging and if so, where..  Poppy was among our first blogging friends - possibly even our first.  We hate that this is happening to her and her mom and we want them to know we support them.  And miss them.

Losing several years worth of work and photos in a heartbeat is crushing.  Julie takes great photos of Poppy and makes a quiet, simple life interesting to read.. Today we would like to let our friends know we love and support them.  We hope they will return, if not to Blogger, perhaps using another means.

So we proclaim today We Love Poppy Q Day!  At least on our blog.  (You're welcome to use the graphic we made for the interview if you'd like to join.)

Tuesday Update:  Poppy Q's blog has been offline since Saturday night (our time) but her blog is back online today.  She still can't get rid of the Google+ signup, but she is back!

Vibrating Dog and Picasa

Hey, Merci, Sam & Buddy here.  The Felines are doing the Mousebreath interviews so we figure we need some computer time before you all forget what we look like.  We're the super intelligent, super duper obedient dudes and dudette
.
** Cyndi, stop snickering!**

First, we'll give you a chuckle.  None of us woofies like to be brushed.  So we're at a loss over this dog's funny reaction to being groomed. Maye he's standing on a live wire? Enjoy.


If the video doesn't play, click here. 

UPDATE:  The rest of this post is for Blogger bloggers.   As we have explained many times before in posts, if you are using a Blogger blog, you ARE using Picasa! We repeat, if you have a Blogger blog, you ARE using Picasa and this DOES apply to you!  And it is very important because one day you could go to post a photo and panic because Blogger "suddenly" tells you your storage is full and you can't post any more photos unless you buy more storage.  The time to learn about your Picasa account is NOW!

We've been helping a few bloggers who have run out of Picasa storage to reduce their storage so they don't have to pay a monthly or annual fee to continue posting photos to their blogs.  We decided it will be easier to do one big post on the subject and just refer bloggers here when they need the information.

We've posted a number of times that Google Blogger users need to become familiar with their Picasa account where Blogger stores their post photos.  You need to be aware of photo posting rules and storage limit so you can have all the photos you want on your blog but you don't fill your storage. Hopefully, you'll check your Picasa account today and become Picasa-aware because it does take time and effort on your part if you wait till Blogger says your Picasa account is full.

Only post photos 800 x 800 pixels or smaller!  Your header (and background, if you install your own). will be larger than this.  So learn to delete these oversize graphics when you are done with them and changed to new or temporary seasonal graphics..  If you want to reuse it later, reinstall it.  

If you don't have a photo editor on your computer to resize photos before you upload them, we recommend downloading the Picasa program to your computer.  From there (once you learn to use it) it's a snap - just pick the photos you want to use, click the export button, tell it which size you want, and those photos will be resized and sent to the Export file on your computer.  From there you just upload them from your computer to your blog as usual.

To check your current storage usage -

Log into your blog. 

Open another tab in your browser.

((or you can skip signing into your blog, just follow the steps below to reach Picasa and sign in with your blog ID and PW)).

Type Google.com into your browser.  

(at top) click "More."

(drop down menu) click "Photos."

This will take you to your Picasa online album.

Scroll to bottom of the page. You will see -

You are currently using xx MB (xxx%) of your 1024 MB. Upgrade Storage

How many mb (%) of your online Picasa storage are you using? 


If your storage is low, good work.  You're posting the correct size photos.  If it is high, you need to work on getting it down, starting with changing the size of the photos you post.

To get an idea of the size of the photos posted in Picasa online (the size can differ depending on a number of factors), pick some random photos in your albums.

Click on an album.  The size of the album will be in the upper right.  But xx mb in an album does not = xx mb in storage, so don't worry about this.

Click on an individual photo.

The size of the photo in Picasa will be upper right. Any photos over 800 pixels wide or tall are counted in your storage.

If you see an old header or background (not the one you're using now), DELETE IT! If it's in several times, delete all copies.  And from now on, every time you change your header and/ or add your own background, go into Picasa online and DELETE the old one. Sometimes more than one copy is added during installation, delete all the ones not in use. If you accidentally delete the one you're using, just reinstall it.

However, do NOT delete any duplicate photos.  There is no way to tell which is the extra one.  Or if the photo is used in more than one post.  And if you delete the photo in Picasa, it will be deleted in any post(s) it is included in.

So you've been posting oversize photos, eventually you will need to resize them to lower your storage usage.  It's not hard.  It does not need to be done in one sitting.  It can be done in your spare time.  How much time it will take will depend on how large your oversize photos are in kbs.  For example, a 1000 x 650 pixel photo might be 50 kb or it might be 1.5 mg.  You would have to resize more 50 kb photos than 1.5 mg photos to lower your storage.  But it can be done!

To resize your photos -

1) Open a photo.

2) "Actions"

3) "Edit in Creative Kit"

4) "Resize" (when CK opens)

5) Change largest dimension (usually width to the left) to 800 & the other will adjust itself accordningly. (Keep proportions is auto checked)

6) "apply"

7) "Save to my album" (upper right)

8) A box will open to confirm. It will have "replace" checked. Just click on "replace" and it will save it to new album.

9) Click > to right of picture to go to next one.

10) Click "MY Photos" to return home and go to next album. *You can also check your progress at the bottom of this page - "currently using xxx mb."

We learned / are posting this information to help our friends and we're happy to share it with you. We would hate for anyone to stop blogging or to lose all their blog photos after they stop because they can't afford to pay for storage. "It's only xx dollars" doesn't help if you don't have xx dollars. If you have any questions or this information isn't clear, let us know.

Incognito Buddy, GV and WV

Hey, Buddy here, incognito again because I figure some of you are going to want to throw rotten tomatoes at me before I finish this post.  But one of us had to volunteer and I drew the shortest whisker from the mug.  I'm speaking for all of us, including the other 6 cowards ... um, furries on the Funny Farm, hence the use of "we."


Today, we have a warning to share with all Google / Blogger bloggers.

We all like to add cute gadgets to our blogs, but we have to be very careful of what we post, not merely for our own safety but because we are responsible for the safety of our visitors.

For several years now, we have been coming across a number of blogs that have a popunder when we click to leave a comment.  Always before our anti virus has kept whatever site the popunder is to from loading.  The popunder will load but with a message from our antivirus the site is blocked because it's potentially dangerous.  

A couple of days ago, we came across the same problem but with a new twist.  What loaded was a popunder that was literally and visibly counting down the seconds to installing a downloading program that would not be flagged by our (or your) av because it is a legitimate program (although we'd never heard of it before) -- a downloading program that enables an easy, fast download of videos or multiple programs.  So why was it about to download and why was it "necessary" to download it at all, especially on the sly?  We can only think of one reason.

If you are wondering what's the problem if the program is harmless, remember this is done without visitors knowing it.  And just because the program itself is supposedly safe, doesn't mean anything downloaded with it would be. We have a good av, but not everyone does. And things can happen.

We try to remember to watch the bottom of our monitor screen to see what's loading and to count the new windows because of past experience, so we brought up the window, saw the counter and closed the window in time.  But most visitors would not notice the extra open window, especially since there might be a delay in opening..

We always notified the blog owner and when a particular globe widget (often two separate globes) were deleted from the sidebar, the popunders stopped.  The same thing happened last night.  The blog owner deleted the 2 globes from the blog and the problem was resolved  Any time the blog owner has refused to delete the globes, we have deleted their blog from our bookmarks.  Online safety is that important! 

Over the course of several years,  the comment popunders we've run into have all been associated with the same widget -  a spinning globe counter from Geovisite.  We hope this post will serve as a warning to those who are considering installing it or those who already have it posted on their site.  And also to remind you to be alert to what is happening as you surf the web. 


On another blog subject, as much as we'd like to do a tirade on the evil's of the Blogger word verification and why it is totally unnecessary to use it and chases off many visitors who would like to comment, we won't   But when Blogger made the mass switch to the new interface, word verification was turned on by default.  So we will admonish you to go to your own blog while NOT signed in to Google / Blogger and click on comments to check your own blog. You keep annoying your visitors and they will stop returning.

Go ahead, try to tell us you don't care your visitors are facing this kind of crap because you don't want to check out your spam options without it when they want to tell you they're sorry your Fluffercat or Roverdog died.  They not only have to love you, they have to have x-ray vision.

We just took the following off a blog comment form.  We didn't make them up. 


Or how about this one -


Okay, so we did a tirade anyway.  Sorry about that.  No, actually we're not. We're most annoyed with those who use full page comments because wv doesn't show up until after one has written a note of condolence or get well  or .... and clicked "publish comment."  And then we find we have just wasted our time.  

Oh, and Brandi reminded us of what we forgot to include.  We've checked this link several times already and our av sent a reminded this morning because if your computer is infected with the DNS Changer, your internet will be shut down on Monday..  You can find the link for various countries where you can check your computer, if you haven't already.   http://www.dcwg.org/detect/  Once you read the material, it only takes one click and a second to find out.

Just a reminder that the auction for Krasota Castle will be closing soon, so be sure to stop by Furriends of the CB and check out the items up for bids.

April, Divas and New Blogger

Hey, Percy here.  We hadn't planned to post today but we were asked a question about the new Blogger interface and decided to put up a quick link that might help those of you who have recently been switched to the new Blogger interface and are having problems.  Your input and patience can help Blogger fix things.

But first we'd like to express our condolences to Amber DaWeenie's family..  The mom has been dealing with Benji's cancer and then April 's sudden illness.  April died at the vet's office yesterday and we know she is very missed!  Love, pawhugs and hugs to Mom Linda. 

We haven't been posting or commenting for a week or so.  Among other negatives, our car has been down for 2 weeks and Jan has been having to hike and haul, so her pain level is high and her sense of humor non-existent.  We're just trying to stay out of her way so she doesn't trip over us.  We advise you to do the same.

Oh, as most of you already know, today Truffle and Brulee are celebrating Show Your Diva in remembrance of Sweet Praline.  It's hard to believe it's been a whole year since she left.  Time passes, pain eases, but our furries are forever missed.

Even though we're behind in the news, we are aware Blogger has been shifting everyone over to the new interface and it's causing many headaches among bloggers.  We switched a number of months ago so we could try to learn the new while still having access to the old when necessary.   And sometimes it was necessary.

Hopefully, this article can explain enough to help you weather the problems associated with the changes.  You aren't the only ones having them, so they will have to be fixed sooner or later.

Better Get Into The New Blogger GUI Soon - And Tell Blogger What Problems You Find

You can browser the problems in the link they give or join the group and post your own. As irritated as we get with Blogger sometime, when it works it's good. And within our budget. (Free.)

Now I'm crossing my paws and hoping this actually publishes.

Daddy Mark, Fred and Scooby

First thing Sunday morning we learned of two losses.

Kattonic Cats (Zippy, Sadie & Speedy) lost their human dad.

There is usually a graphic when a kitty passes, so we thought we would make one for Daddy Mark.  (You're welcome to use it if you'd like.) We send big {{{hugs}}} and supportive love to Mom Donna.  She's been posting some news on Facebook but supportive comments can be left on the Kattonic Cats blog.



The second thing we read Sunday morning was that Fred the bloodhound was put to sleep after having 17 seizures within 24 hours.  We knew he was having cluster seizures Friday but hoped they could be controlled.  We didn't make Fred a graphic, as photos on the blog are copyrighted. 


Fred visited our blog last year and we enjoyed visiting him.  We're sad he lost his health battle. Hugs to his human.  She has also been posting on Facebook but supportive comments can be left on the Hound Girl blog. 

Graphic by KC of the Cat Blogosphere

And then last night we saw more bad news in our Reader.  Scooby of Little Cat Feet died suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday afternoon.  You can read the details in his mom's post "Scooby Has Gone to Rainbow Bridge."  We have enjoyed Scooby, Shaggy & Scout's posts for several years now and we will miss Scooby.   Big {{{hugs}}} and supportive love for his human mom.


We know many of you are already aware of the three deaths, but some aren't and we wanted to do a memorial post anyway. Don't worry about leaving us a comment today.  We'd rather you visit the grieving.