a happy solution

Back in the early days of email, I found a small site which offered email services and had little problems with it for several years. Meanwhile, five years ago I started this blog. I never had any problems commenting on blogs which weren't on blogspot. My comments always appeared.

About one year ago my email service ended and I had to find another; gmail seemed the best bet - people like it, and it's a google thing, as is blogger, so it seemed to make sense for me. But since that time, I have not been able to leave a comment on non-blogspot blogs. 

Well, I could leave the comment, but it would never appear. At first, I didn't notice, of course. But once in a while I'd go back to see if anyone had replied, and my comment wouldn't be there. I didn't know what to think. I emailed the situation to one blogger, and she found my comment in her spam folder; but I wasn't about to email these people every time I wanted to comment! I mentioned it on another occasion on the Colette site, and Sarai's husband, Kenn, suggested I leave off my URL when I comment. He thought maybe the web was used to my URL belonging to that particular email address, and now that I had another one, there was a problem. It made sense, so I tried it. It worked of course; I just left that line blank. But there was no link to my own blog. That was okay for the most part; I was happy that at least I was able to comment, and that was the main thing. But it was too bad that nobody could see my blog, and decide whether they liked me or not. Kenn also had said that maybe after a couple of months the "system" might get used to my newer email and I'd be able to include it, but - no. After a year, it still hadn't made any difference.  

I asked two friends who are both knowledgeable on computer matters, but they had no idea. I emailed my problem into a local weekly radio program on computer issues, and they never addressed it either time!  

Today at the library we had a young fellow come in to give a class on the new version of Publisher, and I decided to ask him. He really didn't know why I had this problem, but he thought it might be the URL, and suggested I google "URL shorteners". I'd never heard of such things. He mentioned one called Bitly.  I was glad to have any new idea, but didn't really think it was the URL per se - still, when I got home, I did the search. I found Bitly, but couldn't resist choosing one named "tiny url.com"  and lo!!!  It worked! I have commented on two blogs this evening, and leaving a link back here which I haven't been able to for over a year.  Hurrah, as the English say!   I can't believe it. And I'm telling you in case you have the same problem.

Now I just have to figure a way to remember this new funny URL which doesn't spell anything. But that's okay!  That's nothing.