notforprophet

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A Rational Explanation

...for all my seemingly diversionary postings of yesterday:

1) I decided to experiment a little and post some server-based Anfyjava chat script in a private post. I had a notion it would work in the header section of the blog (my HumanClick chat already works there--and this is similar), but wanted to see if it would work in the journal section as well. If so, I was going to make it public.

2)After doing such, only a small gray box appeared on my private screen (www.xanga.com/private/home.asp) upon refresh. It wasn't working. But to my horror, there was no "eprops-comments-edit-email" byline. Only blankness until the bottom of the screen. There was no "Next 10" line at the bottom either. I thought that I had lost all my posts.

3)I immediately switched, and after several refresh timeouts got to the public view (www.xanga.com/notforprophet) expecting to see a tabula rasa. But all my previous post were still intact! So although I could no longer see or edit these posts from my private view, that alone seemed the immediate impairment.

4) But now Xanga was acting up. It became terribly hard to view or post anything in both the public and private view. I was using Internet Explorer 5.5 on this first PC (my laptop) and decided to switch to another available LAN PC behind a firewall that had Nestcape's Communicator 4.76 on it and give access a try. Forget it. I couldn't even, after minutes of attempts, log into my private site. Switching back to the laptop and lowering my firewalls, I then attempted to use Netscape 6 to log into my private site. Once again more difficulties, yet when I finally got in, my private site consisted of only the money background and nothing else! Clearing the cache and refreshing/relogin in didn't help! So I decided to switch back to Internet Explorer where at least the "New Weblog Entry--Public Preview--Get xTools" header was still visible.

5) Still no previous posts, but could I post something new? So I attempted to access the "New Weblog Entry" window, again with all kinds of difficulty, but I finally got in, wrote my first post-script post, and again, with all kinds of trouble and reattempts, got it published! So I could breathe--I still had a life on Xanga! Now I had an idea...

6) Perhaps the offending Anfycode, which was causing all my visibility problems and seemed to be contemporaneous with the generalized Xanga access issues, would "go away" if I could push it off my front page--if I could post 10 posts and force it onto a "Next 10" page. Hence, my numbered posts. But once again nothing was easy, as it was taking multiple retries and logins and lockups throughout. I spent hours in the posting of the next 10 posts.

7) Throughout this 10-post period, access from the other computer was impossible. Timeouts were predictable, unrelenting. But I periodically attempted such, nonetheless, as a test. But I was posting exclusively off of my laptop via dialup with firewalls down. ...Finally, I was at the final post that would push the offending javascript to the "Next 10". "Submit" and ...it worked! I had a "Next 10" link at the bottom of my private screen again--and the javascript grayhole was banished thereto. Now could I access Xanga from my other PC??...

8) Yep! Right in, no problem! And Netscape displayed all the features on my private page again! Dare I click on the "Next 10" to see what awaited me there? Of course...and still the javascript gray void wall. But at least, I had a fresh start and could move on....

9) Now that my private malaise seemed put off into the "Next 10" nethersphere, would Xanga overall seem more responsive? That is, was my difficulty causing Xanga's performance impairment? Well, outside of a laboratory where there are strict controls, it is impossible to establish direct cause and effect. And I wasn't about to repeat the experiment to see if the same overall performance symptoms returned. Still my correlative observation, was that the Xanga performance issues ceased at precisely the moment of my personal 10-posts liberation. A precise impression--yes. Cause or coincidence--not precisely established. But if merely coincidence, the onset and disappearance of Xanga's ills was timingly eerie.

10) Lesson learned: Don't play with Anfyjava fire!