Big Brother is ‘helping’ me (Did I mention that I love Big Brother?)

After I posted this item on my blog, I received the following message:

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Subject
TypePad Account – About Page

Six Apart (Brianna) said: 07/09/2008 04:44 PM
Hi there,

Your recent blog post about not being able to update your About page has been brought to our attention. We wanted to reach out to you to provide you additional assistance in fixing this issue.

It seems that you have your Sidebar 1 template linking to the wrong URL for the About page. You can reach your Advanced Templates by going to Weblogs > Design.

This is your code in Sidebar 1:

<h2>about.html"><$MTTrans phrase="About Brad Warthen’s Blog"$></h2>

Then save and publish your changes. Before you see the changes on your blog, you may need to perform a hard refresh. While on your blog, hold down the Ctrl + F5 keys which will clear the cache in most browsers. Did that help?

If you want to change the look of your About page, you can go to Control Panel > Profile > About Page and choose a design from the drop down beneath "Choose a style for your About Page".

If you have any additional questions, please log in at typepad.com and click to your Control Panel > Help tab. There, open the New Ticket link to submit your support request. Your account information and history is available then to help with resolution, and support questions are handled in the TypePad help system.

Thank you,
Brianna

Interpreting the sentence, "This is your code in Sidebar 1" to mean, "This is what your code should be in Sidebar 1," I changed this line of code:

<h2><a href="<$MTUserSiteURL$>bradwarthensblog/about.html"><$MTTrans phrase="About Brad Warthen’s Blog"$></a></h2>

… to this:

<h2>about.html"><$MTTrans phrase="About Brad Warthen’s Blog"$></h2>

I then saved it, and published it, and did the recommended "hard refresh" (a phrase that I’m going to add to my list of potential names for my band, once I start a band).

You can see the results at left, under the black-and-white picture of that handsome young fellow.

Anyone have any further suggestions?

In any event, it’s nice to see that Big Brother is watching over me, and ready to leap to my aid whenever I happen to mention his name. Like Winston Smith, I love Big Brother, really. It’s a bit of a shock, though, to learn that his name is "Brianna."

5 thoughts on “Big Brother is ‘helping’ me (Did I mention that I love Big Brother?)

  1. Susanna K.

    Not much help when their advice perpetuates the error. You’ve only got half a link. Try this instead:

    <$MTTrans phrase="About Brad Warthen's Blog"$>


    OK, darnit, I have tried every which way to post this in a blog comment, but TypePad keeps helpfully converting it to a link, even when I use character entities. Just right-click the page and view source and you’ll see what I was trying to type. Or email me and I’ll send it to you that way.

  2. Karen McLeod

    Brad, What did big brother do to you that you’ve lost your adult status. That nerdy looking kid can’t be you! Have they kidnapped you or what??

  3. Michael Rodgers

    Brad,
    There are 2 issues.
    First, you want to get the “about” information on your about page.
    Second, you want to be able to link from your blog to your about page.
    As for the second issue, I suggest undoing what Brianna told you to do. As long as clicking the “About Brad Warthen’s Blog” pulls up your about page, then you’re ok.
    As for the first issue, here’s a typepad answer to customizing your about page.
    The key steps are as follows: “To set up your About Page, click the Control Panel tab to access your Control Panel area. Click your Profile tab, then click the About Page link to open the About Page configuration area.”
    Now, paste your what you want to say into the About Page configuration area.
    Then save, publish, and do the recommended “hard refresh.” That should be it.
    Regards,
    Michael Rodgers
    Columbia, SC

  4. Michael Rodgers

    Brad,
    OK, you’ve got what you want to say here — location #1.
    But I think typepad wants you to have your about page here — location #2.
    I suspect that location #1 is a new page you made and that location #2 is the official typepad “about page” for you.
    Something is weird because location #1 has your information but no design, and location #2 has your design but no information.
    So you could do the following: You could revert to your original sidebar code but remove “bradwarthensblog/” from it.
    That should make your about page work in location #1. I don’t know. But you’re very close.
    Regards,
    Michael Rodgers
    Columbia, SC

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