Author: Harold

Workaround for the grey comment button!

Ever since the new default comment scheme came out last December, there have been scores of people complaining that they’ve been unable to comment because the button would remain greyed-out and unclickable. Unfortunately, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who is affected by this bug so it’s been especially hard to fix.

To address this I just hacked up soph‘s Preview button Greasemonkey script so that you can add an additional, always working comment button to default comment pages. When you install the script it’ll look like this:

The new button labeled “Click to comment” is always active so you should be able to submit a comment at any time, even if the standard button (the one labeled “Add a comment”) stays grey.

To install the script, visit Userscripts.org and click on “Install”. So far this script has been tested on Windows with Firefox and on Mac OS X with Firefox. See the instructions on Userscripts.org to learn how to install this script for Firefox, and this article for Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. If you use this script and it works, let me know what browser and OS you use in the comments.

Note: If you’re having difficulty using this as a Greasemonkey script or would prefer to use it as a bookmarklet, read on.
To make a bookmarklet simply make a new & empty bookmark in your browser. Name it Clickable Comments, and for the destination/location/URL paste in the following code:

javascript:(function(){if(document.getElementsByClassName("b-watering")){var submitbutton=document.getElementById("postform").getElementsByClassName("b-watering-submit").item(0);var commentbutton=document.createElement("div");commentbutton.innerHTML="<div class=\"b-ljbutton b-ljbutton-submit\"><button type=\"submit\" name=\"submitpost\" tabindex=\"80\">Click to comment</button></div>";commentbutton.style.cssFloat="left";commentbutton.style.marginRight="1em";submitbutton.parentNode.insertBefore(commentbutton,submitbutton);}})();

Then, whenever you get the grey comment button press this bookmarklet and the clickable button will appear next to the inactive one.

Special thanks to Sophie for writing the original script and big props to markf for giving me insight into how the button is supposed to work & figuring out how it was failing.

Current Mood: accomplished

Worst customer service? There’s a tie: First is the Amtrak agent at the Champaign, Illinois station who refused to let me check a bag because it was less than an hour to when the train was scheduled to arrive. The fact that the train was running late and wasn’t actually due in the station for three hours didn’t make any difference to him.
Also in the running is the entirety of the Denny’s we went to the night of my high school prom. The waitress was rude and slow, there was a grease fire in the kitchen, after waiting 40 minutes for our appetizers the waitress told my friend’s date that they were out of mozarella sticks, and to top it off there were a couple of drunk guys who kept playing with all the creamers in the restaurant.

Avoid Wind & Weather, lousy customer service

Last weekend Gill was leafing through the latest Organic Gardening when she saw these solar garden lights. Now, they looked very pretty and were on sale when we found them on the website, so we took the plunge and bought them.
Gill was looking forward to these all week, so when they arrived in the mail yesterday she was thrilled. While I looked over the instructions, Gill began to remove the bubble-wrap that covered each individual globe. We set the solar panel outside to begin charging and we began to unwind the tightly wrapped cord when disaster! One of the globes lightly tapped against another one and it shattered.
We were disappointed, but we sat down and discussed what to do next. While we re-packaged the lights we decided that they had to go back; they’re too fragile to keep outdoors, especially with a little kid running around. Gill called their customer service department while I looked around to see if there were any alternatives. And that’s when I went from disappointed to angry.
Wind & Weather’s U.S. based customer service only refunded us the purchase price. They kept the sales tax, and the shipping, and they expect us to pay to ship the lights back to them. This means that we’re paying about $15 for the privilege of finding out that this product, sold as an outdoor accessory, is too fragile to survive being removed from the box, let alone any kind of wind or weather.
I was far too irate to calmly discuss this, so I decided to wait until Monday to try calling them back. If they won’t refund the tax or the shipping I’m not shipping it back to them. We’ll see how this ends up.

Current Mood: đŸ˜¡irate

Happy birthday Grandma, Connor, and Liam!

Friday
* No birthdays that day, but Gill did make the cake for Grandma’s birthday on Saturday.
* We were supposed to go to Nicole’s to watch a movie outside while sitting around a fire, but the projector didn’t work so we just sat around the fire. Becky was there, and so were the Beardsleys, so it was a fun time. Nicole made pina coladas and we had popcorn and pepperoni-ball pizzas and swapped stories around the fire. It was a blast, all in all, and Gill and I said our goodbyes around 11:30.

Saturday
* I started the day with Gill waking me up asking if I had any cash. She had been up since 7am helping Jean and Jodi set up for the block sale and was going out to pick up some donuts from Jack Frost.
* And then it was time to run up to Buffalo for Grandma’s 90th birthday party.
* Dinner was at the Polish Villa on Union, and the food was excellent, as always. The service, on the other hand, let a bit to be desired. Steve was the only person to order an appetizer and not only did it come after his dinner, but he got his dinner last from among the nine of us.
* I took this great picture of Dad just as he was taking a picture of me, so the lower part of my image is from before his flash and the upper part of it from after the flash.