Another way to have good-looking images in a post would be for TypePad to finally just eliminate the ridiculous section offering to 'Display your image at full size, scaled to the width of the column...' I find it hilarious that the very first tip offered is NOT to choose that option. I've been fighting TypePad for five years to eradicate that ludicrous 'default' which hideously distorts images. Who would want that as a default setting? Why is it even offered as a default setting? Who thinks 'distort this image' is a brilliant default function? I thought Microsoft were the only company creating needless extra steps and extraneous settings. After the big switch to your new platform several years ago, I had to manually go back and fix hundreds of images originally uploaded as 'original size' which were then distorted by that 'full size' setting. When will someone on the design team realise, 'Oh... this is a stupid setting providing no useful function, let's get rid of it?'

Awesome! And it only took almost three years of complaining about the old editor!

Actually I'd say you're quite lucky *not* to have a Black Friday in Cyprus. The frenzy, the chaos, the occasional absolutely nightmarish savagery such as this... http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008448574_shop290.html ...About 10 years ago I stopped shopping for anything but groceries starting the week of Thanksgiving. And even then I go shopping at night to avoid the madhouse. You are much wiser to shop on line and take advantage of sales there, even if you do have to monitor certain web sites very closely so that items don't go 'out of stock.' Nothing destroys the holiday spirit more than being trampled to death for a toy...

Amy, the closest you are going to find to 'networking' with other bloggers on TypePad is to use the Profiles thing. It's relatively lame and lacks any real functionality (it's not Facebook, despite TypePad's desire to integrate social networking), but it's what's available for now.

Matt, the easiest way to know what the customers who helped support and build this company want is to simply read the comments posted in this forum or at Get Satisfaction. You cannot get more precise than that. In the meantime, here's one for you, something I have railed against for over two years now and was told would be fixed in future updates, which, of course, never happened: 'Display your image at full size, SCALED TO THE WIDTH OF THE COLUMN, or use one of the alternate preset sizes.' Though every user has different experiences, when TypePad moved to its new platform, this 'scaled to the width of the column' - quite possibly the stupidest and most ridiculous default I have ever seen - caused me to spend several weeks re-posting nearly every image I had ever used in my blog because anything I had posted at what was previously 'original size' became distorted and stretched out of proportion by this idiotic new default. Some of us using custom CSS have wider columns than normal and this default ruined years of work. When I complained, I got nothing. No apologies, no offer to assist, no consideration given to a month credited for all my trouble - nothing. Absolute silence. That, to me, is not quality customer service. And to this day, years later, my questions remains unanswered: What customer in their right mind would choose to have their images distorted by default? Better still, what programmer in their right mind thinks this default is helpful to anyone in any way? Why create a needless extra step (or in this case three) just to post an image at its original size? And why should I be forced to use work-arounds? Due to the resounding silence, I gave up in anger and frustration and started using LiveWriter because the TypePad text and photo editor were (and still are, in my opinion) essentially bug-ridden garbage and made me question why I was spending my hard-earned money on a Pro Account when I was forced to use third-party software to do the fundamental things TypePad *should* be able to do. So if you want to know where to start - fix the core elements that are absolutely *vital* to blogging. Get rid of that ridiculous 'Scaled to the width of the column' default in favour of the more practical 'original size' default that was used before. Spend some quality time working out how to enhance the customer experience instead of detracting from it. And most of all test, test, test, test and test again new features *before* they get rolled out and create a maelstrom of negative feedback.

Colleen, I'm happy to keep an open mind about what this situation means for us, your customer base, and I am hopeful that I will not have to abandon ship and move 3+ years of posts to another service. However (and, yes, there's always a 'however'), you have to understand that this announcement - especially on the heels of the hotly contested 'new editor' issue - could not have come at a worse time because tensions were already high. And all it really does is consolidate the fears and apprehension that TypePad/Six Apart have started to turn its back - or at the very least a blind eye - to the needs and desires of its customers. And the contradictory messages coming from within the Six Apart/SAY camp, whether it's the fact that small-time bloggers - the so-called 'regular people' - are apparently being considered as non-essential in favour of those 'building media businesses' or to find that SAY *expect* to lose customers, are not at all heartwarming. For SAY to state 'The kinds of people we want to work with are emerging media personalities' is hardly a consumer-centric or consumer-friendly stance. And as I mentioned previously, to say bloggers don't want new technology and better tools is absurd when this is *precisely* what Six Apart customers have been begging for. And nothing instills less confidence in the potential fate of us 'regular people' than watching three and a half minutes of corporate non-speak from the talking heads at SAY prattling on in effusive buzzwords about the new direction. It leaves me cold and utterly unenlightened and sad that I just lost three minutes of my life hearing about 'driving scale across a larger buy.' How about explaining in English what's going to happen next? The concerns over monetising are secondary to me, as I've had ads on my blog for some time though they've really done nothing in terms of 'performance.' As one of the now unwanted minorities of 'regular people who write a blog for fun,'I want to know what to expect in terms of changes to the blogging platform itself, *when* to expect anything to happen, and what impact this change will have (if any) on us non-essential people so we, too, can stratagise and plan for the future.

What I am most concerned about is statements like this in the New York Times: 'Mr. Anker said Six Apart had been shifting its business focus from blogging tools to advertising for at least two years. What bloggers really want, he said, isn’t better technology for allowing comments, but a way to support their livelihoods.' That really goes a long way in explaining the issues plaguing this platform for a while and shows just how out of touch some members of Six Apart are. While it's nice to support our livelihoods - and I think I made a whopping $1.29 in the last year since monetising my blog through Six Apart - we bloggers, in case no-one has noticed, have been *screaming* for better technology to do the very things Mr Anker appears to think we're not interested in. After the shift to the new platform two years or so ago and the mess it created, and after the introduction of this wretched new interface and the recent debacle with the new Text Editor (which *isn't* better, despite the heading of the last Everything TypePad entry) I just have to wonder what kind of issues are in store for us - and how soon - when SAY begin to fiddle about under the hood.

'Nothing in TypePad changes today.' Hmm. That sounds ominous.

Zalary, part of the problem (addressed elsewhere in these comments) is that customers are frequently made to feel as if the problems they are experiencing are entirely their own fault. I spent *months* trying to get somewhere with Help Tickets over the useless and glitchy 'new' image editor that rolled out with the major platform change two years ago until I simply gave up because nobody - and I mean absolutely *nobody* - appeared to understand the basics of the issue no matter how plainly and succinctly it was spelled out. Every response I got made it seem like I was the ass clown who couldn't do anything right and I finally got fed up and started using LiveWriter as a work-around. Working in customer service myself, I know how frustrating it is to be on the receiving end of complaints, but very often it is like talking to a wall when dealing with TypePad. I have used WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace and, though I don't care for their overall design aesthetic, which is why I stayed with TypePad, I have *never* had an issue with their compose screens or their photo editors - not like I've had with TypePad's 'New & Improved' version. And, really, the 'entitlement' comes from paying someone your hard-earned money for something that is supposed to work correctly and have it do nothing but waste your time, lose your posts, and piss you off and then not being able to get any tangible assistance when you ask for it.

Believe it or not, Valerie, TypePad migrated to their cherished new system (at least according to their original statement on the subject a couple of years ago) so that TypePad users would experience the same feature-rich goodies that Vox users had. I'm thinking that hasn't quite happened yet.

I feel your pain. I have an Intel-based Mac and installed Windows on a partition just so I could use LiveWriter. And considering how much I dislike Microsoft, that's something. There are a couple of Mac-specific blog writers but they are things you have to purchase, whereas LiveWriter is free. I think Blogo is the one I tried originally. It was alright. You may consider Qumana at - http://www.qumana.com/download.php - it's free and works on Mac. I personally never tried it but have heard a number of good things about it. I'm simply gobsmacked, though, that the folks at Microsoft can come up with something that actually works (and works surprisingly well) and yet TypePad can't seem to get it together and stop fiddling about with these 'changes' that continue to alienate their customers. As you correctly point out, they seem to be forgetting their core mission.

Brian, Download Windows LiveWriter - unless you are a Mac user, in which case your options are somewhat restricted. I stopped fiddling with these ridiculous TypePad composing and image editing debacles over a year ago and am glad I did. Though not 100% perfect (because nothing Microsoft make is perfect) LiveWriter is an essential blogging tool that will make your life much easier and you will stop wasting time, losing posts, and losing formatting, *and* you will always have an automatic back-up copy. All of these 'improvements' TypePad keep making became a complete time- and energy suck to me. In effect this has rendered TypePad rather a costly hosting service for me since I am not using their editor and, as such, spending virtually no time on their site, but at least I'm not loathing blogging like I used to do.

Amen!

I agree with everything posted previously: there is no need for this change unless it is a *vast* improvement over what presently exists. Having looked at the TinyMCE link, it certainly doesn't appear to be a very substantive change over the current composer. I stopped using your composer over a year ago because it sucked the enjoyment out of blogging for me and I use LiveWriter to do what TypePad's composer doesn't. And this 'upgrade' still fails to offer basic functionality conspicuously missing from the TypePad composer such as captions for photos and the ability to have 'curly' quotes. Nice try though. I hope this upgrade doesn't conflict with those of us who use third party software as a work-around. There will be a revolt if that happens.

You're right. It is a 'relatively blog' application. Glad you finally see things the right way.

Funny. You obviously cannot read either because no-one here has said, not even once, anything you have implied about them and passed such harsh and unwarranted judgement upon. Calling morons and crybabies anyone who does not agree with your assessment of TypePad is not valuable advice or assistance.

Yes, everyone. Please remember that according to Team Werner we're all completely incompetent and unable to function and that every problem we have with TypePad is due to our own bungling.

So, you're saying use third party software because the TypePad composer isn't doing what you're paying for it to do. Interesting.