The Starbucks barista featured in this photo is Maria. I took this yesterday, as she was making a Cool Lime Refresher for me. Yesterday, Maria said to me, “Melody, I have a bone to pick with you.” I kid you not. Those were her very words. Thankfully, she was still smiling ear to ear. She said, “You took all those pictures of our store, and you didn’t put the pictures of me in the blog article!” (See Columbia Tower blog article.)
It was true! The allegations were true! I had taken pictures of Maria, and then when it came time to put together the article, I had so many that I didn’t use her pics. She is a great partner, and I love seeing her.
Maria, this is a great candid picture of you. I hope you are reading this! Now you are featured! 🙂
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Disqus comments.
I have updated my comment system to Disqus. I thought it would be easier for people to comment via Twitter (follow me on Twitter!) or Facebook. I am noticing some quirks and hiccups. First off, the side bar recent comment plug-in seems to have stopped updating. This is definitely a problem. I think a lot of people do glance there to see what’s new in the comment conversations. At least I check that regularly. Also, the system should auto-approve everyone where they’ve had one initial comment allowed, but this doesn’t seem to be happening. Comment Luv plug in is gone – though that’s the least of my worries. And the 20,000 comments that were on this blog previously are still missing.
Oh my! We will get through this! Please check the actual comments regularly. I am hoping to get as many bugs fixed as quickly as possible. A friend (Brad) is helping me work on the blog, and I am very appreciative of his work.
Feel free to talk about anything Starbucks-related or blog-related in this thread.
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Melody I think it is so nice that a partner wants to be acknowledged. In some ways it makes me feel like she really enjoys her job and representing SB and she sounds like a great partner. Hope you can work out the kinks in the new blog program as I miss getting the comments to my email box.
You can get digests in your email using the Disqus Digest feature: http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/808919-introducing-disqus-digests
I’ve recently changed to Disqus on my blog as well. They’re super responsive on Twitter so you might be able to get some assistance from them that way. I’m running on Blogger so our issues might be different but I had a problem because Blogger doesn’t allow Disqus on mobile templates. Once I disabled mobile templates on my site, everything worked great.
Nicole thanks for the suggestion. This is super frustrating not having the numbers and recent comment plug-in updating. And I still have to figure out how to get my Gravatar back. 🙂
Adjust your avatar (or use your Gravatar) here: http://disqus.com/dashboard/#dsq-profile-avatar
I like this idea. I’d love to see partners who make your day featured more often 🙂
Could someone clarify how to get the comments into your email box instead of having to come to the blog to read them? It was so nice to get them to the email box and I see there are more comments posted on this thread. Thanks.
purple1, there is a “Subscribe via email” link at the bottom of the comments. Also, if you register with Disqus you have the option of comments and replies being emailed to you.
Melody, it looks like the folks (Brad) at Disqus are helping you with the transition. I have been using Disqus for some other Blogs I frequent. I like that now when we reply to someone’s comment it will be threaded right below the comment, so comments will make some more sense.
Just for the sake of clarity, I do not work for Disqus. I am a former Starbucks Barista, friend of Melody’s a University of Wyoming student, and also a web developer.
Links will be auto-linked when you paste.
Formatting is possible with some basic HTML. Learn more here: http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/466253-what-html-tags-are-allowed-within-comments-
Yay! It look like the right rail new comments widget is working again! I hope! Don’t know why it froze up yesterday evening.
what?????? what is this? I guess I am too old, and I am no DadC……. :(((
Denise, you only have to go through moderation once – was that way on the old comment system too. Good to see you. on my phone, sorry so short.
Hmm, didn’t “moderate” my first comment or edit of that comment, but noticed it did “moderate” me on the second. Will see what this one does.
I see that there is now an RSS comment feed available (at the end of the comments).
We’ll be finding little goodies for awhile.
Edit: did not moderate this time.
haha oh melody! This is great. You are a delight to see in the store anytime and that was a great article about the 101 even without me in it…;)
I am still not enjoying the new style of the blog because even though I signed up to receive comments in my email box, I am not getting all the comments that I see when I go to the website. Also, I seem to not get the comments in the order that they were written. Disqus is not my favorite.
Hi Purple 1 – As to the comment not being in order, there is an icon in the upper right that lets you sort as either “best” or “newest” – It appears the default is “Best” – Your comment that “It’s nice that the partner wanted…” is sitting at the top with four up votes. I don’t know why comments are not coming to your inbox. There are still things I am figuring out. Maybe I can ask Brad to weigh in.
I do know that “unregistered users” seem to the ones where Disqus does the quirkiest things. No matter what I do, I haven’t found a way (yet) to allow any “unregistered users” to post without going through moderation.
Melody I made a comment on your latest post and I could not use my name Purple 1 nor is disquis allowing me to correct the name.
That’s very weird. I can’t find any reason why you wouldn’t be able to use your user name. There are things about Disqus that I really like – I think the look of this is much easier to read – especially the in line conversations, and a few things I’m not liking about Disqus. I’m going to give it a whirl for a while. I want all my VIP readers to like it too! (You, DadCooks, and DeniseR!!). I’ve been talking with Brad, and another option would be to switch to “Intense Debate” system which is actually a word press system. That would have its pros and cons too. But I don’t want to do anything rash! It’s been an enormous amount of work to install Disqus.
Melody, from my little experience with Disqus, there does not seem to be
a way to subscribe/receive all the comments (replies) via email, the “Subscribe
via email” only emails you replies to your comment (and only your comment) on a post.
The
“Comment feed” (RSS feed) will get you all the comments for a post, but
it requires an RSS reader, is slow to update, and you must subscribe to
each new post.
I appreciate that you are looking at ways to improve your blog and am willing to put up with the growing pains.
Melody just to say even with my frustration with this new system I too like dad cooks will continue to read and enjoy your blog. It just seems like disquis is not user friendly.
Melody hate to bring up again the issues with Disquis but for whatever reason today I am having some real issues with using it. Not getting all the comments in my inbox (have registered and did all the proper stuff) and then have had issues with making comments. Is the system having problems today in particular?
There are aspects of Disqus I love, and some that I really hate. It’s glitchy. I think we’re putting it to the test with the giveaway. What strikes me as weird, in the big scheme of things, despite 50k uniques/month, this is still a small website. Disqus must have users who are much bigger. I see Disqus sometimes on major websites. I need to give it a fair try. The problem becomes what to switch to if not Disqus? And I hope that Brad would be super generous and help me again! But this blog is work. I have a variety of plug ins, and thousands of existing comments. I’m afraid that one day I will have destroyed my comments if I keep moving it around. I have even thought about switching the entire blog to Square Space but there’s no way that I have the money to do that. I wouldn’t be able to migrate the blog to Square Space myself, and hiring someone to do it is cost prohibitive. I’m at the odd intersection where I’m a small blog that is just large enough that it needs resources and work. All I hope is that my readers bear with me!
One more reply Purple1 – If someone asked me if they should install Disqus comments, I might say ‘no.’ It is glitchy. Maybe most people have slower blogs, but still I’m small fish. But for example, I’ll get email notifications that a new comment is pending moderation, and I go to the Disqus mod panel, and it’s not there. Or I will click to “approve” a comment, and then it still shows as “pending” for a few minutes. And I find it weird that the Teavana article would not update the number of comments in the number icon. That’s glitchy in my book.
Thanks Melody for sharing your feelings about this new system. I totally understand how hard it must be for you to find a balance with it all. I just miss what I see as a continuity of seeing comments which I felt you had before and I seem to find missing now.
My local SB is finally having its remodel beginning April 14! Told not to get too excited and wait and see. Today, I heard it might take two weeks to finish with the store staying open at times and closing at times. Curious for those that have gone through the remodel at their local store, how long did it take your store?
My regular Starbucks was remodeled about a year ago. It took slightly over 2-weeks, most work done at night that sometimes spilled over to the morning open. From the customer standpoint very little impact, but a PITA for the employees, particularly the opening shift. They worked real hard to overcome the problems created by the sloppy and slow remodel crew.
Poor quality remodel. After less than a year the paint is peeling, the wooden chairs are falling apart (half have broken and glued back together), all the tabletops are peeling and splintering, the soft bench seat along one wall has lost all seat support so unless you are sitting on one of the cross braces (not comfortable) you sink into a hole.
Starbucks sure wasted their money on this remodel. The same experience with the remodels that have occurred at a couple of the other Starbucks in my area..
I think it depends on how extensive the overhaul is. With Olive Way, it was closed for a long time! Several weeks straight, as I recall! I think that’s rather unusual though. Interesting question. I don’t know the typical length of time to do a major 10-year overhaul but I’d guess a few weeks. (If Starbucks is only doing what they call a “Refresh” that appears to be super fast – like a few days.)