Warning: In this post (and any other on technologies other than spade forks and manure) I may very well speak of things in incorrect terms etc. Feel free to correct me with all the right alphabets and all.
Really I’m just tellin’ what I’m up to and how I’m muddlin’ through stuff. The technical jargon? That’s somebody else’s gig, and if I can remember it I’ll use it. I’m not trying to be a stinker, just saying, “wow, that’s confusing,” while trying to get some stuff done in a field I know little or nothing about. Remember my bio used to read (and if I rewrote it would still read) “I’m not an expert on anything, but I enjoy a great many things.” Trust me that applies whole heartedly to this internetty stuff I’m muddling through.
Funny though, how you really don’t need to be an expert to use somethin’. Maybe that is more to the point for you here Dear Reader: A chance to watch a non-expert use something. It could be useful, but most likely it will just be for a few good laughs.
A bit of ketchup from Blogger to Live Writer to here. I have been blogging for two years on Blogger. It has always been fun and relatively easy, but it was starting to have some bugs and issues for me. I was relatively happy with how my blog looked, my blog, being that it was a Google product introduced me to Google Reader and some other groovy Googley stuff.
Even though I was happy with my blog and didn’t mind the constraints it held for me in looks, somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to go farther. Not for fancy artsy fartsy add on template sort of stuff but more in a other than just blogging direction. Occasionally the idea of having an actual web site for Vicktory Farm and Gardens would pop up, not just in my head but in conversation with others. Except I sorta contended that my blog was good enough. But just sorta.
On a whole other note I had toyed around with Live Writer so that I could compose a draft off line, see what it would actually look like prior to publishing for everyone to see, and load pictures quicker and right to the spot that I wanted my picture to go. There are lots of features I really appreciate about Live Writer and even with my new blog here I still use Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer. Mostly I really appreciate being able to see what the heck everything looks like while I am building it. Years ago Microsoft Publisher was my preferred word processing for that very reason. I saw the closest thing to what I was going to see on the piece of paper. I like that. I realize it isn’t necessarily an issue for everyone, just sayin’ for me, it is. So with blogging it is a similar issue, I like composing as close to what the reality of it looking like on screen after the publish button is pressed.
I would swear, if it was okay to swear, that I did more editing on my posts after “publishing” than before. I think it is hilarious that I often don’t see grammatical errors until after it is published which all on its own is frustrating enough if it weren’t for all the changes in how it “looks”. I personally get claustrophobic when I read. I need room. I gotta have breathing space for my eyes. I not only need paragraphs but I like a bit of white space between my paragraphs. And I need more paragraphs, most likely paragraphs that are way smaller than my English 101 class would have allowed.
But not too much otherwise my eyes will wander off and not stay on task. Its a complicated mind I live in. And I am sure if Mom were here she would be rolling her eyes at me. I know things don’t make sense for the English Teacher, but sometimes reading and writing isn’t just about English 101 or 304, sometimes it is about how I feel and words aren’t the only thing that play into how I feel as I write and read. Clearly for me it is space, color and movement of lines on the page or screen. The reason for this tangent? Just that when I write and read looks are very important to the experience, and because they are I like seeing as close to the final result as I am constructing.
Some perceived issues with blogger just kept getting bigger, I was becoming way too frustrated and I thought I could solve the problem with going to WordPress for blogging. Around the blogging world it just seemed that the blogs that were WordPress blogs appeared cleaner, loaded quicker, had just as many photos as what I preferred to work with.
First I made sure that I could use Windows Live Writer with WordPress. I could. So I looked up WordPress, not noticing that there was a WordPress.com and a WordPress.org. I managed to land on WordPress.org right off the bat and just started working from there. Not many sentences into it I was informed I needed to pick a host. The deal is that WordPress.com hosts your blog, WordPress.org supplies you with a blog that is self hosted, hosted by you, but you need a host.
Eh? Oh never mind, lets call this something I’m not really sure I understand. The end result, I needed a domain and in order to have a domain I needed a host.
I did some quick and minimal research on the few hosts that they suggested. Minimal because I did hop on to a site or two reviewing the different hosts but they used such a string of unmanageable jargon that my brain swam in a pool of ooze and I leapt from the page so as to not be pulled under in the quicksand.
In picking a host, prices being somewhat similar, I went with their top suggestion, Blue Host. Don’t ask me why, I just felt more drawn to them than the other suggestions. They “looked” right. Thankfully the name is Blue Host, not Green Host. I might have immediately crossed them off the list had they been “Green”.
So this is now where I am at. Limping along with a new blog while I try and figure out all that I can do and can’t do and how to do or not do it. And wondering what all I can do with this whole “I have a domain” thing that I so totally don’t understand. I managed to take a few indoor-sit-down moments to figure out how to have an email off of my domain hosted by Blue Host. I have some books (I like learning hard things, new things, off of actual paper) on creating web sites and some other technical-ly stuff that sounded like it might come in handy, coming in at the library. I’ll be picking them up on Wednesday.
Meanwhile an already jam packed life goes on: I still tick folks off; I still have daughters to raise; I have grandson’s baseball games to take in; a husband to smooch; flowers to pick and admire; things to plant; puppies to play with; meals to cook; toilets to scrub; things to say; rooms to redecorate; friends to encourage; stuff in the garden to thin; weight to lose; a business to arrange; things to sew; parties to have; trips to take; movies to see; songs to sing; hammers to hold for a building to be built; pictures to take; a canoe to ride in; a … You get the idea eh?
I’m in way over my head, but then I always have been. I like to do stuff, lots of stuff, stuff that makes me learn stuff, stuff that pushes me past my limits. I aspire to be a Jack of all trades and definitely a Master of none. Quite frankly, Jack is to high a level, what would be even lower than a Jack of Trades? Perhaps a Sam of Interests? And hopefully my low aspirations are still square with “whatever you do, do as unto the Lord” because above everything, including my comfort, that is all that I desire. That whatever it is that I do, I can say I do it all as if I was doing it for my Lord God! For quite frankly, I am, every breath.
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