Wonder's personal timeline, a place to collect and share things from Wonder's life.
Created by stillgreen on Oct 10, 2008
Last updated: 11/04/09 at 04:53 PM
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If you do, mine's right up there in the top right corner ;)
Actually, it surprised me that Sitepoint, a wonderful design resource, ran a poll yesterday to see whether RSS is "mainstream". It also promoted the poll heavily on Twitter which Sitepoint says "headed to mainstream".
Both Sitepoint actions facinated me. Sitepoint is a site for web designers and developers. I would think, for their audience, RSS would be mainstream.
Most of my sites have nothing to do with the Internet other than the fact they're web pages. When offered, I've had few RSS takers to any of my blogs. Even the one with thousands of email subscribers has only a handful of RSS subscribers. I thought that told me RSS isn't mainstream.
Anyway, so far the RSS poll is interesting. If you've got a min, pop over and vote so you can take a peek at the results.
Sitepoint's promo of the poll on Twitter however is a whole 'nuther ball a' beezewax. Their current giveaway of a $30 pdf ebook on CSS to gain Twitter followers though I don't see a "follow me on" link on their site yet makes me Wonder too :)
http://wondersnet.com/do-you-use-an-rss-feed/
I was wondering if I should redo my category list before I got too many posts to move or whatever. That research got a little interesting.
For most blogs, without some fancy footwork, categories are the structure of the blog if not the whole site. In most templates, your categories will make up a clickable list of links somewhere on your pages. It probably will be in your sidebar. In the old days of web design, I think we called that a sub-menu.
For WordPress, that category list ends up being an important menu. If you write on a lot of topics, it can be the primary way peope will find your stuff. Obviously, you might consider your category names carefully.
In WordPress, you do have control over how many of your categories display in the listing on your pages. However, this would conceivably make them invisible. I can't see that there would be anything to be gained by not making your posts readable on your blog.
Common sense says I don't want a long list of categories. I don't want people have to read an extra page to find all those posts I wrote about vestal virgins ;)
I also read somewhere while I was researching categories that you shouldn't include your posts in more than one category as it would result in "duplicate pages". Of course, that would be a bad thing because it upsets the search engines.
I'm going to have to research that further though as it doesn't really make sense to me. If each of these posts is snippet of text in a database, how could linking to that data result in duplicate pages? Even if it were multiple links it would still only be one little chunk of text right?
Sheesh, correct me if I'm wrong here, will ya? Maybe I still don't get it.
WordPress says tags are free form words that you put in a comma separated list under your post.
So basically they're keywords like you should have in the header text of your posts but it's no doubt easier putting them on the page? O.K., I'm in.
http://wondersnet.com/difference-between-categories-and-tags/
Already missed Native American Day so before the month is done, I'd like to honor my heritage.
My personal Native American hero is Sitting Bull. Even today, I think some of his words speak the truth, as in his famous quote about the people who were conquering his:
This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path".
Sitting Bull
He said much more about the war with American, his people and the people who were to come. You can find many Sitting Bull quotes that are relevant today here.
I believe that I am 1/16th, or possibly 1/8th, Yankton Lakota Sioux. My heritage has been clouded by years of misinformation but I am hopeful with new DNA technology and patience I can find my real roots.
http://wondersnet.com/november-is-native-american-month/
Just noted that I have 45 days of stats for this WordPress blog.
Wow, just what do I know after 45 days of WordPress blogging?
I know that:
it's insane to jump into a live website "whole hog" without any advance planning. Yes, Virginia, even a blog;
a WordPress blog is a "Cadillac" of OpenSource software. Wonderful good looks and a smooth ride, but high maintenance;
real blogging, with intent, is an interesting pursuit.
http://wondersnet.com/45-days-with-wordpress/
Quick Review of Lynda.com online video training Digital Photography Principles: The Camera:
If this is the only course you are interested in at Lynda.com, save your money. For the similar reasons that the Blogger.com didn't quite make it, this video course didn't either.
Digital cameras are not a subject you can make a film about years ago or really months ago and have people really "educated" by it today.
That being said, I am pretty much green to digital photography so I learned some things. I at least learned enough to have some of what they're talking about in my camera instruction book and a little of when to use different features that are on my camera.
I learned you could take pictures from a moving vehicle and posted my first video on YouTube :) The pictures looked a lot better on my computer so I suppose I need to take a in movie making too.
I learned enough to be sure that the subject interests me and to sign up for another I've got 2 weeks on my month trial subscription yet. I think that's plenty of time to take Digital Photography Principals from Taz Tally. You know who he is?
http://wondersnet.com/review-of-digital-principles-camera-class/
Just had to do a little something that I remembered was really hard to "get" when I learned HTML. This is pretty basic stuff but it's also very handy when ulterior motives are in control :)
You can make an HTML link that not only links to your page, but also takes the person viewing the link to a certain spot on your page. Even if that spot is below the fold.
For instance, if I want to say something about how new I am at Twitter and I also want to give anyone interested another little glimpse into my web life, I can post the word "green" with a link to one of my sites that defines that word the way I mean it.
After I got done twurling it, the link ended up being: http://twurl.nl/b7lswy.
By putting the following code in my page defining "green", I was able to link to a particular place in the web page, not just the page.
<a name="green">GREEN</a> - Inexperienced, brand new. The term is often applied to personnel. Also applies to being new at any thing else. Worry if your mechanic says "I'm pretty green at this but your motor needs a rebuild".
By adding a "#", or pound sign, and the defined name, i.e,"green" (without the quotes), to the url for the page, like so:
http://www.welcometothefair.com/lingo.html#green
I can send people right to the spot on the page I want them to see.
Maybe I should have put an Adsense block right above it?
http://wondersnet.com/how-to-link-within-a-web-page/
I hate a cluttered header and this DeepBlue Theme, while really nice to work with, had both the search function and the RSS subscribe function in the header.
[caption align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Blog Header Before Functions Moved"][/caption]
It was a pretty simple matter to delete the functions from the header.php file in the Theme Editor section of the Design Tab. Reinserting the functions into the sidebar was a little trickier in this theme as there are actually 3 files for the sidebar. I also had to edit the main style sheet to make the functions display as I wanted them to.
While I was doing all this, I added an email subscribe because many of you are probably old people like me and don't really think RSS feeds are all that great either. I use them if I can't subscribe via email but I'd rather get everything I need in my inbox :)
I'd also been experimenting lately with the number of posts I displayed on the front page of this blog. I started with 10 and that made an awfully long page as I get pretty long-winded in some of my posts. Then I changed it to 4 posts and visitors only got a smattering of all the things I write about here. I didn't like that either.
I knew I could switch to using all excerpts of my posts but I didn't think that was so cool to have to click to read every single post on the page. I knew there had to be a solution to print some posts in their entirety and make the rest shorter so, off to Google.
First I found some code that purported to do this and probably worked with some version. But after 3 hours of messing with my blog on my local machine, it was back to Google.
Should have looked at one of my favorite sites, Daily Blog Tips, first. Sure enough, they had just the plugin that I wanted.
So whadda ya think of the new look?
http://wondersnet.com/header-changes-and-excerpt-plug-in/
I just finished my Dreamweaver 8 Essential Training with Garrick Chow and I'm in love again.
Since I'm already head over heels with Molly Holzschlag, does that mean I'm widening my horizons as I grow older? Actually, I'm becoming asexual as I grow older which is a whole, long and ugly other story that, thankfully doesn't belong here, lol.
Getting back to Garrick (isn't he a cutie?), what a great presenter of video training! Mmm, that voice, especially when he chuckles. Well, you just have to be there.
I did get fairly bored in because not only does Garrick teach how to use Dreamweaver 8, he gives a lot of the fundamentals of web design. And, even not paying attention, I learn't some things I should have know'd a long time ago :)
These videos covered all of the basics of Dreamweaver 8 and a lot of things that really aren't so basic.
I came away from this video hooked on Dreamweaver. Not for the design interface so much, I still have to fight myself not to spend all my time in coding view, but for the synchronization between files and even web servers.
This one ended up being worth what it cost me to take for a whole month on Lynda.com. I only signed up for one month at the basic level. I'm already covered for most of this month but I'm betting I'll be signing up for a yearly plan to save a couple dinero before my "rent" expires.
Think I saw a coupon online somewhere that'll save me enough that the "premium" won't cost much more than the "regular" version. Naah, whadda I need with Exercises? I've got enough exercises right here in my 'puter to keep me busy for the rest of my life.
Reminds me, I forgot to tell you about the Digital Photography Principles that was worth this month's subscription fee all by itself, too. Back at ya soon.
http://wondersnet.com/online-training-dreamweaver-review/
That's what one of my offline friends said when I showed her an email I'd printed out from an online friend.
The email I showed her was from a friend in an email group I belong to, "Ideas by Post". I plan to tell you more about "Ideas by Post" in a separate post.
Anyway, I'd asked my buddy group to do the same thing I'd just asked her to do, review this blog. I read somewhere that a blogging beginner should do that :)
When I showed my local gal pal my blog, I think I impressed her. Even so, she had a couple of good She said I should add my picture and make the type bigger. The sweetheart even said wished she had a computer so she could read it regularly. She really is a great friend.
My IBP buddy, on the other hand, was maybe even a bit brutal* in his page long criticism of my site. Among the things he told me were "it's not a blog . . . it's a diary" and "you need to concentrate some time on learning to write headlines". He advised me to "restructure it for a shorter more concise presentation" and "find a direction".
My friend from the IBP group is a professional writer and a creative force behind the Freelance Writing Organization - International. He's also remodeling an old house, btdt. He's a busy, busy man.
Just the fact he gave me his input should tell you how good a friend of mine he's become on our little email group.
So, neither of my friends are my enemies but they don't see the same picture of my web blog that I do either. I see a blog that's about becoming a web designer, step by tiny step with lots of adventures and meanderings along the way. They see what probably is really here.
You can read all of the professional blogging advice I got (and my reply "In Self Defense") by joining the Ideas by Post bunch at Yahoo Groups. Then, you can ask our many experts just about anything you need to know and get a straight answer.
*". . . do you mean to regale us with stories of what it is like to be you on the net?" (O.K. I thought that was kinda mean but, yep, I do.)
http://wondersnet.com/what-is-my-blog-about/
Quick heads up about Giveaway Of The Day's latest download, RecentX.
RecentX is a program that keeps track of all of your recently closed files, imagine that. I had expected a video game that lets you kill your exhusband 19 different ways but I downloaded it anyway.
It's great for me. Has tabs for Files, Folders, Programs and Websites and just records what you close and when.
Yes, I know I already can keep track of most of that to some extent but not like this. I now have a nice iconic bar tucked away in the corner of my screen that gets me back where I was fast.
There are some big changes coming, if not in the U.S., then at least in my life. I just ordered my first laptop computer. (No sh*t from the Mac fans or real geek types, o.k.? It's what I can afford.)
No more being chained to a desk in my office. Ah, life is going to be so sweet. Of course, my bailout's paying for it, right?
http://wondersnet.com/today-only-offer/
At least that's how I did it :)
I voted first thing this morning. For Obama. I live in South Dakota. Hence, ergo thus.
I also finished my Digital Photography> this morning (more on that later).
Was deciding on another two to add to my morning "education" time and realized a couple of things I wanted to know weren't covered in any great detail at Lynda.com. A few searches with more specific terms; i.e. advanced layout in Dreamweaver 8, advanced forms Ruby on Rails, etc. turned up a ton more online education sources.
The kicker was, there are more sources for FREE online education than there are paid! ROFL! (More about those after I've had a chance to look at the quality.)
I love the Internet. I just wish there was a "slower version" for us Oldtimers. Bad enough a gal starts "toot'n" here and there when she gets older, now I've started "tweet'n" too! Even added a thingy over in the sidebar that gives a whistle when I click publish here.
Hafta warn you though that the "OTO" the tweet tool folks just presented me upon logging into my account trying to see if there were any configuration options just about made me puke. The tool itself seems o.k. and it was just a snippet of code to be pasted where you wanted (except I don't have it where I want it, another story).
I have to quit smoking. It's the only way I'll ever live long enough to learn all this.
http://wondersnet.com/vote-first-then-get-educated/
I was having trouble aligning pictures on 2 of my WordPress blogs. This picture alignment problem really bugged me in my last post because I couldn't get the text to wrap around that bitty-tiny image of the beautiful Molly. I couldn't even get the picture to align to the right using every CSS trick I thought I knew.
After getting totally frustrated, I typed a big old long sentence into Google: "cannot align my images to the right in wordpress". Turns out it's a common problem and I wasn't adding quite the right code to my css style file.
A beautiful post with a fix right here. It worked on both my templates and I'm sooo grateful :)
http://wondersnet.com/image-alignment-problems-in-wordpress/
Whee hewww! Finished all the videos for the Blogger> at Lynda.com.
I have to reiterate here that I took this to have a benchmark to compare the quality and depth of Lynda.com video training in a program I already thought I knew well.
So, as expected, I did not learn a lot in the Blogger But, I did fall in love with Molly Holzschlag.
[caption align="alignright" width="60" caption="Molly Holzschlag"][/caption]
She's got a beautiful, pleasant voice to listen to and a nice way of putting things. Molly also has an intimate knowledge of the Blogger.com platform.
Or, anyway she did back in June-July 2004 when these videos were made.
And there is my first "boo on you", Lynda.com. I really think you can afford to pay Molly to update the Blogger video and it would be worthwhile. Unless, of course, maybe I'm the only one who has chosen to view those particular videos for the past couple of years.
Luckily, Blogger.com was a stable platform when Lynda.com produced the videos. They had a great piece of online blogging software way back then. Blogger has actually changed very little since Molly was teaching about it. They've added a few new features but the basics still work just the way she shows you that they do. Of course, Google, who now owns Blogger, could change that any day.
And that's the basic problem in producing "training videos" for an online platform of any kind. Many online programs change often and dramatically. If you are interested in any kind of instruction for a program, online or on your local computer, try to ascertain that the book, video or pertains to the version of the program that you want to use.
All in all, if you're interested in establishing a weblog at Blogger.com, this is still a very worthwhile online to take. If you're new to the whole concept of an online blogging platform, it will tend to help you no matter where you end up blogging.
http://wondersnet.com/review-of-lyndacom-blogger-class/
No, I'm not in agony over the review of a Lynda.com video> that I'm about to write. I'm having a hard time keeping my mouth shut about our upcoming election.
So, I'm just going to hand out a little "grandmotherly advice" here though I had no intention of doing so.
First, you're not even voting for the president so get your worries about that one out of your head. Learn everything you have time for about the candidates where your vote counts.
Realize that the government that has the greatest effect on your life is probably your local government. They're the ones that have to provide you with the basic services that make life as we know it possible. Pay a lot of attention to which of your neighbors you give that kind of responsibility and power.
The last, and most important, thing I'd like to drum into your head is to actually go and vote. If you can't decide on all of the candidates, that's o.k. Just go put in your "token vote" for president and vote for the candidates that you've decided to support. After that, you can fill in the rest like multiple choice tests in high school, either by system or random choice, however you did it then. Or not, whatever.
People aren't as stupid as the politicians think. More and more of us are laughing off our 'civic duty' to vote, rejecting the role of compulsory constituent."
Bob Black
http://wondersnet.com/biting-my-tongue/
Larn'in, learning, all the time, all this learning. It's enough to make you forget to get Oldtimer's disease :)
Decided I wanted to make some change in a post over at my Blogger.com weblog by adding a strikethrough or line through some text. As that's not something I do everyday, I thought I remembered the HTML code was <s></s> but thought I'd better do a quick check.
Well, that was the code back when I learnt'it but now the HTML code is <del>.
In my WordPress wysiwyg HTML editor, I have an option to choose that same strike through text so, just now, I did.
WordPress presents the code by declaring it a CSS style which is, of course, the preferred way today. The code is <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">line through</span>.
Maybe I'd better take a basic HTML again if I wannabe a web designer, huh?
http://wondersnet.com/how-to-strke-through-your-text/
Larn'in, learning, all the time, all this learning. It's enough to make you forget to get Oldtimer's disease :)
Decided I wanted to make some change in a post over at my Blogger.com weblog by adding a strikethrough or line through some text. As that's not something I do everyday, I thought I remembered the HTML code was <s></s> but thought I'd better do a quick check.
Well, that was the code back when I learnt'it but now the HTML code is <del>.
In my WordPress wysisywg HTML editor, I have an option to choose that same strike through text so, just now, I did.
WordPress presents the code by declaring it a CSS style which is, of course, the preferred way today. The code is <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">line through</span>.
Maybe I'd better take a basic HTML again if I wannabe a web designer, huh?
http://wondersnet.com/how-to-strke-through-your-text/
This weblog is supposed to be about web design so let's do just a little of that, o.k.? We'll start with this WordPress blog. Just the simple stuff. Remember, I haven't finished my web design yet, lol.
You can't see it now because I changed it but the text in this blog header used to be really ugly:
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="Header before any changes"][/caption]
I hated the way the tag line was all in CAPS and SHOUTED at my nice friends :)
I knew that I had put my new WordPress tagline in much differently by going to my "Settings" in the "General" tab from my WordPress Dashboard.
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="Blog name and tag line under General Settings"][/caption]
See, I told you I wasn't yelling about it at all.
Luckily, I have had just a wee bit of practice with CSS because I was able to guess that maybe the presentation of that tagline was controlled by a CSS style.
To edit your CSS styles in WP, you need to click on the "Design" tab in your dashboard, then "Theme Editor". You'll get a nice big box that is the editor with a list of all the files for your theme running down the side.
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="To edit your CSS style sheet"][/caption]
My template files were at the top and the styes were way at the bottom. Guessing again that my particular irksome code was in the main stylesheet, I clicked on that to open it in the editor box and scrolled down a bit to find the header section of my stylesheet.
I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for but thought I'd recognize it when I saw it. I think you'll know too:
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="The actual code in my CSS style file"][/caption]
Once I spotted the text-transform line, deleted it and clicked on the "Update File" button at the bottom of the theme editor box, the problem was solved.
Now my tagline says "what I wanted to say" "how I wanted to say it". That's the whole point of editing your WordPress template, right?
http://wondersnet.com/changing-your-header-text-in-wordpress/
As I've *mentioned* already, I'm taking a Dreamweaver on Lynda.com so I can become a web designer.
Well, I guess I'm already technically a web designer, I've been building web sites since 2002. But, I'm not anything you could call "good" at it and I wanna get better, lots better. Hence, ergo, thus.
But, Dreamweaver? Actually, I have some mixed emotions about even having the program on my computer, let alone using it. My first web mentor, Serenata (more about Rena later), is probably spinning in her grave about now. Serenata was a real web designer and she wouldn't have coded in Dreamweaver for all the tea in China.
Of course, things were a little bit different back in 2002-2003 when Rena was giving me a few clues about design and a lot of "helping hand" with my sites. Pages were mostly laid out in tables and even graphics were limited. I'm not even going to tell you what Serenata had to say about Flash.
Today, I have a bunch of sites. No, not quite true, I have a few sites and a whole lot of domain names that need sites to go with them :) But, I still only have the same 24 hours in a day that everyone else has.
"Time makes more converts than reason." Thomas Paine
My thought is that Dreamweaver will speed up the design process for my sites without making the code too icky.
However, even after doing a bunch of googling, I'm still not sure that Dreamweaver is the answer.
37 signals still agrees with Serenata that you should hand code all your pages. Apple's Developer Connection says I should be using ruby on rails. Still others recommend HomeSite or about a zillion other programs.
How about it, real web designers? Do you use Dreamweaver? Homesite? TextPad? Am I wasting my two most precious commodities, time and money, on this class?
http://wondersnet.com/do-real-web-designers-use-dreamweaver/
I hafta admit I'm from South Dakota?
I've been trying to stay out of politics on this blog. I didn't want someone popping in and saying "Yeah but, you used to work for ACORN" which is true but has nothing to do with my current political views.
But, I just watched something on YouTube which has me madder than the proverbial hen:
Even though I support the end result of defeating our Initiated Measure 11 which would totally take away a woman or her doctor's choice to abort a pregnancy, I cannot condone these methods.
And, before you say anything, when I worked for ACORN, they didn't condone these methods either and I have a hard time believing that they do now despite all the press to the contrary.
http://wondersnet.com/first-i-dont-want-to-say-im-an-american-and-now/
I remember celebrating moniversaries or "month anniversaries" with someone special way back when. I'm almost to that point on my new web log. I can't believe I've been blogging for almost a whole month. I feel like I'm just getting a clue and my head is spinning.
In the first month of having a WordPress blog, I've updated the installation twice, changed the theme twice and changed my mind about whether I even want to blog eleventy times.
My current blog setup is the almost unaltered Deep Blue Theme from Daily Blog Tips. Since I'm doing the blog to become a web designer, I'm really going to have to do a design of my own obviously but, hey, I just found the header. It's about time, you know. Anyway, I like the design, mostly.
And, of course, I'm just guessing by the sites I'm seeing around the blogsphere, yet I think I'm using relatively few WordPress plugins. It's not that WP plug-ins aren't easy to install because they really are "point and shoot" for the most part. It's not even that I'm not facinated by a boatload of available plugins and themes. It really just all boils down to time to understand them :)
But, for the record, and a little image experiment, here are the 5 plugins I have installed today:
[caption align="alignnone" width="500" caption="wp-sticky-plugin"][/caption]
I'm not technically using this WP tool today because I don't have any posts that I want to stay at the top of my blog but I tested it with this post for a few days and it works great and is obviously a fantastic tool.
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="WordPress Google Sitemap plugin"][/caption]
I'm a firm believer in sitemaps for Google and site visitors alike. Putting one in for Google was easy as pie. Now, if I even understood yet exactly where I am on this site now, maybe I could draw one for my visitors, too!
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="WordPress Secure and Accessible Contact Form"][/caption]
Contact is important on a website but so is security. I've had my contact forms hacked on other php based sites for illicit purposes. This "instant cure" for a WordPress contact page saved me.
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="WordPress Twitter Tool plugin"][/caption]
I just installed this plugin today. This tool links your WordPress blog to your Twitter account. Interesting but, up to now, I've never been much of a tweeter (or tweaker either). I replaced my tag cloud with this as I just found the cloud kind of ugly and pointless.
[caption align="alignleft" width="500" caption="All in one SEO Pack plugin"][/caption]
And, the last but most important WordPress plugin on this blog today, All in One SEO. I'm only just beginning to realize all the wonderful things this plugin is doing for me. The nicest part is that it is doing it almost automatically, behind the scenes, without my lifting a finger and I'm getting all the great benefit.
Thanks a bunch for these great plugins guys. They're all free. They all work with the most current version of WordPress in this configuration and they're all great tools.
http://wondersnet.com/wordpress-plugins/
This just in from the wild, o.k., actually Twitter isn't that wild (yet).
Nichole Dean has posted a Enom email that could'a phished me. Or, is that phooled me?
http://wondersnet.com/quick-heads-up-about-enom-email-scam/
As, I *mentioned* in the previous post, I'm taking online to get where I want to go. In my benchmark
http://wondersnet.com/back-to-school-online/
Thought my Saturday night was shot but WordPress is easy to upgrade following the WordPress Codex instructions. I simply deleted most of my old files and installed the new ones except for my configuration file which I used TextPad, my favorite text editor, to add my server information to the new file before I uploaded it. I could have used NotePad or any other text editor and done the same thing.
So, I updated my two WordPress blogs (I also have a family blog) in a few short minutes and didn't really get into the "poetry of code" at all.
Then, as I'm really into learning and moving forward constantly, I decided on an online school for my current education endeavors. I chose Lynda.com for "this semester".
[caption align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Lynda.com Online Learning Library"][/caption]
I'm taking 4
Blogger Essentail Training, which I'm taking because I've already used Blogger and I wanted to be able to judge the quality and completeness of Lynda.com training with something I already knew;
Digital Photography Principles: The Camera, as I've just begun to get into digital photography and I wanted to improve my skills so that my readers wouldn't have to suffer from my poor shots;
Photoshop CS2 Mastering Camera Raw, which I'm taking even though my camera, an Olypus FE-170, doesn't take photographs in the Raw mode because I have a son who can take such Raw format pictures for me to work with and I really hope to upgrade my own camera someday; and
Dreamweaver 8 Essential Training because I've always hand coded all my sites and I don't think you can be a professional web designer unless you know Dreamweaver, can you?
I have a future daughter-in-law that wants to be a web or graphic designer and is going to technical school to that end. It will be interesting to compare the quality of our various "educations" when we get done with our schools, won't it?
http://wondersnet.com/upgrading_wordpress/
You know your Saturday night's shot when you notice those 2 things about WordPress?
I already wonder why WordPress has to be updated so often? I installed WordPress October 1st using my cPanel and wasn't really surprised to see that a newer version was available.
Upgrading WordPress was easy when I hadn't made any posts and I don't expect this time to be any different but we shall see if the whole blog disappears by this time tomorrow :)
But, now another upgrade before October's even over? Since I've already read that a 7.0 WordPress is due in November, it makes me wonder what could be such a big deal to update right now?
I best be careful, all this wondering sends me off on some wild trips on the info highway.
As for "Code is Poetry", that is at the bottom of the WordPress codex site. If "code is poetry" why are we using their blogging "software" rather than writing our own verses? Are they trying to tell me something?
http://wondersnet.com/code-is-poetry-and-update-now-omg/
Found a blog online that was started by a 13 year old Filipino kid a couple of years ago and I picked up a few great blogging tips and a nice quote by Henry Ford:
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
I'm not building products a whole new way like Ford or number one on Google for "make money online" like this really bright young boy (who writes in English) but I am constantly learning new things and I hope to continue to learn until I drop in my tracks.
When I first got online in late December of 2001, the first thing I did was sign up for a basic skills course from MindLeaders. Not only did I quickly learn how to use the Internet but I learned how to use most of the programs that came with my computer months before.
That was my first experience with the video format of online learning and it works great for me. On March 17, 2002, I launched my first ezine and a month or so later, my first website.
Now, I'm thinking of taking a few more online but I don't know whether I want to go back to MindLeaders or on to Lynda.com. I'd love a few comments from anyone with experience at either of these or any other online learning you found useful.
I also found an interesting article by a web design professional that tells me I'm on the right path here. Web design is a life-long learning process and it really doesn't matter you forget to go back to school as long as you learn.
http://wondersnet.com/can-you-learn-web-design/
Found a blog online that was started by a 13 year old Filipino kid a couple of years ago and I picked up a few great blogging tips and a nice quote by Henry Ford:
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
I'm not building products a whole new way like Ford or number one on Google for "make money online" like this really bright young boy (who writes in English) but I am constantly learning new things and I hope to continue to learn until I drop in my tracks.
When I first got online in late December of 2001, the first thing I did was sign up for a basic skills course from MindLeaders. Not only did I quickly learn how to use the Internet but I learned how to use most of the programs that came with my computer months before.
That was my first experience with the video format of online learning and it works great for me. On March 17, 2002, I launched my first ezine and a month or so later, my first website.
Now, I'm thinking of taking a few more online but I don't know whether I want to go back to MindLeaders or on to Lynda.com. I'd love a few comments from anyone with experience at either of these or any other online learning you found useful.
http://wondersnet.com/how-is-an-old-lady-gonna-learn-web-design/
Took a few days off from almost everything and visited family near Minneapolis.
My son, the artist, came from Kansas City and drove me up for his and the youngest grandchild's birthdays.
[caption align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Brightest Brand New 3-year-old on the Planet"][/caption]
Vacations are good but now it's back to time to focus on this site and others.
After all, if you want to be a web designer, you have to build web sites, right?
http://wondersnet.com/vacations/
Should people who are true "newbies", brand new to the Internet, blog?
Absolutely! If you think you've got something you'd like to write or pictures to share, you should be doing it. Newbie doesn't really mean all that much anymore when "software" has made blogging as easy as using your favorite word processor.
Unless you have a reason not to, a free blog site would be a good place for the beginner to test the water.
One good reason you might not want a free blog would be if it was a company blog or you already have a game plan that says you need your own domain name.
Otherwise, a free blog will work just fine to try blogging. You will want to name your blog creatively though and it may take some thought to find the right words for your subject that aren't already taken. Just did a quick search and darkdays can't be yours at WordPress, for instance.
Anyway, a quick google turns up many free blog spots but there are two that are the big kahunas in the blogsphere, Blogger.com and WordPress.com. If you choose a popular blog site, you will find a lot more available help if you do get stuck.
I have a spot at Blogger and this is a WordPress blog but on my own domain. Both blogging sites are completely free and are easy to learn how to use.
Which is better? Personally, I like WordPress but I've really neglected my Blogger.com gig so my opinion may be influenced by guilt pangs.
I did find a really great chart the other evening detailing the differences between WordPress and Blogger. Things may have changed a little since September but the feature list gives you an of some of the things you might want.
I believe either site is very easy to register on and get started with your blog. Do it!
If you do have any problems rolling out your new blog, drop me a comment from the link below. I'll be more than willing to help another blogger out :) Even if you don't have problems, drom me a comment and let me know you did it!
http://wondersnet.com/can-newbies-blog/
Maybe I'll just change my theme every few days so that even I don't know what web site I'm on.
Jus' kidding.
I changed my blog theme last weekend to a theme more "immediately usable" for me. I just couldn't get my head wrapped around the CSS of my previous theme. It was a good theme and Mark's a good guy but it needs a little work for this version of WordPress that neither of us has the time to tackle at the moment.
Maybe I won't be able to use this theme either. For a wannabe web designer, I'm a little weak in the area of CSS still. And, of course, I'm still kinda lame at graphics, too.
So, why do I think I can make the big leap to from wannabe to web designer?
Because I love code. You take a script like WordPress and break it down to "1's and 0's" and you've really got a pile o'paper. Just kidding but I do like code and coding and even make progress at learning different coding languages at times. Everything on the Internet is in code. It's not hard to get a lot of practice.
And I'm good at SEO. SEO to me, is simply, getting your pages seen. I've made a lot of ugly pages so far that still were looked at regardless.
To a point, SEO is a natural occurance, if you're writing about something that people are interested in. If you're not and you can't, then it requires a few tweaks but you can make it happen.
I have a feeling that making it happen is a little different for a blog than some types of web sites. Another one of those "wannabe" experiments going on here, ya think?
http://wondersnet.com/easy-wordpress-theme-change/
Wow, I almost want to start this whole blog mess all over again just because I forgot what it was like when I was a newbie. (And I really swore that would never happen to me, too!)
When I'm talking about a beginner on this blog, I'm talking about someone new to WordPress. That doesn't necessarily mean new to the Internet and to web sites in general.
I'm not going to start all over but I am going to post some tips and instructions for the true "beginner" as well as refine some of the posts I've already made for the "WordPress beginner".
If you are a true beginner just starting out on the web, I think WordPress is a good place to start. We'll have a post on just that topic here in the next few days because there are other options that would work well for you too. I just don't have the time today to go into them.
It's just a little hard to get started with WordPress if you don't have the first of how to get a domain or get things to a domain so we'll take a quick detour here and have a "'Net Beginner" category, too.
I should have made all this clear in the first post on this blog but here you have it :)
http://wondersnet.com/what-i-mean-by-beginner/
I've already got a question about trackbacks.
Suppose I want the trackback link to be a little graphic over in the sidebar kinda where the "your ad here" boxes are?
Those ad boxes ended up over in the sidebar on my new theme you might be seeing here. Who knows? What if I've changed it again before you looked at this? Given the "dynamic" nature of the site, how the heck do I know what you're looking at?
But, anyway, is the right way to go about doing a graphic trackback link to post a comment on their blog and bug them for a 125 x 125 graphic or can you make your own .gif?
I wonder if it 's even good "blog etiquette" to do graphic links under a heading of "Today's Favorite Sites" rather than a blurb about them in a post?
Would it be o.k. with them, do you think, if you saved all those "Today's Favorite Sites" on a page with "That Week's Favorite Sites"?
Oh my, I'll have to get back to you on all of this.
http://wondersnet.com/trackbacks-blog-etiquette/
Since the beginning of this site, a part of it has always been sharing wonder-ful things I find out on the world wide net. I like having someone to share with and my readers in the past thought it was pretty cool too from some of the things they wrote.
Anyway, I want to add a Wonder's Featured Sites toolbar over there on the right but I'm going to have to wait on that until I get a few things figured out.
So without further ado, the start of Wonder's featured sites are:
IT facts, a wonderful ZDNet blog here with a reminder to keep your chin up and a reason I changed my blog template; and
Technical Lists from eConsultant is a list of about every list you're supposed to blog about as a beginning blogger, I believe ;)
http://wondersnet.com/lists-of-lists-and-more-stuff/
I've read quite a few blogs for a long time and I've even left a few comments here and there.
I'd also noticed that some people were leaving "track backs" where I was leaving comments but, until yesterday, I didn't really know what they were.
I wanted to find out because I've already been referring to a lot of other people's blogs here and, if that's the right way to do that, I sure want to be a "good neighbor" and do it right.
I found this very simple instruction on the trackback but as I was finishing up the post I was going to trackback from, I found an even more simple method right in my WordPress admin.
On the "write posts" page, under your new post, are a number of configuration options you can use to add tags and set your category. There is also an option to add a trackback.
I tried it. It works. How sweet is that?
http://wondersnet.com/blogging-basics-the-trackback/
WordPress is Open Source scripting that enables you to use a database to interact with your HTML and CSS based pages.
Is that clear as mud?
It means essentially that the people who use your site have a lot of choice over what they read, watch or whatever there is to do on your site.
Back in my day :) web pages where long things you scanned to find what you were looking for or, usually, used your browser's "Find" function to locate while you opened the next source in another browser widow because tabs weren't invented yet.
If you wanted to read something I wrote a long time ago on this site, you could go to the "Ezine Archives" and read my summary of each issue. You still had to dig through the whole 13 printed pages to find what you wanted to read.
It amazes me that anyone ever went to all that bother.
WordPress, or any other CMS, changes all that.
People can pick little pieces of your site to read based upon the topic, their search terms or maybe at random. I like that.
The biggest reason I chose WordPress is because I knew it was widely supported and had an active developing community.
Guess I really didn't know that WordPress community could change my life until I read Lorelle's Post on WordCamp Portland.
Yep, this site is arms wide open to community. That's what it all started out about.
http://wondersnet.com/why-wordpress/
On my way to the search engine yesterday afternoon to do some research for my previous post about choosing a good theme for a beginner, a wild thing happened.
I put my phrase in Google and started opening the results in Firefox tabs. Got the first opened and went to open the number two result in Google and it was me.
[caption align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Google is the sh*t"][/caption]
Wow, that was only posted 7 hours before I did the search. Google is right on top of it, aren't they?
Anyway, it made my day. Long-tail keywords are something we're going to talk about here one of these first days.
Now, I'd better actually do the research and edit that post so that it's worth finding in a search :)
http://wondersnet.com/a-funny-thing-happened/
The most difficult thing for me as a WordPress beginner is finding the place inside the admin panel when you configure or modify each aspect of your blog. I believe almost everything can be done from there if you know where to find it.
I've hand coded most of my sites almost since my first site in 2001 so this almost seems like "doing it the hard way" to me.
Right now, I'm having trouble configuring my multi-level navigation plugin. I'm pretty sure it's not their fault and part of the problem may be that I simply don't have the pages inside WordPress that I'm trying to link to. Looks pretty funky right now though.
[caption align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The arrows don't mean you can go up"][/caption]
I've also been told that I chose the wrong theme for a beginner. This may be true but I'd rather "fight than switch".
This is a bit off topic but not really as the theme you choose might be very different from one niche to another.
My friend Yan writes about choosing a niche for your blog. In any case, it's one of the best blog posts I've read for awhile. Back to my friend Yan's blog.
Just in case you're wondering, having a local install does help. I'm doing a lot of stuff "live" by choice.
http://wondersnet.com/wordpress-beginner-where-problems-are-cropping-up/
I've been told I chose the wrong theme for a beginner. They're prolly right, they don't call me "Wrong-way Wonder" fer nuthin'.
I did do some research before I chose this theme and I've just done some more today. I found some good advice a few places:
I thought eHow had the most complete and easy to understand advice.
And, I really liked what Paul had to say on the subject over at WordPress Ninja
For just straight up information about what a template is and consists of, I'd have to say the WordPress Codex does it best.
But, I didn't really find the advice I was looking for on any of these sites or the other 30 or so that I looked at.
That's probably because there is no "one size fits all" advice when it comes to choosing a WordPress theme. Blogging platforms, including WordPress, are used for so many purposes that there just aren't any real simple answers when it comes to which theme will work best for you.
Your first consideration has to be "what is the purpose of this blog?"
You're more than likely going to want a far different template for a business blog than a personal one. But, even narrowing it down that far doesn't help much.
If it's a business blog, your blog template choice may be dictated by whether you already have a business web site. If so, you might be smart to have a professionally designed template that matches or compliments your site.
Even if your business doesn't have a web site yet, choosing a business blogging template should be influenced by your current business "brands" if you've established any. In the odd case that you're just today starting your business and a weblog is the first thing you're going to do, you still need to choose a business blog template with your business image in mind.
If you're so lucky as to be doing a personal blog, then you obviously have a much wider choice of blog themes. However, you still need to think about your personal interests. If you're already hooked on Flickr or YouTube, you'll find there are templates that easily allow you to share those interests. A food template probably wouldn't be the best choice for a diet blog, etc. Anyway, I'm sure you see where I'm coming from.
I think the second thing you should take into consideration when choosing a blogging template for any platform is your personal web skill level.
Some templates are very "widgetized", making it very "point and click" to add posts and much more to your weblog. Other pre-made templates are not so simple to use and only allow the most basic posts unless you have an understanding of HTML and PHP.
The nicest thing about WordPress templates or themes is that there about a million of them out there already, many of them free. If you don't make the right choice the first time, it's a really simple matter to change your mind.
In fact, my best recommendation about a WordPress theme for beginners is that you start with a free template or four. You will learn the basics and you can always upgrade to a premium template if you feel the need.
On a personal level, the purpose of my blog is to "learn blogging". I'm a wanna-be web designer and everyone I know seems to want a WordPress blog so I think I'd better know the whole shebang, upside down and backward even.
I chose the template I started with for the simple reason that it is a CSS based fluid and elastic template. My choice of web site designs at the moment, as well. I think I have the skills to pull it off and I'm sure I'll be building my own "from scratch" in the near future so it wasn't a huge consideration what I started with.
http://wondersnet.com/choosing-a-theme-to-customize/
Just a couple of quick notes about installing WordPress on your local machine as I did in my previous post.
Don't try to change the name of your blog folder after installing it. You will really mess things up and, if you are like me, have to start all over again. It's much harder the second time around.
Don't try to replicate an error you are having on your live blog on your local machine. You will succeed and not be able to access either copy of your blog.
I had an error here because I tried to install a sidebar widget that apparently was not compatible with this version of WordPress. So, of course, I installed everything in my local install just to figure out which one it was.
Long story short, I could not access either blog and it took a whole morning to start over.
http://wondersnet.com/installing-wordpress-on-your-computer/
Just when you know something is going to harder than a grave digger's heart, it turns out to be super easy.
I installed WordPress on my local machine easier than on my website. Mainly because I didn't have to upgrade it after the install.
I remembered way back when I had a nifty program called xampp installed on my old WindowsMe machine. It wasn't so happy there so I didn't use it much.
Well Xampp is still alive and kicking and better than ever. I downloaded and installed it into an empty directory I never got around to turning into a swap file.
Then, I found this great tutorial about how to set up WordPress on your local machine. Walla, working, wonderful!
Just one problem. Is blogging on your own machine kinda' like talking to yourself? My kids give me enough crap about that already!
http://wondersnet.com/easily-install-wordpress-on-local-machine/
Customising a theme, at least the theme I chose, is about as easy as I thought it'd be. Which is to say, omg, help!
I've gotten a few things right. Did get a subscription box in the sidebar, for instance.
I've messed up the majority. I've got the basic functions of WordPress so messed up I can no longer add a widget from the administration panel.
The wonderful drop-down menu in the aforementioned theme also seems to be beyond my reach at this point. If I enable it, the whole of my page disappears except for the header.
I'll be at the drawing board awhile.
To save wear and tear on my chosen "Liquid Elastic SEO" theme, I've decided to build my own theme based on that theme and install it. Then at least I can switch back to the Liquid theme and it won't be too mucked up, hopefully.
Where to start? I guess I'll have to figure out how to work on a WordPress theme locally on my own machine. I wanna tell you all this "easy" stuff sure is hard on an ol' lady.
http://wondersnet.com/customizing-a-theme/
I so wish that I could change my middle name to Wella or Winda, something along those lines. Then I could use my initials WWW and its' initials for a blog name. How's "WWW on the WWW" sound?
Or, even if I could change my name to Ophelia or Orcas, I don't think "WOW on the WWW" is too bad.
But I really don't like "WEW on the WWW" which is what it would have to be. I only say "wew" when something smells.
Your blog hostess,
Wonder Ella Wyant
http://wondersnet.com/ww/
I've found (and installed) the WordPress template that I'm going to be using. At least it is the template I want to start from.
[caption align="aligncenter" width="243" caption="My chosen theme"][/caption]
Yes, I know this site doesn't look like Mark's template yet but that is because I haven't added all the plugins and widgets that he has and configured them properly yet.
Gimme a minnit, will ya? Just kidding, I wonder how he did all that?
http://wondersnet.com/wordpress-template-found/
I just noticed this morning that the time on my blog was a lot different than the actual time where I'm at.
That was easy to fix in the Settings > General tab. I'm US CDT which was a +7 this morning. I noted that WordPress doesn't automatically account for Daylight Savings Time though so I'll have to change that setting again later this month when DST ends.
Now, on with my search for the perfect template.
Wow, are there a lot of WordPress templates out there on the Wicked Wonderful Web. So many that it's almost impossible to choose one.
I already know that I want an elastic CSS design. The reasons are many but if you'd like to understand why, Chris Coyier explains it much more clearly than I ever could in his video here.
Wanting this type of template does narrow my choices for a template down considerably. As I've already discovered on a few of my sites, an elastic width that works requires some pretty complex CSS and can make a few hacks necessary.
I also want a lot of template features such as a thumbnail gallery that I'm not going to find in just any template but I will concentrate today on simply finding a template with a basic layout that I can live with and work on as I go.
I've already considered building a "from scratch" WordPress template but after a bit of research, I realize my time contraints right now just won't allow for that though I did get some wonderful inspiration this morning from CSS Glance.
So off for some more template searching. In the meantime, I'll edit some of the sidebar links and add some of my favorite sites and blogs.
http://wondersnet.com/more-steps-to-setting-up-my-wordpress-blog/
After installing, I wrote my first post and upgraded WordPress. All very easy.
I thought perhaps I'd start by adding a theme.
I looked at 3,421 themes and loved hundreds of them before I stumbled across a plugin.
So, the next thing I did was install Bad Behaviour, a plugin I thought I couldn't live without which I found in my search for an easy to edit theme.
I suppose I'll have to explain that paranoid action later, too?
Anyway, then, I'm like, what do I do now?
Fortunately for me, I happened across Yan's blog with a checklist of what to do after you install WordPress. Now, how simple is that?
I'd already added the site name so the first thing I did from Yan's list was to add a tagline. Not a good one but all I could think of right now.
Of course, I followed his suggestion to add some more ping services. Here's the list I added:
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2/
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Next, I attended to my feed and comment settings as Yan directed.
On to creating a new user so I could really be me on my blog and, yes, my name really is "Wonder" and not "admin".
The next step took me a little time as I didn't really understand what permalinks were, let alone how to set them up. Yan got me started in the right direction thinking about being a little search engine friendly and I installed Platinum SEO to help me out with that. (I had a bit of a problem there however. Didn't realize that the folder was inside another folder and loaded the outer folder up to my site. Three hours later, DUH! Not due to the plugin at all but due to my haste to get going!)
Now, I'm up to number 7 on Yan's list. Pick a theme.
Uh, oh! I'll be back in a month or three ;)
W
http://wondersnet.com/what-to-do-first-setting-up-my-wordpress-blog/
Well, I've gone and done it.
Other than a rather weak attempt over on Blogger.com, I really tried to resist "jumping on the blog wagon" for a long time. I'm not really one for "doing what everyone else is doing" on the Internet or anywhere else.
This site was originally intended as a base for my "online operations". Well, the real world got in the way and we'll get around to that other subject later.
But, here we are. I've installed WordPress at my site root. OMG!
I installed through cpanel using Fantastico. My next step will be upgrading the installation to the newest WordPress release.
After that, I'll have a panic attack about the fact I have no how to "connect" all the resource pages on this site to this one!
http://wondersnet.com/hello-world/
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