A Day In My Life

Since I learned to read, I have been fascinated with words. I quickly realized that, via words on a page, I could go anywhere and do anything I (or the books’ authors) could imagine, physical limitations notwithstanding. The world opened up further when I discovered I could write my own words.  Since then, I’ve never known a time I was not writing something, somewhere. Letters. Poems. Essays. Stories. Assignments for school/college. Personal musings. Lists. (I’m infamous with at least one of my friends for my To Do lists.)  Give me a pen and paper or a keyboard; I’m good to go.  Some people create art with paints, oils, or charcoal; I use words as my medium of choice, and I have long acknowledged the power of words.

I’ve never been really comfortable with keeping diaries; even as a child, I felt too much pressure to write much more than most diaries (usually set up with about six lines per day for a year, with a nice little lock (that wouldn’t keep out a really determined little brother or three and a tiny key that usually got lost somewhere in a week) would allow.  I also thought keeping a diary meant I should be writing every day, and sometimes there was nothing I felt was worth writing about.

Journaling appealed to me more: I found it much less cramped, in a sense.  Still, using pen and paper frustrated me, because my mind works faster than I can physically write.  I learned to use a typewriter (manual first, electric later) as a form of physical therapy to strengthen my left hand when I was fourteen, and became more prolific as a writer. Then I found computers with word processing software, and I felt like a five year old who’d been handed the keys to the candy store and a sack full of nickels.  Eventually I began to hear, via the internet, about web logs (online journals) also called blogs. I knew that whatever is published on the internet stays there, in some form, for a very long time, if not forever. . . and I was hesitant to try my hand at blogging.  Eventually, though I took the plunge.  I liked blogging well enough that I convinced a good friend of mine to start his own blog, despite his protests he had nothing to write about.  I am finding it isn’t so much the end result of blogging that interests me (although it certainly does), as much as it is the process that holds me rapt.

First there was Blogger.com, with a generic Blogger template. Very basic, nothing special. I created several blogs there, some of which are still on Blogger (for now).  Then I did a lot of reading of other blogs, and discovered that generic template could be edited and personalized.  Cool.  I stumbled around for a while in some strange looking html code, wrecking my Blogger template more than once in some pretty creative ways, until it began making sense. I discovered how awesome it can be to watch things happen, literally under my fingers as I began to write my own html (with a lot of help from books and online resources) for use in personal web pages.

Things rocked along pretty well….and I even developed my own website based on a personal webpage I created and used for an online word game on a free web host; I put it online for other players to use, and it has been online for almost two and a half years. (If I removed it, I’d probably be in some trouble, but I digress.)  I continued writing html code and made some personal pages for a few of my friends. I think some of those pages are even still in use.   Gradually, as a blogger, I began to feel too restricted,  and decided to move my main blog to a different platform.  After some research and consideration, I moved to WordPress.com:

I have moved this blog to WordPress(.com) after almost four years with Blogger. I have been wanting to make this change for a while, and I have to say I’m impressed with what I’m seeing thus far. Eventually, I plan to get a paid webhost account for my own website, and will then be using WordPress there, but this makes a good bridge. I’m looking forward to getting established here. I was very nervous about changing to WordPress, but I found a good tutorial with a little research, and it has been easy to do. I did have trouble importing my blogroll, but I will get it sorted out as I go along.

Still a free host, but with a few more options than Blogger has (IMHO, even the updated Blogger is not as feature rich as WordPress.com which in turn, is not as rich as WordPress.org).  I settled in, and did some posting, and more reading. Fairly soon, I began to feel the old stirrings of discontent again. I wanted to spread my wings more than WordPress.com allowed.  I wanted to get my hands into the code again. I decided to get my own domain.  I asked around, and settled on my current paid web host, which offers automatic install of WordPress.org.  I finally managed to install WP without blowing anything up. I’ll take my successes where I can find them.

Since I’ve never had a domain of my own before, there is a learning curve on not just one but two fronts: my paid host and WordPress.org:

I am sometimes not a patient person. I notice this when I am beginning any new project: I want it done…last week.  And so it is with this blog, since I’ve just signed up with a paid hosting company. I know, logically, that it will take time to get things set up and working the way I want them to be.  I just don’t like it not being done yet.  I need to back up a couple of steps and do some reading and study help files and such.  So it will be a while yet before I am ready to really start working on moving my other site to the paid host, never mind creating any new ones.

Approaching WordPress.org and a paid web host at once as a neophyte is more than daunting. It puts me in mind of when I first began learning to use Firefox.  I felt the same initial frustration, puzzlement, gradual confidence and comfort, and now Firefox is indispensable. So it is with WordPress.org and the paid host, except that this time, it’s a double-whammy.  I became very confused, and frustrated with the paid host and with WordPress.org. I just wanted them to work. This time, though, comparatively little was “out of the box ready to roll.” I found no shortage of information or resources; I was instead overwhelmed by the amount of information available for both. I had trouble finding a place to put my feet; I did not even know what questions to ask, let alone who to ask.  So, my blog lay dormant for a few weeks.  It took me a while to figure out how to post under my username instead of as “admin,” because I was using the log in information provided by my web host to log in to WordPress, instead of using my WordPress information to log in with. Even that small issue made me irritated. I admit, I am perfectionistic. . . . (I did not give up writing in the meantime; I simply wrote in other places, online and off.)

A few days ago, I was adding links to an online bookmarking site to use as my starting page in my browser, and decided to have one more crack at WordPress, to see what would happen.  Wonder of wonders:

After a few weeks of being so frustrated I couldn’t even look at this blog, I decided to log in today when I was setting up a new online start page for Firefox.  I logged in, using my WordPress user name and password instead of the ones my web host provided, and…it just works. I even upgraded to the newest version of WordPress, and the sparkle is back in my day. I don’t like to be without my blog(s)!  And it’s so much better on my own domain.

I slowly began reading more about how to work with WordPress, but first I had to get FTP software, then I had to configure the software and my router so that I could connect to my domain.  As soon as I was successfully connected to the domain, I started looking to see what the possibilities are.  Themes? Plug-ins? more customization, by the truckloads. A lot more power and flexibility into the bargain.  I gathered my courage and  downloaded, installed and activated my first new theme and a plugin yesterday, and I am once more captivated.  And today, I found more themes and more plugins (even a plugin for installing plugins without needing FTP: plugin central!)  Technically I still have not had my hands in raw template code on WordPress, but I am more confident than ever that it will come, and this time I am not as impatient, because I am becoming much more confident. What a difference a little time can make!  I am beginning to realize how powerful WordPress is, and the freedom of having my domain is inspiring. I do have plans for at least two more websites.

Now, the fun really begins . . .

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Blogging, coding, computer, hacks, tweaks, web design. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.