Update Completed
Posted by Raul on February 8, 2010
It is amazing how “Dumb Person Friendly” is the version 2.9.1 of WP.
After upgrading I spent lots of time adding plugins like a madman (it is fun!). The ventilation fan in my laptop was screaming: “stop it you bastard!”
Since many plugins can be installed just clicking “Install” I tried several just to see what they can do; of course not all of them worked and some even fooled around with the pages moving things as they pleased, so I had to deactivate and delete the big majority of them.
Others had to be installed using Filezilla, so I kept uploading more to the plugging folder. At some point, when opening Filezilla for the “n” time I swear there was a message saying:
“You again?”
“C’mon be nice and upload this one for me, please?”
Still many had to be completed by adding html text in the header.php, sidebar.php, etc, so I spent lots of time with the “Copy and Paste”; update; checking the site to see what happened; going back to change the position of the added script; updating; back to see what happened again, etc.
Throughout this experimentation I learned some basics about the strange language of html ( <p>; </p>; </div>; <h2>; </h2> ), so now the need arises to investigate more about these curious coding systems (html, css, php, etc.)
Definitely Barbara’s idea (Blogging Without A Blog) of using a Test Site is a must. The first four days it was just trying things in this site so to learn how the whole system works, at least enough to know what to do, then on Friday came the time to implement everything in the real blog and it definitely went a lot smoother thanks to the previous experimentation.
So I changed the green color of the header with a picture; used the publicity space in the sidebars for pictures and text; added 400 pluggins (I already told you), etc, and all with a cost of zero dollars using a free Theme and plugins, half a bottle of Aleve for headaches and six gallons of coffee.
It is somehow funny that the Theme that best suited my preferences is called “Bible Scholar” considering that I use it for an “Alien Ghost” blog (Amen!)
Even though the process of updating is completed I still need to keep tinkering with a couple of things here and there, but now I could tell new bloggers:
“I remember the times when we had to upload plugins manually”
“Yes grandpa, you already told us”
So my hopes are that now this blog becomes less “hacker friendly” and more interactive, where people can be “seen” if they take the time to contribute a comment.
It is funny when you think that the mysteries of the universe (or at least the mysteries of computers) little by little and with lots of work can be slowly being deciphered and understood if you are willing to take the challenge and the work that implies to learn them, even if it is the basics.
“Not having enough money to outsource everything is a wonderful thing”
Raul
