KirstenL4W

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want out of my blog. Every now and then, I think every blogger goes through this, and thinks about what they can do to spruce up their blog. But this time, I haven’t been thinking about sprucing up the design or adding/subtracting features from my blog. Quite honestly, there’s one thing that’s been standing in my way: Wordpress. Yep, you heard me right. Since I’ve had WP as my blogging platform, I don’t feel like I know my blog as well as I used to. All the different parts of the template confuse me, php is a mystery, and after more than 18 months, I still don’t know the first thing about the database. I fumbled my way around FTP to install a new theme, and even trying to customize it seemed a heck of a lot harder. And frankly, I don’t have the time to learn all this stuff. When I started out, I had a job that, well, I took advantage of my time there. I did a lot of my blog work at work for the first 6 months. I don’t have that kind of time now, and it’s been a huge stumbling block with my blog.

The constant need for updates on here, that bugs me too. Like I said, I don’t have the time to learn all the technical stuff, and while my web host, Snoskred, works hard to keep it all updated, I’m sure it’s a job and a half, and not one I’d want. The more time I spend on WP, the less I want to know about all that backend stuff. I just want to write, then go out and read other blogs. Comment, spend time on Twitter, Facebook, etc. The fun stuff. The back end of it may be fun for some of you, but not for me. It’s frustrating. I only want to get into the coding part when it comes to my design, and I don’t even enjoy that part of it on WP as I used to at Blogger.

So yeah, I’m contemplating going back to Blogger. I still really love my design on there, one that I worked really hard on and was actually able to get all the spacing and other nit-picky things perfect on. I know I can take my domain with me, and I know it would be a lot of work getting all my posts updated on there. I already set up a test blog and tried importing my blog, but that didn’t work, so I’d have to copy and paste all of them. But I know that backdating works. I’d have to change all my backlinks, which would be a pain, but it can be done. And I can set up a backup blog on wordpress.com, just for backup, though blogger does have an import/export feature now. I know it seems like it would be taking two steps back, but staying on wordpress feels like keeping way too many features that I just don’t need. There’s a lot that wordpress does that I don’t care about, don’t know about, and don’t want to know about. I just want to have fun with it all again.

Has anyone done this - gone back to a free, hosted blog after being self-hosted? How did it go? Any tips? I’m seriously thinking this over, because like I said, I want it to be fun again.

Sorry if I turned anyone off with yesterday’s post.  This is a blog about me, and I do try not to blog about my bodily functions, but I came up with the idea of blogging about it when I was IM’ing a friend.  I’ll get this blog back to normal now.

I want to blog about the Blogger service.  I know there are still a lot of people still on there.  I had my reasons for staying for  so very long.   First of all, having the access to the css and html code for free was great.  I learned so much having that access.  And lots of blogs are on Blogger, so if you’re looking for new stuff to read, it’s pretty easy.  But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Blogger has made some changes that are not friendly to the blogging community at large.  If you are on Blogger, it doesn’t really matter much.   But if you aren’t, then it sucks.

The single biggest change they have made is to the comments.  Without warning, Blogger started requiring an OpenID or a blogger account to comment on other blogs.  I saw my comments drop off to nearly nothing.  I didn’t have a lot of comments to begin with, so seeing them dry up like that wasn’t fun.  Blogger changed things back a bit, allowing a commenter to enter a URL along with their name, with the idea that it will leave a direct link.  Ok, fine.  Those using a Blogger ID still get directed to their blogger profiles - NOT their blogs - and some of those profiles are private so you never get to see the blogger who left the comment.  All in all, it’s a very Blogger-centric way of doing things.

Here on WordPress, if you leave a comment, you are required to leave your email address, though it’s not public.  I don’t collect them for any purpose, but if I want to reply to your comment privately, I can do that.  It also gives you the option to leave a link to your website, which is a direct link, no matter what blogging platform you use.  You can subscribe to comments using any email address.  When commenting on Blogger blogs, I only had the option to subscribe using Gmail.  I have a Gmail account as a backup, but I don’t really use it.  I’ve been using Yahoo for years, and I find the Gmail interface a bit clunky.  I know there are lots of tips out there to get the most out of Gmail, but I haven’t seen enough to make me inclined to want to use it more.

But enough about email.  I’ve ranted enough about Blogger, and if anyone is thinking about leaving, I have an option for you.  I use WordPress, and to elaborate I’ll tell you which one: WordPress.org.  I paid for my own domain name, took a blog friend up on the offer to host it, and making changes and customizations require knowledge of php, which I do not have at this point.  There is an easier way, and that way is WordPress.com.

Wordpress.com has a lot of the same features that Blogger has - it’s free, you can have your blog on line in minutes, and it’s free.  You WON’T have access to the code unless you pay up, but there’s more to a great blog than a great design.  For those who are iffy on switching, Wordpress has thought of that too.  They have an easy import tool that imports all your posts, pictures, comments, and categories with one easy click (just don’t do this more than once or you get double posts).   Then just put a link on your Blogger blog telling people where to find you.  That’s it.  Pretty neat, huh?

Now you will need to recreate your sidebar information, but that isn’t too difficult.  But wanna know what else?  You can have multiple pages, just like a real website.  That is probably my single favorite thing about Wordpress.  New pages are just as easy to set up as a new post is.  Even if you’re not ready to switch, go ahead and set up a Wordpress.com account and play around with it.  When you are ready, it’s super easy.

When you have a few minutes (or more), and/or if you have BBC America, then check out one of my favorite shows: Top Gear.   Even if you aren’t really into cars, it’s a great show.  It’s been described as Motor Trend meets Jackass.  Right now I’m watching them attempt to launch a rocketship made with a Fiat into space.

There’s lots of talk in the blog world about some of the changes that Blogger has made recently. Two of the latest firestorms concern photos and comments.

Blogger makes it easy to upload photos, and they give you a decent amount of storage space so that for those of us who don’t usually post pictures, but like to now and then, we don’t have to use a third party host for our photos. I thought it was some sort of fluke at first. When I went to take a closer look at a picture that Blog Bloke posted, I was prompted to download it. Huh? On their issues page, Blogger offers a workaround for this. Nice that they show you how to get around it, but what about all those people out there who aren’t so technically inclined? That was one of the appeals of Blogger. In fact, I believe their tagline is (or was) “Push-Button Publishing.” The ease of use and everything they offered is one of the main reasons I decided to set up shop here, and having access to the code to fine-tune my template for free kept me here. Still is, actually.

But then there’s the comments. Previously, anyone could comment with any email address. Now commenters MUST have a google/blogger account and related email address (read: gmail) to be able to comment. I have one, obviously, so I’ve not had an issue leaving anyone a comment, but my comments have been way down. I know with my measly little personal blog that comments can be rare at times, but even with my reduced posting schedule I’ve still been able to pull in at least 1-2 comments per post. Now they’ve nearly disappeared. Blogger does offer some psychobabble help about OpenID and something about Blogger Draft, but again, there’s the ease of use issue. Hello!!! A bit more research revealed this site, Blogger in Draft, which has a post about the new comment feature. Considering all the venom being spewed around the blogosphere regarding the new comment features, and the comments on the Draft blog, it seems the politicos are at it again.

There’s been a lot that has been going on at Blogger and Google lately, and a lot of people seem to be pissed off at it. For a while there it seemed like the changes were for the good - Blogger allowed custom domain names, they frustrated a lot of people but ultimately came up with a decent thing with Beta. They had something for nearly everyone - access to the html for geeks who wanted to customize, but super-easy for those who wouldn’t know code if it hit them in the head. Now they seem to be abandoning the blogging for everyone mantra and going for world domination.

I am, for the time being, staying here at Blogger. I have had it at the back of my mind to switch to WordPress, something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time now. I do have a blog at wordpress.com, but I also realize that it’s the Little Tykes version of the full-blown wordpress.org. I’m getting an idea, though. I really like the ability to add extra pages to my blog, which would let me add an extra level of personalization. Right now, though, I just don’t have the time. Snoskred is offering hosting and help setting up a WP blog at bargain-basement prices, which could very well be someone’s Christmas miracle.

Blog Bloke and Devilish Southern Belle have both been detailing their Blogger frustrations and what they’re doing as a result. For me, the comment thing is getting to me because I like comments. I don’t get tons, like I said, but they’ve nearly dried up at this point. I like the blogging community, but Blogger is making difficult for those out in the wild blue internets to be a part of that. The new rules are almost like a secret handshake, and it’s leaving a lot of people out of the club.

I’m giving this some serious thought, and after I make a couple of Christmas crafts that I haven’t even started yet, mail my Christmas cards, send out some CDs for another mix exchange, and make Boyfriend a stocking, besides working full time, having a busy social life, and all the other mayhem that December brings, I just might do it. I’m this close. I’ll be looking at it more in depth after the holidays.

Is there some sort of feed website where I can subscribe to all my favorite blogs and have all new posts on said blogs delivered to my email? I’d like to do this from one single source rather than a rag-tag collection of feeds, and I’d really like them delivered to the email address of my choosing, rather than having to visit yet another website (if I can do that, then I’d just read all the blogs). I’m trying to streamline things here so that I can easily keep up with everyone.

On a side note, does anyone know how I can smack the idiot know-nothings who don’t know what the hell song they’re sharing on L!meW1re? I get so annoyed when I see a song by an artist, thinking that particular artist covered a song I already like, only to find out that it’s not a cover, it’s the original version, and some idiot put the wrong artist to the song. Then again, I suppose the people who use L!mew1re are the same idiots who pimp out their MySpace pages so that they are rendered unreadable by the general population.

I was tagged by Macoosh to answer this, so here goes.

1. I love the chance to express myself. While I don’t necessarily like being the center of attention, this is a chance for me to be as expressive as I need to be, but in a stealth-like way.
2. I can get out all my thoughts the same way I do with my private, hand-written journal, but with an audience, I feel like writing here has a better chance for results.
3. It gives me the opportunity to expand my technical knowlege - pretty much everything I know about html and css is because I wanted to tweak my blog, so I made myself learn it.
4. It wasn’t a reason at first, but it’s a lot of what keeps me going: I’ve made a lot of friends blogging, and those friendships are what make blogging a much richer experience.
5. Because I can.

So there’s that. I’m not going to tag anyone specifically, so if you want to do this meme, go right ahead.

Well isn’t this an interesting turn of events. A short time ago, Bobby promised to make good and get his site back to being the link exchange heaven it used to be. But he slacked off once again, and it seems that someone, or someones, got upset and reported the blog to Blogger for TOS violations. I don’t know how it will turn out, but for now I’ll leave the link in my blogroll until there is resolution. What that resolution is will determine what my course of action is regarding Bobby’s link.

Ok, so the blog design person I contacted isn’t taking new jobs right now. I emailed my friend VegasRic since in addition to his mad Photoshop skills, he also has mad web design skills (though you’d never know it from his blog). I don’t need anything fancy, just his brain and his software to come up with something a bit more personalized. I’ll keep on working on things with my html cheat sheet, and the few books I bought, to see what I can come up with on my own. I have a few things done so far, and it’s kinda the direction I want to go in, but I’d also like it to look a bit more feminine, without being all over-scrolly and such.

I would love to have a bunch of designs at the ready to change them at whim, sorta like the way I change my desktop picture on my home computer. And yes, Blogger still needs to come up with way more designs. The ones they have are decent, at least in a design sense they are good, but they lack variety as far as different themes go.

At least I’m throwing myself into more web design, which came to a screeching halt when I switched over to beta.

Now that I’ve recovered from my minor heart attack over my lack of control with the mouse, which resulted in my messing up my layout big time, I’m ready to post.

So, the big weekend. A big, beer-drinking weekend. Um, I don’t drink. And I don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s day just because I have red hair. I like going against the grain, doing the unexpected, being rebellious. It bothers people to see that I don’t display any holiday spirit, especially on a holiday that’s supposed to be for people like me (meaning pasty white skinned redheads). Whatever.

I did have a nice day though, which could have been any weekend day out of the year. I gathered with some friends and had dinner. The group I spent the weekend with was a bunch of transplanted New Yorkers, and we had ravioli and Italian meatballs along with conversation in the way that only a New Yorker can give. No green beer on the table for me! I prefer pasta to corned beef any day, so this was great. I like small, simple gatherings like that with just a few friends. I did end up crashing there, which was fine because it’s such a comfortable place to be. Slept in, eggs and bagels for breakfast, some more conversation, a catnap, and finally time to go home. It was a great, relaxing weekend.

Last night I took some time to chat with friends online and catch up with reading my blogs and a few other message boards. I’ve been starting to consider paying for a blog template, but there was just the whole paying part of it standing in my way. I couldn’t bring myself to want to pay for it when there are so many free templates available. But, after my little snafu this morning, I looked into it again. The site I contacted doesn’t require payment until installation, so it should be risk-free. Of course, if I knew more about web design and had a decent program to do it on, I’d be doing it myself. That’s probably the one thing I hate most about this new Blogger crap. I don’t get a chance to go into the code anymore and do it myself. They make it too easy to not learn any html/css/xml. So any learning I’ve been doing in that regard has come to a screeching halt, and as they say, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Now it’s all I can do to remember how to do an href tag to make a live link. Ah well.

I did it - I made the switch to Beta. There will be some changes coming. I’m not clever enough with code to make my new template Beta compliant (as in, take the old template and be able to use widgets with it) so I will be making changes. I will no longer have the beautiful template you all have come to know and love, but it will be saved for future reference. I will be changing to a new template that will allow me to use the wonderful widgets, which will allow me to be better organized. I’ll also be going thru the 150 or so posts I have and tagging them all so I can dump Technorati. No offense for those that love it, but I only got it for the labeling abilities, and now that I can do that directly in Blogger, the other one goes.

In any case, be on the lookout for changes within the next few days. I made the switch, but to finish things up to get them the way I want will take time. But first, I have some errands to run, sleep to get since I didn’t really get any last night, and plans tonite. Gah, being unemployed sure keeps me busy!

No, no, no. All you religious D-day freaks can go back to from wherever you came from. I am talking about the end of my employment with Mad Scientist and the gang. They have decided on a replacement for me (a fine choice, I might add) and she will be starting on Monday. I’ll help train her, or rather show her the ropes and just be there for questions, and my last day will be on Tuesday the 17th. As far as a new job, it’s looking like I’ll be working at my friend’s place. Mad Sci was chatting with her for quite a long time the other day, and said he was gonna talk with her some more this evening after the church council meeting. He thinks she’s pretty close to presenting an offer, which would be great. There’s way more room for growth at her company, and I can go so much further. Hopefully I’ll know more tomorrow, and believe me, as soon as I know, you will all know (well, after I call my mom, dad, sister and a few close friends).

I got a chance to talk to The Man tonight. First of all, he shall herein be known as VegasRic. Yes, he is still a man, and a mighty fine one at that. But we shall be just friends, which is a big relief. I’m still wildly attracted to him, but now there’s no pressure, no wondering about the status of things, none of the other pressure that comes with a more romantic relationship. It was a good talk. As for romance, I’d really prefer that it happen spontaneously rather than the whole formal dating process. I mean, you have less time to think about it that way, but it’s so much more fun. And as for The Man VegasRic, we have plans to do cannonballs in his hot tub tomorrow after I get out of work. I think we’ll get about 1 each before we empty the spa.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my blog and the upcoming, inevitable change to Beta. I love my template, but I want to be able to use the widgets and all the other cool features, especially now that more and more bugs are being worked out. But, if you have a non-Blogger issued template and want to keep it, you cannot use widgets without rewriting the code. I bought books and have been studying the help section here, but I’m not so sure. I know eventually there will be non-Blogger issued templates that will work with the widgets. At the moment, as much as I love it, I am actually getting bored with my template. Gasp! I like what Gouda has done with her place, and since she was so kind as to post the code for the changes she made, I just might be a cheesy copycat. I need to put together some sort of header pic first, because Gouda paid money for hers and Macoosh has skills, and I have neither money nor skills, I might have to hit up friends to help me come up with something awesome. (I’m talking to you, Ric!) In the meantime, I’ll continue playing around on my test blog, which contains nothing of interest or substance to you, which is why you haven’t seen it.

Anyhoo, time for dinner. I’ve been saying that for over an hour now. Time for dinner. Yeah.