Working at Home on the Internet

Update on the Moving Process

So far, since I moved in, I have changed the Background of the Header, the Type Style and Color of the Main Title and the Blurb.  I also softened the Borders around the Head, Main Body and the Sidebar and it’s Content. 

They were pretty simple, just locate the appropriate portion of the style sheet and experiment with various colors and add the “italics” for the title.

Putting in the links for the BlogRoll, Forums and E-Books as well as the Category List was even easier.

There are still a couple of things that I want to change in the Template, but I can’t figure out how…

I want to enlarge the Post Title and put a little space between Author/Categories and the Main Body.  Not much but a little space so it doesn’t look like they are “connected at the hip”. I have tried changing the font from 12px to 112px on the Story Title as an experiment and also tried to 120%.  This did work on the Main Title, but not on the Story Title.  I even tried combining that change with a change of % in H2.

Nothing seems to work…  I did try changing the font in the “pre” section as well.  That DOES change the Title, AND EVERY LINK on the Blog. 

This is not to mention that I also want to change those stupid quotes at the top of either Sidebar to One Of My Own Stupid Quotes.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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June 27th, 2006 at 01:16pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Suggestions | 6 reader remarks | Print This Post

WordPress vs Blogger (preliminary review)

 vs

Ok, so now that I am mostly moved in, I think it is time to make at least a preliminary comparison between My New Home on WordPress and that run down neighborhood I just moved away from…

There are some similarities:

Both are easy to write and post an article in only a few steps.  You can preview a draft so you can get an idea of what it will look like.

That is where the similarity ends as far as I can tell.

Blogroll Type Linking:

Blogger… You need to set it up through the template and place it where you want it to show. You need to know CSS etc in order to write and place your links.

WordPress… Easy to set up through Link Management, and you can build various sections to separate links into categories.

Categories:

Blogger… Long drawn out process to add a category list. You must create posts to hold each category and as you add to the list within it, you must republish both the old post and the new.

WordPress… Simple as adding a category while in the write post section, or add the post to an existing category while writing.

Preview:

Blogger… You can preview a post as you are writing, without saving as a draft, but it shows on a plain background.

WordPress… A post cannot be viewed while writing, it must be saved as a draft to view.  Once it is saved as a draft, it can be viewed as it would look on the actual page.

Adding Pictures to Posts:

Blogger… It is a simple process to add a picture (when it works), just upload it from an existing file on your computer, or import from the web. Very limited on placement within the post, Left, Right, Center.

WordPress… Same simple process as Blogger to upload, but I haven’t found a way yet to import from the web. Placement within a post, drag it to where you want it, and it’s there.

Templates:

Blogger… There are a good number of templates to choose from, all predetermined by Blogger. Be sure of your decision before you add anything to your sidebar, if you change later, everything will be lost.

WordPress… If you have your own domain and use WP, you only get two choices of templates. You must look for, choose, download and upload new templates to your host. I found some of the process more than a little frustrating (caused by my inexperience). I don’t know if there are issues in changing the template later, I will find out I’m sure.

Pre-Set Posting:

Blogger… It cannot be done, you can save a draft for a future date, but you must physically post it that day.

WordPress… I haven’t tried it yet, but the option is there and I have seen many WP users who have done it.

As I said, I am in the very early stages of using WordPress on my Own Domain. I will be doing a lot of tweaking here as I had done on Blogger. I still have to find out how to get this on FeedBurner without losing the old Working at Home on the Internet feed. I don’t know if it can be done since they both have the Same Name, even though the URL’s are completely different.

Then I have to look into counters and advertising, etc. Not to mention, how to add them all to the site. There is still a lot of work to do ’round here.

June 26th, 2006 at 12:52pm | Posted by Joe | Blogging, Linking, Reviews | 4 reader remarks | Print This Post

Blogger Edits One of My Posts

In any move from Blogger to WordPress, there is an option to import old posts from Blogger to a new site.

I did this and found that Blogger Edited one of my posts as it was downloaded to this Blog.  I had a post on Tweaking Meta Data back in December on Blogger.  This is the original link… Tweaking Meta Data.

This is what I ended up with on the WordPress Blog.

 I don’t know how or why it happened, but when I tried to put it into a Category, it rearranged my whole page and put my sidebars directly over the post.

 It’s not bad enough that they edited the post, but how can they justify blocking the whole post?  I had to re-download the post just to get my page back to normal.

I am SOOOOOO glad I bought my own Domain and host service.  If that’s the way Blogger treats someone who transfers service, they can’t think too much of the people who are still there.

June 25th, 2006 at 06:44pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Blogger, Google, Rants | 1 reader remark | Print This Post