Category — Half Stitched to Hi Tech

Recently I came across Audrey’s Country Crafts blog and her posting for a blog follow. Since many of use who have just started blogging and have been looking for ways to increase our viewership, this really peaked my interest.  So I signed up using the MckLinky below.  It really looks like a good way to find some really cool blogs.  This will be my first Friday as a part of the Friday Follow, so we will see how it goes.  But, I’m am very excited about discovering another way to network and learn and about other bloggers.

Here’s how YOU can join the celebration:

* * Link up your blog name and URL using the MckLinky below. Only need to add to one blog linky.

* * Follow the Friday Follow hostesses listed in the first 3 slots. We will follow you back.

* * Follow as many blogs as you like

* * Comment on the blogs telling them you’re from Friday Follow

* * Follow back when you get a new follower through Friday Follow

The Blog Hop is the same at each of our three hosts blogs so you do not have to add your blog at each site. Just one – but you can follow each host blog. Here is the great part, we will follow you back.

So hopefully I will start seeing some of your names on the blog follow list and even host your own blog follow soon.

Until next time,

~Halfs

Over the summer I decided to start a blog.  I spent days (yes literally days) looking at templates on Blogger.  I would download one and try it out, playing with all the features.  After staring at it a couple of hours, I would decide I didn’t like it and try another.  I think I posted once and my template changed about 50 times.  Take away…changing your template does not create more posts.  You must actually write them.

Flash forward to January 2010.  I decided I must have a blog.  Not only for my shop but also, I am a college student who is hoping to go to graduate school in a year and I need to get use to writing again.  Nothing is more daunting to me then the blank page.  I never know how to get things started.   So, I figured this would be  a good way to brush up on my writing and typing skills.  So I started looking into Word Press.  I read several forum threads and other bloggers suggestions on formats to use.  Of course, everyone has a different opinion.  I decided I just needed to try things out and get a feel for myself.  I signed up for an account on wordpress.com and started to play around with there templates.  Again with the templates!!!  Geez, I really needed to get a grasp for what I wanted.  I decided the best way I could decide what I wanted was to look at other blogs I liked and find out what template format they were using.  I found a few cool ones and started googling themes like Thesis and Cutline.

While I was on there sites and tooling around trying to figure out the keys to customizing them, I kept reading about self hosting.  What is this self hosting you speak about?  You mean putting a WordPress blog on your own website?  I have my own .com, can I really?  Yes, I can!!  I’m currently having my own website built but don’t have it up and running yet.  Can I still put my blog on there?  Why yes, Yes you can!  Great!!!  But wait, I don’t know anything about web ugh stuff.  Then I came across this blog post.  Which, had a link right back to WordPress on how to install on your web host.

Willing to dive head first into just about anything, I pulled up my control panel for my web host and looked for Fantastico.  I thought I had seen the icon on there once before and hopefully I wasn’t mistaken.  Yippeeee!  It was there.  Click.  Click.  There’s WordPress.  Click.  And magically it said on my screen WordPress has been added.  I can’t believe it was so easy.  Fantastico is just that, Fantastico! Now, I just needed to log in at wordpress.org, not to be confused with wordpress.com, and upload the theme of my choice.

I settled on Neoclassical.  1) because it was free 2) because it had a customizable header 3) it had a multi-image rotatable header  (check it out, refresh the page and you will see a different header) 4) it had 3 columns.  It took me awhile to figure out the whole header thing.  But, I finally got my own images up there instead of the default images and I am pleased.

Now, I’ve decided I must learn html code.  It’s a must if I want to do anymore customizations or more importantly, learn to fix my mistakes.  My poor web designer/brother-in-law would be bugged to death if I didn’t.  I went to Half Priced Books and found a good, simply put instruction manuel on learning code, Creating Web Sites The Missing Manual. I’ve finished three chapters so far and already I am able to write simple code. Not quit ready to finish building my own site but maybe,  I’ll at least be able to maintain it.

Hopes this helps those who really want a blog but just don’t know what you want.  You may not get it just right the first time but do keep trying!