Blogging Battle Continues

In the vain attempt of getting this blog to look and work a little more how I visualised it, I have been playing around with WordPress. Oops. Big mistake. Page not Found notices popping up all over the screen.

I stupidly tried to change some settings, download the odd revolutionary plugin and activate them hoping to achieve my online vision. But all I’ve managed to do is cause myself grief as once again this software giant has me stumped.

Blogging I thought would be easy. I can write, maybe not polished prose, but I’ve managed to get paid over the years; I’m not techno-dinosaur when it comes to computers (even though I don’t like Windows7); and I have plenty to say (too much as my mother would state). But blogging has now become my nemesis – not the Greek fairy, but my principal enemy.

Admittedly I have fiddled with something on the sidepanel of which I am not completely familiar with, but I didn’t expect this wizardy to simply disappear from the confounded dashboard, never to be found again.

I am not a website virgin by any means, which perhaps makes this worse. I have built websites, manage them and even write content for several, but this ‘all-in-one’ technology has my head fit to explode.

The notebook (paper and cardboard one) is back out on the desk and I have been scribbling furiously jotting down tips and hints on how to proceed from helpful blogs and Wikis around the globe.

I’m not trying to win a Blog Oscar (though if any are going I wouldn’t say no and promise there would be no gushing acceptance speech akin to Ms Paltrow’s) however I would like some gadgets and links to be placed in the right spots and nifty information on the top bar without it deleting anything I’ve already struggled to publish. (and for pages and posts to do what they are supposed to in the right places).

I don’t think this is too much to ask, but as yet I have yet to figure it out. So if you have stumbled upon this blog (because you have been searching for ingenuis tips on blogging techniques and thought you’d call in on the uninformed site for a bit of a laugh and perhaps share with your friends, facebook or no, to see how it’s not to be done) then thank you for sticking with me.

It will take me sometime to get my head around this old blogging lark, though if you can push and point me towards the path of enlightenment with regards to WordPress then please leave your comments below. All will be gratefully received.

B is also for blogging

Blogging – sharing thoughts, information, hints and humourous musings with other like minded people. Sounds great, like an online notebook – of which I have hundreds. What a simply super idea I thought.

It should also put paid to purchasing notebooks (of which I have something of a fetish). I can continue to scribble my thoughts, won’t be lured into purchasing ludicrous numbers of notebooks, which in turn means I won’t have to find more boxes to store any more. Terrific.

So how do you go about this blogging thingy-ma-jig? Get notebook and make a list of things to search on t’internet. Blogs; what is blogging; how do I get myself one of these darn blogs?; easy to use technology-stuff for idiots to create a blog.

Quick jaunt around cyber space reveals, on all relevant search engines, WordPress is what’s all about. Great, sign me up and let’s get writing.

Zoom forward five, gruelling, hours three weeks. Writing consists of several gouged doodles on aforementioned notebook. Particularly impressed with ‘blogs are evil motif’.

Five hours plopped in front of laptop and I feel I am no further forward. I have a blog. Not sure where it is – it keeps moving, or appearing to move, but not where I want it. Pages aren’t named what I want them to be and I am not a happy bunny.

I’ve chain smoked my way through a packed of cigarettes, had two bathroom breaks and although currently the fridge is only feet from my desk, have not ventured near it and feel now I don’t have the energy to.

Notepad is full of scribblings, though not sure what most of it means as it was written while keeping a beady eye on the laptop screen in case ‘the blog’ disapeared again. From what I can make out I have to tag something in a cloud, nail something to a post and permafrost will do the rest.

Frustrated does not even cover the level of emotion emanating from me to battered laptop.