Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
An Idiot’s Guide to Blogging
I’d like to thank all of you who have gone out of your way to help me with my troubles — Pat, Hedgehog & Peacefrog, Monica, everyone. Thank you.
By the way — Monica? You beat me:
And now, I would like to share a little bit of what I have learned. About blogs, not sluttiness. Clearly, I have much to learn about sluttiness. I mean, 49%? I’ve never scored 49% on a test, never.
Q: Why did my blogroll keep shuffling?
A: I had the ‘sort order’ set to ‘random,’ rather than ‘name.’ Here’s how to change it (we’re talking WordPress now, okay?) Go to your Admin dashboard and click on the Links menu item, then the Links Categories menu item. For the Blogroll listing, check to see what’s listed under Sort Order. If you want your Blogroll alphabetized, click on Edit, then use the Sort Order pull-down menu to change from Random to Name. Voila.
Q: I can’t change to a new theme!
A: Those nifty unzipped theme files don’t do you any good on your hard drive, nimrod. You need to FTP them up to your wp-content/themes directory. Man, you are such a retard.
Q: How do I change the time stamp?
A: From your Administration Dashboard, click on the Options/General tabs. On this page, you’ll be able to change your tagline (“dig the frog”), email address, time stamp, and a few other things besides. To change the time stamp, I had to type in -8 in the box labelled Times in the weblog should differ by. That fixed it.
It messed up the order of comments (kind of like doing time travel the easy way). I could edit the time stamp on the comments to put everything back in order, but I’m not that anal.
Q: How did you put the frog up there?
A: I baited him with fruitflies. How else would you get a frog up there?
I use Jasc PaintShop Pro to do my image work, including photoshopping. I found a nice frog image (using Google’s image search engine), then cropped it and adjusted the image size using PaintShop Pro. I fixed it so the image would be roughly the right size and shape to fit my header.
Next, I uploaded the jpg image (with my FTP program) to the appropriate file on my hosting site. For me, the path is wp-content/themes/tiga/images (tiga is the name of this particular theme).
Finally, I went into my WordPress Admin Dashboard, clicked the Presentation and Theme Editor tabs, opened the Header file, and put the usual image code (img xsrc=”URL for image” align=”right”) after the (body) code:
(/head)
(body)(img xsrc=”http://ballsandwalnuts.com/wp-content/themes/tiga/images/leuc.jpg” align=”right”)
(div class=”header”)
Note that I have substituted (parentheses) for the usual HTML brackets.
Naturally, my initial image didn’t have exactly the right cropping, so I fiddled with it in PaintShop Pro, uploaded the new image, and refreshed my page. By keeping the same file name on the image, I didn’t have to mess with anything in my header.php file. I went back and forth like this until my image fit the space nicely.
Piece of cake!
I’ll add to this list as I learn more about WordPress. By the way, let me know how you like this new theme. I’m happy with it, but I hope I’ll be able to figure out how to put some images into the header. Some walnuts would be nice. And a few balls, too.
D.
PS: Hey, Karen! Can you help me cram for my next sluttiness test?
(I know, I know. If I’m asking my wife for help, I can’t do better than a C.)
Hey, I knew you could figure this out! Yay for you! WordPress seems to have a lot more stuff to play with than Blogger, or maybe I just haven’t fiddled with Blogger enough.
I don’t know if I ever will now, since my favorite tutor has gone to a different blogging planet.
Woe is me. *sigh* [It’s the sleep deprivation talking, honest, I’ll be better tomorrow]
Um, I don’t mean to be nitpicky, Doug, but my name is misspelled on your blogroll.
Hello Doug,
Glad to see you are Blogarhythmic again. I knew you’d whip it eventually.
I just learned something from you about Word Press. I think I’ll go and alphebetize our blog roll. I don’t think Peacfrog cares if it writhes around aimlessly but I am not merely compulsive, I am truly compulsive, so I have to fix it.
Still reformatting the wretched computer, but breaking to come up for air. We had to wipe the hard drive completely clean and start over again. All day and we are still only about 1/3 reloaded.
Never crash your Windows XP OS. Now I know that Bill Gates really is trying to take over the world. I think he’s going to succeed too.
Look, 49% slutty is not all that shabby. Besides, you have a fine mind. You can learn more about it and retest.
Take care,
Hedgehog
Hey Doug. Ya know, they didn’t talk about the other 51%. You’re 49% slut, 30% boy toy, and 21% stud muffin. We educators know it’s not the test taker, it’s the test.
luuvley blog, finally.
I like the new theme. It is readable, clean, elegant, suave, and debonair.
I’ve had damn little time to fool with WordPress since moving over, but maybe I’ll have some in the near future. PHP Whiskey Sexy, as they* say.
* I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but they’re weird.
I don’t know, Doug. I think you’re just going to have to come to terms with only being half a slut.
I got a 70% myself, but quite a lot of it was for my
adventurousmisspent youth.Like the new blog–looks very professional. Don’t like not being able to preview my comments, though–so if there’re typos, I’m blaming you. 🙂
Yeah, I can live with this format. I’d like a little bit more color, but this ain’t bad.
Shelbi, I’ll fix that ASAP. I need to see if I can figure out how to get into the Admin board from a different computer.
I am digging the new space. Sleek. Biege. Slutty. I await more stories of pus and puke and mucus, etc.
RB
Dea r Doctor:
I read what you said about my New Web Diary and I am not a spoof and yyou shouldn’t not call kids names. My Daddy is getting me a flame thrower for by berthday. Where is the infomation about boogers?
I come clean at last. 100 percent slut. Don’t hate me for divulging the truth.
I still miss the frog
I miss the frog too.
But this blog is nice too. (looking around)
The colors are relaxing.
Hey, I beat you at something ;o)
Jona, you’re not going to cough up any numbers? Add “tease” to “slut.” 😉
Sam, Kate, I’ll work on the frog. Maybe even give you folks a new frog. I’m partial to Dendrobates leucomela, the jack o’lantern of poison dart frogs.
Sniper, click on the pink nose on the left sidebar, and you’ll learn all you want about wax, boogers, and phlegm. Be careful with that flamethrower — they’re heavy. You might hurt your back if you’re not careful.
Shelbi, I’m off to fix your name RIGHT NOW.
Thanks for commenting, folks! I appreciate all the feedback on the new look.
make sure he’s got the throat thing going on, okay?
Oh, man, are you picky! I can see I’m going to have to rotate my frogs. (Not unlike rotating tires.)
Sorry,
I forgot to say you’re welcome for the help. Anytime.
Also I had to break down and take the test. I’m 54% slutty. I can’t post it on my blog though. I can see it now if I did. I would have to start a new peace group called Sluts for Peace.
Our slogan would be, “We will persuade you to oppose the war in ways your mother never discussed with you.” Uh no. Can’t do it. I don’t know how slutty Peacefrog is.
Hedgehog
(Running finger between neck and collar):
Man, I got a tough room tonight, a tough room.
Kate, you will look upon my D. leuc with admiring eyes, or I will visit you with a plague of P. terribilis.
Oh, I see what’s happening now. I fixed the time stamp, so everything in the comments is out of order.
Aw, to hell with it. This lends a surreal quality to the comment thread.