Remember Geocities? And then one day, Yahoo bought them out, and then not long after that, Geocities was taken down. A distant memory..
Geocities was a bit of a training ground for me in the realm of web design and HTML. I learned quite a bit from trial and error, learning how to read code by way of "what happens if I do this...." and some of it through books (though not much. I mean, for us non-tech-savvy types, those things read like stereo instructions in Sanskrit).
I had an absolute blast making my pages for my poetry, my hobbies, my pets, my kids, just whatever. When Geocities was discontinued, I cried. HARD. All that work, all those headaches, all those times trying new things... GONE. I was CRUSHED. The pages I'd made for my children, a thing of the past.
Well, a few weeks ago, the domain company I registered tweakymuse with, was having a sale on domain names. $1 and change US for the first year. $15 and change every year thereafter. After thinking things over, and calling said company and asking questions about any possible hidden fees or charges, I told the rep I'll discuss things with my spouse and call back if we decided to go through with it. We ended the call, and husband and I sat down and discussed the pros and cons. There's money to be made in blogging and freelance writing, and if you want to get your name out there, you've gotta have something to show for your word that you can do what you claim you can do. Well, I've only had my creative voice back all of 8 months. Husband and I went over every possible rabbit trail with a fine-toothed comb. What would this look like if we did this, would it help further my dream, would it hinder it, would it be worth it in the long run to spend the $15 and change a year? That's cheaper than a magazine subscription, and once I start bringing in money from freelance writing, the site would really pay for itself and then some as I gain experience and exposure.
So, we decided, ehhhh, why not. It's only $1 and change for the first year, couldn't hurt to give it a try, and if it doesn't work out, no harm, no foul. I call the company back, armed with payment method, ready to do this thing. We get things situated, the site's registered, and then...............crap. I don't have anywhere to build this! What I've just done is register a piece of cyber land, I haven't got the cyber tools and the cyber materials to build my little cottage in space! Oh, noes! So, I call back, and the rep tells me, "Yeah, this is what you've got to do..." and I was given a few options. None of which I liked the sound of. Like, if I went with THEM, I'd have to pay so much A MONTH for the tools and materials as it were. Ummmmm, no. Pass.
I look into another..... place, and they wanted me to pay them for hosting rights. CRAP. SO, I looked around, and it seemed like closed door after closed door met me. Well, that's frustrating! A very cool friend of mine and husband's offered to give me some space on his server, he'd be my host for my domain. GREAT! THANKS SO MUCH! So, he asked where I wanted it to go, and I told him [initial place]. I'm all excited like a kid at Christmas. I dink around with [site] and their setup, and I can't make heads OR tails of what I'm doing. Completely different than what I'm used to, and there's no way to do everything from scratch, like Iearnt to do with Geocities.
Well, another friend recommended [current host*] and told me that [initial site*] wasn't very stable, and so I got in touch with my friend that's generous to let me "borrow" space on his server, we get into a discussion about what to do, and he tells me, "there's no way at all I'm opening FTP protocol (i think that's the word he used?) on [initial site] because they're not the greatest. I went with them for you because that's what you told me you wanted to do." +hand to forehead+ Yup. I own that. My mistake, but to be fair, I didn't know. LOL I'd never heard of [current host] before my other friend had mentioned that's who she uses.
Okay, so I get in touch with [domain registry company that I am paying for my yearly subscription*] and 19 screenshots and almost 30 minutes in chat later, [current site] is all set up. I've spent the majority of my evening playing around and trying different setups, different layouts, this, that, and the other.
I decided to post some of my stuff I'd posted on [another writing site*] on here, and the text was all discombobulated when I'd go to check it. This was an issue for a few hours, trying this, readjusting that, lots of snarling at my screen in determination to not be beaten by a silly decimal being in the wrong place! So, lots of fighting later, it hits me: Maybe I'm using the wrong program to get the text to act right. I mean, stranger things have happened, right? So, I open Text Editor (for you Windows users, that's the equivalent of "word pad"), cut the text from the edit window of each post, paste it in the Text Editor window, and then "save" the post like it was still on my blog to "trick" the site into thinking it was still there. I went to the Text Editor program, copied the text, cut it, and turned around and pasted it into the correlating spot, clicked "save," and then opened my page, refreshed the browser, opened the post I was working on, and VOILA! IT WORKED! So, I repeated the same method with the other post that was giving me issues, and that one worked, too! SO happy!
HTML stuff is not nearly as confusing to me as DNS codes and hardware. Some HTML I can do in my sleep (and have).
The OTHER thing that I did tonight, and I posted this on Facebook earlier, I found a way to get a background I LIKE, AND with my friend's help, figured out a work-around for HTML code to get it to stop scrolling with the posts. The background stays put when you scroll! How cool is THAT! I used a program called Tea, I opened it up, highlighted and copied ALL the HTML code in the template, pasted it in Tea, and in the little box where you type a word or character to be located, so I wouldn't go blind from reading rows and rows and ROWS of code (some of which I DO know what it means and how to tweak it to do what I want), I typed in "scroll" and hit "search," once that word popped up, highlighted, I erased it and put "fixed" in its place, highlighted the code, copied it and pasted it in the HTML template, clicked "save," and lo and behold........ IT WORKED.
Geocities was a bit of a training ground for me in the realm of web design and HTML. I learned quite a bit from trial and error, learning how to read code by way of "what happens if I do this...." and some of it through books (though not much. I mean, for us non-tech-savvy types, those things read like stereo instructions in Sanskrit).
I had an absolute blast making my pages for my poetry, my hobbies, my pets, my kids, just whatever. When Geocities was discontinued, I cried. HARD. All that work, all those headaches, all those times trying new things... GONE. I was CRUSHED. The pages I'd made for my children, a thing of the past.
Well, a few weeks ago, the domain company I registered tweakymuse with, was having a sale on domain names. $1 and change US for the first year. $15 and change every year thereafter. After thinking things over, and calling said company and asking questions about any possible hidden fees or charges, I told the rep I'll discuss things with my spouse and call back if we decided to go through with it. We ended the call, and husband and I sat down and discussed the pros and cons. There's money to be made in blogging and freelance writing, and if you want to get your name out there, you've gotta have something to show for your word that you can do what you claim you can do. Well, I've only had my creative voice back all of 8 months. Husband and I went over every possible rabbit trail with a fine-toothed comb. What would this look like if we did this, would it help further my dream, would it hinder it, would it be worth it in the long run to spend the $15 and change a year? That's cheaper than a magazine subscription, and once I start bringing in money from freelance writing, the site would really pay for itself and then some as I gain experience and exposure.
So, we decided, ehhhh, why not. It's only $1 and change for the first year, couldn't hurt to give it a try, and if it doesn't work out, no harm, no foul. I call the company back, armed with payment method, ready to do this thing. We get things situated, the site's registered, and then...............crap. I don't have anywhere to build this! What I've just done is register a piece of cyber land, I haven't got the cyber tools and the cyber materials to build my little cottage in space! Oh, noes! So, I call back, and the rep tells me, "Yeah, this is what you've got to do..." and I was given a few options. None of which I liked the sound of. Like, if I went with THEM, I'd have to pay so much A MONTH for the tools and materials as it were. Ummmmm, no. Pass.
I look into another..... place, and they wanted me to pay them for hosting rights. CRAP. SO, I looked around, and it seemed like closed door after closed door met me. Well, that's frustrating! A very cool friend of mine and husband's offered to give me some space on his server, he'd be my host for my domain. GREAT! THANKS SO MUCH! So, he asked where I wanted it to go, and I told him [initial place]. I'm all excited like a kid at Christmas. I dink around with [site] and their setup, and I can't make heads OR tails of what I'm doing. Completely different than what I'm used to, and there's no way to do everything from scratch, like Iearnt to do with Geocities.
Well, another friend recommended [current host*] and told me that [initial site*] wasn't very stable, and so I got in touch with my friend that's generous to let me "borrow" space on his server, we get into a discussion about what to do, and he tells me, "there's no way at all I'm opening FTP protocol (i think that's the word he used?) on [initial site] because they're not the greatest. I went with them for you because that's what you told me you wanted to do." +hand to forehead+ Yup. I own that. My mistake, but to be fair, I didn't know. LOL I'd never heard of [current host] before my other friend had mentioned that's who she uses.
Okay, so I get in touch with [domain registry company that I am paying for my yearly subscription*] and 19 screenshots and almost 30 minutes in chat later, [current site] is all set up. I've spent the majority of my evening playing around and trying different setups, different layouts, this, that, and the other.
I decided to post some of my stuff I'd posted on [another writing site*] on here, and the text was all discombobulated when I'd go to check it. This was an issue for a few hours, trying this, readjusting that, lots of snarling at my screen in determination to not be beaten by a silly decimal being in the wrong place! So, lots of fighting later, it hits me: Maybe I'm using the wrong program to get the text to act right. I mean, stranger things have happened, right? So, I open Text Editor (for you Windows users, that's the equivalent of "word pad"), cut the text from the edit window of each post, paste it in the Text Editor window, and then "save" the post like it was still on my blog to "trick" the site into thinking it was still there. I went to the Text Editor program, copied the text, cut it, and turned around and pasted it into the correlating spot, clicked "save," and then opened my page, refreshed the browser, opened the post I was working on, and VOILA! IT WORKED! So, I repeated the same method with the other post that was giving me issues, and that one worked, too! SO happy!
HTML stuff is not nearly as confusing to me as DNS codes and hardware. Some HTML I can do in my sleep (and have).
The OTHER thing that I did tonight, and I posted this on Facebook earlier, I found a way to get a background I LIKE, AND with my friend's help, figured out a work-around for HTML code to get it to stop scrolling with the posts. The background stays put when you scroll! How cool is THAT! I used a program called Tea, I opened it up, highlighted and copied ALL the HTML code in the template, pasted it in Tea, and in the little box where you type a word or character to be located, so I wouldn't go blind from reading rows and rows and ROWS of code (some of which I DO know what it means and how to tweak it to do what I want), I typed in "scroll" and hit "search," once that word popped up, highlighted, I erased it and put "fixed" in its place, highlighted the code, copied it and pasted it in the HTML template, clicked "save," and lo and behold........ IT WORKED.
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