Floppy Ears

So yeah...this is really going to happen: I'm about to write my first article of this blog...about blogging.

At this very moment, I am currently trying to code a collection of blogs. I had this great idea that it is finally time to get my ass out of retirement and officially return back to the blogosphere. Well jokes on me since it's not really going as smoothly as I thought.

For those of you returning to my blog after a...7 year hiatus (?)...you might remember that my website(s) were a mash-collection of sub-rooted sites made up of hand-coded html layouts and pages. The designs were pretty complicated considering the simplicity of the content: I was basically showcasing the dedicated hours I spent in Adobe Photoshop playing around. So after my entire site was hacked by some Anon-posers, and I lost all those individually hand coded html files, I decided that I was going to try something simpler. Ha...ha...

During my hiatus, PHP became the standard in website coding. I could list the million benefits, but, I'm too lazy. Instead I will list the one: it organizes your content into static content, allowing the user to only have to generate one master template. This of course saves you the trouble if having to navigate all the nasty copy and pasted html so you can just focus on creating the base content for your website. The problem with PHP though, is if you've never coded with by now, you have a lot to learn.

When I started coding, html was still a relatively new thing. I learned as the code evolved to include Dhtml, css, java, ect. When I fell out of the loop, I never got to start out with baby PHP. I never grew with the code and boy, is it nasty in it's teenage years (must be the going through puberty thing). So, long story short, I am currently fighting with the b2evolution's content and widget management system while, at the same time, also trying to figure out how to personalize a pre-coded template.

You might ask me dear reader, "Kara, why don't you just use Nucleus or WordPress? Those are far easier content management programs." And you would be right. I've already played around with those for other school projects (so in a way I lied to you earlier about being new to PHP), but it didn't give me the overall results I wanted. My attraction to mastering b2evolution, is the amount of customizable widgets I can add to my sites. One of the reasons I stopped publishing on my website was because Facebook was going in a direction that eliminated the need: it included widgets that I could add to my profile page. I could update my friends and family on my status, school schedule, location, and other stalkery functions easier than I could on my website. But then it got rid of all those wonderful customizable functions so that it could publish a more simple strange looking resume format. Ugh. So now, after being spoiled for a few years, I have to build a website that mimics the old facebook: which isn't even easier said then done.

So, I'm a little frusted at the moment. For some reason, the more I try to customize the content management system, the more errors I get. It doesn't even make sense with some of the functions I've been playing around with either. For example: When I changed the name of the index file and the publishing sub-root, I lost the whole blog I had been setting up. Now I have to figure out why, when I made those changes, I can't call the blog up. Did the magic publishing fairy just go on vacation all of a sudden? And also, trying to link my twitter and facebook account to the template has become a hassle. No matter how many times I seem to enter this information, b2evolution's accounts overide my own. Strange...

So bear with my progress my returning loyal readers and new internet stumblers. I have a lot to learn...and laziness to combat.

Kiki

So yeah...this is really going to happen: I'm about to write my first article of this blog...about blogging.

At this very moment, I am currently trying to code a collection of blogs. I had this great idea that it is finally time to get my ass out of retirement and officially return back to the blogosphere. Well jokes on me since it's not really going as smoothly as I thought.

For those of you returning to my blog after a...7 year hiatus (?)...you might remember that my website(s) were a mash-collection of sub-rooted sites made up of hand-coded html layouts and pages. The designs were pretty complicated considering the simplicity of the content: I was basically showcasing the dedicated hours I spent in Adobe Photoshop playing around. So after my entire site was hacked by some Anon-posers, and I lost all those individually hand coded html files, I decided that I was going to try something simpler. Ha...ha...

During my hiatus, PHP became the standard in website coding. I could list the million benefits, but, I'm too lazy. Instead I will list the one: it organizes your content into static content, allowing the user to only have to generate one master template. This of course saves you the trouble if having to navigate all the nasty copy and pasted html so you can just focus on creating the base content for your website. The problem with PHP though, is if you've never coded with by now, you have a lot to learn.

When I started coding, html was still a relatively new thing. I learned as the code evolved to include Dhtml, css, java, ect. When I fell out of the loop, I never got to start out with baby PHP. I never grew with the code and boy, is it nasty in it's teenage years (must be the going through puberty thing). So, long story short, I am currently fighting with the b2evolution's content and widget management system while, at the same time, also trying to figure out how to personalize a pre-coded template.

You might ask me dear reader, "Kara, why don't you just use Nucleus or WordPress? Those are far easier content management programs." And you would be right. I've already played around with those for other school projects (so in a way I lied to you earlier about being new to PHP), but it didn't give me the overall results I wanted. My attraction to mastering b2evolution, is the amount of customizable widgets I can add to my sites. One of the reasons I stopped publishing on my website was because Facebook was going in a direction that eliminated the need: it included widgets that I could add to my profile page. I could update my friends and family on my status, school schedule, location, and other stalkery functions easier than I could on my website. But then it got rid of all those wonderful customizable functions so that it could publish a more simple strange looking resume format. Ugh. So now, after being spoiled for a few years, I have to build a website that mimics the old facebook: which isn't even easier said then done.

So, I'm a little frusted at the moment. For some reason, the more I try to customize the content management system, the more errors I get. It doesn't even make sense with some of the functions I've been playing around with either. For example: When I changed the name of the index file and the publishing sub-root, I lost the whole blog I had been setting up. Now I have to figure out why, when I made those changes, I can't call the blog up. Did the magic publishing fairy just go on vacation all of a sudden? And also, trying to link my twitter and facebook account to the template has become a hassle. No matter how many times I seem to enter this information, b2evolution's accounts overide my own. Strange...

So bear with my progress my returning loyal readers and new internet stumblers. I have a lot to learn...and laziness to combat.

Kiki