You know, all I really wanted when I came over to a new web site was to be able to change the things I wanted to change without being limited in what I could change.

I wanted to move away from the blogger scene. Not for any special reason but I guess one of the things is that I want to change the way I blog. I want my site to be more than a Mum blog. I’ll get in to all of that later but for now I just want to say this one thing (you know, in ten paragraphs)

If you’re a blogger over at blogger.com…and you want a change, start wearing your bra and undies on the outside of your clothes. Start drinking tea instead of coffee. Wear your left shoe on your right foot and your right on your left. Get a hair cut, shave just one side of each leg one week and finish it all off the next week. Do anything, but do NOT change from blogger.com!

I don’t say this lightly and I think if I show you exactly why I am saying it you might understand.

Firstly, this shit is hard. I saw a blog I liked using wordpress…so I went over to wordpress to have a look around. If you do the same you’ll see that they say things like “easy” and “five minute install” That might be so for someone that hasn’t had their blog handed to them on a template platter, but for those of us who have been hand fed out layouts and themes from the get go…this is not child’s play.

The problems we’ve had are endless. I say “we” because even Tim, who you all know is pretty computer savvy, was gobsmacked by everything we had to do and learn. It really has taken us weeks. And when I say weeks I really mean weeks. For hours we’ve sat here banging our collective heads against a brick wall. And when we finally broke through that brick wall we found that there was another one on the other side, just a different colour.

It’s not only been trouble finding and understanding what to do with a host server, figuring out how to use FTP program’s and their control panel’s, but the methods for changing things using HTML. A word that is not so Chinese to Tim, but absolute babble to me. I don’t even know what HTML stands for, much less how to use it. Oh wait, a google search tells me that HTML stands for “hypertext markup language.” Glad I got that sorted.

So I’ve been all over the forum’s on this. There are FOUR forum’s that I have access to. And all of them deal in different sections of your site so if you should happen to post a question on the wrong one you just get redirected. I’ve been going around in circles for days and I really don’t think I’m getting anywhere. Unless step one: you’re a loser counts for anything??

So I’m not sure you heard me on the getting a hair cut thing and wanted to make sure that if you weren’t already put off, then you would be. By this.

This is simply an example. Not an actual answer. But when I ask a question (how do I edit my header?) on a forum and tell someone I’m really new to everything I’m doing and get this…

That’s easy. All you need to do is put this in your css file.

<title><?php
if ( is_single() ) { single_post_title(); }
elseif ( is_home() ) { bloginfo(‘name’); print ‘ | ‘; bloginfo(‘description’); pageGetPageNo(); }
elseif ( is_page() ) { single_post_title(”); }
elseif ( is_search() ) { bloginfo(‘name’); print ‘ | Search results for ‘ . wp_specialchars($s); pageGetPageNo(); }
elseif ( is_404() ) { bloginfo(‘name’); print ‘ | Not Found’; }
else { bloginfo(‘name’); wp_title(‘|’); pageGetPageNo(); }
?></title>

<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”<?php bloginfo(‘html_type’) ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo(‘charset’) ?>” />
<meta name=”description” content=”<?php bloginfo(‘description’) ?>” />
<?php if(is_search()) { ?>
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow” />
<?php }?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_url’); ?>” />

<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘rss2_url’) ?>” title=”<?php echo wp_specialchars(get_bloginfo(‘name’), 1) ?> <?php _e(‘Posts RSS feed’, ‘thematic’); ?>” />

It really pisses me off. Needless to say we’re still banging our heads against a brick wall.

I don’t know what a CSS file is (i do now, no thanks to anyone!!!!) much less where to find it or where to put the suggested HTML.

The only forums I’ve ever been on were for pregnancy or, gasp, depression sites. All very helpful and warm places to be. But these forums, no comment.

So in short, or not so short, don’t do it. Save whatever sanity you have for figuring out just which side of your leg you should shave this week. It will be much less painful and humiliating.