I apologize for taking so much time between posts. I’ve been working behind the scenes with the blog for so long that I’ve neglected posting. I haven’t forgotten that this a blog about insomnia. And I also know that the last two posts as well as this one aren’t directly related to insomnia. They are, however, indirectly related. My learning how to do more with the blog will only enhance it as time goes on.
I’m from a generation that didn’t grow up with computers. Therefore, as I see it, I can go in three directions concerning computers and blogs: I can pay someone to do it for me; I can pay someone to teach me how to do it; or I can do it myself, which takes more time but less money.
With the instructional videos on Youtube, a blog owner can get enough information to do just about anything. For example, this morning I’ve been working on yet another blog. It’s a guinea pig that I use for experiments before I take action on my other blogs.
Last year I bought the developer version of Thesis theme. It’s an excellent theme that’s easy to use and gets better with each new version. Thesis 1.7 has just been released with version 2.0 due out soon.
I downloaded Thesis 1.7 to my experimental blog. To access the custom.css style sheet and take advantage of all the controls that Thesis offers, it’s necessary to change the name of the custom-sample folder to “custom.” I’m really a chicken concerning anything involving the code used to create web pages. When I bought the theme and read about the option of changing the name, I decided to leave it the way it was because I didn’t want to take a chance of messing up something and then not being able to repair my mistake.
Last year, I found a video on Youtube about making this change. It’s produced by the people at FourBlogger.com. The video is only about five minutes long and easy to follow. I took the instructions one step at a time and successfully made the name change. Since I haven’t had to make the change in several months, I pulled up the instructional video and followed it again today.
My point is this: the video I used is a perfect example of what I mean when I say that you can get enough information online to do just about anything.
This is the procedure I’ve been using for making videos and podcasts to use on the blog. Yes, I could have paid someone else to do it for me, but I wouldn’t have learned anything new about computers or blog themes or blog host cpanels.
Granted, my first few videos and podcasts will sound as though an amateur made them. But I am an amateur, so there will be some mistakes and some rough edges that will be smoothed with finer sandpaper, so to speak, with practice.
As I’ve written in other posts, when I tackle something new and triumph over it, I feel as though I’ve climbed to the peak of Mt. Everest.
A final note: Since this a non-monetized blog, I receive nothing from the companies or products to which I make reference in any of the posts I write.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mike Hooker
