Ridge View Media’s Blog

About this Blog…Status

For a few weeks, I left the previous post “first-page visible” for my nephew and his colleagues in his school district. And, while they checked out those wonderful online resources, I had time to contemplate my blogging navel.

“Always Learning”, I realized that a dilemma diligently dogged my approach to this blog:

The “Content vs. Design Dilemma”.

Intrigued by the opportunity to improve my CSS skills and learn PHP, I neglected content. Now, inside my Wordpress Admin panel rest over 20 unpublished drafts of blog posts!

Sheesh.

So, I’m returning to content, and I’m excited about that! I mean, what’s a blog without content? Design still awaits me as a project, and I look forward to changing the look of this blog. Plus, I need to update to WordPress 2.5.1, and plan to do that this weekend.

However, beginning today, my focus is on content, first, then design.

Yes, I’m “Always Learning!”

It’s Not About WordPress, But It Is
What does THAT post subtitle mean? My blog’s tag line is “Always Learning”. In this space, I want to share what I have learned in the past, what I am learning now, and what I hope to learn in the future.

Currently, it may seem like I’m obsessed with WordPress while I set up my blog. I’m not, really. No, I’m not. I’m not! Seriously, what fiddling around in WordPress helps me with includes practicing my basic CSS skills, and encouraging me to learn PHP.

My local public library loves this. I’m requesting books like crazy from throughout the library system. When I go to my local branch to pick up the books, I’m charged a 25 cent handling fee for each book. I enjoy supporting my public library system, so no bother about the fees.

However, what has bothered me is something about my blog: The post titles were not left justified. Finally, I found the style element I needed to edit:

h2.pagetitle {
margin-top: 30px;
text-align: center;
}

<< || Changed to: || >>

h2.pagetitle {
margin-top: 30px;
text-align: left;
}

I’m happy, now, and can move on to further customizing the Kubrick theme, claiming it as my own.

As more of my writing and instructional design projects continue to move to the Web, I’m grateful to WordPress for giving me a great sandbox to play in and improve my CSS, JS, and PHP skills, and to keep me “Always Learning”!

Last week, my coworkers and I went across the street to Barnes & Noble, where I saw Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s book “WordPress for Dummies”. Wow, what a find! However, hubby and I are saving up for some things, so I picked up her book from my local library (sorry, Lisa, but the public library system helps when times are frugal. But, I’m promoting you here on my blog!).

Lisa’s book is a fantastic reference. With it at hand, plus the WordPress Community Forums, I plan to learn all that I can and customize my blog until I can learn and code no more.

Why am I doing this? It’s a challenge and a compulsion. Although I am not an engineer by profession nor skillset, the engineer gene runs through my veins. (And, bore fruit in the lives of some of my cousins who are engineers either in IT or in construction.)

I like what Lisa says in her book, under the heading: “This Crazy Little Thing Called Blog” (chapter 2):

“The practice of blogging is an evolutionary process, and it’s my strong feeling that blogs have evolved beyond personal journals to become tools for real journalism, business, and authorship.”

So, that’s why. I enjoy the process. I’m going to expand on my CSS skills, and I’m going to learn PHP. Now, how wonderful is that? It’s wonderful because I’ll watch this humble little blog, and me, morph into something I cannot even imagine today!

For example, I may find a new partnership with Lisa!
http://justagirlintheworld.com/open-call-for-talented-people/

And, may what I share during this process, this journey, help both you and me to focus on “Always Learning” something new every month.

It’s really late; I did it! I have little experience with cPanel, intermediate with FTP, and basically little knowledge of WordPress. It’s a small step for this blogger, yet a giant leap for the inner engineer inside her who is crying to leap out, code, and become all that she can be!

Please rejoice with me. Why?

I’m “Always Learning”, and pings, trackbacks, and plugins are now just a weekend away!

“I am so excited, I can hardly contain myself!”

My Minnesota born-and-raised mom said that phrase often while I was growing up, and it easily slipped into my DNA. Yet, the “geeky” truth behind my introduction is that I am so excited about WordPress’s latest upgrades, I can’t keep it inside. I have to post about it.

I’m not new to blogging; we have a private family blog created in Blogger that’s a couple of years old. However, one of my pet peeves with Blogger is that I cannot easily upload my custom Flash movies to share with my family “peeps”.

The key word there is: easy.

Sure, Blogger’s developers and fans have created workaround solutions, but that’s not the point. In today’s 21st century, social-networking world, blog software should be flexible enough to adapt to what the admins/bloggers want and need. Today. Now.

So, when I found out that WordPress makes it easy to insert custom SWFs, I told myself,

“Self, I’d rather switch than do workarounds.”

I finally carved out the time, found Tom Johnson’s tutorial (see the “Welcome!” post), and started this blog. When I logged in just now as my blog’s Admin, I saw this link on the Dashboard page:

http://wordpress.org/development/2008/03/wordpress-25-rc2/

If you click to visit, notice the embedded Flash movie!

That’s why I voted with my fingers and chose WordPress. Now I, too, can embed movies easily in my blog. Just think of it: e-Learning “courselets” , Flash demos, screencasts…the blogosphere is now my oyster! Well, maybe not, but WordPress provides the features and functions I want. And, all of us wp-admins will get a new Dashboard UI to boot! As a new wp-admin, I cannot wait to see the “reveal” next time I log in.

Thanks to WordPress, I’m “Always Learning”.

First, my thanks go to Tom for his easy-to-follow tutorial on uploading Wordpress to my site hosted by Bluehost.com. If you want to blog with Wordpress, please view his tutorial:

http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2008/02/06/
answering-questions-on-the-practicalities-of-blogging/

Tom, as “they” say down-undah, you are a won-dah!