Tag: WordPress

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Obviously

oh my god what is wrong with me?? It hasn’t even been a full month since I built that new website on Adobe Portfolio and I’ve already scrapped it! There was nothing wrong with it, I just had all my stuff spread over too many separate sites. So I just spent the last 3 days reconfiguring my WordPress Elfini blog site to do it all – portfolio, blog and online store. I even relocated the whole installation from a sub-domain to the root directory. Holy hell why do I do these things to myself?!

And then this morning when I thought all was well except a few more design tweaks, I found that I couldn’t upload images to WordPress! Oh that is not okay! So, I hit the google. And I tried all the things. Nothing worked. And I tried some more things. And then I totally broke the site.

::very external screaming::

So, knowing my poor blood pressure was going to hit unhealthier levels than normal (I’ll tell you about my blood pressure woes later), I reminded myself that I have backups. Lots and lots of backups (this ain’t my first website rodeo). So, I hopped back into the FTP client and deleted the whole shebang and then re-uploaded yesterday’s subdomain folder that I had downloaded before I moved it and ta-da! Everything is working and I can upload images and at some point I might even start breathing again. fuck. Don’t tell my doctor about any of this. Or any English teachers who would be appalled at my infatuation with run on sentences. I save all my punctuation for .php files.

Now, I just need to figure out how to hide the sidebar on the shop pages and make the portfolio page full width – it really shouldn’t be this difficult! And after I give up on that because I spent most of yesterday trying to crack that nut, I need to create a bunch of product pages because Big Cartel doesn’t have an export products function because of course they don’t. So…. yeah. Big fun happening over here.

But my birthday is Friday and we are going to Santa Cruz so cake and cooler weather. I’ll take it.

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Look at what I cooked up!

So, this here blog? elfini? It’s all Julie Tilsner’s fault.  4 years ago she said “Hey Dawn, you should start a blog!” And when Julie says “Jump”, I say “Fine… if you insist. But I’m not going to enjoy it.” And I think we all know how well this turned out.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago, Julie finally said “Hey Dawn, you should redesign my blog!” And I jumped up and down, said yes, and insisted she bail on the evil Typepad and migrate to WordPress.

And a word of advice here – do not get me started on Typepad and the Six Apart world. The seething raging hate!!

Luckily Julie bent to my will and is now happily hosting Bad Home Cooking on a spiffy new WordPress installation. And it looks something like this:

www.julietilsner.com

Now click the pretty picture and bask in the glory of the new and improved Bad Home Cooking! Same old funny wrapped in a shiny new package.

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Maiden Voyage

Hello! You made it. I guess the directions to get here that I left for you weren’t as vague as I had feared.  Quick – click Add to Favorites right now! Okay… onward to the WordPress blogging platform test drive.*

As you can see, elfini is now a sub-domain of dawnblanchfield.com. No more typing elfini-thescenicroute.blogspot.com. Man that url sucked. I just didn’t know any better when I first set up that blog. I would love to get elfini.com, but that is taken by some Turkish spoon maker or something. So here we are. I’m flexible. (shut-up Chris!)

Well, what do you think about the new digs? Do you like it?** Are you as freaked out by change as I am? I’m surprised I’m not drinking vodka from a sippy cup by now. I had been thinking about making this change for some time now. Then we ended up staying home this past weekend, and instead of working on my painting, I got creative with code. I’m not sure what prompted me to start this process, but once I had exported that first file from Blogger there was no turning back. I was muckin’ about in .xml files, FTP, MySQL, .css, and what the hell is .php?! Wait, don’t tell me – I don’t want to know. Finally, after much weeping and nashing of teeth, 2 1/2 days later it was finished. All previous posts from Blogger are now here. I’ve added the links, badges and widgets. I’ve got rotating header photos. Fancy. And I’ve got ideas for Phase 2 of my master web-site plan. I can say no more about that though, because I know you… you’ll be expecting it all done by next Wednesday! And that just ain’t gonna happen. As Chris would be more than happy to tell you, I get a tad “focused” when I’m doing web stuff (ok, any kind of stuff). So, I think after I get this posted, I’ll take a little break from blog tweaking. Download the pics I took of Erin in her new pool yesterday. Too cute! Maybe poke around the NAPP site now that I’m finally a member. Read my new book.  Aaw hell, who am I kidding? I’ll hit publish and have Photoshop opened before this file has even loaded. I have a problem. Admitting it is the first step right?

 
*Yes, technically I’ve been blogging with WordPress ever since I started the Dawn Blanchfield Photography site. But that is a photo blog and uses a plug-in (YAPB) to add the photos. So, I never written a post proper. Wow, you people can be picky. Slowly step away from the literal…

**Really, what do you think? Like? Don’t like? Is it too wide for your monitor? How about the colors? I’m not thrill with the way the Twitter Update widget looks, but that’s a part of the theme I can’t seem to edit. But I will say that Atalualpa is the most user-friendly theme for customization I’ve run across.  5 stars baby! Anyway, Welcome Aboard! Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.