It’s Complicated

I’m beginning to remember why I procrastinate so long before updating my web site. I’m sure that I make updating harder than it needs to be, but all those years of advising yearbook have probably scarred me. I want things the way I want them to be; I want them to be “perfect,” or at least pass for perfect.

I spent most of a day learning how to upload pictures for the header, originally substituting my own photos for the photos that came with the theme. That worked for one photo, but it wouldn’t allow me to alternate pictures, something I was looking forward to. I had to review file permissions, only to discover in the end that I had failed to switch server addresses when my host switched servers.

Then I realized that the theme was displaying my photos at a reduced size and at a different width than the main copy. That just plain looked wrong to me. So I spent several hours looking at CSS code trying to figure out how to adjust the width. I ended up doing an online search on how to code a fixed width. Once I found that, it was relatively easy to make the adjustments I needed.

Today I went to work making sense out of the blogroll on the side. I didn’t have to figure out how to do anything, but it was the kind of work I really hate: boring, tedious, repetitive work. When I started a blogroll years ago there were no RSS readers, so I used the blogroll to visit fellow bloggers. For the last two or three years I’ve been using a RSS reader. Since it updates automatically, I tend to miss it when some bloggers quit blogging, especially if they never leave comments on my site. Over the years I’ve also added blogs to my RSS reader without adding them to the blogroll, usually so that I can decide if I’m going to go read their blogs consistently. By now, the lists barely resemble each other. To make things even more complicated, when I did check out each site today I had to decide whether the person is still blogging or not. It’s amazing how many people seem to feel guilty about quitting their blog and drop in occasionally to say that they’ll begin again shortly. If someone hasn’t posted for a year, it’s pretty easy to drop them from the blogroll. If they published once in July and once in August I begin to question whether they’re really blogging or have deserted blogging for Facebook and Twitter. I was surprised how hard it was for me to delete bloggers I’ve been reading and enjoying for four or five years. In the end, I compromised and deleted them from the blogroll but kept them on my RSS reader. That way if they start publishing again I’ll be able to add them back.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I’ve been fighting problems that have emerged since upgrading to Lion and Aperture, and apparently I’m not the only one having problems with the two not interacting nicely. I’m still not sure if I’ve got the problem solved and I probably won’t publish my latest Rainier pictures, except those in the header, until I’ve solved the problem.

10 thoughts on “It’s Complicated”

    1. There does seem to be a number of improvements, like the gravatar and the links to share posts.

      I also like the new editor that’s almost like having a proofreader, something I’ve missed a lot when I’ve re-read a post and found silly errors, like typos, that I’d missed for some reason.

  1. Yes, it sure can be complicated and time-consuming. Just made the leap from a virus-prone, slow-running Windows-based PC to an iMac. Big setting-up problems. Oh dear, but nearly there. I think …

    1. I’ve never made the change in that direction, but I do know the problems I’ve had trying to help friends with their photos in Windows, solitary walker.

  2. When I first found your site I liked it so much I did try to visit many of the blogs on your blog roll only to discover they were no longer being kept up. I must say many of them I was disappointed about myself and saved them to my RSS ‘just in case’ too, so I don’t think you should feel bad about doing it 🙂

  3. I’m still here. I still call myself “blogging”, although I find it hard to actually post things. I’ve tried to concentrate on my gardening activities the past few months, but doing just that isn’t really keeping my interest. I guess I can pretty much do whatever I want, since nobody visits anymore other than people hitting my old post on Pluto! But while I’m on Facebook all the time, I really don’t like the shallowness of that environment.

    1. You had two entries in August, so I kept you, Harry.

      You’ll notice that I spend so much time trying to post here that I seldom do much on Facebook but link to political articles that I find interesting.

  4. The photos are lovely, as usual. The new design does display them nicely.

    We do get distracted by the new social medias. I have found I’ve not been reading my aggregator as much as I should. I hadn’t known a friend received lay-off notices until he mentioned something in FB and then got the whole story once I finally visited his weblog.

    As for my own sites, I’ve amassed an enormous amount of information for new articles and stories, but lately I have a difficult time sitting down to just write.

    Ah well, we limp along, don’t we Loren? Anyway, I love your photos and your writing.

    1. Well, when it comes to blogs some of us have to limp along more than others. But, yes, I’ve managed to patch together enough skills to get done what I want to get done.

      Unfortunately, as I age I’m also starting to literally limp along as I set out to capture some small part of Nature’s beauty.

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