A Blogger's Progress

BIGGER FONTS FOR MORE LEGIBLE BLOG ENTRIES

thenaturalist — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:43:41 +0000

When I wrote a journal entry on the last page of my spiral notebook journal, I realized that I’d have to drive 35 miles to buy a new notebook before I could write in my journal again. So I decided to resurrect my old CYBERDUMP and wound up spending most of this morning trying to figure out how to make this blog-as-online-journal more functional (i.e. more legible to my aging eyes) by increasing the font size of my entries. It didn’t seem to be an option, so I explored every possibility WordPress offered by clicking on APPEARANCE, USERS, TOOLS, SETTINGS to see if there was anything I could do. I discovered I could pay $30 a year for a special font that was bigger, bolder, and easier for my poor old near-sighted eyes to read. At his point I can’t even remember how I did it, but maybe I should try so I can do it again if I decide I want to enhance another of my blogs.. I think I chose something under “Settings” but I can’t remember….

So here’s what I did: I clicked on APPEARANCE, chose THEMES, chose CUSTOM DESIGN, chose CUSTOM FONTS, chose BODY TEXT THEME FONT, and chose a bold, legible font called Le Monde Journal.

Now I’m going to try one more experiment to see what happens if I try to change Le Monde Journal (which I’ve already paid $30 a year for) to something else…. I clicked on APPEARANCE, chose THEMES, chose CUSTOM DESIGN, chose CHANGE FONTS, chose BODY TEXT, and changed from Le Monde Journal to FacitWeb.

So now I will be able to read my journal posts in big, bold FacitWeb without having to squint or lean in so close to my computer screen that my nose almost touches it. Victory, or another afternoon shot to hell?

This is what I did to my CYBERDUMP blog. But now I’m wondering whether I could have achieved almost the same outcome by merely making the text of each of my posts BOLD like this?

I guess not…. Here’s a link for comparison: CYBERDUMP

THE JOURNALIST v1.3 vs. v1.9

thenaturalist — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:28:38 +0000

I still like The Journalist v1.3 better than v1.9. I like the simple black and white color scheme with none of the light blues that v1.9 has. I also like the crisp black bar across the top of each post better than the gray bar below. The only advantage that was listed for v1.9 was that it’s translation-ready, which I have no need for. So I guess I’ll stick with The Journalist v1.3 even though it’s not listed any more among available themes….

MOST POPULAR THEMES

thenaturalist — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:04:15 +0000

I decided to explore some of the new WordPress Themes, but got frustrated and decided to see which were their most popular instead. Some of my favorites were toward the top of their list. Page 1 of 9 included KUBRICK and MISTY LOOK, and Page 2 had TARSKI, REGULUS, and QUENTIN. Page 3 added CONNECTIONS and RUBRIC, Page 4 included K-2 LITE in its top row plus two new ones I kind of liked toward the bottom: NOTEPAD and CHOCO. I had to wait until page 8 for the good old WORDPRESS CLASSIC. The only one of my own favorite themes — the one I’m using for this blog, in fact — that’s missing from their most popular themes is THE JOURNALIST v.1.3. Interestingly, THE JOURNALIST v. 1.9 is on page 3 with CONNECTIONS and RUBRIC. I wonder what v 1.9 has that v 1.3 doesn’t?

NOW IT’S AN iPAD

thenaturalist — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:15:09 +0000

Today I’m at Small Dog looking at an iPad. Should I? Should I?

NEW THEME

thenaturalist — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:42:27 +0000

I’m trying out the new WordPress default theme for 2010 called Twenty Ten. It’s attractive, but it’s too wide for my lap top screen, and the search produces only three lines of text. Oh well…. I wonder if I’ll ever create a blog I don’t want to search?

BLOG COUNT

thenaturalist — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:00:03 +0000

After working on my blogs all morning, I decided I’d better count them again just to see where I stand. Currently I have 26 Word Press blogs, and 9 Blogger blogs. This is the same number I had last time I counted — 35 — but I’ve added two Word Press Blogs and deleted 2 Blogger blogs. My remaining Blogger blogs are static at this point, but for one reason or another I can’t part with them right now. Of my Word Press blogs, only about 6 are active, but I still have plans for some of the others.

NEW THEME: NOTES IL

thenaturalist — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:56:25 +0000

Decided to experiment with a new theme just to add some color to this silly blog. I chose one called NotesIL. Who knows what I might learn about it as I use it for a while?

It didn’t take me long to learn that the search on NotesIL offers only 4 lines. Not good. Tried to go back to The Journalist and got the wrong version first try. The Journalist v 1.3 is the one I want — NOT The Journalist v 1.9

UNDOING A STATIC PAGE

thenaturalist — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:29:00 +0000

I managed to do it but it was tricky. First I had to cut and paste what I wanted to be my home page to a safe place (i.e. here — see below), then I had to cut and paste it back to what was presently serving as my Home page, which was two entries in what I had intended to be a blog attached to a blog with a static front page. Then I had to cut and paste the two entries to a new page I called My Progress, which I may yet delete, but I didn’t want to lose them right now. Then I went to SETTINGS and chose READING, which brought me to the place where I had created the STATIC FRONT PAGE. There I unchose the STATIC FRONT PAGE and returned both the dropdowns that appear below the STATIC FRONT PAGE option to “Select.” I’m exhausted….

GETTING RID OF RELATED POSTS

thenaturalist — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:11:32 +0000

My problem wasn’t pingbacks or trackbacks (whatever they are), so I guess I need to go back to my DISCUSSION SETTINGS and allow them….

When I finally tried support, I found out what I needed to know on the RELATED POSTS forum. WordPress is the automatic generator, and who knows where they get the totally unrelated posts? Anyhow, I got rid of them by going to Appearance, clicking on Extras, and checking the box that says “Hide related links on this blog” to turn it off. So, I think I’ve solved my problem, but I’m really irritated that I had to waste so much time on something WordPress did because I hadn’t checked the box that told them not to. I wish they’d list intrusive features like this one as an option not a default.

LINKS, PINGBACKS, AND TRACKBACKS

thenaturalist — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:28:12 +0000

All of a sudden a NATURALIST’S ALMANAC post I was working on started getting a “Possibly related posts: (automatically generated) message with a list of links that had absolutely no relevance to my post. I mean, I was working on JANUARY 1: THE NEW YEAR and got links to “Glenn Beck loves Judaism to Pieces” and “Sawyer to Anchor World News.” I think these things are pingbacks or trackbacks so I’ve changed my settings to disallow them, but they still show up on my permalink, which ruins my printout. So how do I get rid of them? First I’m going to cut and paste my links to this post and delete them from my real post to see if the automatically generated list will go away. Or will they show up on this post?

New Year – Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year

This Wikipedia entry for the New Year has lots of information and lots of links. Wikipedia materialized after I had been working on my Naturalist’s Almanac for several years, and I considered changing my title to A Naturalist’s Guide to Wikipedia. But that would have been too cop-out. I wanted my Almanac to be based on my own reading and research because it’s my retirement project, and it continues to be a major part of my continuing education. I also take pride in finding bits of information and occasional links that Wikipedia missed.

New Year Traditions Around the World at Father Time’s Net

http://www.fathertimes.net/traditions.htm

This is an Australian Web site and it has ads, but it offers a bit of information on just about every New Year that is celebrated around the world.

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Well, the links are are now here, not there, but the dumb list of related links is still there. I may need to delete and re-post the whole post, which is exasperating……