Why be like the other sheep?
2016 was a strange year in many ways, but I did have four big wins.
The web is full of bloggers reviewing 2016 at the moment, so I thought I might as well jump on the bandwagon and write a review post too. Continue reading “Looking Back on 2016”
Going live with my website means I can finally get that challenge ticked off my 60 before 60 list.
Drum roll …
So it’s still far from perfect.
I have too many posts still sitting in draft meaning I have months on my blog with no content. I haven’t designed the snazzy eye-catching banner I can visualize, but can’t get down on paper. I have a logo image, but haven’t worked out how to actually turn it into a logo yet. I have old posts that lost some of their photos and formatting when I imported them from my old blog. Continue reading “Going Live”
Completing this challenge is going to be a much bigger achievement than I’d expected.
I’m learning so much.
That’s me putting a positive slant on things.
I’ve had two weeks off school for the Easter hols and I’m ready to go back just to have a rest. Or at least a break away from my laptop.
Before we broke up for Easter I began seriously working on setting up a website – one of the challenges from my 60 Things To Do Before I’m 60 list. I read lots of posts on the internet and other people’s blogs on how to do this and it all seemed quite straightforward.
Well, that part was.
I invested in web hosting – I’ve gone with Bluehost – and then installed WordPress.org and imported my blog from WordPress.com. All of this was straightforward and although a few of my posts have missing photos or photos that have lost their alignment, it was mostly fine. Much better than I expected.
Then the fun started.
I tried to change the theme. After trying lots, I eventually ended up with the bog standard one that comes with WordPress because none of the ones I tried would display properly. I’ve read that this can just be because they’re in ‘preview’ and it can be different when you go live, but so far I haven’t been brave enough to risk it.
I don’t mind the theme I’ve got at the moment, but it’s not the slick professional look I really wanted.
Next I signed up with Travel Blog Success. I’ve thought about this for a while and the timing was right. And they were having a sale.
Travel Blog Success comes recommended by a whole plethora of travel bloggers I follow. Most of them are affiliated with the course and earn money off referrals, but even bearing this in mind it seemed like a good thing to be part of. Even if only for the networking opportunities.
I only found a couple of negative reviews and they were by people who admitted they hadn’t joined or taken part and so were giving their opinions based on what they assumed it would be like. I disregarded these.
I’ve signed up for the main course and already I feel like I’ve learnt a lot. Even if most of what I’ve learnt is how much I need to learn.
Although my website should be backed up on the main server of my hosting company, it’s better to have a second personal backup as well. I also need to install extra security and firewalls, set up a password vault, change the admin address to one hackers won’t be able to find, install and set up Akismet to stop spam, get an email address to go with my site … the list goes on.
I’ve been trying to do all of these things and finding myself getting frustrated when things don’t work properly. Some of the programmes I’ve tried to install haven’t downloaded properly or I’ve had messages saying they can’t be opened or file extensions are corrupted, blah, blah, blah.
I’m sure if I was more computer savvy I’d get all of this figured out much more quickly. As it is, I consider myself to know a lot more than the average computer user who just surfs the internet and uses basic Word and email, so I can’t imagine how they would go on trying to do this. I like a challenge though and I’m going to feel much prouder of myself once it’s done than I would if I’d sailed through it.
And I mean what I said above; I’m learning a lot!
As well as setting all this up, I’ve been trying to finish the many, many posts that I have sitting in drafts. I’m enjoying going back to them and reminiscing and I’m enjoying all the writing. It is time consuming though.
I spent the first part of my first week off work working non-stop to try to get as much done as possible. Then over Easter I was at a conference for 5 days. The conference was heavy going; long days and lots of concentration needed. Instead of relaxing once I got back to my hotel room in the evenings however, I was spending several more hours on my laptop working. Now I’m home and working flat-out again.
Even though I’m working so hard on it, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. So when I say I want to go back to school for a rest, I actually don’t. I’d rather stay at home and do this. If it wasn’t for those pesky bills needing paying I’d quite happily give up the day job.
I was hoping to go live with my website before I went back to school, but now I know it won’t be ready. Not only do I have to finish sorting out the security, but I also need to get my head round Google Analytics. I’ve opened the lesson on this and immediately closed it again. One thing at a time.
I do know I don’t want to go live until it’s set up though, as I want to be able to capture accurate data right from the beginning.
Once it’s done and I go live I’ll feel such a sense of achievement when I tick this challenge of my list.
In the meantime, this is one more post that I’m writing that no-one will actually see for a while.
This is a post I’m writing that no-one’s going to see straight away.
One of the challenges on my list of 60 things to do before I’m 60 is to get my own website. There are a couple of reasons why this is on there. One reason is pleasure and a sense of self-achievement. I enjoy using the internet for all kinds of things and I like to understand the things I’m interested in. By creating my own website I’m developing a better understanding of how things work on the web and this insider knowledge enables me to use the web more effectively.
The second reason is more practical. I want to write, travel and generally spend more of my time doing things that I enjoy. Having my own business (or at least being able to generate some of my own income without having to work for it through regular jobs) is one way of achieving this. And of course, every good business needs a website these days doesn’t it?
A few years ago I attended night-school and spent a couple of terms learning web-design. This was really useful and I learnt a lot, but didn’t actually do anything with it at the time. I’ve now decided the time is right to turn my blog into an actual website.
Setting up the basic site, buying hosting, getting a domain name and so on, was all really easy. I imported WordPress, partly because this is what most websites and blogs seem to use now and also because I already had my blog in WordPress.
So far, so good. All I had left to do was choose a theme. This should have been the easiest bit, but for some reason all the themes I tried wouldn’t display correctly and I was getting some really bizarre looking layouts. I’ve ended up going with the basic WordPress theme for 2016 which I do quite like, though I was hoping for something that looked a bit more ‘websitey’ rather than ‘bloggy’.
I’m now tweaking and checking everything and writing up a few posts offline to make sure all is well. I’ve noticed that some of my photos on previous posts haven’t transferred across in the original layouts, so at some point I’ll have to go back and adjust them. This isn’t my biggest priority at the moment though. I still have lots of unfinished posts sitting in drafts that I really want to get finished and posted.
What will I use my website for other than a glorified blog? I’m still working on that, but I feel good about having a foundation to build on. And it’s one more challenge completed.
Why I’m moving to Wordpress.
I’ve finally decided it’s time to make the move from Blogger to WordPress. Why? Because I want to start taking this whole blogging malarkey more seriously and get myself a proper website. Creating my own website is on my 60 before 60 list after all. And if I’m going to get all professional and incorporate my blog into a website then WordPress seems to be the way to go.
I’ll miss Blogger; I’ve got used it these past four years and can easily navigate my way around it. I started to explore WordPress yesterday and it’s all so different. I can feel a steep learning curve coming on.
At the moment, I’m not planning to delete my Blogger account (I’ve spent far too much time and effort on it for that), but I do hope to gradually move my posts over to this site so I have them all in the one place.
Although I’m feeling slightly daunted at the huge task ahead of me (creating a website AND learning to use WordPress AND transferring content), I’m also quite excited by the opportunities I’ll have to develop my skills, tick another challenge off my list and finally (fingers and toes crossed) have an online presence I can be proud of.
The future starts here; please come with me (it’ll get better, I promise).
My Blogger site can be found here.
Things are coming together nicely.
I’m officially on the Duke of Edinburgh team at school. This is something I’ve been wanting to be involved with for a while, but it’s never worked out before. I’d like to get some experience on it as I think it will be interesting and fun to do, but also very useful for what I want to do in the future. I never got the opportunity to take part in it when I was younger, so now I’ll take part vicariously through my students. It was a bit touch and go for a while as to whether I could be part of the team or not – it all depended on student numbers. But as we have at least 80 students signed up we’re actually under rather than over staffed.
I need to offer a couple of activities I can work on with the students, so I’m looking at doing web design and archery. I haven’t done anything about getting my own website since I finished the web design course over a year ago, so if I have to start teaching the basics of it, this will get me back into it.
As for the archery, it’s something I’ve been keen to learn how to do ever since I had a go more than 10 years ago whilst on holiday in Ireland. A few times I’ve emailed a local archery club but never had a response. Whilst researching this for the Duke of Edinburgh group I found another club that isn’t too far away. It took them a while, but they have got back to me. The course they’re offering might be a bit too expensive but I have been given a few options. Hopefully we’ll be able to go ahead with it and then not only will my students get to take part in an activity and learn a skill they probably wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to do, but I’ll get to do it for free and in work time – how’s that for a cunning plan?!
At the meeting after school this afternoon, it was mentioned that it would be a good idea for someone to do a course for Duke of Edinburgh expedition leaders. I seem to be the most likely candidate for this. The course, which I know nothing about yet, is apparently one step down from the walking group leader’s qualification so this would be VERY useful for me.
Because I’m also teaching humanities this year (someone must have slipped up when they put my timetable together – this is getting me precariously close to teaching the subject I’m actually qualified to teach rather than a range of random subjects I know nothing about), I’ll probably get to go on a lot of the trips. This is also something I want to get more experience in as I feel it will be relevant and useful in the future.
All of sudden, I feel much more positive about this year!
