This one is intended for my side biz, for my jewelry.  Actually I already have a link to it here, except it used to be my e-commerce site.  I switched things around over the weekend, moved the e-commerce pages to a different folder (essentially making it invisible unless I give a direct link), and put the new blog on the main directory.

I created both an Artfire Studio (basic for now) and an Etsy shop, where I’ll eventually start posting items for sale – jewelry, polymer clay beads, etc..  The links to both are at the top of the page on that blog.  I am also going to try out a plug-in I found for wordpress which allows one to host an e-commerce solution straight from the WP blog.

Technically I could re-list some of the stuff I had up previously at my e-commerce site, but I’d like to re-take the photos of a bunch of them with better lighting and backdrop and whatnot, before I do that.   Plus I’m also trying to work on some polymer clay stuff to be able to sell as well.   Once that is all ready I’ll put up another post here, as well as at the new blog, letting anyone who still drifts by here, know about it.

I know I’ve lost a lot of readers (geeze, do I even still have any at all? LOL) due to my extremely sporadic posting and even less frequent visitation and commenting at other blogs… And that’s ok with me, to be honest. It’s nothing less than I deserve for slacking like that.  I’ll just have to work on posting more often, either here or at the other blog, and trying to visit other blogs.  Unfortunately with the micromanagement at work looking over my shoulder for claims of excessive slacking there, i.e. surfing too much, it’s become even more difficult to do much of what I used to do from work – which was read others’ blogs and such.  And because I’d rather work on things like, you know, building up a stock of jewelry and whatnot when I’m at home, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blog surfing and posting on my own blog… Except when I’m in a creative funk, of course.

Talk about being spread thin. 

We see these all over the place where I live. Short, tall, skinny, wide, no arms, dozens of arms… Did you know it is illegal do do any damage to these plants, even if you own one? You cannot just go out and dig one up out of the desert and plant it in your yard, not only because of how large and heavy saguaros are, but even if they’re teeny tiny and could put it in a small pot, if you have one without having purchased it through a licensed grower, you can find yourself in some very hot water.

If you decide to shoot one full of bullet holes in a drunken stupor, and get caught, you will be fined. I think you can even be fined if you hit one accidentally with your car!

Anyway, I just thought I would try out a new service I found via some other bloggers’ postings about a site that you can find licensed pictures where you can link to the blog images free for your blogs. I like this idea – I like being able to post photographs on my blog without the hassle of having to upload them somewhere, not to mention doing any resizing and optimization beforehand – this place does it all for you! AcoBox.com

Anyway, so far i like what I am seeing and am glad this went smoothly… Now to upgrade my other blog.

I hope all goes well… If not, I hope I can get things back to normal without a lot of headache.

So if you visit this site and see a huge mess of HTML or nothing at all, well… Come back in a few and see if things are back to normal.  I am hoping after this upgrade I don’t have to deal with manual upgrades anymore.  I am looking forward to that for sure.

Unfortunately I did not install it using my host’s autoinstaller, I installed it manually myself, so I have to download everything and unzip and back up stuff, blah blah, and then upload it to my host before I can try it out.  I’d try installing WP from my host but then I’d have to install all my plug-ins and get everything updated just the way I had it before and that would be a huge PITA… so I’ll just update it manually later.  I think one of the features in 2.7 is being able to upgrade WP remotely like how their plug-ins update, which I am especially intersted in since I did not use my host’s installer.  Not only that but often my host is a little behind on the updates, so, say this update came out today, but my host will not get it for a few more days, if not a week or more.

Drat!! I just realized my husband and I have a show to go to tonight, and we won’t even be home until bedtime, so I won’t be able to update until tomorrow at the earliest. AAGHHH!!! 

Maybe if I have enough time I’ll see if I can update it via my remote connection to home… 

I decided to make the links in the sidebar pink so they’ll stand out a bit more and they kind of go with the periwinkle color I have for my background.  I may move around some more widgets until I get the sidebars balanced out better.  But I think for the most part I’m done… Now that I have a general idea of how these get put together I’ll probably work on making one for my other blog, probably the same layout but with different graphics.

The only coding I did was tweaking the CSS (a lot) to get the look I wanted, and a teeny bit of the HTML (to get the header and the navigation bar)… The rest of the code, the inner workings of the template, was already put together in a “blank” created by some genius person at WPThemerkit.com. Absolute genius, I tell ya.  Granted one does need to know a bit of HTML and a good amount of CSS to get the templates looking the way you want, but having the rest of the guts of the template already written is just priceless.  There are some minor things missing (like a date stamp on all the posts on the main index), but I can figure out where to add that later.

Now I just have to wonder how much of my template is going to break when WordPress finally releases version 2.7, which I am highly anticipating, by the way, for much of the “behind the scenes” changes that are supposed to be happening, to the admin panel.

I don’t know if something is happening with my comment script (please let me know if this is the case), or if people are just forgetting how to format the links.  If it is the latter, then here is how to format them so that you will have backlinks:

<a href=”http://www.thisismywebpage.com”>This is My Web Page</a>

Again, please let me know if you are putting them in this way but for some reason that is not how they are showing up once you click submit.  Otherwise, use the above formatting, replacing the url with your own of course, to ensure that your links will show up in the comments and will provide you with backlinks.

This concludes our HTML tip for the day. 

The other day I came across this new site called Snapbomb, where you can get paid to blog about various different topics.  I have already tried a little bit of subtle blog advertising here but I haven’t had much luck with it yet, so I am hoping that with paid posting I am a bit more successful at generating some spare income.  I am going to try Snapbomb and see if they are a good fit for me.  With the state of the economy right now I’m sure you’ll probably start hearing a lot more buzz about this site, so if you’re looking for a way to make a few dollars here and there, I suggest you take a peek over there and see what it’s all about.

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days.  Just didn’t have the posting itch.

Anyway.  What kind of crazy state makes a law where in order to hold a contest, you have to register it with the AG’s office?  Seriously?  Oh yeah, the one where I live.

Even if the host of the contest is in a different state, if they want people from MY state to be eligible, they have to register it with the AG.  How annoying is that??

So it makes me sad on two parts – I won’t be able to enter all these contests that are going on at various blogs unless they registered with my state’s AG office (and most have not and probably will not), and second, I can’t hold any more contests myself unless I want to run the risk of getting into trouble.

It’s just plain stupid.  I think we need to move away.  Because that will probably happen a lot sooner and be a lot more likely than that stupid law getting changed.  ]]> http://www.itsjustmythoughts.com/that-makes-me-sad/feed/ 0