I won a signed copy of Wordpress for Dummies!
Earlier Joni dropped a comment on my Wordpress Story post, the same time I received the trackback from Lisa’s post regarding the result of the Wordpress for Dummies giveaway that she did in celebration with her 5 years of blogging. Wheeeeeeeeee! I got myself a signed Wordpress for Dummies! Hahaha, I can now get my hands on it without having to buy it from National Bookstore or Powerbooks or Goodwill (I wonder if they have it though.) plus its signed too. 
Lisa messaged me earlier saying that she has sent the book through priority mail early that day, and the postman said it will arrive here in the Philippines in about 7-10 days. I can’t wait to read it when it arrives. I might even take a picture of me with it to send Lisa. Lol. Yes, that’s how happy and giddy I am right now.
Popularity: 8% [?]
My Wordpress Story
I was reading some posts in the Wordpress Pinoy forums, and I saw Joni (whom I’ve followed a bit before because I liked her designs) and I remembered I was trying her link back in the school library but it won’t show since the computers there have lots of firewalls and stuff. So I clicked on her link and I saw her post about the Wordpress For Dummies book which I’ve wanted since I saw it on E.Webscapes.
She mentioned there about Lisa giving away 5 Wordpress For Dummies books, so I went and clicked onto the link and read Lisa’s post. It seems that 5 random blogs which post about how wordpress has helped you or harmed you and links to Lisa’s post will be chosen to receive a free, autographed copy of the Wordpress for Dummies book. Since I’m short on cash and I have a bit of a free time, I’ve decided to try my luck and share my wordpress story.
I used to blog before using Friendster, Multiply, Myspace, Soulcast and Livejournal. I lose interest fast and end up discontinuing them after a short time. I bought this domain because I was interested to make a community site that showcased the Philippines, its food, people and its beautiful places. But I got lazy again since it was a lot of work so the domain lay useless for around 4-5 months before I decided to try and start my own hosted blog. I looked for content management systems at first, but since Drupal, Joomla and the rest made my head hurt, I decided to try Wordpress and create a blog.
I downloaded wordpress and decided to take a risk. I knew nothing about coding, php , my-SQL and other techie stuff (just a few since I tried phpbb before) and I just fell in love with WP. Installing was a breeze, I just followed the instructions properly. It made me utilize Google, and I learned lots of stuffs while I searched for tutorials, tips and other information about WP. In around 3 months of having WP, I’ve learned a bit about php and databases, things which I would probably not have thought of understanding since I’m a business management student.
I’ve learned how to design a basic wp theme using Small Potato’s guides, and I’ve learned a thing or two on how to edit existing themes to suit my blog. WP plugins are heaven sent since a lot of them are also widgetized already so its pretty much install, activate, drag and its ready. The whole WP community as well is great, plugins and themes are abundant, and many people are willing to teach and answer questions that people have. It is indeed one of the best blogging platforms around and its user-friendly as well.
I’ve just been on Wordpress for 3 months, but I see myself using it for a long long time.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Wordpress 2.3
I’ve just finished my wordpress 2.3 upgrade. Yipeeee!
I was nervous to try it at first since I was really worried that I might break something and lose all my blog entries. I read the upgrade instructions first, around 3-5 times to make sure I would do it right. Hahaha.
So what I did was back-up my tables like stated in the directions by accessing my PhpMyAdmin and got both the zip and non-zip file of my backup. I then activated the maintenance mode, so people who accidentaly stumble into my blog won’t find it weird why database errors were showing up, and then I deactivated all my plugins.
-_- Yeah stupid me, I forgot not to deactivate the maintenance mode plugin, so anyone who might have passed by did see the database errors that were showing up while the transfer of the new wordpress files were being done. 
After pounding my head on that minor stupidity, I tried not to panic by making myself some iced tea and find anything I can eat on the fridge. There was nothing interesting on the fridge though, so I just consoled myself with the iced tea and fed “MingMing” our male cat since he was whining.
After 10 minutes or so I went back to my computer to check on the transfer. I am on dial-up so it is quite slow. Seeing that the transfer was finished, I headed to the upgrade page and then I was done. I crossed my fingers when I checked my blog on the browser for the first time after the upgrade and I’m quite happy that I didn’t break anything. So now I have the 2.3 version installed, and the tags running. Its actually one of the reasons why I wanted to upgrade. At least now my related posts plugin works. I might even try the configurable tag cloud later and see if its good to add on my blog or not. I also found out while reactivating my plugins that the version checker works. I have two installed plugins that notified me of its new version availability so I upgraded them immediately.
While writing this post, I am poking around the visual editor and I’m quite ecstatic because the “justified” paragraph format is there. I’m obsessed with the justified format in my papers and other documents so I’m very happy. (Note: I’m quite easy to please. Haha.)
Paid Wine Survey
Popularity: 6% [?]
-
Join now!
