Stumble it!
September 21, 2007
Missing HTML: Reward If Found!
Bill says watching me manage my blog is akin to witnessing dogs mating: there are shudders and misfires, yelping and awkward pauses, but in the end a post or a puppy is produced.
Although I’ve been blogging for more than two years, I was 37 when I started. HTML and Flickr have all been highly mysterious to me, and every week I struggle with something else that seems like it should be elementary, but it ends up taking me hours of playing with codes and applications to figure out. None of this comes naturally.
Perhaps those of us who are old enough to have witnessed the mind-blowing transition from rotary to push-button telephones blew the neural pathway that instantly grasps the most basic points of computer programming. (Heartbreakingly, my parents were not earl adopters of the new phone technology, despite my pleas that we were wasting more time than most people because we dialed of 9’s so often, which took forever.)
My latest challenge arose when I was trying to upload a tiny image from another website to mine and link it back to that same website. I do that all the time, but this time the site asked me to “upload the image and save it to my server” and not to link directly to the page itself.
Now see, I have a good grasp of osmosis, and I can give a talk about the birds and the bees, and I successfully broke a son of the habit of popping out of bed at night. I am capable.
But I’m not quite sure what “my server” is and a fair amount of googling didn’t help. I found other pages containing instructions for uploading graphics, but all seemed to assume that anyone capable of blinking could upload an image to her server.
By dinnertime, I had uploaded the image to my desktop and fiddled with it, looking for its code, with no success.
“I’ve uploaded a graphic to the desktop and I can’t find its HTML,” I complained to Bill as I grated Parmesan to sprinkle on our Linguini With Bacon and Roasted Red Pepper. “And I don’t know what ‘my server’ is. Is that my computer? Is that WordPress?”
Finn was pouring the milks for dinner, and I heard him mutter, “I thought I was the server around here,” but I ignored him.
“And even if I knew what my server was, I’d still be in a mell of a hess* because I can’t find the HTML for the picture. It’s making me insane,” I continued. “Can you call twinsanity and tell them dinner’s ready?”
Once we sat down, Bill was ready to address the issue.
“Have you vacuumed under your bitmap?” he asked, trying not to laugh. ”Or you could try bleaching the jpeg.” He was spouting nonsense; he considers this type of talk foreplay.
“Ha ha,” I said. “You won’t be getting any until I figure this out.”
Three hours later, the kitchen was clean, laundry was running, the boys were asleep and I either figured out or finessed a way to create some code that ran the graphic off my site, but linked it to the other one.
I found the HTML: a big victory for a forty-year-old blogger making her way through the blogosphere one small step at a time.
* My mom used to say this in the days of shag carpets and rotary phones; no idea how it popped out of my mouth in the new millennium.
Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Blender
RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URI
September 21st, 2007 at 9:37 am, Candy Says:
You are an inspiration. I have had to rely on the kindness of Typepad (and their monthly fee) to keep a blog going, because, at 46, I could not either manage the html intricacies.
You go, girl. Right after you bleach out the jpegs.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:46 am, Jordan Says:
Well, I’m impressed. I have two buttons on my blog with no HTML attached to them because I couldn’t figure out how on earth to do it.
And my mom (and now I) says “mell of a hess”, too!
September 21st, 2007 at 11:59 am, alala Says:
Remember the phones that had buttons, but they still made that clicky-noise for each number, so the 9s still took forever?
Congratulations on figuring out the image problem. You can ask me next time, but um, I’m not really good with the prompt response. I would get back to you eventually…
September 21st, 2007 at 12:47 pm, MammaLoves Says:
Ugh! I use blogger and even after I figured out how to load the image as a draft post and use the URL for the image, it still doesn’t work every time.
I’d love to be so HTML/CSS/Java fancy, but I fear if I did I’d have no excuse for my ugly site.
September 21st, 2007 at 2:23 pm, Jennifer Says:
I’ve thought of going self-hosted and doing something with Wordpress but I have no idea what i’m talking about when I say that. I should probably stick to Blogger aka Blogging for Dummies.
September 21st, 2007 at 3:15 pm, cardiogirl Says:
Oh sister. We are one brain when it comes to this. So many times I have said to myself, “I gave birth to three children with no drugs I can figure out how to put that code in the right place.”
Or, “I have dealt with three sick children by myself when I had a cold, I will figure out Google Sitemap.”
My husband is actually a computer tech guy, but not html or javascript. He does help me out though, but in between diaper changes I google like crazy.
And it does feel good when you see that little mo-fo pop up on the screen where it belongs, doesn’t it?
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 am, Crisanne Says:
My mom said mell of a hess. I haven’t said it yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:15 am, empress bee (of the high sea) Says:
well honey i am 60 and i am still learning. i have a new blog, muffin53.com, and i have been fooling around with it for about two months now and am about ready to give up on this server stuff. i know what it is cause i signed up for it and sent them money, but use it? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
smiles, bee
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:45 pm, Soccer Dad Says:
Try using the rich text editor in wordpress to upload images. Or try a plugin like Xinha4WP (http://plugins.baptiste.us/plugins/xinha4wp) It’s like posting from Word. I’ll admit I still dive into the HTML before I publish just to make sure it looks good, but it sure makes adding images easy.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:51 am, Mamaluv Says:
You’re not alone here, Anne. I’m only 31 and a member of Mensa, and I don’t have a freakin’ clue about servers either (or for that matter, how to set up Microsoft Outlook properly).
I grew up with rotary phones and shag carpet too, but only because my parents were being obstinate and quirky - at least, that’s what they said in their own defense. Personally, I think it’s because they were too busy reallocating the renovation fund to quilting supplies and hunting dogs.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:28 pm, amy Says:
I hear you completely, though you seem much more html savy than me:) I am 34, and I grew up with all the previously mentioned items. I guess there’s a learning curve. Hopefully, I can press on. Love your posts!