I’ve written about blogging the last two days, so might as well keep with the theme. I thought I would write about how I switched over to WordPress (Sometimes, I feel like I’m on their marketing team). I’m sure there are better and easier ways to do it, but this was what I did:
1. Started an account. Really easy and if “stevenhong” was still around, I’m sure there are still many other domains available. I hate it when I’m signing up for an account and I have to put like “stevenhong12345″ or “5tevenhong”. Not cool.
2. Chose a theme. At first, I was thinking I wanted to have something super-customizable, so I was a little letdown when they only offered pre-packaged themes. But I soon realized, it’s better this way, so I don’t have to worry too much about design. They have some good looking themes. If you’re a CSS wiz, though, you can purchase an upgrade for a reasonable price and work a little behind the scenes. I like this theme because it’s simple, minimalistic and white. Just like I don’t like wearing black dress shirts, I don’t like black websites. Sorry if you have one.
3. Thought of a title. I still don’t like it, but I can’t think of another.
4. Learned the widgets. I really like having the customizable sidebar. Xanga gives you minimal control, but WordPress lets you set which widgets, what order and even let’s you do a little HTML, if that’s your thing.
5. Wrote content. This probably depends on what type of user you want to be. If you want to post periodically or only when you get a spark of inspiration, then you probably don’t have to do this. I had delusions of writing everyday, so I thought I would get a headstart on content. So I spent a few days just typing up some stuff I’d been thinking. Most of it was pretty bad, so that just lives in my personal journal. Some of it, I uploaded here and kept working on. Having this headstart made it a lot easier for me, which in turn, made it more fun.
6. Published. This part is always the hardest. I once told someone, every time I hit publish, I feel like a small part of my soul is being drained. Dramatic? Yes. You might not know, but I’m very self-conscious in general, and so I like to keep a lot to myself. Even more so when it comes to writing. There’s a lot of pressure when people know you studied English. It’s probably like when I go up to med-students and ask them about obscure physical ailments and expect them to know everything about it and give me a cure on the spot (I sense another post for another). But anyways, I used to dread people reading anything I wrote. But last year, I realized that if I want to improve at all, I should be open, prolific and varied in my writing. So that’s been my impetus for a lot of this.
Some people have mentioned that they want to switch to WordPress, but they feel like it’s too serious. Not necessarily true. So come in—the water’s warm.
I should find a job at a tourist bureau.
1 Comment
September 26, 2007 at 10:04 am
Hahaha. It’s to make it easier for people to read. White backgrounds tend to hurt my eyes after awhile when reading a post. Call it seeker-friendly if you will.