Week 1A: My Blog Theme 

         Ah, the genesis of a new blog . . . just what the world needs, another blog, right? So I need to start and populate a blog for my new Social Media for Business class. As I sit here pondering what it should be about other than my mental meanderings, my housemate’s guide dog is sitting on my feet keeping them warm.  He doesn’t realize we are about to embark on a new adventure . . . he’d just as soon sleep..

           I am trying to get two independent businesses going, an Interior Design business and the business of selling my artwork.  I also write and do other side gigs on occasion so I am putting everything I do under the umbrella of Jan’s Jems.  After all, just about anything special can be considered a jem!

           Before selecting a theme, I had to get rid of those pesky notifications . . .  they would not go away at first.  None of the blog themes available really spoke to me so I realized I would have to pick one and customize it.  I went back and forth looking at them all for a while before deciding to just tweak the Settings and Layout and see where that took me.

           The Layout section looked pretty intimidating since I don’t know what exactly I want in my blog.  So I decided to take a look at the Theme Designer mentioned at the top of the page.  But first, coffee and a chocolate snack.  The fuel of life!

           The Theme Designer starts out with the default theme that is assigned if you don’t pick one.  So I’m going to back out of it and look at Settings before picking a default theme to start with.  What I found is that I am not sure what the most intriguing named settings do, so I may be trying to rush ahead of the game.  I’m going to go back and pick a theme to tweak.

           The only color scheme I like is the Contempo Aqua theme, but I gather colors can be changed.  It is hard to objectively evaluate themes though while ignoring color.  The Tasty Treats theme might be good as there are a bunch of visible boxes which could be boxes with things to sell.  But that theme doesn’t have the sidebar with the author info.  I suppose that could be tweaked in too but I don’t know for sure . . . yet.. 

           The Dynamic Views Snapshot theme sounds exciting and looks like multiple items are listed that can be selected.  The background of the Awesome Inc. Artsy blog is really attractive and reminds me of the circular rug under my dining table which is a watercolor motif.

I wonder if I can change the general colors in the background.  Even more likely and easier to do is to find a watercolor-type image that I like and use that for background.  I even have some already selected that I used in sample web pages last semester when I took the Web Design class. 

I’m going to start out with the Dynamic Views Snapshot theme and go from there.  My favorite colors are aqua and purple, as one can see in the rug.  I selected a shade of aqua for the theme color.  And I am going to use a background image with both colors, a peaceful fade of colors.

Except that I cannot figure out how to get this to appear as anything other than a teeny tiny little box image

 or a repeated totally stretched and distorted image.  

I don’t want to revert to using CSS this early in the process but I don’t know how to get this to look the way I want.  Time to contact the instructor and say “What gives?”

          Unfortunately, it looks like I can’t do what I want without resorting to using CSS.  Since I am not all that good with CSS and shoehorning it into this blog application might be a complicated mess,  I am going to go back to the Awesome theme with the Artsy background.  I will try once to use my background but if it doesn’t work right away, I will just stick with the theme and tweak it if I can do it without ruining it.

Well, none of the changes that I make stick.  I guess it is time to watch the instructor’s video again.  I haven’t a clue what I am doing. 

Upon a second listen, I realized that the instructor isn’t aware that you have to use a gmail account to set up a blog in that space.  I didn’t want to use my gmail account for that . . . it already has a dedicated important purpose . . . all my restaurant and birthday and reward programs use that account.  But it wouldn’t let me even get into their system without a gmail account, no Yahoo allowed here.  So I made yet another email account . . . this is why people run around with eight email accounts . . . inflexibility and bad software (probably purposefully bad, too). 

I also have a feeling that when the instructor asked if I’d watched the video, the one I just rewatched was not the one she was referring to.  So I’m returning to Canvas to see if I can find the correct video.  Maybe that is where I went wrong.  Maybe I have been flailing around like a lost octopus because I didn’t go far enough into Canvas and just dived right in blind.  Oh well, they say it is good to experiment.

Eureka moment!!!  The save button!  The HIDDEN save button!  Never in a million years would I have found something that small and faint and yes, hidden, on my own!  Hell, even the instructor had to search around for almost seven minutes to find it.  How dare they!?!  This software is not ready for prime time by any means.  And I thought it was all me.  Shame on Google for perpetrating yet another complex procedure that does not have to be so.  Are you taking lessons from Microsoft or what?

Now that I have a better understanding of how the themes translate into a blog and know how to save changes that I make, I am going to start off with the Ethereal theme with the Humming Birds (misspelled . . . come on Google, you can do better) Two Tone option.  Maybe I will just pick my two favorite colors here and switch to the Blossom option and that will give me a background that I like. 

So I really would prefer the Blossoms option but I wanted two tones so I selected the one I did. Now, I do not see a way to change the background to Blossoms.  I will play around with this a little more but I do not see a way to change the two color tones either.  I am less than unimpressed with this piece of . . . . software! 

I am now in the Advanced part where there is no explanation for what exactly each possible setting is for.  I suppose they want us in there working with this gawdawful piece of . . . . software for hours on ending making tweaks and seeing what happens.  That is no way to set up anything efficiently.  I guess Google has become such a big behemoth that they no longer can care about being efficient or fostering inefficiency among the masses. What the hell are tabs in the context of a blog???  Egads, what do I have to do to get rid of this horrible orange?  All I can say good about this process is that even though I don’t like how it looks at all, the changes I made stuck this time because I knew about the hidden save button.

So let’s try that theme with the Blossoms option.  I never did figure out how to set up the two tones in the background of that other option . . . I friggin’ give up because I have spent far too much time on this as it is.  I am officially annoyed!

And I STILL can’t get the thing to use my background image in anything approaching an attractive appearance.  I’ll tell ya, this software is crap, plain and simple.  No matter what the little window in the upper left displays, my background image is not properly applied.  They must be lying about the appropriate resolution image to use.

If you look in that little window and then take a look at what actually gets displayed, you can see there is a major disconnect.  Not ready for prime time!  Not even close.  I am just gonna have to use one of their stinkin’ images.

          There!  Take That!  I’ve picked a theme I don’t really like but at least it is using my favorite colors, teal and violet and shades thereof.  Now wasn’t that just a special little adventure .. . . NOT!

          OMG!  I hit the little save icon but IT DIDN’T STICK!  I am ready to kill someone now.  If a Google representative materialized in front of me right now . . . . ugh! &%*#&$%&@%#*@#$*&%@#$&*#*%#$  I have had it with this.  I am done.  We will just use whatever ugly friggin’ theme it has and get on with it.  I think it might be time to contact my friend who has a very popular blog and see what software she uses.  I cannot continue to interact with this piece of garbage.

          Well, I’ll be DAMNED!!! My image is up and looking good.  THEIR PREVIEW DOESN’T WORK!!!!!  I have been manipulating right and left up and down for hours only to learn that the results I thought I was tweaking had no relation whatsoever to what showed up on the blog itself!!!  That means . . . . well, this is a family space so I won’t say what it really means.  Edited for decency, all I will say is that Google has no right to put this piece of trash accessible to the public.  Efficiency? HA!  Working with blogger has been the opposite of efficiency . . . and I bet millions of people have toiled hours not getting where they wanted to go.