New land, New language

37  54%  37%  6mph  windroseWSW bar steep rise  dewpoint22  Waxing Crescent of the Snow Moon    Holiseason

Learning how to use a new program is a little like visiting a foreign country, one where you may understand a bit of the language, but not all.  The customs and folk ways of the new country are odd, unfamiliar.  If you don’t follow them, you might get by ok, but you also might find yourself in a world of trouble.

The program that drives this site is WordPress.  The old website used FrontPage, a Microsoft product.  WordPress is an open source, Linux based program which means anyone can fiddle with the code and it uses Linux, the open source operating system.  All this may seem like babble to you, but it is as if you landed in Rome and tried to read the street signs based on high school Latin.  Sometimes you’ll guess right, sometimes not. 

Let me give you an example.  I liked the first theme with the Hubble horse-head nebula shot, but I found this moody lake and forest scene and liked it better.  Bill Schmidt had showed me how to upload themes, so I did that, clicked it into use and went on the site to observe my handiwork.  Ooops.  I couldn’t figure out how to get to the admin. page.  Important because that’s where you write posts and manage the overall blog.

So.  I called Bill.  He got into the admin. pages by clicking on edit.  I could have thought of that, but didn’t.  The folkways of this new land had me bamfoozled.  Bill is the local who knows the language and knows your language, too.