Mar. 16: Housekeeping

Today I was searching the ‘net trying to figure out how to get my blog header to link back to the home page of my blog instead of a page that does not exist. I didn’t find the answer—don’t worry;  I have not yet given up—but I did find a recommendation to use Windows Live Writer for composing and publishing Blogger blogs.

I decided to give it a try because I’m into pain. Also, I figured it couldn’t be much more trouble than composing in Word and copying and pasting in my Blogger window, which is what I’ve been doing for years.

I’m using Windows Live Writer right now, and so far I like what I see because—unlike the compose mode of Blogger, which is absolute shiat—my post format is immediately applied so I can see exactly how ugly or beeyooteeful it’s going to be. In other words, Writer is smart and yanks the cascading style sheet over so it’s not only true WYSIWYG, it’s WYSIWYGOPUBWJKGAWISTLLBYP (what you see is what you get once posted, unlike Blogger, which just kinda guesses at what it’s supposed to look like before you post).

When adding photos, Writer gives you a bazillion options for how they should look and act in your post. It’s cool. For instance, when I inserted the photo above, I chose the “sure, why NOT put a drop shadow on it?” option and lookie there: drop shadow! I haven’t tried inserting other elements besides hyperlinks, and may not even need to. But if they’re anything like photos, I LOVE. I LOVE.

Editing-wise, double dashes are automatically converted to em dashes and that is wicked awesome. It also makes the pretty curly apostrophes and quote marks (“.”). I know, I know… I’m easily impressed.

My first impression is that Windows Live Writer is a pretty awesome posting tool. You bloggers ought to check it out. Thank me later. I’ll wait.

OK, here are the other things I did on the blog today (look here, I’m about to try a bulleted list in Writer!):

• I finally added the Rothstein family photos to their page. Check out the cuteness of Aiden and Chloe. Sheila, I’m sorry it took me so long to get those posted.
• Debi e-mailed photos from Gwen’s third birthday a couple weeks ago. Her’s a cutie. Her’s getting so big!
• I re-formatted the blog layout again because of that stoopid horizontal scroll bar that some of you were getting. So my plan of having two narrow columns in which to display important info got hosed, but the post column is wider so at least that part worked out.

(So cool. Writer knew to make my bullets square and did the spacing just right.)

While I was deliriously delirious on IV drugs in the ER the other night, I was writing (bad) cascading style sheets in my head. I figure that’s a sign that I’ve worked on this re-design enough, so if you don’t like the new look, I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to live with it. And also, I don’t like you anymore. Pfft.

P.S. It didn’t grab my footer image. I had to add it myself. And tags? Where are the tags? Writer soooo sucks.