It. Was. Not. My. Fault.

I’ve been doing this blog thing for eight months now, and I still make mistakes. I still have to call Kevin and/or Jeremy for help when things go amiss. But last week’s debacle was. not. my. fault. Truly. It wasn’t.

Monday morning, Monday before last, I wrote the first draft. Usually, I wait a day to let it sit, then on Wednesday, I rewrite and edit and find photos if I want to use them. On Thursday, I put the copy into a WordPress document on the website. I add the photos to my photo library and then insert them into the post, maybe as individual pictures (like this),

Look what I found! Dirt!

or maybe in a “gallery,” which is where there are several photos in a row (like this).

I read and read and read the thing, to be sure I’ve spelled everything correctly, and to make it correctly readable, and to discover if I’ve use the same word, correctly or incorrectly, too many times. That wold be a little boring, don’t you thing? (And to find places where I’ve typed in the wrong word instead of the write word.) [Go ahead, get out your red pencils and edit/correct this paragraph.]

updates and previews

The whole time, I’m clicking the “update” button to make the edits and corrections, and then the “preview changes” button.

The “preview changes” button takes me to a page that shows me what the post will look like when  the readers see it.

Last week, that didn’t work. I kept getting the “error”message. Every time.

I *hate* this page!

I e-mailed Kevin a frantic message, because I was leaving Thursday to go up there and help with Peter while he and April were doing some work on their house. He saw the problem but didn’t understand why it was happening.

I phoned Jeremy, who didn’t really understand, either. He told me what to do instead, and that worked, but it didn’t explain why the usual routine didn’t.

Then, there’s the MadMimi. That’s the program that I use to send out the e-mails each week. I go to the MadMimi website and write a new message, tell the program the people who should get it, and when it should go. The message contains the link to the new post. Or at least it’s supposed to. Every now and then, it doesn’t work, as some of you know. And you are kind to let me know when that happens, so I can go back and fix it, which means, of course, a new Mad Mimi message that says “sorry the link didn’t work, now it does.” And I’m always embarrassed about it, because I’ve made some mistake.

This time it. was. not. my. fault.

Some of you, when you get the error message, go on the the website and read the post there. You see the new post’s title and first paragraph, then there’s a prompt that says “keep reading.” If you clicked on that IT DIDN’T TAKE YOU TO THE REST OF THE POST. YOU GOT THE “ERROR” MESSAGE AGAIN!!!

The mess required Kevin AND Jeremy AND April working together to fix it. Friday was a long, frantic morning. And I’m very, very sorry that things weren’t working the way they were supposed to. And, lots of folks didn’t even know, if they read it later in the morning, after all the glitches had been unglitched.

All things computer cause me anxieties. It’s like the car. When something goes wrong, I don’t know what to do about it. Admittedly, if the car suddenly stops running, I do look at the gas gauge, to be sure I’ve not neglected that important part that I do know how to remedy. If that doesn’t work, I’m helpless.

I’ve finally learned to restart the computer when things aren’t running correctly, and that often works. (This, after calling Jeremy, for about a hundred times, and having him ask, first of all, did I restart it.)

So, thanks to the Labor Shed (Kevin and Jeremy and April) for repairing things.