Knot My Line

Oh boy!  I sure have a lot to learn about my blogging software as well as my hosting service. 

Learning new software is always a problem for me and many others too.  I read as much as I can and then reread it again later.  But I always miss something or even worse, occasionally I will misunderstand and misapply what I did read.  Until I learn the new software and gain some insight into it, it seems so strange and difficult to use.  I think, “Aliens wrote this stuff”.

Many years ago I programmed in machine language on the Univac Solid State 80.  Then my company switched to a Burroughs computer and I thought this new system was never going to work.  It wasn’t me, it was this goofy system!  But then after programming the Burroughs for a few years, I was reluctant to switch to an IBM 360 and Cobol.  Maybe it wasn’t the goofy system after all.

Obtaining a domain and beginning this blog has been somewhat of a change in lifestyle for me.  Being a Senior Citizen and very reluctant to change has brought me up short a number of times now.

My latest and continuing escapade has been trying to understand how blogs are managed.  All of the PC’s I have used, except for my Timex Sinclair 1000, have been Microsoft OS systems.  First it was DOS and then Windows.  But now I am at a hosting service that employs Linux.  This is all new stuff and so very different from my past experience. 

After signing up with my host, I got my new blog going using WordPress, downloaded the K2 theme, uploaded some photos, wrote a few posts and started getting brave.  I read a lot of the documentation and heavily browsed the user forum.  Screwing up my courage, I then went into the host administrative system, cPanelx it is called.  In it I found the file manager and began to view the files on “my server”.  I found my photos easily, but after a couple days of looking I could not find my posts anywhere.  I was positive they were there with all of my HTML imbedded therein.  What did my host do with them?

So I opened a problem ticket at my host and complained I could not find them, etc. etc. etc.  Imagine my embarrassment when after several exchanges with the support staff I learned that my posts were not in HTML files on my server, they were in a database.  I needed to use a different option, something called phpMyAdmin.  I went to it and began browsing with it and behold, there were all my posts, pages, comments and etc.  Learning is never easy is it?   I fear I will be at this a long time.