Cracking the Code

For any of you who have ever dabbled in HTML coding, you know how difficult and confusing it can be for average beginners like me. All the letters, numbers, symbols, notes, etc. are literally like a foreign language. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, try going into your blog Layout and click the Edit HTML sub-tab. Yikes!) Now, I'm going to "show-off" for a minute. I have been playing around with HTML codes for a few weeks trying to personalize my page a little more by changing my backgrounds, colors, etc. I didn't want to use any of the pre-made backgrounds that you can download for free. No...I have to do it myself, partly because I don't want to be like anyone else, and partly because I love a challenge. Of course, I start with a blogger template and then "tweak" it from there. I have been researching out web-based colors (including their hexadecimal codes which can be used in both XHTML or CSS), experimenting with pixels (sizes), adding borders around posted pics, making my own heading in Photoshop CS2 and then placing it over the existing template setting. Sounds like I know what I'm talking about, right? All of this is not as hard as it seems and has been fun to learn; however, I don't know the coding language well enough to make all the changes I want to make. In my many "switcheroos", I accidentally erased my cute slideshow that was below my header (it's there now) and for the life of me, couldn't figure out how to get it back on. I tried many different things and couldn't get it to work. I discovered that the coding from the slide.com site had been written wrong, so it couldn't paste onto the template. I asked a friend who knows HTML to look at it. He didn't have enough time to really study it, but confirmed it was written poorly. Paul said he'd play with it later. In my determination, I couldn't wait. I had quickly learned from him what to look for, so began my work. I soon found an error, made the change, tried to plug it into the template. Bummer! It didn't work, but this time the error message came up with another thing it didn't like. Found a possible trouble spot, made the code change, and tried again! Hooray! It worked! I was so happy (after spending cumulative hours on this one "issue") that I jumped up and celebrated. Darin wondered what could've possibly make me so giddy. "I cracked the code!" I shouted. "I figured it out!" Paul (who was still at our house) was very surprised that I did it. The code was puzzling him, too, and he hates it when he can't fix something. To give Paul credit...with more time, he would have found it probably before me. But, I am glad I got to sense that great feeling of accomplishment. Now if I were just as determined to do the laundry, mop the floor, vaccum, and clean bathrooms, I'd be a very happy lady with a really clean house!

P.S. The slide.com ticker at the top has new photos included. More will come soon.