I am still trying to figure out the technical aspects of a blog. To help improve my blogging tech skills, I enrolled in Blogging 101 by WordPress. The main problem with this, however, is that the course is targeted to WordPress.com users, and I am a WordPress. org user. They are supposedly very different under the hood. Are you confused yet? Welcome to my world!

The .com version plays off the title of this one and is called, Outside the Fish Bowl. Some of my assignments are more easily done using the .com tools. For example, I can easily embed a Pinterest page in a .com post but I have to actually do coding to do it in a .org post. When I am no longer terrified of doing that, I promise I will try it here, but for now this Pinterest post will be on the .com site.

As far as I can tell, the posts are easily exported from the .org to the .com but the actual data stays on the original site, so my photo library is empty on the .com site. I am still playing around with the themes on this site (the .org site) , so please do not be too critical yet. If I change the theme, I seem to lose the custom header with its relevance to the blog title, but that is okay. I lose those extra columns on the Yoko theme which were driving me crazy. I still have the HOME page that a friend added for me but I have to completely revise it since I lose the tiles that acted as a visual index for artwork. I am beginning to understand the whole PAGE concept…

If I manage to stay sane throughout this experience, I will hopefully be able to decide which version to keep and be able to make an educated decision rather than just blindly pick whatever seems easiest or cheapest. To be honest, I do not think that either one or the other will be easy at the moment. The .com version has very limited memory, and I would have to upload all of my photos and posts if I eliminate the original .org blog to save money. If I use the .org version, I have to realize that any Blogging 101 assignment immediately becomes one for an intermediate class.

Why do analogue artists like myself have to venture into this terrifying digital world?