Help
If you need technical help using this site, or you have any other problems with your computer, or your life is a frickin’ train wreck, contact Retired Geezer here:
Go ahead and do it. Send him an email. He’s retired. He really doesn’t have anything better to do than brush his horses. And he has worked with Paul Anka. You hear me? Paul Anka!!!
Geezer’s real name is Pat, if that helps.
Advice Bulletin No. 1 - Inserting Pictures In A Post
For Main Page Commenters, here is a method to get correctly sized pictures into your IB post:
First, check the file size of your picture. Uploaded images should be sized so that they do not unnecessarily consume our limited photo storage space, so that we are forced to delete pictures in older posts. High resolution pictures from your digital camera may also cause the main page to load more slowly and should be reduced to a smaller file size. Your file size should be under 100kb. Most photo management software applications (e.g., Microsoft Picture Manager that comes with Microsoft Office Suite) have a tool that makes resizing pics for web pages very easy. A WordPress FAQ on this topic is available here. The FAQ gives you links to free software you can download to resize pictures if you do not already have something.
Open up the ‘Write New Post’ page.
1. If the photo is still on your computer’s hard drive, click “Browse” to find it in the area just below the Write window. When you find it, double-click on the picture. The file address for the picture should pop up in a screen that let’s you Upload it to WordPress. Click “Upload”.
2. When you see the thumbnail in WordPress in the area below the Write window, right-click it.
3. Click on properties.
4. Select and copy the URL.
5. Put cursor in the Write window where the picture should go. Generally, pictures look better on the Main Page if they are centered. You have to put your cursor in the Write window, then hit the format button for centered text. Your cursor will jump from the left margin to the middle (or use Alt+c). Do this before you upload the picture, and it will be centered. If you upload first with the cursor on the left margin, the Rich Text Editor will not let you center the picture after it is in the post (at least, I can’t figure out how to make it do this).
6. Click the button on the toolbar at the top that we use to, for example, insert pictures from other sites.
7. Copy the URL into the appropriate box.
8. IMPORTANT: Before you post it, check the URL and delete “.thumbnail” from the URL if it appears just before “.jpg”.
9. In the first ‘Dimensions’ box (width), enter 425. Delete whatever number pops up in the second (height) box.
10. In the ‘Title’ box, you can post a caption that will show up when a reader’s cursor is on the window.
11. Insert the picture. You’re done.
Advice Bulletin No. 2 - Using HTML Codes to Create Special Characters
A complete list of HTML codes that create ASCII special characters is available here. If you print out this chart and keep it handy, you too can be a dork one of the cool kids by putting German words with an umlaut into your posts.
For example, to make the footnote superscript, just type ampersand-sup1-semicolon (using the symbols, and without the dashes) and you will get ¹. (Obviously, you can use whatever number you want.)
It works fine in the comments, but not necessarily in the window you usually use for main page posts. In the Write window, the code for the footnote superscript will look like it is going to work when you click Save, but when you publish your post the HTML code shows up instead of the superscript. You can Save and look at the Preview below the Write window to see if this is going to happen.
If you encounter this problem, hit the “Code” tab that is just to the right of the “Visual” tab at the top of the window. This takes you out of the Rich Text Editor so that you are just looking at HTML. You can then insert the superscript code there and the RTE won’t screw it up when you publish.
In general, if you are having trouble using an HTML code when you post, the problem may be that the Rich Text Editor does not recognize it, and you can use the “Code” tab to avoid the problem. If this doesn’t work, then WordPress does not support the code (e.g., attempting to change fonts) and you are out of luck.
Advice Bulletin No. 3 — Embedding Videos
It’s easy, as explained by WordPress FAQs on the subject:
How Do I Post A YouTube Video?
Get this straight — ignore the embed code that is used for other hosting services like Blogspot. Just use the basic URL for the video to embed it in WordPress, typing like this: (youtube=Put The URL Here) — except you use brackets [] instead of parentheses ().
