The Girly Anti-Geek

Grandy just went on a business trip.  While there, she encountered some issues with some “automatic” things. 

It is the little things that will make Grandy even more crazy than she already is:

 - Automatic Soap Dispenser- Grandy held her hand, waived her hand, and did everything short of giving the dang thing a hand job, when no soap would come out.  Fast forward 3 minutes, while Grandy is putting on lipstick.  Then the soap starts spewing.  No hands under it of course.

 - Automatic Toilet Flusher - How sad is it when you lean over to tie your shoes while sitting on the can, and you get treated to the lovely biday treatment.

 - Automatic Transmission in Rental Car - Ugh!  This stupid thing would switch back and forth into manual and automatic.  Who decided they needed both?

Grandy has decided she would much rather dispense her own soap, get her own paper towel, and flush her own dang toilet.  However…if she gets an automatic car, she wants an  AUTOMATIC.   For crying out loud…why must we deal with such in-conveniences where there are so many easier things available?

Ever hear of the phrase, Jack of All Trades…master of none?

Well, Grandy is starting to feel like that in the blogosphere folks.  The other day I got a message from the very nice today.com folks.  They indicated they were changing some things about my blog until I can get more traffic.  I responded with a very quick…Ummmm…I don’t get it…I’m trying… and they pointed me in the direction of their forums on how to generate traffic.

Maybe I’m the slowest blogger in the universe at catching on, but I thought I was making some progress.  Maybe I’m just kidding myself.  I work 60-80 hours a week, am the committee chair in my son’s boy scout troop, on the school site council, and oh yeah…wife, mother and hobby blogger.  Get that?  HOBBY!!

I obviously don’t make money off the blogging thing, and know that others do.  Mine are more creative outlets.  This blog in particular was designed to either help those that struggle like me, to make them feel less crazy (I’m as crazy as they come with this stuff) and maybe give the really smart ones something to laugh at.  I’m certainly laughing at myself because let’s face it…if you can’t, what’s the point?

My posts may be a little less frequent here for a little while.  I have some learning….some re-assessing…and some projects to do.  I hope to be able to bring this blog up to the quality of standards that Today.com requires.  But if I cannot, I may have to consider dropping this blog entirely.

The hobby becomes less fun…when there becomes stress involved.

When trying to figure something out, Grandy WILL usually try to find the answer herself.  When she can’t get something to work like it’s supposed to, chances are pretty good it is caused by operator error. 

I know I mentioned a while back that I use Adgitize on my other blog.  Well there is something about adgitize when you click on to other sites, that it will track and give you credits for going to those sights.  Something in my computer wasn’t working for that.  I would visit about 30 sites, and yet it would only give me “credit” for maybe 12.  It was kind of frustrating because I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.

After searching the forums, and the blog, and other discussion threads, I decided to just send an email to the support team and see if they can spell it out to me…using small words…and speaking real slow…because remember who you’re talking about here.

Well Ken Brown, over at Adgitize, is very helpful and kind.  I swear I must be a tech support nightmare sometimes because here is what my question looks like:  Huh?  That thingy?  *UGH*

Well somehow in my asking of my questions (as frustrating as they might be) I helped him discover a bigger problem.  He even posted THIS BLOG POST about it.  By me asking my questions…he was able to discover a bigger issue that was affecting way more people than he had realized. 

He was very gracious and emailed me with the fix of the problem.  I’m afraid I did still have to respond with this:

Blah blah…not just me but IE7…blahdy blah…you’re working on it…blah blah…green and should be blue…yada yada…you’re working on it…yep yep…NOT JUST ME.

YAY!!!  Grandy helped a smart person and didn’t even MEAN TO!!  Now I’m not so afraid of asking these types of questions.  I make NO promises for the quality or clarity of the questions…but I would love it if I somehow help others by seeking help myself. 

Thanks Ken for always being so gracious and patient with Grandy!!!

Here’s how MY night went last night.

Grandy posts her Sunday Stalker Spotlight early yesterday at her other site, only because she realizes that it is already Sunday in Malaysia.  It would only be fair to have it up there for HER Sunday, right?

Anyway…it’s a good thing I did.  I went to get online just an hour later and couldn’t.  I didn’t worry about it too much because I had company over (my twin sister and her family whom I LOVE LOVE LOVE hanging out with).  She and her hubby are my personal IT department, but I wasn’t going to worry about it.

When they left, I decided I would sit down to make sure it posted alright, and try to get a post up here.   No luck STILL.

I try to run a diagnostic of the Network (only because those are the links I’m directed to do, not because I know what I’m doing mind you) and it tells me it’s a problem with the Network connection.  Well DUH!!  I knew that!!

I try doing what I’ve been told to do in the past:

Shutdown the computer…

Power off the modem…

Count to 10…

Pour a drink…

Power back up the modem…

Drink some more…

Power up the laptop…

Drink again…

STILL NO NETWORK!!!

Finish my drink….defeated…but feeling not so bad about it anymore.  Suddenly, I feel a bit warm and fuzzy!

::HICCUP::

CALLING ALL TODAY.COM BLOGGERS!!!

HERE YE…HEAR YE… (whichever way it goes)

Grandy has a question for all of you!!! 

Other bloggers are trying to tell me that Entrecard and Today.com have mended their relationship and they will allow us to continue.  I’ve even received emails from bloggy friends taking me to links that talk about it.  The posts are recent, folks.

I have searched the forums, checked the blog for updates, and I must be missing something. 

I am still consistently declining a minimum of 6 ads a day, and still want to thank my potential advertisers, but I still think I’m supposed to end my Entrecard widget.  Is there a today.com blogger out there in the blog-o-verse that can help me out? 

Anyone?

This whole, “playing by the rules” thing is sometimes hard if the rules change and I can’t find them. 

I’d appreciate any today.com feedback!

Anyone??

Bueller?  Bueller?

Watch out world!  Grandy is starting to pick up a couple things.

I might be considered one of those people who learns just enough to be considered a danger to herself, and those in the immediate vicinity, but I AM going to learn some of this stuff.  Even if ti KILLS ME!

Tonight’s adventure involves the MyBlogLog Community.  I have previously explained here that I really didn’t understand the whole “community” thing, and always wondered how my pic was showing up in their widget.  (Really people…we must start from the beginning every time.)  Then when I investigated a little further, I learned there were actually 20 people who had patiently been waiting for me to accept them into my community.  *sigh*

Well, I have finally tried to catch up on some things and look what I finally learned to put up over at my other site:

I will tell you that I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to do with the widget…but I like it!!!  We won’t get into how long it actually took me to get it on there right (2 hours of trying to figure it out) because that’s not really what’s important here.  What’s important is pretty soon, the Grandy blogs are going to look darn right professional.

Not to mention, I like the fact that I can SEE who is stopping by to share a moment with Grandy.  Does anyone know if we can have this widget at the Today.com site?  I must go in search of some other sites to determine for myself. 

Grandy is on a mission.

In the meantime, I better leave you with this quote:

WHATEVER HITS THE FAN WILL
NOT BE DISTRIBUTED EVENLY.

I have posted before about the traffic issue.  I know I’ve discussed the visitors vs. traffic issue in the past.  But here’s the deal…Grandy needs you to spell it out to her.

How does this work?

I had my highest traffic for one day on Sunday…except…it didn’t register all the visitors?  Here’s what it shows me:

2009 - 03 - 22     “Unique Visits” - 24    “Visitors Total” - 428

HUH?

428 visitors?!  RIGHT ON!!  But what’s the deal with 24?

To try and research this I went into Entrecard, just to cross-reference who stopped by and left their card.  That…regretabbly… was not helpful at all.  Guess what it told me for drops? 

39

WHOAWHOHUH???

Does that mean that the Entrecard droppers are in the Visitor Total, rather than the Unique Visit Total?  Maybe not.  When I break it down to see who came from where, I get the following information:

HOWWHOHUH?????

It looks like it’s only registering 5 visits for Entrecard.

Now I’m really conflustered.  Perhaps I should register this site with a WTF Wednesday Theme also.

Can any of you smart people send me the “Traffic Crap for Dummies” book?

I would be FOREVER grateful!!!

Watch out folks!!  Grandy is starting to learn how to do some things. 

It was just about a week ago that I finally learned how to add links to my very own blogroll here at my today.com site.  Well I would like to point out that this week’s accomplishment (maybe I see a new theme…Accomplishment Wednesday?…I’ll work on that) Grandy has finally learned how to BURN A CD.

Many of you are chuckling to yourselves thinking, “HELLO?  How bad can you be at this stuff?”  I am here to tell you that I am bad.  I have told you that I AM BAD.  Nope, not blonde.  Just bad.

I had learned how to download the songs onto Windows Media Player, but I have NEVER been able to burn them to a CD before.  There was some glitch (in my brain for sure) that kept me from being able to do it.  I’ve even learned how to download/sync songs onto my MP3 player about a year ago (yes, barely a year ago) but still couldn’t get the CD thing going.  Grrrrr…

Well, last week I burnt a book on CD onto the laptop.  I could NOT get it on to a blank one.  Try as I may…it wasn’t happening.

I gave up.

Then last night, I was bound and determined to put the book on a CD for a friend.  It’s a very important book, “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey.  My friend NEEDS to hear it.  So I had to focus.

I don’t know how folks, but it finally clicked.  WOOOHOOOOO!!!  I’m so excited I can hardly stand it!!

WOOOHOOOO!!!! 

What should I try for next week?!?  Something small.  Don’t go crazy and give me something hard.  But I’ll take requests…what should I try to learn? 

Thank you to everyone who is so far in the running for 100 EC Credits!!  I will keep the giveaway open one more day, and award the credits tomorrow to the winner. 

I was so excited that I had 4 comments by lunctime that I logged in to respond to all the comments from work. 

I thoughtfully responded to each comment (as I always do I assure you) and clicked submit.

…no good…

Huh?  Click submit again.

…no good…

Whoawhohuh?  submit.  Submit.  SUBMIT.

…still no good…

What’s missing?  The dang Captcha box.  I swear I didn’t get any warnings, flags, or error messages that was telling me WHY my comment wasn’t being accepted on my own site.

Oh sure.  I post about figuring something out all on my own one day, and the technology gods decide to play a cruel trick on me to put me back in my ignorant place.

Grrrrr.  I will get you CAPTCHA!!! 

Alright, now I am darned excited!!

I have finally and ALL BY MYSELF figured out how to ad links to my blog roll.  There was one over there for Gossip Galore but that was because the beautiful Lady Java (LJ as we know to love her) helped get me started and got that in there for me. 

I was bound and determined to figure it out myself, but everything is laid out so differently here in the WordPress format.  It’s CRAZY!! 

Well, this is post #51 here at The Girly Anti-Geek, and I am proud to announce I have figured it out. 

What should I do to commemorate the event?  Throw a party of course!!  With door prizes!!

Leave a comment here and share with me something wonderful you have learned today, and I will randomly draw a winner for 100 Entrecard Credits.

Come on!!  Even you people who know everything must have learned something!  Even if what you learned consists of, “I learned that Grandy is not completely hopeless.”  That will not get you extra credit…but it will still put you in the running for the 100 Credits.

Share and share alike!!!

Photo credit courtesy of:  uptothehouse.wordpress.com/page/3/