I've been gone for a long time now, partly because every time I put my fingers on the keyboard, I had to resist the urge to write mournful statements about how much I miss traveling, and I thought that might get boring after a while.
But I also miss writing. And, though I still have mixed feelings about the United States, I have a lot to say about it. New York is a place that gives you a lot to say.
So, without further adieu, I'll tell you some things about the past few months, and we can consider ourselves caught up, and then go from there.
Thing #1: I now work as a tutor to 7th graders at a public school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Many people think that New York City Public schools are places to be avoided, but I am having fun. And honestly, seventh graders are very much like seventh graders, regardless of economic status or nationality, or whether they call themselves seventh graders, or gymnasium students. Many people also think that seventh graders are to be avoided, probably because they remember being in seventh grade, and how horrible it was. But I like seventh graders so much more now that I'm not one of them.
Thing #2: There was actually good news in American politics last week. Can you believe it? Good news! I don't know if I believe it. I think I might be dreaming. Any minute now a dwarf is going to walk by in a tutu and a dolphin is going to speak Greek to me, and then I am going to wake up...
Thing #3: My blog needs a new name. It needs some cool banner at the top, and it needs some actual writing about events that have taken place in recent memory. I'm working on all of these things, but if anyone has suggestions about the more technological items on this list, that would be great. I haven't the slightest idea how to put in a masthead, and when I look at the html, it makes me feel vaguely seasick.
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3 comments:
Good to have you back EmilyZ in New York! I don't care how non-current you posts may be... it's always a pleasure to read them. So to encourage you, I thought I'd try to help you out with your technical issues.
To be honest your source code makes me feel a bit ill too... But I'll tell you what I did after much trial and error to get my banner up there, and maybe it'll work for you too... (Although I'm sure there's a better way to do it if you actually know what you're doing...)
Anyway... here goes:
- Go to customize, page elements, and click on 'add a page element'.
- Choose to add a picture, and upload the banner you have made (using photoshop, for example, and saving it as a jpeg I think - DO NOT shrink to fit).
- Move the picture directly above the 'about me' box to make it easy to find. [NOTE: I don't know how to adjust the size of the banner once it's uploaded, so I made sure it was the right size by taking a screen shot of my blog, opening it in photoshop, and making the banner on top of the screenshot in a separate layer so that it was already to the correct specs, then pasting it into a separate photoshop file.]
- Now go to 'edit html',
- Download a backup of your code before you start messing around with it.
- hit ctrl-F and enter 'about me' in the search field. Directly above where it says 'ABOUT ME' in the code you should see your photo, which will look something like this:
{b:widget id='Image2' locked='false' title='' type='Image'/} except inside the little <> things instead of the {} ones - can't use those in the comment.
- Where it says 'false' - change to 'true' - I'm not sure this is important but the original banner is set to 'true' so to be on the safe side...
- Cut the entire line out (Ctrl-X).
- Now scroll down. Towards the end of the code, directly following the end of the '/* Footer' section, you should find something like the following:
{body}
{div id='outer-wrapper'}
{div id='header-wrapper'}
{b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1'}
{b:widget id='Image1' locked='true' title='' type='Image'/}
{/b:section}
{/div}
- Directly below this line: {b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1'}
you should see a line that says something like {b:widget id= header...etc} or something to that effect (can't remember the exact phrasing). Delete that line, and paste in (Ctrl-V) the line with your photo instead, so that the code looks more or less like mine above.
- Now go back to the top of your code and scroll down until you find the section called /* Header. I deleted everything in that section except the bit below, which didn't seem to do anything to the visuals so I left it in just in case:
/* Header
----------------------------------------------- */
#header .description {
margin:0;
padding:5px 30px 10px;
line-height:1.5em;
font: $descriptionFont;
}
- Preview and if it looks OK, save! If it doesn't, try deleting that 'header description' bit too, cause yours looks more complicated than mine.
- If you want to put it lower, follow the advice flubberwinkle gave me over on my site.
- If you don't know how to use photoshop, find someone who does! Or if you don't know anyone, give me an idea of what you want I'll make one for you cause I love any excuse for playing around with photoshop...
Good luck!
Thank you kassandra! That's really helpful! I'm working on it....
You are brilliant. Thank you!
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