Well here I am again with Day 2 of the Challenge. Or am I? Truth be told, one of my usual distractions has crept out of the woodwork to get me. As I have mentioned, I’m not new to some of the ideas of the Challenge – i.e. that you can make money online from placing ads on your website, making the site sufficiently interesting for visitors and then reaping the rewards when they click on an ad etc.
But of course this is where a little knowledge makes for danger. My big idea was to set up myself with WordPress MU so that instead of having to update multiple installations of the software I’d have just one copy to maintain. So I cleared out all the databases and files from my home directory, up loaded the WPMU files and then, only then decided to read the README file. I should have known from the first paragraph, shouldn’t I?
If you're not comfortable editing PHP code, taking care of a complex webserver and database system and being pro-active about following developments of this project then run, don't walk, to http://wordpress.com/ and sign yourself and your friends up to free blogs. It's easier in the long run and you'll save yourself a lot of pain and angst.
Did I pay any heed? To use a phrase, did I b****x?! I spent a weekend try to make my installation work, without the necessary knowledge (or in truth user permissions on my server). So instead of getting down to making the lessons of the 30DC work for me, I faffed around, chasing my tail, all in the hope of having a working version of WPMU available to me to use in generating the blogs that I would use to implement the 30DC lessons.
To get back to the Challenge proper, can I for now just say that I have worked on the lessons given on Days 2 through 5 or 6 and that I will get them written up on here for you asap. Suffice to say, I’ve got a few days catch up to play now due to my pigheadedness and general falling into old traps. Bye for now…