Task 10: Create and maintain a blog, with an entry for each task

As I use a computer regularly for work, I'd assumed it wouldn't be that difficult to create a blog. Wrong. Googling to see what templates were available, there was quite a choice but none seemed entirely straightforward and simple enough for my purposes. In the end I did the obvious thing and opted for the same one as my friend Vivien had used. I knew that her knowledge of IT was no more advanced than mine but what I hadn't realised was that she had an obliging chum who was a web designer, and who more or less did it for her - which was fair enough, as she had had the sense not to include the creation of a blog as one of her 60 challenges. 

Eventually I managed to sort out the columns and include a photo of myself with a bit of background blurb, but then it all went pear-shaped. It seemed I could either have text in the main section or the photo and blurb to the right, but not both. After struggling for a couple of days, I gave up and started again from scratch, but then found that when I tried to call up the blog, it kept bringing up the failed first attempt. Maybe what I needed was a young teenager to help? I asked around but the mothers all said that their children don't use blogs and wouldn't be able to help. Finally I cracked it, and Vivien was able to tell me how to insert colour coding and links into the task list, which was the final step. Unfortunately the comments box won't work unless you use Google+, and the colour coding is slightly flawed, but otherwise it does the job.

At home I always use the desk top when I'm writing a blog post but it occurred to me that while we were in South Africa for 11 weeks, I'd have to use my mini iPad. I tried setting it up before we left the UK and found to my dismay that I couldn't create any new blog posts. Having exhausted every possibility I could think of, I rang Roger - a friend who's an expert at IT - and asked if he could help. He fairly quickly pinpointed the problem and found a solution, so I was all set. Manipulating photos and inserting them into blog posts proved all but impossible using only the iPad, so Peter kindly did the cropping, re-sizing etc on his Mac and then emailed them to me, which enabled me to do the rest.

I was delighted to have acquired a new skill and was immensely relieved not to have fallen at the first hurdle. I'm sure there are elements I could have done better but I more or less got there in the end, with help from Vivien, Roger and Peter, and the sense of achievement was well worth all the hassle.