Feeling "Pooped"

it's an expression for feeling exhausted or tired out.

Or in Mr. Chua's words, "want to vomit blood".

Haha not so serious la!

Just want to vent my frustration over not being able to solve webdesign problems.

Anyway, please visit:
The Flog - endearing term for Echinacea Field Log

Ah my research team members = my current housemates. So I'll use the terms interchangeably.

This morning, worked on putting the Facebook like button and searchbox on the flog. Very proud of myself when I got those on and looking good, through trial and error and very limited knowledge of html/whatever was involved. However, as usual, pride comes before a fall. I discovered that the Categories links were LEADING ME TO ERROR PAGES! No idea how it happened, but the links are directed to xml files (which will not look nice without the help of css), instead of html files.

And then, things just went downhill from there.

I started removing the changes I made to the html source code for the main page, because my first thought was that what I put in messed up those links. However, nothing changed.

Then I asked Josh, a research team member/housemate for help. He said he doesnt really know much about xml either. Well he backed up the templates and then restored default templates, but the links still didn't work. He cloned the main index template and renamed it Category RSS, but it didn't work.

After Josh did that I discovered that I could create a new index page and mess around with it as much as I wanted without affecting the real page, so hapyp for a while.

But then I didn't know how to restore the templates, and I couldn't find the original style template for the blog, and I discovered that the monthly archive pages had lost their formatting! To save the flog, I decided to use a new style. and spent a whole lot of time figuring out how to make the main page look acceptable, and putting on the FB like button and searchbox on it. But I couldn't figure out how to return formatting to the monthly archives - that got me really frustrated.

I have been working on this the whole afternoon until now, with food and cooking breaks in between. Seriously. I just feel that I'm responsible for this mess.

Although I don't understand what I changed could've messed up the linking, because all I messed with was adding the and googleanalytics guest tracking code, code for the FB like button and widget code/code for searchh box  and how to make it appear under a nice new heading. Didn't touch the top part of the code. One possibility is that I accidentally deleted something while I was copying and pasting and moving code around. (but once returned to default settings shouldn't be a problem).

 Another possibility for the mess-up is the creation of an RSS feed for Category Fun Stuff yesterday (done by  Lee, my other team member working on the flog, also limited knowledge of web design).

But that line of code is no longer in the script, yet the categories links still not working.

Really not sure. Josh suggested posting on a support forum. I'll probably do that now.

A big thank you to John for his helpful resources and explanations. T_T It is super hard to help from remote location and when you can't see or work with the situation directly. It's really nice of you to help. >.<

Anyone else who would like to offer their services concerning webdesign....you are most greatly welcomed.

Well, hopefully things will turn out. I think the precious data is all safe, just the formatting is messed up. I'm not as stressed as when I had to write papers. Thinking of it more as a challenge. I'm just worried that professor will no longer trust me or other students with admin status. That is not good not good not good. Will pray.