Yesterday when I decided to start up a free-hosted blog I naturally went to WordPress.com and signed up for an account. I've been using WordPress for years and figured that the hosted version would just be a slightly limited version of the real thing. Guess I was wrong.
After writing my first post I decided it was time to start customising the template, afterall - I had planned to signup for BlogRush and wanted to add my Javascript to the template so I could start accumulating credits. There is an 'Edit CSS' tab in the Presentation options, but when you edit the CSS you then have to purchase an upgrade in order to save your changes! I couldn't find anywhere to edit the HTML for the template either, so I'm guessing they don't allow it, therefore I can't add any custom HTML, e.g. AdSense, BlogRush, etc.
Now, I know - WordPress.com is a FREE hosted blog, I shouldn't expect so much, but I don't think the ability to add some custom HTML/CSS is asking too much.. is it?
And, before you start accusing me of being a tight-a**, the whole point behind starting this blog with a free hosted service is for a case study.. I'm fully intending moving this to it's own domain and paying for full featured hosting, but the blog has to earn it's keep if you know what I mean.
So, my recommendation for someone who wants to start a free blog and still have some control over how their template looks is to sign up at Blogger.com. The only bad thing is that you get that annoying Blogger nav bar up the top. I haven't looked into whether it can be taken out yet or not, but would be nice if it could be absorbed into the template a bit.
In case anyone is wondering why the title for the first post is called "Enter The Wilderness", well - when I was writing it, I was listening the new 50 Cent album ("Curtis"). I can't say I'm a huge Fiddy fan, or even that his latest album is that good. To be honest I only like a couple of tracks, the first being "Ayo Technology" w/ Justin Timberlake, produced by Timbaland (the second would probably be "Straight to the Bank"). Anyway, the weird arpeggio sounds Timbaland used in "Ayo Technology" reminded me of the music from the good old Commodore 64. One of my favourite games was The Last Ninja - which I'm sure plenty of you know. Anyway, the Wilderness is the first level in the first Last Ninja game - that's where it all starts, and that's where this blog starts.. now I just gotta go find, the sword, an apple, some nunchaku..
Oh yeah, and being reminded of that, reminded me of Timbaland getting called out a while ago for sampling an Amiga composer for Nelly Furtado's track "Do it". Interesting stuff, personally I think it's cool that he's possibly been influenced by these old legends. In the past I've thought about including some old c64 elements into some beats - some of the basslines were killer back in the day. Anyway, enough about that :)
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