maybe they should have done more testing?

or maybe it was just a glitch?
(and maybe it was at THIS end ... seeing this poor old computer isn't that happy any more ... mind you who would be if you spent a several years running all sorts of odd software, using windoze as your operating system? LOL)

anyway ... what glitch? - well - the first time I uploaded this photo:



to one of my other blogs ...


... I got this:



?!!!??

oops?

odd thing is - the other 4 I did at the same time were ok (and this was the middle one) ... maybe the computer hiccupped while I was out in the other room eating my chili bean and beef toasted sandwiches ... lol

hmmm ... pretty green!? ... "you know you are soaking in it?" - LOL
(anyone actually remember that TV advert? lol - it was for dishwashing liquid)

er ... I suppose I had better go and finish that other post (the one that this photo belongs to) and actually post the thing ... seeing it is about a week later than I meant to do it already ...

Aykayem's Sunset Sky background

Yes ... I am at it again ... I created another background for my (or your) blogs ...



This one has 2 versions - actually the same image, just one word different in the html code you stick in the gadget on your side bar - lol - for one version the image is "stuck" to the top of the page and the other is "stuck" to the bottom (if you find the bit in the code where the word "top" or "bottom" is and remove that word so it just says "center", it will work like the first background I did and be stuck in the middle)

... if you have a wide screen monitor you will probably also notice that the image could (should?) have been a little bit wider ... LOL
(and you will also see that I have set a background colour for my blog, that is similar to the picture ... that way if the image doesn't load/the person is using text only for browsing then the text will still be readable against the background - that can be done under "Layout" then "Fonts and Colours" I think I used #a5bdc3 on Up too late, as usual and it looked quite good, in my opinion anyway - lol .. and I used whatever was already there on this blog because it looked ok and I couldn't be bothered fiddling with it.

For the one that I have just put on Up too late, as usual - and will probably replace with something else soon - lol - so you probably found it on http://messing-around-with-stuff.blogspot.com/

you will need to copy this bit of code:

<style type="text/css">body {background-image: url("http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh371/aykayem/AykayemSunsetSkyBackground.jpg"); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; }</style>

Made by <a href="http://messing-around-with-stuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/aykayems-sunset-sky-background.html"/>Aykayem's dodgy web design!</a>


... or for the one that is on Mungo Blog

- where you can see the hills (where the sun just set) at the bottom (and where the text is hard to read over it - so really only good for a blog where the posts are short ... or you want people to keep scrolling - lol)

- Then you can copy/use this bit of code:

<style type="text/css">body {background-image: url("http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh371/aykayem/AykayemSunsetSkyBackground.jpg"); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; }</style>

Made by <a href="http://messing-around-with-stuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/aykayems-sunset-sky-background.html"/>Aykayem's dodgy web design!</a>

Then you will need to go follow my instructions (for where to put the code) in the previous post on here ...

or ... if you still have the old type of template (the one that keeps asking if you want to update it every time you try and go to "layout" - lol) then you can do it like I actually did on Mungo Blog (which does still have that old template) and find the bit up near the top, that says

"body {
background #a5bdc3"

and remove the bit that says "background #whatever" or whatever it has there for the colour and replace it with this:

background-image: url("http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh371/aykayem/AykayemSunsetSkyBackground.jpg"); background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-attachment: fixed;
background-position: bottom center;

btw - you can stick one of my other background picture URLs in there instead if you like ... and instead of "bottom center" you can put "top center" or just "center" ... or you can go to http://csshtmltutorial.com/csshtmltutorial-cssbackgroundcodetutorial.php and read about what else you can put there - that is how I found out how to do it - LOL

btw ... it is a good idea to preview it to see if it works BEFORE you save the changes ... just in case you mess it up and can't remember what to put back there - LOL

also ... if you are doing it the old way (with the old template) the way I have explained in this post, or if you DO know what you are doing with html/css/etc and/or you know more about this stuff than me (probably not that hard - lol) then feel free to just use the photobucket URLs for my images and do it your way (and feel free to tell me what I did wrong - lol) ... but either way - it might be nice if you give me credit for the photos/making the backgrounds ... and if you do include a link then it is probably best to link to either this blog post, or to my main blog at http://aykayem.blogspot.com/ or to my blogger profile.

Aykayem's Pond - Blog Background

ok ... if you just clicked on the "Aykayem's dodgy web design" link on one of my blogs, because you actaully like that background - yes - you can use it on your blog if you like, that is why I have written these instructions ... but ... first a disclaimer: I am no html expert, just someone who likes fiddling around with stuff that I probably shouldn't mess with ... anyway - this is how I did the background image thingy ... I think:

Log into blogger and go to your dashboard and ... if you are not sure about what you are doing you might actually want to create a whole new blog just for using to try out silly stuff like this without messing up your real one (which is why I originally created this particular blog!) ... then, on that new blog (or whatever one you want to add this background to) click on "Layout" and then "page elements" (the place where you add all those widgets/gadgets/whatever they are calling them today) ...
btw - I am not sure this works with all of the different blogger templates/etc either - the website I found some instructions on (I sort of found a couple different explanations of how to do similar things and then kind of half did bits of both of them and fiddled until it worked) said that it only works with blogger's Minima template - but my blog was already using a version of that anyway so I didn't need to change it.
... anyway ... then if you click on "add a gadget" (on the sidebar bit - it might work on the bottom too but I have not tried that, so it might not) you will then get a page where you can choose what sort to add - choose the one called "HTML/JavaScript" ... then, in the thingy that comes up, you can type "Blog Background" (or whatever else you want to call it I guess) for the title, and then copy and paste this in the box:

<style type="text/css">body {background-image: url("http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh371/aykayem/Aykayem-PondBackground01.jpg"); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; }</style>

Made by <a href="http://messing-around-with-stuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/aykayems-pond-blog-background.html"/>Aykayem's dodgy web design!</a>

of course if you have been reading this on my ?normal blog and you have followed those links and worked out how to make your own image, then feel free to put the URL for your image in there instead of for mine ... then, if you want to, you can remove my "Made by ... " link and/or replace it with one of yours (seeing it won't have been me who made your background) ... or type some text about your background photo or something in there, or whatever ...
(I guess I can't stop you using my background picture and not linking to me ... but it would be kind of nice if you do give me credit ... even if it IS only a dogdy first attempt at something I know next to nothing about)


btw ... are you trying to work out how I got the < > to appear in here? - much tearing my hair out and fiddling with typing & lt; and & gt; (but without the space after the & ... (I had to put the space there else it just does what it is meant to and comes up as a pointy bracket!) and hoping blogger doesn't change it on me while I am going back and forth between editing modes ... lol

later edit (a day later) ... I have made another background image ... the code/URLs for those is in the next post on this blog - at

something else I needed to put somewhere ...

I am fiddling with making blog backgrounds ... and probably doing it the wrong way ...

but this seems like a good place to put this so I can link to it to test it out ...

somehow I don't think it will work this way ... but we will see.

Later edit (the next night): it didn't work that way ... but I found a different way, which did work ... eventually ...
(as you may now be able to see - this blog has a fancy background ... unless you are reading this post a while after I wrote it/edited it and I have done something else to this blog instead - after all - it is called "Testing, testing ... 1 ... 2 ... 3" for that very reason!)

hmmm ... it has been quite a while since I posted anything here ... oops?

(maybe they should move Christmas to a more quiet time of the year? :-)



btw, if you don't like the card - there might be a different one on one or more of my other blogs ... depends how many more cards I get around to creating and how many of my other blogs I get around to posting to this evening - lol

(there are links to some of my other blogs in the side-bar of some of them ... and they should all come up in the list you get if you look at my profile ;-)

(this "card" is a black and white/greyscale/whatever version of the one I have used on "thebestblogintheentireworld" (which actually - ISN'T ;-) ... er ... I guess this one can be for those people who want to colour it in or something? - lol - when I "play" with my photos to make cards, or whatever, or just for fun, I often end up with several versions of some of the images ;-)

I needed somewhere to put this ...

What? ... someone is reading this?

... probably not ... but just in case ...

if you are mad enough to be reading this you might also be wondering what it is ...

it is a logo thingy ... just like the filename of the image says - LOL

... it is actually for something I am messing around with, something I found in google adsense ... which, btw, doesn't seem to have made me any money at all (I guess that is because the few people who read any of my blogs don't bother to click on the adds - lol). It's a search thingy one can create, so people who visit your website/blog can do a google search and the results, and the adds on there, are more in line with the subject matter for your website/blog ... and there is space for a log up the top ... so I decided to put one there ... but it wanted a URL rather than having something to upload a file ... so now it has a URL - the one that points to it on here - LOL

... well ... it will have one once I post this ... at least I hope it will - at the moment the adsense editor wizard thingy I am playing with seems to think it isn't a valid URL ... and I guess it isn't if this post has not been published yet - LOL

a couple hours later ...

this page has already now been several different colours ... changing that was easy once I worked out how that 3 digit hex code thingy worked (normal html uses the normal 6 digit one ... the 3 digit one this seems to use is an abbreviated version - I learn something new each day - lol) ...
... while I was searching for the info about that, I found this nifty thingy -
http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/
and I have had a play ... lol

( hmmm - now I wonder how many colours will work on what coloured backgrounds ? )

moral of the story - don't find an online webmaster's colour palette just before your 12 year old daughter walks into the room !!!!!!

yes - she has been playing here with me ...

111 - would make a good main page maybe (or should I just use black?)
101 - is ok
303 - is a nice deepish purple for a quilt and/or crochet page
333 - is the one that matches the "silver" menu bar

abc - my daughter likes that
cab - ditto (think I did too)
bed, bee - she likes those too (too pale for my background)
(Ducatti?) 916 ... not exactly a motorbike riders colour ... unless SHE is into pink/purple

if I am working on a colour scheme for a page with a few different coloured areas or whatever, then that online thingy would be a good place to go back to.

... I think it is time I stopped talking to myself ;-)

and time I went to bed before dd (Dopey Daughter) drives me totally mad making up non existant very long words ...
(that bit of insanity started after I found a dictionary website to win an argument with her that "myself" was a correct spelling ;-)

*DD steals keyboard*

but my self as my daughter said is alsoight spelling!

*and I take the keyboard back*

but, while she had the keyboard, I still had the mouse - so I made her mess it up ;-)