WordPress – jumping through the hoops

Still new at all this blogging lark and some things seem more intuative than others.  Right now, I’ve been dealing with WordPress – the engine that drives this blog.  OK, the thing is, my first post generated a congrats comment from a friend, who pointed out the need to install “Askimet” to protect myself from comment-spam.  (Comment-spam – something I’ve never even thought of before, but I now know it has to be resisted like nothing else!).

So, how to install this beauty then…   First off, I logged into the blog page (this one) and picked the admin link – way easier than trying to remember the URL – whatever that was.  Suprisingly, it didn’t ask for a password. Maybe one of the dozen or so password caches are doing their magic for me, which is great while they work – then one day I will be asked for a password and I’ll have no idea which one I used.

(Side note – what’s up with all these passwords.  Every site seems to have a different set of rules about what constitutes an acceptable password.  Some demand one or more “special characters” while others refuse them.  Aghhhhhhhhh!)

Nevertheless (good word – that), my local WordPress admin screen pops up and Voila – there among the suggested plug-ins is the formentioned Askimet.  Click-click and the install is done – but wait.  Now it says it needs my WordPress API code to enable it.  What???  OK then, I run off to the www.wordpress.com where I’m invited to create a log-in (another damn login) with yet another set of password rules (I don’t get it – the page says my everyday password is strong – yet apparently not strong enough for the form).  Time to call out a more secure password – one I keep in reserve for more sensitive things, like ordering things).  All goes well and it says “wait for a verification email” to continue.  Well, at least one good thing resulted from this change of web host – my  email is lightning-fast – at least compared with my previous host where incoming mail regularly took 30 minutes to an hour to show up.  Goodness knows what they were doing all that time.  Even internal mail like resetting the control panel password (yes – I forget these things so easily) which sends email to me ON THE SAME SERVER! – takes a good 30 minues. sigh.  That’s all in the past now

OK, so mail received and – click – verified.  Logging back into my wordpress.com account and clicking on the profile side-link showed the new API-key.  Hooray.  a quick copy and past into the still-waiting Askinet activation dialog on my own wordpress site and everything seems happy.  I’m at last protected from something I didn’t even know was a threat.

Now to check out craigslist and dream about sailboats etc…