Since there have been a few questions lately on how to set up a Sims 2 blog, I thought I’d dedicate a post to it. I will also link to it permanently from the “General” section in the sidebar. Comments are enabled, so feel free to ask questions, and I will do my best to answer them!
I’m happy to help anyone who wants to start up a Sims 2 blog, because I love reading Sims 2 stories (and I find the Sims 2 Exchange blogs to be a little cumbersome), but I have to give you one caveat: I’m not super knowledgeable about the blogging world, nor am I very techno-savvy, so the focus will be primarily on this blog and how I got it up and running.
Initially, I used Blogger to create and maintain Greetings from Mt. Geneva. The blog was hosted on their free Blog*Spot service, and I uploaded my pictures to Photobucket. They give you 25 MB of free space and 1,500 MB of bandwidth before you have to upgrade and start paying. My old blog is still up if you want to take a look.
There were a few other blogs when I started out that I credit heavily for giving me inspiration — So Very Posh, Bringing Up Daysies, Confessions of a Simmer, and The Laniville Saga (which is sadly no more, but you can visit Lani’s MySim Page for lots, clothes, and some great make-up). They all had really cool sites with nifty things like Categories and the all-important “More” link in each post. Blogger didn’t have those features (and the constant publishing and republishing can be a bit slow at times), so I shopped around for another blogging system and decided on WordPress.
Why WordPress? Well, it seemed to have the right balance of cost effectiveness (it’s free), ease of use, and flexibility for my purposes. It’s very different from Blogger and TypePad (the only other blogging service I’ve used), however, so there was a bit of a learning curve for me. OK, a HUGE learning curve. In fact, I struggled for many days trying to get everything the way I wanted it. But I love using it now and would recommend it highly to anyone who isn’t scared away by what I said in that last sentence.
If you are interested in using WordPress, there are some things you should know. First off, you will have to find your own hosting service, as WordPress does not provide one. After doing some research in the WordPress Support Forum, I decided on A Small Orange. For $5 a month, they give me 400 MB of space and 10 GB of bandwidth. I also purchased a domain name through them for $10. I’ve been very happy with ASO so far, but they are currently going through an internal re-organization and aren’t taking any new orders until sometime in January. I can’t recommend any others as I haven’t used any, but if you do a Google search on “site:http://wordpress.org host”, you can find some threads from the WordPress forum that talk about other services.
ASO uses cPanel for site management, so that’s how I log on to my site and upload my Sims 2 pictures. The control panel also contains a program called Fantastico which installed WordPress for me (it can also install other blogging software such as b2evolution and pMachine Free). Otherwise the WordPress site has documentation on Installation and a whole topic dedicated to Installation on their forum if you run into trouble.
I spent a lot of time searching the WordPress forum and the WordPress Wiki for info when I was getting started. Bookmark both — they are your friends! You may have to dig a little or possibly post on the forum, but you will find answers to most of your questions. The WordPress user interface isn’t too difficult to learn, especially if you have used other blogging programs, but things like plug-ins, hacks, and editing templates can be tricky. At least, they were for me. This is where the forum and the wiki can be extremely helpful.
Speaking of templates, if you’ve had a blog before you know all about them, and if you know HTML and CSS and possibly PHP, then you’re way ahead of the game. I myself know only the basics of HTML and CSS (which is why this website looks a little wonky in the Firefox browser, my apologies), so I had a bit of a struggle with my templates, too. WordPress has a default template which can be edited easily enough, but I chose to download a pre-made template from wpthemes.info, then tweaked it to achieve the look you see here. You can find loads of other templates at alexking.org.
Well, that’s a start. I could explain everything in minute detail, but it would take me a whole blog, and there’s already so much great documentation and support out there on the web. It just requires a little bit of patience and determination to uncover! Best of luck in creating a Sims 2 blog, and if you get one up and running, be sure to let me know so I can link to it!
UPDATE: I found a bunch of good tutorials that address things like using Quicktags and FTP/CHMOD (to change your file permissions). I haven’t gone through everything yet, but it looks pretty handy so far!
Also, I’ve opened up a forum called SimScribes for anyone who has a Sims 2 Blog or is thinking of starting one up. There is a topic there called “Getting Started” that might come in handy if you need assistance.
thanks for this, i am among the many who have plans to start up a sims blog of their own. of course, even once i’ve sorted all this side of it, i still to master the use of the camera in the game. and sadly, i already have fourth generation kids in my legacy family without taking any photos, but i was planning to try the legacy challenge a few more times after finishing my first one, i find it adds a bit of structure to the game that helps me enjoy it a lot more.
Wow, thanks for starting this.
I have a question about the pictures. Whenever I go to the Storytelling folder under The Sims 2 it shows these really small pictures that I took in the game. On your site they’re so large and clear. How do you expand the pictures?
iamausername – I enjoy the structure of the Legacy Challenge as well. When I play my non-Legacy families now I tire of them too quickly. :-( Good luck on starting up your blog!
Leslie – From the beginning, I’ve taken pictures on the “Large” setting in Camera Options. At one time I didn’t want them to be so big, so I futzed with trying to shrink them, but I couldn’t figure it out, so I’ve just stuck with the big pics. If you’ve already taken pictures on a smaller setting and want to enlarge them, you could try using a freeware program called Irfanview. I haven’t used it, but it looks handy, and Jade over at Arenia, Simland wrote a great tutorial on using it to optimize your photos. Hope that helps!
I started trying out wordpress today after one of my netpals gave me a subdomain and installed wp for me. Though I’m throughly confused. Where do you edit your index (template). I mean I went to the template area except there was no editing box like there was in blogger (where you could easily edit the index there). Also do we need lenghty php knowledge to work wp? cause I have non. also another question (lol.. so sorry bout so many questions!) does wp work in a similar way as blogger in the sense that does wp use tags like for date, author, mainbody, comments etc?
I’m so sorry if I’m making no sense. I’m just confused
You’re a doll. Thanks a lot for this post, I was wondering mostly about the wordpress thing, which Software I would use. I do have webspace available and registered for a free .tk name, so I will hopefully be up and running in a week or two, as I get my computer.
Well thanks for the tutorial, even though I haven’t needed it. I (and my dad) managed to work out how to get it running with mysql, the latest version of which can be a pain as it uses hashed passwords which wordpress can’t cope with, yet. I’ve got a few sotries ready, but I haven’t got the webspace yet.
Janice – I understand your confusion — like I said, it took me a long time to figure this stuff out, and I’m still pretty clueless about most of it! But here’s what I can tell you: according to the wiki, the index.php file should be the default file loaded into the Templates window. If it isn’t, try clicking on “Main Index” under “Common files” below the editing box. Also, even if your index is showing, it may not be editable. See if the button below the edit box says “You cannot update that file/template: must make it writable”. Since you had a friend set it up for you, he/she may have to do that, since you need FTP, cPanel, or a command line to change file permissions . You can find more information on that here.
As for PHP knowledge, you shouldn’t need too much — I know nothing about PHP, but I figured some things out through simple trial and error (basically copying and pasting PHP from other parts of my template and editing it!). Here’s where a pre-made template can be really useful. Also, it does help to understand the template tags and how they work. They are a little bit like Blogger in that there are tags for date, author, etc. You can find a list of them here.
Also, if you want to change the look or “theme” of your site, you have to edit the wp-layout.css file. If you do this through the Templates page in WordPress, you will have to make the file writable first with CHMOD, as you did with the index. I usually just go into cPanel and edit the css from there, but you might not have that option if don’t have access to the files…let me know.
Janice, I was reading your comment again and had another thought — if you didn’t see any editing box at all under Templates, maybe your friend didn’t give you full authority to your WordPress site? I’m not sure how that works, but it’s a thought…
I have another question about wordpress. Acctually, it’s about Winzip also. Whenever I install WordPress, the Winzip thing pops up saying I need to extract it. Where do I need to extract it to? What folder should I extract it? It won’t work otherwise…
Hi Leslie, I used Fantastico to install my WordPress, so I haven’t gone through the installation procedure myself, but it looks like you need to extract your WordPress files to a folder on your hard drive (it doesn’t matter which folder, you just need to store them somewhere for now). After you edit the wp-config-sample.php, you then need to upload all of the WordPress files to your webhost, retaining the same directory structure. I got this info from the installation docs on the WordPress site, but for more detail you can see the Getting Started over on the wiki. Before you do all of this you will have to create a database in MySQL (which I have also never done, just warning you!), so if you haven’t done that already, you might want to look here or here if you are using CPanel. I hope that helps.
Thanks, Jen, that was helpful.^_^ Since everything is so confusing, I decided I will use Blogger.com for now. I need suggestions, though. Since I already started my Legacy challenge and all the images are uploaded on the Sims 2 Website, I don’t know if I should do the exact same thing on my new blog. Or should I start all over with my Legacy challenge and put it in my new blog? Would you mind reading the story over again on my new website?
Jen,
Thank you so much for this helpful information, I’ve been searching everywhere for some of this stuff. I have been a big fan of all the blogs you mentioned for quite some time (not to mention yours) and I’ve also wanted to do my own, but I didn’t know where to begin. A few weeks ago I really decided to start and I found the wordpress links from some other blogs I read but I couldn’t find a good free host, since I can’t aford to pay for really good service right now I thought I would have to wait. Anyway, I found something suitable for now, and with your help (and inspiration) I’ve finally got my own Sims 2 blog. I just wanted to say thanks. :)
Leslie – I certainly wouldn’t mind reading your story over again on your new site, and if you post it from the beginning, then anyone new to your site can follow your story from the start. Of course that’s some extra work for you at the outset, so it’s up to you!
Amanda – Cool! I added a link to your blog in my Sims 2 Blogs section. Kristina at Life of My Sims is using Blogsome, too, but I don’t know much about it…how do you like it so far? Maybe I could post something about it here to give people some other options.
Jen thanx so much for the detailed infomation. I’m just goign through them now. and in your second comment you said it might be because I didn’t have full authority so I can’t see the editing box. I think that is the reason! (hopefully, cause I’m funning out of ideas!) I think it is because my host has a level 10 authority while I have a level 9 authority. you have a level 10 authority right?
anyway, just wnated to say thanks so much for that idea! I never thought of that :) I just emailed my host about it and hopefully this template problem will be solved and I can start blogging :)
Janice, you are right — I have an authority level of “10” on my WP blog. I hope you can get it worked out!!
Thanks for this post! It helped me create my Sims 2 blog.