So, let’s get into my blog customizing experience…Cue “More” tag below:

The Akismet spam protection:  Done.  Just select a personal account and drag the slider over to $0.00.   They email you the code.

Google Analytics was fine until it asked me for a “UID”.  Thankfully, Jim Groom pointed me to a guide that fixed that little issue right up:  http://pastebin.com/GzDtGDR6.  Now, to make sure you stay sane, do three things:  1.)  Switch the “Google Analytics logging is:” list box to “Enabled”, 2.)  Make sure you PASTE the UID into the “Google Analytics profile ID:” text box, and 3.)  Make sure you select your blog in the “Google Analytics account:” list box.  I know for sure that not doing 3 will give you the same error as not doing 2, and you might end up saying things you never knew you could say (like Klingon swear words).  Afterwards, go to your Widgets an stick it somewhere.  I put mine at the bottom of my stack.

The Flickr plugin I picked is called Quick Flickr Widget, and just like it says, you add it to your widget area in your blog.  One thing to remember is that the “Flickr RSS URL or Screen name” is simply your Flickr username — NOT the email you used to sign up for Flickr, but your username.  I left all the options as they were, except for the number of items…I changed that to 5.  It places the thumbnails vertically, so maybe 5 is too many.  I don’t really care, myself…It’s a side bar (shrugs shoulders).

Subscribe to Comments…not much to that.  Install, activate, use if you want.

Twitter Tools…eh…I’ll have to mess with that later.  If anyone has tips for me on setting it up, feel free to comment on this post.  I’ve got a full-time internship, and a 30 minute lunch break that I use for sleeping, so no ds106 at work for me XD

I think that about covers it.  Good night in a bit…gotta do the rest of the homework.