thanks for the reply and the help filosofo.
i did as you said and it didn't work. i believe i did it correctly. it actually ended up showing your code up at the top of the website. as in - you can see the actual code in the browser.
i copied the index.php file, renamed it home.php, and added your code to the very top. i tried a few other places too.
so, the home.php file looked like this:
query_posts(array('showposts' => 1));
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="blog">
<?php require_once (TEMPLATEPATH . '/navigation.php'); ?>
<div id="main">
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<h3><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?></h3>
<?php the_content('Continue reading this entry »'); ?>
<p class="meta">
<span class="tags"><?php the_category(', ') ?></span> |
<span class="comments"><?php comments_popup_link('No Comments', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); ?></span>
<?php
if ('open' == $post->ping_status) :
?>
<?php
endif; ?>
<?php edit_post_link(' Edit','|',''); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<ul class="postnav">
<li class="left"><?php next_posts_link('« Earlier Posts') ?> </li>
<li class="right"> <?php previous_posts_link('Later Posts »') ?></li>
</ul>
<?php else : ?>
<h2>Not Found</h2>
Sorry, but you are looking for something that just isn't here.
<?php include_once (TEMPLATEPATH . "/searchform.php"); ?>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>
any further thoughts?
oh, i should also mention that in addition to seeing the code on the site, you could still see all of my posts on the front page as well.
thanks a lot for your help and anyone else that might have some insight.
p.s. - i left the index.php on the server as well. is that correct?