I have looked high and low on where to change the words used for links in the theme called Classic. Examples are contibute web and so on. Can someone please direct me to the place so that I can change the words and thier links. I am very new to PHP so please be gentle and take baby steps.

For the Classic theme, the words you are looking for are taken from the language file, i.e. from /path/to/geeklog/language/english.php. You'll find them from line 110 onwards.

bye, Dirk

or maybe in pathtogeeklog/public_html/themes/classic/ header.thtml? Possibly this has changed as things have gotten more localized? If so, what version altered the themes, and are old themes now incompatible?

The only incompatible change in the themes was when Geeklog 1.3.3 introduced the ability to write stories to be published at a date in the future. So apart from layout/YourTheme/admin/story/storyeditor.thtml all 1.3 templates should be compatible. And that one file is easily updated (that change was poorly documented, however ...).

bye, Dirk