Hi Toddjr, thanks for writing a proper comment. You are in the vast minority so far. ;)
On Steemit you can change the voting weight only when you reach 500 Steem Power. However, when you use Busy.org, Chain.BB, Utopian.io and D.Tube instead of Steemit (they all run on Steem and share the same content and you need your private posting key which you'll find in your wallet under permissions) you get the slider for your voting power right from the start. :)
You can of course self-upvote yourself. Many do that. However, you should consider doing that only when it is approriate like when you want to push your comment to the top because you have an important question or addition to the post.
Wow huge help! also I saw your inspiring video for Utopian, tremendous value addictively I might add.
So I encourage you to do more promoting about Utopian, simply because of the awareness of the power of Steem,it really helped me.
Thank You Again..
Toddjr.
Helping others is a secret sauce for success on Steemit!