December 8, 2007

website domain and hosting blues

ugh, so frustrating! I just hung up with customer support from godaddy...again. Luckily they are nice to talk to and available 24/7 which really works out with my crazy schedule. Who else can you call at 1 am in the morning? (when the kid is asleep and my cell long distance minutes are free.)

Well, as you'll see – if my wesbite ever gets posted under the domain name I registered – I take a quilting approach to website design. And, believe me, I don't know how to quilt either. I'm making this stuff up as I go. What I mean is that I just use whatever I have availble and feel like tinkering around with. Right now, I'm trying to learn how to use iWeb for the design but I want to avoid using dot mac. Of course, I'm an Apple cheerleader, but dot mac is just too expensive for me.

TheMacMommy philosophy is that whatever I do with technology (or show YOU how to do) should be free, cheap and easy and all three whenever possible.

So, right now, if you go to www.themacmommy.com, you get a 404 error. The reason is because I have my domain name forwarded to my free ISP hosted space which I pay for even though they call it "free" space. Here is where the quilting comes in. They only give you 10MB of web space which really isn't all that much when it comes down to it. So what I'll be doing is "stitching" my pages and sites together using hyperlinks that redirect to my other ISP hosted mailboxes.

I have Cox and they give you 7 email boxes. Each of those boxes contain 10MB. So basically, I'll string all 7 of those 10MB chunks together. I did it this way before with our DavisPlace website which is still up but it's so old and broken and in need of repair so I won't even post the link to it. Plus, I'm not sure how I feel about broadcasting to the blogger world where I live yet. It's kind of inevitable since I'm trying to get a home grown business going and I suppose I'll have to put my mailing address out there. Anyhow, it's one of the parts of my old website that I should probably revise.

I registered this domain name through google and apparently, the tech from godaddy told me it has something to do with that and when they (apparantly the buck has been passed to google) did whatever magic it is that they do with DNS, they don't put the "www" in front of the site name. If you try it right now and just type in 'themacmommy.com' into your browser URL, bam, it takes you right to the site. If you go the long way and type in 'members.cox.net/themacmommy/themacmommy/Introduction.html' it also takes you to the site. The problem seems to be the 'www' part.

I explained to the tech on the phone that I need for my site to display with www because many of my clients are senior citizens. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who use pencils with erasers and they also still type in the 'http://' part. Not everyone and their uncle knows that you don't even need to use www most of the time.

So, he did some magic and told me to check it again in a few hours. Man! (whine) This has been about 3 days now of waiting. I'm not a very patient person by nature.

Well, anyhow, my site will eventually be more easily accessible once this whole forwarding and masking and server nesting thing is resolved.

I have a plan for my site to tie it into my blog here so I can maximize the free hosting and space. My plan is to start posting more technology based blogs instead of always ranting about the trials and tribulations of motherhood. Nothing at all against other bloggers who do that and I enjoy reading it, it's just that I would like to focus more on my experiences of being a mom in the technology age and how it relates to my parenting and how I can help others. I still like to post rants and raves about being a mother in general but I will most likely flavor it with some form of geekdom.

Well, I hear pots and pans banging and smell wonderful aromas so that means that Hubby is cooking and having to deal with the boy dismantling the kitchen while he does it. Now I just heard a grunt and I think that sound means that Hubby has probably redirected the boy for the umpteenth time so he can get something accomplished. And now I feel guilty for blogging when all I meant to do was come in here while they were snoozing and check my page and make a few updates.

Ah, ADHD strikes again!

and the screeching continues!

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