Saturday, September 01, 2007

Do you ever want to throw your computer against the wall?

It's not the computer's fault. I'm generally happy with my laptop. Most of the time the programs and such work. Rarely does it ever randomly freak out. Right now, it's the internet and my web hosting service causing my angst, but since I can't throw the internet around, I'd rather chunk my laptop. O.k. not really. I love my laptop despite the battery being absolutely pitiful right now.

As you know, I've undertaken the task to create a website for the band. I was approached by the booster president about it and then visited the director. They are very excited about it and it was even announced last week that the band was going to have a website!! I decided I better get busy on it. (Despite the complete and total exhaustion I felt after my first week at school.) I checked around different hosting sites and decided on one because the price was reasonable and it showed all the GREAT THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH OUR PROGRAM! I recognized the name and thought I'd give it a try. I have to say that it has NOT been user friendly at all. I admit, I'm not one that truly understands everything involved in the website creation world. I do understand basics and I've been able to create some basic sites for my speech team and a personal one for myself. Nothing fancy, but it serves my purposes. I've even dabbled in editing some of the html code. I don't understand all of it, but I'm able to get the gist of it and by looking at it, I can generally find elements of my pages. I understand the concept of needing a domain name and then having a server that will host my site. What I didn't bargain for is that every time I finally figure something out on trying to get the site going, it takes about 24 hours for "something" to be processed. I started this stuff on Wednesday and I still don't have a page up. I tried the sites "easy website creation" program and honestly, it sucked. It offered no flexibility and once I put an element on my page, I couldn't resize it or delete it. I decided to try a different route. (But then it took another day before I could sign up for their other "free" hosting applications) I did that. It took another day. I tried an application. I couldn't figure out to create a web page from it. I then decided to give all that up and just use front page. I understand the basics of front page but I was hoping to have something more dynamic than what I could come up with on my own... but I decided to go with what I know. I put together a basic design with some extra pages. I follow the procedures for publishing my site using front page. It doesn't work. I then find out that I have to install the front page extensions. That is another "pending" process.

So instead I go to another site that will create buttons for me. I fill in the lengthy choices and tell it to make my button and I get the following message: "Server too busy. Try again in a few seconds." It seems I can't win today.

Luckily I was able to talk Josh into going and getting donuts this morning. I know have my maple donut and small milk and I'm going to enjoy them before I dig in again. Wish me luck.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

With a little luck it is just a timely overload.