Art Blog and Website Woes

I am writing this before we leave on our trip and having it posted after we leave because I don’t want to interrupt the progress of the “Northern Lights” painting.  The last few weeks have been so stressful with my Website and Blog I decided to write about what has been going on.

A few weeks before we were to leave on our trip the credit card authorization company that serves our Website notified us that the authorization server we use is shutting down March 31.  We had only a few weeks to change our site and find a new system.  After talking to my webmaster I found out that the way our site was set up it would require each and every page with a shopping card to be redone.  Since we have well over 200 pages this would be quite an expense!  We researched, searched, and consulted and the best method we chose was to eliminate the shopping cart altogether and put in a simple order form where customers can leave information and we will confirm the order by a phone call.  Not the best solution, but one that was economical and fit our short time schedule.

This situation was frustrating, but something that we should expect considering the economy and the financial stress on so many businesses.  I’m sure this will not be the only company going out of business this year.  I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

During the change over something went wrong and our Website reverted back to the way it was last year, all the new updates and new prints were gone!  Fortunately all the changes for the last year were saved and my webmaster pulled an all nighter to get everything fixed!  I was really worried.

One morning, a few days before we were to leave on the trip, I got ready to check my Blog and do an update and it wouldn’t open.  My webmaster didn’t know what was going on and said he never touched the blog in all the work that he did previously.  I contacted my server customer support and they said that my permissions were in error.  I have no idea what that means, and these support technicians speak in teck talk, a language that I haven’t learned.  It took two days, but my permission was updated and I gained access only to get a notice that if I didn’t upgrade my Blog in WordPress software that my Blog was in big trouble.

So, two days before the trip I updated to WordPress 2.7.  What a shock, it is so different that I haven’t figured everything out yet and have only a slim idea how to navigate.  The worst part is that a strange symbol, Â, appeared after every period on every Blog that I posted in the past.  I tried searching the Support Forums and evidently didn’t use the correct words, because nothing came up.  So, I manually fixed a dozen or so, the newer older posts,  but didn’t have time to do the rest.  Most of my old posts are going to look a little weird until I find time to put in the fix.

I also found out that some of my subscribers didn’t get my last few Blog posts.  I don’t have time to dig into this until we return at the end of March.  This is the most frustrating and annoying month I’ve had with my Blog and Website.  Please forgive me if things don’t work the way they should while we are away.  I tried as hard as I could to make everything seamless before we left, but it seems the harder I tried, the worse it got.  Maybe sometime in April I will get everything sorted out.  And, find some time to paint again as well.

Gail Niebrugge, a computer impaired artist