08. July 2013 · Comments Off on Monday Miscellany · Categories: Geekery, Local, Media Matters Not · Tags: , ,

Yeah, I know – work, work, work … but really; I’ve been working like a dog over the last three days on the Watercress Press website. I had finally given up on updating my Celia Hayes site with Adobe Contribute – the software package I had been trained on by my late good friend and occasional employer, Dave the Computer genius. It turns out that when I upgraded to a new computer last year – a 64 bit model, from a 32-bit model, not that I know precisely what that means and I am only repeating what the current computer-expert friend tells me – it meant that basically, all the software I had for the old computer was incompatible. Thus, I bought new; a legit copy of the stuff I needed, Photoshop, MS-Word, Adobe Acrobat (an older version but still compatible and very useful.) Through the good offices of Amazon Vine I also have Quicken – but alas, the costs for a whole new Contribute package were quite out of the question. Even an upgrade to the package I did have wasn’t doable. The current computer-expert friend, as well as a couple of other people whose word I know to be solid, have said that WordPress can do everything that Contribute can … and doesn’t cost a dime. Well, the top-end templates do cost and considerably more than a dime … but there are enough free WordPress templates around for perfectly attractive and functional blogs … like this one, and enough available plugins to do just about anything you can imagine, given a degree of familiarity and a certain sense of adventurous experimentation.

So, a good few weeks ago I consulted with the very knowledgeable local host (who was also a friend of Daves’s) copied everything valuable from the original Celia Hayes website at the domain that own, downloaded all the archives from the free WordPress blog – and reconstituted it all under one internet roof, such as it is. Such a relief – now I could update and edit my own darned website! Without driving across town! Add the Paypal buttons for direct sales, and simplify, simplify, simplify. There comes a point when a website is so overgrown and encrusted with old material and pages, hastily bolted on any which way and sprouting off at odd angles, and half the links are corrupted … that it easier to just start again from zero. So that’s what I did with my own site. And so – here we go for Watercress; three days and counting. Sigh. There was stuff happening over the weekend? I hardly noticed, laboring as I was over a hot computer.

As for news and all – it seems as if the ghastly Westboro free-standing church o’morons is threatening to show up at the funerals of the members of the Arizona Granite Mountain Hot-Shots. Well, that’s their thing – provoking outrage in the locals by showing up at funerals with their nasty signs and hoping that someone will beat the c**p out of them so they can bring a profitable suit for having their civil rights violated. It’s their system – it’s how they endure. The adult members of this whole revolting clan are lawyers; this is well-known and their patriarch is or was a Dem in good standing and former civil right worker. So members of this revolting clan are going to trek off to Arizona … long drive, you revolting perv-obsessed indy-called-Baptists. Plan on stopping for gas anywhere? Spending the night someplace? Ooooh, I thought so. It’s very likely that the locals will think of a way to … inconvenience you … without opening themselves to a lawsuit from your disgusting organization. I wait with breathless anticipation to see what form it will take. Yes, I am charitable, that way.

So many targets this week – so little spleen to vent in their direction …

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