We continue the saga of building the website. I wish the people who started all this Internet business had done so in English instead of inventing their own language. It sure would have made things a lot easier for old duffers like me who came into this game during the fourth quarter. Last week you will remember I ended the column during the process of setting up my blog account; the result, of which, was me throwing my hands up in frustration.
The story continues. A few minutes after emailing Lori to tell her I didn’t know what I was doing concerning this blog business, I get an email from Google which says: “welcome to Google accounts. To activate your account and verify your email address, please click on the following link.” “What’s going on here?” I ask myself. I thought I’d closed out before I’d completed the process. Oh…well. It’s back to Lori. I forward the email to her and ask; can’t you take care of this for me? She writes back and tells me she can’t, and to click onto the link in Google’s email and follow the instructions. She said the link she needs to get me set up should be there. I do as she asks, but there is nothing from Google that remotely resembles the link she is describing. I write her back and inform her of this.
She writes back and asks what name did I use. I write back and ask, “do you mean the name for the blog, or for the account?” “For the account,” she answers. I gave her the name I thought I had used. She then tells me to look in the upper right hand corner of the page Google sent me, and the link should be there. I did—no link. The only thing there was my email address. Then it dawned on me. I had typed in another name somewhere during the application process, so I sent that one to her. “Try this,” I said. She wrote me back. “Eureka that’s it! We’re in business!“
“Thank the Lord.” I said to myself. She then told me to bookmark it so I could go to the blog whenever I wanted to post. I wrote her back and asked what a bookmark was, and how do I do that. By now, I envision her rolling her eyes. She was probably asking herself, “Daddy dear, where have you been these last many years?” Next, it was time to set up the guest book. It, also, is a separate account, needing to be set up by me; not daughter the Webmaster. Same story here, another battle with Muttonhead the computer who seems hardly ever to understand what I’m communicating to it. One such frustration was with my guest book password. It seems that most of these on line services recommend using a password with symbols as well as letters, or symbols resembling letters. Okay, I can do that; which I did. When I went to access my guest book, I get the message that the password I’m using doesn’t match what they have on file.
“That’s your problem you idiot computer; it is so, the right password,” I blurted. Long story short; I do have to apologize to the muttonhead. Turns out it wasn’t the computer’s fault after all. I was typing in the letter of my password instead of the symbol that resembled the letter. Another, “Oh…well.”
Then I find out I’m not the only one who is having trouble with my guest book. I had a writer friend who wanted to sign said guest book. She followed all the steps as outlined, but received a message that said she didn’t have permissions to access this page. The reason given: “You really aren’t supposed to be here.” Well, for cryin’ out loud folks, if she was asked to sign my guest book why wasn’t she supposed to be there? She never was able to sign in. I don’t know what the problem was, because others have successfully signed in.
The story doesn’t end there either. After these other kinks were ironed out and we were up and running, I experienced problems getting into my website. When I would type in my address I’d get the message: "This address doesn't match any of our documents." But I won’t bore you with the details about that. Let’s just say for now, the kinks are ironed out, and after suffering through all these antics with her Internet illiterate dad, Lori is still among sane. So all is well. Except for the fact that my computer is beginning to do weird things—like locking up or shutting itself down for no apparent reason. But, then, what would I do if I didn’t have this insipid machine to fight with. If you’d like to take a peek at Lori’s design work, you can find my website at Will Edwinson.com.
