No, I'm not talking about the end of the world, the end of whatever sport season it happens to be - I don't keep up with that, nor is it the end of this blog. I'm talking about the end of the website overhaul. Yes, kiddies, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. A small glimmer of hope that I may actually finish this gargantuan undertaking before I lose what little is left of my mind.
And it may not take me until the end of February either. I may meet my January deadline after all. Holy sheep dip.
I've spent the entire day, with the exception of a short break for food and beverages of the caffeinated, not alcoholic, variety - though I did consider it at one point - with my face in front of the computer, plugging away at the bazillion things required to Make.Website.Go. I was also interrupted by a couple of phone calls. I started at 9:00am and it's now, by the clock on the computer, 8:46pm. I am exhausted. I'm brain dead.
What did I accomplish in all those many hours of slaving away at the keyboard? Uploaded twenty one new pieces of art, zipped them through Photoshop for web display, and their individual thumbnail images for the gallery front pages. Okay, some are older works I've just never gotten around to putting on the site. I created twenty one new pages for the art to live. I put the copyright protected disclaimer on all fifty nine images now in the site. I created all the new comments and "why I painted this image" info blurbs on every page. On those twenty one image pages I also created their PayPal buy my art info stuff. I created ten new galleries. I got all of the thumbnail-to-image links created for nine of the galleries. And some more stuff I can't even remember right now. But you know will as soon as I publish this post.
Whew! On one hand it doesn't seem like much. On the other hand, it's freakin' a boat load of work. If any of you are familiar with building websites you'll know what I mean. If you aren't, then you won't. So much of the work is done bouncing between software. I use Photoshop to manipulate and prepare all the images, buttons, background, yadda, yadda, yadda. I use Yahoo Sitebuilder to actually create and host the site.
Yes, I do own Dreamweaver, but I don't know how to use it. I took graphics back when the very first Macintosh computers came out on the market. I learned all the old fashioned stuff like hand pasting prep boards, shooting it on a huge horizontal camera, developing negatives, burning plates, running a printing press. OLD school. So old school that graphic students today can't even conceive of a CompuGraphic typesetter where you had to load a special strip for particular typefaces and then you typed everything without even seeing what you were typing. You didn't know if you made a mistake until you ran the photoprint paper through the developer and THEN got to see what you typed. I'm a graphics dinosaur by some standards. Everything I know about modern graphics I've learned along the way, through various jobs I had in the industry or taught myself. Yeah, I learned Photoshop by using it and reading a manual - not in a classroom. Same with Illustrator, QuarkXpress, Freehand, PageMaker and several other graphics programs.
When it came time to build my first website, y'all, I admit I was clueless. Completely and utterly clueless. I researched via the internet different website hosts who gave me the option of an easy to understand and use with Photoshop capability. I also had to consider cost. Easy + Cheap. Yahoo fit the bill on all accounts. I also like being able to make all the changes sort of "in the basement" while the current version of the site is still live. When I'm done with the upgrade I can publish all at once and Ta!Da! No down time, no mixed-matched pages, just a brand new version. Yee ha. So while it may not be the "preferred" method of website building and all that jazz, it works for me. I'm good with that. Moving on.
Oh, yeah, today's accomplishments. I do ramble sometimes.
What I was originally leading up to is that aforementioned light at the end of my tunnel. Provided it's not actually an oncoming train I've mistaken for salvationary illumination, I can really see a manageable list of things to do to finish the redesign and get this puppy online and out there. I still have a couple of galleries I need to get art into (and all the accompanying stuff for them) but it's a damn sight better than being faced with the entire creation of fifteen new galleries and a dozen other new pages and all their stuff as I was when I started this whole shebang. When everything is on the site and basically "in it's place" I will then go through every page and create the links. This means, link this button to this image to this page to this image to this page to this image to this page to this button to this image ............... It will be the final step in the building process. Then, I'll go through and proof read every page for errors, etc. Then I'll get my husband to proof read everything.
The drum roll comes when, at long last, I click that little yellow "Publish" button. I know my hand will shake. I'll get all cold-chilled and hot-flash sweaty at the same time. I'll probably get lightheaded and dizzy. Nice little panic attack. Once you click that button the current version goes bye-bye and new version hits the net in all it's glory ... or all it's chaos.
There's a good side and a bad side to the click issue. Bad side = read previous paragraph. Good side = this is really the only way to check if the site functions as it should. Do links link to what they are supposed to? Do the images look okay and display properly. Did you just spend untold hours of your life for naught or for a glorious happy dance of joy? Oh, yeah, sure, Sitebuilder has a Preview In Browser option and I definitely use it. But, if the rest of the site is still unpublished you can't check a link to a page that technically isn't "on the net" yet. And I have a whole bunch-o stuff that ain't yet on the net.
I'm going to take a break from the computer tomorrow and spend most of the day in the studio. I'm still working on those two paintings for my art project and I need/want to get them finished. My two phone calls today were from a friend and from my sister, both of whom felt it necessary to inform me of impending inclement weather. I may decide to do my Friday Domestic Goddess duties tomorrow instead of Friday 'cause Friday may not be an option if it does the freezing rain thing on Thursday. Blah!
For now I'm going to sit on the couch, work on my yarn swatch and listen to a movie.
Namaste y'all.
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