I have a love/hate relationship with technology. When electronics work, they’re awesome. When they don’t work, they suck. I try to troubleshoot on my own but the only thing I gain by doing this is a headache. I’m easily frustrated when it comes to technology.
It’s not so much the technology itself but the terminology related to fixing things. I try to use the “help” menus and Google how to do things and watch YouTube videos but they almost always use words that I don’t understand.
And, nine times out of ten when I try to follow the step-by-step, idiot-proof instructions, I get lost. Usually it’s because step number two says something like, click on the blah, blah, blah tab and there is no blah, blah, blah tab. I go to settings, or dashboard, or control panel or whatever but nothing looks like it does in the YouTube video.
They all make it sounds so cute and simple. Like any moron can just set up their own website and fix problems. Yeah right.
Why am I grumbling about this again (because I’m sure I’ve blogged about this in the past)? I’ll tell you. I’m about to launch my first book into the world. I’m excited. Designers are working on a cover, formaters are putting every word into pretty paragraphs and chapters and stuff, things are happening. I’m working fast and furious on my marketing campaign to draw attention to this book. Well, guess what? I discovered that my website is no longer functioning and it’s design has become obsolete. Say what now? I have no website? It’s obsolete? How is that even possible?
I’m supposed to put all these widgets and plug-ins and buttons and banners and fancy things on my website. I need a place to proudly display my book cover with links to stores where readers can buy my book. I need a nifty little space to put my trailer when it’s completed. I have no place to put these cool things. I have no way to access my old website because nobody seems to be able to “get into” the site. Fan-freaking-tastic.
What does this mean? It means I’m investing money and time creating a new website. It means I’ve had to back-burner the marketing stuff so I can fast-forward this web building process. It’s all so very frustrating. I didn’t know websites had expiration dates. I know that technology is constantly changing, but I truly had no idea that my website would become a dinosaur site so quickly. Good grief.
How about you readers, how often do you upgrade your website? Does technology give you fits? Any suggestions for keeping my website up-to-date? I’m all ears.
Word of the day: Yvelines
Fun fact about me: I don’t work well under pressure.
Original post by Jansen Schmidt, August 2018. Photo courtesy Google Images.
What? Websites expire? What the…? And of course it happens when you have deadlines and are busy, busy, busy with a new release. That’s how it always seems to work, not when you’re sitting around eating bon bons with nothing to do. I know I have to update all the stuff in my website regularly, but I never heard about it expiring. So weird. I do have a website guy, though, so maybe he takes care of all that stuff. All that aside, I’m SO EXCITED about your new release!!! Hooray and congratulations!! Any promotion help you need that I can give, just let me know.
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I don’t think it actually “expired” so much as the way it was built and designed is “out of date.” The way web designers work nowadays is much more technologically savvy than the way my site was designed. So I guess it still works, it’s just a dinosaur. At least that’s how it was explained to me. I may not be able to do all the fancy schmancy stuff I want to do on my website for very much longer. We’ll see. I’ve got a guy here in Vicksburg re-designing it a little bit.
Thanks for the offer on helping to promote. I’ll keep you in mind. Maybe a quick blog or something so your readers become my readers and that sort of thing. Although we probably have a different set of readers, but I think readers or romance like a lot of different genres so maybe someone will connect.
Anyway, thanks for the offer. You’ll know when I get my cover so perhaps that’ll be a good time to think about that.
Have a great week!!
Patricia
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Thank you for this post. It’s nice to know I’n not the only tech-ignoramus around. Fortunately, I have a buddy who can fix problems with my computer – which always baffle me. Unfortunately, he knows no more about websites than I do. *Sniff*
To answer your question, I update my website at the beginning of each millenium. What the heck – maybe the beginning of each new century. In other words, not real often.
I won’t endeavor to use Yvelines in a sentence, since I neither know nor care much about anything French. Yeah, I’m a red-neck.
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The very fact that I haven’t updated my website very often tells you that I don’t really know very much about technology. Apparently, one needs to update their website a lot more often than I do to keep it current with the times and changing technology. It’s like smart phones. Just when you get the current model a newer model comes out. Who knew?
Thanks for stopping by and attempting to use Yvelines in a sentence. I appreciate that you have no use for this word and that’s just fine with me.
Have a great week.
Patricia
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Keeping a website up-to-date can be a big PITA, even if you do it for a living (like I do). (Yeah, there’s a reason my site looks “so 2011.”) The main issue with your site is that it’s basic HTML, so it’s not something where a non-technical person can easily update the content. What most people use now is WordPress – like this blog. You do know you can make this into your website, right? You can switch your domain name to point here, and all you’d need to do is add a few more “pages” for unchanging content like your Contact form, your books, etc. And change the look too if you want by choosing a new theme.
Whatever you do, good luck! And feel free to shoot me an email if you have questions.
btw, I’ve been to France, but didn’t make it to Yvelines. 😀
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Yes, I do know that I can make a website with WordPress. I just spent a lot of money on my old site and I really like it so I was bummed when I was told that it’s sort of obsolete now. My new “tech” guy here in Vicksburg says he can still work with it, I’ll just be limited with what I can do on the site. If I find I need to do more, then I’ll have to either do it myself with WordPress (yikes) or have a completely new one built from scratch. You might be hearing from me.
Thanks for the help and offer of continued help. It’s nice to know there’s folks I can contact if I need to.
Have a great rest of the week.
Patricia
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First – HAPPY DAY – your book being published. YAY!
Second, I am so sorry you are going through this this head-banging experience. I hear you… my sight crashed the other day and I get a message from my web-host that my ‘resources’ were close to being overloaded! I think it was a ploy to pour more money into the site! I am glad that WordPress is so easy to use, but I am probably using it wrong!
Anyway best wishes – it will work out. Hang in there and have a great week.
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Technology is a necessary evil. Without it the world ceases to turn properly. I’ve got a guy here in Vicksburg who says he can salvage it and make it operational still but it won’t have all the bells and whistles.
I hope you are able to get yours fixed as well. We really take things for granted sometimes don’t we? That’ll teach us to create it and ignore it.
Have a wonderful rest of the week.
Patricia
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