I did some reading yesterday, and came across this page on metafilter.com which talks about what programming languages are good for what, and which ones might be useful for a beginner to start learning. Ruby comes highly recommended as a new, clear, easy-to-learn language for web purposes. I tried out a little intro for Ruby online the other day, and it seemed very straight forward.

But the language that seems to be the best (among the easier ones, C/C++ is still, I guess, a must if you have the stomach for it) is Python. The reason this seems an attractive option is that this language is used for website programming (such as google) but is also evolving into a scripting/programming alternative for ArcGIS which, from what I read, has been cursed by Visual Basic, GIS being another field of applications I am busy learning about. So, I'm thinking that as a total newbie to programming who is interested in web design / site construction, and would like to use his geology/engineering background through geographic information systems, I should take a serious look at Python.

Strangely, I am excited about this. :-) If you follow up on the above metafilter thread/post (What is metafilter anyway - they call it a blog but it's more like a non-moderated discussion forum...), there is some talk of who is a programmer, and who is not. I have definitely never thought about myself as a programmer, much less as a techie. But I find the idea of learning to program strangely intriguing, no, I should say liberating. It would be great to be able to look inside the black box of software!

This is the situation with our website. Training and experience in marketing is very limited. In fact, all it really does besides providing contact information and introducing some staff, is list the services that we provide. I am not even sure this list is complete because there are numerous services that we could do although we've never done it. We're just waiting for someone to present us with a problem to solve in which case we could do it. What the listing of services does instead is create the impression that we do not offer services not on the list. This will have to change. A website ought to be a marketing tool and NOT a table of contents.

I have no idea whether the fact that we have a website has resulted in a single client who wouldn’t have found us without the website. But if we attempt to use our website for marketing, we should try to make it look like we care about its contents, accuracy, and whether it is up-do-date or not. What I think we need is a completely new and modern look.  This is the first impression people visiting the site get. Right now, I shudder when I hear my boss refer people to our website for additional information because – frankly – there is no additional information to be found, and there is a good chance people will run away and leave the state for good if they see the site. ...

The crazy thing is that I created this website in early 2002. So it ought to be my fault if things aren't in better shape. I have done very little work on it since then, mostly adding new employees and deleting former employees. The thing is that I find it very hard to produce expert language in areas where I am no expert. Regrettably, there has been virtually no feed-back from the kinds of people who are, and therefore pages are lingering in state they're in.

I am encouraging everyone in the company to take pictures at jobsites whenever they get a chance. We're engineers and do a lot of work in the field. So naturally, we ought to present ourselves in action. Pictures convey more information than words - duh!, but we never seem to have enough of them. I am convinced that lots of snazzy pictures showing us in action will serve us better than rambling lists of obscure spec's and test procedures.

I hope that this can be a productive joint venture that will lead to a better website. I know that most of my colleagues will start of by fretting about spelling, colors, font sizes rather than helping to get big picture right. But I have asked for this challenge. I want to try to design a complete website, 2008 style, and do it right. Let's see how it goes.

I still don't see myself as one day being a programmer in any serious sense of the word. I'm right now transitioning froms static HTML with a sprinkle of JScript to HTML with CSS, so maybe I could with time add enough other technologies to run a neat little website, rather than just create some pages.

Computer books and software guides are another story. Ever since I bought my first tome on MS Excel or whatever it was, the frustration of total hit-and-miss has stayed the same. The books have gotten fancier, better paper, more color etc. But the fact that they are hopelessly inflated, most likely because at $59.95 and similar prices you seem to be paying by the pound, is a bit of a scam. Some 1000-page thick volumes seem to deliberately keep the contents of a page to a minimum. That's ridiculous. In terms of environmental impact, there should be a tax on paper waste like that.

Obviously, these days, you get your most up-to-date and in-depth info on the web. So, I don't keep half as many books around my desk as I used to. One 'google' and you got the answer, pretty much any answer. But it's nice to have a book organized in real chapters that lets you turn pages back and forth and scribble notes in the margins... you see I'm not completely living in the bookless world

I remember the days of IE vs. Netscape. I seem to recall that back then everyone said Netscape was sooo superior to Microsoft. Netscape was the only product I used throughout the 1990s. Around the turn of the millennium, it got quiet around the Navigator, and - out of pure spite towards Microsoft - I switched to Opera. But only for a while. I had too many problems with pages that wouldn't display properly and never could get any shopping done.

So very reluctantly I gave in and started using IE. I didn't like it. I wanted to continue using the underdog browser. I liked the anarchy of not letting Windows have its way. (In my next life, I think I will join to cyber underground and become a hacker.) Other browsers may be faster or better looking than IE, may even have fewer bugs or quirks. But when it comes to designing web pages pages, you have to design for the product the majority of visitors to your site use, and according to http://www.w3schools.com/ that's 54% IE as of Dec '07.

But I took a look at mozilla.org the other day - the administrators of the Netscape estate, I understand, and I was impressed to learn that 36% of internet users use Firefox. I might take the time to install  it to see how pages look compared to IE.

http://www.notepad.org/

I've tried Coffee Cup, Evrsoft, NamoWededitor, SiteSpinner, and none of them were the real thing. I also find that I prefer to type the code and then check the result rather than design the page visually. I am on a similar search for graphics software. I have been using an old copy of ArcSoft Photostudio which has been great but somehow lost some of its capability when I transitioned to Windows Vista. I am about to try out Paint.NET which looks straight forward and is small.

This guy here told me: http://friendlybit.com/css/beginners-guide-to-css-and-standards/

The many old and even older versions Judy's website has gone through were all HTML-only. The technology was probably that of approximately 1998... I have been reading about a lot about CSS (cascading stylesheets) and will try to build a new, more user friendly and better looking website using CSS.

PS: New Year's Resolution #0: Blog More.

This past week I've had several little things that I have wanted to blog about, but just didn't. Now, I have lots of little things running around in my brain. So, this is the post where all parts equal a whole.

It's raining here again today. I think we've had like almost 20 inches of localized rain over the last month. I think we are saturated. I wish I could give it to those of you who need it. Cause, we don't need it anymore.

The neighbor's pecan tree is shedding leaves in my pool. ALOT of leaves. My pool is now brown and green.

I want to make these tomorrow after I go to the grocery. I need pumpkin. I love Fall, it is my favorite season - and it may well be because of pumpkin treats.

Brother is sick. Why do children always get sick on Friday? He didn't feel sick enough to go to the doctor, but stayed home from school. Of course, Friday night his temperature rose and he couldn't breathe. (I think he has strep.)

I've been playing with my site. Heather over at Oh My Stinkin Heck has started doing Wordpress Wednesday's a weekly tutorial on how to build a website in Wordpress. I want to learn, but I didn't want to mess up my theme that SomeGirl did, so I have been playing with this one. I call it oh so very cutline, since it is a combination of the oh so very and the cutline 1.1 themes. I liked things about both of them but didn't like either one on it's own so, oh so very cutline.

Finally, after a few dozen nips and tucks I finally got it almost there, and by there I mean to a place where I can stop and continue on with the tutorials, not that it is where I want it to be. I was most concerned with the xhtml and the css I wanted them both to validate since both authors take pride in the clean code. They both validate - the site actually validated in xhtml 1.o strict, but you know, my posts do not....shhh. Actually, they would validate strict, but I "center" my images and I guess that is a no-no? Listen to me, I sound so la-tee-dah.... Anyway, I need to leave the wordpress stuff alone, because my house is starting to suffer from neglect.

Speaking of which, I've finished with my Billies. Take a looksee.

Awesomeness! I love them and how they fit in the room. There's more living room at my flickr, but I'm done with the links for today.

I am making this for dinner. I know another link, but this one you will like. It is quick, easy and delicious, seriously. You can keep the ingredients on hand and make it any ole night of the week and the family will be happy. Go see...cause I'm done now.

 I've been having so much fun this week.  I've finally had the opportunity to play around with Wordpress a little, it is a bit intimidating coming from Movable Type and Blogger platforms, but finally I am starting to understand.  At first I was playing around with my theme here, but to be honest I didn't want to break it and have to go begging Gina (Creative Streak) to fix my mess-ups, I just don't know her that well.  So I decided to play around with another install; I have plenty of space on my server and I had a free domain so,  The Recipe Said was born.

Those of you who know me and have been at my other journals know that I love food.  I have always wanted a food blog, I even started a few of my blogs specifically to talk food, but I didn't have a knack or a handle on what it should be about.  I mean, I don't take pictures of lovely food (yet :) ), and I don't create my own recipes (often). I just couldn't get going without interspersing it with mostly my personal stuff, so basically, in the end my personal blogs always contained a bit of my food love. 

Then the idea came to me because I do know that I have an addiction to recipes (as evident in my house).  I have a cookbook collection. I subscribe to cooking magazines.  I have baskets overflowing with recipes I have cut out and wanted to try. I have a desire to know food and share what I know.  So, combine my need to know how this platform works and my never ending desire to think about food and wha-la!  Food Blog. Go on over there and take a look-see.

I've been trasferring my recipes off of this site and adding my new stuff as well - I have dated  them back as they were on life's just beachy so that April didn't have 50 recipes in it.  Also, my ultimate goal is to add all of my family favorites here and then have them printed off  (like this)...professionally (or this)....for my children.

Oh, I've also set up an asides (yeah me!) section over there in the sidebar, you know so you can see what's cookin!

Up until December my website was built on Movable Type and hosted with Total Choice Hosting.  I had used them for a year, but decided that I didn't want to mess with pages and uploading and html and all the fun stuff.  I just wanted my blog to be there and not have to worry with it.  My Hosting service Was up for renewal at the end of December/January 1.

When we returned home from Jamaica there was a renewal invoice in my inbox fromTotal Choice Hostingand I immediately logged in to find how to cancel the account.  I had assumed that the account would cancel if I did not renew.  Ha.  Was I mistaken.  I emailed How do I close my account and after searching around found the Cancel Account Immediately Support Ticket.  This was December 29. 

The next day a Customer Service Rep emailed me and told me to use the Cancel Account Immediately Support Ticket, which I had already done.  On January 3, I received another invoice and went to my support ticket to say Hello. You sent me another invoice and have ignored my cancel request could you please reply.  And reply they did.

On January 4, I received a Total Choice Hosting Payment Invoice, ie. a Sales Receipt and also a Paypal subscription payment receipt?  I emailed both Total Choice Hosting and Paypal and said, Whoa Nellie, I've been asking since December 29  for you to cancel my account and wow you process my invoice and take money from my paypal account manually, without my consent.  Seriously uncool.

Then guess what on January 5 I received another invoice.  Yup!  Holy Hell if they process this one without consent as well...so, I contact management. And this is what he says:

Hi Judi,

Paypal payments are generally set up from your side (not ours) so it would need to be canceled by you in paypal.

I'll follow up with Billing later today.

Andy Beckett

and then Assistant General Manager says this:

Greetings,  (I Like The Personal Greeting Touch)

We are sorry to see you go, however your Total Choice Hosting account has now been cancelled. No further billings will occur on this account.

The data stored within this account is no longer available either via the Internet, our servers or backup systems. It has been deleted from all our systems.

As for your Paypal subscription, our records show that you requested a reversal and you will need to follow up with Paypal.

Regards,
Dick DeVance
Assistant General Manager

So I say, no sir,

Hey Andy, my point is that payment has already been made and received by you (Total Choice Hosting) which I did not authorized. I received notice from paypal on Jan. 4 that payment had been made. I did not set it up or initiate it...I had asked (Total Choice Hosting) for my account to be cancelled(three times) not paid, your end took it upon themselves to take payment. Here is a copy of the paypal receipt.

And then I said:

I don't understand why you say blah...and...I don't understand why you say, bleh...and...

According to Paypal's help section:

I am asking AGAIN for you to refund the money that you took from my account. The refund has to be initiated by you, not me.

And then I was demoted again to the billing department:

You will need to follow up with Paypal, since the payment has been reversed.

Regards,

Terri Barnes

End of Negotiations from Total Choice Hosting.  They closed my ticket.  We No Talk To You Anymore. Done. Period.  I have sent friendly reminders, but they just go unanswered.

So, The point.  I am not saying that Total Choice Hosting Sucks. No, I'm not.  I liked them. They are a great Hosting Service, while you are using them.  They have a fantastic up time, in a whole year, I never found my site down.  But.  Customer Service, well, not so much.  I mean really my problem is a mere $55 that was in all fairness probably mistakenly processed.  But. When the issue was brought to their attention they did not rectify it, they bullied and passed the buck and made it my problem. 

I am a fickle blogger.  I am already looking forward to next year when I can switch my blog onto Wordpress, you know the hunt, the learning platforms, that is what I like.  I will need a hosting service again.  But.  It cannot be Total Choice Hosting Service because they do not treat you right if you leave.

This is just my opinion.  I know others have probably had great experiences with Total Choice Hosting Service, and I wish that my experience would have ended better myself.