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| WORK IN PROGRESS 29 x 54 oil on canvas |
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Setting Up A Website #3 -- (Good Tutorial)
Since starting to write about this, i stumbled across http://bloggingwithamy.com/ , which seems really good to me. This series of articles goes beyond my experiences in a lot of ways.
Pollen Carriers
The weather turned cool, 60's, windy, and occasionally wet. Amid all that, i saw one bee arrive at the "Swarm Hive" Monday afternoon with big packs of orange pollen. Hope she did the dance and there was time for more sisters to get out there and harvest the orange stuff, whatever it is. They just never quit.
This year the wasps seem to have been shut out. I've kept the openings rather small all summer.
This year the wasps seem to have been shut out. I've kept the openings rather small all summer.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Mandala #7
A number of these mandalas are going to be available week after next as pigment print on aluminum panel. They're all roughly 6" x 9".
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| Mandala #7, 6"x 9", tissue paper on cardstock. |
Monday, September 16, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Setting Up A Web Site #2 (Hosting)
After procuring a domain name, you should decide what you want your web site to do. We'll come back to that, because you're naturally going to want to have some idea of costs and features available in a hosting provider.
I can't tell you very much about the relative merits of the providers, but i recently did some fast research and picked one. What and why below. You might want to do some comparative searching of one company vs another, looking for business news. There is a lot of change in this business, and struggle for world domination. Some of these companies are huge.
aiso.net
Green company. I looked at at least one nice site made on this host. It might appeal to you.
amazon cloud
Last i looked you could set up a server in the Amazon clould fairly inexpensively if you have the technical knowledge and want extended capabilities. Nothing i'm aware of for beginners.
bigfolio.com
$349 or $499 + $19/month. Confusing pricing.
Wordpress installed (and default?).
Ftp access.
Lots of features.
Mobile and tablet site included.
bludomain.com
Confusing. Seems very limited. Pricing is what? One time?
Lots of extra pricing for non-basic features.
hostgator.com
Lots of capabilities. This hosting seems to throw a net over just about every kind of capability you might want. A fair amount of it is part of the base fee. There are several levels of fees, and best deals for multi-year contracts -- be sure to look at the term of contract when comparing fees in all these hosts.
$81.71 for 1 year on "unlimited" plan: unlimited bandwidth and storage, 1 domain name. Includes basic weebly and email.
Template web building uses some version of Weebly. See Weebly. Basic templates are very limited.
Security tools. Some security scanning comes with basic fee, but there are also higher levels of security scanning for additional fees.
A good maintainer management 'console', but it's not for beginners.
jux.com
Wierd. Kind of like a really creative blog, visual oriented.
weebly
Read about wix and weebly in Tech Crunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/as-wix-heads-toward-ipo-weebly-looks-to-expand-with-big-new-sf-headquarters-plans-to-add-500-employees/
Basic web site builder is pretty easy to use, but limited. Limited to only 6 pages of content, really too few to be much more than introductory use. See my current site, 9/9/13, http://bobworthyart.com, hosted through hostgator, but built by weebly.
wix.com
Free initial site.
12.42/month (year contract) for Unlimited site.
16.17/month (year contract) for eCommerce.
Template site tools. Some require ecommerce contract, most no extra charge. Invent your own layout with blank templates (no doubt a lot of work).
zenfolio.com
Specifically for photos, i.e., photographers.
With shopping cart $120/yr.
Looks like a good site. Features comparable to other hosting.
I picked hostgator, in large part because my daughter is familiar with it, and we are collaborating. Price and services are good so far.
Comments on these features, and further notes in later blog posts.
I can't tell you very much about the relative merits of the providers, but i recently did some fast research and picked one. What and why below. You might want to do some comparative searching of one company vs another, looking for business news. There is a lot of change in this business, and struggle for world domination. Some of these companies are huge.
aiso.net
Green company. I looked at at least one nice site made on this host. It might appeal to you.
amazon cloud
Last i looked you could set up a server in the Amazon clould fairly inexpensively if you have the technical knowledge and want extended capabilities. Nothing i'm aware of for beginners.
bigfolio.com
$349 or $499 + $19/month. Confusing pricing.
Wordpress installed (and default?).
Ftp access.
Lots of features.
Mobile and tablet site included.
bludomain.com
Confusing. Seems very limited. Pricing is what? One time?
Lots of extra pricing for non-basic features.
hostgator.com
Lots of capabilities. This hosting seems to throw a net over just about every kind of capability you might want. A fair amount of it is part of the base fee. There are several levels of fees, and best deals for multi-year contracts -- be sure to look at the term of contract when comparing fees in all these hosts.
$81.71 for 1 year on "unlimited" plan: unlimited bandwidth and storage, 1 domain name. Includes basic weebly and email.
Template web building uses some version of Weebly. See Weebly. Basic templates are very limited.
Security tools. Some security scanning comes with basic fee, but there are also higher levels of security scanning for additional fees.
A good maintainer management 'console', but it's not for beginners.
jux.com
Wierd. Kind of like a really creative blog, visual oriented.
weebly
Read about wix and weebly in Tech Crunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/as-wix-heads-toward-ipo-weebly-looks-to-expand-with-big-new-sf-headquarters-plans-to-add-500-employees/
Basic web site builder is pretty easy to use, but limited. Limited to only 6 pages of content, really too few to be much more than introductory use. See my current site, 9/9/13, http://bobworthyart.com, hosted through hostgator, but built by weebly.
wix.com
Free initial site.
12.42/month (year contract) for Unlimited site.
16.17/month (year contract) for eCommerce.
Template site tools. Some require ecommerce contract, most no extra charge. Invent your own layout with blank templates (no doubt a lot of work).
zenfolio.com
Specifically for photos, i.e., photographers.
With shopping cart $120/yr.
Looks like a good site. Features comparable to other hosting.
I picked hostgator, in large part because my daughter is familiar with it, and we are collaborating. Price and services are good so far.
Comments on these features, and further notes in later blog posts.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Setting Up A Web Site #1
The first thing you need for a web site is a name, known as a "Domain Name", for example, "bobworthyart.com". This is the name that the internet will use to connect browsers to your web site. The Domain Name is actually used to connect all the services your web site will provide, such as email to and from that domain, and many other possible services.
In effect you will be renting this name from "The Internet", since you'll have to pay a fee to keep the name current. The more years you rent, the better deal you can get. A number of companies are authorized to rent you a name, but the Domain Name is good over all the internet. The companies that perform this rental service are called Registrars. When you register your name with a company, for example GoDaddy, or Network Solutions, they will allow you to manage your name through your browser. You provide billing info, and contact info, and pay the fee. You can log in through the Registrar's management interface, with your domain name and password, inspect your payment situation, and change management information, pretty much whenever you want.
What is Domain Name management? It's keeping your rent current, your contact and billing info current, and crucially telling The Internet where to find your web pages (and other services). The Internet rests on Domain Name Services, DNS. YOU get to tell the net where those services are located. The location takes place in "nameservers". There will be a primary nameserver, and a backup nameserver, and they'll have the same information. What you provide are two nameserver addresses that your hosting company will tell you to use. The addresses will look something like this: "ns6259.hostgator.com", or perhaps like "206.127.64.240". Log into your registrar and put in what your hosting service tells you. Voila, after this information percolates through the net, the connection is made, you're on the net.
Hosting companies will provide many services, among them storing your web site pages and providing them to browsers whenever anyone types http://yourDomainName in their browser. Another service a hosting company will provide is email connections and storage.
Registrars typically also provide hosting. Being a little paranoid, i like to manage my domain name with one company, and rent my hosting from another. As long as you pay the domain name rental, there isn't much need to move that management around. Oh yes, once you have control over a domain name, it is "yours" to the extent that you can move the management to another Registrar. Seldom is there a need to do that.
Web hosting, on the other hand, is a very rapidly changing business. You may very well want to start with one hosting company, and switch to another at a future date. Additional complications are, for example, selling your business and the domain name that goes with it. You have easier control if the domain name management is the only thing your registrar is providing.
Changing web hosting, an Example: You have your domain name management with registrar "Reg". You are hosting your web site at company "Ahost", but you find a better deal with the expanded services you crave with hosting company "Bhost". While Ahost is serving your web needs, you build your new site at Bhost. That takes a little while, but when it is done, you log in to Reg and change the two nameserver entries to the ones that Bhost provides. As soon as the nameserver entry changes cascade through the internet, all the traffic to your domain name goes to Bhost. (There would be a period of less than 24 hours where both Ahost and Bhost were serving, tricky if you're a big company, maybe trivial otherwise.) Turn off Ahost and the switch is done. If you have Ahost as your registrar, things might be more complicated.
In effect you will be renting this name from "The Internet", since you'll have to pay a fee to keep the name current. The more years you rent, the better deal you can get. A number of companies are authorized to rent you a name, but the Domain Name is good over all the internet. The companies that perform this rental service are called Registrars. When you register your name with a company, for example GoDaddy, or Network Solutions, they will allow you to manage your name through your browser. You provide billing info, and contact info, and pay the fee. You can log in through the Registrar's management interface, with your domain name and password, inspect your payment situation, and change management information, pretty much whenever you want.
What is Domain Name management? It's keeping your rent current, your contact and billing info current, and crucially telling The Internet where to find your web pages (and other services). The Internet rests on Domain Name Services, DNS. YOU get to tell the net where those services are located. The location takes place in "nameservers". There will be a primary nameserver, and a backup nameserver, and they'll have the same information. What you provide are two nameserver addresses that your hosting company will tell you to use. The addresses will look something like this: "ns6259.hostgator.com", or perhaps like "206.127.64.240". Log into your registrar and put in what your hosting service tells you. Voila, after this information percolates through the net, the connection is made, you're on the net.
Hosting companies will provide many services, among them storing your web site pages and providing them to browsers whenever anyone types http://yourDomainName in their browser. Another service a hosting company will provide is email connections and storage.
Registrars typically also provide hosting. Being a little paranoid, i like to manage my domain name with one company, and rent my hosting from another. As long as you pay the domain name rental, there isn't much need to move that management around. Oh yes, once you have control over a domain name, it is "yours" to the extent that you can move the management to another Registrar. Seldom is there a need to do that.
Web hosting, on the other hand, is a very rapidly changing business. You may very well want to start with one hosting company, and switch to another at a future date. Additional complications are, for example, selling your business and the domain name that goes with it. You have easier control if the domain name management is the only thing your registrar is providing.
Changing web hosting, an Example: You have your domain name management with registrar "Reg". You are hosting your web site at company "Ahost", but you find a better deal with the expanded services you crave with hosting company "Bhost". While Ahost is serving your web needs, you build your new site at Bhost. That takes a little while, but when it is done, you log in to Reg and change the two nameserver entries to the ones that Bhost provides. As soon as the nameserver entry changes cascade through the internet, all the traffic to your domain name goes to Bhost. (There would be a period of less than 24 hours where both Ahost and Bhost were serving, tricky if you're a big company, maybe trivial otherwise.) Turn off Ahost and the switch is done. If you have Ahost as your registrar, things might be more complicated.
Tour of Excellence
There is some excellence in Jackson Hole. Certainly enjoyed the long weekend there with the MAP cohorts. Exhort the cohorts. It was a lot of fun and much food for thought and marketing. Fun bunch of people. Thanks to everyone to put the tour together. Thanks for the whiskey, Tim. Congratulations to the people who made those commercial contacts, they lift us all up.
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