Eldergeek

You could easily call me obsessive-compulsive.  But I prefer to think of myself as tenacious.  I like solving problems.  Give me an interesting problem and I may not eat or sleep or do anything else for a few days, but it will be solved.

Last week I found a CMS script (CMS = Content Management System) that was exactly what I had been looking for.  Inexpensive, easy to use, perfect.  Except that I could not make it work.  I downloaded a trial version and installed it on a test website, but I could NOT get it to save a web page correctly.

I emailed the company tech support three separate times looking for help, and got no response at all.  For over three days I spent every waking hour messing with the configuration files trying to get this product to work.  Well ok, I went to my job at WSU every day, but every night until midnight, every morning at 5:00am, I beat my head against this thing.

On the fourth day it occurred to me that I was going in circles – trying things I had already done – when suddenly a little light went off and I realized where I’d gone wrong.  Boom, it worked!  The software did exactly what I wanted it to, and all was right with the world.

If I had half a brain I probably would have dropped this effort after a day of mucking around.  Especially with no support coming from the company.  But it doesn’t seem to be in my nature to give up on something that I know should work.  There’s always a way…  If you can be tenacious enough, there’s always a way.

Simple is good.  Simple - as in clean, uncomplicated, reliable, fast, and good.

I build simple websites.  Handmade, home built, low-tech, simple websites.  It’s a conscious decision, and I don’t expect to change the way I do business.  A couple of my sites have very minimal Flash elements, but most are nothing but straight HTML and Javascript.  (With just a bit of PHP…)

I like that my websites always work.  I like that my sites are clean.  No typos, no bad links, no java errors.  I can’t say that I never screw up – but when bad code is brought to my attention it is fixed on the spot, immediately.

Most of all, I like that my websites are unique.  No canned designs.  Every site is different, built to reflect the business or organization that it represents.  Some of the designs are better than others, and I definitely get better as the years go by.  But my websites look handmade, and I see that as a good thing.

“Packaged” websites, either user-generated or vendor-supplied, tend to have a cookie cutter feel.  The number of available templates is minimal, and customization is limited.  I’ve even seen websites where a user published a canned software package with absolutely no content.  It might be functional, but it has nothing to say.

Handmade.  Simple, reliable, clean, affordable – with a personality.  I might not get rich doing it, but I’m proud of what I build.

I recently began using VerticalResponse to manage my Newsletter emails that go out every so often.  I love their email editor, and they have great tools for tracking responses – number of emails opened, number of hyperlinks clicked, and so on.  But I had trouble with my first email getting trapped by way too many spam filters.

After looking in vain at the VerticalResponse knowledgebase for an hour, I sent an email to their tech support contact: “I’ve been searching your site for ways to keep my emails out of spam filters, but I find nothing.  Is there any documentation available?”

To their credit, they sent me response within 24 hours.  But the response ended with this: “The reason they are getting routed to the spam folders is because the recipient’s servers are routing your emails as such.”

I’m sorry to say that my intelligent response to their response was “Well duh…”  The reason your emails are trapped in the spam filter is that they’re being seen as spam.  “Well duh…”  For some reason I thought they could tell me how to form my Newsletter email so that it would not be seen as spam.

I read their best practices, and followed their directions for avoiding the spam filters.   The “From” line of my newsletter was my business name, I did not include sentences in ALL CAPS, and so on.  But when I ask them for help, I get a non-answer from their unsupport tech.  Argh…

You tell me if this looks like spam.  Here’s the online copy of my July Newsletter.