Error prone

I make mistakes all the time. We probably all do that, but since I talk about nearly everything, I’m maybe a bit more open about that than most people are. Like, for example, I have a reputation in the family for constantly hitting my head on things—not huge knocks or anything, but enough to hurt for a moment or two. There are plenty of other things that I simply mess up, and I talk about those, too so that others can learn from my mistakes—or at least have a good laugh at my expense. Whatever works for them.

One of my biggest mistakes was the window coverings I chose for two of the bedrooms, something I talked about back in July of last year. My technological failures have been more common and often harder to fix than window coverings.

I’ve broken things on this blog enough times that I really ought to have a tag just for such posts, embarrassing though that might be. I haven’t done that lately, however, for the first time ever, I recently accidentally deleted a comment, one from Roger Green. Since all comments are now moderated (because of a problem that had nothing to do with me), I get email alerts whenever someone posts a new comment. I usually see them in the morning when I check my email on my iPad, and then tap “Publish” (I almost never get alerts about what are really spam comments). However, that particular day I did it on my phone, with it’s much smaller screen, and I accidentally tapped “Delete”. I suppose the learning moment was that there’s no “undo” if I accidentally delete a comment—that and to never moderate comments on my phone, with it’s much smaller screen. I was an honourable blogger, though, and emailed Roger to tell him, so, points for that, right?

There’s yet another accident—though one way or another, this one will turn out to be a good thing.

A few weeks (months?) ago, I began getting email alerts from the company that hosted my “amerinz.com” site that they were doing some sort of "upgrade" to a different (and more expensive) server, and I had to do something or other. I don’t remember what, but I think I told it not to do it automatically. Whatever the reality is (and I definitely have trouble focusing on things at the moment), my site was taken offline when the deadline arrived. I didn’t notice for ages.

I noticed recently, though, and I set the URL to redirect to my “amerinzpodcast.com” site instead, which is good enough for now. This mistake (?) will save me lots of money every year, and may lead to more streamlined organisation of my sites.

When I registered the amerinz.com domain many years ago, it came with free basic website hosting, so I eventually set-up the site I used to have at that address (which, by the way, is fully backed-up). Somewhere along the way they upgraded all such sites to C-Panel, which is very expensive—especially when compared to free—and far, far beyond the needs of what that site was and was for (basically, an online brochure). What I wanted to do is—and pardon the meta stuff, but someone may be interested—I wanted to use the domain as my main site with subdomains for everything else, allowing me to drop one or more of the hosting agreements I pay for. Long story somewhat less so, I missed a deadline and then let it slide for another year. The company’s expensive “upgrade” then made the decision easy—regardless of whether I actually “decided” anything or was just lucky.

I may leave it as it is (and save money), or I could set up new hosting (as I wanted it to be), cancelling one or more of my other web hosting accounts (and saving money). The jury’s still out on that (I have months to decide, unfortunately—a very dangerous thing). Whatever I do, I’ll make sure that everything is easy—invisible, actually—for anyone accessing the sites.

So, this domain stuff is yet another mistake I made, but like those window coverings and even accidentally deleting a comment, it’s not a serious one. It’s also far less painful than hitting my head. Apparently, I have a reputation in the family for constantly hitting my head on things. The technical stuff is, fortunately, definitely not in that league.