I so hate ...

... messing around with hardware! You barely unplug all your peripherals from the pc and plug them back in and it goes through the whole so-called "plug'n play" process, except it doesn't do it properly and stuff that was installed before needs to be installed all over again... and drivers need updating yet again..... Then this no longer works and that's acting funny..... and before you know it you've just spent hours on this great time-saving device called a computer!

At least I think I've put it all back together again.... remains to be seen.

Great Resource SIte

Just found a fabulous web site, chockfull of useful information on free email, spam and anti-spam techniques and so much more.

Check out and bookmark www.emailaddresses.com/email_pop.htm.

Web Oops to Avoid

Oh, boy! A couple of lessons to be learned from recent web experiences:

1) Keep a mirror image of your web site at all times. If money is an issue, mirror it or a basic, no-frills subset of it, at one of the free web site hosting places like www.netfirms.com. Arrange for a redirection of the domain name through www.mydomain.com. This should minimize the down time, maybe even eliminate it. At least be equipped with a meaningful message for your visitors to inform them that the site is down or whatever.

2) Maintain an email address somewhere else too, like yahoo or hotmail, not just at the web site. Otherwise, if the web site is down, you will be unreachable. Capture the email received through your web site (and its mirror site) through email forms and route it to one or another actual email address. This will also minimize the potential for spamming. Simple and free email forms for redirection can be set up at www.bravenet.com. It's easy to change the email address to which these redirect with a simple click.

The web: love it or hate it!

When things go well, it's awesome! When things get messed up, you can spend hours and days in total frustration!

Chat rooms

Java chats, PHP chats..... So many choices..... Java chats are easy, but don't work for everybody. My PHP chat room works, but I'm having a heck of a time trying to configure it. Still so much to learn....