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Homepage for a dual group at Multiply and Google, and a discussion of gallery hopping in Chicago. Yes,
it has relocated again because the Internet is so ... special. At first, it was located on a Webring
profile, which seemed fitting, because the profile would be up whenever Webring was up, ensuring that nobody
would ever arrive from Webring and find that the site was down. Good service, right? What Webring asks for
out of its users? I guess that Webring didn't feel so, because soon a number of other profiles were suddenly
wiped out, being replaced with generic profiles listing one's ring memberships and the time of one's last login,
the owners surprised to discover that Webring was now suspending the ring memberships for their Webring profiles,
because of what Webring had done itself, on an impulse as far as one could tell. Not wishing to see my new groups
tossed off of the rings they had so recently been admitted to, I moved the group homepage to a new site, at
Googlepages, where the users are forced to use templates on the main pages of their sites, with visual results that
are so very, very ... just take a look for
yourself. Annoying, but at least this was a reliable server, right?
"Wednesday, July 23, 2008. More to come later, if Google doesn't choose to kill this site . I don't know why they'd want
to do that, but ... I don't know ... whatever ..."
Maybe not that reliable. Googlepage's automated system had locked my site for unspecified TOS violations that were
left unspecified for an excellent reason - there weren't any and there couldn't have been any. Why? Because the
automated software they sent out to do an administrator's job had literally locked my site as I was setting it
up! There was no content on the site at that point! Raising the reasonable question of just how offensive a
blank page can be on the Googlepage creator problem group, I got a promise that my site would be unlocked the
next day. The editor was still working on this locked site, which had merely been rendering invisible to the general
public, so I did a little work on the site (as you saw earlier), and waited for the unlocking. Which came after I
nudged the Googlepages staff a little more. All was well, now, right?
Not exactly. Remember that I was setting this up, because I needed a Webring.com entry page. The problem was that
since Webring was in the habit of merging rings and then not bothering to have the ringcode for the rings merged out
of existence forward appropriately - causing the html code of the members of the old ring to fail, Webring then
suspending their sites in reponse (once again) to circumstances that Webring had chosen to create - any HTML ringcode
left one's ring memberships in a precarious position. One had to use the SSNB code Webring provided, as a
matter of simple practicality in many cases, but SSNB is javascript based and Googlegroups had disabled the
use of Javascript on the pages on its groups, Multiply.com disabling its use everywhere one of its users could post
anything. One could and can upload HTML pages to a googlegroup, but then one makes the pleasant surprise that the
Googlegroups system will fail to find those files, if a visitor attempts to access them directly, without going
elsewhere on the groups they belong to, first. Thus the need for an entry page, and this wonderful experience, which
was about to become even more special.
"We are no longer accepting new sign-ups for Page Creator because we
have shifted our focus to developing Google Sites, which offers many
of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like site-
level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see and
edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and Google
docs.
If you are currently a Page Creator user, you can continue to use Page
Creator and your pages will automatically be transitioned to Google
Sites later this year."
Which, of course, would break every link to one's site and render any ringcode on it invalid. Would they
tell us when this would occur? No. Could we use the system to relocate our sites now? No, though they'd
be happy to let us do so by hand. Not a problem for a small site like mine, but much more of one for
others. "No making this easy until we have a shot at getting you knocked out of any banner exchanges,
or the link, my friend" seemed to be their position. This seemed a little bit evil, I thought. The
breaking point for me came when I took a look at the new Googlesites, and noticed that instead of
being forced to use templates on just one page, we would now be forced to use them on every page,
templates done in soft safe pastels that seemed so familiar, so very familiar ....
Think back to high school. Remember how somebody's girlfriend used to decorate her notebook, with
happy rainbows and dancing teddybears, while you looked and thought to yourself "celibacy is really
an underrated option"? That's sort of the new look for any and all Googlesites, whether the owners like it or
not. I decided that I had seen enough, and set up this new site the next day.
For now, this will be a very small
site consisting of an entry page for the new Chicago photography and image groups at
DeviantArt and
Multiply. More later.
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