Our Hangout

All good things come to an end...

For the past three years I've been able to host this website, and over the last 6 months, the church website, completely for FREE. You read that right! Three years of Web Hosting for free. Our personalized e-mail accounts, FREE. The only thing I had to pay for was registering the WEB URLs. It's been a good ride.

However, as of this January, the free ride is over. When 1 and 1 began their Web business out of the UK, they offered anyone who'd give them a chance, a free three year website hosting account with them. At first I was skeptical, but decided to try it out. I figured what they'd do was get you committed to them and then after building a website for three years, ding you with crazy prices, and because you would be in it for that long, who wants to move, right?

Well, as I began looking at the prices of upgrading, I've been surprised. For $4.99, I could get an account that would be adequate for the moment, but for $9.99 I could get an account that will do me well into next year. The real weight of my internet hosting is our church website. But for $9.99, definitely worth the price.

So over the next few days I'll be doing the upgrade. That is, after I get an e-mail back from them helping me to make sure I'm not going to lose all my information in the transition. I'm hoping everything will go seamlessly, but these things have never gone seamlessly. So, I'll expect the worst, and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.

This move three years ago was also what got me into the world of web design and all that. So, it's been a neat journey, that otherwise, I probably would not have gotten into.

In terms of what you will see, nothing will change. It's just a backdoor thing.

Been fiddling....

No not a musical fiddle. Been fiddling with our church website. Have messed around with the size of the picture and colours. Anyway, take a look and let me know what you think. I welcome creative criticism!

So far I've only changed the main page, because I want to get some thoughts on it before I do the other pages. I think it looks more clean and crisp, but I've been looking at it a lot, so, again, any constructive criticism is welcome.

www.portofgrace.org

Funky, to me anyway.

When I originally designed this site, four years ago, I created the little guy, on the right, to hang from the words "our hangout". When I re-designed the site, it just didn't fit the present design. But I liked my little guy and wanted to find a way to have it on the site somewhere. And then I thought, "how do people get the funky pictures beside their "url" on the address bar?" Google the question, get the answer, and my little guy's got a home again.

Okay, I know, no difference to you either way. One of those simple joys though.

Photo Update

Had sometime to update some photos that have been sitting around in my camera...drop by if you want to take a look. Go to our Gallery.

settings

messing with the site settings and stuff, like other creative types can't stand the same thing too long, still, I haven't had the guts to stray far...I'm trying to remove stuff you don't want to know and other such things, as well as the set up...but I don't have too much time to devote to this or the updating of the site, which I should do more of, but someday, for now, I'll do a few minor changes.

updates...

This whole site needs an update, but anyway, I'm putting on my latest sermons. Blessed to be a blessing is up & Don't just go...Be the church, should be up a little later today, maybe even tonight.

Code, design, etc...

Well, as my knowledge of code, design, and finding really good sites with the right information on the net grows (more the latter), my site continues to change.

For those of you who hate the symmetry, I'm sorry. I'll have to do something a little later, as time arises. For now, I'm happy to have figured out how set up more than two columns on the page. I think I need some pictures up...

Just some stuff I was doing after youth last night...

I really need to find something better to blog on than this.

I like design, I hate coding...

I finally changed my "contact form" today, so that it looks like the rest of the site. And that, I hope is the last coding I will do for a long time. That's what I'm hoping anyway. I don't know how anyone does this for a living. I'm happy with the results. For now I guess. Some days, I don't like being artistically minded so much. I go back over the site, and I start thinking, maybe I could make this look this way, or that way. Anyway, I'm going to control those thoughts for a while (I do need to sleep sometime soon.)

Thanks Ian for not letting me settle, and challenging me to go further. Further than I knew how to, further than I believed I could. You were totally right, this is so much better than what I started with. It now is more "Sticky". I don't know if it is, or not, but I'm glad you pushed me.

But have I mentioned I hate coding? Okay, okay. It still baffles me, that if I put a few words and signs in just the right places, it makes stuff show up, or disappear. Who thought of this stuff to begin with? Wow. It's hard to believe that not to long ago in history, this stuff wasn't even a dream.

Well, I said, I wouldn't blog too much about this. But I've just spent the whole day working on the comments page, so It's heavy on my mind. I got code coming out of my ears. Funny thing is, I still don't really know how it really works. For me it's much more a trial and error thing, than an understood matter.

I guess for now it's back to blogging. I'll have to spend a few days scanning some photographs that I want to get on, and who knows, maybe I'll even start posting some of my other sermons, although, since I intend to do a little more preaching this year, I might just stick to my word and post those.

I do have a lot of ideas for blogs, that I haven't written while I was working on this, but since I've been doing this so intensely on all possible and available time, usually the middle of the night, it's been hard to switch gears.

Well, maybe I'll take a few days and let my mind unwind...