Thursday, September 6, 2012

Where's IT when you need them?

For those of you following along on the Facebook Group, you'll know that JLY and I are back and taking the first tentative steps to getting the website back up. This includes but is not limited to: finding web hosting, finding our backed up copy of the website, and frequently googling things that would make most tech-savy people cringe. "What is web hosting?" for instance.

As JLY and I struggle to get the website back up, I can't help thinking about back in the day--and by that I mean 7/7/07, the day we first launched the site.

JLY & KL of the past--Halloween, from back in the day.


When JLY and I set up schoolforadventurers.com for the very first time, conditions were not ideal. We were operating out of a basement. Not just any basement, but the basement of a dorm. I wish I had a picture, because words can't do it justice. We had to steal a chair from the lounge whenever JLY came to work next to me, and between the bed and the desk and two chairs, it was like a logic puzzle getting in and out of the room (often involving sliding one chair out the door so there'd be room to walk). I'd never made a website before, so there were hours of bashing my head against html and Dreamweaver tutorials trying to understand what a widget was, and what made it spry.

But on the other hand, as it turned out, there were a lot of people on hand to help: my brother was able to buy up the domain name, one of my friends had free web hosting that we leeched off of.

Now, my brother still owns our domain, but he's out of town and our friend's web hosting has been cancelled, so we're out in the cold, cruel world trying to figure this out on our own. But progress is being made. JLY signed us up for a web hosting service. We figured out how to access the domain again from an ftp. So the wheels are turning.

And, man, looking back on how I designed the old site to work, it is a train wreck. I won't go into the details, but apparently I just loved making folders and giving them super helpful names like "Update 13". Sigh. But at least it worked, and considering that I didn't have any idea how to use Dreamweaver before this, I feel like that's somewhat of an accomplishment.

In any case, untangling it is going to be quite the task. It's times like these I wish we had an intern...

But wish us luck! Because. Well. We need it.

< 3
KL

3 comments:

  1. Well...Right here!

    Let me introduce myself. Hi, I'm TLoHiroshi (aka Stephen Wykes), IT man of mystery. I have worked with Dreamweaver before, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Now, I'm no webmaster but I will try and answer them the best I can. JLY recently accepted my friend request on facebook so you can contact me through there. Or let me know and I will contact you via my personal email.

    Also, glad to see you got the site back up for the most part. Now I can go back and re-read book 2.

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  2. I always had a soft spot for this place years ago if you need any web help.

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  3. A long time ago I stumbled on your website, and found your story very enjoyable. I've worked for a time as a website developer, so if you need any help, please send an e-mail(j.timmers.91@gmail.com).

    Best of luck getting everything up and running again.
    Hadess20

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