Into the Wide Web Yonder

Coffee was in Chicago, "Someday Never Comes" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (almost drowning out the dog whining) is on iTunes. Another day learning website technology. Today's topics: SSL certificates and OSCommerce. Yesterday I registered a bunch more domains (one of them being the afore-mentioned Glass Incarnate) and learned about the ins and outs of that cut-throat business (Go Daddy vs my current hosting provider IX WebHosting). Go Daddy apparently targets the cheap masses and IX WebHosting targets the even cheaper technocrati. With Go Daddy you have to pay a little bit (on a monthly basis) for each of the different service options you want on your site (encryption, forms, blog, shopping cart, guestbook, database/catalog, etc.). IX WebHosting offers just about everything for free with open source software solutions, but there's a catch--you have to be *really* computer/web-literate to set them up as the documentation for each is lean to non-existent. (I find myself reading the knowledgebase...*sigh*)

Am I a glass artist or a website publisher? All I want to do is put up a way for people to order signed copies of my book for heaven's sake! Now I'm worrying because Admin hasn't been secured on my site, or whatever, and because I didn't py $900 for a certified SSL certificate I get a doofy warning every time I go to Glass Incarnate (just accept the certificate permanently and don't worry about it. Really.).

I think I'll have a woodchuck cider for lunch (it's lunch time already!) and just fuhgidaboudit...