So I built a webpage to showcase my photography work. Really I did that 3 weeks ago. That task only took me about 4 hours or so to rough everything in. Since then I’ve spent the last 3 weeks trying to get it to work and be visible online. As I said before in an earlier blog post I am the web hoster, web page developer, server administrator and customer. That means I’m responsible for getting the server, the DSM software and the website to play nice together. Did I mention I’ve never really done this before?
So I’ve spent 3 weeks trying to get the website to be visible online. I can open it, edit it, preview it and even simulate how it will look but always on my computer at home. The site seemed as invisible as meaning in a Jackson Pollack and the cause as hard to decipher as the latest tax codes. I spent my days and nights searching online for a clue. I submitted countless support calls to all my software providers begging for a solution, any solution.
Nothing.
A colossal 4.2 billion pages exist on the Web, spread across 8.2 million web servers. Somewhere out there was my answer. I scoured every page from all the software makers. I poured over forum posts. I questioned Google like a 2 year old asking their parents continuously “Why?”.
Then yesterday I saw it. 25 words. Out of 4.2 billion web pages I found 25 words that unlocked the riddle that was my website/server.
“If you are using a virtual host the WordPress Address and the Site Address will NOT require the folder in the URL as shown below.”
That’s all it said. But that was my equivalent to Archimedes’s Eureka! moment. Short of leaping from my bath and running through the streets naked I had the same jubilation, the same exaltation, the same feeling of victory in conquering the mental Himalayas.
OK, now in real-world terms what it means is I was not telling the website the correct location of it’s files. I was following the instructions from two different software manuals that were giving me conflicting information. Once I made that change it was is if the heavens opened and angelic light bathed my computer.
So now that the head scratching is over I’ve been furiously adding and correcting content for the rollout of My Bucketlist Photography site. It’s a place where I hope to share the images, travels and stories I have taken over the last few decades and hopefully far into the future.
I hope to post on a regular basis and I hope you enjoy it.
