After a week of complaining there –all the while having the hunch that my issue was deeper than a message board could handle– the actual tech support people from the actual company finally called me back.

Turns out it’s one guy. That’s the whole tech support department. That should have also been a big honkin’ “Warning Will Robinson!” moment for me.

But no, I’m a sucker and he was a nice guy. He tried everything he could. I emailed him files. He emailed them back. He rebuilt the entire database and sent it back. He spent two evenings operating my computer remotely (from India?) trying to get the software to work. (It’s weird to watch someone else move your cursor…)

But nothing ever worked, no matter what he tried.

Eventually, he just quit calling me back.

So, I went from cursing him…to being impressed by him…to cursing him again.

With no good solutions, and no returned phone calls, I decided enough was enough.

“Like a Phoenix…I have risen from the flames
Like a Phoenix…I have risen from the flames
No more living…
Someone else’s dreams.”

In the course of trying to figure how to port my messages to some other software (found there was no easy way to do that…) I stumbled on some software called “RapidWeaver.” It’s an all-in-one website/blogging solution. It’s Mac-based, intuitive, and has GREAT technical support. It seems to be created by some really cheery folks in England. And for the past week, I’ve been pelting their message boards with questions, and I have gotten a great answer every time. And quickly.

So, this past week has been “rising from the flames” week. While it’s still looked like radio-silence on your end, I’ve been busily converting my entire website to RapidWeaver on my end.

I’ve had the www.ericfolkerth.com website for almost eight years now. I’ve had the blog for three, going on four. Converting it over is a big job. RapidWeaver makes very easy. But with that kind of history, it’s still a big job.

It’s not really like cleaning your closets (the first analogy I thought of…). It’s really more like moving to a whole new house. It’s still all your old stuff, you just have to figure out where it all goes, what you want to keep, and what you need new.

I’m mostly done now. And the result, I am happy to report, is a fully integrated website and blog, with an eye-popping new design, and cool new features my old house/site never had.

Take the picture pages, for one. They’re really, really cool. Check them out. Same old pictures. But they look a lot better here.

And, the blog is fully integrated with the website. So, if you find the blog, you’ll find the website, and vice versa.

The new blog address, at least the main blog page, is a much easier url too:
http://www.ericfolkerth.com/wheneftalks/blog.html

That’s a permanent new address. So, save it as a “favorite” now, and subscribe to the rss feed with this link. You’ll have the ability to leave comments just as before, and I think that overall you’ll come to enjoy it as I have this past week.

As for what I still need to do, I am still porting over the blog entries to the new system. That way, if you want to peruse old entries, you’ll be able to do so within the new system, and ingore the old blog. Don’t know how long that will take. I’ll let you know when it’s done.

So, welcome to the rebirth of my website/blog.

If you’re a regular reader, I’m really glad you managed to find me again. I didn’t leave you hanging on purpose. The old site will stay out there, like some dead satellite drifting around earth. It’s not going to be updated. But there are too many folks who have linked to it through the years for me to take it down either.

So, sorry for the radio silence. As Han Solo used to say, “It’s not my fault!!”