change and frustration

sigh.

I don't mind change, I really don't. I roll with the punches because that's what BarronMiller's do.. we might vent out loud, say bad words for a few minutes but eventually we brush ourselves off and go back into the fray and if not win, at least go down fighting.

But why does change always seem to cost me time?

My website hosting company just had a server platform redo, and while I'm sure in the long run it's going to be great, more features etc etc etc. But so far it's cost me 3-4 hours and no end in sight.

I used to have open ended, "virtual" emails. That means, no matter what someone types in front of my @beadfix.com I would get the email. I set up a filter and had everything route to just 1 email address, which got downloaded everyday to my home computer to be handled.

Since this was so easy, I only created 2 real emails on my beadfix, and just used whatever entered my fool head for whatever I was doing at that moment. I was proud of this feature, and told lots of folks if they needed to email me just type whatever, as long as it had @beadfix.com on the end.

Now that is gone.. probably since Wednesday. I got an email from my company on Thursday that the transition had happened, but with a show on Saturday and the normal busy of life, I didn't realize I wasn't getting many emails until Saturday night. Upon investigation, I wasn't getting ANY, because most of my emails no longer existed.

So if you sent me something other than to sales@beadfix.com in the last few days, I'm really sorry I didn't get it, and it probably didn't even bounce.

So I had to spend a chunk of time researching, setting up my pop settings to the new platform, and trying to remember what emails I use all the time ( kat@, me@, bead@, art@ etc etc etc) and actually getting them set up as "real" emails. I'm sure I've forgotten a few, and will keep adding as I go along.

The new platform does have a "catch-all" type email account, which I've turned on, but from my experiments doesn't seem to work the best... don't know if it's still in "transition" or if it just don't work that great.....

Now I'm trying to update my website. I have more shows I'm in ( I'll be at West Glen Farmer's Market this month on the 21st & 28Th among others) and so of course I want to update my show listings.

I very carefully followed all the changes my web hosting service said to do, and it seem to find the ftp server and download the changes no problem. My web hosting control page even shows I've made changes. But the changes are not showing on my website. No clue why.

I've fussed with it for over an hour, and I've finally given up and sent smoke signals ( aka online form) begging for help.

sigh.

In the process of all the fact finding on changes, I've discovered my website hosting company merged/ got bought out/ hostile take over/ who knows? recently, which is probably why the server platform is changing.

I notice while none of the prices of what I have have gone up (yet) the service help doesn't seem to be as forth coming, and now you can get extra levels of service for additional $$.

Now maybe that changed a while ago, but honestly I have had this hosting service for 5-6 years, and I've had problems maybe twice ... so I wouldn't know.

Meanwhile, I can't update my website and I"m positive I'm missing out on emails.

Sigh.

did I say I liked change?