Here I sit trying to help a friend get a new web site working. He knows nothing about web sites and I know a little bit more. Just enough to be dangerous.
Category Archives: Web Site Saga
Time to go public
Two weeks later I now have 12 galleries containing over 400 photos with captions and a bit of dialog describing each gallery. I think these galleries give a pretty good picture of the high points of what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years.
I still have a lot I’d like to do on the site. It would be nice to have a way to sell some of my stuff, add a links page of my favorite sites, add some downloadable ‘how to’ documents that I have written, figure out how to change some of the formatting, add a logo to the header, separate kratzerkomments.com (blog) from kratzerkraft.com (gallery & sales) etc., etc.
In the end this is probably a lot of wasted time if no one looks at it. So now all I have to do is figure out how to get some people to look here. So now I’m off to toot my horn on Face Book and anywhere else I can think of to try to develop and audience.
By the way if you don’t want to miss any of my captivating photos and scintillating prose just sign up for the RSS feeds at the bottom of the right hand column. Feel free to add comments by clicking the little cloud at the top of the posts or the ‘leave a reply’ link at the bottom of each post.
Seek and ye shall find
My frustration with rotated photos now has a solution. A plugin called Image Rotation Fixer has been installed and now my pictures upload as I have them saved. I now have 12 galleries of my work on line. I still need to add captions to many of the photos but my viewers can at least get an idea of the kind of work that I do.
I continue to find that I’m not much of a blogger. I guess I have things to say it just seems to take a lot of time to get them written down. I think a whole lot faster than I type. Additionally I have my doubts that many folks will even read my ramblings.
I’ve heard that it is best to write about things you know. Since I know most about myself and what I’ve done over the years I will probably try to write a blog or two about some of the more interesting projects I have completed. If I get real ambitious I may even remember to write about something while I’m doing it. Anyway I need to refine my galleries, add captions and maybe even another gallery or two. So enough for this entry.
If your are interested check back occasionally. There may be something new. If I get smart enough I may even figure out how to add RSS feed so my wisdom will show up in you inbox if you desire. I also would like to setup a store where you can purchase my creations with PayPal. Time will tell. So long for now.
A bit of progress
Thanksgiving weekend we are in Huntsville AL eating and loafing with Hannah’s brother and sister-in-law. Have some time to tinker on the web site. I found a free plugin from bestwebsoft.com for creating picture galleries. So far I have created two galleries but have yet to figure out how to rotate images. I have them saved on my hard drive rotated to proper orientation but when I upload them the revert to the not rotated orientation. Gotta be a way. Bah, Humbug!
A new year! The older I get the faster time flys.
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Here it is 2013 and it has been four months since I started this blog and this is only my second entry. How is it that one can be so busy in retirement?
I never was much for doing a diary but I thot I’d give this a try as I wanted to update my web site and it seem that blogs, texting and social media are the only way people communicate any more. I’m just having a hard time getting around to learning Word Press and making entries here. Not that it is that difficult to learn it just takes time and motivation. I really have lots of time I guess I’m short on motivation. So, my new year’s resolution is to spend more time on this project. We’ll see how it goes.
What’s keeping me so busy? I’m not sure. Some of it is old age. I sleep, nap and watch more TV than I ever have before. But I also stay busy puttering around the house and doing various projects for the church, friends and family. I also spend a good deal of time on my wood turning hobby.
Over the Christmas holiday I painted Chelsea’s room, made some frames for hanging pictures and necklaces out of old windows for her and hung them and a bunch of pictures for her. The hard part is that the walls in this 1872 house are solid brick so every hook or screw in the wall requires a hammer drill and special screws. Noisy and messy procedure. Drywall has it’s advantages.
My current project is a cross for the church Prayer Room entrance foyer as well as a sign for the door. I made the cross from some old board that use to be part of a fence around our garden. Old weathered and full of nail holes. I just planed the surface a bit to remove the fungus and mold and added a coat of sealer. I need to get this installed before the end of the week. Hopefully today. The sign fits in the slit window in the door and can be flipped to indicate usage. Pictures below.
In our Living Room
Installed in Church
What else is happening? Our wood turning group, Ohio Valley Wood turners Guild OVWG.org is having their annual Luncheon and contest on January 19th. I still don’t have a contest entry. I’ve got a couple of ideas but nothing that I think has a chance of getting a ribbon. Besides that my garage/shop is colder than a well diggers bottom and not real conducive to enjoyable creativity. So I’m not sure I’m even gonna have an entry.
The next week Hannah and I are off to Franklin TN to the Tennessee Valley Woodturners Symposium the weekend of Jan 26. I’m taking Hannah to the symposium for her 70th birthday present. 🙂 Well her brother and sister-in-law from AL are going to meet us there for the weekend. They will bum around seeing the sites, Grande Ole Opry, etc., while I’m getting my fill of new wood turning ideas. We will all do the banquet an auction on Sunday evening. We may return to AL for a day or two with them after the Symposium. Should be fun. I think it is a great B-day present. I hope she is as nice to me on my birthday.
What else is in store for 2013?
As much as possible I spend Thursday mornings at a friends barn with 15-20 other old fogies playing at wood turning and swapping lies.
Sundays are church and rest, Wednesday evening is choir practice.
The second Saturday of every month is open studio night at Loveland Studios on Main where I have a booth and sell my creations.
Every third Saturday is our OVWG meeting.
No big events in Feb, March and April. Need to work on that.
Mid may we will be at the Applachian Fest at Coney Island where our club demonstrates wood turning and sell our wares for three long days.
In June we will spend a week at Branson MO with Texas Friends and later in the month we will probably go to the AAW Symposium in Tampa FL.
There is a possible trip to AZ in July for a reunion of Hannah’s relatives.
Gee whiz, nothing in August. Need to work on that too.
September I will doing the Loveland Art Show in Nisbit Park.
October will be Woodworking in America Symposium and the OVWG Symposium.
Wow then it is Thanksgiving and Christmas time again.
Somewhere between all this I’ll try to make stuff and work on the “honey dos” that Hannah and JoEllen find for me. Never a dull moment.
Well I wasted the whole morning on this. It’s time for lunch. I wonder how many people will even read it. Till next time.
Hello world!
A few years ago I bought a cheap web site development package called “Web Easy”. I managed to cobble together a web site, currently visible at www.kratzerkraft.com. I found the package to be very restrictive and difficult to do what I wanted to do. As a result I did not change or update the site since it’s original version. Since then I have been reading/hearing that Word Press is the easiest way to create/maintain a web site.
So, today I decided to try to get Word Press working and redo my web site. It is now 12 hours later and I am making my first post to my new site. Yes it is easy if you know what you are doing and understand all the terms etc. But after several email exchanges with the 1and1 Host techies and careful re-reading of many helpful online instructions, here I am! Part of the Blogosphere.
I doubt that I’ll do much Blogging but I would like to develop the site as a showcase and online store for my wood turnings. Time will tell.