Update: 05/15/95 08:45 PM

Odds and Ends

Even though I've got WebSite up and running, I haven't done much of anything with it, mainly because I don't know anything about it! It doesn't have any help files or printed manuals (it's only a beta release; I assume that the final release will have both), and the documentation on the CD-ROM is in postscript format. I've spent hours trying to figure out how to use Ghostscript, a postscript viewer I found on a utilities CD-ROM, but I'm beginning to think that it's a waste of time -- because O'Reilly says that WebSite 1.0 will ship this week. (Well, last week they said it would ship today; now they're saying it'll ship this week.) I think I'll just go ahead and mail them the $275 and hope that the documentation that comes with the released version will be in a format that I can actually read.

I added some RAM and installed a backup tape drive today. Well, I only successfully installed the RAM; I added an additional 16MB, which brings me up to 32MB. (I've been told, quaintly, that NT needs that much RAM to be able to "breathe.") The 2GB (4GB, compressed) tape drive installation didn't go quite as well; physically it went okay, but I couldn't get the software to work. I'll call Conner (the manufacturer) in the morning, but I've got a sinking feeling that -- despite what the salespeople in the store told me -- the drive is simply incompatible with NT. I hate messing with hardware, but it looks like I might as well get used to it.

On another front, I'm discovering that it's impossible to find a bank that will process credit card charges for me. (I plan to accept personal accounts only if they're charged to a credit card.) The banks don't seem to want to process charges for any business that doesn't have an actual, physical store-front. Even the bank that's handled my personal account for ten years (and where I now have my business account) won't do it. I have, however, located a couple of companies that specialize in setting up credit card processing for companies like mine. They charge much higher rates than a bank would charge; but since I can't get a bank to process charges for me, I guess I don't have much choice. I'll think I'll get myself set up with one of the processing companies later this week.

All for now. More to come!

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Hank Mishkoff (hank@webfeats.com)