These are just a few quick notes, just so you won't think I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs.
I filed an application yesterday with FirstNet, a local company that arranges "merchant services" (credit card processing) for companies (like mine) that would otherwise have difficulty finding a provider. They already provide merchant services for PICnet, one of the ISP's here in Dallas, so they think they can get mine approved. We'll see. I gave them the non-refundable $75 application fee, and they said they'd get back to me in about two weeks. Since I can't hope to sign up consumer accounts without being able to process credit cards (I am not going to send out a bunch of $5 invoices), this is really important to me, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
My NTP Disk Quota software arrived yesterday. I made one quick pass at installing it, hoping that the installation process would be so intuitive that I wouldn't have to read the instructions. Wrong! I got it sort of half installed, only to realize that I was going to have to pay some attention to the documentation if I was going to have any chance of making it work. So I uninstalled it, and I'll try again later when I have more time. (Hmmmm... just when will that be?)
WebSite is shipping! In fact, they tell me that my copy shipped today! I'm really looking forward to the released version, not because I want to make use of whatever new features they've added (hey, I don't even know how to use any of the old ones!), but because I'm looking forward to seeing some hard-copy documentation. The only documentation with the beta software I've been using is in PostScript files. After several hours of experimentation, I managed to download and successfully install a PostScript reader called GhostScript, but the quality of the text on the screen really sucks, and I wasn't looking forward to getting eyestrain while I learned how to use WebSite. I can't help but think that it'll be nice to actually know how to use the software on which I'm basing my entire business.
Now, this is confusing. In this section, I'm not talking about WebSite, the webserver software. (That was the last section!) In this section, I'm talking about my website, meaning my set of web pages. Got it? Me neither. But it doesn't matter; all I want to tell you is that I'm meeting with some artists tomorrow to help me design and layout a website for WebFeats. I don't necessarily want anything flashy, and it doesn't even have to be cool; I just want something that looks professional and friendly, something that would make a prospect suspect that I might be competent. If I don't have a decent-looking website for my own company, why would anyone pay me to create a website for their company?
Finally, I just wanted to let you know that I've decided to place an ad in a local newspaper. Although I hope to do most of my advertising on the Net, there's a local weekly called The Met that's running a special Internet section on June 15, the exact day I hope to "officially" unveil WebFeats. I'm writing a couple of articles that will appear in that section; they're not paying me much for the articles, but I'm mostly doing it for PR, anyway. And since they realize that they're seriously underpaying me, they offered me a good deal on ad rates, so I decided to give it a shot. I don't know if I'm more worried that I'll get no response at all, or that I'll get such a heavy response that I won't be able to handle it.
On second thought, I'd definitely rather have the latter problem.
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