SpiritGrooves.net Website
By Michael Erlewine
Let’s talk websites. For the last year I have been trying to get a company to move my website SpiritGrooves.net from a Microsoft-based format to the more popular now Wordpress format. It was a terrible experience when I tried to explain to my ‘Guides,” that’s what they called themselves, what I wanted and they would then create a ticket to give to actual programmers who did the actual work.
Needless to say, the guides knew practically nothing about the process and they were there at home with their dogs and babies while I tried to explain and spoke broken English. And I would write this all down with illustrations galore, etc., and send it to them to have it pretty much ignored.
This went on for so long until I kind of stopped calling because nothing was ever done. However, after waiting a year, I was fed up and so a few days ago I called and would not take no for an answer.
I spent over three hours on the phone, had the whole process dropped twice and had to start over, and of course it was bad English that I tried to confer with, and it went on and on.
For one, what they called programmers was a joke. The internal coding is not a computer language but rather a kind of protocol or set of rules that had to be followed.
And the guy I was talking with somewhere out there tried to tell me this would be too complex and difficult for me to actually try myself. Well, I wasn’t having that. I have programmed for over 40 years, so that bird won’t fly.
Anyway, after several hours I managed to post one single PDF book file along with a thumbnail photo of its cover. Yet, through that I pieced enough steps together so that I understand how their ‘language’ works.
There are no good manuals or books on the process to be of help, although I did order one, but it is mostly on how to set up a website, and everything else but how to determine the code.
I was up half the night and by morning I have fixed most of the errors myself and was able to post 11 large books, five on dharma-related writings and 6 that I call miscellaneous, having astrology, photography, and all manner of other topics. I also fixed dozens of errors and other things not working as well.
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Anyway, they are all up and running and I am considering cutting off all their help and maintaining it myself at this point. I have other things to do, but it is running OK, so check it out at:
SpiritGrooves.net
Each of these 11 books contains about 100 articles, each written by me, and as there was no room for photos for each, I have included a URL for the photo that originally went with a particular article, so you can just put it in browser and see the original photo to set the mood.
I have few other things yet to do, but there is a now many hundreds of free articles and e-books and what not on this site for those interested.
The 5 books with dharma related articles are under “Dharma” in the free e-Book choices and the 6 books on various other topics are in the “Other” or “MISC” section.
The books all have a “Table of Contents” and numbered pages to make it easy to find an article. There are something like 1100 articles in these eleven books enough to last even the most committed during the long winter months.
[Some of the new books.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: SpiritGrooves.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
