Rookie Mistakes

Categories

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 Well I think I have got to the point now that I am able to realize a fundamental mistake that I have already made. I have too many tags and not many of them are really suitable for the subjects that I will be discussing. At least I have realized this early enough on to go back and revise the posts I have made. The first thing I need to do though is to sit back and really think about what I want to achieve with this blog, sort through in my mind what areas I will be covering etc. One of the few I know I will be keeping is the category I will be using for this post: Rookie Mistakes!

When I was your age . . .

Saturday, December 16th, 2006 Part of the idea of this blog was to go over some of my rookie mistakes and hope that somewhere along the line the information here might help others avoid the problems I have encountered, so with that in mind I thought I would cover email accounts. When I first went online it was by using my mobile (cell) phone as my modem, and one of the first things I did was to get myself an email account, which was a good idea as when I went to sign up for a broadband account the next day they wanted me to supply an email address with my information. So far so good. When my broadband account was set up my ISP provided me with another email account to go along with it, and as this was a bigger better one I thought I would use it as my main account. Mistake. I hadn't thought it through properly. It was only 15 months later as I contemplated the various offers other broadband providers were making that I realised that if I was to change providers I would lose my email account with my previous provider, the account that I had been using as my main one for over a year! This meant tha I could lose a whole load of important mail, that all the sites I used or subscribed to would need to be notified and that any products/software that I had registered with that address would have to be told and that I could potentially lose contact with some of my friends, some of whom only had my email address by which to keep in touch with me. When I realised this I then decided to try and get myself another bigger and better email account, preferably a gmail account. These weren't the easiest of things to come by as you had to be invited to open an account with them by someone who already was using the service. Luckily I found someone on one of the forums I use that was prepared to send me an invitation. Then began the long process of notifying all the relevant people and changing my address on the forums I use etc. Eventually I got there though, and now I always make sure that I never use the account set up by my ISP for anything except keeping in contact with the providers themselves. The lesson learnt? Never use the account you are given by your ISP as your main account.

Beginnings.

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
(These first few posts are transferred from my freebie Wordpress, please bear with me)
So my Mother, like all Mothers, likes to give advice. Some good, some not so. The advice “Better to be silent and thought an idiot than speak and prove it” undoubtedly falls in to the category of “good”, but like all her other advice I am going to ignore it anyway.
Blogs seem to be very popular in this day and age, so much so that some seem to be able to make a living at it. Not me, mind! I earn my living by manual labour. I don’t say this to in anyway denigrate those that can make a living through their intellect, just pointing out that if you stumble across this weblog, please don’t expect too much from it. Hopefully I will use this service a little more than I have some of my previous attempts, maybe getting the hang of some of the more interesting features. At least this one has a spellchecker, saving me from too much embarrassment.I only started using a computer about two years ago and still tend to “peck” at the keyboard rather than type, so maybe having this set up will encourage me to make a bit more of an effort to improve my skills. Anyways, I am now off to check out some of the features around here, hopefully I will get back to you again this side of new year.