Working again on how to afford the time, energy and money to keep the site on the onward and upward path.

Here's where we're at: Since that point in November when it was all just too much, too much ...

1. One site member sent in a $56.11 donation and another has said she'll be sending the site a Christmas gift.

2. We have a rearranged hosting arrangement that will provide $50 a month.

3. I've trimmed back what we're running, to lighten my time load and ease my responsibility burden. Simon Miles' sacred geometry/Rennes/other stuff site has the opportunity to come back up on our server as a paid hosted site, but I don't know whether he will choose to do that.

4. We're already on a cheaper server than Greg had us, but it has been a very reliable server. The server company currently has some used servers for a cheaper monthly rate. It would mean some overlap, paying for two servers at once, and a new set-up fee, and another one of those Suchi-Terri-Maria efforts of moving things over ... which is pretty time-consuming, but after a few months the savings will have paid for the set-up fees and we'll have a cheaper monthly rate. So it's a pain in the neck, but we should probably do that.

5. I'm still working on setting up other possible hosting business.

6. There are other things that need to be done on the site. There's the database update I started during the Merc Retro, there's the available update for the Forums' software, and there's regular tending to the mail system to keep the bad guys at bay. Then there's Metamorphosis, if ever it shall revive. We could reopen the co-op, but really it hasn't been getting much of anywhere.

So that's kind of where we're at. I'd be happy to parcel the tasks out ... someone could handle the mail; someone the Metamorphosis; someone the Co-op, or we could go ahead and put some of these tasks aside and not have them.

Maria

This may be a dumb question (and may show my inability to do anything) but what is one supposed to do if:

• someone could handle the mail;
• someone the Metamorphosis;
• someone the Co-op

The full job details, so to speak

That's actually a good question, Ani

I'm definitely up for production work on Metamorphosis and I could pitch in with the co-op if time and skills permit, though I'd want to stay out of the monetary aspect of it. Holler when you're ready to move house, and I'll give you a hand.

HOORAY FOR ME!!!

Lol, sorry, I couldn't help it.

OK, guys, I finished that database update! It was grueling, but it's done. So now:

1. All the smilies and images that turned to red X's way back when Greg last updated the UBB software have now returned! So when you pull up an ancient thread, you get a vibrant reading of the time instead of kind of a stripped-down old-looking thing.

2. All of the slightly odd punctuation marks -- like dashes, elipses and curly quotation marks and apostrophes pasted into messages and subjects from other programs -- are no longer showing up as question marks. They went awry when I moved us to this server last spring, which isn't set up to read those. Now they've been replaced by staight apostrophes and quotes, dot dot dots and hyphens so you can read those (mostly old) posts without a lot of distracting gobbledygook.

3. There were old internal links that didn't go anywhere because the way the software mapped the forums and posts changed at least twice over the years, and our domain name changed twice (lindagoodman.net to lindagoodanastrology.com to consciousevolution.com), and our IP address changed a few times. I didn't take the time to correct all the links individually. But for most of them, I replaced them with a line saying the item was no longer available (if it linked to an old LG thing we no longer sell) or to a line saying the originally posted link was outdated and to use the search engine. So new people searching the forums for particular subjects won't end up ticked off by clicking links that take them to error pages.

4. The links on Dar1's 1-Stop Astrology Shop did get updated, mostly by Suchi (that's over on the Linda Goodman forum). And Tink and Suchi also have collected a lot of informational links like that to discussions on top subjects in Faeries one stop astrology shop...... on Star Chat, so those collections are back in business.

5. I found another collection like that, called Archived Astrology Information, from Blasphemy, in my travels of the database. I'm going to update his links, because they're good ones too, and then I'll bump and link that thread too, and maybe make a sticky that links to all three of those links-collection posts.

6. Glyphs are back! There was a whole era back then when everyone was using them. I'm going to eventually put them into the choices for Instant Graemlins in posts (I think), but for now, put this between the image tags ...
http://consciousevolution.com/ubbthreads/images/glyphs/aries.gif
... changing the sign at the end there as suits you, but remembering to use the .gif ending. You can get image tags by clicking Image under Instant UBB Code when you're making a reply.

Anyway, phew, I'm glad that's all done before we update the forums software again and maybe have to adjust linkages again...

Love,
Maria

Thanks for asking, Ani.

THE MAIL should probably be done every few days. There's personal mail, techie mail, and spam. The spam just needs to be deleted.

The personal mail I have set to come into my own mailbox right now when I come on line, but honestly I haven't responded to any of it in months, although I have saved it so we can still reply. It includes occasional musings from people who have read Greg's mission statement or something else on the site and have been inspired to think about the ideas. It also includes notes from people writing in asking when Metamorphosis will reappear and/or offering to write articles for Metamorphosis.

The techie mail I have kept up with better. It's tedious but straight-forward. That is set up to go into it's own mailboxes, where you can log into it as webmail. It includes:

• A daily compilation security system logs. You scan through the daily logs, looking particularly in one area to make sure it's all still good.
  
• A bunch of mails from the mail system alerting you to "returned mail." If there is returned mail from when the boards try to mail a temporary password to people who just registered, then we know that's a fake registration. But usually the "returned mail" was not something we ever sent out. Usually, it's just trash from people forging a consciousevolution.com return address on their spam. There's not terribly much of it these days though, since I've hammered down on some of the related mail stuff.
  
• Alerts from the virus scanner about emails carrying viruses. The virus-carrying emails themselves get immediately deleted from the system, but everytime they do, the system sends us an email. I open each of these alerts and gather from each the IP address where the bad email originated. Then, when I have the list, I go into our mail system and tell it to reject email from those IPs.

METAMORPHOSIS -- Everyone on the newsletter committee knows that's like herding cats. Get people to get the writing done, get it edited for grammar, punctuation, word usage, the magazine's style, understanding -- perhaps most important is understanding. Then get it formatted, illustrated, produced on the pages and emailed out.

That reminds me, the software we use to take subscriptions and email Metamorphosis out needs to be updated too ... along with the forum software. We have those updates. All it takes is time. But probably Suchi and I better do those so we have no one to blame but ourselves if something goes wrong.

THE CO-OP -- there's techie stuff and accounting.

Techie stuff: First of all, the Co-op would need to go back up, but that's not tough. Also, Greg used to have a Cron job set up that would change the featured items daily. When we moved to this server, I struck out trying to figure out how to set up a Cron task. So someone either has to figure that out or that same someone has to remember to go activate the switcher magic code every day. Then, there's something flukey that's probably just a permissions thing that needs to be debugged because, for instance, Kelly couldn't update the status of her orders after she filled them. Then, we really should change some code so that the Co-op Administrator gets emailed along with the booth owner everytime there's an order, so he or she can make sure the booth owner was alerted. I tried one way for doing that, but it wouldn't allow me to send myself a copy because of the security mode it's under. So that needs some time to figure out.

Accounting: I made a spreadsheet, where you can plug in the sale amount, shipping amount, total, then the Paypal fee, and received total, then compute the site percentage, subtract that from the received total and come out with the amount to send the booth owner. And I made a little form letter and Co-op letterhead to plug the details into and send along with the check. Someone could take those tasks over, along with making sure orders get filled and records stay up to date. Although whomever it is would have to be the person the Co-op order money would be sent to originally, so would have to accept Paypal and we'd have to get that set up.

I'm really kind of grooving on this idea of delegating. So anyone who wants to do any of this ... or if there are other ways you can think of ... speak up!

Love,
Maria

O.K. Maria, let's tackle the update first and then try to figure out what's going on with those issues in the Co-op.

With regards to Metamorphosis, I think you're already aware of what I can and cannot do. I figure what we're really looking for now is an editor and a graphics whiz. I can do basic proof-reading and some rather amateurish graphics, but beyond that we'd be better off with someone who knows what they're doing. We haven't heard from Stephanie in a while. If she can come back on board for the graphics, then that's one problem solved. And may be it time we finally considered whether we want to go ahead with the idea of reducing the frequency of publication for Metamorphosis. Once every three months is better than nothing at all, isn't it?

The techie mail is something I can handle as of now, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. So, I'll be a stand-by on that and if anyone else wants to tackle it, they get first preference.

Cool? I'm off on a weekend pilgrimage trip, so we'll talk about the updates on Monday (Sunday evening for you).

OK cool, Suchi. Thanks, as always, for what you do.

I've updated that third collection of links and put a sticky with links to all three collections on the LG forum, and that's pretty much all the work I'll be doing on the site until after Christmas, so that works well with your weekend excursion. See you after. Have a great time!

Love,
Maria

I could do the Co-op accounting except that I dont have a Pay-pal account (india being listed as a "non-drawing" country)

I volunteer for the the Personal Mail too, though I wonder whether I can handle people as well as you, Maria.

So there

I'll be working outside the home much less in the next month or two and number one on my list of stuff I've wanted to do but have been too busy making money to do has been MetAMORphosis - I think between Suchie and I we can cover alot of the bases but Maria, you are the editor supreme and I can't ever imagine finding anyone who can do it as well as you I can TRY - but you have to be around as a consultant

Love,
Terri

I can't get the glyphs either in my signature or in my post

Ani,

You left out the // between the http: and the consciousevolution.com in your glyph tags. Also there was a space after the .gif and before the closing image tag, but I'm not sure if that matters. Those slashes matter though.

ETA: It was my fault. I left out the slashes in my instructions in the post above. I've edited to add them back in.

On the co-op, hmmm, I suppose I could forward you the notices of payments from Paypal, then you could log into my Paypal account to get the amount of Paypal fees and run the calculations and send the results back to me if I need to send the booth owner a check. If the booth owner accepts Paypal for payment, you could send them their payment too from my account. That would still help. The spreadsheet I made is on Microsoft Works. Do you have that (old) software? If not, I could just show you what I've been using and you could adapt it to what you use for spreadsheets, or even do it with paper and pencil and a calculator.

And you can definitely have the personal mail duties. I'm sure you would handle that smashingly. Should I go ahead and forward to you what I've got saved up? I think I have fewer than 10.

Love,
Maria

Consultant sounds good, Terri. I agree that you and Suchi have a really good handle on what needs doing, and Ani is also really good once things are on the page at catching little nits even I missed. So that's cool. I'll leave it to you, then, to rev up the work again when you feel the spirit move ya.

Love,
Maria

Well lets see how a tentative March 1st issue sounds - I think Suchie has soemthing with reducing our production schedule - quarterly really is better than nothing at all, especially while we're all struggling with "real" life and reforming our committee etc. If you three agree with that then I think that's enough of a consenus to jump back to the Planning forum and start moving onward and upward again

Love,
Terri

And of course anyone else reading here and wanting to do work on the newsletter should know that they are more than welcome to offer whatever type of work they can - graphics, writing, web page production, even moral support is good


Terri

Works for me. I'll forward those mails to Ani and she can send the Metamorphosis-related ones around to the committee or post them on the planning forum or whatever.

great send me the old file that you are using, Maria, and I'll see whether I can convert it into MS Excel or Access - I dont think it should be too much of a problem. Apropos the mails, could you please use my gmail account?

Metamorphosis : March sounds a good deadline Oh my furs and whiskers, where did I leave my thinking gloves now?

I still cant get the glyphs in my signature. It says "signature too long". I guess all those squares and oppositions got to the poor PC.

yup it works

Cool

Hello! I'm back Hope you all had a good time

Hello, I'm back now too and I'm going to take a look at the update, which, once installed, should make things like adding icons easy.

Maria

Welcome back! Let me know how I can help.

Hi Sucheta, I'm still making backups and reading instructions. When I do the actual update I'll have to close the boards for a brief while, but I'll email you any questions I come up against.

Good Luck! Anyone check the position of Mercury lately?


Terri