I’m trying to do this website thing on my own as much as possible. While that sounds GREAT in theory, there’s just one problem:

I DON’T KNOW A SINGLE THING ABOUT HOW TO DO THAT!

Well, that’s not entirely true. I do know a little something about websites. In the early 2000’s I was the administrator for a now-mostly-defunct online community (this was in the days of Friendster folks – cutting edge stuff). I didn’t actually program or design a damn thing, but I did get used to the behind-the-scenes tools that we had to use to flex our Admin-muscles. And I also got to sit in on a lot of brainstorming between two people who could have done this for a living (and sort of did for a while).

In addition to that, I like computers. I work with them. In my job, I’ve been forced (not exactly against my will) to learn html. I know, hmtl is some archaic bullshit and I’m 5 years behind after just starting, but it’s something. I update some how-to guides using old-school systems. I also check emails that go out to thousands of people for technical and logistical errors and then fix them. My job isn’t sexy, but I do take some pride in it and sometimes get to be close to some pretty cool stuff.

I consider myself a pretty smart dude – this is working against me at the moment. Because I consider myself a pretty smart dude, I kind of expected to pick up this whole “running a personal/professional website” thing pretty quickly. I figured once I made some basic decisions & spent some money I would be controlling my online presence. Big surprise (really it shouldn’t have been) that I am finding things are not quite as simple as I would hope.

Part of this is because I want to do it all – NOW! You hear me? I want a site already set up for me to update w. all my music available for download and some videos and a way to pay me if you like what you get. I want my blog up and running and followed so I can start connecting with people across the country/world/universe and collaborating. I want to have complete control over the sites that have severebass in them across all the social networking platforms – and now. NOW! (or at least you know, like by the weekend, right?)

Instead, I’m reading the beginner how-to guides while I talk to myself. “Where is that?” I say. “What do you mean?” I question the writer of the guide I’m reading. “That’s not how it looks!” I insist to a similar writer. “I don’t understand” I complain to the tech support departments of the places I host and bought my domains from. “Why doesn’t my screen do that?” I plead w the words on a screen.

Some of the programs I’m working on utilizing include:
GIMP
WordPress (recommended by everyone and their dog)
FileZilla (recommended by my hosting provider)
Open Office
Virtual Box (and then linux – recommended by my brother after I broke my laptop w. a dual-boot install of ubuntu)

Perhaps it would be easier if I just picked one and stuck with it? NO! That is not the kind of thinking I’m promoting here. My theory is that it’s all connected – while it’s intimidating as all hell (did I mention I recently bought a laptop too?) at the moment, I have to keep plugging along. Learning a bit here and there is probably the only technique that will work right now. I don’t have the flow or the influence (or even the product) to be able to justify someone sinking free-time into a project like this, and I don’t exactly want to. Yes, I’d rather have a designer put together a kickass logo for me to put up everywhere, and then have a web person set up the back-end of a site for me that I can use their pre-installed and tweaked version of wordpress to kick ass with. But in the end, I’m going to be at their mercy. In the long run, I want to be able to do MOST of this myself. It will only be after I’ve learned that I can really decide where it is what I do is good enough, where I need to learn more, and when to just call in the professionals.

The good news with this is that I KNOW some professionals already….so if/when I get to that, the answer is easy. But for now, it’s time for tough answers I learned the hard way – then re-learned – and then finally start applying. Who needs to go back to grad school if I can find ways to frustrate myself w. my lack of knowledge ALL BY MYSELF?

The more I think about what I want severebass.com to look/feel/sound/smell like this time next year, the more intimidated, scared, swamped and EXCITED I get. I have great ideas – please make sure to check them out once I get them out of my head.

February 12th, 2010
Categories: Severe Blog, Severe Musick, Technical Blog . Author: Severe

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