Commencement
Sun., July 11, 11:07 AM
Commencement is a strange word, because it means beginning and yet is used to describe the end – of a school career, for example. I guess you can call an ending a commencement if it’s also the beginning of a new phase. It just happens to describe what is happening to my page.
Two and a half years ago, I wrote about writing diaries and how pleased I was to have found Diaryland. For over a year it served my needs admirably. Then problems started to arise, like not being able to connect and especially not being able to post when I wanted. The guestbooks continued to give trouble as well (whaddya mean I can’t post again so soon, I haven’t posted yet!) It sounded like a capacity problem to me, but my experience with such constraints doesn’t necessarily cover hardware/software issues. In any case, Andrew said he was working on it. The solution to all your troubles, of course, was to buy a Gold Membership.
One of my buddies was kind enough to buy me Gold (my buddies are the best), and I was able to post whenever I wanted – of course I don’t necessarily post every day. I had the right to post banners too, though I don’t believe any of my banners gained me any new readers. The guestbooks continued to be defective, and there was less information as to what’s going on.
Andrew acquired an assistant who, I’m sure, did a lot of work but answered questions with “you’ll have to ask Andrew about that.” The news wasn’t updated for weeks at a time, and when it was, it turned out to be an ad: “why not subscribe to SuperGold?” Gimme a break!
When it comes to notifying members, Diaryland is good at one thing: reminding you when your Gold is about to expire. For the last month I’ve been notified every five days! “You have 15.99 days left.” Thank you, I know.
So there’s no remedy for spammers and nasty guestbook messages. (You could tell us how to block them, y’know.) And then, suddenly, there were entries on members’ pages that they hadn’t written. “Just a Java script,” says Andrew. You don’t say. I’m certainly not an expert, but it looks awfully close to hacking; but what do I know? Just how secure are we?
Well, I’ll let the Gold lapse. My graphics will disappear for a while, until I figure out a new place to store them. I won’t leave completely, since I have too many buddies I don’t want to lose. I’ll build a place elsewhere, and I know my mentors will help me direct you to it. End of the old one, start of the new. Commencement.
