Nope, I’m not talking about Hwy 1 or Interstate 95, but on the Information Highway, better known as The Internet
This has been a month of one-right-after the other unexpected problems popping up on my websites, not one in particular, but several. In addition my mail program developed some very strange behavior, that I couldn’t figure out, but at this point have solved, in a long drawn out process, but the end result is it worked.
If anyone can shed some light on this very unusual issue, I would be forever grateful to know the real cause. I have been using Windows Mail as my default mail server and have all of my email addresses load there, to simplify checking my never ending stream of emails. At some point, which I can’t really determine, all mail I was sending was being delivered, except to a Road Runner address. At first I thought it was some issue on my local network and as I don’t often send mail to my hubby, that’s when I discovered it. Unbeknown to me, it turns out that no one with a Road Runner email address was receiving any mail from me. I deleted accounts and set them up again still to no avail. I then updated to Windows Live Mail as my default server, set all the accounts up there, only to find out that I still couldn’t send any emails to any Road Runner email address. Next stop was my Hotmail account. From here I could send mail to everyone, BUT it had to go from the Hotmail address. I couldn’t use the “send from” account option or it wouldn’t be delivered to road runner addresses. Go figure…
I ended up pretty much just starting over configuring each email address into Windows Mail and so far, so good. I am once again able to send mail to everyone, even Road Runner… But for the life of me, cannot figure out what the problem was. Oh yeah, I could receive mail from anyone and everyone.

Then up pops the next issue…On one website, my auto delivery software decides to become corrupted. Why is far beyond my realm of knowledge. I only know this was the simplest fix with deleting and reinstalling the software, less than a five minute task. Thankfully the data base was not corrupted and everything once again is running smoothly. I swear though there has to be a poltergeist living within my computer. How do these things just “happen”?

Third, and hopefully final for a long while, was one of my blogs, which by the way is on a different domain, but on the same hosting plan as the delivery software. Virtual Online Learning* had another fantastic webinar on using Word Press. I can always use information to make things easier so of course I signed up. In the RSVP form it asked if you were using Word Press and what your url was… Of course, I listed mine, logged in to the webinar, clicked to open my blog only to find that it wasn’t there. There were, can you imagine, corrupt files… Here we go again. This fix turned out to be a little more time consuming, and thankfully I had backed up my blog the last time I made a change to it. Long story short, I tried removing the files that were corrupt and could then log in and could view my blog, albeit with errors listed at the top of every page. I spent way too much time trying to reinstall each file after I had verified it to be correct, only to have even more errors than before I started. Thanks to Hostgator* and their C-panel along with Fantastico DeLuxe script library, I ended up simply upgrading from my C-panel and then reinstalling the add-on that had caused the fit to start with. With C-panel, installing a Word Press Blog is a breeze, it’s done automatically for you and then you can customize as you like. I picked up an add-on that I absolutely love, as long as no more hiccups come along, or if they do, as long as they are small J. It’s the Free-Traffic-Getting SEO** but with a wonderful twist. You’ll get an analysis of your installation and then it tells you exactly what to do to optimize it. Many of the settings can be done automatically, some that I had messed with previously and had not been able to figure out. It also lets you know if there are any add-ons that you need to install. Keep in mind, there’s no guarantee more readers, or even more traffic, but it definitely gives you a “one-up” by having the correct settings. You might want to give it a try. You do have to sign up for a newsletter but to me it was worth it for this blog optimizing add-on with most of the work done for you!
The point here…Don’t give up, Don’t lose faith in yourself or your abilities.  Smile, laugh if you must.  At some point, it all becomes pretty laughable when you look at the whole picture.  Plug along, and know that you will benefit from this time that was “lost”.  Let’s face it, the next time issues pop up, you’ll be able to complete them faster than the first.  It’s really true you know…Practice Makes Perfect!
*These are affiliate links that I make a percentage of each sale.
**This is not an affiliate link, I am making the recommendation based on my own personal use of this product.

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