The Norn Publishing URL is present on the copyright page and back cover of my book, but I didn’t think anyone would visit. If I’ve just finished a biography or memoir about someone interesting and I want to find out more about that person, I’ll search for them online. Otherwise, I rarely go to the publisher’s site when I’ve bought or finished a book. It turns out that some people do, so perhaps I’m in the minority.

I decided last night that Norn Publishing needed a revamp, not only because people are visiting, but because Rymellan 1: Disobedience Means Death won’t be my only book. By this time next year, I’ll already have a second book out or be very close to releasing one. I also want a single place to announce things like giveaways and Norn Publishing news. I could do it here, but I thought it made more sense to announce publisher-type stuff at the publisher site.

With that in mind, I sat down today after lunch and gave the site a makeover. I was done by dinner. I love WordPress! The previous content was static HTML. I decided to go with WordPress because you can put together a site very quickly, search engines like blog pages and posts, and it won’t be difficult to expand the site when I have more books out there. I had to tweak the theme a bit, but the changes were easy to make.

I spent quite a bit of time choosing the theme. I didn’t want anything fancy. I wanted to project professional, and I wanted a clean look. Too many themes are too busy, with too much information running up and down the sides and the content crammed into the middle. Sometimes I go to a site with so much jammed together that just looking at it tires me out, so I leave. I go somewhere that makes my head hurt less.

Rymellan Fiction is, and will remain, a static HTML site for that very reason. Since people spend a significant amount of time reading when they’re at the site, it’s important that the story pages show only the story text, header, and a way to navigate. I spent a considerable amount of time at one point searching for a prettier, static CSS template, but without exception, everything I looked at (and I looked at hundreds) was too busy. So I stuck with what I had; it has what’s called high utility for the predominant task. As it was, when I first put the site together, I had to change the template so that the navigational bar would run horizontally across the top, rather than vertically down the left.

Anyway, check out the new Norn Publishing look. If you have a strong opinion about it, good or bad, let me know.

I burned the Norn Publishing News feed with feedburner. While I was signed into feedburner, I decided to burn this blog’s feed too. So you can now receive posts by email, if you like. If you’d previously subscribed to the default feed, it should still work, but you might want to resubscribe to the feedburner feed (say that five times fast!) using the subscribe choices on the sidebar.

Have a great weekend!

For RPG gamers: Check out RPGWatch. This is a great site that compiles RPG-related news from around the web. No more visiting multiple sites to find out what’s happening with your favourite and most anticipated games. I like this one so much, I’ve added it to the Resources page.

For animal lovers: We’ve all seen the terrible images of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. What happens to animals when a disaster of that magnitude strikes? Fortunately, animal welfare groups like IFAW, WSPA, and others send teams to the affected area. To learn about the work going on in Haiti and other areas, visit the WSPA Animals in Disasters blog. The following short video about Haiti is on its front page. Caution: the video contains images of injured animals.

For web developers: I’m running a nifty distribution package called XAMPP, so I can test scripts before I put them onto a live site. Installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL separately can be tricky. More often than not, they won’t work well together unless you move these files there, edit this config file and rename it to that, and twirl around three times while patting your head and groveling to the technology gods. XAMPP makes it all easy. It installs everything you need and it just works. The distribution includes Apache, MySQL, PHP, Mercury, and Tomcat, all of which can be individually started and stopped. Great for testing purposes.

You’ve all experienced CAPTCHAs, a series of letters and/or numbers that you’re asked to type into a form to prove that you’re a human and not a bot. Well, occasionally I can’t read them, and I’m probably not the only one. I don’t have this problem often. The ones in this Wikipedia CAPTCHA article are clear to me, though I can see how one of the lower three could be confusing.

But today I came across a CAPTCHA that had a black background, a white foreground, and white wispy lines running through the characters. I couldn’t read the darn thing. One letter (or number?) stumped me; I couldn’t tell if it was a b or a 6. So I guessed, and got it wrong.

When the “You’re an idiot so we’ll try this again” page loaded, the CAPTCHA’s background colour had changed to blue, making it much easier to read. So they must have observed that people who get it wrong the first time have a better chance of getting it right the second time if the background is blue. So, um, why not just show it with a blue background in the first place? It wouldn’t make a difference to bots, but it certainly would to humans.

This is the first time that colour has been the problem. Usually I can’t tell if something is a letter or a number (is it the letter ‘l’ or the number ’1′?), or if a letter is upper- or lowercase. If the form states that case doesn’t matter, that’s great. If not, getting the case right can be challenging when uppercase letters have the same height as lowercase ones. 

About a year ago, I wanted to buy a book off a website (unfortunately I can’t remember which one). I’d read the sales copy, I was sold, the credit card was out—all that remained was to register so I could make the purchase. Guess what was on the registration form? Yep, a CAPTCHA I couldn’t read. After five attempts, I gave up. So they lost a sale. Thwarted by the CAPTCHA!

I understand the need for CAPTCHAs, but if they’re difficult to read, they’ll turn away humans with credit cards along with the bots.

Shopping for a web host can be a daunting experience; there are so many of them. What I’m most interested in is uptime, performance, support, and the available tools (like cPanel and script installers). Just about everybody out there claims 99.9% uptime, great performance, great support, and great tools. Searching on potential hosts usually yields a mix of glowing reviews and disgruntled customers. The ratio between the two can tell you something about a host, but like many things on the internet, you have to take reviews with a grain of salt. One pissed off customer can wreak havoc and shout down positive voices, and some hosts offer incentives for reviews. Chances are those reviews will be good.

My current web host is a company called HawkHost. I found HawkHost through a post’s signature in a forum for webmasters. Funnily enough, I’d already settled on another host and had decided to do one more search before opening an account. That’s when I came across HawkHost. I visited the HawkHost site, did the usual searches, and couldn’t find a negative word about them. Not one word. So I went with them.

My experience at HawkHost has been great. I haven’t had to contact support since I first joined. Uptime and performance seem fine. It has cPanel and provides an easy way to install the usual software (scripts, blogs, content managers, etc.). Communication is great. Their blog is updated regularly, they’re on twitter, and they have forums you can subscribe to so that you’re informed in advance of any scheduled maintenance. The blog in particular is a great source of information, since they often post technical details for those who are so inclined.

Communication is key. Most people are reasonable. Mistakes do happen. Murphy’s Law does rear its ugly head on occasion. Problems can take a while to fix. As long as folks are kept in the loop, their satisfaction level will remain high. I left my last host because I had a problem and had no idea if or when it would be fixed. The host kept me in the dark, even when I asked. That came across as a lack of interest in both my problem and my business. Sure, some people are never happy and throw tantrums no matter how well they’re being treated, but most people just want to know that the host is working on a solution to their problem (or a general server problem).

The day before I cancelled my account with my former host, they finally fixed my problem. They had to bring down the server and rebuild Apache to do it. One of the things that bothered me about their initial response to my support ticket was their apparent lack of concern. Yes, my sites were up and I could access them, but logging was busted. My problem was a “canary in the mine” sort of thing, a hint that not all was well with the server. A diligent host would have looked into it in a more timely fashion.

Speaking of Apache, HawkHost doesn’t use it. It uses LiteSpeed, a drop-in replacement for Apache. Just a point for the techies out there.

So if you’re looking for a web host, consider HawkHost, or their new division, FrogHost. So far, I’m happy with HawkHost.

One piece of advice for anyone who’s about to set up a website for the first time: don’t buy domains from the same place you’ll host them. I know most hosts offer deals on domains when you buy hosting, but it’s better to keep your domains somewhere else. If you’re not doing that, it probably won’t matter, but there have been cases in which web hosts have held domains hostage when someone wants to change hosts, or when there’s some type of disagreement going on between the client and the host. It’s good practice to buy your domains from one company and to host them with another.