You may notice that there was no post in March 2010. My apologies. I started this web log with the intention of making a good content rich article for the Jack of Trades Journal every month. So I put up an extra long article on a rain-barrel rack system as some sort of compensation. I also decided to make the reason for my web absence into another article. Here it is. It’s about my transition from one ISP (internet service provider) to another and about how free is about getting what you pay for.
In January Google announced that it was no longer going to offer FTP (File Transfer Protocol) in it’s blogger service. Very few people use FTP and I’ll explain what it is for those who care:
FTP is File Transfer Protocol. The key word being “transfer”. When you choose FTP the files Blogger creates are moved from Google’s web server [computer] to my ISP’s server [computer]. Telus provided me with space to store files on their server computer. I kept some things hidden for my eyes only – like my contact list. The files were secure since I paid for the service of making them secure. I had the tools to make information visible by placing them in an HTTP directory; from this directory they were “on the web”. All my internet “stuff” was placed here for you the web surfer to view. All of this is done through FTP using an FTP client software. There are several freeware versions available right now. It’s great until your blog host (a.k.a Google) decides not to support it any more.
Blogger is free. Since it is free I felt I had no recourse. I demanded my money back, and got it! But they still canceled the service. I am still publishing through Blogger but am looking at other venues to help publish my web journal.