A few members have voiced concern that the new site is not as workable as the old. Back in the beginning of the year, I announced that we would be moving to a new site and all the reasons why. The NING network provider had been taken over twice -by bigger companies - chaos, programmers leaving and a sizeable increase in my rent plus the push for each web site to upgrade to a new program being designed forced our hands. The new program has still to be finished, the customer service provided was only through emails that took 24 hrs. and the future seemed dim.
Please understand that change is very difficult for everyone, but sometimes we have no choice but to move along with the rest of the world - in this case, I had to save the site before I lost everything and that was a lot of work for Garfield and myself. This new format is the future of social networking - much has changed in the 7 years that I had the old site on NING - newer and smarter web programmers are desiging networks for the younger generation who are demanding much more apps than we ever dreamed of - if you knew what was actually offered on our site, that I don't use, you would be shocked - sometimes I think I am too old for working the new site - you have no idea how much I have had to re-learn inorder to push forward with Grains of Glass and keep it on the internet for the members.
Like many of you, I don't take easily to change - I still write letters, have a REAL phone plugged into my house, and have real conversations instead of texting. I don't want to get in my car and have to read a manual to turn it on, or use the radio- I want to be able to turn my TV on with a knob and change channels - I don't like having 3 remotes sitting on my coffee table that I have to use to switch TV modes, DVD modes, and cable modes or ask my grandson - I don't want to have to pay for extra extra channels on my cable that I don't watch but come in a package. I don't want to have to stand in front of a computer in a fast food restaurant to order my lunch, I want to talk to a real person - I don't want to talk to a robot on the phone that asks me information that will only be repeated once again to a human once they take my call. I don't want my bills sent to me electronically, I want real paper that I can hold in my hand and file. I don't want to read a novel through a thin plastic case that doesn't smell like publishing print, can't bend the pages, and has no colorful cover.
We are all peddling fast to catch up with the technology that the younger generation calls normal stuff. I always said I would never be like my parents but yet I find myself talking to my mother more "about the good old days" and remembering when.
Hang in there with me, we can do this!
This is a new beginning that I am sure will become the new normal. There will be mistakes and... more