Most readers will be able to relate to the saying, “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing”. Well, I certainly can relate to it. In fact, I’m living proof! Over the past few weeks, I have been “keen” to learn more of the technical aspects of publishing e-Veritas. Things like, the layout of articles & photos, writing & managing all the details. Well, I was pretty proud of myself when we went “live” last week. The text, photos etc, if I may say so – didn’t look too bad and I actually did most of it myself. Gosh, I even managed to get most of the 7,000 plus e-mails addresses sent out without a glitch.
Things were looking good.
Early in the afternoon following the notification that e-Veritas 6 was “live”, and still feeling keen, I went to our “photo” file and discovered that we had over 400 photos on file. Having a little time on my hand – I quickly started to “clean out” the photo files. In a matter of 20 minutes or so I likely deleted 50 or more photos that I believed we would not be using in the near future.
One thing led to another and between phone calls and a couple of other routine chores in the office – I was proudly looking over the finished product of e-Veritas 6 and noticed that there was a comment from a reader that there were no photos with a certain article in this text.
I didn’t really twig to anything because I had my PC screen up and in fact all the photos were right there. I checked our Data base and we had a phone number for this individual. I phoned him. Yes, he confirmed photos were missing on his screen. (I double checked my screen again – without hitting “refresh”) The gentleman seemed a little put out when I suggested that he should have some younger person (computer savvy) look at his PC for the problem. He did agree that it may have been a problem with his “Mac”.
About an hour later I received another e-mail from a reader informing me that most of the photos were not showing up on his e-V 6 text. I promptly replied that there were no problems and asked him – if he had a “Mac”.
A short time later, I drove home, opened up our PC at the house and logged on to e-Veritas. Lo and behold – No Photos!! (We don’t own a “Mac”)
In my eagerness to clean out the photo file, I was not aware that the photos are “also” deleted from the text – not only e-V 6 but any photos used in previous editions over the past few months. Consequently, when readers go back through the archives there will be many “blank spots” where there once were photos. Also, because I hadn’t hit the “refresh” button – more unnecessary confusion ensued.
As I said a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. I won’t be bashful to keep seeking help in the future.
Bill Oliver