PICKING UP A CAT BY THE TAIL

This is what happens when a person in a seriously jetlagged state with a heavy cold one says to a friend, "you know, I could probably work out how to put something temporary in place to get us by till the portal comes back."

Without any warning, I found myself whiling away the wee small hours of the past few weeks learning things no human should ever need to know, while my partners in crime egged me on from afar.

Please be gentle with us, I am not by any stretch of the imagination an I.T. person endowed with all sorts of supernatural powers, in fact none of us are I.T. persons.   Anyone who knows how to build a proper web portal would be horrified were they to look behind the glossy cover of this one.

Under the lid is a mismash of borrowed code, a bunch of plugs and connections and a few double adaptors leading in from all over the internet with a generous serving of sticky tape holding it all together.  I suspect it is the internet equivalent of a switchboard that could catch fire at any moment, but it's here and that's all that anyone really needs to know.

Please remember though, your patience is needed at all times.  This is not a request, it's a demand.

Unlike a "proper" portal, everything is entered by hand, cross-checked and re-entered, there is no automation.  If there is a delay in fixing a problem it may well be because one of us is out looking for a book to find out how, or it could be because I'm at the beach, in which case rest assured I'm thinking of you while I am.

Whatever the reason as a team we will do our best to keep this cat swinging!

Peter
Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia