Gah.

Ok. So. I'm working on this website for the place I'm having my internship at, yeah? I have the design ready, I'm waiting on (most of) the content. Tiny problem with that, though, I'm leaving in a week (my internship finishes at the end of July), and nobody else here has a clue about HTML... so either they give me the content to put in the site by then, or they'll have to hire out for somebody to do it for them ($$$, and they'll probably wreck my nice simple layout).
And then there's another problem. They want to be able to update the site easily, with news and the like... so I'm planning to set up MT for them, nice and idiot-proof, with clear instructions, so they don't have to go edit three different files every time they want to add a news item, the program does it all for them. Except I don't know if the webspace the site'll be hosted on has the installed requirements for MT to work... it should have them, or at least that's what I can gather from the webpage of the company domain and webspace were bought from. But I'm not sure...
(The buying went more or less this way:
Guy who "supervises" me: "Oh yes, gotta register domain... *clickclickclick* domain *clickclickclick* webspace -- hey, do we use FrontPage?"
Me (across the room): "Eh? *blink* FrontPage? No... why?"
G: "The registration page is asking if we use FrontPage."
M: "Whatever for? *goes to look* Ahh, no, if you're looking for webspace, Linux is better, pick the Linux option."
G: "Ok. *clickclickclick* Linux *clickclickclick* credit card *clickclickclick* submit *prints out confirmation email, hands it to me* Here, you should be able to make the site work with this, no?"
M: "Uhh...")
So I wanted to go check in the control panel utility they make available to clients, but it wouldn't take username and password. (It's probably the ! in the password... it's best not to use non-alphanumeric characters in passwords if you aren't utterly sure the system won't choke on them... which I could've told the guy, if he'd asked...) So I went ahead and downloaded FileZilla, and tried to connect to the FTP server (same username and password)... that one went through. So, either the username and password for the CP were listed wrongly in the email (but I doubt it, it's an automated email...), or whatever the hosting company's using for their CP is choking on the ! in the password. It looks like it's the latter... I'll have the password resent to the email address the guy registered domain and webspace with, and if the password's correct, well, we'll have to phone/email tech support and ask for them to go in and change it. I'll also have to explain to the guy that if he doesn't give me the material for the site, and doesn't get somebody else to do the stupid data entry he's having me do, he'll be left with an unfinished site because I'm leaving in a week. *sigh* Not looking forward to that. I'm not good at taking charge of people and telling them what to do, even if I know more than them.

[EDIT] Ok, I tried to have the password sent to email and it told me, "invalid user id - please try again..." So it's the CP having a fit, because the username and password are the ones listed in the confirmation email (I've triple-checked) and they work for the FTP. Looks like I'm on my own here. ¬¬

[EDIT #2] And the subdomain the hosting company has the CP on is named "stalin", it appears. Uhh... ¬¬

¤ July 23, 2003 11:26 AM ¤

Comments

You sound like you're having trouble with your first real exposure to managerial stupidity.

Take the quick stress test and see if you need to take a break.

Posted by: Ekim at July 23, 2003 12:59 PM