We’re Heeeeere

I started the migration yesterday afternoon for this blog, inadvertently using a backup I’d done BEFORE my last post. I figured I’d have a couple of days while everything migrated.

Except I forgot something. During the time a domain (the actual name) connects to new hosting (the space online that holds all your stuff), everything jiggles back and forth like Jello for a day or so. It’s too jiggly to really do anything with it during the transition period.

Everything besides that post seems to have come through without a hitch, though. If you’re one of my subscribers, please let me know if you got the notification for this entry. (I’ll also email the folks who asked to be emailed, just in case.) Since I imported the complete database this time, in theory everything should be intact, including subscriptions.

For my non-geeky readers: think of it as cooking from scratch instead of a mix. More time involved, but usually a better outcome.

Additional feedback requested, please. PoundHeadHere.com loads exponentially faster for me on this server. Is it faster loading for you, too? It’s supposed to play nice with WordPress, and G’s happy because his Joomla site is galloping along, too.

Joomla is just a different website-building software. Remember the recipe analogy? He’s cooking over an open fire with no spices. It’s twice as much trouble to use, and doesn’t give you as many flavors, but apparently it’s a man thang.

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Since my previous post bit the dust in the move, I’ll do a quick recap of a couple of things.

Munchkin birthday over the weekend, serving smothered superheroes:

The poor guys in costume were dying. It isn’t summer yet here, but we were pushing 90 degrees. Those temps don’t play nice with neoprene suits. Thor and Loki nixed their helmets/headpieces early into the fun and games, and no one complained. Fortunately for all of us, most of the celebration took place in the shade.

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This weekend was breakneck in a lot of ways, but with spiraling gas prices, our garage-sale glut is winding down. We’ll finish out the spring community-sale season, and maybe do the odd run through our own little town – but even that may change, depending on fuel prices. Thank goodness for working from home!

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A little bit of progress to report on product development. For anyone who DIDN’T read the dangling posticiple, my daughter came to me with a product idea. It entails something doctor-recommended, though not technically a medical device, per se. There’s nothing like her concept on the market right now. It would especially be a boon for care homes, which in my opinion should be our primary target at first.

Last night I was researching materials to build a couple of prototypes. I was on the verge of writing off the project, because damn, the cost of metal tubing is insane.

But turns out there is something sort of related on the market now. It definitely wouldn’t work for care facilities, though, and it’s pricey as hell at $350 for a home version made out of plastic. With what I have in mind, our target retail price is under 100 bucks for a home model, maybe double that for a heavy-duty professional version. And you wouldn’t be chucking a 350-dollar machine if the mechanism part stops working on ours – just replace the moving parts with something you can buy at a drug store or Wally World.

Sorry about the vaguebooking. I can’t imagine any of my readers stealing our idea, or even knowing how to turn it into a product.

But you know… Internet. Stuff. Everything. Until we’ve got our patent (yes, we’re gonna) and our trademark (also gonna), vague it is. Speaking of trademarks… trying to find a suitable name that’s not taken, or one that doesn’t have unintended connotations? Hoo boy! For example, I thought I’d found a good play on words, so I Googled it to see if it pulled up another name or product.

Let’s just say, we won’t be using that idea. The Google results pulled up a pretty squickworthy porn angle I hadn’t considered. Noped my way back to the drawing board.

I’m also doing trademark searches and domain searches. A whole lot of domains have been snapped up by people who bought them specifically as an investment, sometimes holding them for years without doing anything with them. We want something unique – but also memorable. I wouldn’t be opposed to paying a couple of hundred bucks in premiums for the right domain, since it’s a business investment – but not thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars.