In a nutshell, you can now go to the Contact Me section of my website and send me a message. This section silently didn't work until today.

If you use Joomla and have had the same problem, read on. I had configured the global configuration file by adding email parameters in the Mail tab but this is not enough to receive emails from the website. I had to go to Component > Contacts > Manage Contacts and edit the only available contact. Joomla keeps a default contact with name = Name, email = This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and so on. Obviously, these are all dummy values. The Contact Me section is configured to display contact information of this contact and send emails to this user. I changed this user to contain my information and that's it!

My first blog entry after I started my website was Lessons Learned in Web Hosting Provider Selection . Looks like I am still learning lessons. You would hope (mistake - 1) that your web hosting provider would remind you when it's time to renew your domain and website registration. Well, I was reminded by my provider BUT on the day when my domain and my account were due to expire - A big 1 year anniversary surprise! I made the payment right away and assumed everything was taken care of (mistake 2). Just an hour ago, I realized my website was down, I saw a weird page when I went to the website. It was some search page with a link "why am I seeing this?"

When I had started my website, my provider provided ONLY web support, which would require me to open a trouble ticket using their website and/or participate in the discussion forum. I had (and I still don't have) 24x7 phone support (sort of mistake - 3).

The problem was that my domain had expired because even though the payment was received and approved, they had some "difficulty" renewing the domain. Fortunately, my provider now provides 24x7 chat support and surprisingly, some one was available to help. He worked on my problem right away and made the website available. Why wasn't I sent payment reminder email early enough? I don't know. Hopefully, the rep I spoke to will "look into it."

The lesson learned? It's hard to remember to pay your website bill since it's a yearly thing. But, do remember it. Make it an outlook reminder, make it a yahoo reminder, setup a yearly bill payment (if you bank offers it), register a credit card with your provider but don't rely on your provider to remind you. If your website goes down, you may loose business. Worse yet if your domain expires and becomes available, some one might take it.

Here is an amendment to my first blog entry . Before you sign up, ask your provider how do they renew the account? Automatically or do you have to do this manually? What happens if you fail to make the payment on time? Do you loose your domain and your content right away or do you have grace period?

What makes IT challenging and interesting? Its unpredictability and inconsistency. Any one who has ever written code, knows that sometime the application stops working all of a sudden - without any warning or apparent reason!

I went through a similar experience a couple of days ago. I went to my website, http://chintanrajyaguru.com and I was welcomed by a blank page. Initially, I thought my site was down, then I thought the index.php page had some errors. I am not a PHP expert so I couldn't find anything wrong with the page but it 'looked' okay.

"It's alright!" I thought in my mind, "I was considering moving to a different CMS anyway (look for another blog entry on this shortly)." But how do I migrate content from mambo to my new CMS? I didn't know how mambo stored the content in mysql database, nor did I have time or intention to find out. So, I decided to copy and paste the content.

1. FreeMind at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
2. EverNote at http://www.evernote.com to take notes when I don't (can't) have
3. Microsoft one note at http://office.microsoft.com/onenote
4. Sometimes Listpro and eWallet (PC versions) at http://www.iliumsoft.com
5. Post it lite http://pmb001.3m.com/pub/psnotes/pn31lous.exe (the free version is not easy to find anymore so download and backup the installation file)
6. Of course Microsoft outlook at www.microsoft.com/outlook

What does it take for some one to leave consulting? Burn out? Travel? Family pressure? Good opportunity at client's? RIF... Or meningitis? In my case, it was the last one. A call to 911, a few days in the hospital, a few more in short term disability, some thinking and a lot of discussion with my family and I was in a corporate job.

My blog entry about recruiters on Dec 16 at http://chintanrajyaguru.com/blog/index.php?blogid=1&archive=2005-12-16 caused at least one recruiter to respond. Here is a summery of some important points she made:

• We don't send out job descriptions because we solicit long term relationship with the candidate and he/she might be a perfect candidate for the job we get next week

• We like to keep the best candidate in our database not only for the opportunities we have now but also for the future opportunities

• You get a better idea about a candidate only after you talk to him/her
  

And here are some other points that other recruiters have made over time:

• Recruiters need to know your salary requirements so that they don't waste your time if the position doesn't pay as much as the candidate wants

• Recruiters need the resume of the candidate right away so that they can study it up front and get a better idea about the candidate before they even talk to the candidate