Flexing Our Internet Savvy Muscles

Teddy: Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! We've finally did it! Spaulding: Almost, anyway! Teddy: Well, it won't ever be completely done,... Spaulding: ...because we want to keep up with it this time... Teddy: ...but it IS up and running! Spaulding: Do you think, maybe we should tell everyone what we're talking about now? Teddy: As much as we've been talking about it lately, don't you think everyone will know we're talking about our brand new and improved web den?! Spaulding: Yeah, you're probably right! Both: Kehehehehehehehehehe Teddy: Since web sites shouldn't take this long to make, maybe we should s'plain why it took so long! Spaulding: We don't want people to think we are NOT Internet savvy! Teddy: That's our beary description of all we do online! Both: Kehehehehehehehehehe Teddy: Well, it really started about four years ago, when Mommy wanted to make a small web site for her new business! Spaulding: It was a typing business... Teddy: She says it was a "Sek-it-tear-rio Services" business, because, along with typing, she also created resumes' and newsletters and corrected boo boos in peoples' term papers! Spaulding: Hoping she might get some customers from across the country, she advertised with a web site. Teddy: It was right before we were born! Spaulding: Well, right before you were born! I was already here, but didn't know much back then! Teddy (eyes widen): Wow! You're OLD! So, what happened? Spaulding: Like I said, I was here, but didn't know much back then. Mommy didn't even bring me to her computer in the basement back then! ::::::::::::::::::Teddy is shocked by this news! He imagines Mommy at a full fledged desktop computer, instead of lying back in her recliner with her laptop. He can't even imagine where a computer would fit in the basement with all those Need-to-be-Adopted Teddy Bears living there. He tries to think of Mommy working, but, finally, has to be awaken to continue.:::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Teddy: Well, Mommy doesn't like to talk about that experience much, but she says it took four months to get that site up sorta right! Spaulding: Having that kind of business, Mommy relied on Microsoft's Office programs that included FrontPage, but she always hated using Frontpage, because it's sooooo hard! Teddy: Sounds like we could have made a whole bunch of money being near Mommy when she made web sites with that program! Both: Kehehehehehehehehehe Spaulding: Daddy started a beary profitable home business for us a while ago! Any time he or Mommy use bad words, they owe us twenty five cents! Teddy: Fifty cents if they say bad words about themselves, because no one says anything bad about our Mommy or Daddy! Spaulding: And only twelve and a half cents if they use another word when they mean a bad word, like when they say "Shhhhhoot!" or "Dangit!" Teddy: That's how we get enough money to go where ever we want to go! Both: Kehehehehehehehehehe Spaulding: So, to cut down on cost, Mommy and Daddy decided to switch our Internet Provider from DSL to dial up again... Teddy: ...we liked DSL, but using the old fashion method of dialing up is always cheaper! Spaulding: Doing that though, meant that we would lose our old web den... Teddy: ...which was no big deal though, since our old IP was bad enough that, when we lost our page and asked for help to get it back, we received no response in the four months Mommy kept asking for help through e-mails! Spaulding: The only way we ever got it back was by pure accident. It just started working again one day?! Teddy: Still, it's much quicker to upload photos through DSL then through dial-ups... Spaulding: ...and our old service was nice enough to give us an extra month free, when they heard we wanted to leave... Teddy: ...so Mommy had it in her mind to have our web site up and running before that free month was over -- on February 20th! Spaulding: She also had it in her mind to use GeoCities through Yahoo! because it's free, even if she feared it meant having to use FrontPage again! Teddy: But, we checked out all the links for GeoCities and found something called "My SiteBuilder,"... Spaulding: ...which is their own site building tool,... Teddy: ...or, so we thought! Spaulding (nodding in solemn agreement): For six weeks, we helped Mommy make a beary cool multipage web den using that program! Teddy: But, when we tried making something specifically for that program though, it told us to download another part of the program. Spaulding: When we went to download it though, it was going to cost money! Teddy: Our whole mission was to make a free web den?! Spaulding: We wrote to ask for FREE help, but they weren't beary helpful! Teddy: We now had ten days to make a web den before we had to upload using dial up! We knew we were switching services way before we did! Spaulding: This would test Mommy's patience... Teddy: ...or make us beary rich! Both: Kehehehehehehehehehe Spaulding: Still planning to use GeoCities, because it was one of the few free services Mommy found, she decided she would calmly... Teddy: ...knowing it's beary hard to understand the directions,... Spaulding: ...and also knowing we were here to help her... Teddy: ... dust off and open up her FrontPage! Spaulding: You can also upload it to use in GeoCities! Teddy: Once again she helped us make a five page web den that looked sooooooooo cool! Spaulding: With just two days left to upload it using DSL, we were making some last minute arrangements to make it look even nicer! Teddy: We were also e-mailing help people at Geocities for little questions again, but not getting helpful answers. Spaulding: And finally, at the end of that day it happened, after working on it for five whole hours that day! Teddy: We couldn't believe it! Spaulding: All we wanted was for each page to have our two pictures and our den title! Teddy: So Mommy copied it from our home page to paste it onto another page! Spaulding: And when we went back to our home page, Teddy's picture was gone! Teddy: That was bad enough, but since we hadn't done anything else with that page, we figured if we closed it without saving it and then opened it again, my picture would be back! Spaulding: BUT, when we opened it again, his picture was STILL gone! Everything was ruined! Teddy: Can't have "Spaulding and Teddy's Web Den" without Teddy! Spaulding (nodding in agreement): We were so shocked and upset that we didn't know what to do! Teddy: That was probably a more grown up reaction then Mommy's, although I understand what Mommy did next! Spaulding: Being able to read her mind, I watched as all the efforts of the last seven weeks... Teddy: ...including triyng to keep up with the housework and everything else we did... Spaulding: ...flashed through her mind like a beary quick photo projector... Teddy: ...and then she did it! Spaulding: Most embarrassing! :::::::::::::::::They both get the courage to look at Mommy to see if they are in trouble for what they've said or if she wants them to stop. Since Mommy does know it was a very bad moment, she is willing to let them continue, but certainly isn't angry with them for what they've said.::::::::::::::::::::::: Teddy (embarassed for Mommy): She went running to her bedroom to cry! Spaulding: Something about having this one fun little project that she wanted to do for us in the midst of all the hard work she does. Something about fun turning into something beary bad. Her thoughts were beary jumbled and hard to understand, like she was thinking too quickly for me! Teddy: One thing we DID understand... Spaulding: ...and got five dollars for keeping track of all the words... Teddy: ...was her language! Spaulding: Boy, oh, boy, was she upset! Teddy: We didn't know what to do! Spaulding: She did tell us that she wasn't angry with us, which made us feel better, but we were still upset that she ws upset! Teddy: ...and upset because it looked like we'd never have a web den again! Spaulding: But Daddy saved the day! Both: Yippie!!!! Teddy: Daddy saw what happened and immediately searched for free web sites that had their own building tools! Spaulding: The only reason we had our last web den was because that DSL service included an easy to make web building tool with it! Teddy: Not only did Daddy find a free web site place, but he found one with that same web building too! Spaulding: The free web site place is called Tripod, which is through a place called Lycos. Teddy: The so-easy-to-use-even-Teddy-Bears-can-use-it web site building tools is called Site Builder! Spaulding: To make our photos "web-ready" we need to use our photo organizing/fixing program called Microsoft's Pictureit! 2002... Teddy: ...which, although easier to use then FrontPage, tends to freeze up every third try at doing something! Spaulding: So, between Mommy needing to do chores and go grocery shopping... Teddy: ...and Pictureit! 2002 being a lousy program... Spaulding: ...we still didn't have our web site up by the time we lost our old DSL, although we got many of the pictures uploaded! Teddy: BUT, we finally taught Mommy how to make the pictures beary small before uploading them... Spaulding: ...by saving them as "web-ready" pictures... Teddy: ...so it still didn't take too long to upload the rest of our pictures AND... Spaulding: ...AND, it helps us have more space to save our pictures for our site when we do upload them! Teddy: Like, before when we uploaded the pictures, one picture would sometimes use about 345,285 k's of space,... Spaulding: ...but now the same picture only takes 90ks! Teddy: Since Tripod gives us 11 mgs to work with that means we can use lots and lots of our pictures now! Spaulding: And, what's beary weird is that they don't look any smaller?! Teddy: We were done making most of our six room web den in three days! Spaulding: We're still waiting to see if someone can help us with our Blog page though! Teddy: Now, you would think that once we are done our web den that we have finished working so beary hard on it too, right?! Spaulding: Well, we still need to accomplish one beary important part of having a web den! Teddy: We want lots Teddy Bears and people to visit us! Spaulding: We need to advertise our Web Den for Teddy Bears to find us! Teddy: We've developed a four part plan to do that! Spaulding: First, we started learning about WebRings... Teddy: ...which are rings of web sites about similar things. Spaulding: At least, that's sorta the idea behind them! Teddy: In order to do our second part of our plan,... Spaulding: ...to start our own ring of web dens made by other Teddy Bears or stuffed animals,... Teddy: ...we have to prove to the people who give us rings that we know how to put the rings on our page! Spaulding: They're rules are that we have to join at least three webrings before they think we are smart enough to run our own! Teddy: We're Internet savvy! We can put rings on our den! Spaulding: Still, the first ring is to actually join these webring people, so that one seemed fair! Teddy: And it's also obvious that it is for new webringers, since its name is "My First Webring." Spaulding: Mommy had to work hard to understand the directions, but we were there to help her! Teddy: We got it right our first try, although we thought we didn't! Spaulding: Then we searched the directory for other rings we might want to join! Teddy: We spent hours and hours going through different possibilities and then agreeing with Mommy on which ones to try next! Spaulding: There were a few Teddy Bear Webrings, but they were full of Teddy Bear makers, not Teddy Bears, so we didn't take any of them! Teddy: BUT, we stumbled on a ring called "Adorable," Spaulding: ...we're too cool to be adorable, but Mommy still is always calling us adorable, so we figured it would make her happy! Teddy: We've also been approved to join "Once Upon a Time" Webring, which is for stoires for kids. Our lives are our stories and kids will probably like reading about us! Spaulding: As we write this, we've been approved for all three web rings, but the codes are doing weird things to our page... Teddy: ...we've contacted the ring masters though and should have it straightened out soon! Spaulding: The "My First WebRing" will bring us some visitors... Teddy: ...that's called "bringing traffic"... Spaulding (nodding in agreement): We're Internet savvy, but we don't expect everyone who reads our journal to be Internet savvy, anymore then they should expect us to understand everything about Peoples, but, my bwuder is right, it is called "bringing traffic." Teddy: That first ring is fine, but the other two aren't exactly what we want! Spaulding: "Adorable" has our good buddies at Bear Jest, so that's cool, but I don't understand how selling supplements or a the web site for a French radio station are considered adorable?! Teddy (shrugging his shoulders): I'm not sure how listing web rings or selling jewelry is adorable either? Spaulding: And then I'm really not sure how a ring made for kids to read some books online is so full of summaries for parents to buy books for their kids or detailed information about the writers of children's books only?! Teddy: Still, they are the closest we've come to rings that are similar to ours and we have to prove that we are mastering the coding! Spaulding: We can figure out which we want to drop, once we start our own webring! Teddy: And our third thing we've done is to join a Teddy Bear Search Engine! Spaulding: THE Teddy Bear Search Engine, which we've added to our den and have spotted Mawson's web den on that engine too! Teddy: We're trying to convince the engine owner to add a new choice because he doesn't cover Teddy Bears with their own dens yet! Spaulding: And finally, we will be going from search engine to search engine to promote our site! Teddy: "Promote," another word borrowed from other places that Internet Savvy bears use too! Both: Kehehehehehehehehe Spaulding: You can get companies to do that for you... Teddy: ...but that cost money! Spaulding: We have money... Teddy: ...but we like spending our money on important things... Spaulding: ...like hotdogs and coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee... Teddy: ...unless we can talk Mommy and Daddy into giving us some... Spaulding: ...or buying tickets into museums or rides and stuff... Teddy: ...unless we can talk Mommy and Daddy into giving us those things... Both: Kehehehehehehehehe Spaulding: ...so, once we can get these webring thingies done right, we'll be tackling engine submissioning! Teddy: So, basically, our web den is done, but we're not close to being done yet! Spaulding: And still, we are forever searching for other Teddy Bear dens made by bears. Teddy: Once we get to the part where we form our own ring, we want a list of bears to contact to see if they'd be interested too! Spaulding: It's hard but we're doing it! Teddy: So, if you still don't see us much, at least you know what we're up to! Spaulding: But now that there is no rush, we can relax a little,... Teddy: ...but still vacation season is coming, so we might not relax. Spaulding: No matter how fast we go, this I know... Spaulding: Until next time... Both: Kehehehehehehehehe