1-800-Web-Guru

I should get this phone number — except that I’d have to pay for each call and as it is, I get enough requests out of the blue asking for ‘quick’ advice.  For example, like the one I just got today.  🙂

“Hi Ed.”  [his number came up on my cell phone]

“Hi, is this Kreg?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Hi there, it’s Ed and I have a real quick question.”

“Ok…”

“How do you tell who’s hosting a website?”

“You can look at the WhoIs info.”

“Will it tell you that?”

“If you look at the DNS section, it will tell you the name of the domain and generally this will give you a clue as to who’s the host company.”

“Ok, I know how to do that.  Thanks.”

“If not, you can always Google it to see what company comes up.”

“Yeah, ok, I can do that.  You see I’m eating at a restaurant and the person who does their website left town with the FTP passwords.  The thing is that the restaurant moved and so, you know, they can’t change their address…”

Why is it…

…that webmasters must be grouped in with people who have questionable reputations?  It’s not like I’m a used car salesman or even a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman [do they *even* do that anymore?] …

I suppose it’s because people trust their webmaster/mistress to do things for them in a personal sense — more than a sales person who’s only there at the point in time in which you want to buy.

And when that person [who is a real person nontheless] goes off to get married, or worse, even dies, then the client feels betrayed.

I know most people look up to their webmaster/mistress as super heroes, but we’re really just normal, mild-mannered people like yourself with the same bills, deadlines and Life challenges too.

So please try to remember that before you jump to the conclusion that we’re all highway robbers — just out to make as much as we can and then hop the next train outta here.  🙂

p.s.  That toll-free number IS available by the way.  So if any of my competitors decide to get it, you’ll be happy to know that a lot of my friends will be calling.  😉

:: Update ::

In the space of time it took to write this post and to ping it, I got another call.  This time asking for the correct setting for Photoshop CS3 — 8 bit or 16 bit?

Please don’t ask me for the answer since it all depends on what you’re doing, but you can most certainly Google the answer — I did, so I know that it exists.  😉