Ah yes, the shops and stores are sitting patiently, waiting for some attention. The ZenCart store is still, uh… nothing. BUT – it’s all good.

Mr. B came over wanting to check out a friend’s web site. Yes, Mr. B has a computer – in fact, two of ‘em. One’s a monster Toshiba (Windows 95), the other’s my old Sony notebook (screen’s toasted after someone “worked on it” for him). He doesn’t have internet access, though, so comes over here for that.

Anyway, we looked up the site, The Whole Truth Network, and I fell in love with the template …uh oh… so of course I had to go find it. (Interesting site, by the way. Check it out.)

That was quick and easy enough, even found a Blogger version – yes! Unfortunately, it also led to hours and hours of template-itis, during which I must have downloaded a couple hundred (at least). Some were WordPress, but most were just regular ol’ web site templates. I need a few of those, and the ones I have stashed on the hard drive just aren’t getting it. Customizing takes time and I haven’t been keeeping up with the latest CSS and stuff. Yes, I’ll catch up, but it was actually a time-saver to spend 8 hours ooh-ing and ah-ing and downloading like a maniac. My most heartfelt thanks to all of you out there who build these great themes and templates and freely share them with all of us! Bravo!

Sooo… 7 hours and 45 minutes into this quest. Eyeballs are dangling out of the sockets, hand frozen to the mouse. Click into third-to-the-last page out of, ummm, somewhere over a hundred pages of templates, and what do my dried-up bloodshot eyes land on? An ecommerce template. Whoa. And then another. Whoa whoa.

What’s the big deal about that, since ZenCart’s already installed on the store site? Well, as much as I love ZenCart, I don’t like the fact that one can’t just use Google Checkout and PayPal buttons. You have to set up with regular cart integration, SSL, the whole proverbial ball of wax.

I don’t need that with my site, don’t want it. I can offer secure payment with buttons that take the customer directly to the payment site where they can pay securely. In my most humble opinion, that is The Most Secure process for the customer. Also the easiest for them, considering I offer no multiples of anything. If a person were to actually order more than one item, it’s a very simple process to issue a partial refund for any discounts (if applicable). Perhaps not as convenient for the shopper, but there is a work-around for that which reduces the inconvenience.

All this has resulted in replanning, redesigning, and regrouping – more reinvention. Here we go again… hah!

And now the phone has rung with yet another distraction/interruption/annoyance.
To be continued…