Today I successfully renewed my domain name for two years from May 1 2025, having been reassured that it could be renewed, when I phoned Melbourne IT on receipt of a renewal reminder at the beginning of March. PS On April 3, I was shocked to get an email about updating my ABN (Australian Business Number) with a graphic of a sand timer glass next to the words: ‘Your Domain will Expire This Week’. I could not renew my previous domain name because I no longer had a valid ABN, and in any case, my site is no longer used for business purposes. Fortunately, a very helpful lady replied promptly to the email I sent to the support team about receiving such a dire warning. She apologised for the email which was auto-generated because I was mistakenly flagged as being ineligible to own the name. She assured me that Melbourne IT had updated the eligibility criteria on the name and that this will not happen again.
Yesterday I received an email from Melbourne IT about my domain name renewal which is due by May 1. It was the first in a series of monthly ’reminder’ emails. It emphasised that I check my eligibility to renew the name. This terrified me, because I was told the current name, unlike the one it replaced, did not require an active Australian Business Number. The first person I spoke to this morning said he would call back in an hour or two to confirm my eligibility. I phoned again in the afternoon and was told that I was eligible to renew the name. Previously I would renew the name for two years. Because of the change, I only registered the name for a year. I will revert to the two year renewal nearer the time.
The website gremlin saga was becoming a tad self-indulgent. I hadn’t heard from Jackie for a month. Her last email assured me that the matter would be fixed before Christmas. Today, after returning from the coast having driven through a cloudburst for twenty five minutes from a liquor store to a shopping centre, I uploaded a photo taken the previous day, and checking how it looked on the web page, I had to do a double take because the text accompanying the enlargement had been restored to the status quo. I emailed Jackie to let her know, saying that her actions spoke louder than the words I never heard from her and that it is demoralising when one’s website isn’t working properly. I had emailed Jackie on January 7, telling her that on the 10th I was due to pay my credit card for the plugin upgrade and that I had nothing to show for the expense. In my long experience of dealing with them, web builders are lousy communicators and do not look after their customers in the way most service providers do.
I have just bought an upgraded version of the plugin at a greatly reduced Black Friday sale price and emailed Jackie the login information. Jackie assured me that this is a one-off purchase. She thanked me for supplying the information and said that she will get this sorted. Watch this space.
Jackie advised that the best way forward is for me to buy the gallery plugin so that she can ask the company for help.
The issue boils down to the discrepancy between the admin site text layout and the website text layout. In the admin site, there is a panel for the title and next to it, a panel for the italicised species name. Below them is a panel for the body text. On the website, this translates into all the information being contained in a single panel below the enlarged image. The title and unitalicized species name abut onto the body text without a break.
Jackie stated that the plugin which dates from when the site was created, may no longer be supported. I sent her an email showing how I want the text below the image to look.
I was disappointed to find no change to the album texts after my return from Longreach.
Shortly before I left for Longreach on October 10, I discovered that the text layout below the image enlargements in the website albums suddenly changed and lost their former clarity. Jackie, who looks after the site, put this down to a new plugin. She managed to overcome the unwarranted double spacing, but instead of the title and italicised species name being centred below the enlarged image, they are joined to the body text and the species name is not italicised.
I lost no time in accessing my website, seeking to rectify what had been denied to me and today emailed Jackie that I succeeded thanks to her and Melbourne IT resolving the problem. No more forbidden sort order or save changes. One thing that could not be corrected were my historic errors, such as using a capital letter in a species name.