ROLF!!!! Too funny!
Well I wish for me it was as simple as just wanting to sell a few products. The fact is, I'm in a fortunate place right now. I lost my job last year, that's not so good, and I'm still 6 years from my target retirement date. But, I'm fortunate that my dwelling is paid off, expenses are relatively low, and I've been relentlessly saving. So all that to say, if I was content with just a little beyond austerity, I could retire now.
I don't WANT to retire now, but then again I do have projects I'd like to finish and attempt to market. I'm also a musician, and though none of my tunes have gone "viral", they are getting attention, and I'd also consider starting a cover band and giving lessons via skype. There are a lot of things I can do to make money, and as it turns out I'm pretty sure I'll always have a few people asking for websites too. So while I'm doing my own, I'm re-sharpening my skills... at least my non-CMS skills anyway. Who knows... maybe now that i can get health care i can afford, I can take a real stab at being in business for myself!
back on the thread subject, my opinion now is that if I'm going to do a site where there is going to be rapidly changing content, then yes... I'd better wake up and smell the coffee and get proficient at an SMS environment. I might have said that I have a friend leaning me toward Joomla, who has offered some free help getting started, so I'll likely take him up on it.
BUT... there are a lot of arguments going for every subject from websites to graphic formats, that basically say "oh that's old hat... you're in the stone age... this is the way we do it now". Well it was one of those arguments that compelled me to consider ditching hand coding and come over to a CMS system for everything. I've since gotten over that compulsion ;-).
For a lot of applications, static pages are fine, and if you're not averse to a little javascript coding (or a client is willing to pay for it), and some of the newer tricks you can do with CSS, there are a lot of things we can do to make a page at least seem at least a little more dynamic. And from what I can see, AJAX may make it plausable to easily update content from a database too. OK, thats as sophisticated as pages all served by a PHP core of code, but its still very powerful and worth my time to learn.
The bottom line though is still is content. I have one website I started back in 2001, which despite constant criticism to this day entertained over 12 million visitors, won me a webby award (not to mention a lot of notoriety), and enabled me to raise over $10K for kids charities over that time. Its a terrible hodgepodge of scattered HTML, CSS, and javascript, with multiple navigation aids all over the place, and a lot of content you have to dig for. All in all, it breaks tons of rules, and now its in need of some HTML5 updates to make the videos and MP3s work across more device platforms. BUT... it taught me a lot, served its purpose, and still is doing a great service to both myself and visitors. Despite all the "layout" critiques, even to the point where one student told me the site was used as an example of how NOT to do a site in class (LOL), the fact is the content is what made it work.
Its kind of like the case of two websites for two restaurants, where the first one all the bells and whistles of a Facebook page, while the second had just a menu and phone number. The first got rave reviews from web critics, while the second was considered a business that was doomed to fail. BUT.. the food in the first place was total crap, while the food in the place with the crappy site was excellent. now guess which restaurant closed, and which one is thriving! :-)
Hey I just finished my "Form Mail" page... I think that deserves a beer too!
