Twilight Zone in Class #CS5711

Neuron5 copy
Brain Neuron © Dr. Robert Berden

For those who may be following my exploits in learning social media to simultaneously promote my new novel and defeat Donald Trump here’s an excerpt from a note by a world-class photographer and web designer with his recommendations for WordPress users as to the best how-to book, video, and PayPal shopping cart. How this came about was right out of The Twilight Zone (cue music).

One night I was wrestling with 3 different how-to books on WordPress when an order for one of our posters came in from Canada. Foreign orders have always been a problem because of varying postage costs, and because he ordered with PayPal we could not adjust for the extra postage to Canada like we can with a regular credit card ($17.50 vs. $5 for US Media Mail for a $9.99 poster).

So I wrote back and said to send us the extra $12.50 if he still wanted the posters or we’d be happy to refund his money if he didn’t and apologized for the exorbitant postage cost. He wrote back and said he would send it as he still wanted the poster, but said we should have mentioned that on our site. His tone kind of irked me, but before replying I checked out his site and it seemed he was a web designer, so instead of a snarky reply I said something to the effect that we do say on our site that we adjust for foreign postage and apologized for the fact that the site was put up before there even was a PayPal, so it had never been a problem.

Then I added that I see you are a web designer, and maybe you can help as I’m new to WordPress (I’m always looking for good advice whenever I can). I gave him an overview of where I was with a link to the website  under construction and here’s part of what he wrote:

I recommend the book “Teach Yourself Visually WordPress”. WordPress takes time to learn for sure, but someone who works with it regularly can teach you the basics in a few hours. If you want to watch a video – this is the best one I know of is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jv47_VIBOQ

I sell my e-guides and several books on my www.canadiannaturephotographer.com web site and they do well. I am working on a new photography book I hope to sell both hard copies and digital copies, but want a publisher to distribute the book.

Implementing a PayPal shopping cart on WordPress –  check this link: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-simple-paypal-shopping-cart/

I look forward to getting your posters – I started playing Tenor sax last year and there is so much to learn, but at least the information doesn’t change every few months so I am willing to make a 10 year investment.  Web technologies change every few months and its frustrating for sure as software, languages and other features come and go.

Cheers
Rob Berdan

Science & Art Multimedia
www.scienceandart.org
www.canadiannaturephotographer.com

The book he recommended was one of three that were open on my desk, so I immediately closed the other two and have been working with it ever since. In checking deeper into his site it turns out has written several books on photography and web design and teaches at a Canadian university in Calgary. He also used to be a scientist, with a PhD in biology with a specialty in brain cells before giving it up for photography. His gallery of microphotography is here.

His photography is nothing short of stupendous; if you want to see the best nature photos of Canada, his site is the place. I was showing his site to my wife because she loves photography and she was taken by his brain-cell photo. She is a psychologist who teaches psychopharmacology and is giving a continuing education class for therapists next weekend. I wrote and asked him if she could use the brain cell photo in her class and he said yes and sent a high-def jpg.

I thanked him for his recommendations as now I don’t have to waste any more time looking for the best how-to book for WordPress. He also has links galore to other sites with advice for anyone working with photogaphy and/or web design.

Later.

 

PS-Be careful as you could spend days exploring the visual treats and informative links on his site.

 

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