OK, so you’ve seen my notes of joy at having this site back in operation. Here’s what happened and what’s worked.

I started out with WordPress, and liked it. I like it so much, I decided to run my own on my own hosting that was running the static Barley Hollow web site. That was fun, but before long, it took too much admin time, and it stopped being fun. So I decided to move back to WordPress-hosted, but still kept the static site.

I’m a web developer in real life, and the BarleyHollow.com site was looking pretty rough. It had some nice features and some fun content, but it looked terrible – not good for a professional’s site. So, I decided to roll in all into WordPress, and do away with the organic mess that was the static site. The only problem was what to do with the email. I’m fussy and like to have email with the domain name in use.

Google Apps to the rescue with free – yep, free – email and more. So I set up a Google Apps account and worked through the WordPress and Google support files and got the DNS set up properly. It wasn’t hard. It just wasn’t simple.  But it was worth the time. For a small fee for the domain name in WordPress, I have a custom domain, email, hosting and first-rate blog software. It’s a really nice arrangement. I would recommend the approach for any non-profit or hobby group. Google Apps is amazing, especially for free. Coupled with WordPress-hosted WordPress, it’s a very nice solution.

So, that’s the story. It’s taken more of my free time than I’d like, but I’m very happy with the result. I’m going to get back to writing about making pottery. If you have any questions, let me know. Cheers!