FAQs: Everything You Want To Know About Tera

A note from Bambi: Tera Jean Patricks suffered from cancer for many years and finally passed away in the summer of 2006. We miss her. The following is Tera’s FAQ.

You can’t have a site like this and a name like mine without getting a few questions from sharp-eyed Mac readers. Not including the “bonus” information, here’s the Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions: Everything You Want To Know About Tera. Mostly.

It’s not easy being a web mistress, even in these days of equal rights. Computerdom and the tech industry in general is still a man’s world. I figure it’s best just to smile and keep moving. After all, a moving target is tougher to hit.

Since we launched Mac360 in mid 2004 we’ve received a steady stream of questions. Some technical, some Mac, some asking “why?” and more than a few asking, well, uh, other kinds of questions.

To date, we’ve received over 1.2-million visits, served almost 2.5-million page views, and coughed up over 10-million ad impressions (revenue covers the bandwidth and servers; we do it for fun). The site generates nearly 4,000 daily visits, about 65-percent are returning visitors, and the rest are first-timers. The numbers continue to grow.

What? You didn’t really want all those facts and figures? You want more? Of course you do. So I’ve compiled a list of FAQs that should satisfy your every need. Mostly. OK, probably not, but this is what you get anyway.

Tera’s Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

Not surprisingly, the Top 10 List is offered in reverse order. That means FAQ #10 is not asked as often as FAQ #2 (my favorite). At the end of the list I’ll toss out a few extra bonus answers to questions that weren’t even asked. We aim to please.

#10 - Is that your real hair?
Why do you ask? I think it looks nice. The answer, though, is, of course not. I dontate my real hair to Paris Hilton.

She’s promised to swap her secret for becoming someone famous without doing anything at all. Really. My finger nails are fake.

#9 - Where do you live?
Now in Los Angeles. LA’s nice, but busy. Today will be mostly sunny with the high in the mid 80s. LA has everything. Including a robust business climate. Go with the flow…

The most frequent follow-up question is, “Do you surf?” No, I’m a sponger. You get to figure out what that means.

#8 - Are you single?
Only when I’m alone. Which isn’t often these days. Life has become more complicated. There’s more things to do but the amount of time in which to do it has remained the same.

Fortunately, I’m not alone. Mostly. Family, friends, no pets, and a personal significant other who shall go nameless (you wouldn’t believe the name anyway—there’s only one on the whole planet).

#7 - Did you build the site yourself? How?
That’s actually two questions so I’ll call it a tie at #7. Yes, I built the site. Mostly. But getting the site up and running was rather simple, though the server functions remain in Hawaii.

We use the standard three tier architecture; Apache, PHP (middleware), and MySQL (database). The real trick was using the power of a content management system from pMachine back when it was still beta.

#6 - How many Macs have you owned?
You know, I’m not really sure, but over two dozen, starting with an original Mac 128k back in early 1984. There’s three Macs and one Windows PC (a Sony Vaio running Windows XP—it’s virus free—and turned off) here in the Patricks’ family LA compound.

I’ve had about every Mac you can think of. A bunch of iMacs, PowerMacs, an original PowerBook 100 (amazingly like an iBook), and so on. The best Mac OS? Panther, then Tiger, soon Leopard.

#5 Can you spell PHP and MySQL
That was actually a question. I think it came from someone over at MacRumors Forums. They don’t like me over there. Really.

Well, the answer is yes. P-H-P. And M-y-S-Q-L. Those don’t mean much to most Mac users, though both are freely available for Mac OS X Panther and can turn your Mac into a “hot” web server.

Guys ask more technical questions than girls. Why? I think they’re running a test to see how much I know. Of course, asking me if I know how to spell P-H-P says something about the questioner.

Do I code? Nope. Well, AppleScript, Unix shell scripts, and I tinker in Perl, dabble in PHP, but, no. I don’t code. It’s more fun to muck up someone else’s code. Besides,  oding is hard. Ouch! I think I broke a nail on the keyboard.

#4 - Why Macs and not Windows?
About 25-percent of our site’s visitors are using Windows. I assume that they’re captive users; Windows at work, Mac at home.

So, I’m not sure why this question gets asked as often as it does. After all, the site is Mac360.com. It’s all about Macs. And some about the competition between Macs and Windows.

Mac users have computing life that is MUCH better than Windows. Mac360 is a bit about evangelizing, a bit about support, with a few touches for newbies and pros.

#3 - What’s your computer experience?
I tend to think guys ask this more than girls. Actually, I date back to PCs in the early 1980s (long before Macs). So, I cut my computing teeth on CP/M, WordStar, SuperCalc, and dBase II. Not many folks with my looks can say that.

Since then I’ve had everything you can think of in the way of PCs and Macs.

#2 - How many hits do you get?
That’s about as loaded a question as I can get (or, at least publish online). Insert whatever meaning you want. The site has generated nearly 15-million “hits” since launch. Oh, did you have something else in mind? Shame on you.

The #1 FAQ: Is that your “real” name?
Why do you ask? What else would it be? It’s what I use. Of course, it’s not the name I was born with. After all, time and marriage will change things, right?

It’s been brought to my attention that another somewhat famous young woman has a name very similar to mine. Google around awhile. She also has her own website and tends to reveal more of herself than I’ve been able to reveal (not that I haven’t been asked).

To set the record straight, Tara Patrick is the given name to Carmen Electra. We’ve never met. The other Tera is Tera Patrick, whose given name is really Linda Hopkins Shapiro. We’ve never met.

There you go. Tera’s Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions. And answers. As promised, here’s the bonus answers to questions that haven’t been asked. Yet.

Yes, Barbara Marie Bambi Hambi is her real name. She’s blonde, leggy, younger than me, and purely a point and click type of girl. If you know what I mean. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Alexis Kayhill is our local writer. Local as in, from Hawaii and now by way of San Diego. She, too, is leggy, point and click, but not blonde. I think. It’s hard to tell these days.

Our most recent additions to the writing staff is Carol Mary Miller and Jack D. Miller (not to be confused with Jack Miller of AtAT fame). He’s a former Windows user who switched teams (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and enjoys the Mac and arguing with me about who’s better looking, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer or Peter Boyle of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Any more questions? Feel free to use the Feedback Contact link below (no guarantee I’ll feed back), or share your thoughts and comments with other readers and click on the Comments link below.

For those of you more interested in my cerebral qualities (not to mention typing skills), you can always point your browser to my personal home page at TeraTalks. Admission is free. Seating is limited.

All materials on the Mac360 site and the Mac360 Macintosh User Forums are Copyrighted © 2002 - 2009 by Ron McElfresh, Honolulu, HI. or used with permission.