FAQs: Everything You Want To Know About Tera.

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 on a monthly basis.

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, from sunny Honolulu. LA’s nice, but busy. I miss Honolulu and the weather. Today will be mostly sunny with the high in the mid 80s. Honolulu has a very high concentration of digital Internet access, both with Verizon’s DSL service, and Time-Warner’s RoadRunner.

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 “SO” 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.

OK, that’s the first five of the Top 10. Any idea what the Top 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions are? Well, you’re just a single click away. Click Here for #5 through #1, plus the bonus answers.

Off Topic Note: I’ve updated the Mac360 Store with over 100 new categories—More Macs, more iPods, more Mac books, more software. Click Here and select any category for more detail, or use the handy search function. Whenever you buy from Amazon through the Mac360 Store you help support Mac360. The Store has discounts and special pricing on Microsoft Office for Mac ($125), Apple’s iWork ‘08 suite ($62), and Adobe Photoshop Elements ($70). Where? At the newly remodeled Mac360 Store. Now with more fiber.