However, given that I’m going forward with my Stormhaven Media idea, it is very likely you won’t see a DiggerFeast episode for a few weeks, at least till I get the blog setup there. As for the DiggerCast, expect a new episode in the middle of October. Why then, you say? Well, the idea is to release eps every first and third week(end) and I need to focus on getting the team back together, as well as a couple new additions, plus given I haven’t worked on it for a while, I need to update the site list and also setup a page template! Rest assured though, the final format is nailed, and thus is the most complete show. Coincidentally, the DiggerFeast will likely follow a similar skeleton framework, for the reasons of consistancy at least. I am wondering at present as well if it’s a good idea to put everything in a single blog, although that said, WordPress is powerful enough to be modded for multiple purposes, so I think it would be the best option, in all fairness, especially once I learnt how to sort the domain stuff out. I’ll think of something eventually.

The only disadvantages I could see is the fact it may get a tad crowded on the About pages, especially as I have the DiggerCast and DiggerFeast joining up with a possible DiggerAds show (where my friends and I will riff a short selection of ads; possibly the shortest show in the list) and also a show (or even a section on the DiggerFeast or DiggerAds shows at the end, depending on which fits) about strange purchases (“Feast your eyes on this oddity!”, etc.) from eBay, car boot sales, the Pound shops and other unusual places or auction sites, or even just stuff we found abroad. Admittedly, this one requires funding and perhaps a lot of crowd sourcing, given that many of the items may cost a pretty penny to get over here. Still, it might be worth a shot. Of course though, odd gaming stuff will be handled by my gaming site, Gamed Up.

Speaking of Gamed Up… it finally has a presence besides on here, though it’s only temporary (and also in a single place; also has only one entry at the time of writing, but that’ll change soon) as a more permenant solution is on its way soon! You can go to http://gamedup.wordpress.com/ if you want to see what is up there. Please also note that all my games-related articles made here will gradually be copied or moved over there, and in fact anything gaming at all from here on out will be sent over there. Additionally, when the site is up, it’s very likely they’ll again be moved to my personal ranting blog, or in the case of reviews of software or hardware, to the relevent section on the site. I also have plans for other Stormhaven Networks sites as well, such as the addition of a business which shall remain nameless for now, though the Developments branch is basically going internal for now while this new branch (and the Media branch minus the Radio) are worked on.

I have been to see a business analyst about all my websites, and he basically gravitated more towards Gamed Up, as well as my paranormal group (which again will have its own blogs system soon, albeit a shared resource), which will be a hybrid events company and public services org, but more on that later on. The Free Spirits Network (formerly Friendly Storm Network) is also due for a few structural changes too, with the long planned and awaited FSChat moving into the first phase of development! This first phase involves contacting interested parties and asking them to sign up to a feedback & consultation forum, so they can tell me what they want to see in a chat site… I’m sure that staff that listens (or at least tries to listen) and general stability will be pretty high on the list!

Anyway… that aside, it is also an excellent opportunity to get FSIRC, FSChat’s sister site some exposure too, especially for those who want to make their own chat rooms, as FSChat is designed to be simple and moderated/closed, in opposition to FSIRC’s slightly more complex and open system. I acknowledged long ago that not everyone will want to wrestle with the comparitively harder setup that is FSIRC (though for those who want to learn, it’ll work well for them), so I’m offering a simpler chat option. Other places that stand to benefit are Gamed Up (managing a gaming room on there) and also Storm Paranormal (which will maintain the paranormal room). And while there will be single forums that handle the topic in general detail, the linkup with the sites will mean that people will get to take their interests further if they so wish – with the benefit of already knowing the staff on the site. Although perhaps paradoxically, the FSChat gaming room will not be able to be accessed via the Gamed Up chat, but then it is a different system, so it’s understandable. The same goes for the paranormal room too. However, I may make provisions in to allow people to eventually connect to either room they want through the respective sites (though the FSChat rooms require an FSChat account), which in itself will be quite an undertaking!

As you can see, I do have a lot planned, though my first concern will be the FSChat feedback forum, and also the entire Xeno Storm Network, which is undergoing some massive changes.  First of all, I decided that I don’t need a separate site for my named domain… it just means more to keep track of, so I decided to merge it with Stormkeeper dot Net as it makes sense to just merge the two.  Also, as part of financial cutbacks, I also plan on dropping a few more domains to bring my costs down.  Another thing I plan on doing as well is implementing a global single sign on system throughout XSN.  This means that the wiki, blogs and forums will all be accessible through the one account.  The forums will be the centrepiece of the XSN, as they were before.

I was initially going to use the copy of XenForo I purchased (with the assistance of an anonymous benefactor) for another site, and move the vBulletin install back to XS, but honestly I’m fed up with vB now, so want to offload it ASAP, but equally I need to bring XS back into the fold, because I want to move this blog to the blogs system, so I can do single sign in.  Some additional changes I have in mind are the addition of a travel blog for myself (and a couple others for friends), and also a project blog (for my crazy experiments and other stuff), which will make things a lot easier for me.  I already am aware of things that will allow XF to link in with WordPress and also a wiki solution, meaning things will be a lot easier to manage when I lay down the foundations!  My only concern at present is linking the domain to the new blogs system, but I’ll have some practice runs with that and I’ll keep the SK.net domain here til I’m sure it all works fine.  Another consequence of the merger is that I no longer need to put the XS-related stuff on my blog, which frees up space that is able to be used for my named domain functions, such as a C.V., though I will have a sanitised version of my C.V. up as a PDF, which omits some more personal details, though there will be an email to ask for more details.

Admittedly though, the C.V. is more an illustration of my credentials as opposed to actually being used for looking for a job, though I imagine I’ll be open to any that may be offered to me, if any are.  Still though, I do hope with the redevelopment of the XS Network, and also the addition of the FSChat feedback forum, things can start to move on.  I am thinking as well that my projects blog may also be recipent of my Projects page, albeit in an expanded format, that being Current & Planned Projects and also Past projects (both of which will also include involvement) pages; in fact those changes will be made now in preparation for this.

I’m going to stop here now so I can make the necessary changes to my blog in order to make everything go smoothly with it over the next week or two.  Hopefully everything will be smooth, but I won’t know till I try…

Either way, 2011 is looking like a good year… well, better than this one in any case

I was planning on doing something with the WonderBorg and seeing if I can recode the programming application into something that supports both serial and USB infrared transmitters, but I amn’t sure if it’ll work now, but I might wait till I have a look at the application before I give up.  The WonderBorg is a nice piece of kit though if you’re into robotics, but they’re hard to locate now and are usually quite expensive; mine cost me £4.99 and they usually retail for £100+!  I want to get a second one at some point, but they may be hard to source.  I promise that I’ll talk about more later, but I’m really finding it hard to focus for now, but rest assured when I’m better, I’ll be able to focus more so I can type about more… still this is as much a little update as it is a reminder for me to type more and type up a little of what’s been going before I forget (yes I’ve been that bad)!  Still, it’s only a matter of time before I get better and will be going back to my few thousand word count essays XD

Until then, I’ll see you lot later.

One thing I’ve also started to do is with the help of my server provider is install AWStats, in order to process server stats locally, although unfortunately it appears I cannot access any of my past site access logs, if any were ever kept.  Shame that.  At least I’m using StatCounter to keep progress on my sites; one of my sites (Therians dot Net – TdN) actually surprised me by indicating I’ve had over 1300 visitors to it in the past month, which isn’t bad going!  This site is a little lower on the scale, but hey at least it has exposure.  This site and TdN are the only active sites on StatCounter, though I do have more planned.  I would be putting the DiggerCast in as it is an active website, but it’s moving soon and I don’t fancy complicating matters with it just yet.   Besides, I’m still testing stuff out and it’s doubtful the stats would be all that impressive anyway.  At least though I have the groundwork sorted for when I do start it all, which I should soon.  I also need to sort out my IRC network’s website and plan out a prototype chat site, which should be fun.

Moving on to the 50 things bit, as I haven’t actually updated it much, if at all.  The list of updated ones are below – I’m going to summarise them in a paragraph each:

• 9. Properly produce a Podcast/Internet Radio Show. – (75% Complete)
  
• 14. Own part of a pub/bar. – (??% Complete)
• 29. Join the Special Constabulary. – (25% Complete)
• 33a. Be free of all short term debts  – (80% Complete)
• 35. Learn to to manage my time better. – (20% Complete)
• 36. Learn to budget my money properly. – (20% Complete)
• 46. See wolves face to face and maybe help out at a sanctuary. – (10% Complete)
• 19. Visit the birthplace of my ancestors and learn more about them. – (20% Complete)

Well, by far one of the highest in terms of completion is number 9, which has 2 pending episode edits and uploads.  I also need to change the software I use because as much as I like PrettyMay Skype Recorder, Pamela is much more suited to my needs, as I can lower the filesize, though I may need to use PrettyMay for longer until I’m sure I can afford Pamela, but when I can, I can at least feel that progression has happened with my podcasting techniques.  I have also decided as well that after switching between ideas, that the podcast would be best without time-sensitive content, meaning it gets adjusted to once every two weeks instead, which makes me think that I can fit in another podcast for the odd weeks.  I have an idea of what that might be… keep you posted on that one.  It is nice to know that I’m slowly hammering out a system though it is a bit frustrating it’s not a regular thing; however by freeing up the time constraints, it can now be recorded at any time available, though I need more thought on the timings.  Anyway, that’s the podcasting bit for now.

As for 14, no idea what happened there, it seems to have gone kaput!  What else can I say other than it’s just as well I haven’t invested any money into it, or is it because I didn’t that that happened?  We may never know.

With regards to 29, I’d like to think I made some progress here, even if ultimately, I failed this time.  It appears, based upon the rejection letter that I got, I passed the written test but failed the interview, which is fair enough.  I honestly had a feeling I failed it anyway; it’s extremely nerve-wracking and I really should have attended the workshop thing to help me.  Admittedly, I think my lack of interview experience may also be a factor as well… it’s been over 7 years since I had to attend any sort of job or positional interview now, so understandably I’m well out of practice.  In fact, the last job-related thing I attended was a group screening at Asda, which I failed.  As for Tesco, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, still nothing to report there, though I think I’ll be less nervous with that compared to the Specials gig.  I intend to reapply sometime in the new year, though I might wait till I have a job first and get back into the routine of working and/or customer service, as it might improve my prospects.

33a, 35 and 36 are all tied into each other in a sense, well 33a and 36 are at least so I’ll start with them.  I’ve never been all that good at managing my money, and the fact I currently have no real “local savings” at the moment proves it.  Although admittedly, moving does actually take a lot of blame for that; it’ll be a total of about 8 months since I moved before I can start to see a slight improvement, 9 months before I see something noticable and 12 months before I see a more signifiant improvement.  At present, I’m now in month 7 since moving, meaning by the end of next month I should have increased my spending power a bit, though it wont be till sometime in November before I can plan with it better.  It won’t be until February next year that I can actually start looking long term into my finances.  I plan to move my bank account to another company at some point and also setup an ISA, but I can’t really set one of those up till next year because I was going to move the money I have in a Post Office Savings Account to the ISA and they pay at the end of the year;  if I asked for the money now, it would be October before it comes out anyway and with it being around 4 months before they pay the interest on the account, it seems silly to take it out, plus it also means I can plan it much better.

I find it a little frustrating that I have to wait a month for the money to come out, and it appears the interest rate is a bit dismal, so I may as well put the money to better use elsewhere.  It may only be a relatively minor sum, but it can earn more elsewhere; I need it to either fund my bike or trip to the USA, if not both.   I also have some Premium Bonds which I plan on cashing in and putting into the Post Office account, which seems a better use of the money to be honest, especially when you consider I haven’t a chance in hell at winning… I certainly haven’t won anything since the bonds were issued!  They’d serve me much better gaining interest.  It is a little bittersweet having to get rid of them all to be honest, as they have been around since either just before I was born or within a few years after, but I guess it’s less documents for me to manage and also, I have more immediate access to the money.  I honestly have no idea how the interest on the account works though to be honest… I may just send it off in the new year to get a balance update, though selling off the bonds and transferring the money from them ro the account would be a sensible idea first… I’m doubtful there would be all that much interest on the whole though.  Still, every little helps, right?

As for time management, I’ve gotten myself a diary and plan to continue to get one, and start writing in it.  I’m going to get an A5 one, given I never really have anything to put in it anyway.  I’m going to look at getting one from PoundLand, as they’re cheaper.  I still amn’t sure if I want one for personal, one for business or just merge the two together… actually, that may be best; I can just tag each entry with B or P, so I know what’s what, though this means that I need a bigger diary… erg, complicated!  I’ve still got a few months before the new year starts though so I can start working out the best method, though I may get 2 diaries; one for all my engagements and another for engagements that require me to be on the move, so I’ll have to have it with me at all times.  The benefit of that system is that if I have a big, central diary, if I lose the small one, I can just buy a replacement, which seems the best option, given how forgetful I am!  Still, once I start getting to use a diary more properly, it’ll work out a lot better for me.  I am slowly getting better in both of these, even if they’re not exactly related, apart from the fact I’m awful with both of them!

Lastly, and still somehow not being as verbose as yesterday’s blog entry, we come to the wolf sanctuary bit.  I’ve decided it’s best if I go to somewhere more local to me, so I’ll eventually be visiting Wildwood, which is coincidentally near Canterbury although when I eventually go around there, I can’t visit, as it’ll be for a different reason entirely.  I completely forgot I updated it!  I’ll eventually put some photos up of my visit to Wildwood, when I go, which reminds me that I need to upload rakes of more photos to my Flickr account, as there’s many old and new ones I haven’t uploaded yet.  I am rather glad though that given I have more space and a decent internet connection, I no longer have to shrink the pictures, meaning Flickr is a great backup area for my photos too, so I just need 1 more safe area, given that My network drive and desktop will be keeping the photos.

And definitely lastly, the geneology thing.  I’m taking a notepad and camera with me for notes on the family tree and also to take photos of the area and also the family gravestones, so that will be an interesting thing to do.

I think it’s only just shorter than yesterday’s post at this point!  I do have a lot to write about sometimes, and I’m going to be unapologeltic about it (as I should), given that it’s my blog, and its entire point is a place for me to put my thoughts to paper.  It is likely that I’ll end up putting the stuff I get up to as a blog of this site’s multi-blog system now, given I’m not going to have a dedicated blog for my CV & Portfolio site now.  The entire point of the portfolio site is really an excuse for me to learn (x)HTML/CSS and PHP, so in a way it’s good to have somewhere where I can just write without worrying about code.  And on the subject of writing (like I haven’t done enough already!), I’m going to be setting up a wiki off the Xeno Storm dot Net website so I have somewhere to put up some stories I plan to write.  It also gives me a chance to try out a sub-wiki system, via “subdirectories”, given I’m going to have a travel section, projects section and writing section.  Admittedly, my friend Scott (who is the other half of Xeno Storm, Broken Xeno) has a domain for a universe he is designing with a friend, which I will eventually see myself contributing to, but at the moment I’ve heard very little, so I’m just going to do my own thing, flesh out a few characters I own and see how it goes from there.  The XSdN Wiki is essentially the centralised infobase for everything under the Xeno Storm brand, meaning this site, the Xeno Storm site, Scott’s site and anything related, such as the Thames Cycle and Hop On, Hop Off projects as well as anything else I come up with now, during and before them.

I’m beginning to think my theme for the next year is consolidation, which should start to save me money, especially once I get my community consolidation project up and running.  It’s going to replace the WikiNet idea I initially had, as I realised I can just come up with a subdomain and stick a wiki, forums and other related stuff to do with that site there.  If it takes off, it’s likely to get its own domain because then I know it has enough support to get off the ground; it’s not really in my best interests to register a domain for every single idea I have, as it adds to my costs, so this is a compromise.  I’m subsequently dropping off 2 domains for renewal over the next 2 days as I no longer need them.  Those of you remember the Jammed In Project, if I ever mentioned it here would either know that it got replaced by the DiggerCast (which let’s face it, has a better sense of awareness anyway) and the st-timelines domain, which essentially is dead, but exists in small pockets.  I’m folding it into the Xeno Storm Wiki, under the writing section, so we at least have some record of its existance, as the writing there is too good to be forgotten, but maybe that’s just me thinking that.

Either way, it’s being moved so watch out for that – I’ll add an update to show when that happens.  Also expect me to write something about my character, Felix “Strider” Sheridan, as part of the Strider Chronicles.  I’m more than likely going to try to write it in a novel format, in the sense that it may be 2 book pages to a wiki page, although depending on how long each page is, it may actually end up being closer to 6; it’s going to be an even number for the most part (I’ll write it up first in a Word document, then see how much it takes up.  I’m rather excited at the thought that I’m finally getting into writing, but more than likely, the actual story will happen in installments from next year, while I flesh out the character before I start writing about him properly.  Keep in mind also that you may see a representation of him in Scott’s universe too, though different.  I intend to write up a few character profiles for him, and differing depending on the universe.   I think though that if I’ve a logical place to write in, then I’ll eventually start writing, although it’ll mainly just be text.  Also, as time goes on, I’ll be making use of the Wiki’s features in otder to make it better organised and also flow more freely.  It’ll certainly be an exciting time, all the same.

Anyway, I’m going to stop here, as I have nothing else to add, and I’m damn sure I’ve written more than yesterday’s entry >.>  I really have a tendancy to get carried away with myself, but I guess that’s by no means a bad thing… I just wish I could do it more often, especiallt with fiction.  Also, on a side-note, the XS Wiki will not be editable by anyone other than myself, Scott or my project partners.  The Wiki is more or less a place to display our ideas to the public, and not an outside collaborative effort; it’s entirely internal.  The reason why I’m using a wiki is purely because it has the features I’d be wanting for writing and showing off stuff; as much as I like blogs, I find it’s not really a system that’s good for really showing off ideas the way I want to, that is I want to be able to, without having to worry about too much coding, write a story and have it displayed in such a way it flows the way I want it to, as opposed to blog style.  I’ll most likely post an extract from a story I’m writing in my personal project blog from time to time and add in a link to the story, but that’s really the only blog exposure that anything with a narrative and is fiction will get.  The project section on the wiki will most likely be a summary of each the team/group project that is done under the XS banner, by way of a record; the gallery will be linked, as will the blog and any other info that the blog doesn’t handle, so in a sense it’ll contain things that we haven’t mentioned on the blog or in the photo gallery or other little, interesting things.

I sometimes seem a little too ambitious for my own good, to be honest, but the reason why I’m using blogs and wikis, and their multi counterparts is purely for simplicity and less hassle and remembering of passwords.  That and the fact that I can just write something and format it more easily, and not have to worry about much coding.  It makes perfect sense for me to go the way I’m going at the moment.  I’m also thinking that I may actually just make the Techie Guild Wiki the central place for tutorials and how-tos for all my websites, provided it’s techy stuff anyway.

It’s made me realise that my objectives seem to be the following:

• Don’t repeat content if you have to; if you need the same thing for another site, just link the original page you did, with a short explanation.
• If anything is related, share the base software, ie: have a multi-blog or multi-wiki system, so you only have one install, but multiple systems running off it, ie: have separate single blogs on a multi-blog system.
• Reduce the amount of coding required where possible, so it’s simple to get what you require out.
• Reduce the amount of separate logins where possible, less to remember.
• Reduce the amount of installs of the same software to conserve space and reduce headaches when backing up; use plugins to software if possible to get a more integrated system going.

It all makes perfect sense to be honest…  and while everything may be a little shaky at the start, as time goes on, the system will start to work better, especially given some of the systems are yet to be fully planned, or they’re easily integrated into a future system.  You can totally see the random randomness come in now, can’t you?  Admittedly, people may or may not understand what I have to say, but hey, so long as I understand it I guess it’s okay!  If you do understand it, then fair play to you; all I’m doing at the moment equates to a brain dump of ideas, in some possibly comprehensible, albeit readable format.  If anyone wants to make use of any of my ideas, feel free… but please let me know that you used it, because I’d be very interested to see it in action.  The problem with many of my ideas is that I think they might work, but I either am too disorganised to do them myself (quite common) or they’re beyond my ability at the moment (surprisingly common).  I’ve given out ideas freely in the past if I see a use for them in a friend’s project; in fact for the “Camelot” mIRC project I’ve worked on and off for the past 8 years is an ehancement of a MUD-like environment someone else developed, called Starbase Oceania (SBO).  The reason why I’m mentioning this is because I was the one who came up with the credits system for it; it was a system where you earned a credit for each time you typed a single line within the bot.  I also assisted with some of the descriptions as well.  Sadly, SBO appears not to be up any more, but I have plans to design a successor in mIRC 7.x although it may be a case of being too late, but to be honest I’ll more than likely use it as the basis for a prototype and then design a proper client-server system around it.

I’ll have to sort out the design for it though, which could take a while.  Either way, I want to first sort out more immediate projects before working on anything new, even if it was a preexisting project.  It’ll be a bugger to get it working, because of the network complications at my end, but I’ll think of something no doubt.  It may be that I’ll instead just use a VPS to host after and connect a website VPS to the dev server, so I can have a web frontend.  But yeah, I need to focus.

I’m going to stop here now before I run away with myself any further because I think I’ve nearly gone twice as long as the other entry without meaning to!  I could actually use Twitter as an alternate, off-site status system as well which would be useful.  Sadly though, I think MUDs are slowly being phased out, but I don’t care because I’m essentially designing a future framework and want to see how it would work at the most basic level first as I need to learn more advanced stuff.  I’ll speak about this project more in time, but for now, I’m stopping it here.

I feel that I’ll have a third entry, possibly more this month, so watch out for it, otherwise I’ll post more next month… I really need to write to my LiveJournal sometime though

This pretty much means that I’m going to spend a lot of time in Guild Wars (GW), hunting for treasure and also collecting copious amounts of grog, go me!  On a related notw, I’ve also gotten myself a second account, which works out cheaper than buying 4 more character slots, especially given that I got Guild Wars Prophecies (Prophecies) for 99p, after my Reward Card discount, which was quite nice indeed.  I coincidentally, by sheer luck managed to get a copy of Eye of The North cheap (second hand with an intact code) off Amazon so I can bring my characters up North and get them reserved for Guild Wars 2 (GW2).  Unfortunately, this means I’m only limited to the entire Tyria continent, which is by no means a bad thing, but I tend to like exploring the whole world.  All that said though, I’ll most likely get the other campaigns over the next while, when they are cheap enough.  I’m working on a few different title tracks for all the characters over two accounts at present, most notably Survivor (as the name suggests, it means you are not to die), of which I have 4 characters over all 3 campaigns marked for.  I also have a couple of characters going for Defender of Ascalon (reaching L20 in the starting area).  Before I continue, I’d like to reassure readers that this isn’t just going to be about GW, I just want to mention it now, as I’ve never really mentioned it before and it ties in nicely with the grog and loot collecting!  Anyway, with that aside, I’ve been working on all of this for quite a while now, though the second account only has been around the past month.  Still, there’s plenty to keep me going till GW2 comes out.  Coincidentally, if anyone ever wants to ever hang out on GW, let me know and we can do so.

Staying with MMORPGs a bit, and Lord of The Rings Online (LOTRO) has gone Free to Play in the USA, with the European edition following eventually.  There’s a delay with the European patch which you can google if you’re interested in it.  Alternatively, you could always try the USA edition, but I’m not on there, and I’m honestly in two minds about going there, even if I have an account.  I also have a Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) account which I haven’t really played yet either, due to updating issues, though the software is fully updated now so maybe I’ll give it a try.  I may end up having to setup a page specifically for my social networking/gaming/profile stuff so I don’t need to constantly mention it in a post.  But in order to do that I need to possibly remove a page, or be creative with the title (as well as rearranging other page titles!).  Same deal for LOTRO (Europe) applies for GW and Star Trek Online (STO), which I’ve started to get back into.  I also have plans to form a Fellowship in LOTRO and already have a guild in GW, if anyone wants to join.  As for sTO, I’m not sure what’s going on there as of yet, as my friends may be setting up a fleet, so I’d be inclined to join them if that is the case.  Coincidentally, any game clans/guilds/etc that I form are actually global ones, in the sense that they encompass the membership of all my websites and the ones I’ve a high involvement with.  This saves a logistical nightmare later and also means that the clan can be of a decent size.  There’s an official site up through GamerDNA, but it needs tweaking first.  As for my sites, I’ve decided to have a few changes.  First of all, I’m gonna be bringing out a site called the Techie Guild (TG), which will deal with a lot of techy (non-gaming stuff) and is coincidentally the parent site of the Gamed Up project.  I also decided that the TG is the best place for a support and tech wiki, though beyond the support section, I’m unsure of what that’ll entail as of yet.  I also think that it will reduce the burden on my planned IT support site in that I can just put all the paid services on there with the Techie Guild providing free support.

Granted, I may potentially lose money by offering free support, but some of the money I get will be through ads, plus there’s always someone who isn’t able to follow instructions (for whatever reason that might be), so there can be a service offered there… that’s the plan anyway.  Other than that, I’ve learnt that HTC are bringing out 2 new Desire models, the Desire HD and Desire Z.  First thing that struck me is that the Z version has a keyboard (obviously), which harks back to the G1 days… though some of the journalists online appeared to have forgotten that HTC did the G1!  Anyway, the nmajor difference between the HD and Z is that the HD has a 1GHz processor and 768MB of memory, whereas the Z has 800MHz and 512MB of memory.  They both have 1.5GB storage and are expandable (naturally).  That kind of puts a possible dent in my plans to aquire a Desire, although that said, it may benefit me because that means the original ones should go down in price and they are much better than a Tattoo anyway!  On a related note, I think I’ve actually become rather attached to the Androis OS now, not least because I have a secure place for all my contacts now as well, without having to pay anything extra.  I also managed to get rid of all my old phones cluttering things up, and between the ones I sold to CEX, and the ones I sold to Mazuma and Top Dollar Mobile, I made about… £150 quid, plus I managed to get rid of some of the boxes, apart from a couple of Nokia ones, which are used for the accessories and manuals.  Apparantly, people actually buy the boxes, which I was aware of, but didn’t do a lot about.   I may need to consider selling off the boxes in the near future instead of recycling them, if they make a few quid…. I certainly need any money I can get!

Continuing the gadgets theme, my old laptop has kinda died now, as the graphics card seems to have died, which is great.  I’m estimating a 200 quid repair cost as well, which isn’t good.  While I decide what to do with it, I purchased an Acer 8935G with a 3 year extended warranty (once bitten twice shy).  You’d think I’d have gone for another brand, but really, the laptop at least lasted a year and a half before deciding to mess up, and I think I may be able to get it fixed for less than 200 quid, if I’m lucky.  Either way, I’m pretty impressed with what I got with it, even if it has 2 things I bought separately built into it this time (BlueTooth and a TV reciever).  What particularly impresses me though is the inclusion of a Blu Ray recorder and also a quad core CPU.  It coincidentally is able to do the virtualisation for XP Mode on Windows 7, even though MS dropped the requirement.  I’m assuming though that with it, things run a little more smoothly.  It also has 2 x 500GB HDDs which is quite nice as well,though I learnt that this one needs 3 DVDs to back stuff up with this time!  That’s quite a few, to be honest and I’d much prefer just having it on a BluRay Disc, but those are pretty expensive at present, so sadly not an option.  Still, I expect that this computer will serve me for about 3 years before it comes to a replacement; the Quad core and Blu Ray drive have at least ensured that.  So long as it plays the games I want it to, I’ll be happy.

As for my two desktops, I’ve finally hooked up my KVM switch, so now I can switch between the two with ease andthough I can’t use the mouse or keyboard yet due to the fact it doesn’t like USB.  Additionally, I need to sort out the hard drives I’m going to put into the desktop too though I see little reason to upgrade the motherboard, given that I only have DDR1 RAM at my disposal at present.  I do eventually plan to upgrade my desktop as well, but not for another year yet.  I want to get it upgraded to 7 Home Premium 64 though and stick Ultimate 64 on the laptop as it can take it.  Given I was going to put Windows 7 on the laptop, I decided t keep the “new” Vista interface to prepare to use 7, although I need to sort out the drivers and how I’m going to reinstall everything, given I need to make a list of the drivers I need.  What is made easier though is the fact my desktop has internet access, so the process will be a lot simpler than I think.  Still, I think I’m going to have a major geekgasm when I see Guild Wars running at full resolution.  Oddly enough, I can now transfer some of my platinum on my main account to the character on my alternate account and I can also get myself past the gate, so score!  Admittedly though, I’m going to have to keep the alt character out of harm’s way as she needs to be kept alive for survivor.  At the very least though, I can complete all the quests for her now so that’s a good thing.  Both characters are rangers, as a point of interest, though my main is male going for Defender and staying in the starting area, and my other is female and going for Survivor and will eventually leave the area.

The cash boost will be very much appriciated too.  Given that she’s leaving though, I may actually just give all the flowers and collector stuff to my main character so I can get him an equipment pack.  This means I’d have a lot more storage as a result.  Oh, the possibilities.  One last thing before I stop writing though… I also started on Might & Magic: Heroes Kingdoms which is essentially Heroes of Might & Magic crossed with Lord of Ultima, which I think is a good thing.  I certainly enjoy it more than LoU anyway, which wasn’t a bad game but the Heroes of Might & Magic series was always a great one.  If you happen to be there or are interested in playing, let me know and we can chat or I can invite you to my alliance.  I really need to sort out the clan site soon though.  The Gamed Up Site is still in the planning stages as I need to rethink the design I had for it an experiment with it.  I also have a few more site ideas, but I’ll reveal more about those in time and also when I have everything else out of the way first.

I did also manage to pick up a few PC games as well, for quite cheap.  I got myself Evolva, Mass Effect, Star Trek: Borg and Space Empires V and with the exception of the ST game, they were all new!  I ended up spending a lot on games the past week or so nut they were so cheap I couldn’t help myself!  Staying on the subject of PCs, my desktop has developed a slight issue where one of my SATA power connectors has broken so I can only have one hard drive going at a time, which quite frankly sucks.  Thje laptop isn’t fareing well either, given that the screen has gone all funny on it.  I do hope it’s just a loose connection because otherwise I’m going to have to shell out for a new laptop, given the gfx card replacement is a good 200-odd Pounds!  Thankfully, my desktop problem is only a couple of quid to fix, though I might get a spare one, in case it falls down again.  In case you’re wondering how it fell, it was simply a case of me getting tangled up with my mouse lead and pulling on the desktop and knocking it down.  Thankfully, it was just that which was damaged… the hard drives seem to be fine which I consider a small miracle.  Not that I could afford to replace them at all.  Not the best week for my computers, is it?

And it isn’t really the best week for me phone-wise either in a sense… I’m trying to pick up a HTC Desire reasonably cheaply, but I’m not having much luck at present here either!  Oddly enough, C64Glen was talking about them quite recently, and I added my little part; I think it’s awesome there’s a C64 emulator on Android, but that said I think I had it on my G1… certainly is better with a keyboard anyway!   As it stands though, I now have less money than I thought I did, which isn’t a good thing, although I’m finally taking the plunge and selling off my extra phones though I seem to be missing one at the moment!  I’ll find it eventually, but I’ve decided to get rid of these phones partly to help fund my purchase of the Desire and also because they’re sitting round doing nothing!  I’ve actually also started to throw out the boxes the phones have come in to save a bit of space, though it seems that you can get money for them on eBay, but I can’t be bothered with that at present.   It is actually a bit of a concern the phone went missing, although it may be upstairs.  Anyway, I hope by the end of October, things will have picked up in many areas.   I also want to make a quick mention that I’ve finally recorded a 3rd episode of the DiggerCast with my friend Ollie, and that the second one will be going up soon, followed by the third.

Moving on now, I stumbled upon an interesting “Mocumentary” through the Money Saving Expert email, which I watched with interest.  It’s essentially an environmental thing, but well worth looking at.  It also brought me to this video about a person called Captain Charles Mooretalking about the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” on TED, which is related to the previous video. I then started looking at TED’s other videos and came up with this video, titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by Sir Ken Robinson.  This video is well worth a watch, especially towards the end where he starts talking about someone who was behind the coreography of some of the most popular theatre productions of all time.  I won’t say any more right now, but suffice to say, it both moved me to tears and also got me thinking about how certain people are treated and how different would things be if they were treated differently, like this person was.  The reason for the secrecy is that I don’t want to spoil the surprise, because it really is that amazing (at least to me), I feel that no matter what I say, I’ll never do it justice.  I do recommend watching the whole video through because it really makes perfect sense.  TED is really a great resource and I think that I need to start using it more than I have in the past.

I also watched another video from Clifford Stoll, titled “18 Minutes With An Agile Mind“, and I’m not sure if he’s actually like that, playing it up a bit or a bit of both, but all I know is that I could so see myself doing what he does, although admittedly, I was a little frustrated in the opening minutes because I couldn’t find an anchor point initially to help me follow the conversation, but as someone pointed out, it does keep you on your toes!  Lastly, I had my first experiences with FreeCycle and also GumTree Freebies a few days ago, which I support the concept of, that is giving something I’m disposing of another chance at being used.  Unfortunately though, the item I put up was set to be taken by someone, but we couldn’t get it down my stairs!  Such a pity, because asides from some minor (repairable?) damage, it was perfectly usable and now I have to destroy it simply because I can’t get it down my stairs!  The item in question was a divan bed base, one of those boxy sorts that was in one piece, so couldn’t be disassembled.  I have no idea how the moving guy actually got it up the stairs in the first place to be honest, seeing as after removing the banisters, the person collecting it and I were still unable to get it out!  Such a pity I’ll have to cut it in half, but I guess that’s what happens sometimes.

Fortunately, I have a bed base to replace that, one that can actually be easily taken apart and moved, but I would have liked the base to go to someone who needed it, as opposed to in the rubbish, though it may be able to go into the local recycling plant, so it mightn’t be a total loss.  I am trying to do my bit for the environment, but sometimes there’s stuff that grinds my efforts to a halt.  Oh well, such is life I guess.  Here’s hoping that I’ll be able to blog soon that I finally have a HTC Desire and can tell you what it’s like… though I suspect I may need to pay a lot more than I think.  I am also in the market for a video camera now too, as I’m hoping to make some videos, as well as bring the camera on investigations too.  This also may take a bit of time, but I have a better chance at getting a cheapish video camera over a cheapish Desire!

We’ll see what happens in time.

All that’s missing on this new PC is an internal speaker and a couple of hard drives; my system has always been to have a smaller drive for the OS, then at least one larger drive to install games, put downloads on, etc.  I have some spare drives for the job, but one which was connected to the board I’m using in the “new” system has a corrupted partition, which is a bugger.  I’m working on fixing it and downloaded a utility to help me recover the bad sectors, if possible.  The worst thing is that I might have to just give up on the drive and get a new one, which isn’t cheap, especially as it’s an IDE drive.  And when I went looking on the Maxtor site (it’s a Maxtor drive), I found out that Maxtor and Seagate have merged!  That one completely passed me by!  Anyway, another problem with my laptop, coincidentally is that the speaker wire’s become loosened while it was bieng fixed, so I no longer get sound from it, apart from the sub.  However, this issue is easily repaired by the tech, but I figured I should add it as it’s leading to something and related to PC issues.  My laptop also now has a fly lead in place of the DC jack (though the DC jack is a part of it), which makes it a lot more resiliant and robust (do they mean the same?).  I was told that not everyone likes it as it doesn’t look as good (costs the same price as a replacement, which are rare for Acers I might add!), but as I value function over looks, it was perfect for me.

Oddly enough, it seems that the DJ jack gets the most strain of laptops and I can see why!  I was told my DC jack was cracked and that luckily I nipped it in the bud… even though I had to be creative till I could afford to get the repair and even then the contacts were a bugger, I smelt burning and the unit heated up round the DC jack.  It sucks when you can just about afford to do it… fact is, it needed to be done, so I did it.  Anyway, I hope to get all my PCs up and running properly again soon, so I can finally start on my websites.  I have a new idea for the radio site I want to implement and my Gamed Up project now has a look, but I can’t afford it, and need sections to come up with.  I’ll mention some stuff I’ve done in a later blog entry and where possible, even without the layout, I’ll be adding in a games blog to write to, so as always watch this space.

And lastly, before I forget, I’m gonna be using Google AdSense on this site.  I’m hoping to make sure it doesn’t get in the way, but I’ll have to see.  I also plan on opening up 2 more Zazzle stores as well; one is for the Radio site(s) and another is most likely for the paranormal group I’m setting up.  I may actually set one up for Gamed Up as well, but we’ll see what happens.  I have somany ideas, I find it hard to focus on just one, lest I forget about the others.  I’ll get something sorted eventually, but I’ll take things slowly.  I hope to have things mostly run themselves eventually, which is why the DiggerCast is being moved back to the Radio site, as it cuts down on multiple logins.  One day soon though, I plan to sit myself down and dedicate a whole page to each site and domain so I know what is going where, as frankly I need it!

Anyway, I’m just rambling now, so I’ll stop.  I’ll try to have an update on my sites for the next post, though it depends on what else comes up between now and then.

To take a departure from what I was talking about, seeing as I have no idea how to contiue the above, one of the reasons that made me start this entry (yesterday) was that I was reminded of Bloomsday and that I was attending college at that time. I even got to hear some readings of Ulysses while sitting on Sandymount Green, which was nice. Of course, I got in trouble for being late back to college, but hey… 100 years since Ulysses was written was more important than a day in class… or so I’d like to think. Well, it’s my excuse so I’m sticking to it! Anyway, it’s amazing what can be learnt sometimes just by doing something what seems so minor at the time.

Heh, I did think I had more to say than this, although I’m realising that once everything round here is sorted out better, I’ll be able to take better advantage of things. My finances aren’t gonna be healthy for another few months, although as far as the Thame Cycle trip goes, by moving to where I am now I’ve made it easier to do the cycle a bit, because this town was on the itinerary. Of course, I do need to get a bike as well as a shed. I’m still trying to get this place sorted, but I’m beginning to think that it’s likely I’ll either have to have 3 bookcases in the dining room (study) or 2 in my main bedroom. It is a pain really, but I’ll need to give it more thought. Luckily, I do have space to move about, which is good. My computer desk is a bit screwed though unfortunately, meaning I might need to get a new one at some point soon… unless I can fix it. I’ll have to see what I can do, given I don’t have much space in the new place as I did in the old, which frustrated me. At least it’s warmer and cheaper which means I’ll have more money to do stuff.

I should really look at my 50 Things list to see what I can do in the near future. My finances percentage most likely can do with being put up a few notches…

Oh and before I forget, I added a FormSpring widget thing to my blog and also to my FB, so people can ask me questions >.> I also plan to completely redevelop FSIRC over the next few months, now I am in a position to be able to.

I also paid Maplins a visit as well and got some books on robotics, soldering and electronics, as well as a book on oscilloscopes, which sparked my interest since I studied at Greenwich.  I also got another set of LED Safety Glasses (which are gonna be modded, leaving the first ones I bought intact) and also an Audiophile 2496 audio card, which I was hoping to use for helping me with music composition at a later date, although it would be more nice just to have something professional to use with MIDI.  The problem is however that it needs audio cables, and while I do have them, I don’t have the space for them, so I’m either going to have to locate an external version of the card or make the space.  It’s occurred to me that I have also lost my reciept so I need to goo looking for it, damn.  That aside, I may have to just accept that this may be the best card for my price range (I don’t want to pay a lot more to be honest) and get a Game Port to USB adaptor, which to be honest may not be a bad idea, seeing as they’re cheap enough at 8 quid each!  I really only wanted that expensive card for the built-in MIDI port, and considering I can have a decent audio card with a cheaper separate bit, it may be best off just going down this route.  I have too many game controllers that require Game Ports to just drop the idea; I didn’t realise till much later that I had no MIDI port on my soundcard!  Another bonus as well is that it has some composing software with it, as well as some loops, so that’ll help me some more.

I think I could do with regorganising my PC both inside and outside, as there’s cables everywhere!  I have also been considering moving my router downstairs as well, so I can free up some space on my storage cabinet.  On that note as well, I should consider getting myself a printer server so I can use the printer with the network.  It might also be in my best interests to get an Ethernet-over-Power adaptor as well as although my desktop will have a wireless card in it, I will most likely want to wire it up too!  And if I don’t use it on the PC, it was going to be used on the PS3 as the wireless is notoriously unreliable on it, although that may be due to the fact that it doesn’t like AES encryption for some reason.  Perhaps this will be rectified in another update, but for now it’s damn annoying!  I phased out 802.11b and WEP in my network, due to both security and practicality issues… the majority of my devices are G compatible, and use WPA/WPA2 although my laptop is N, but I dunno if it’s been standardised yet, not that it’ll be beneficial to me, to be honest as most of my devices are G.  I was going to use a USB stick as an AP (access point) for my older DS games as it seems that the DS games only support B and WEP which I think is rather silly, but I can’t do a lot about it to be honest… oh well.  Moving my router downstairs would allow me to wire up my PS2 and PS3, thus bypassing the need for wireless.  Although I don’t know why I’d put my PS2 online as I’ve got no games that support the feature!  I prefer wireless (despite the insecurity of it), seeing as it means that I don’t have as many wires about and it keeps the place tidier.

Something tells me though that when I do decide to move the router, I’m going to have immense fun rearranging the place, seeing as I want to make the wires look as inconspicious as possible.  I already have a wire untangled from when I wired up my laptop (in my bedroom) to the router in the study although that just barely reached and I had to move the router as it was a foot short!  It was 3 foot short for if I wanted it on my lap in bed so I had to switch to the wireless again, after I worked out why it ouldn’t connect!  It is nice to know that I’ve learnt more about networking and computer hardware over the past few years so I know more or less what I’m doing now!  I’m best off doing all this when I return home though as the PC will be off, though I’m thinking it’ll be worth the extra hassle of moving stuff around.  The only problem is though that the router has a tendancy to reboot itself every now and again.  The other problem is that I’d have to remember to install the network card or use my laptop till I do install it in my desktop!  And while I think about it, I want another bookcase in my living room for additional storage of things although I’d only need a half-height one this time around.  That said though, the more I think about it, the more I think I might need to do some  interior redesign to be able to store stuff better.  Moving the router and my NAS drive certainly would be a few steps in the right direction, although I’m not 100% sure of where to keep them.  Either way, I think all my wires definitely need tidying up;  I could put 2 of my PC speakers on the wall behind my screen to make a tiny bit of space as well.  It does look like this will require quite a bit of thought.

The ultimate aim is to make a bit more space than I have now, or rather additional space.  It’s times like these make me wish I owned my own place as opposed to renting as it’ll be a pain having to restore everything in the future.  But enough about my living space (I do want to eventually show off some pics of the place later when I’ve organised it more), I’m going to talk more about my DC3 idea.  For those of you new to the DC concept, and also what happened to the first two, I need to talk about it some more…

The DiggerCast (DC) was a podcast that had kind of random beginnings.  Back in 2005 or 2006, my friend Sean and I were on Skype, where he was testing his audio equipment and we were testing the recording function.  I suggested we try out a podcast, and the DiggerCast was born.  I registered the domain diggercast.com and Sean hosted the site on his space.  He also produced the first podcast as well, though unfortunately we never did any more after that.  Also the original, undedited content is no longer existant. , which is a shame but it was too large to keep.  Phase II, as I referred to it as was to be revival with a new member of the team, Mark (from thelongmile.net) joining us.  We managed to record some semi-rough drafts for the series, but again it didn’t take off, despite all the hype I was giving about the releaunch.

It was between the first and second phases that I renamed the DiggerCast to the NotCast, as the domain was unable to be registered, as I let it lapse by accident.  Anyway, I subsequently re-aquired and renamed the NotCast back to the DiggerCast and I’ll be keeping the domain for the forseeable future.   Anyway, those Phase 2 attempts will be uploaded on the new site when I get that up after I return from Ireland and after the next blog entry meaning anytime between the 15th and the 28th.  The 3rd attempt is perhaps the most ambitious version of the project, and maybe the final one if it doesn’t work out.  This means I’m being both ambitious and cautious at the same time, and making sure the concept and premise are both rock solid.  This means that the official recording won’t be starting till sometime in the next year.  There’s also the fact that there’s going to be some content that needs to be put on the site first and this is where many people will be needed to help.  Essentially, the concept of this phase of the DiggerCast is thatthere will be a few blogs, he first one being the main site itself, which will have a forum plugin and also a social bookmarking plugin.

This will mean then that as opposed to getting stuff to talk about from the likes of Slashdot, Digg.com and similar sites (as was the case with the 2nd phase), we get stuff from the site proper and talk about the top 5 or 10 links posted by the users.  The format of the podcast will most likely be a 30 minute podcast about the top content for the past two weeks, though the podcast will always be two weeks behind the site content.  I’m still trying to work out the nitty grity of it all, but what will happen is the following:

Let’s say that each month has 28 days for simplicity…. not that I’m sure if this is going to be simple to explain or not!  Anyway, say we have to talk about content from the 1st-14th of the month in the podcast.  The podcast wouldn’t be released till the 28th of the month, though thinking about it maybe I can shift it to the 21st.  The idea essentially being that we get 1-2 weeks to read up on the content and associated comments, discuss it amongst ourselves a little, write it all down, then also do recording and production on the podcast.  This could possibly be done over a single week, although I’m still trying to sort out the finer points, especially in the interests of being consistant with having a podcast at a regular frequency.  Another alternative is that once a month, the podcast gets posted, at the end of the first week of each month, which summarises last month’s content and about 5 weeks of comments.  The only problem there is that we’d possibly have to do it for an hour, or just focus on the top 5 or 6 posts for the month so it can be fir into half an hour.  Bleh, so much to think about and decide!

Anyway, why I need people’s help is that I would ask you to sign up to this site when it’s released to the world officially, but only if the idea interests you.  I’m not forcing you to sign up if it doesn’t interest you, especially as the content of the podcast is based upon what users contribute to the site and it’s all well and good having lots of users, but if hardly any of them post it won’t work too well.  In this case it’s quality over quantity.  If you have any friends that may be interested as well, you can point them to the site to see what they think of it.  Perhaps the idea has been done before, but I’d like to try it out for myself.  Even if you don’t want to sign up to the site, I’d appriciate suggestions as to what I could do with the format or recommended software for using this with.  At the moment, I plan to use WPMU with a forum plugin, a social bookmarking plugin and also a podcasting plugin.  For the podcast itself, I’d be using Prettymay Call Recorder, Skype and Audacity.  The idea is still in flux atm, and I haven’t worked out some of the finer details, or how to summarise the concept, so I’m just doing a brain dump in here.  Again, I’d appriciate any suggestions or comments on the idea and if you have any questions, ask away as it might help me to focus better.

I’ll stop talking about this idea for now, as I think I’ve said enough about it for now.  I’ll reveal the name for the site in a follow-up entry, but seeing as I was supposed to post this yesterday, I’m gonna pick up the pace.  I want to mention as well that I got a good deal at Game for Lord Of The Rings Online Vols. 1 & 2, along with a 60 day game time card.  I got them both for 25 quid, which is cool.  I’ve been wanting to play LOTRO for quite a while, so this is a great time for me to try it.  I might actually report on it at a later stage as well when I get to grips with it.  I’m also reordering my blog a bit too, as there’s some blogs that I list that haven’t been updated in a while and also a few things that are redundant which I’ve not even fully looked into.  I’m also aware that this blog is a bit of a melting pot of my ideas and thoughts and everything else put into the one place, which isn;t necessarily a bad thing, but I feel I could do with some better segregation in the new future.  Something tells me that I won’t get it till at least the next year, when my games blog is up and running.  There will certainly be a reduction of categories and tags when I’ve finished with revamping the blog, as well as also checking out the links.  I’m also going to work out how to use the trackbacks properly as well and start linking people’s blog entries.  I’m relatively new to proper blogging, so I’m bound to have a few rough patches here and there.  One thing I do need to look at though is moving stuff from my Blogger blog to here, and stuff from my GameTrailers blog to my games blog.  I also intend to have a paranormal-type blog as well where I’ll muse about paranormal stuff and anything I’ve done in relation to rhat field.  Keep in mind that the frequency will be semi-regular, much like what I plan my Project and Experiment blog to be.  Still, it might be worth a look if you’re into things that go bump in the night.

It’s funny that with a lot of these things I’m doing, I’m seemingly spreading myself thin, when the actual fact of the matter, I’m essentially just streamlining and regulating my posts so there’s consistancy behind them.  I do admit I have a lot of free time at the moment, but I am gonna start occupying myself more over the next year.  I’m also, finally going to the gym, although I will miss out on about a week of it due to going to Ireland, but when I return it’ll be a bit easier to do, apart from at Christmas.  I’ll be glad when I streamline this blog a bit better though, as it means that I won’t have as many huge posts to worry about as my average post seems to run up to about 3-4000 words!  I seem to have a lot to say, that said.  If I could focus this tendancy to write 2000+ words into my academic work, I’d be doing well!  I may have to consider the 1 post a week method in the new year, so I can average out the words making sure there’s less to read, and slowing down my rambling.  It is just as well that I separate stuff with paragraphs as I write as reading this without paragraphs would be a nightmare!

I’m gonna finish off here, and continue the once every two weeks posting until February next year, where I’ll reevaluate things.  It’s going to take me some time to settle into the patterns of writing, to be honest.  I will also try to keep things a little less verbose in the future, as well as starting to include links and publishing on time!  I am thinking that once a week may become a more viable option though, especially given my short memory!  Well, thinks can only improve, especially when I’ve nailed this blog down.  In the grand scheme of things though, a blog is one of the easier sites to manage; I kept this blog simple as all I needed it for was writing mainly, although my Twitter and Flickr are linked into them for practical purposes.  Rome wasn’t built in a day though, so I can’t expect to see instant improvement.  In the future, I’ll try to make the blog more about my opinions on stuff, with some links to read, as opposed to what I’m working on.  I may actually make a blog for that on my secondary site, so I can talk about stuff there in a bit more detail, as it seems that I talk about what I’m working on more than anything else when that’s not what this blog is supposed to be about mainly… I think I’ll need to think about things a lot, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’d appriciate your comments on the DiggerCast 3 project, as well as suggestions for it (how many times have I asked that now?) as I want to start seeing what I could do to make the site as good as it could be, although requirements do change given it’s a dynamic project.  Keep in mind that I may not be able to implement the suggestion right away, or even for the DC, though it may fit in elsewhere.  I’ll inform you of this though.

Lastly, I was gonna try out AION, although it seems that it’s been released now, soI can’t do a first impression of the beta, meaning that I have to purchase the full copy, dammit. Apparantly it’s not terribly good though, but I’ve not been given reasons as to why at the moment… however, I’m kinda wary of spending 35-45 quid on a game that may not be all that good. Again, more research is required into it. I may just buy it to test it out, although I’m wary of a monthly fee. I’m still playing Guild Wars due to its lack of monthly fee and I recently got back into Second Life because I finally got my account unlocked, so w00t!

Er, anyhow… I’ll update with a larger post next time, covering one of the above topics. I’ll more than likely try out AION anyway, so I can see what it’s like, but that impressions thing is going to be shunted to my games blog, which I’ll be getting up between now and the end of the year. I have other projects that need more immediate attention first, so the sooner they get sorted, the sooner my games blog will be up. I also hope to have a podcast started within that timeframe too, so watch this space for updates.

But for now, that’s all folks.