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	<title>Stormkeeper&#039;s Blog &#187; 50 things</title>
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		<title>Relatively short update</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2011/10/relatively-short-update/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2011/10/relatively-short-update/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:39:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[50 things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcasting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stormhaven Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Xeno Storm Network]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DiggerFeast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FSIRC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Projects]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Future]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=419</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Okay, I promise to keep this update shortish and to the point.  Essentially, this is mostly centred around my 50 Things page and also around the future of this site.  Firstly, I&#8217;ve decided that for the likes of the books and movies entries, I&#8217;m just going to round up/down to the nearest full unit of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Okay, I promise to keep this update shortish and to the point.  Essentially, this is mostly centred around my 50 Things page and also around the future of this site.  Firstly, I&#8217;ve decided that for the likes of the books and movies entries, I&#8217;m just going to round up/down to the nearest full unit of 5, for simplicity, though the individual numbers will still be accurate.  Secondly, I&#8217;m starting to make plans for a London to New Zealand (via Hong Kong, Japan and Australia) trip using only trains and ships/ferries.  I shall also be doing this with at least 2 friends and although it&#8217;s a Xeno Storm project, it will be done in conjunction with Stormhaven Media, where we will have a special blog dedicated to our travels of a team.  Essentially, there shall be episodes that we upload to the show blog (along with other notes), and also as an extra, we shall have our own personal blogs so you can see stuff from our perspective.  There will also be a mirror blog which replicates the content on the show blog, as my plans at present are to have a show blog for use on the Stormhaven Media site, then a blog on the Xeno Storm site, so there&#8217;s a bit of crossover between the two sites.</p>
<p>This crossover system will be in place elsewhere too, but this is the most obvious (and perhaps simplest) example of its use.  Additionally, in order to somplify things, Stormkeeper dot Net will be moving to a unified system within the Xeno Storm Blogsite.  Granted, I may have said this before, but it&#8217;s worth saying again, for various reasons.  First of all, the reason why I&#8217;m doing this is to save myself a bit of space, though less logins to remember is another factor as well.  The other thing about it is that I&#8217;ll be linking the blog (and a wiki) to the forums, which will mean a single sign on for everything, which makes things a lot easier in the long run.  Additionally, I&#8217;ll also be looking at putting an addon that ties in domains to a WordPress account, which means very little overall will change, though in the early days, I may use my other personal domain to test things out while maintaining this concurrently.</p>
<p>Eventually though, I&#8217;ll be moving the blo over, and pointing my other personal domain to Stormkeeper dot Net.  I will also be removing all the games related tags (that I haven&#8217;t used) and the projects tags, though the games-related posts will stay put.  The reason for this is that my games blog is now going to be elsewhere, albeit temporarily, but games related posts will mostly be there now, unless there&#8217;s crossover.  The projects will be moved to a dedicated projects blog, along with the majority of my portfolio as well, which will free up space on my personal blog to do more personal stuff.  But yeah, there shall be a lot of reshuffling.  Additionally, I will have my own travel blog, which will both detail my mini and personal trips, but also will deal with my side of a team trips.  My projects blog will deal only with my own personal projects and tutorials, with my &#8220;travel blog&#8221; (which will probably get renamed) also handling my part of team projects, so I need to give a rethink of the blogs being called travel blogs.  Additionally, I think my projects blog may be more of a portfolio than anything else, so I may just rename it to that instead.  Even if it is a single sign in system, I still don&#8217;t want blogs all over the place, so will have to give stuff serious thought!</p>
<p>As well as domains though, I hope to use subdomains, but more on that later, once I&#8217;ve gotten a handle on things.  The first thing I intend to put up for XS is the forums, just so I can start getting stuff ready to deploy.  The next things I&#8217;ll be putting up are the FSIRC forums and also the pilot episode of the DiggerFeast and while not strictly XS related, there is some connection.  Either way though, I have a lot of plans for XS and will hope to carry them out this month, thus makingmy life a bit simpler.  I do feel I should inform people that I need to deploy ads on my blogs now as well, to help pay for server costs.  They were planned for any forums I run, but the blogs until now had remained ad free.  This will change over the next couple of months, though I&#8217;ll assure my readers that the ads won&#8217;t be intrusive or be the least intrusive out there.  Either way, these ads will help keep my sites active, or at least allow me to expand my operations.  I do have other plans for revenue generation as well, but they might apply more to my other websites more than here, possibly.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll leave it at that for now.  Watch this space for details as to updates with this site, and also when the XS forums will be relaunched!</p>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Yes, it has been a while hasn&#8217;t it?</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2011/09/yes-it-has-been-a-while-hasnt-it/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2011/09/yes-it-has-been-a-while-hasnt-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:11:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[50 things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Spirits Network]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gamed Up]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcasting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stormhaven Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stormhaven Networks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Xeno Storm Network]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DiggerCast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[podcasting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Projects]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Site Update]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Future]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=395</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Between looking at my blog, and also the email asking why I haven&#8217;t updated, I&#8217;m now very much aware that I kinda disappeared for the past 4 months! Unfortunately my first trip to the USA wasn&#8217;t really all that good on the whole, but I did have a few nice moments and while it wasn&#8217;t [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Between looking at my blog, and also the email asking why I haven&#8217;t updated, I&#8217;m now very much aware that I kinda disappeared for the past 4 months! Unfortunately my first trip to the USA wasn&#8217;t really all that good on the whole, but I did have a few nice moments and while it wasn&#8217;t all gloom and doom, I ended up having to write it off. Still, I&#8217;m better prepared for when I next go there. Anyway, because of all my hiccups across the pond, I was unable to do any episodes of the DiggerFeast like I planned, especially given the aftermath I was trawling through right up till late last month. However, I have at least managed to make preparations for a pilot episode, though whether I am doing it solo or with others is currently dependent upon whatever happens over the coming weeks. The DiggerCast was subject to a similar fate, but rest assured, now that I&#8217;m back home, and in (somewhat) of a right mind, I can continue the DiggerFeast and DiggerCast soon.</p>
<p>However, given that I&#8217;m going forward with my Stormhaven Media idea, it is very likely you won&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;ll think of something eventually.</p>
<p><span id="more-395"></span></p>
<p>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 (&#8220;Feast your eyes on this oddity!&#8221;, 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.</p>
<p>Speaking of Gamed Up&#8230; it finally has a presence besides on here, though it&#8217;s only temporary (and also in a single place; also has only one entry at the time of writing, but that&#8217;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&#8217;s very likely they&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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 &amp; consultation forum, so they can tell me what they want to see in a chat site&#8230; I&#8217;m sure that staff that listens (or at least tries to listen) and general stability will be pretty high on the list!</p>
<p>Anyway&#8230; that aside, it is also an excellent opportunity to get FSIRC, FSChat&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;ll work well for them), so I&#8217;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 &#8211; 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&#8217;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!</p>
<p>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&#8217;t need a separate site for my named domain&#8230; 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.</p>
<p>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&#8217;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&#8217;ll have some practice runs with that and I&#8217;ll keep the SK.net domain here til I&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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&#8217;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 &amp; 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.</p>
<p>I&#8217;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&#8217;t know till I try&#8230;</p>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>I think it&#8217;s about time for a new post&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/12/i-think-its-about-time-for-a-new-post/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/12/i-think-its-about-time-for-a-new-post/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:06:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Games Stuff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Project Stuff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[50 things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DiggerCast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gamed Up]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gamed Up Crew]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geekery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guild Wars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lord of The Rings Online]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Matterbox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MMORPGs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[podcasting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Projects]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Site Update]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stormhaven Radio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Future]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=328</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I imagine that these ones will be shorter than usual as I&#8217;m adopting a drip-feed stance at the moment, for some reason. This will essentially mean more posts, but smaller ones. Anyway, I have a few things I want to mention. First of all, there will be an important development from next Monday. I&#8217;m going [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I imagine that these ones will be shorter than usual as I&#8217;m adopting a drip-feed stance at the moment, for some reason.  This will essentially mean more posts, but smaller ones.  Anyway, I have a few things I want to mention.  First of all, there will be an important development from next Monday.  I&#8217;m going to be moving servers, so the site may be down for a few days, though this also means I have the opportunity to implement new things, although admittedly, the things that get priority are existing concerns, as while I do have websites to start up, I think the existing ones need more attention first.  I do have a few projects planned though.  First of all, I have found a way to keep track of my top 250 movies list with an app on Facebook called <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/mytwofifty/?type=discovery">Twofifty</a>, which I saw a friend of mine add, so it shold be a bit easier for me to keep track of what I watched now, although I may have to keep in mind that the top 250 on that list are going to be in flux at the bottom, though at the same time, there shouldn&#8217;t be too many changes given a lot of the films are classics; I&#8217;ll just have a buffer of 10 and then essentially make up the 250 from the combination of the moving movies.  Additionally, I signed up to a website that does book stuff, but the name escapes me at present although it looks like I&#8217;ll be switching to <a href="http://www.allconsuming.net">allconsuming.net</a>, as I just signed up to its sister site, &#8220;43things&#8221;&#8230; after much hassle in getting my username and linking it to Facebook properly!  Thank god I won&#8217;t have to do that again!</p>
<p>Actually, it seems my hassles won&#8217;t give up, as even though I deleted my accounts, it still thinks it&#8217;s linked into Facebook on those accounts.  I&#8217;m not happy, but not much I can do at present&#8230; at least I have the nickname I want.  I&#8217;ll sort out FB integration later.  Anyway, after that exercise in frustration, I figured I&#8217;d also mention that I&#8217;m going to be making a couple YouTube vids and a blog entry related to the <a href="http://www.matterbox.co.uk/">Matterbox</a>, which I just received in the post today.  There was a chocolate bar in there (emphasis on was) and also 2 games there which people are asked to review, so what I&#8217;m going to do is make an entry, and using pics that someone else has taken (properly attributed of course) write a bit about it, then the first video will talk about the stuff in it, and the second one (possibly a pair) will be with a person playing both games.  It&#8217;ll make a change from the DiggerCast, which coincidentally is moving home, but the domain will still point to the DC&#8217;s current location, and in the future, it&#8217;ll be like it is now, although for the foreseeable future, the blog will get moved into its own space, till I work out how to move stuff into a multi-blog and put a domain on top of it.  Of course, that&#8217;ll happen after everything has been moved over.  Oh, additionally, I will be using the Rating WP plugin on the current DC site and future Podcasts website, so people can rate the episodes (be gentle!).  It goes without saying that the Gamed Up website&#8217;ll use it too for its reviews system, though people will be able to give the game their own score..</p>
<p>I&#8217;m also hoping to gather a team of people for the DiggerCast, so we can make sure it sticks to the new pattern I&#8217;ve planned out for it (once every 2 weeks is an episode).  I plan on uploading the 2 episodes I have recorded soon, but the new eps recording this coming weekend won&#8217;t be up till Xmas Eve; I will upload the 2 outstanding eps that weekend though just to have them sorted.  There will be one ep in January which will be a farewell episode with regards to the Phase designation, meaning it&#8217;s going right into production!  Regular series episodes will start in February, and will be uploaded once every 2 weeks, recording the weekend before, giving time to edit the episode and eventually transcribe it.  Either way, with the server move happening, it gives me an opportunity to integrate stuff better and get a decent system going.  Hopefully by the start of next year, everything will be sorted, and I won&#8217;t want to tear my hair out &gt;.&gt;</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll add more updates in due course.  Oh, and before I forget&#8230; I&#8217;m not playing Guild Wars for a while now, given I&#8217;m getting into Lord of The Rings Online, and hopefully will be setting up a kinship (when I have enough people to).  I&#8217;ve gotten myself and 2 other friends addicted to it, so we&#8217;re gonna be travelling Middle Earth for some time.  If anyone is actually interested in joining us, let me know here and we&#8217;ll see about questing together.  Additionally please note that we&#8217;re on the EU version of LoTRO, so US people can&#8217;t join us, but I will at least make inroads to have an equivalent US version of what we&#8217;re doing.</p>
<p>Watch this space for updates.</p>
<p>Edit: I&#8217;ve just made progress with my 250 movies goal, although admittedly I&#8217;ve seen them in the past but I&#8217;ve seen them so much, i want to take them off the list so I can focus on other movies instead, especially ones I have but haven&#8217;t seen in a while. or even haven&#8217;t seen at all!  Still, progress is progress.  I can also update the entry regarding podcasting, seeing as the DiggerCast is going into a proper production phase which I&#8221;m going to dub G2, given that There was a G1 ep posted (under Phase 1), and phases 2 and 3 were planned with a few test recordings (but never released), so the 3.5 phase is the true G2.</p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Largest entry so far&#8230; or my huge brain dump.</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/09/largest-entry-so-far-or-my-huge-brain-dump/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/09/largest-entry-so-far-or-my-huge-brain-dump/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Sep 2010 02:06:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[50 things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Games Dev.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Games Stuff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Project Stuff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DiggerCast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geekery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[podcasting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Projects]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Skype]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Future]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=297</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Before I begin,  I&#8217;ve noticed that Twitter now has an apps system, which surprised me at first but I guess it was to be expected.  At least it might make things a bit more secure anyway.  I&#8217;m going to have to apply the same modification to the DiggerCast as well, I think and also the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Before I begin,  I&#8217;ve noticed that Twitter now has an apps system, which surprised me at first but I guess it was to be expected.  At least it might make things a bit more secure anyway.  I&#8217;m going to have to apply the same modification to the DiggerCast as well, I think and also the radio site, but I&#8217;ll cross that bridge when I come to it.  Moving onto WordPress 3.x, which is the reason I am even aware of the new Twitter Apps system, I&#8217;m impressed at how much easier it is to update everything and also how much clearer the update information is displayed.  I&#8217;m not sure if it&#8217;s necessarily faster or anything, but it feels, well better.  I&#8217;m certainly looking forward to using it in my current and new site deployments anyway.  Although thinking about it, updating the DiggerCast seems a little redundant, given I&#8217;m folding it back into the Stormhaven Radio website, in order to have a podcasting platform to work from; I&#8217;m finding it a tad annoying at the thought of setting up a separate single blog site and domain for every podcast I have, so I&#8217;m just going to put them all within the radio blog as it&#8217;s cleaner.  If I want a domain, I can just tack it onto the WordPress blog url somehow, which might take a little tweaking, but it&#8217;ll be worth it in the end.  I really should learn more about webservers and HTML/CSS and PHP though.</p>
<p>One thing I&#8217;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&#8217;m using StatCounter to keep progress on my sites; one of my sites (Therians dot Net &#8211; TdN) actually surprised me by indicating I&#8217;ve had over 1300 visitors to it in the past month, which isn&#8217;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&#8217;s moving soon and I don&#8217;t fancy complicating matters with it just yet.   Besides, I&#8217;m still testing stuff out and it&#8217;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&#8217;s website and plan out a prototype chat site, which should be fun.<span id="more-297"></span></p>
<p>Moving on to the <a href="http://www.stormkeeper.net/50-things-to-do-before-im-40/" target="_blank">50 things</a> bit, as I haven&#8217;t actually updated it much, if at all.  The list of updated ones are below &#8211; I&#8217;m going to summarise them in a paragraph each:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>9. Properly produce a Podcast/Internet Radio Show. – (75% Complete)<br />
</strong><strong> </strong></li>
<li><strong>14. Own part of a pub/bar. – (??% Complete)</strong></li>
<li><strong>29. Join the Special Constabulary. – (25% Complete)</strong></li>
<li><strong>33a. Be free of all short term debts  – (80% Complete)</strong></li>
<li><strong>35. Learn to to manage my time better. – (20% Complete)</strong></li>
<li><strong>36. Learn to budget my money properly. – (20% Complete)</strong></li>
<li><strong>46. See wolves face to face and maybe help out at a sanctuary. – (10% Complete)</strong></li>
<li><strong>19. Visit the birthplace of my ancestors and learn more about them. – (20% Complete)</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>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&#8217;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&#8230; keep you posted on that one.  It is nice to know that I&#8217;m slowly hammering out a system though it is a bit frustrating it&#8217;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&#8217;s the podcasting bit for now.</p>
<p>As for 14, no idea what happened there, it seems to have gone kaput!  What else can I say other than it&#8217;s just as well I haven&#8217;t invested any money into it, or is it because I didn&#8217;t that that happened?  We may never know.</p>
<p>With regards to 29, I&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8230; it&#8217;s been over 7 years since I had to attend any sort of job or positional interview now, so understandably I&#8217;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&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ve mentioned before, still nothing to report there, though I think I&#8217;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.</p>
<p>33a, 35 and 36 are all tied into each other in a sense, well 33a and 36 are at least so I&#8217;ll start with them.  I&#8217;ve never been all that good at managing my money, and the fact I currently have no real &#8220;local savings&#8221; at the moment proves it.  Although admittedly, moving does actually take a lot of blame for that; it&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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&#8217;t a chance in hell at winning&#8230; I certainly haven&#8217;t won anything since the bonds were issued!  They&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8230; 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&#8230; I&#8217;m doubtful there would be all that much interest on the whole though.  Still, every little helps, right?</p>
<p>As for time management, I&#8217;ve gotten myself a diary and plan to continue to get one, and start writing in it.  I&#8217;m going to get an A5 one, given I never really have anything to put in it anyway.  I&#8217;m going to look at getting one from PoundLand, as they&#8217;re cheaper.  I still amn&#8217;t sure if I want one for personal, one for business or just merge the two together&#8230; actually, that may be best; I can just tag each entry with B or P, so I know what&#8217;s what, though this means that I need a bigger diary&#8230; erg, complicated!  I&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;ll work out a lot better for me.  I am slowly getting better in both of these, even if they&#8217;re not exactly related, apart from the fact I&#8217;m awful with both of them!</p>
<p>Lastly, and still somehow not being as verbose as yesterday&#8217;s blog entry, we come to the wolf sanctuary bit.  I&#8217;ve decided it&#8217;s best if I go to somewhere more local to me, so I&#8217;ll eventually be visiting Wildwood, which is coincidentally near Canterbury although when I eventually go around there, I can&#8217;t visit, as it&#8217;ll be for a different reason entirely.  I completely forgot I updated it!  I&#8217;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&#8217;s many old and new ones I haven&#8217;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.</p>
<p>And definitely lastly, the geneology thing.  I&#8217;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.</p>
<p>I think it&#8217;s only <strong>just</strong> shorter than yesterday&#8217;s post at this point!  I do have a lot to write about sometimes, and I&#8217;m going to be unapologeltic about it (as I should), given that it&#8217;s my blog, and its entire point is a place for me to put my thoughts to paper.  It is likely that I&#8217;ll end up putting the stuff I get up to as a blog of this site&#8217;s multi-blog system now, given I&#8217;m not going to have a dedicated blog for my CV &amp; 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&#8217;s good to have somewhere where I can just write without worrying about code.  And on the subject of writing (like I haven&#8217;t done enough already!), I&#8217;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 &#8220;subdirectories&#8221;, given I&#8217;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&#8217;ve heard very little, so I&#8217;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&#8217;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.</p>
<p>I&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;s likely to get its own domain because then I know it has enough support to get off the ground; it&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;s just me thinking that.</p>
<p>Either way, it&#8217;s being moved so watch out for that &#8211; I&#8217;ll add an update to show when that happens.  Also expect me to write something about my character, Felix &#8220;Strider&#8221; Sheridan, as part of the Strider Chronicles.  I&#8217;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&#8217;s going to be an even number for the most part (I&#8217;ll write it up first in a Word document, then see how much it takes up.  I&#8217;m rather excited at the thought that I&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;ve a logical place to write in, then I&#8217;ll eventually start writing, although it&#8217;ll mainly just be text.  Also, as time goes on, I&#8217;ll be making use of the Wiki&#8217;s features in otder to make it better organised and also flow more freely.  It&#8217;ll certainly be an exciting time, all the same.</p>
<p>Anyway, I&#8217;m going to stop here, as I have nothing else to add, and I&#8217;m damn sure I&#8217;ve written more than yesterday&#8217;s entry &gt;.&gt;  I really have a tendancy to get carried away with myself, but I guess that&#8217;s by no means a bad thing&#8230; 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&#8217;s entirely internal.  The reason why I&#8217;m using a wiki is purely because it has the features I&#8217;d be wanting for writing and showing off stuff; as much as I like blogs, I find it&#8217;s not really a system that&#8217;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&#8217;ll most likely post an extract from a story I&#8217;m writing in my personal project blog from time to time and add in a link to the story, but that&#8217;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&#8217;t handle, so in a sense it&#8217;ll contain things that we haven&#8217;t mentioned on the blog or in the photo gallery or other little, interesting things.</p>
<p>I sometimes seem a little too ambitious for my own good, to be honest, but the reason why I&#8217;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&#8217;m going at the moment.  I&#8217;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&#8217;s techy stuff anyway.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s made me realise that my objectives seem to be the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Don&#8217;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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>Reduce the amount of coding required where possible, so it&#8217;s simple to get what you require out.</li>
<li>Reduce the amount of separate logins where possible, less to remember.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<p>It all makes perfect sense to be honest&#8230;  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&#8217;re easily integrated into a future system.  You can totally see the random randomness come in now, can&#8217;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&#8217;s okay!  If you do understand it, then fair play to you; all I&#8217;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&#8230; but please let me know that you used it, because I&#8217;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&#8217;re beyond my ability at the moment (surprisingly common).  I&#8217;ve given out ideas freely in the past if I see a use for them in a friend&#8217;s project; in fact for the &#8220;Camelot&#8221; mIRC project I&#8217;ve worked on and off for the past 8 years is an ehancement of a MUD-like environment someone else developed, called <a href="http://www.mombu.com/games/quadrant/t-irc-rp-with-a-difference-8537369.html" target="_blank">Starbase Oceania</a> (SBO).  The reason why I&#8217;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&#8217;ll more than likely use it as the basis for a prototype and then design a proper client-server system around it.</p>
<p>I&#8217;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&#8217;ll be a bugger to get it working, because of the network complications at my end, but I&#8217;ll think of something no doubt.  It may be that I&#8217;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.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m going to stop here now before I run away with myself any further because I think I&#8217;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&#8217;t care because I&#8217;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&#8217;ll speak about this project more in time, but for now, I&#8217;m stopping it here.</p>
<p>I feel that I&#8217;ll have a third entry, possibly more this month, so watch out for it, otherwise I&#8217;ll post more next month&#8230; I really need to write to my LiveJournal sometime though <img src='http://www.stormkeeper.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_neutral.gif' alt=':|' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
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		<title>50 Things Honourable Mentions</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2009/12/187/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2009/12/187/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:43:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[50 things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funny]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=187</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While compiling my 50 Things list, I&#8217;ve come across a few gold ones that either I&#8217;ve done and make me laugh, are just plain wrong or they&#8217;re plain funny in themselves&#8230; they&#8217;re not going  on my final list, but I figure I&#8217;d make a list of some of the ones I liked, with handy dandy [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>While compiling my <a href="http://www.stormkeeper.net/50-things-to-do-before-im-40/" target="_self">50 Things</a> list, I&#8217;ve come across a few gold ones that either I&#8217;ve done and make me laugh, are just plain wrong or they&#8217;re plain funny in themselves&#8230; they&#8217;re not going  on my final list, but I figure I&#8217;d make a list of some of the ones I liked, with handy dandy categorising!  It&#8217;s kind of funny though that some of these got on a list of things to do before you&#8217;re a certain age.  At least I can say that I&#8217;ve lived somewhat compared to when I was a fair bit younger.  I have been thinking about how things changed over the past 8-9 years, although I think this is best saved for my LiveJournal.</p>
<p>Anyway, on with the show&#8230;</p>
<p>A warning before you continue&#8230; the content following is partly adult in nature.  If you&#8217;re easily offended I&#8217;d not click below.  You have been warned.</p>
<p><span id="more-187"></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Guilty as Charged &gt;.&gt;</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>Delay paying a bill until the summons arrives &#8211; <em>Kinda, I just simply forgot!</em></li>
<li>Been awake for more than 30 hours straight &#8211; <em>I&#8217;ve done it without ill effect, though once I couldn&#8217;t sleep for 48 hours and became dillusional!</em></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>I Wish!</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>Say something obscene on national television. &#8211; <em>Who wouldn&#8217;t want to say &#8220;fuck&#8221; on pay per view?  <a href="www.nin.com" target="_blank">Trent</a>, this one&#8217;s for you.</em></li>
<li>Been propositioned for sex by the opposite sex. &#8211; <em>A guy can dream, can&#8217;t he?  She has to be hot though &gt;.&gt;<br />
</em></li>
<li>Asked out a stranger. &#8211; <em>I&#8217;m rather shy, so I&#8217;m not sure if this would happen.</em></li>
<li>Had sex in a public place.  &#8211; <em>I would put this one down, but I&#8217;m trying to keep my list clean!</em></li>
<li>Hotwire a car &#8211; <em>This would be kinda cool, but could lead to getting arrested.</em></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Wrong wrong wrong!</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>Require medical treatment as a consequence of  kinky sex gone wrong  (STDs don&#8217;t count.) &#8211; <em>We&#8217;re talking something involving a gerbil for this one.  Let&#8217;s not go past this, please.</em></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Not Good Enough</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. &#8211; <em>I could still do this one, but it&#8217;s not major enough for me&#8230; I already climbed up the 193 stairs of Convent Garden at least 3 times!  It&#8217;s a killer!  293 doesn&#8217;t seem terribly much after climbing 193 <img src='http://www.stormkeeper.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_neutral.gif' alt=':|' class='wp-smiley' /> </em></li>
<li>Do a J turn in order to beat somebody to a parking space. &#8211; <em>This would be cool, but I imagine it&#8217;s not a real aim, tbh.</em></li>
<li>Watch all the Monty Python films In one sitting &#8211; <em>That seems comparitively minor to what I want to achieve, though I could couple it with my 250 movies list.</em></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Other</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>Been arrested. &#8211; <em>I&#8217;m trying not to, but who knows what could happen?</em></li>
<li>Rethink your least-favorite food. Taste buds change.  &#8211; <em>This one is true.  I still hate mushrooms and tomatoes though <img src='http://www.stormkeeper.net/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif' alt=':P' class='wp-smiley' /> </em></li>
<li>Live abroad. &#8211; <em>This is a somewhat better achievement, but I figure I&#8217;d do it eventually anyway, plus it could be argued I&#8217;ve done it, although &#8220;abroad&#8221; to me means outside of GB and Ireland at this point.</em></li>
<li>Make a bomb &#8211; <em>That&#8217;d be fun, but I wouldn&#8217;t want to get arrested.  I do already know how to make napalm though.  &gt;.&gt;</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Why are some of these a little &#8220;adult&#8221;?  Well, like I said before, I&#8217;m trying to keep the main list clean although there&#8217;s also ones that are too funny not to include.  I made no such promises about this post being clean, even though on the whole I do try to keep it family-friendly.  Of course though, sometimes you have to inject some adult humour into the mix, although<br />
ironically it might be seen as a bit childish&#8230; go figure eh?</p>
<p>References are on the 50 Things page, as these are essentially &#8220;rejected&#8221; ones.  This is a small entry, partly because they&#8217;re only a handful of things that interest me.</p>
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