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	<title>Stormkeeper&#039;s Blog &#187; personal</title>
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		<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>
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		<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>
]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>This month&#8217;s update&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/07/this-months-update/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/07/this-months-update/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:50:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Computing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Games Stuff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science & Tech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Building]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Computer Building]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Computer Hardware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Desktop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Geekery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hard Drives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Laptop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maintenance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maxtor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Projects]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Repair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rock Band]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seagate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Skype]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=281</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Yes, it has been a while since I&#8217;ve updated, hasn&#8217;t it?  I don&#8217;t have anything to blog about in particular but figured it&#8217;s always good to at least check in.  Most recently, I&#8217;ve managed to get my desktop back up and running, so I&#8217;m rather happy about that although on the flipside, my laptop has [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yes, it has been a while since I&#8217;ve updated, hasn&#8217;t it?  I don&#8217;t have anything to blog about in particular but figured it&#8217;s always good to at least check in.  Most recently, I&#8217;ve managed to get my desktop back up and running, so I&#8217;m rather happy about that although on the flipside, my laptop has a problem with a URL filter, which I didn&#8217;t install!  Additionally, I seem to have issues with my router crashing occasionally, which leads me to believe someone has been DOSing my router and has hacked my laptop somehow!  Additionally, I have hadmy WoW account hacked, and thus I&#8217;m locked out from it.  Granted, I&#8217;ve not touched it in ages, but it&#8217;s the principle of the thing!  Not only that, someone hacked one of my GMail accounts!  I feel quite violated actually and becuase of this, I&#8217;m tightening up my security across the board.  Seems like a good opportunity to install Windows 7 while I&#8217;m at it as well.  Other than that, I&#8217;ve built myself a new computer (for the first time ever I did it all by myself!), which I&#8217;m proud of.  This now means I can save myself a few quid by building my own PCs instead.</p>
<p>All that&#8217;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&#8217;m using in the &#8220;new&#8221; system has a corrupted partition, which is a bugger.  I&#8217;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&#8217;t cheap, especially as it&#8217;s an IDE drive.  And when I went looking on the Maxtor site (it&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;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.</p>
<p>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&#8230; 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&#8230; 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&#8217;t afford it, and need sections to come up with.  I&#8217;ll mention some stuff I&#8217;ve done in a later blog entry and where possible, even without the layout, I&#8217;ll be adding in a games blog to write to, so as always watch this space.</p>
<p>And lastly, before I forget, I&#8217;m gonna be using Google AdSense on this site.  I&#8217;m hoping to make sure it doesn&#8217;t get in the way, but I&#8217;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&#8217;m setting up.  I may actually set one up for Gamed Up as well, but we&#8217;ll see what happens.  I have somany ideas, I find it hard to focus on just one, lest I forget about the others.  I&#8217;ll get something sorted eventually, but I&#8217;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!</p>
<p>Anyway, I&#8217;m just rambling now, so I&#8217;ll stop.  I&#8217;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.</p>
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		<title>An update</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/06/an-update/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/06/an-update/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:09:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Projects]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=272</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I haven&#8217;t updated in over a month, but I have been pretty busy, that said!  First of all, I&#8217;ve been setting up Google Apps with my domains and working on a few backends for other sites.  Additionally, I&#8217;ll be starting a definitive layout for each of my sites; I plan to merge Stormkeeper dot Net [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I haven&#8217;t updated in over a month, but I have been pretty busy, that said!  First of all, I&#8217;ve been setting up Google Apps with my domains and working on a few backends for other sites.  Additionally, I&#8217;ll be starting a definitive layout for each of my sites; I plan to merge Stormkeeper dot Net into my personal domain and do it as a subdomain with the domain redirecting there.  Unfortunately, it means that the links to the post I&#8217;ve made in the past will probably be broken, but I&#8217;m willing to take that in exchange for less logins to remember!  That said though, if anyone knows how to slot a domain on top of a subdomain (i.e.: stormkeeper.net/post123 going to stormkeeper.domain.com/post123), I&#8217;d be very appriciative for any assistance.  Additionally, I plan to put AdSense on every one of my sites and blogs where possible now, as I frankly need to generate an income of sorts from the sites so I can achieve my ultimate aim of having the sites pay for themselves.  While I won&#8217;t indicate it in this post as I still have a few things I need to sort, I do plan on showing rough layouts of how the sites will be in the future, though I&#8217;m also doing some experimentation.</p>
<p>First of all, I&#8217;ll be trying to see if I can get subdomains working with WordPress MU and if that&#8217;s successful, I&#8217;d be deploying it out to a few other sites as well.  Secondly, I&#8217;ll also be experimenting with a simple(ish) multi-wiki setup.  I plan on using at least 3 wikis as well, but all this is just a bunch of incomplete ideas in my head at present.  As I said before, I&#8217;ll explain better in a future entry but for now this is just an update to say I&#8217;m stillabout, just that I&#8217;m busy and haven&#8217;t been focused enough to blog about anything.</p>
<p>I will soon though!</p>
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		<title>Musings</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/03/musings/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/03/musings/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:54:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=230</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Monday afternoon, it&#8217;ll be about a week since I&#8217;ve moved from my flat in Bexleyheath to a terraced house in nearby Erith, nearly at the edge of the Kent fringe; despite where I live being a London Borough, it still is considered Kent. In some ways, it&#8217;s the end of an era, given I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>From Monday afternoon, it&#8217;ll be about a week since I&#8217;ve moved from my flat in Bexleyheath to a terraced house in nearby Erith, nearly at the edge of the Kent fringe; despite where I live being a London Borough, it still is considered Kent.  In some ways, it&#8217;s the end of an era, given I may no longer just walk down to Bexleyheath&#8217;s Broadway and do shopping; though I do have 24 hour access to the place by bus which somewhat makes up for the lack of instant access.  Needless to say, I had better not be in a hurry to be there!  I do have easy access to the pier however, which can&#8217;t be a bad thing though I had learnt something about terraced houses in that the stairs are rather tight, so it&#8217;s likely that the next place I look for will have a lot more thought put into it.  Additionally, at present I&#8217;ve not got the space for everything or so it seems; everything is a bit tight at the moment, though I&#8217;ve yet to unpack everything.  Things are slowly slotting into place now though.  My arm&#8217;s starting to heal up nicely now as well, which is a good thing although it&#8217;s not 100% of the way there.</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday">Bloomsday</a> 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&#8230; 100 years since Ulysses was written was more important than a day in class&#8230; or so I&#8217;d like to think.  Well, it&#8217;s my excuse so I&#8217;m sticking to it!  Anyway, it&#8217;s amazing what can be learnt sometimes just by doing something what seems so minor at the time.</p>
<p>Heh, I did think I had more to say than this, although I&#8217;m realising that once everything round here is sorted out better, I&#8217;ll be able to take better advantage of things.  My finances aren&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;m still trying to get this place sorted, but I&#8217;m beginning to think that it&#8217;s likely I&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8230; unless I can fix it.  I&#8217;ll have to see what I can do, given I don&#8217;t have much space in the new place as I did in the old, which frustrated me.  At least it&#8217;s warmer and cheaper which means I&#8217;ll have more money to do stuff.</p>
<p>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&#8230;</p>
<p>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.</p>
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		<title>Star Trekkin&#8217; across the universe&#8230; oh and remeniscing</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/02/star-trekkin/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2010/02/star-trekkin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:01:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Games Stuff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Command & Conquer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[games development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guild Wars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MMORPGs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Remeniscence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Star Trek Online]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=213</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I figured now was a good time for me to update my blog, although really I should look at giving my LiveJournal some attention at some point.  As many of you already know, I&#8217;m a subscriber of Star Trek Online, only right now I can&#8217;t play it because the server&#8217;s full, which is rather amusing.  [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I figured now was a good time for me to update my blog, although really I should look at giving my LiveJournal some attention at some point.  As many of you already know, I&#8217;m a subscriber of Star Trek Online, only right now I can&#8217;t play it because the server&#8217;s full, which is rather amusing.  At the time I was player number 719/719 wanting to play but I exited the game.  Upon further reflection, this perhaps wasn&#8217;t such a hot idea.  I did get in eventually, so it&#8217;s all good.  Anyway, I&#8217;ve been playing it for about a week now and I&#8217;m rather surprised about the game to be honest&#8230; I do like it although admittedly, the ground sections are a bit dodgy&#8230; but the starship bits are pretty nice!  So far, I&#8217;ve been to Earth, Risa, DS9 and K7 which as many of you who watch Star Trek know are some of the more major areas in the universe itself.  I&#8217;ve also played the Command &amp; Conquer 4 multiplayer beta, although quite frankly I don&#8217;t get it at all.  It doesn&#8217;t feel much like C&amp;C and even the music, which at present I barely remember what the music sounds like, although it&#8217;s rather Star Trek sounding, ironically.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I can&#8217;t take screenshots of C&amp;C4, though I can of STO, and expect some in my Flickr gallery soon.  And just to talk a little bit more about C&amp;C4, I&#8217;m honestly not sure if I like it, but it&#8217;ll be released next month, so we&#8217;ll have to see what happens then.  There&#8217;s noconventional bases in it and it sems rather remensicent of Dawn of War without the building options&#8230; actually, those of you who remember the game Z, it&#8217;s more like that.  Other than that, I&#8217;m having to wait for stuff regarding my new house and I&#8217;m hoping to record a DiggerCast pilot episode either tomorrow or next week.  I also plan on going to see Assemblage 23, which are pretty damn good.  I recently managed to properly listen to all their music and I do quite like them, so I&#8217;ll be seeing them next week.  I&#8217;ll post some more here later, although I think my LJ needs to be updated some more, seeing as it&#8217;s swamped with Tweets.  Realistically though, unless something significant happens between now and my next post on here, it&#8217;s likely that the aforementioned next post will be a better opinion on STO, which should really be put onto a games blog, but at present I have none so here will have to do.  I really need to give Guild Wars some attention too; although in a way I&#8217;m glad there&#8217;s no monthly fees as like I said in the past, it doesn&#8217;t feel like a chore in that I <strong>have </strong>to play it.  It also means I can save money.  Either way though, I&#8217;m going to start balancing it out.  Heh, I might even consider playing WoW again, just to use the trial time I have.</p>
<p><span id="more-213"></span>And if anyone has wondered what I&#8217;ve actually played, I can tell you I&#8217;ve played these:</p>
<ul>
<li>EverQuest</li>
<li>Subspace/Continuum</li>
<li>Guild Wars</li>
<li>World of Warcraft</li>
<li>Lord of The Rings Online</li>
<li>Star Trek Online</li>
</ul>
<p>I might have also played these games, or at the very least I have them or have them downloaded or bought/aquired a copy:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dungeons &amp; Dragons Online</li>
<li>Ultima Online</li>
<li>Dark Age of Camelot</li>
</ul>
<p>Well, it&#8217;s safe to say that I&#8217;ve played a fair few games.  Not surprising given I have been gaming since at least 1989.  And by this point I&#8217;d like to think I&#8217;ve a pretty respectable opinion when it comes to games.  Well, at the very least I can work out how to play most games within half an hour.  I&#8217;m old enough to  remember playing Doom, Wolf3D, Quake and their successors as well as also The Catacomb Abyss.  Games were certainly more original back then anyway, and when I mean &#8220;back then&#8221;, I mean before 2000.  I need to properly go &#8220;retro&#8221; at some point, although it feels a little odd to me calling anything before 2000 retro, but there you go.  I do actually have plans to write an entry about the games industry and how it&#8217;s progressed, although I think I need to do research on that first.  I should be able to do it now, given I have read enough about the history of games and consoles.  Look out for that at some point in time.  I also want to develop my own game at some point too, which I&#8217;m looking at getting a team together for, but more on that later.</p>
<p>Well, I can&#8217;t think of anything else to say really, but I might look at talking about STO in more detail at the very least.  I certainly want to play some Guild Wars again before I do though.  Expect some screenshots at the very least.</p>
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		<title>Certainties in life</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2009/06/certainties-in-life/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2009/06/certainties-in-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:52:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amusing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Musings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=122</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I figured that I&#8217;d do something different than just talk about something to do with technology or gaming or the like.  I&#8217;m essentially just musing somewhat, but for some bizarre reason, I thought this would make a good blog post.  Granted, the life being talked about is mine, but I&#8217;m sure everyone can appriciate these.  [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I figured that I&#8217;d do something different than just talk about something to do with technology or gaming or the like.  I&#8217;m essentially just musing somewhat, but for some bizarre reason, I thought this would make a good blog post.  Granted, the life being talked about is mine, but I&#8217;m sure everyone can appriciate these.  Anyway, on with the show&#8230;</p>
<h1>Certainties in life</h1>
<ul>
<li><em>Life itself</em> &#8211; Kinda self-explanitory.  Life, we live it&#8230;. it&#8217;s the beginning of a cycle.</li>
<li><em>Death</em> &#8211; We all gotta go sometime&#8230; the end of a cycle, but not the end of this post.</li>
<li><em>Taxes</em> &#8211; They&#8217;re everywhere and you can&#8217;t escape them&#8230; VAT, car tax, Council Tax&#8230; you&#8217;re bound to have at least one of those, if not all 3.  And there&#8217;s not just those.</li>
<li><em>The Sun &amp; The Rain</em> &#8211; Sometimes together, sometimes apart, but always there.  According to Madness, it&#8217;s what life is about; they&#8217;re cycles, and life is a cycle.</li>
<li><em>Things are always further away than you think.</em> &#8211; Oh, I learnt this the hard way.  You think something is just up the road&#8230; then you forget how long the road actually is!</li>
<li><em>They&#8217;re even further with a heavy load</em>. -  Dragging something a mile up the road is not my idea of a good time&#8230;</li>
<li><em>It is possible to get lost on a straight road</em> &#8211; If you don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re looking for, you&#8217;ll never find it.</li>
<li><em>You&#8217;ll find things when you don&#8217;t need them</em>. &#8211; I know I have.</li>
<li><em>You lose them again soon after</em>. &#8211; &#8220;Oh yeah, I do actually need it&#8230; crap, where&#8217;d it go?!&#8221;</li>
<li><em>You can&#8217;t find something you really need</em>. &#8211; I know it&#8217;s here somewhere, I remember seeing it here yesterday!</li>
<li><em>You can never have too many kettle leads. -</em> You always seem to have less than you think.</li>
<li><em>Upturned plugs are bound to be stepped on.</em> &#8211; They&#8217;re gonna hurt like hell too!</li>
<li><em>If it seems too good to be true, it usually is.</em> &#8211; Something&#8217;s broken, you&#8217;re not eligable, you can&#8217;t afford it, it&#8217;s too far&#8230; and they&#8217;re just the main ones.</li>
<li><em>They&#8217;re not out to get you.</em> &#8211; You&#8217;re not that important, get over it.</li>
<li><em>Computers &#8211; </em>Yes, they&#8217;re here&#8230; yes, they&#8217;re annoying&#8230; but we need them.</li>
<li><em>Some of the best, closest friends you have you may never have met</em> &#8211; The internet&#8230; it&#8217;s more important than you realise.</li>
<li><em>A really good friend is someone you can talk to again after weeks, months or even years and it was like you just talked to them yesterday.</em> &#8211; Treasure them. (I know it&#8217;s not in the usual format, but it&#8217;s damn hard to word that right!)</li>
<li><em>Time isn&#8217;t always that straightforward</em> &#8211; Just because time can be measured, it doesn&#8217;t mean it can be valued.</li>
<li><em>Days can go by as fast as hours</em>, minutes as slow as hours. &#8211; Perception of time is different for all&#8230; days can meld together; hours can separate and feel like days&#8230; minutes and seconds can pause.</li>
<li><em>The infinity of human stupidity</em> &#8211; This one is kinda obvious.  Just when you think something is<strong> </strong>the height of stupidity, something raises the bar, sometimes a little but often a lot.</li>
</ul>
<p>I plan on adding to these gradually, but if you want to suggest your own, then please do so in the comments.</p>
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		<title>Interesting request &amp; Breaking captcha</title>
		<link>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2009/05/interesting-request-breaking-captcha/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stormkeeper.net/2009/05/interesting-request-breaking-captcha/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 May 2009 12:35:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stormkeeper</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Amusing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Computing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WTF?!]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Interesting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[livejournal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[no chance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stormkeeper.net/?p=96</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I recieved a rather interesting request in my LiveJournal not too long ago: Need to download XRumer 5.0 for free! Huh&#8230; I want to get software pack XRumer 5.07 PALLADIUM for free. Have you any url? I&#8217;m so need this magic program! It&#8217;s can break captchas automatically! Activate accounts via email automatically too! Absolutely great [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I recieved a rather interesting request in my LiveJournal not too long ago:</p>
<blockquote><p><em><strong>Need to download XRumer 5.0 for free!</strong></em><br />
<em>Huh&#8230; I want to get software pack XRumer 5.07 PALLADIUM for free. Have you any url?<br />
I&#8217;m so need this magic program! It&#8217;s can break captchas automatically! Activate accounts via email automatically too! Absolutely great software! Help me!<br />
And did you hear news &#8211; price for XRumer 5.0 Palladium will grow up to $540 after 15 may 2009&#8230; And XRumer 2.9 and 3.0 &#8211; too old versions, it&#8217;s cant break modern catpchas and cant break modern anti-bot protections. But XRumer 5.0 Palladium CAN!!!!<br />
So help me for download this great soft for free! Thanks!</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Whoever that person is must have assumed that I know my way around my computer, or rather more than that and to be honest, they got it right.  However, there&#8217;s no way in hell I&#8217;ll be accommodating such a request.  First of all, I don&#8217;t officially* condone not paying for software and secondly, why the hell would I accommodate someone wanting to break a captcha?  It&#8217;s bad enough that I have to use them so my sites get spammed, so why would I go and help someone break something I have to use?  For all I know, he could eventually use it on my website!  Anyway, the fact a piece of software can break captchas automatically concerns me.  Granted, not all of them are easily broken, but if this has been proven to break them, does this mean that the spammers are catching up?  It always seems to be a game of cat and mouse with spammers to be honest.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m very much anti-spam because it screws up things for me, and others.  My forums get spammed a lot, as do my blogs.  Either way, I won&#8217;t be responding to him, and if he sees this, my response is a big, fat NO.</p>
<p>*I accept the use of not paying for software for educational purposes, only if it&#8217;s hideously expensive.  If someone intends to make a profit using the software, then they should purchase it.</p>
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