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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, I figured that I’d give a little update on things.  First of all, I’d like to make a couple of announcements, one of which affects this site directly, and one which is to do with a related website.  The most important announcement is that over the next few days, I’ll be moving all my websites over to a new web server, which means that some of the sites I own may be down for up to a couple of says (in rare cases, it may be longer).  Additionally, I’m doing a reshuffle of the structures of some sites, so you may find that even after the move is completed (it will be announced), some sites may be down while they’re moved to their new homes.  I’l post up more about this at a later date.  Additionally, I’m hoping to upload a new DiggerCast episode either before the end of this year, or not long after New Years.  Yes, I’ve been a bit slow with it, but I’ve been having issues with the recording software which caused a lot of recording to not be saved!  I need to record the final few minutes of this episode and upload it.  There will be a special episode recorded this month as well, but it isn’t due for release until after New Years.  I’ll make a post on the DiggerCast website in due time elaborating on all this more.

Now, another thing I have to mention (and this is quite big) is that the Pocket Games Review will be done in multiple parts, starting from this week.  I’ve finally managed to organise someone to film with, so we can play the games and give a better review of  the game, seeing as playing them alone is no way of reviewing them!   Also, seeing as Gamed Up won’t be up for another month or so (though it does have its own blip.tv and YouTube accounts), I’m both announcing it on here and posting the videos part by part on my personal YouTube account (TheStormkeeper for those who don’t know – though I don’t think anyone did!), then I’ll post up a more combined video up on the Gamed Up accounts.  Admittedly, this means that the videos may still actually be split up into parts on YouTube, but at the same time, they’ll be a little more coherent in some ways.  I can’t tell you what I’ll do yet, but rest assured, I’ll sort something out.

If any of you have been following my tweets over the past 2-3 weeks, you’d have noticed that I have been in touch with the lovely people over at pocketgamenews – who are a part of Cadbury, who set up a pocket game competition a few months ago as part of their new chocolate bar Spots v Stripes, which was created to commemorate our winning of the Olympic bid – and they are eagerly awaiting the video which I said I’m going to do!  So first of all, seasons greetings go out to the Pocket Games team and secondly,  I hope to have the first part of this video series recorded and uploaded by Tuesday, with a blog entry on here following not too long after the next videos are to be uploaded.  As for what’s in this first video, it’s essentially going to be me introducing the games, showing each of them off (and avoiding touching the chalk if possible!), then talking about them a bit, and essentially giving my first impressions of them.  Due to the fact that I’m using my laptop’s webcam for this, I won’t be able to show off how everything works with them in this video, but that’s why I’m doing it in multiple parts!

The following part will be myself and my friend Ollie (who some of you will know from the DiggerCast) demonstrating the games better, then playing each of them and giving them a verdict at the end.  This ensures that we give each game a fair amount of playing time and makes things easier  in the long run.  And of course, in the great Spots v Stripes tradition, we’ll each be either supporting Spots or Stripes.  As for who will be which though, all will be revealed in the next video!  In the meantime however, I need to get myself a haircut, to prepare for my video début as I need to make myself look reasonably professional, though I have no idea how I’d manage that overall… though I can but try.

A bit late for many of you, but I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a great (and safe) New Year… I know mine will be better this time round!  I’ll see you all next blog entry.

Actually, it seems my hassles won’t give up, as even though I deleted my accounts, it still thinks it’s linked into Facebook on those accounts. I’m not happy, but not much I can do at present… at least I have the nickname I want. I’ll sort out FB integration later. Anyway, after that exercise in frustration, I figured I’d also mention that I’m going to be making a couple YouTube vids and a blog entry related to the Matterbox, 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’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’ll make a change from the DiggerCast, which coincidentally is moving home, but the domain will still point to the DC’s current location, and in the future, it’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’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’ll use it too for its reviews system, though people will be able to give the game their own score..

I’m also hoping to gather a team of people for the DiggerCast, so we can make sure it sticks to the new pattern I’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’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’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’t want to tear my hair out >.>

I’ll add more updates in due course. Oh, and before I forget… I’m not playing Guild Wars for a while now, given I’m getting into Lord of The Rings Online, and hopefully will be setting up a kinship (when I have enough people to). I’ve gotten myself and 2 other friends addicted to it, so we’re gonna be travelling Middle Earth for some time. If anyone is actually interested in joining us, let me know here and we’ll see about questing together. Additionally please note that we’re on the EU version of LoTRO, so US people can’t join us, but I will at least make inroads to have an equivalent US version of what we’re doing.

Watch this space for updates.

Edit: I’ve just made progress with my 250 movies goal, although admittedly I’ve seen them in the past but I’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’t seen in a while. or even haven’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”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.

But yeah, no more posting XD

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

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

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

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

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

We’ll see what happens in time.

This blog isn’t supposed to have anything to do with games, but I managed to get myself addicted to Bejewelled Blitz and yesterday was by far my best score; I scored roughly 308k in that game, though I’m wondering how people can get scores of 500k plus in 60 seconds!  Anyway, that aside I’ve also signed up to a new browser game, much like Lord of Ultima (LoU), called Might & Magic: Heroes Kingdoms (MMHK).  It’s quite similar to LoU, except it reminds me more of the Heroes of Might & Magic series, except it’s in real-time.  Sadly, all games of these nature I end up dropping after a few weeks, sometimes months, so I’m likely to get back to Guild Wars and Lord of The Rings Online.  I might have to play a bit of Star Trek Online at some point soon too, seeing as I haven’t played it in a while and I pay for it monthly!  Anyway, still games related but in a different vein, I attended a Joystick Junkies (JJ) party for the first time in at least 3 years!  It was great to go there, although the venue was extremely posh… read that as I’d never be able to go there under my current, normal circumstances!  All that aside though, it was good to get back in touch with Chris as I hadn’t seen him since the second JJ party, the first being back in September 2004 after Game Stars Live… oh, those were the days.  I have pictures up online somewhere of the GSL Event, but damned if I know where they are on Fotki!

Of course back then, I was more obsessed with booth babes and freebies!  Oddly enough though, I was kind of working on stuff back then what would have fit into my current game site project; I still actually have some of the promotional materials from that as well.  This reminds me that I really need to get myself some business cards.  Anyway getting back on track, at the JJ party, I had the pleasure of meeting Ian Livingstone, the guy regarded as the father of Lara Croft (you may recognise him as being involved with Eidos, Fighting Fantasy or the Game Workshop).  Admittedly, I didn’t actually know what he looked like, which happens a lot with me.  I know of people, but don’t necessarily know how they look!  That said though, I imagine I’d have recognised Peter Molyneux and I know for a fact I’d recognise Jon Hare given I’ve met him a few times now!  Anyway, I asked him if I’d be able to interview him for the Gamed Up website and he said yes, so I’m happy about that.  I actually haven’t contacted him since then as I amn’t sure of what to say at present, though I might just send him an email to explain more about Gamed Up.

Given I want to have some features up for the site which will be sometime within the next couple of months (properly), I’m going to approach industry people and ask them if I’d be able to interview them sometime.  I eventually hope to do this on the Gamed Up site proper, even if it’s just a temporary blog on there – indeed I’m putting up the multi-blog system so I can start blogging about games somewhere; given that my games blog will take a different format to the rest of the site, I should be able to get away with using it while the site is still being built! – but for now, I’m going to field interview questions here, so if anyone reading has a question they’d like to ask Ian Livingstone, please comment below, or if you have my email address, you can send questions that way.  Please do title it “Re: Interview Questions” though so I know what it’s about.  In the future I’ll have a dedicated interview email address, but that’s a little time off yet, same for the other email addresses.  Please keep in mind though that I may choose to combine, rephrase or even not use questions to help things flow smoothly.  Lastly, if anyone is interested in Gamed up and either wants to know more about it, or sign up to it, they can comment here or email, and I’ll answer what I can.

I eventually plan on writing a nice long blurb about it, but that’s not going to be for a while yet as I need to think about how to word it, although admittedly I may have to come up with it sooner, so I have something to show people when they ask about it!  Watch this space for details and I’ll get back to you.  At the very least, I hope by the start of November to at least have my WordPress installs in place.  I will eventually be adding my project blog to here as well, but I need another few weeks to sort that out.  It’s becoming increasingly likely as well that this will be my only personal site for a while!  I do also plan on getting back into writing, but for now, that’s limited to games design documents that I’m preparing seeing as Notepad doesn’t quite cut it, no matter what I’d like to think!  I would love to code some sort of reader thingy though, so people can read what I write in a more linear format.  Anyway, that’s something that can be worked on in the future.  I’m going to let people in on a little secret though… I’m designing an RPG with a friend of mine of which we’re using RPG Maker 2003 (it’s simpler to use!) to design a concept with; it’ll be a fully playable game, though the full game mechanics won’t be present, due to the limitations of RPG Maker.  Also what won’t appear is the entire story, given we’d save that for a more professional release.  Still though, it’s better to have something basic down before taking it further… it’s a given the planned mechanics won’t work too well, but at least if nothing else the story, characters and maps can be fleshed out in this manner; it provides a means to see how well the basic components work.

Of course, the issue is that we need to work out how RPG Maker 2003 works although we’re making progress in that regard but we’re gonna make something basic first before expanding upon stuff, so we understand how the engine works and such.  I’ll eventually start a blog with regards to it going but again that’s a while off.  I imagine though that the independent (yet related) blogs will take off sooner than the main site will, which is by no means a bad thing… may as well get something started with it, right? Part of my plans though is to get a blog up for every section I have planned for the site, so there’s at least a placeholder, which saves me from doing anything later, plus has the added benefit of making sure that everything works correctly.  I’ve always been more about function over aesthetics, but in the case of Gamed Up, I really want to site to look professional and have something to show for when it’s up and running, hence why I’m gathering up staff atm, and preparing for interviews early as well.  Indeed, the sections are still being planned but I at least have a small idea of what I want to get on the site, although the list gets bigger as I realise the scope of what I’m doing.

I can’t really say anything else at the moment with regards to it, but I do hope that when it does finally get up and running, it’ll be something amazing… although given that my sites tend to have a slow takeoff, I’m going to have to accept that there might be a small userbase at the start; of course, it will help if I can start tying the site into other sites on my network and also places like Steam, Mypace, Bebo, Tagged, Facebook, etc. just to have some sort of presence there.  I do at least plan to have the site’s internal backbone working soonish, though there is already a clan presence at least; it’s all about the small steps.

With the advent of WP3, I’ll be seeing what I will be able to accomplish with it, seeing as my radio/podcast site and the Xeno Storm website will be using their own WP multi-site setups in addition to here.  However, this site will have the least amount of development on it, as the level of development that the other sites have planned are more in relation to having multiple people aboard with that blog, whereas this blog is a one-man ship for the most part.  The ultimate aim I have for AdSense (which is admittedly some time off) is for through all the ads I have placed on my sites, I can get them to pay for themselves.  It is perhaps a little over-ambitious on my part, but even if it partially pays for itself over the year, then that’s good enough.  While I may be wrong in this assumption, I do think that AdSense is the least intrusive ad system out there and placed correctly, people barely notice the ads.  I mean “barely” in the sense that they’re not overly intrusive, but they do grab one’s attention if the topic of the ad interests them.  Granted, not all of the ads are perfect, but at least there’s some relevence.  I am also hoping to pimp out the Xeno Storm store on Zazzle as well, using it for stuff such as pictures I’ve taken or made (albeit not completely in some cases), among other things.  The proceeds would go towards funding the sites (and associated domains) as well, but I need to actually get some decent stuff out there as well.

On the subject of domains, I’ve traditionally taken the view that I should just let any domain I’m not using just lapse out and fail to renew it.  Now granted, I’d love to sell domains I aquire, but I have no idea how of how to do it.  And in a way, all this chopping, changing and thinking over the past while has been a precursor for me to get myself into gear for the future.  Out of a total of 30-odd domains (yeah, I have a lot of ideas), I can honestly say that 5 (3 of them being mine) domains are developed into active websites, though 2 of them are aliases for the same site; 1 of those domains is owned by a friend and another is owned by a client, so has very little to do with me, except where I’m required to change stuff.  Suffice to say though, the remainder of the domains are deadwood (as in waiting to be dropped), are waiting to be deployed or just hanging around while I think of a purpose for them, which I will eventually.

I’m gonna stop it here for now, so I can get on with other things, but I hope to sort out a few ideas for my websites soon, as well as getting the two other blogs for here up and running.  As always, watch this space.

I’ve been busy implementing Google Analytics into all my websites, as unfortunately, my site statistics are broken, meaning I have no indication of search statistics at present, but I intend to rectify this soon.  Additionally, as of the start of August, I hope to have Google Analytics running on many of my websites so I can better analyse the website statistics.  Anyway,  all that aside, there are other features in WP3 that I like the look of, and I’ll be putting them to good use in the Stormhaven Radio and Gamed Up (games website I have been planning for years) blogs at least.  Additionally, after much rummaging around, I also managed to find my uni (PSD) files for the original Gamed Up website I planned, which was strongly based upon vBulletin and Invision Power Board.  Well, one of my friends did say there’s no original ideas any more!  I do beg to differ somewhat though as although ideas may not be completely original, there are at least a few concepts that may be original, eithe rin their use or the way they were designed, but I digress.  I plan to have most of my websites up over the next few months in at least a basic framework, if nothing else.  The more developed sites will of course see a much more mature progression, although admittedly, you could argue that this site is pretty much complete, apart from needing software upgrades.  The reviews and project blogs are essentially the icing on the cake to make things look better.

I should also mention as well that the reviews blog will not be covering games except for a very special occasion, as that what the Gamed Up site is designed for.  I also plan on using YouTube to post up reviews, videocasts and other stuff later, but that’s some time off yet.  I have Flickr groups for projects as well, but again, that’s some time off yet.  Eventually, everything will have a proper place, meaning there will be a lot of organisation sorted.  I may even consider making my personal website a sub-site of the new multi-site system here instead, which I suppose is an inversion, but that remains to be seen, as it may be that I might just use the site as a practice run for HTML.  There’s loads of directions I could take, but I’m more concerned with stabilising foundations first… especially if I can make things simpler for me later on.  Don’t expect to see too many visible changes to my sites, although you may find things work a bit better than they used to!

I’ll post again soon.

Oh, before I forget… I’ll also be using AdSense in many of my blogs as well, so you will notice that.  Also, I’ll be giving this site a lick of Analytics paint before the end of the month, while trying to see if I can analyse my site logs.  I really ought to sort out my desktop though…

Anyway, Even though this blog is more about what I’m thinking, I figured I should at least start doing a cursory glance at what I plan to do over the next month…

First of all, I decided in the interests of putting less strain on this PC, I’m using a spare one that I have for music production and programming/development.  Of course, what I’ll be doing webserver wise is using a USB server on a stick, to make sure stuff such as Apache and MySQL don’t take up system resources, unless I need them to.  Of course, that being said, I may end up using the PC for internet radio as well seeing as it requires MySQL to run.  I guess this then means that this PC will be my PC only for entertainment and downloading.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I just realised that most likely anything involved with multimedia production and programming will be on the second PC now, with this essentially being mostly for games.  I shelled out 40 quid on a few bits for both PCs to help facilitate some of the above…

1 x Gold 3.5mm Stereo Jack Socket to 2 Phono RCA Plugs Adapter Cable (K006) = £0.69
1 x USB Joystick Converter 15 pin Game Port to USB (USB-Nest) = £8.37
1 x USB Mouse to PS/2 PS2 6 pin Plug Adapter Convertor GREEN (333962) = £1.27
1 x 2 Port Auto KVM Switch – Built in USB Hub for Sharing USB Devices (MPB068A-1) = £19.57
——————————————————
Sub-Total: £29.90
3 Day Courier Delivery (Usually within 3 days Courier Service – Not Royal Mail): £4.49
VAT 15%: £5.16
Total: £39.55

Gotta love the fact that VAT adds a fairly sizable chunk to my bill.  But yeah, I only initially wanted to get the top one, but then I realised that I could get everything else I wanted too; the KVM for switching between the production and entertainment PCs (although I may have to use the classic VGA connection now); the adapter cable to go with the second one that I have that’ll convert the 4 RCA ports on the back of my Audiophile to 2 3.5mm stereo jacks (I know it’s not ideal, but I can’t have 2 huge sets of speakers up here! – I’m also using some cheapy ones from PoundLand for the time being till I can get some half-decent smallish ones); then the Joystick converter which is mainly for my gaming system, seeing as I discovered my production PC has its own MIDI port, which is gonna be useless gaming-wise (my MIDI controller is USB as well, so it’s gonna find little use) and lastly the USB to PS/2 mouse converter, so I can free up a USB port.  I’m not actually even sure if there’s any real benefits of using a mouse in USB over PS/2 although it’s nice just to have it lying around anyway.  That said though, the KVM switch is going to host the mouse, keyboard and monitor so I could always just hook the mouse back up to USB.  I’m also moving my router and network drive downstairs sometime soon in the interests of regaining space.  More than likely, I’ll have to switch my PC off and reorganise all the cables but it’s a good time to do so.  I’m going to also be using my spare HDMI TV as a secondary monitor, as it’s just lying there right now with nothing to do.  It also means that I don’t have to go downstairs in order to switch over to something “important”, which invariably happens on the IRC networks that I hang out on.  One thing I also planned to do was stick my 2 rear spakers to the wall, thus freeing up more desk space.  The centre and front speakers are fine where they are, but the back speakers make things a little crowded, I feel.

Once I move my router downstairs though, I can wire up the PS3, although the desktops will have to go wireless, as I don’t need cables to be trailed round the place as it makes things look messier, plus it’s a bit dangerous and I don’t think the cables reach that far anyway.  Either way, it’s going to be much nicer here when I get everything sorted out; the PS3 is already connected to a CAT6 for when the router goes downstairs and it’s mostly hidden as well, although I need to make sure it stays on the ground when it goes under the door.  I may also have to slightly shigt the PS3 in a bit to make sure that there’s enough slack for the cable.  Either way, there’s going to be a hell of a lot to do.  I did try to upgrade my PS3 40GB’s HDD yesterday, but it turns out I needed a 2.5GB SATA drive, go figure.  The RAM I got didn’t work either as I needed DDR and I bought DDR2, doh!

Anyway, I went back that evening to get replacements and ended up having to buy another 1GB for my music PC, though depending on certain factors, I might have to get another 1GB.  If that’s the case, the 512MB I have spare may not be of any use to me any more, unless it works in the spare base unit that I’ve got, then I can use that as practice for the CompTIA I eventually plan to take.  I’m not going to lie… this entry has been written over 2-3 days, so if anything seems a bit inconsistant, you now know why!  With this in mine, I may as well mention the hassle of upgrading my PS3 hard drive… it wasn’t getting the old drive out or the new drive in that was the problem… it was getting the frame holding the drive in!  The screws are really tight and all the screwdrives I had wouldn’t let me take it off!  In the end, I had to use my powered one although it’s just as well I had one to be honest or I’d not have been able to replace the hard drive easily!  I am hoping the old one is still okay as I touched the connectors a couple of times, whoops.  The next thing I need to sort out is my RAM for my desktops although I really don’t want to do that today… I need to go and reinstall/re-download everything on my PS3, and patch up my games.  For some bizarre reason though, I have problems staying connected to PSN since the 3.10 update although I have downloaded some thing s so far.  Wireless was being a pain, so I had to use the guest access on my router (really handy to have) to get the PS3 online.  It worked, but the problem now is that I can’t have access to my media drive!

That said though, this is a temporary solution while I work out how to reorganise my flat… I think it’s likely that a trip to Ikea’s in order, so I hope I have the money!  For starters, I am gonna have one of those really thin bookcases, so I can store a few extra things behind my large one.  Then I also want another bookcase for my living room, so I can keep some more stuff there, as it looks likely that I’ll need to expand my space for DVDs, though it may be more likely that I put my games on it instead, as I have quite a few of them.  I’ll think of something, albeit next year.  I’ll also need some shelving to sort a few things out with as well; I certainly see a few places where a shelf could fit.  Sometimes I wish I owned my own place instead of renting, then some of these concerns wouldn’t be as big, seeing as when I move out of here one day, I’ll have to fill up all the holes I’ve drilled and give the whole place a new lick of paint!

The RAM, for those who are curious, has not been sorted out as of yet, though it will be eventually.  Moving on swiftly to the DiggerCast (DC) and other podcasts and Stormhaven Radio (SHR), I’ve decided that for now that I’ll just work on the DC, and have those due to appear on either SHR or other podscasts I plan to do to appear on the DC instead till things are sorted.  The draw for this is that there will be different people each time it’s recording, although it’s the same group of people doing it.  Essentially, it all depends on who is around at the time, although I’m gonna cap the amount of people at no more than 4, and consider doing it once a week, for 30-40 minutes an episode, although there will be some pre-planning before then.  The format harks back to the initial podcast (and the only released one!) which was “popular” (we only had a few fans as only a few people heard it) because of the banter between myself and Sean.  I’m hoping that what made the original funny will make this one as funny, if not funnier.  The concept essentially revolves around the team digging up a website and talking about it for the podcast, although that said, the stuff talked about may not necessarily be about the site!

The websites aren’t generally the usual ones either, as they’re generally places like failblog.org, thisiswhyyourefat.com and overheardinlondon.co.uk, just to name a few, which gives rise to the catchphrase “We dig up the craziest parts of the web!”.  I actually have a list of sites that I’ve dug up specifically for it and in the interests of amusement, I’m going to use something that randomly picks out a website for us “on the air”.  While there’s a possibility that sme of the people have been on the sites before, some others might not have and the content is usually updated anyway, so there should be something for everyone.  Even better is that none of this is scripted, so what you here will be genuine reactions to what people see.  There are other considersations in this I’m sure, but I’ve not thought that far ahead; it can wait till I’ve recorded a few sample episodes.  This format is about the only way I thought that could capture the original feeling of the DiggerCast, given I had tried to find a place for it to go, and although the technology reporting approach might work, at the same time, I think it’s not what the DC is about.  I intend to upload the “drafts” of the DC that was recorded under the “techcast” format, seeing as I think it’s important to both indicate that some headway was being made (even if it flopped) and also to get feedback on what could have been.  Keep in mind though that they’re rough, so they’re not going to be perfect.

Because of a brand new format, I’m actually going to be shunting all the DC content to its own WPMU blog and having an archive for each “phase” of the DC, just to show the differences between them.  Officially, while this format is meant to be phase 4, phase 3 ever amounted to much so instead it’ll be phase 3.5.  I don’t think I even mentioned phase 3.0 other than here anyway, so it’s likely that it will have no other mention other than here, meaning that there’s only 3 complete phases.  Given that 3.0 never made it off the drawing board, asides from a few chats with people, it makes sense to call this one phase 3.5 as it’s a refinement of phase 3.  It also includes a few elements from the first one, although mostly it has its roots in phase 3.

The main points of this one are indicated below (with the phases that they were taken from):

• The banter between hosts (1)
• The randomness of choosing websites (1) – though this time it’s a single one chosen by a computer
• Bringing in guests (3)
• Users being able to interact more with the podcast, such as suggesting a website to go to (3)
• Having more than 2 hosts (2)

There may be more there, but those are the main ones I can think of at the moment.  As for why this isn’t going on the DC website… well, it’s not up yet properly, then there’s the fact that I’m gonna continue the old “everything on this blog” format until the new year.  I figure that by that point, I’ll have my project blogs up anyway, so can start talking about my projects more.  This, as I’ve said before is going to be more for my opinions, musings and rants on various things.  There is also the fact, which I sort of touched upon previously is that I’ve nowhere to put this sort of stuff yet, so I may as well mention what I have planned out.  Hell, maybe someone finds my randomness interesting.  On that thought though, going back to this blog… and more than likely closing off this entry, I figure that if I consistantly say that I’ll type up an entry at least 2 or 3 times a month, whenever I feel I want to blog should be enough warning.  Besides, I’m pretty random in terms of stuff anyway, so predictibility isn’t my strong suit.  I should also mention, while I’m talking about my blog is that I’ve made a few changes to my blogroll and have added and removed people.  One person I’ve added is Glen McNamee, who goes under the nickname C64Glen.  He’s mentioned me a few times in his blog now and I’ve not had a chance to mention him as of yet (although some of you may have found this blog through him), so I figured that now’s a good time as any!  I’m going to have to think a bit more about what I plan to do with my blog in the future, as I think that I should be able to expand the scope of it, although I do at least want to move my projects and experiments elsewhere so I can expand on them more without me feeling that the project is the whole point of the post, as usually it isn’t; as if I havent’ said it enough already, I want to use this blog more for my thoughts, musings, opinions and rants on things as opposed to what I do.  I’m still only starting out properly with blogging, so you’ll have to forgive my roughness at the start.

I am also trying to work out how these Trackback things work as well, although in the future I do hope to start referencing people’s blogs and read more of them.  I’ve referenced C64Glen’s latest post as I’m not sure if you can reference a blog itself, but then there is also the fact it’s a post mentioning a wolf (of the Courage sort), so it’s not a bad post to reference to be honest.  Also, now that I remembered it, I’m gonna be working on a “40 things” list, as I had talked about it.  I need to go and see a few more to be honest, and I want to start from February, as that’s always been my “New Year”.  Additionally, given that I do like to read but haven’t done it properly in a while… as penance for my lack of reading on the whole (though I have read 3 books within the past couple of weeks) I’ll tackle the top 200 list.  I’m still trying to work out if I can count the first “book” of “His Dark Materials” as read (same for The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe), given I haven’t read it in a while.  I may just start with a clean slate to be honest; at least then I can properly say I’ve done it.  I do have a handful of those books already, so at least I can get started somewhat straight away.  Given that I’m a pretty fast reader, though I intend to take breaks, or read them a little bit slower, I imagine I can finish the 200 in less than 3 years, even if I do end up straying.  I suppose though it all depends on what I’m trying to accomplish.

I may also sign up to 43 things for ideas on what I could do, as although I’m not completely aimless, I’d have a little difficulty coming up with 40-43 things to actually accomplish.  Some things though, I’m going to combine as one thing, either because they make sense to, or it’s a case of redoing something something I lost, such as a language.  Still, it’s food for thought as to what I want to accomplish.  In the meantime though, I’m gonna have a quick look at my blog to see what I can do to tidy it up some more… I will give the list some thought though as I already have an idea of a few things I want to do. I should also remember to change my email address too, now I’ve set up Google Mail for this domain!

Watch this space for developments…

I also added a disclaimer page as well, so read that when you get a chance >.>