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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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