Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Activity on Nerd Federation isn’t too bad currently although I no
longer carry the lust to post I once did. Still it shall be kept alive
as now things appear to be starting up and we finally are getting
visitors I think. It really shows you that good old content is no
replacement for search engine optimisation tactics. Still, that’s
probably a bad moral to learn.

I have been working this morning on several things most notably a new
article for Inside Magazine which I think is the longest one ever
published by Inside Mag. I wanted to make it a feature on the Frinks
homepage too although I didn’t want to lose my existing feature due to
the fact updates aren’t really predictable. So I went back to a classic
system I used on M World of automatic content rotation.

Basically it works out what day it is and displays a different feature for that day. Currently however I only have two features in rotation but I will add more as I continue to expand the site. Although to be honest I haven’t worked on it much other than some new content ever since I started work on Particle Fusion. There will be more about that later.

A change for Nerd Federation now though is that with Ceon’s post 3 days ago, all the Nerd Federation members have now posted on the site. We will regain our former glory one day if I can ever get my databases back.

Wow, two posts in one day that have the words search engine in the title. Although of course it’s probably in the same twenty minute period also. But anyway, Nerd Federation now has search engine friendly URLs! Hopefully this should get more of our posts crawled as most of the bots have not spent too much time on Nerd Federation, it’s been the odd visit here or there with the exception of one.

I had tried to put search engine friendly URLs on before and everything worked other than the main blog link. The problem was that it requires custom 404 error pages and because I only skim read the documentation if that I missed the section about correcting the paths so it couldn’t find the custom error page. Still I solved it fairly quick once I looked into it so I stand by my skim reading.

Although it didn’t really have to be much of a problem at the start as Nerd Federation only has one blog entitled "Nerd Federation News." But as pLog supports multipul blogs, the link leading back to the home had to be slightly fancier. I wonder if there is a way to disable multiple blogs. I might have skim read right over that as well, lol.

As for the rest of Nerd Federation I still plan to get the forums back online one day, without the portal this time. It was cool but now that we have a blog at the front, I will just put the forums on a sub domain and everything shall be cool again.

I have had a theory for a while that you can tell someones age by what radio station you listen so. As you get older (or for the select few who time travel, possibly yonger) the radio station you listen to will change for different reasons. Just like you will write different movie scripts or talk about different subjects depending on your age (though the later is also large part to with with education).

So I finally decided to get my theory noted down. It being locally based and of no real interest there was only place for it – Nerd Federation! So sorry for those of you who have no idea what radio station is which around Leeds this will probably be lost on you. Although you can probably adapt it to your local radio stations. Anyway, on with the theory.

Under 20
These are mixed up years and so there is no clear radio station. However many young people go through a phase of being a scrubber and at that time listen to Galaxy 105. Don’t worry if you do, it’s quite common. Although don’t make the mistake of taking this comment to mean your not a loser who would make many peoples hate lists, mine included.

20 to 30
You have settled down, you are in the prime of your live and you drive around in a Ford Focus. Best of all you are finally listening to a good radio station such as 96.3 Radio Aire. Everything is cool and the commerical after commercial that is played doesn’t bother you. Or you could be listening to Radio 1, thinking I don’t really want good music, I just want to listen to Chris Moyles.

30 to 40
You like to pretend your still young but your radio dial has turned onto something not quite as good. Perhaps it’s Real Radio or an easy listening station that you like to think is still playing pop tunes but is actually just repeating the schedules from five years ago after being moderated for anything with load noises in.

40 to 50
You wake up one morning and suddenly realise that all your favourite JD’s have switched over to radio 2. Yes, you are now offically old and listening to the radio 1 dumping ground for DJ’s that can now longer keep up with the hip modern trends. You kid yourself that they play modern music but really, even the news is old.

50 to 60
Ok, your old, so what, everyone grows old. Might as well stimulate your mind with some quailty plays, talk shows and discussions on Radio 4.

60 to 70
It’s retirement time and you are planning to take it easy and just chill for a few years. You flick your radio onto Classic FM and sit on a sun lounger staring at the ceiling while the music carries you away to the memories of your last vacation with the family.

Over 70
You are now really old and your radio is set firmly on Radio Leeds. You like the friendly voices and constant routine. Even if you wanted to change to a different radio station you couldn’t because you have no idea how to operate the techno-crazy programmable radio that your kids got you last Christmas.

Wow, from not posting for days to three posts in one day and it’s still only 3:25. Or it it was when I started writing lol. Anyway I didn’t really want to post about this on the site itself but I have continued to throw more weight behind Google AdSense. On August 7th I made a post about trying Google AdSense again and putting ads on TV Forge.

The results haven’t been great but I need more revenue sources and a lot of my sites have placeholders for ads ready but don’t actually have ads on. So I recently added Google AdSense adverts to BuffyTalk (though that took some code modification) and I have just finished adding the ads to the spare skyscraper on Emo Movies, or at least select pages as I didn’t put them on the A to Z and other such which lack content.

One thing that did occur to me which is why I am using the ads more is that last year sometime I think it was I was listening to the Mary Goulet show on World Talk Radio your advantage. Was was said basically is that because it’s content targetted you can have lots of little niche sites all coming together to make money.

Now, a year down the line it occurs to me I have been building up these niche sites for years but have never really run anything other than banner exchange ads for them. In a sense, without realising it, I have built up a network of websites that is perfect for AdSense. But who knows that the future will bring. Hopefully money ;).

I am not singling MP3.com out for any particular reason. Many sites do it, even my own Emo Movies does it. But I just thought I would make a point about it. Make URL’s longer and adding in random code just to make sure you have your search engine positioning and keywords in there. Adding in that extra folder with a name on, changing your URL’s to form words, etc.

Is it right? The first answer you jump to is of course no. You are artifically inflating your search engine positioning with keywords. Although if you think about it, you are really just appropriatly naming your pages. It is only when people who abuse the system by putting too many keywords or unrelated keywords into the URLs that it really becomes wrong. Anyway, on to demonstraighting my point.

Take a look at these two URLs:

http://www.mp3.com/Avril-Lavigne/artists/485355/summary.html
http://www.mp3.com/Dire-Staits/artists/485355/summary.html

The top one is the standard link you are given when you click on or search for Avril. The second is however has been modified to replace Avril’s name with Dire Straits. What’s the difference in the page? Nothing. Because the artist is selected from the database based on the big number string after /artists/. The words at the start make no difference, they are just there for search engine positioning. Which is why the second link is also Avril’s page.

Although I am seeming critical, this is a valid thing to do make though. For instance on Emo Movies, the movie is also selected via an ID number. But how would people know what movie it is? They wouldn’t without the extra, irrevelant folder after it, which tells the user what movie it is. Such as /10/coyote-ugly/.

As much as I tried to deny it, it has already begun. I haven’t posted in three days when originally I would be posting 3 times per day. I tried to think positively but it just isn’t there. Is it my attention span or simply that I need constant new challenges and new projects? The online project I work on lasts under a day currently today I have gone through Frinks, a single sign in and am now on a music site.

My affection for Branch Planet is also starting to leave slightly. Yesterday I got to the afternoon and realised that I hadn’t posted the updates. Well, one of the days anyway I don’t know day from day this summer although I do know depressing times are ahead. I don’t want to head back to work or become another year older.

So what should be done? How can I stick with a project, constantly keep my attention on it, and not abandon it for the next idea that takes my fancy. I know I am not the only one with a short attention span. JD’s lasts around 14 seconds which makes my 6 hours look pretty long. But let’s face it we are both nothing but shopping addicts.

What we really need to do, rather than fix us, but to make everyone else as bad as us. We are working on Carl, he is pretty much addicted to put noodles and smoking as well as falling foul to Amazon’s one-click ordering so I guess we have done a pretty good job. So perhaps we should move on to moulding the next person in our image. I’m thinking John.

Ok, first things first before I get into my ramblings. Happy birthday JD! Finally after months and months of waiting and watching everyone around him turn 17, today is finally the day. Cassie has promised him a special present so I can’t wait to find out what it is.

As for me, I have my driving theory test in like an hour. Preparation went ok although as always I struggled to clear away time to do it. I didn’t get the video watched until 6:30 this morning.

And to finish off this post I will mention I have new photos to post which I will do along with the backlog of other photos that I have to post – they are all coming soon. Eventually.

I can’t beleive there are still people out there who think Kirk is better than Picard. I was running a search on Google for reasons why Picard is better than Kirk and it kept coming up with huge lists of why it is the opposite. What are those people thinking, it clearly isn’t that way. I mean Picard never got chucked out of being an admiral.

This brings me back to Neil Goldman’s presentation on Family Guy. And as his teacher correctly pointed out, "everybody knows Picard is the superior officer." I mean just take a look at these 101 reasons why Picard is better than Kirk. And that is on Pathcom.com so although I haven’t heard of the site before, the way I said it means that you can’t dispute it.

Plus I was reading things like this, Kirk Vs. Picard which gives 101 reasons why Kirk is the best:

76. Kirk would never waste a holodeck on something stupid like Dixon Hill.

Dixon Hill was sorted!

70. Kirk liked a good belt of liquor every now and again.

Watch the Next Generation episode where Scotty returns – who was it who gave Guinan her selection of real alchol? Picard!

44. Picard never met Joan Collins

How is that a bad thing?

15. Kirk would never touch SYNTHAHOL

Again, Picard brought a load of alchol aboard for Guinan

4. Kirk traveled through The Great Barrier, met God, and wasn’t even impressed

It wasn’t god, as was correctly mentioned, what would God want with a starship?

Thinking about the O.C. vs. One Tree Hill got me thinking about how one thing suceeds another. With teen dramas there is a clear path of succession Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson’s Creek and now the O.C. / OTH whichever of them comes out victorious. Nowhere is this kind of one dominance more clear than in technology.

Look at browers for example – Netscape used to dominate the market. Then Microsoft threw its weight behind Internet Explorer and that became dominate. Maybe beleive that Netscape gave up as they had the dominate position and it didn’t get them anywhere, they didn’t make much money. I beleive the same is now happening with Internet Explorer – it’s not making Microsoft any money being free which it why they are likely to put it back as part of the Windows bundle rather than a seperate application. And they are beginning to lose their dominance to Mozilla.

Of course this type of thing is nothing new. To continue the reguritation of what I said in my last post – Betamax vs. VHS, MP3 vs. Minidisk. How about the console wars too? Sega and Nintendo owned the market, then Sony came along and became dominant. Now it is a case of Sony perhaps losing their market share and Microsoft’s XBox becoming dominant.

Few things can surive in harmony together. The one example that did spring to mind though is religion probably due to them all being more or less as wrong as each other. Of course Encoria will one day rise to dominance too. Perhaps it is envitiable that one stronger thing will destroy another.

The debate that has been on everybodys minds (who are aware of it anyway) finally came up on the iMBD.com
message boards. But before we get to that I think I will explain how I
was in that position. As it happens I saw I, Robot earlier to day –
great film. I finished my review of it about 20 mins ago, I think its
one of the longest ones I ever did. Anyway after drifting around I
found myself on the iMDB page for The O.C.

Onto the real content. As my eyes flicked down towards the message
boards I saw the topic topic that was inevitably going to come up. To
quote the topic title "O.C vs. One Tree Hill" At the end of last year, everything was going smoothly. The O.C. was set to replace Dawson’s Creek as the new teen drama just as Dawson’s Creek replaced Beverly Hills 90210.

Then One Tree Hill bursts onto the sceens. It captivates our ready to be shaped minds and suddenly gets us thinking, maybe this will be the next big emo teen drama. Now chaos consumes, there is no longer just one major teen drama there are two. And in situations like this the outcome is fairly inevitable. VHS vs. Betamax, Minidisk vs. MP3, SMTV Live vs. Live and Kicking – one must be destroyed.

Of course it is possible that both could survive. But these things rarly go that way. And as for SMTV Live vs. Live and Kicking I never really liked either I just decided based on the shows they had. SMTV Live tended to have more of the best – Sabrina and Keane & Kel although they did split them up. And on top of that Live and Kicking or whatever it was at the time had So Little Time – great show, I am thinking of getting it on DVD.

Anyway from what I have seen on the topic the O.C. seems to be coming out victorious but One Tree Hill does have a vote or two. And I’m not blind enough to ignore that this is after all an O.C. board so the bias is going to be obvious. But anyway, check it out here.