Archive for April, 2006

I’ve been notified that my Kristin Kreuk fan site is going to be named Celebrity Site of the Day in just over a week. Seemed a little weird at first but it’s cool that they give you a heads up I guess. I wonder what percentage of sites in the directory has been named celebrity site of the day.

Shame there is no cash prize. Although speaking of money, my situation is looking a little better than it was at the start of the day. I finished work on a job that was done via Particle Soft via a client and cancelled a hosting account at JodoHost (say bye bye to Avril forums on WorfolkHosting.com) which will cut down some of the monthly outgoings. Although my next billing date is in like 2 days and tomorrow is Sunday so I hope it happens in time. If it doesn’t and they pull my account just after it I will not be pleased.

Where does the sex come into it you may ask? Well, I was flicking around my sites and I’m toying with the idea of expanding Girl Session and putting some actual promotion into it as it’s a good resource. There is a banner on each page but it’s the same one and it’s direct linked rather than in a frame so it caches and loads really fast so minimal advertising and loads of free content. I am sure people would use it if they knew it was there.

I’m hoping I can generate at least some traffic for more of my sites to save them from the chop which I am still resolute in carrying out as there really is no point in keeping sites going that don’t receive any traffic, especially given my habbit of buying new domains.

I was also toying with the idea of some kind of daily goals list to show that I have actually done something productive each day. I don’t want to be posting it on my blog though as it would create a lot of posts. Then again, I blog so much, it wouldn’t be massive.

Ok, today’s daily goal list is to get myself to bed soon so that I can get up early tomorrow. Well, early is quite an amusing term as what I really mean is student early. Maybe 9 am tomorrow. That’s not that early, a lot of people get up hours earlier than that but then I got up at like 1 pm today. I was really tired from going to Flock but then that kind of time is pretty usual at the moment. So yeah, 9 am is student early. Then I can get up and write a proper daily goal list and have time to get it done too.

Ah the post night out round-up, always a classic. Today has been an interesting day. Fonze came round and brought his dance mat so we spent much time working our way up to the eventual aim of beating Chris (which we have little chance of ever achieving as Chris is just inhumanly good on dance machines) before heading out at 7, getting some food on the way to Fonze’s and then, actually getting to Fonze’s.

I was going for a different look this time but then the only other appropriate t-shirts I have are my Green Day one (too colourful) and my Av one (which is well, Av) so I ended up going for the classic Millencolin tee. I don’t know what I would do without it :D. I managed to tear some of the skin under my eye trying to perfect my look too, not pretty.

So yeah, we headed out at about 8:20 and got to Mixing Tin before 9pm so free entry to Friday Flock (you can’t go wrong). Met Mark getting off the bus too, we was heading there before going on to an all night rave in Bradford.

They had a band on, Screaming Banshee Aircrew, at 9 although the difference between the band and the DJ was minimal as we spent most of the time at the back where we couldn’t see anything. Myself and Claire didn’t manage to drag everyone else onto the dance floor until around 1.

Drinks were sooo expensive there. £3 for a Smirnoff Ice, £2.75 for a vodka coke! Still it worked out a cheap night as we got the 921 Nightrider bus back. So my total costs were just over a £10…

1. Bus into town – £1.40
2. Smirnoff Ice – £3.00
3. Vodka coke – £2.75
4. Coke – £1.40
5. Bus home – £2.00

That comes to a grand total of £10.55. Not bad at all. Friday Flock itself was ok but not great though. It was packed with locals and only about half the people in there looked like they were around the same age as me. I’m a much bigger fan of student targetted events. Still I got to see Sarahann, George and Claire so that was cool. And as it’s past midnight we’re only 7 days away from Wendy House!

Microsoft should burn! I leave my computer on as I normally do as I have some things I wanted to leave going over night and I have my music on too. It wasn’t on this morning though, I presumed the volume was just too low. Then when I turned my monitor on, all my programs had been wiped, my desktop had bee completely re-arranged in some retarded order and I had a little bubble at the bottom saying my updates had been successfully installed!

I got an email yesterday from someone who was selling the number plate 4XD which I thought was pretty cool.

Worfolk Online could use it’s own official blog really but then that would mean another installation of WordPress and I really do have too many already. I don’t want them to reach an unmanagable level. Plus it already has a blog on Blogger that keeps track of new sites.

Anyway, while it’s generally our policy to keep all sites online, I’ve decided that it’s just not work it for some of the sites we keep running and therefore we’re moving towards a policy of, “if a site doesn’t perform, it’s gone.” This will allow us to invest in new sites which I think will provide some new and exciting opportunities.

Back in January, Old M World became the first site to be officially closed down by the network and that was because the site was finally terminated by the host. Today though, TradeConfederacy.com (a World of Warcraft guild site) and SkateForge.com (a skating video site that never finished development) we’re added to that list. They have been removed from the listings, links from the network and generally vanished from the net.

This is just the start of a series of closures though. Not that we have a big series planned but over time as domains come up for renewal or maintenance needs to be done on a site – it’s just not going to happen, the site is just going to be taken offline instead.

Sites that are also heading for the chop in the next three months include…

• Maze Radio (maybe)
• Maze Times
• Dean Is A Gimp
• Mispelling Guide
• Avril forums

We’re also deeply considering the future of…

• Server Admin Newbie
• Pitiful Fish
• 4xd.net

It’s sooooo hard to let a site go but some sites are just draining resources and are either never going to get off the ground or we just don’t have time to develop them (which is even harder to let go when you see a site that has potential but you just don’t have time to do).

More problems with RegisterFly. StormPay have now cut off all payments that are not auctions or something so you can’t pay via StormPay anymore. As usual RegisterFly are not on the ball and have just left the link up so you can follow the link to pay via StormPay only to be told by the StormPay website you can’t pay.

So I went on the live chat thing and asked what was happening with StormPay and whether it would be back. The answer I got was…

We do not support StormPay anymore

Real useful there. So I decided that I would have to go back to Moneybookers or it would mean giving my credit card details to RegisterFly. That means going to the site, clicking the “I already have an account actually” link, logging in, selecting pay via account balance, logging in again, transfering money from my credit card and then going to pay.

But this wasn’t the end of it. They charge you a 1% fee on sending money so you have to have 1% more in you’re account than you need to cover the payment. Of course it keeps this fact hidden when you are loading you’re account and indeed, doesn’t tell you it won’t let you make the payment anywhere on the site – you have to email support to find out that.

So I had to go back and move more money from my credit card to my account and the minimum is £0.69 and I only needed about £0.09 so now they have another £0.60 of mine sitting in their account. It’s a complete scam, stay away from Moneybookers as much as possible.

Just checked the stats for the podcast on Celeb Storm, it’s used 71.8mb of bandwidth in the 4-5 days it’s been up which seems pretty cool. Although if it gets really successful this could start majorly eating into bandwidth. Still, there are a few alternative solutions I could consider and I’ve never had a problem with bandwidth on my VPS anyway – I pay for 250gb and never use that because my system resources max out as I’m rarely serving static files. So I have plenty of handwidth to waste. I could easily dedicate a few gigs per day to the podcast.

I think having the time to record them is going to be more of a problem. While I have streamlined the process somewhat, it’s still an extra 20-30 minutes on top of whatever other website updates I am doing so it needs to be successful if it’s going to motivate me to keep it up once I get back to uni.

Also the issue of monitorising the podcast has crossed my mind due to the limited amount of options there are. There is no easy way to sell ads for video, at least no network that I am aware of does it.

Planned a meet-up dealie with some people I met online for today at AMF Bowl. Not quite as planned. I really needed to blog a few hours ago and I have been unable to until now so let’s get to the moaning! :p.

I set off at 1:20 as I needed to be at AMF by 2. Got to the top of the street at 2:23 to see the 18 go flying by 3 minutes early. What is that about? So I decided to walk down to Halton as the 18 and the 40 go through there. However I realised that the 18A, which is the one due in 10 minutes on the 18 line doesn’t so I thought I might as well go for the 40.

I went down the road to the 40 stop then and was less than 10 metres from the bus stop when one came round the corner and refused to stop for me even though I was nearly there. This was at like 1:32 though. It’s ok I thought, they are every 10 minutes. So anyway, 1:50 I finally got a bus!

So I live on a bus route that is every 10 minutes and just up the road from another bus route that runs every ten minutes or less and it took me 30 minutes to get a bus!

Texted John to tell him I was going to be late but it turned out he was on the same bus. We didn’t make it to AMF bowl till 2:15 so if anyone did turn up on time they may have already left by the time we got there. Maybe I should have given everyone my mobile number.

End result though, there was only me and John there. So many people have moaned to me that nobody is bothering to organise things and then nobody turns up. No wonder nobody bothers to organise anything.

Me and John bowled anyway though and after a first game which ended with a 67 (John scored a 75 on that one I think) I bowled a 134 to win the second game which I was quite pleased with. I damaged my nail again though so I’ve lost another one although it’s not as bad as when I went to Hollywood Bowl.

So it’s been a mixed day so far. I have like absolutely no money left (ok I have a bit) but I really need by EFT to kick in to give me some cash until I get my next student loan payment and I am not sure that will give me anything after I have paid my accommodation. I got a text back from Sarah Jane which was cool. Ah well, need to update xmeltut.com now. Or sleep. Sleep is a good option too.

Something just occured to me. Google are well known for introducing something and blitzing the competition. gMail beat all the other webmail services, I use Google Maps loads and Google Local, Blogger is one of the most popular blogging tools on the net, I use Froogle loads, I have Google Desktop on my laptop, the list goes on.

But when it comes to Google Video, Google is getting beaten. Quite badly beaten actually. YouTube is kicking ass. Speed is the main reason. If I want to get a video on Google Video I have to open my uploader application, upload the video, go to the site, log into my account and fill out all the details. I then need to wait for validation before it goes live.

YouTube, I just open the site, click the upload tag, fill out a few forms and then select the file for uploading and give it 15 minutes or so and it will be processed and live on the site.

You could argue that they are serving different audiences and that Google Video is more interested in selling videos and such but I disagree. If I was to guess at what YouTube’s eventual business model would be I would have thought that would be a good way for go to them.

YouTube have also managed to do what Google do best – embrace the first stages of Web 2.0. YouTube is packed with AJAX, there is loads of it! Deleting comments happens via AJAX, ratings uses AJAX, many other features to do, saving videos as playlists happens live in the flash windows. The site has tags which did a lot of the popularity of Flickr too.

I think this is one of those rare occasions when Google didn’t get it quite right. YouTube on the otherhand have come in as the fresh blood, Google has become the corporate giant interested in profit – Google sell all the premium videos, YouTube don’t really have a business model at the moment. It’s a weird reveral. Usually it’s Google coming in as the renigade offering a great service such as gMail vs. Hotmail, now the tables have turned. That’s the way the crazy tech market works I guess.

Tonight was cool. I got through 5 bottles in about 90 minutes so I felt crap by 12:30. Got myself a coke though and spent about 45 minutes sobering up though so that I could dance the night away. As my sobering up was nearing completion I girl names Sarah Jane (which is such a cool name) came over an introduced herself so I ended up dancing the night with her.

Bondi is such a good night over Easter. The music is so so after midnight as the rock ends but the atmosphere is just great. As usual we stayed till kicking out time then wandered around a while before ringing for a taxi. City Cabs got us home for £9.60 which I thought was pretty good. I paid £12 last time although that was with an extra drop-off and detour in order to do so as I had to drop John off.

Got recognised again plus as soon as I walked in the girl working the bottle baths (the one Fonze claimed was either checking me out or laughing at me last Monday) recognised me and I saw Speight, Laura Fletcher and Emma Shorthall which all adds up to coolness as it’s like everyone in there knows me :p. You absolutely cannot go wrong with Bondi over Easter.