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Personal update, August 2008
Meh, I REALLY need to get my act together, eh!
Personal update, 1st July 2007
I've had a ghastly week, it feels like my blood urea is right up again and my kidneys are giving me loads of grief - not a good thing as by the time you can feel the pain… Just as well I'm back in hospital next week to have my stents changed, 'cos I feel like kak!
If the upcoming surgery doesn't kill me (I was in 3 months last time), I'll try and shake this lethargy off and build my sites up again.
Shaking the dust out!
Just trying to get my act back together after a really bad year or so. Normal service and daily updates should resume shortly!
OK, the gallery and forum are sorted, if a little sparse. Next to choose a decent blogging system. Personally I'm quite happy doing the pages manually, but you loose all the connectivity of RSS feeds, usuable comment systems etc, so I guess I'll bite the bullet and integrate one. Should be in within the next week or so.
The last month or so I've bounced from one provider to another and back again - At one point I think I was trying to manage five servers with three providers. Clearly untenable and cost me a fortune in hosting fees but I'm finally got a dedicated server that I'm really comfortable with. No affiliate link (yet 
) but if you are wondering, it is Hostgator.
If you are a web developer and/or run a commerial website, you should find the following link of great interest:
Nielsen Netratings Global Index Chart
It gives the latest data on average computer usage. For instance, for May 2007:
- Time surfing: 31½hours
- Sites / Domains visited: 71
- Pages read/viewed: 1,509
- Pages read per session: 41
- (Sessions lasted 55 minutes)
- And the important one, I think, time spend reading a page: 45 seconds
So, in mass market terms, Internet users will log on for an hour, glance at their email and maybe search for something particular and then flick through an assortment of sites before getting bored and finding something better to do. You have a few seconds to gain their attention and confidence! As an aside, I believe you have about 3 seconds to impress them as the page loads, else, off they toddle.
23rd June updates
Looking at a full site re-design. (done)
Also evaluating ideas and code for a comments system for Ackadia, bespoke or otherwise. (Tossing up between coding it myself, WordPress, Mtype and DRupal's CMS system). Things will be up and down for a week weeks but bear with me, it will all be worth it in the end.
Need to revise a number of older pages to removes tables etc and improve SEO and accessibility.
Next generation computing
If we are talking true next-gen and not the bi-annual increments in speed we are all used too:
You will be assimilated! No, wait, that was just a movie, or was it the latest Vista propaganda? Hmmm!
OK, multi-core chips that running cooler and several orders of magnitude faster than all current processors will allow real time speech and facial recognition, true AI*, real-world physics and photo-realistic gaming - and get nerfed by whatever version of Windows we are up to at the time.
*(Or at least indistinguishable by the casual person and initially be used by governements and major corporations as a replacement for 1st line telephone support, switch board receptionist etc)
In case you are wondering, I'm not talking 2 and 4 core and Vista but real next gen - Intel already have an 80-core teraflop cpu that only takes 62W and fits on a 275mm die.
Intel press release: Era Of Tera - Intel Research Advances
World's First Programmable Processor to Deliver Teraflops Performance with Remarkable Energy Efficiency
According to one quote in PC Advisor that's the equivalent to the old ASCI Red super computer - which used 500,000 watts of power to run, another 500,000 watts to cool the thing and 10,000 Pentium Pro's
Fathers Day cheer
To be editted in! Depressing really as it's more of my favourite beers and my kidneys have since failed and now I can't really drink.
Recent blog enties on servers, web design and related:
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- SSH headaches
I had so much hassle trying to get image manipulation packages like NetPBM, GD, ImageMagick, and Captcha installed on my GoDaddy VPS and Dedicated servers I cancelled them and moved to Hostgator (where I remain)! All worked out well in the end, but I could have cried at the time!
- Fixing a site
Helping someone turn their holiday review site around and improve their Adsense revenue - More code fixes
Improving the search engine optimisation for a travel site - Blair which?
Tony Blairs leaving legacy after ten years of Labour guidance. Thanks Tony, you (!) - SitePal
Taking a look at this cool promotional tool - Noah's Ark Joke
and council planning permission. God meets the Labour Government! - Personality tests
Free online personality tests and what they revealed about me. But where they right?
Entries from 2006, looking at booze, kidney failure and lousy hosts:
- Commercialism
destroyed Christmas, but the booze was good - Kidneys Failure
A thank you to the staff at the Royale! - Hospital Diary
Day by day account of hospital life following a diagnosis of acute kidney failure - Thoughts on
diabetes, kidney failure and gastric issues. - Moved hosted
Contract over, I fled the clutches Pipex's Webfusion VPS hosting
Entries from 2005: Mostly spend cursing Pipex!
- Pipex
/ Webfusion are still getting on my nerves over server failures and downtime! - Website down!
This month saw extensive downtime on my website due to the Webfusion based Mango server dying - Run down!
First look at the Audigy X-Fi Elite. Oh yes, and we got run over while on a pelican crossing! - New Surge protector
Getting another Belkin 1200VA Universal UPS and having a dig at managers in general - What, no bath!
Passed 43. What a weird month this was! - THX Speakers
Reviewing the Creative Labs GigaWorks S750 THX speakers. That and a world of pain! - Happy Slapping
Entries included a Social statement of disgust over 'Happy Slapping' and the attitude of kids in this country - First Contact!
My first glance at blogging software
