Uncontrollable Hysterics
Laughing in the face of danger!
Plans for the Future
Mar 16th
Okay, as my last couple of blog-posts have been somewhat controversial, I thought it would be time to take the limelight away from those and post a new one.
I’ve been thinking over the past few days, I have no clear-cut plan for what I want to do in the future, so here goes.
Programming
I’ve been dabbling with a couple of languages over the past few months, mainly Perl and PHP, but I don’t know them as well as I should. I am currently coding a website (as described in the past post), but it is nowhere near of a professional standard. The PHP is all over the place and has no definitive structure. Hopefully, once I have the site launched, I can spend a bit of time turning it into a proper site with pretty much everything being in objects, making it easier to re-use code without having to copy and paste large blocks of code.
I feel I can competently program in Perl, but the only problem is the Regular Expressions which throw me off course. I can do some basic regular expressions, such as finding a word in a sentence, but when it comes to replacing text mid-string based on a complex regular expression search…. its like a morning without coffee…
University
I have been somewhat lazy when it comes to my University course. Leaving the assignments until the last minute, not re-reading all the lectures to help them sink in, and just generally being lazy. I need to step-up the game if I want that first in my 3rd year. I was pretty disappointed when I got my exam results, 68, now I need to bargain to get myself onto the A+ exam, and prove I can do the exam. I also need to go over all of my CISCO CCNA stuff and revise all of that, then go over all the IOS commands, and etch them into my brain.
As much as I despise Windows, I have to use it for my MCP/MCDST. I just wish VirtualBox worked with the Windows XP disk I have…
Personal Health
I am going to quit smoking again. I felt so much better without nicotine, and I felt I could breath so much easier without all the shit in my lungs.I am also going to take up one physical activity, such as walking, or going to the gym. I just feel I need to change my lifestyle and get myself healthy, do something different with it. I don’t want to be one of those stupidly muscly vain idiots that spend so much time at the gym, they might as well be a piece of the equipment… I just want to feel good about myself.
I also plan to quit drinking energy drinks like Monster and Relentless. I’m sure 2 cans a day can’t be good for you, not to mention the dependency to caffeine… Sleep… I can get about 6 hours of sleep a night, but surely the caffeine can’t be good for me, putting me into a light, restless sleep.
Employment
I need to get work experience in the IT field, be it through a work placement, or employment, but I really do need to get some form of experience. The number of jobs I was turned down for because I lacked experience is scary, so now that I am at Uni, it might be easier to get a job in IT. Hopefully, dealing with building PC’s or networking.
IRCWhore – A free network for all!
Mar 3rd
At the end of my last blog-post, I mentioned something about a website called IRCWhore. This is a new project of mine, which involves making an IRC Network, a feature-rich website, combining them, and making it free for everyone.
At the moment, the website is nowhere near completed. A lot of the core features like registration, login, and features such as password reset have been completed. Features such as the webchat, forums, and personal blog-pages are still in the concept stages, and may not appear for a long time. Features which are proving difficult to conceptualise are:
- Webchat – Currently, most IRC Networks have a bog-standard webchat which doesn’t offer any form of user-customisation. I plan to make it so that users can customise their webchat the way they like it. This means making it so they can customise the colours, the size and style of the default font, changing the popup’s that appear when the user right-clicks, and more.
- Forums – This could either go one of two ways, full-custom coded forum from scratch based on existing forum software, or integrate an existing forum board with the website. The second may prove difficult, as I have used my own custom hashing on the passwords. Hopefully, I’ll be able to authenticate the panels by means of cookies and sessions.
- Blogs – There is a plan in the pipeline for users to create their own custom blog, based on the url http://www.ircwhore.org.uk/blog/user/post. This will hopefully encourage users to start blogging, then once they’ve picked up the art of blogging, they can use blog-hosting services like blogger, and wordpress.com. We need more blogs!
- Ulysses – Ulysses is our Website=IRC integration bot. The bot is capable of doing absolutely anything (providing it’s within its powers), including killing a ghosted session, requesting an administrator, reporting a webpage on our website by the click of a button, assign an SWHOIS to a user based on their age/gender.
The current time scale for the project is 9 months, so the project is ready to go by the new year. If the project can be completed in 6 months, it will be a bonus. Once new year comes, any feature which isn’t required to make the site work, will be put on a feature-freeze. This means that all the other things which don’t need to exist for the site to work will be held in development, while the rest of the features are completed.
The End of an Era (Part II)
Feb 24th
To quote a previous post:
FLIRC was over. Stolen-Enterprise was slowly coming back to its former glory. I was later approached by FSIRC if I wanted to join their network. How could I refuse an offer like this?! 12 months on, and Stolen-Enterprise is failing. Aversion has become to greedy and careless that he’s let his own network fall under its own corruption!
The End of an Era posted April 9th 2009 by KingTarquin
It appears that moving on is the key to building new skills. After running my own network and website once before, I’ve now decided to do it again, but with flair. From January 2010, I’ve been working on IRCWhore’s. I’ve owned the domain since about 2008, but never really had a use for it, but I guess, now I do.
There were a couple of reasons why I could no longer keep my server over at FSIRC;
- Server Traffic – Over the time I was a network administrator at FSIRC, I had certainly noticed a major decline in traffic. Whether their target users were moving on in life, or they didn’t like the way the server was run. Who knows, but all I can say is that my server was being wasted on FSIRC, as it was averaging about 150MB of transfer per month. I’m still currently working out what to do with that, might run a few of my websites round-robin styleee..
- No Pressure – I know this might seem a bit of a harsh thing to say, but the rest of the staff really didn’t care about the network. I was the one to repair it when it went down, I was the one to update all the systems, I maintained all the websites, and I was the one to issue bans for the network. I don’t wish to work for a network, and run it for them. That’s not how I see helping someone. I’d much rather spend the time running my own network, and putting the time and the effort into maintaining my own systems.
Over the next 12 months, there will be several stages of rapid development for IRCWhore’s, including the completion of the main website back-end, the inclusion of forums/message boards (tbc), the addition of more customisable profile pages, and the coding of an entirely customised chat browser (where the chatter can change the aspects of the page the chat window is on, not just the chat window). I also plan to get a bot coded for the Backend/IRC Server integration system. There will be more plans on this released at a later date.
Most Efficient Caching Yet!
Feb 21st
Over the past year, I’ve been trying to make the most of the speed and efficiency of the various WordPress Caching plugins out there, and today seems to be my lucky day! W3 Total Cache appears to do everything I need it to do, while making the most of the caching/compression capabilities of the webserver.
Statistics report that with this module, you can look forward to 80% savings on bandwidth, by making use of Minify and HTTP compression.
Hopefully, now that this module is installed and fully functioning, I can look forward to savings on my bandwidth usage, and increased visitor satisfaction.
New Phone – HTC HD2 – A Review
Jan 13th
I’d had a Nokia 6300 for over 12 months, and I was beginning to get incredibly bored with it. It’s an incredible phone. It’s survived being dropped, soaked, washed, crushed and burnt, yet it still works
like it did when I first turned it on. But as technology advances, I felt I needed a more technologically advanced phone. I needed a phone which could keep me informed about the news on the move, allow me to take photo’s and upload them to sites to share them instantly, provide me with entertainment when I am on my travels, and most of all, be reliable.
This is where the HTC HD2 stood out. I first saw it advertised on a Technology site’s advertising banner while reading some “Hater’s” article on Google. Being the inquisitive type that I am, I followed the link, which took me to the HTC website, and showed me a much larger image, in more detail, with more than one view. I was in total awe. A 4.6″ Touch Screen, 1GHz Snapdragon™ Processor, 5 Megapixel Camera, and weighs about about the same as 3 packets of peanuts.
Physical Review
The HD2 can outrun the iPhone any day. Instead of it sliding around in your hand while your trying to use it with only one hand available, it sits perfectly in the palm of your hand, waiting for you to caress its massive 4.6″ screen. I’m the type of person that hates scratches/scuffs appearing on the case of the phone, so it has to be polished constantly. the HD2 has a brushed steel battery cover, a matte plastic case on the rear, and about 3mm of glossy plastic which needs to be shined up occasionally.
The buttons at the bottom are a bit of a pain, just too small. Its handy having buttons available which you can quickly enter the home screen, or access the start menu, but they need to be slightly bigger. Also, the buttons on the side which control the volume are ever-so slightly annoying. They are just there, waiting to be pressed uncontrollably. I’m right handed, and my fingers naturally sit there, awaiting a sudden jolt of my unsteady hand to press them and change the volume to hyper-deafening.
Operating System
Well, having been a Linux user for over 2 years now, I was a bit miffed the HD2 had Windows Mobile 6.5. I would have much preferred Android’s new operating system, but I can’t have it my way every time. Despite Windows Mobile being installed on my phone, I must say the performance is fantastic. It responds when you want it to, unlike earlier versions of Windows Mobile. Compared to the iPhones 620MHz processor, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor at the HD2′s disposal gives far superior computing performance.
HTC Sense
This is an amazing piece of software. It makes using the phone so much easier, by making everything you want to use available quickly and efficiently. When HTC first put HTC Sense on the Hero, it took mobile computing to the next level. It makes all your favourite applications easily available, keeps your contacts a couple of finger-slides away, it makes your emails easy to access, and not only does it look great, it works like a dream.
Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.
These are the three fundamental concepts of HTC Sense, and they really did stick by them…
I don’t usually like using Metaphors, but using HTC Sense is like dining in your own Michelin Star Restaurant, you’re eating your own high quality food, your around your customers and staff, and you never know who’s going to turn up.
