I like how my blog’s still getting plenty of views, although I can’t access it myself. Reading the search terms to get to my blog are always pretty funny…
So, yeah. For some reason, I can’t access my server from my home computer. Every other connection works fine, just not my home… So very, very odd.That’s why I’m not posting at all, if you were wondering. When I can be arsed, I’ll bug my host some more and see if they can poke around a bit and see what’s up :3
For some reason, my hosting server has trouble being accessed from my home connection… very odd. I’m going to have to look into it, and maybe I can post stuff now the University’s open again and I can use their connection.
I might as well get around to doing one ‘top 2009′ list (even through it’s late), and here’s mine for technology I purchased this year (but not necessarily released this year):
1) BlackBerry Pearl 8100
Aquired around November (for free!) to replace a breaking Motorola Razr v3, and it’s a great phone that does nearly everything I want it to. Upgrading to a phone that can actually access the internet / MSN / Facebook / Twitter is a big step-up for me, and yet I still want to go bigger and better – maybe to a later model that can use 3G and WiFi. Not that I have the money, of course, but I guess that’s part of the ‘crackberry’ addiction.
2) Sandisk Sansa Clip+
I lost my Creative Zen Stone at some point in October (it had served me well), and took the opportunity to upgrade to something better. The Clip+ came well recommended from various portable media websites, yet it wasn’t advertised very well at all in the UK, and it was being sold dirt cheap, so even better. It’s a fantastic little thing with 8GB internal storage and expandable with microSDHC cards, and I’m glad I bought it. And so are the other people I know who own one, including my father. If you’re looking for something cheap and good, go for it.
3) Microsoft Xbox 360
So I actually got around to purchasing a next-generation console this year, and I’m glad I did, as I’m enjoying it far more than the Wii. I’ve enjoyed games like GTA IV (100%’d, including all DLC), Fallout 3 and Mirror’s Edge, and I still have a big stack of 30+ I’ve bought over the past month to play through at some point… although with the current state of university work, it doesn’t look like I’ll have much free time in the future at all. Hurr.
And this, kids, is why you don’t use free web hosting. I don’t feel bad in naming and shaming 000webhost.com for suspending my account due to inactivity with no warning or notification, and deleting my portfolio website and blog. Along with all backups. Bravo…
I’ve managed to restore everything pretty quickly, with props to Host Media UK for the cheap and fast hosting service I’m now on. I fucking love Fantastico. I lost a few months of blog entries, but I managed to copy the text over from LiveJournal, so it’s all good. It’s made me remember the value of the blog, and now I wonder whether I’ll be able to go for post-a-day again. Wish me luck. See you tomorrow
First off, the new design for my portfolio website went up a while back. Click the picture below to go check it out, and let me know what you think of it. All my code and stuff still needs to be cleaned up and sorted over the next few weeks, mind.
My birthday was a few days ago, and I did spend most of it packing my stuff, and unpacking it all in my new house. Especially when that house won’t have internet for another week or two… but I can survive. It’ll give me a chance to watch some shows that have bee piling up, play games on my ‘to play’ list, and maybe even do some work before the new term starts. I do feel a bit naked without Facebook, MSN and Twitter, though ._.
In a similar style to an old post discussing tweaks, here’s a few applications that I seem to be installing on all my machines, because they’re just fantastic:
RocketDock – Yes, I know it’s a copy of the standard OS X dock, but it works really well. I used to find myself moving and minimising windows until I got to the desktop icons to open an application… now, all I need to do is move the mouse to the top of the screen and the dock pops up in front of anything that’s open. It’s especially handy on my laptop, where I have docklets showing my Wi-Fi and battery life replacing the ones in my system tray. Plus all icons look prettier at high-res. Oh, and it’s free – check it out.
UltraMon – A program that’ll handle a multiple monitor setup much better than the standard NVIDIA control panel. The main addition is additional taskbars on each monitor, just displaying the windows on that screen (which makes a lot of sense). It’ll also handle multiple wallpapers, screensavers, and a lot more… including custom theme support. Unfortunately, it’s $40 to purchase, but there is a limited free alternative (that I haven’t tried) called MultiMon.
DropBox – Backups and syncing files between computers can be hard sometimes, especially if you get confused and wonder which file is the newest version. Dropbox integrates itself right into Windows Explorer (or OS X), and then all you need to do is drop a file into the folder located in My Documents. It’ll upload the file onto the web server (2GB storage for free), and then download / update the files on computers linked with that account. You can share folders between people pretty easily as well. What I like is the two special folders – upload something into the ‘Public’ folder to instantly get a URL for the file, or upload a folder of images into ‘Photos’ to instantly create a web gallery to share with friends. I think it’ll be replacing my USB stick for work next year, to be honest.
