Nearly Midnight And Things To Sleep On

Yup it's more or less midnight right now and as I mentioned yesterday I am taking the pass plus driving course, only it's changed day, it's now this Sunday. So expect an update Sunday evening on what it entailed and how I got on.

After yesterday's post I decided to look into how I will work on my sites along with moving other things forward. As mentioned before I have a whole host of features to bring in. But the real problem there is making use of existing systems, most of which are way too complex for me and most either don't do what I want, or do too much.

You only need to look back at the July 3rd post to see how much of a nightmare it would be to use existing systems.

Here is that list again -

• phpList (Email Newsletter)
• Wordpress (Blogging System)
• Customer Area (Yet to be sorted)
• osTicket (Support Ticketing System)
• Web Hosting Ordering System (Made but needs linking)
• Paypal integration
• Invoicing system
• and more

Looking at the list again made me realise something really important! Nearly all of those make use of or are based on PHP, mostly with a database as a backend like MySQL for example.

Now with PHP and MySQL in mind think about the easy way of getting these to work in a nice and professional way.

Nope not stick it together and hope for the best. But build my own from the ground up.

There are multiple reasons why building my own would be better, for one if there is a problem I will know where it is and (more importantly) how to fix it.

But those are not the only reasons, there are others, like licensing, copyright, branding, etc. And by making my own I can set my own rules.

That also got me thinking about typo3 again. (I think I mentioned it before)
But just incase I havn't, it's a backend control system that allows certain people to edit certain parts. And currently it's too advanced for what is needed. But it sure as hell is an option for the future.

So that brought me back to earth with a bump, lack of coding knowledge means most of these systems won't be any good for me right now. But right now I need to update the sites and get thing's on the move.

With that lack of knowledge in mind I decided to go dig around in my junk room (as mentioned before it has all sorts of stuff)

The best find in the room is web coding books covering all kinds of topics, here is a few.

• PHP5
• MySQL in 21 Days
• Mastering Tomcat Development
• PHP Programming For Windows
• And more

Straight away that got me interested in getting the knowledge and last night I managed to read 55 pages of the MySQL book. Will keep you all posted on my progress.

So that's it for now. More updates soon!

(BTW - It's taken me just over 15 minutes to type this post)

More good news!

So yet again I can post about good news. Things are really looking up now.

Over the past few days since my last post I have chased up insurance and found the best price I can, details as follows.

Company - CIS (Co-operative Insurance)
Yearly Price - £897.43
Total Monthly Price - £957.25
Initial Deposit - £149.65
10 Monthly Payments Of - £80.76
Cover Type - Comprehensive Cover
- Breakdown Cover (UK & Europe)
- Motor Legal Expenses
- Carbon Offsetting
- £500 Electronic Equipment Cover
- £250 Personal Effects Cover
Excess - £100 Standard
- £50 Windscreen Replacement
- £150 Voluntary Excess

And that's for a Fiat Punto 55 SX made in 1996 and fitted with factory installed immobiliser and a 1.1l engine size.

Does that seem good? To me it definantly does, it's £200 cheaper than any other company on the market.

If your interested in a quote from CIS and you're in the UK, give them a call on 08457 46 46 46.

The only thing now is raising the cash to actually go for it. More updates as that happens.

Onto other news now and I have been to see a buisness adviser about my companies, my aim is to pull them all into one company and set them up fully legal and by the book. More updates on that in the next few days.

Now more news again and this comming Monday I am booked in to do Pass Plus, it's an advanced driving course that covers motorway driving amoung other things. More on that on Monday once I complete it.

So is that it? Nope, but right now all hell is breaking loose so gotta dash and get things back under control. More updates tomorrow....

More good news

I can't have more good news can I?

Well of course I can. I passed my driving test today and can now officially drive. Lets bring on the work.

As some of you already know I have taken other tests in the past and unfortunately failed, on one of my failed tests I actually logged the route using GPS, but unfortunately I didn't have the GPS set up correctly for the route I actually passed on. DAMM!!!

But anyway I can now officially drive which means more fun, more options... oh and more finances to think about.

I will be looking into insurance tomorrow and will post all the information about my driving stuff on my main personal site http://www.peter-baker.me.uk

More updates soon!!

IT'S ALIVE!!!

For a change I have a post about good news, amazing isn't it? Okay, it's not that amazing but it still is good. In fact as of earlier today my main PC got resurrected with a replacement PSU and a few tweeks with the BIOS.

Getting the PSU involved a good few hours digging in the spare room which is full of various electrical components (more on that room in a future post) but there was a problem. The PSU seems to have come from a mini ATX case and so the PSU is smaller than standard and it's cables are pretty short. So I went on the dig again and found another dead PSU which I stripped of its power cables and then patched up with an broken fan power hookup. (picture for that soon too)

The result? A fully working PSU which not only does the job but allows a little connector space for add-ons.

Now for the BIOS issue, as I said before it seemed fried as the system when tried with the faulty PSU seemed to stick on the initial post logo. But with the working PSU it still got stuck and after a quick clear CMOS jumper change all went well. The system booted right into the OS like there hadn't been an issue.

So fingers crossed tomorrow I will be able to attempt a few web site updates.

Congrats to me!

Ooops

Well that was a bit of a bad idea. I decided to bring some of my personal site upto date and begin adding links. Then I remembered, Dreamweaver isn't installed, and doing live updates over a web control panel is not only slow, its a royal pain in the butt!

Now here is the other issue, Dreamweaver is installed on a dead PC that really needs bringing to life, the serial number for the installation is also on that dead PC.

So back to the drawing board for now!

Let the fun begin!

Since yesterday I have been looking into ways of expanding the things I do online. Again as before I have a whole range of ideas and one of the newest ones is a kind of download site.

It won't be your usual try and buy rubbish as every single download on the site will be FREE.

So would that mean I will give XP away on the site? Not at all!

The download section of the main company website will be there specifically to promote free software. That includes mobile phone apps, image editing, music apps, etc.

But I can hear you all saying that there are too many sites like it around on the internet. But that is exactly the point. If you want to find high quality free software you tend to spend hours searching these free software sites, most of which fob you off with bull before you even get to what you want. Or even worse they get you to install their app first to download the app you want.

So that is where I will be stepping in. Bringing in a user recommended software list with direct downloads that has no bull, no ads and certainly no strings attached.

(got stuck thinking and not sure how to really move to the next subject)

Well anyway that is one other thing to add the already growing list. So the next thing to look into is linking all my personal stuff together.

As many of you know I am on facebook, bebo and a whole host of others I cant be too bothered in listing. But with all those sites I have one big issue. Which one do I update? Which one do I keep running? Why keep them?

To be honest the more social networking sites, dating sites, etc that I find myself on brings more and more time consuming things I don't really want or need. So as of this post I am going to track down and list every single site which I am a part of so that you guys and of course those guys can see all the different information I have around all the different sites.

Now the next issue, how the hell do I create a link setup for all of them where each one links back. OK well it's not really an issue, why? Simple, this post goes to two websites, the blog itself http://proproductions.blogspot.com and my personal web page http://www.peter-baker.me.uk

So all I really have to do is create the links on these two sites, a sidebar widget on blogspot and a full page on my personal site. Easy eh?

So with that easy part out of the way the next one is to work out which one to really link to first and the answer is? My personal site, for the simple reason that one day (maybe soon) this blog will move right over to my personal site with it's own blogging software.

Infact my entire aim is to have everything I do online condensed into two websites, personal and buisness. And currently I have too many personal places that are not known along with multiple buisness sites. So by condesing those into a smaller number of places and creating links, I can then in effect create a much larger online presense and of course make it easier for people to actually find things.

So those are the ideas and plans as of now and again these are being added to my previous list of things. But some of the ideas in this post would work out better if there were done sooner rather than later.

So make sure you check out http://www.peter-baker.me.uk to find the long list of sites I am on.

The Update

Over the past 2 days since my last post thing's have not really changed much, the issues are still the same, the BIOS is still the same and I still have not got enough time to fix all the issues right now.

So instead of wasting time fixing the issues I will be getting another machine borrowed to me by a good friend of mine. That will see my usual online presence return aswell as allowing me to get on with a few of the previously planed website updates.

Update on system issues

So it's been a few days since I posted about the system issues I was having and well it's not the best news.

The PSU decided to give up completely yesterday and replacing the power supply today has revealed more problems with the system, not only did the power supply die on me, but it also killed the system bios. Of course on older machines you can pull these out and replace them. But unfortunately for me I can't replace this one.

For now its going to be back to the drawing board and seeing what parts I can pull together again.

So for now it's going to be about 5 days or so before I can continue my website updates or post anything useful here.

Keep checking back for updates.

Update on buisness sites

I own various business websites, all of which have never been fully completed and put into place. Well hopefully I am about to change that.

I have been looking at adding an email newsletter feature to the main company website which will list and detail everything to do with the various devisions of the company. BUT and it's a big but, not everyone wants to be emailed. That then got me thinking of potential solutions.

Do I install a blogging system which emails out when the blog is updated and just provides a link to read the story, or do I start with an email newsletter that posts to the blog.

After some hard thinking the second option seems to the best as updates can be posted via email rather than via the web. To some it doesn't make too much difference. But to a company that is mainly mobile it then begs the question of how to post on a phone. Simple answer is of course email.

Now for every good idea there is always a problem, and the problem here is that the main company website needs a re-design as mentioned previously. Then on top of that is the fact that all the sub-sites need to be pointed over too.

So far I have got to design the site and then link together the following pre-made parts,

• phpList (Email Newsletter)
• Wordpress (Blogging System)
• Customer Area (Yet to be sorted)
• osTicket (Support Ticketing System)
• Web Hosting Ordering System (Made but needs linking)
• Paypal integration
• Invoicing system
• and more

Nightmare? It sure is, keep a check here for updates until the email system goes live.

Updates

Over the past 4 days since my last post I have been thinking even more on what I really want to achieve with my setup.

The most important out of everything seems to be building myself a new PC, as most of my friends know, my current main PC is a ye ole AMD 1.8Ghz setup with 1GB Ram and in todays IT world that really does seem old. Especially when dual core and quad core systems are already on the market along with even faster setups on the way.

Besides the fact the hardware is old there are now other things that are showing up more and more each day. To start off my bluetooth adapter stopped working and took 2 days just to find the right software to install it again. Follow that by the fact the TV card which is installed doesn't have the right drivers or software and adding the correct ones doesn't seem to bring it to life.

Add on to all of that with hard drive failures. My main NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit decided to give up nearly a month ago and I still havn't got the cash to buy a large enough hard drive to try and recover the information. Then add on the fact that 3 of my 500GB hard drives are simply just not being recognised any more.

Nightmare already? Well that's just the hardware, let's move to the OS woes. To start Internet Explorer now crashes when you try to close it, various software isn't doing as it should and on top of all that is the fact that one of my laptop's just wont stay on WiFi.

So as you can tell I have a lot of things to really look into and try and get done. And with no cash rolling in, well it will be near on impossible.

More updates soon.

Lack Of Updates And Things To Come

One of the big problems I have had over the past few months is time. I never seem to have enough and now this site became unused again.

So yet again I plan to liven things up a little and attempt to add content not only here but elsewhere on the internet.

Not only do I plan to add content but I also plan on linking more of my sites up. The links will include near enough every single site I am on or own and each link will be identified as such.

So whats in the pipeline?
Good question, every single site I own will be undergoing a brand new design and feel possibly using the typo3 site management system. However I still need to get the hang of it before I try and use it. So in the pipeline I have the main goal of ease of access. Not only for the everyday PC but also for many other devices on the internet. This is going to be the most complex part as every single connection attempt to the site will need to be sorted by the browser/platform in use.

Another one of my plans is making use of information browsers send to the website. These often include Browser, Operating System, Screen Resolution, IP and others.
That information could be used as the pages are requested giving the exact page needed for that particular user.

There will also be text only versions of every single page so that people on dial-up, screen reader users, low end platforms, etc get to see all the content.

How long will it take?
Again thats another good question, but this time it's a harder one to answer. Why? I hear you ask. The reason is simple, I wouldn't class myself as an expert web designer nor would I class myself as a beginner. I am more or less a novice knowing lots of information but only bits in each part. For example I am good with standard HTML but not all that good with XHTML Strict. I know a few tips and tricks on PHP, but not enough to build a forum for scratch.

So the time it will take will change and I will post more here as things move forward.

Got any comments or questions? Just post a comment here and I will reply.

New Site Complete!

My new website is complete and this blog has been added to it. Check out www.peter-baker.me.uk and let me know what you think!

How to get in contact!

Due to my laptop screen issue as posted below, I will not be able to answer usual emails. For that reason make sure that you contact pete-the-tech@3mail.com

The Broken Laptop Screen

This is how my current laptop screen looks after it got pulled off the table by its power cord after a big trip over. So i am ok but laptop is not.

Phone Image

Here is an image I found on my phone and thought it was worth sharing.

Maybe not?

Well I tried to do the blog bits up in a few ways, so far it seems I have the answer and for the last however many hours I have been working on this other method. And what a pain in the ass its been too.

I now have a duplicate of this blog on my own site, but how its being displayed is not really what I had in mind. So its off to tweek land for me to get this sorted.

Blog Tests Almost Complete

I have been working on my blog bits for the last few hours and hopefully as of this post things should be working well. However it seems I am going to need to post a few messages to double check some settings. So here is my first test message. If this works then the next post you will see will be a new URL.

Time to cross our fingers!

Mobile Blogging and Me

Yup another issue it seems, as you may have noticed a pink limo image has appeared along with another cat and dog image. These were uploaded direct from my phone as part of my mobile blogging tests.

Of course image posting now works. BUT I have now found out I can only post to the blog as long as I include an image, pain in the butt if you ask me.

So I began looking into other methods, like SMS, MMS and guess what. It seems my mobile provider isn't supported and the only way I can post is by using the phones inbuilt blogging feature.

Now because of that I am going to be looking into other ways of mobile blogging. For example I did see a post on the Blogger Google Group about posting with Gmail and that got me thinking if I could actually post with my phone in email mode. Will test that shortly and see how it goes.

Hmm... That's Interesting!

Now here is an interesting thing I have going right now. As some of you already know I have my own personal site. And one thing I have been looking into is getting this blog to be part of my site. On first look it seems I can add the blog as long as I give it a dedicated section. But is that really what I want to do? Umm,,, Not really.

I am hoping to include this blog both on the front page in a kind of RSS way while keeping it open up to my new site design (currently in progress) But here is where things get a little fuzzy.

Blogger will allow you to post to FTP but on doing so, your old blog stops working and even gets removed. Not exactly what I want.

The exact way in which this will all work is not set it stone it seems, and if I do attempt it. Things may go horribly wrong. So for that reason I am going to build a test site and if it all works out I should have this blog linked up with my personal site.

SecondLife

I have recently got back into SecondLife where I initially registered to back in December 2006, however at the time I registered I didn't really have the time to get into it as needed. So last December (2007) I was looking around my emails and noticed one from SecondLife, as I looked into it I realised I had already been on it and had completly forgotten about it.

Needless to say I proceeded to install the client and try to login and have a look around. Took me all of 10 minutes to get back into the thing and boy oh boy I started remebering what I did before.

I used to visit a place called CannaCabanna which is a Cannabis hangout, as you could call it. I remembered how it used to look, a small groovy place. But damm now is a huge place with a good few visitors all the time. So because of that great improvement I decided to try and stick around, get to know a few there and get more knowledge and experience. Within a few days I had all the basics tucked in nicely and I was flying around (literally) getting this done.

In my time within SL I have met a fair few good people. Of course like any community you do get the bad ones.

Anyway enough of the chat, straight to the point. As of now I own land within SL which is being used as a shop area curently, that will soon be updated and added to and evan a dedicated site will be launched.

More info soon!

Yikes!!!

I cant believe I have left this do absolutly nothing. Oh well, hopefully I can stay on top of it this time.

OK so it's been some time since I really did any major updates to any of my sites. And to be honest, I have noticed more recently that I have got my own database of sites, all run by me or by my company.

Infact I keep loosing count, but that's not all, I register on so many sites it becomes real hard to keep up. So hopefully I have a plan in the pipeline! (wait, did he just say another plan? it'll never happen)

Currently I am not sure how I am going to interlink all my things, but I will be looking into that soon enough.

I will be splitting my items into two sections, personal and buisness. Both sets of items will be placed on my personal blog, which is currently here, and all the buisness side of things will have its own company blog.