On the 19th, I travelled from Preston, Lancs to Glasgow Central Station on a Virgin Pendolino. The train arrived on time with no expected interruptions. I boarded and was rudely told to sit somewhere else because a seat was “taken” for someone’s hand luggage. I passed it off as just a rude individual, and sat down next to a lovely lady who kindly put her bags on the floor. The train carried on  through the principle stations, Lancaster and Oxenholme (Lake District). About half way between Oxenholme and Carlisle, the Train Manager (who we’ll call Dave) put an announcement out that the train would only be stopped about 20 minutes due to an overhead power failure. This was fine, I’d been in train delays on numerous occasions. 20 minutes passed, and Dave put another announcement out stating that it would be another 20 minutes before the train could proceed. This frustrated me, and pretty-much everyone else on board. We couldn’t work out why Dave had told us 20 minutes, for a problem which would clearly take longer than 20 minutes to sort. Eventually, this turned into an hour and 15 minutes.

Due to this stupendous fuck-up, we then got stuck behind a freight train which was moving so slow, it was defying the laws of physics going forwards. This pushed us behind schedule by about 45 minutes, going through the forests around Dumfries. Eventually, the train pulled into Glasgow Central at about 2 hours late. I wasn’t bothered about the delay, but what pissed me off the most, was the fact Dave had fabricated a time, which he, nor Network Rail could confirm.

To make matters worse, on my return journey on the 23rd, I walked into Glasgow Central, and the timetable information boards said the train was delayed. When asking a member of staff if they knew what time the train would be delayed until was like getting a Christian to believe the Big Bang really happened. Eventually the train rolled in at 19:25, forty-five minutes late. Then they had to clean the train (which is can be understood). The train finally departed from Glasgow Central at 19:40, an hour behind schedule.

Seriously, Virgin, if you are going to claim to have consistent services between Glasgow and London, MAKE SURE YOU BLOODY ADHERE TO IT. Either I am incredibly unlucky to be delayed by 3 trains in a week, or Virgin are the culprits. On the outbound journey, they handed out customer comment forms to fill in for some form of compensation. I’m not sure what type of compensation I would get, but not only was I late into Glasgow, my friend was waiting for me in the station for over an hour, because we weren’t given an arrival time.

I think I would rather Drive to Glasgow, and probably end up spending more money on fuel, than arriving late without a proper reason.

It shouldn’t be too hard to get a set-up going where I pre-record the video’s, edit them, and then upload them to Youtube. Obviously, being an open-source software user, I need to get my hands on some free, open-source video editing software.

Once I have a decent platform set up for vlogging, you’ll be seeing more updates, tutorials and important changes to the services I run. There’s just a couple of pieces of equipment I need to invest in, such as a decent(ish) webcam, and a fairly decent microphone.

This could be a pretty lengthy update by the time I have finished… depends how much I get interrupted.

IRCWhore’s

There’s major changes happening at IRCWhore’s, including a massive revamp of the system back-end, a new front-end theme, and how the system interfaces with the database, statistics engine, and the chat daemon. As it stands, development is a little slow at the moment, but the features that are being implemented are being put in place securely, and measures are being taken to ensure that the systems insecure.

Another key development is the way the website integrates with an advanced table structure. More tables and stronger relationships mean that data can be accessed quicker, and highly normalised structures result in a superior system. In addition, indexes are being added to increase the performance of the database server, and the server-side back-end. UNIQUE fields are being used to ensure that repetitive data cannot be added, and measures have been put in place on the server-side scripting to ensure that the system doesn’t have to keep checking if the field is unique.

IRCWhore Title and TopNav snapshot

In addition to the back end being optimized for superior performance, the client-side scripts (JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets and Hypertext MarkUp Language) have been optimised to be delivered in the fastest possible way. This is done by adding caching to images, style sheets and scripts, while removing caching from the main content. Also, the scripting is optimised by removing all unnecessary line breaks and white space. This might make the script ugly, but with a 34% decrease in download time, it’s worth it.

In addition to performance, security is another key area of the development. The main security protocols installed in the system are automatic reporting of break-in/injection attacks, and the automatic banning/suspending of users should they be detected performing a break-in attempt. In addition to the security protocols being developed, various child safety policies and protocols are being developed. These include:

• Child-Parent Profile Linking – This allows parents to take control over their child’s account with limited permissions. This could be use to see who the child is making contact with via the online messaging system, and to see who the child has made friends with online. Obviously, ethics and morals will restrict what features we do implement here, and we are still working on a way to enforce parent-child relationships without people adding them to any account they wish. All relationships will expire once the younger of the relationship reaches 18.
• Restricted Access to Minors – The amount of access an under 16 year old will get determines on the parent-child relationship being made. The most basic restriction (with no relationships) potentially prevent the child from making friends with people older than 16, not messaging anyone that’s not in their friends list, restricting how the user interacts with certain features on the website (including the personal weblog, forum and the personals section).
• Strict Profile/Image/Post Screening – While moderating images and profiles can often be a laborious task, we think that it is a critical feature of our systems. The moderators will obviously be trained to the highest possible standard in what to allow and of course, disallow. They will have a full set of tools to either delete, report, suspend or ban based on the content of the image. This feature will not be abusable, as all actions across the site are logged into the Administration Control Panel. If a picture is regarded as illegal, IRCWhore and its regulatory board will report the user to the respective authority.

IRCWhore is solely based around security and safety, and this is taken into consideration while coding the core features of the website. As we are ensuring we are not promoting illegal activities, or allowing them to take place on our server, we are proud to report that we have been awarded ICRA certification as a child-friendly website. We are also going to work with other Child Protection Agencies to ensure that we are recognised as the first, and only child-friendly webchat website.

While protecting the children, we also thought about what we can do for adults. Ever been lonely and needed someone to talk to? Ever wanted someone that is like you? That’s where IRCWhore’s Singles comes into play. We will implement the most significant features of the leading singles websites, while adding some of our own random spice to give you a list of people we think you will like. Unfortunately, due to the implementation of the features mentioned above, parents will NOT be able to apply as a single. In addition to the previous restriction, we also regret we can only provide the singles service to our premium customers which are genuine members who have verified their authenticity by donating via PayPal or Google Checkout.

More and more features will be implemented over the coming months, and yes, we will keep you up-to-date. Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/ircwhorestatus.

The worst image possible, is when you click “Remove background image“, and you get this.. It’s disgusting.

I mean look at the image first of all. Its silver and a dull brass on a black background, which is okay, but the image is not flat. It has a 3rd dimension added to it which makes text hard to read. I mean, don’t get me wrong, some of the images work with the rather generic text, such as the image of the sand-dunes, you can still see the text. But when you’ve got white backgrounds with white images, and then white text with a bit of a shadow, it doesn’t work Google…

Secondly, the Google logo is somewhat ugly. What happened to the blue, red, yellow and green we’ve all grown to love? Why do they have to bastardize our beloved ones?

Thirdly, what happened to the text, we all know white text on a black and white background makes the text hard to read?

Next, when you do select a background image, you have this bright-white atrocity stuck at the top of the page, which is the navigation bar. Its ugly when you have your own background. If you’re going to have a background image, at least change the image at the top as well, so that it all blends in.

All I am asking for, is for you to give me back the Google I remember from the very first time I went onto your Search Engine. Mesmerized by the colours and the simplicity, it became the ONLY search Engine I used. And yes, that’s how much I like Google! But I think I may stray away from using the home page to search from now on, and just stick to using the URL bar in Chrome to search, at least my eyes won’t implode when they try to read the text!

If you’d like to read more information about these homepage changes, view: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/art-of-homepage.html

I have a number of names that I would like to use, but I’m at a bit of a mental block at the moment. Hopefully, before the end of the week, I should have some idea’s for what I wish to call it. Obviously, any idea’s are welcome, but if the idea’s get stupid or comments get abusive, either comments will be closed, or if the IP’s are alike then bans will be enforced.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.