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.

My Experience

I first got my contract with CPW back in October 2008, thinking it was a cracking contract. It consisted of the Nokia 6300 (an extremely reliable phone, though very basic), a Nintendo DS Lite (with nothing but the console, a manual and the charger), 14 days wait, £150 “up front confirmation fee”, and some snotty cow on the phone.

Basically, I applied for the contract in August when I just got paid. Happy as Larry, I completed all the forms on the screen and clicked submit. It then asked me for payment details, so I filled them in and submitted. It then asked me to confirm my order, which I did, and then submitted. On the order confirmation form, it said that the credit checks are instant, and they will email me regardless of the situation. 2 or 3 days passed, and still no email about my credit check or dispatch. 7 days passed, and still nothing. I went into one of their stores near where I live, and queried why my application for a contract phone is “stale”. They took my details, got me to confirm, and looked at me. The customer service agent called over his colleague and they both stood looking at the screen for about 5 minutes. Amongst themselves, one said to the other, “Have you seen anything like that before?”, the other replied, “No”. The guy then turned to me and said, “You’ll have to phone them up and speak to someone”. I stormed out the store, angry as hell.

Getting pretty wound up and phoned the number they give me. Stupid fucking robots. Press 1, Press 2, Press 3. I’d rather not press any fucking buttons at all and just speak to someone. When I finally got through to someone, lets just say they had difficulty speaking the Queen’s English. I couldn’t understand a blood word they were saying. After finally getting through to him what it was I wanted, he turned around to me and said, “Oh, that’s right, you need to transfer £150 as credit insurance”. I was livid. I can understand the credit insurance, but why nobody could contact me and tell me, I don’t know.

So I sent the money and finalized some details. When the phone arrived, it was thrown out of the van by the courier, then slammed onto the desk, and some grubby piece of wood with a bulldog clip on it was handed to me. I told him to hang on while I opened the bag and checked all the boxes inside were visually sound. He looked pissed off and asked me to hurry up because it was nearly his dinner time. I chuckled and checked them once more.

From that day onwards, I’ve never had contact from CPW, nor have they written to me about my expiring contract. One thing they have done is sold my mobile number onto other companies so they can try and buy my contract from me.

So if this is anything to go by, take my advice, and NEVER USE CARPHONE WAREHOUSE. They are a waste of time, they wait for you to contact them, and they use the worst couriers in the country.

Other Experiences

Other people have also had bad experiences with CPW when it comes towards the end of their contractual period. Most of them state that if you end your contract without 30 days written notice, they charge you. Of course this could be debatable, but quite a few telecoms forums have said the same thing.

I got bored of looking at the same terminal screen day in, day out. The standard output’s are boring, and are the same on most distributions.  The image on the right shows how they should look, boring and not very exciting. After some tweeking and some minor editing, oh, and a lot of reading, Using the following bash script, I have created something unique, and something I like.

# If id command returns zero, you’ve root access.
if [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ];
then # you are root, set red colour prompt
 PS1="\e[35;1m(\d \t\e[31;1m \u@\h:\w ) $\e[0m \n    "
else # normal
 PS1="\e[35;1m(\d \t\e[34;1m \u@\h:\w ) $\e[0m \n    "
fi

All that differs between the two outputs, is the colour of the user’s terminal. Just to help me see quickly if I am putting a command into the root terminal. After appending this script to /etc/bashrc, I had found what I liked..

Also, some data may be purged to save time… oh well

EDIT: Monday 21st September @ 22:24

Had I known the migration was going to be such a ball ache… I wouldn’t have bothered. Its so laborious, having to do individual database dumps for every project

What I intend to do, is work with the client right from the start, from conception of design, to implementation of features, to publishing and maintenance. I plan to offer a whole range of website packages from single-page info-sites, to dynamic-content based management systems, while using a whole range of web-design skills.

Obviously, this will mean investing in some new servers. I will more than likely use old-faithful Linode as they are a VPS provider I can trust. I am hoping to have just a dedicated webserver just for customers, which I can also move my sites over to, while making my existing webserver a dedicated services server, providing things such as MySQL and Billing.

This is just in the planning stage at the moment, and the idea’s are sketchy. As time progresses I plan to enforce these idea’s in a solid structure, and bring around a proper business plan.

1. Site Theme – I got bored of the fixed-width, extra-narrow, plain and boring theme. So I went for something a bit wider, something that handles thumbnailing better, and something that’s more aesthetically pleasing.
2. Tag-Globe – I have tweaked a few settings in the tag-cloud, which optimises its load time, and also makes some of the text easier to read.
3. Social Linking – I have installed a plugin which allows you to link an article to Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon and more. I am hoping this plugin makes my blog more known about, and extends to the deepest, darkest depths of the Internet.
4. SEO Settings – I have edited some Search Engine Optimisation settings to allow sites like Google, MSN and Yahoo to index my site better.

I am also contemplating removing the comment rating system from the blog, as its just not really doing anything. Hopefully your comments will assist me in making this decision. Your feedback will be appreciated.

Utter bollocks. I went cold turkey last wednesday, from smoking roughly 15 a day, to 0 a day. As we all know, going cold turkey is usually the worst method of quitting something, but its the best way. Starving your body of its cravings for nicotine is better than slowly reducing the amount of nicotine you intake through patches. Going cold-turkey means your body is forced to realise what it’s like without nicotine, and that it doesn’t need nicotine to survive.

The hardest part now, is just waiting to see how long it is possible to go for without even thinking of having a smoke.