The new hosted homepage

Right, this is the new home (for now) of this site – how permenant this is remains to be seen – but for now, I’ll be making do with the limitations of the wordpress.com hosting – which means the films list has gone, the direct link to the 30% project has gone, and the sidebar is a shadow of it’s former self.

With the way hosted services have moved on recently, I’m thinking I really don’t need to host my own site any more, when a combination of Flickr, Twitter and WordPress can do much of what I used to do myself.  I still own the domains, and will keep them mapped to here until I come up with a better idea.

On the move

This blog will soon be moving hosts again – due to some significant downtime recently from my current host (who is actually a reseller for uh-hosting – who are the ones who are failing to maintain adequate uptime on the servers)

I’m hoping that as the RSS feeds as served through feedburner, the new feed will continue transparently from the old one…   but we’ll see…

I don’t have a new host in mind yet, but will either be taking the domain to a new host (maybe GoDaddy) or will go to a wordpress hosted blog – which will actually be the site’s temporary home during the move anyway.

So repoint your browsers to http://tvotwhosted.wordpress.com/ where service will be resuming soon

It’s the hapcrappiest time of the year

And here we are again, early february and all those on-line shops start the deluge of “suggestions” for thing to buy my partner to show my love for no reason other than it’s the 14th February.

No, I will not buy my partner a BluRay player.

No, I will not buy my partner a 42″ flat screen TV, or a high-end digital camera.

No, I will not buy my partner an exercise bike or a furry pink laptop bag

There’s a simple reason for all this…

I don’t have a partner.

Resolving those resolutions

Well, here we are, the start of 2010, and it’s time to make those new-year-resolutions…  so briefly, here are mine…

• Complete my 30% Project as a self-improvement exercise (more details on the project’s own website)
• Cut down on my caffiene intake – switching to decaf tea, even at work, and reducing the amount of cola and other caffienated soft drinks
• Take steps to further reduce my carbon footprint.  I will not be elimintating flying, but will be attempting to cut my car use by walking or using public transport more, and will also be continuing on from the CurrentCost Project to reduce the energy consumption of my home – especially at “idle”, and for example by replacing light fittings to low-energy CFL or LED equivalents where practical to do so.

Now to revisit those 2009 resolutions and see how I did…

Oh dear.   OK, let’s not do that…

Instead, let’s take a look at what may be the events to remember in 2010…

• The end of Big Brother on British TV- is this the turning point for “reality” TV?  I’m guessing, unfortunately not!
• The disappointment with the over-hyped Th13teen at Alton Towers not being the horror attraction people are expecting, and turning out to be a family friendly “pink knuckle” thrill ride instead…
• Jenson Button winning his second F1 World Championship?  or will it be Schumacher again?  or maybe Hamilton?

Again, what do you all think is there to look forward to in 2010…   I’m told there might be some little football tournament going on as well…

Happy New Year

As the new year starts it’s 24 hour tour around the world (it’s already 1st Jan in Australia, it’s lunchtime on New Years Eve here…) it’s time to reflect on the past year, and look forward to the next…

The question is, for what will 2009 be remembered the most,maybe one of these?

• for Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize whilst having his forces waging war?
• For Jenson Button finally winning the F1 World Championship
• For the continuation of more and more extreme weather – hotter summers, more floods destroying homes and communities?
• Avatar?
• Windows 7?
• MacOS Snow Leopard (was that 2009??)

What do you remember as the “hallmark” of 2009?

I’ll leave looking forward to the next year for tomorrow’s post…

Pimp My House 2009

Yes, it’s that time of year again…

And yes, there’s more…  lots more…

The CurrentCost Project

During my enforced Facebook absence, I’ve found time to do another project – figuring out how much electricity I use, and finding ways to cut down (without affecting my life significantly) – I’ll warn you now, this post gets really geeky, really fast.  Also, I’ll mention now, that I’m a bit of a newbie when it comes to Linux, and although I remembered a few bits from my younger days tinkering with things (like how to use the vi editor) – this has been very much a learning experience.

I think this is a good thing…

I’m starting to think that my self-inflicted break from Facebook and Twitter is a good thing – I don’t feel as if I’m missing out on knowing what everyone else is doing in the slightest – and in fact, not knowing what others are doing is, I think, a benefit sometimes.

It’s also allowed me to tackle a little project I’ve had in mind for a while – and when it’s finished (and if it works) there’ll be a write up what I’ve done – basically tracking how much electrical energy I’m using at home…  once the data is gathered, I can no doubt find ways to improve, use less power, and cut my bills.  I’ll post more information on that subject soon.

Social Un-Networking update

Well, I managed to stay off both Facebook and Twitter over the rest of the weekend, hopefully now that we’re into the working week, it’ll be a little easier to resist the temptation to see what other people are broadcasting. Hopefully going cold-turkey from those two sites doesn’t mean I have to go cold-turkey from contact with my friends… A few have been in touch by other means, but we’ll see how this goes… (yes, I know this will be posted to both sites automatically, I’ve not disconnected the feeds, as at the moment this is only a temporary break from social networking)

An experiment in Social Un-Networking

As an experiment, I’ve decided to take a week off from both Twitter and Facebook. This is simply to see how much I and my friends rely on web 2.0 to keep in touch with each other, as opposed to “more traditional” means like the phone, and even email or SMS, or even seeing each other face-to-face. I doubt it’ll in any way improve my social life – which is partly why I’ve chosen one of my on-call weeks for this experiment, otherwise I’d be getting paranoid about not knowing about events until after they’ve happened (which admittedly, already happens far too much anyway)

I’m guessing we all now use Web 2.0 far more than actual real contact with people, and I’m wondering if my life is suffering for it. If people send DM’s on twitter, or inbox messages through facebook, I will reply (as they are delivered to my email box) – if I have an alternate way to contact you. Let’s see if I can survive a week, or if the draw of finding out through scattershot broadcasting what my friends are up to is too great a temptation.

So, as of 3:45pm on Saturday 21st Nov. I am signing off both Facebook and Twitter, hopefully until 3:45pm on Saturday 28th November. I doubt I can do it if I’m honest, as it’s the only way most of my friends stay in touch these days.

The big question is can I resist the temptation, or am I really addicted to knowing what my friends and acquaintances are doing…