My most popular blog post (a code snippet on how to fit all markers on a Google Map) largely is the only place that gets a response with the occasional comment. However, they’re usually “thanks for the help”, which I really do appreciate but I don’t feel that was the point of the blog post. Otherwise, it’s people asking for further support which I just can’t give over the comments of a blog post (mostly because people don’t check back).

Pingbacks – letting a blog know you’ve mentioned it in a post on your blog (WordPress does this by default) – seems the most sensible way to have a conversation online. It forces well thought out comments rather than spur of the moment outbursts.

For those that don’t know, wordpress.org is the open source website, where you can run the software yourself. WordPress.com is a commercial arm (they have to make money somehow) where you pay for certain services, and have a lot less freedom.

I decided to “downgrade” because there’s blatantly something wrong with my server. I don’t think it’s anything on my part, more on the part of my VPS providers (since their websites were down too). After weeks of slow loading, and database crashes, I’ve decided to just go self hosted for  a while.

The blog should be way faster now, and always work. Downside is it cost me £7 to have the domain forwarded. And I can no longer installed plugins, or themes. I can only use the ones WordPress.com offers. I can’t show ads the way I used to (only to first time visitors, on certain single pages/posts). I wasn’t making much money off them anyway, so it’s not a big loss. And I’m a little worried with putting my information in someone else’s business. I’m really hoping I’m not surrendering any copyrights to this data by putting it here (I’ve not read up enough yet).

Other than it being managed by someone else, I don’t see any up side to WP.com. I’ll be switching out as soon as I get a better server.

Could be the DNS playing catch up still, but it doesn’t look like I can use my OpenID any more…

Google seems to think that my blog is porn centric...

Was just checking today’s search results that found their way to my blog and find these…

On the other hand though, it kinda means that every scrap of information that has been taught to us within DMU will be put online… I feel like I’m divuldging trade secrets which may well be illegal… I mean, why go to DMU – or university at all – if you can just come here and look at the material, right? So I’m going to avoid posting actual links to presentations and stuff, and just summerise it in my own words, which I’m fairly sure doesn’t evoke any copyright stuff.

And if it does, I’ll plee educational use, which is covered under fair use. S’all good.

I didn’t know that my systems analysis stuff had to be submitted on- as well as offline. I’m hoping she’ll still accept and mark it without me getting in trouble with due dates and stuff. To be fair, I submitted it by hand weeks before it had to be, that must count for something. She’s knows I did the work on time.

I got 1% chance of plagorism though, which is awesome. Most people get around 30%, apparently. I’ve always prided myself on having my own writing style – even if it is too informal sometimes. When people assume that I’ll steal someone elses work I’m kinda offended because… well, I’m the only person that can ever write like me.

Anyway, computer technology lecture two.

Oh, almost forgot. These computers have CS Flash on them! I’m totally going to learn it some time.

I’m not at all worried about getting into university though. The way I see it is that I’m likely to get into DMU. If I miss that, it really won’t be by much, in which case I can fight my way through clearing. If all fails miserably, I’ve still got all of next year to reapply. I can even resit an A Level unit or two if I really have to, not getting into university won’t push my timetable back at all.

The problem of this being my last exam though is that I’m actually unemployed once it’s over. Dad’s nagging me that my child support money will stop in September so I’ll have to get a job to pay him the money he’s losing out on. What I think he meant though was that I needed to get a job in order to pay him board money. Which is really a dumb thing to say, since I’m hoping to have moved out of this house long before September anyway. I just have to start looking for a job now; I’m not really sure where to start though. I’ll make an appointment at the Job Centre tomorrow, I guess.

Meanwhile though, I’ve bought shamess.info and I’m using part of that to advertise freelance, hosting and SEO services I can start offering. That’s something I wanted to do before, but never really had time in between World of Warcraft and college. Now it’s just World of Warcraft I can start focusing on that full time, till I get a job, then I can focus on it full time.

Side note: I’ll start to move this blog over to shamess.info too soon (probably tonight) so things may get a bit confusing, since I’ve never migrated a WordPress blog before. I figure I won’t touch the files, and just change the ServerName. Hopefully, most people won’t even notice the URL change, if I set it up right.

Oh, also, I’m going to start updating DebianTips again. It still gets okay traffic for a neglected blog. I need to touch up some of the older posts with stuff I’ve learnt new though, before I start doing more stuff.

It’d be very interesting to see if I get any hits from people searching for legal help and stuff, and they found my revision. Heh.

Update: I took this screen shot a few minutes after I posted this entery. That’s pretty damn fast.

I stopped being lazy.