Updated “About” Page

Just to let everyone know that I have updated my “about” page and I like it better.

I have been under a pit of pressure to have a go at changing my about page. Admittedly the previous iteration was thrown together not long after coming to WordPress. A lot has happened since then so I decided to update it.

I have been blogging for about a year now and so that was a bit of motivation for me to change a few things. I guess it also answers a few questions that people might have about me. I have also included links to other things that I do or are associated with.

I think the page is a little more rounded now and I think it reflects how I feel about blogging and what I am doing and what I am trying to accomplish. I think the “feel” thing is important, because unless you are passionate about something then it isn’t going to be as effective as if you were. I am by nature a passionate person and believe in both my ideas and opinions. Ask anyone that I have had an argument with! I can argue for something I know is wrong and have the other person believing it. I am not sure that is a good thing but it does reflect the passion of the person.

Enjoy the new page and for new visitors have a look and learn more about The Rooster. A nick that doesn’t seem to be that popular on the Internet and by which I am becoming known. Not sure that’s a good thing either. But it kind-of fits and I like it. So call me Dave or The Rooster and drop a comment here and there, bloggers love it and it gives them purpose.

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Updated the Webpage

Nothing major today, I have made a few changes to the Global Geek Podcast Homepage.

Because the web-page for the Global Geek Podcast was such hard work I have avoided changing anything for fear it would all be ruined. But I can say that now it is all set and basically the way it will be for a while, editing it in a minor way was easy. I just cut and paste the HTML our and into Nvu which is an open source WYSIWYG editor for web pages. It is excellent because as you would know from the podcast Sebastian and I do not try to pass ourselves off as HTML guru’s at all. Quite the opposite; we suck! Nvu is highly recommended by myself, especially if you don’t want to spend any money – it works!

As you might know from Sebastian’s blog, he purchased a domain name: sebrt.com for his blog page, which he has “masked” with that domain. So I thought it only fair that the link to his blog be that, so that done he should now be happy.

The other change is that you will notice that there is a link to The Knightsite. There is a bit of a story behind this one. Another great story of networking, Skype and the community of podcasters, bloggers. Turns out that this Belgian dude called Joe (a.k.a Knightwise) was cruising around the Skype “search for contacts” option in Skype. I don’t know what for but eh, he was there. He happened across Sebastian’s Skype id which detailed his podcasting involvement. So Joe called him up, as it happens Sebastian and I were talking at the time and we invited the Knight into the conversation and we all hit it off. Joe is a top bloke and he has a podcast called the Knightcast. It is a great quality podcast; hell he uses VBR encoding at high bit rates – bandwidth must be cheap in Belgum! Plus I think his accent is cool.

So Knightwise should have a place on our Podcast Homepage. We often talk now and encourage each other with our projects and we are planning some joint ones coming up so that will be fun. It is true that the internet does not know borders or nationality. I am stoked that I have yet another person added to my own community that is mutually moving towards bettering our “space”. There is no way in the world that my own universe would have opened up as much as it has without this wonderful medium called the internet, which is starting to reflect real world interactions and ways of meeting new friends. And that is just plain cool.

By the way please have a listen to the Knightcast, great quality and very impressive editing, he deserves a bigger audience and he is a top bloke.

So that’s about it for the web-page update, but as usual I can talk about anything for too long!

Global Geek Podcast #002 & WordPress Down

We have the second Global Geek Podcast done and dusted and available for download. The second thing is that I am contemplating moving the blog due to technical problems at WordPress. [This is the second attempt at uploading this post!, the “published just failed… again]

Sorry that I have been all silent for the last 48 hours. This has been due to WordPress being down. Well not completely down. Sure I was able to login and I was able to view my statistics, I could even write another page for the website! But do you think that I could write a blog entry? No. This has been the situation for the last 48 hours. I tried last night, this afternoon and now and now is the only time I was able to do so. The other thing of note is that the whole site is as slow as a duck in treacle and that’s bloody slow! It takes ages to log on, it takes ages for the pages to display, it takes ages to do anything and I am not the only one! I am not even sure if this entry will “work”.

To say that I am a bit peeved would be an understatement in the least. I am genuinely disappointed as well. As I write this blog Sebastian is trying to publish a blog and what do you know WordPress is down… again; failed to reach server error!

I rely on this blog to let everyone know whats going on and publicise the Global Geek Podcast. The other thing is that some of my posts are generating some interest in the wider blogging community. This is a real let down.

The fact is that WordPress have an obligation to provide a reliable, stable service and thus far this has not been the case. I am seriously considering moving to a payed service like TypePad, I would not mind the US$4. 95 a month for reliability and stability; a small price to pay.

WordPress should be a bit concerned about this as blog entries such as this will quickly tarnish their reputation and they will be known as unreliable. For those of us that have bugger all understanding of PHP or HTML or maintaining a server; they rely on services such as this. Please WordPress make good on providing us a more reliable service, I don’t want to have to cross my fingers every time I click “publish”.

Just as a side note I notice that the RSS Feed widget for the Global Geek Podcast isn’t working, don’t know why; the RSS is valid… another thing that’s not working I guess…

Rant over. Please head on over to Global Geek Podcast and take a listen to the latest podcast; which is I do say so myself isn’t too bad. A much better poodcast, the audio is better and the content quality is high. I urge you guys if you have not got an aggregator to subscribe to the podcast (and any others that you might want to) then drop me a line and I do not mind pointing you in the right direction. By the way when I say subscribe – don’t worry it is free!

Podcast Blog is a Go

Well good news, the Podcast Homepage is up and running! It does not yet host a Podcast but the blog has been started and if you have a visit you will see what it is all about… Raise curtain now…

Have a look at the Global Geek Podcast Homepage. Please note that the domain names are yet to resolve so that link will change to http://www.globalgeekpodcast.com – which I am hoping will only take twenty-four hours… We will see. Knowing my luck fourty-eight will be good going.

So hopefully between here and there myself and Sebastian will be able to keep you informed.

Oh and if there are any budding designers out there we need a logo for the podcast!

GoDaddy Brings Home the Bacon

I am posting today because I wanted to give GoDaddy a bit of a wrap.

I got sick of corresponding via email and decided to ring GoDaddy with a few issues and queries about my domains. So I decided to ring Tech Support. I fired up Skype and after struggling with the right number I rang GoDaddy with Skype. Just as a note the Dialing Wizard Skype have is excellent to get the right numbers to cal landlines with Skypeout.

I expected to be on hold for ages, but I was told via automated voice that the wait was two minutes. Thirty seconds later my call was answered; how good is that! So good on them for that. My call was answered by a polite guy in the U.S. I told him that I was new to all this and the following ten minute call had all my questions answered. They did not treat me like an idiot either, very patient and helpful.
The customer support at GoDaddy is by experience excellent, and I would encourage anyone that is considering purchasing a domain to go with GoDaddy. So two thumbs up, I was so impresed I’ve blogged it.

By the way the ten minute and thirty second phone call to a United Sates land-line cost me thirty six cents Australian, Telstra should be worried. And the call quality was excellent as well.