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July 19, 2002 16:30

Projects!

Everytime I tell someone I'm going to add something to "the list" or its on "the list" people often wonder what "the list" is. Well, it was a hodgepodge of interesting tidbits of ideas, completely unorganized, half on paper, half in my head. A glorified todo list that I never referenced.

In any event, I have now added a Projects Page so everyone can see what's on the list, and of course, comment on it. Its currently only about 1/3 done, but most of the big items are on there, and the remaining ones are mostly little code updates or other minor annoyances. They'll get added on shortly as well, but for now there's some content there to go through. Be sure to let me know if I miss anything.

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July 18, 2002 01:04

Alexa.com

This site tracks website popularity and gives each site a ranking, 1 being the most popular. The primary factor in determining the ranking is each day that a browser visits a site, that site gets a credit. The more people that visit a site each day, the better the ranking will be, in comparison to others that don't get as many unique visits each day. Multiple visits each day don't count, so the site that does the best can get by minimally with a large number of users that visit exactly once each day.

Why does any of this matter? To me, it gives me an idea how MY site ranks with the rest of the websites on the internet. At the current time, I rank 677608. This means that there are 677607 websites that are more popular than mine. This appears to be a very large number, and it is, but when you consider that google indexes over 2 BILLION webpages currently, I'm still riding in the top 0.1%.

The goal, obviously, is to get as close to 1 as possible. The way to achieve this is to have a large number of visitors that drop by daily, if only to check things out for a few minutes and leave. This means that I need a lot more compelling content that would entice more people to visit again and again, rather than the most of the current crowd that goes "wow! cool website... next!".

How do I acheive this? I can CONSTANTLY keep adding new, creative features, so people check frequently to see what got added today. While even someone as lazy as I might be able to keep up with the object of the day (even though I don't), I probably need more substanative projects to keep everyone's interest up. The sad thing is, I have enough time in each day to work on these things. During my extensive lack of employment, this would be the perfect opportunity to spend a lot of time completing a lot of these partially completed projects. I have a lot of projects that would take at most a couple hours to complete if I only sat down and worked on them. So work on them I shall. It means I'll have less time to sit around and chat all day, but there will be more stuff to play with. And I'll get back on the object of the day again.

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July 14, 2002 19:04

Cookie Madness and other things

Well, I was hoping to have user accounts working by the end of this weekend, but I have had some serious difficulties with cookies and the fact that my server wants to serve cookies that it shouldn't, and wreaks havok with the file sizes. Anyway, whenever I get all the bugs ironed out of that nightmare, hopefully I'll be able to get back onto other things, like Jeeves.

In other news, I'll be attending the Friend's of the Library book faire this week in Plano, TX. On the 17th volunteers spend the day setting up the faire which will run for 3 days and offer (and hope to sell) around 150,000 books. Volunteers of course get first dibbs, as the Thursday evening opening night is a mob scene. Hardcover books are $1 apiece and paperbacks are 50 cents apiece. I have no problem stocking up on a year's worth of reading material for about $25. I'll be there all day Wednesday during the setup and for a couple hours Thursday evening. Its located at the Plano Centre on Spring Creek, one block east of 75. For more information, check here.

Right now, the informal timeframe of the "Meet & Greet" will be sometime around Halloween. Most likely over a weekend. More details will be forthcoming as more information is available.

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July 13, 2002 21:30

Nikita is Single and Looking!!!

And if I do say so myself, she's definitely worth looking at. She's even posted a personal ad for anyone who's interested.. Oh now, STOP DROOLING! So if you just happen to be available and live nearby... or even far away, heck, she's worth driving for, go ahead and let her know. I'm sure she'll get a huge pile of responses, but you've got to play the odds here. There's always a chance she'll stumble upon your response. :)

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July 13, 2002 13:27

Scooby Doo

Whatever you have to do. Do NOT go see Scooby-Doo. Ramming needles under my fingernails would have been more entertaining, and far less painful. The only thing this movie had going for it was the extensive amount of cleavage and short skirts. And while that might keep a male such as myself pacified for a few extra minutes, the females have no chance to avoid a nervous breakdown. So save yourself the trouble. DON'T GO! PLEASE! Eeek! Blech!

Sad thing is, I used to LOVE Scooby-Doo. Maybe I still would if I were 8. Gosh how a little age will put things into perspective. Reading reviews for this made it appear that some college students who've made a habit of watching the cartoon might enjoy it. Excuse me? People tell me *I* have no life, but when someone decides that the best thing to do at any one time is watch Scooby-Doo to pass the boredom, THEY have FAR worse issues.

Anyways, it's Saturday and I just woke up. Perhaps its finally time to tackle that mountain of Dr Pepper cans that's been accumulating in my kitchen. Its getting harder to find a free horizontal surface in there. Otherwise, I think I'll add user accounts and maybe even work on Jeeves a bit today.

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July 12, 2002 20:22

Leslie has 4 dates

Well, at least 4 people have responded to her personal ad. This is good news, as she has been avoiding men since the horrible Jon incident, but we won't go there. Well, there was the teacher she was stalking, but he didn't count. And the guy in her logic class, and the hairy guy behind her in her computer class.....

But OTHER THAN THAT... she got 4 responses to her personal ad. At least ONE of them she managed to sucker int.... er... really wants to go out with her to Rocky, the Freddie Prince Jr. knockoff one specifically. Anyways, since 4 men at once might not be enough for her, you might consider checking out her personal ad.

In other completely unrelated news, its come to my attention from some people that visiting me makes them feel more normal than they originally believed they were. I'll assume that's a complement. In any event, at least SOMEONE'S feeling better about it. Might as well be me. :)

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July 12, 2002 19:41

Nothing Happened Today

Yes, its official. Nothing useful happened today. I woke up earlier because a customer was having difficulties with their network. After doing some minor troubleshoot I determined (guessed) that it must a flaky hub, since there were bad storms last night.

The hub in question is still under the 30 day (bring it back to Fry's and we'll refund it no questions asked) time period, but I didn't have the receipt for it here. So I swing by Fry's on my way there to purchase another hub. I look for the same model, but there's only one left, and it had already been returned once. I typically avoid Fry's returns like the plague, but for my master plan to succeed, I needed the EXACT same model, so I bought it anyway.

Drove to the customer, swapped out the hub, everything worked perfectly from that point on. And of course, NATCH, while I'm out there, while things are easy to fix, they can't find any problems with anything. Problems are reserved for times when I'm only available through the phone. Or at 7 am.

So I return to Fry's, put the old hub into the well... "new" box and take it in to return the disfunctional hub. Seeing how it had already been returned once, they gladly accepted the "it doesn't work right" explaination and rebox it.. probably to put it back on the shelf as-is for the next customer to enjoy. Maybe it will work for them, who knows. So I get a voucher, browse Fry's to take a look at everything I can't afford right now, cash out the voucher and leave. And so I'm out nothing.

And then I drive home. And nothing else happened. Oh well, its a Friday night. Something might happen later. And if not, well... who cares. :)

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July 11, 2002 10:07

Another radio station mentioned my site. Yesterday morning 94.5 The Buzz in Houston, TX mentioned this site during their morning show. While it didn't bring as many hits as CFOX did, its still cool, and much closer to home. They said they might call me in the future about it. Unfortunately, they didn't tape it, so there will be no mp3's this time. So, who will it be next? :)

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July 10, 2002 20:19

More new stuff. I've got comments on the news page, the visitors and manifest pages, and new captured pics will always have a comments link from now on. I still have quite a few pages to add links to, and will get to them shortly.

In addition, it is now possible to upload mp3's without using ftp. The web based upload script is in place and SEEMS to be working ok. Now for a nice shakedown test.

If I get enough time tonight, I might implement user accounts.

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July 10, 2002 00:00

COMMENTS!

I have implemented a very crude comments system whereby viewers can leave comments for others to enjoy. Comment links will be available on news entries, all captured pics, each item on the manifest and site visitors pages, each object of the day page, and perhaps others. Comment links will start showing up over the next few days. It will also probably get prettier as time goes on. Right now its very simple, very crude, but it works. I hope. :)

And here we go: Comments(0)


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