Inverted Reality

Domain Name

Yesterday I managed to score a domain name that I was watching. thebeaningoflife.com It was already registered, for some time, it expired in January this year, and only yesterday became available to re-register after passing through the redemptionPERIOD and pendingDELETE period. What does this mean? If you have a domain name, and you do not renew it, it expires. However, before someone else can snap it up and take it for themselves, it goes through several "phases". It takes around 75-days after expiry before it's available for someone else to register. During the redemptionPERIOD the original registrant has the ability to recover the domain (I think for a fee). This phase is no doubt the longest, and goes on for months. After this it becomes pendingDELETE and during this period (about 5 days), nothing can be done to recover the domain. If you really want a domain name, and it's going through these phases, it's probably a good idea to 'back order' the domain name through your favourite registrar. This means you have a higher chance of acquiring the domain name should it become available again. I decided not to back order (the domain isn't THAT important to me), but just watch it like a hawk for it to become available again for registration. Boy was I surprised when I attempted to register it (again) yesterday, and the registration process worked. Anyway, enough techno babble. What are my plans for this domain name? To be honest, I'm not sure. I have a few ideas! One could be a new blog, coffee related. It could be the future site of my future espresso bar? (hah), somewhere to aggregate popular coffee news from around the world. Start an online coffee shop by re-selling roasted beans from a local roaster? Who knows. I'll think of something. For the time being, the domain is parked. It's set up with some ads. This means if you go to the site, all you get is a pile of ads that you can click on (feel free, it helps pay for coffee, heh). Google offer a service as part of their 'adsense' package to do domain advertising. So any dormant domains you have that aren't doing much can be put to use and possibly generate some income. Especially useful if the domain already has some incoming traffic or link in's. thebeaningoflife.com has three sites linking to it, looks like they are all forums. Want to know who/what is hitting your site? Try: alexa.com analytics.google.com

New Apple iPad Blog

I've set up a new site. http://www.ipadicle.com/ (it rhymes with Radical, but is spelt completely different) I plan to add all iPad tips, tricks and news on the site, as well as hopefully gain some discussion. The idea is to make it a one-stop-shop for everything iPad. From Developers to regular users, hopefully it will become a useful resource!

Blogging and iPad

So I'm looking to get myself an iPad, if it's a great device, I'll get two (one for the wife, she loves books, mags, etc). I was thinking about what it will be like to blog using an iPad. A little different I would imagine. I've blogged using my iPhone from time to time, but rarely, it's not so easy with the tiny keyboard and screen. OK for small posts, or processing comments, etc. The iPad has a stunning screen and should be adequate for blogging on the go. Still with the software/virtual keyboard, which may or may not prove odd to type lengthy posts on, but we will see. The beauty of the iPad is obviously the form factor, battery life, display, and the completely awesome multi-touch interface. These things are appealing to me as someone who primarily uses the internet to carry out my tasks. I even write my doc's using google docs. I do not have MS office installed (or any other office suite) Would the iPad replace my Macbook Pro? No. I use my Macbook Pro for things the iPad just can't do (yet). Like coding web pages using coda, editing images in pixelmator, editing HDV movies of the kids in iMovie, etc. Who's to say that some of these apps couldn't run on an iPad? I reckon coda could, if it was designed for iPad. I can see the iPad being a fantastic bloggers tool. A great way to read your favourite blogs, administer and write on your own blogs, heck even blog about the iPad! I'll leave you with a couple of cool iPad things I've come across lately: iPad Safari (web browser) walk through: Wired Magazine on iPad:

Blogging is like growing grass

For the past few weeks I've been preparing the house for new lawn. We've had a lot of new landscaping done, including retaining walls, poured limestone, new patio, etc. While we do not have a lot of space, we've come up with a way to maximise what land area we do have, that we are allowed to actually develop and use for living space. The front yard used to be a horrible grass slope, completely unusable (for living space), and awful to mow. We've retained it up, levelled it, and turned it in to a courtyard with approx 50sqm of new living space. It's a space to sit and enjoy a wine whilst watching the kids run around. Still a little way to go until things are looking finished around here though. New Palmetto Turf [gallery link="file" columns="2"] Establishing your blog is sort of like establishing your lawn. The blog needs a lot of attention in the beginning while the root system develops and the lawn blog grows. Subscribers will come if the effort is put in from the start. Good content, regardless of topic, is worth coming back for.

Web Hosting, Blogs, and more

So I run a small home business. I.T Consultancy, but more 'online' orientated. I specialise in web hosting, domain names, email hosting, blog set up, search engine optimisation (SEO), e-commerce, and more. I even build small web sites. If you, or someone you know could do with some help in these areas, feel free to let me know. Even if it's just a blog. I can organise "yourname.com" AND set up the blog software for you, offer advice on themes/styles, indexing in search engines, plugin's, etc. I take care of the entire process. My hosting packages start at $10/m and offer very generous disk and bandwidth quota's. I'm also keen to negotiate a cheaper option for non-profit and charity organisations.

old school blogger

You know what, this morning I realised how long I've been blogging for, one way or another. Put it this way, the word "blog" didn't exist when I started blogging. In fact, the word "internet" was only just becoming popular when I was doing it... I started blogging in about 1994. I ran a web site that I called "Dimension X". It was built on an old Mac when I was visiting my mother in Hong Kong. I'd sit in the computer lab at her work (University of Hong Kong) and just tinker. An easy way to entertain myself while my mother worked. Tinkering with this mac in the lab soon had me coding up some simple HTML. Pretty easy stuff. Yeah, there was no blogging platform or web design applications back then, just a text editor. HTML was pretty new. Did I mention that I actually met the guy that pretty much invented the world wide web? Yeah, Tim Berners-Lee. I'm not tryna show off or anything. This "Dimension X" web page was so simple... it had a header image at the top (which I drew on the Mac), and some text underneath. It had about four pages, including an 'about me' page and a 'links' page which linked to other peoples simple, boring, basic pages. I even had links to sites like sony.com and altavista.com. Sites that I thought were impressive back then. These days, anyone's site can be impressive. My web site was hosted with iiNet (an Australian ISP) which started commercial operation in about 1993 from the owners parents garage. All server's were Linux-based which made for easy web serving. My site was "iiNet member site of the month, for several months"... there were not many member sites! Back then they even had a 'top member sites' page, and even a 'members site index'. I would say they have too many to index these days hahaha. Unfortunately my site was 'lost in the matrix'... I've had many sites since then. Inverted Reality has been running for about as long as I've had a keen interest in the 'wordpress' platform. In my opinion the best blogging platform available. I think the team are doing a great job and bringing blogging tools to the masses. Is blogging becoming a lost art with new web apps and social networking, like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the like? You tell me. Have you been twitting or posting on facebook more than you've been blogging? Are these new web apps great tools to market your blog? Or perhaps at least let your friends and family know you've updated your blog recently? Is RSS dead? I wouldn't care if a single soul didn't read my blog. In fact there is probably only a handful of people that check it out anyway... it's a great way to get down experiences and thoughts. Subject doesn't really matter (unless your blogging for a living, and even then, it sometimes doesn't matter) You should start a blog if you haven't already. Even if it's just updates on what crazy shit your grandmother did last week. It's probably good for a read!

Wordpress 2.7 ?

So I updated to the latest wordpress, I like it. This blogging platform has come such a long way since it started. Amazing, the community is really pushing it, I love it! On another note, it was our 3rd Anniversary yesterday. We've been married for 3 years now... we enjoyed it by swimming in Melissa's parents new pool (first ever). It was a real treat!

From 0 to 11,000 blog subscribers in under a month

I've posted previously about www.leopardtricks.com a popular blog for tips and tricks for Apple's latest operating system "Leopard". I mentioned the site hit an amazing 3,000+ subscribers at some stage. This was late last year after the site was running for a very short period of time. Two months later. leopardtricks.com now has (currently) 13,860 subscribers. (as shown by feedburners stats) Not bad for a site that I built in November 2007. Maybe someone will buy it off me!