studiowhiz ramblings

Isn’t it funny the things we think are going to go great, don’t always. The things we throw together with little forethought often pan out better than we expect.

Case in point, “Stop writing and increase your traffic“, a post I threw together in minutes while waiting for a mate to pick me up for a Dad’s night out. I really wasn’t thinking “This’ll be a great post” it was more, “Gosh I better put something on Studiowhiz” Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I would try something. I’ve written quite a bit (well okay a little bit) on the site and was busy trying to promote a new post from the site each day.

So I stopped, for a few days and guess what. My site traffic went up and looks to be stabilizing around the 200 people a day mark. Not too bad given I only started blogging here again in December. Still I’m not back yet - the site doesn’t have a PR status yet (I’ll need your help for that - so why not link to Studiowhiz and help?). We used to have a PR 7 from Google, but that’s another post coming this week.

Now I’m not advocating that if you stop posting on your site your traffic will go up, however I do wonder if taking a few days off to let Google & others catch up, can be a good thing for your site.

how to make an icon, how to draw a car, how to create a flash website? These are all questions sitting in my traffic logs. Obviously Google thinks studiowhiz.com is a site that can help - and in the past that would have been true, back when Studiowhiz was well known in the Flash Community. I even wrote the book Build your first website with Flash MX a few years back.

Now however Studiowhiz is my personal blog - still why can’t it provide a resource for these things? So this post will answer these 3 questions:

• How to make an icon
• How to draw a car
• How to create a flash website

Read the rest of this entry »

If you hadn’t heard Apple are running their MacWorld conference at the moment. This is the ‘holy of holy’ events for any true Mac aficionado. At these events Steve Jobs has a keynote speech in which he reveals the direction for Apple in the coming year - oh and he throws out any new hardware.

Well I have to say all in all I’m rather disappointed. I mean he announced 4 new things today and none of them have the usual ‘wow’ factor I’ve come to expect from Apple. Read the rest of this entry »

My mate over at webhelp.co.nz has an interesting post about his favourite Google Search, a nice little trick that allows you to quickly and easily find mp3, mp4, pdf, avi, mpeg, audio, music, videos, movies and much more.

I thought I’d extend this a little by adding some new functionality to his search & introducing Firefox bookmarks as a quick and easy way to do your search.
Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve finally started using Flickr. It’s not that I haven’t had an account. I remember getting introduced to Flickr by my mate Josh not long after they started. I was using Stock.xchng instead for my photo storing needs.

I’ve always had issues with flickr, not sure why really, but maybe it’s their ridiculously small limits for free accounts. I mean 3 sets only? Come on. Still as a business model they need to get you to upgrade.

Anywho, I figured I’d get back into flickr and try them out. So I’ve uploaded some photos of my recent 4×4 adventure that resulted in almost rolling the truck, scratching the heck out of it and blowing the clutch (actually breaking the flywheel into bits)

» flickr set: 4×4 adventure in Thomson’s Track

Over at Gizmodo I found a like to some really rad new headphones that do away with the MP3 player altogether. No more needing to lug a big iPod around, instead simply slot your SDCard in the slot and away you go. These are currently being shown at CES and haven’t yet hit the SkullCandy site.

» Gizmodo - check out the Gizmodo storey
» SkullCandy - check out their funky headphones and other gear

I am currently looking for solutions to managing my personal finances. I’m currently going through a number of services. Sadly many online services only support US based banks - useless for someone in NZ. www.xero.co.nz is a New Zealand service they say is suitable for personal finances. They are wrong it’s a small business service, and it’s jolly expensive - heck even Quicken Online is only $3 a month.

It got me thinking though. Many banks now offer (and have for many years) online access to your accounts - however these are simply online versions of off-line realm. I don’t think I’ve really seen any serious innovation in the area of bank websites. (A side note, I’m pretty much blind to any online bank service outside NZ).

Why can’t I tag transactions? Why can’t I categorise my finances directly on my bank site? I want to set up tags for, coffee, computers, household, grocery, garden, vehicles etc etc. This way I could quickly get a glimpse of what I’m spending and where I’m spending it.

Come to think of it, with the amount of transactions banks do they should know what sort of things are purchased at what locations. Surely it isn’t too hard for them to suggest tags/categories for your transactions?

For now, it’s back to using Cha-Ching on the local computer

Many years ago I registered www.studiowhiz.com with registerfly.com - who have since had their ICANN status removed. I’m going through the hassles at the moment of moving my domain to GoDaddy - hopefully before it expires in the next few days.

This hassle has involved getting Registerfly to pass domain details to Enom. Enom to authorise me as the owner (photo ID and all). Now to get the domain from Enom to GoDaddy - *sigh*

“We’ve knocked the bastard off” - famous words that echoed around the world when Ed Hillary reached the top of Mt Everest.

Today New Zealand farewells a living legend, a man almost every young boy wanted to be like. Farewell Ed.

11 January 2008, aged 88, Sir Edmund Hillary passed away from a sudden heart attack