studiowhiz ramblings

Right, I got sick of the old look not working right - lazy developer I am, couldn’t be bothered fixing it. So when I updated to Word Press 1.5 and took the opportunity to dump this new template onto the site.

Now I screwed up when I did the update and lost all my images (stoopid stoopid stoopid) , so you’ll have to forgive me for that. I might have to ask a couple of authors to update their posts again.

Now off to update my plugins too

We’re a cynical bunch aren’t we. If TV & Movies desensitize us to violence then the internet desensitizes us to charity & needs.

I’ve had a couple of things happening recently that have highlighted the issues faced when wanting to or needing too raise funds online and just how hard it is becoming to raise awareness and funds.

Lets take the case of my very good friend over at webhelp …
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Don’t get me wrong, I love WordPress, the guys over at Automatic are great. But seriously WordPress sucks, like really really sucks.

I’ve posted before about why wordpress needs an auto-update feature, which btw would be easy to do. I’m now moaning because Wordpress is really really crap at knowing things. See for a while now my blog has been telling me that my Wordpress version is out of date, and my plugins are out of date. 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.

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.
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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

I have my list of favourite sites, a list I’m slowly revealing here on this blog. One of these sites I absolutely adore is www.copyblogger.com a blog by Brian Clark.

Brain’s site is dedicated to helping others improve their writing style. One goal of my blog is to help me improve my writing, and Brain’s site will certainly help with that.

So why did I title this post “1 reason to ignore digg”? Brian’s site has grown from 6000 visitors to 29000+ in eleven months. He credits digg with some of this increase, however digg, while it helps bring in traffic, has it’s flaws.

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Remember the Milk is a great online service that helps you remember things. Think of it as your digital to-do-list. When I started using this service, it was simply a website that you could email tasks too. Now, well it’s so much more.

Today they have announced full integration with GMail which brings your list into you mail, allows you to link tasks with email or calendar events. You can then receive alerts (reminders) to your email or your mobile phone. They have a great video you can watch that shows you how Remember the Milk works with your GMail account.

I also noticed today (and they may have had this for a while) that there is an interface for mobile phones. You can use Remember the Milk on both Windows Mobile & Apple iPhone, and sync your tasks over the air. Fantastic, I must get back into using this. With the integration, the mobile solution and the ability to share tasks, I’m sure it’d make life easier around my house. (Yes dear, I’ll get milk on the way home)

» Remember the Milk
» RTM & Gmail integration video
» RTM & Windows Mobile
» RTM & Apple iPhone

I’m a car nut. Okay maybe thats an understatement - while other children wrote letters to their penpals (no, we didn’t have facebook when I grew up), I wrote letters to car companies.

My most famous of course was when I wrote a letter to Lamborghini and one to Pontiac. Of course it would have helped if I had sent the right one to the right company. However a few weeks later a letter from Italy arrived informing me that Lamborghini didn’t make the Firebird. *embarressed*

So I’m a car nut, so this year I decided to part with my pride and joy (an immaculate ‘99 Altezza RS200 Z edition - with limiter removed, don’t ask how I found out), and buy an 18 year old 1989 Toyota Hilux Surf - a truck.

So I’m a car nut, right! You’d think I might know a thing or two about vehicles. I ask myself the same thing every time I hear the funny noise my truck randomly makes. It’s in the engine .. no it’s not in the engine bay, it’s in the engine - as in under the rocker cover.

It’s an interesting truck to drive, each day a new noise, vibration. The truck only cost $3000, I have a gut feeling fixing this noise might just be a little bit more expensive :(

For sale: 1x 1989 Toyota Truck complete with own sound track

Tags: truck, fun, noise, motor, toyota, 4×4