I've been putting it off for far too long.
Today - it's off to the Breast Cancer screening clinic. A free service for women of a certain age.
Later this week - the doctor's turn. Get anything checked out that she wants to check as well as a couple of things that I want to talk about.
Since I was recently at the dentist - this will mean I've done all the normal checkups and will have nothing to worry about.
Or so I hope. We'll have to see about that.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016
Web site revamp is complete
I decided that all the game review pages were going to have to be updated. That was 133 game reviews plus about 4 to 6 general game pages. No, I didn't count. The reviews are in an unordered list, I just made it ordered for a couple of minutes so I'd know.
The game reviews - well, some of those games are still around. Maybe via ebay, a friend ditching old games, GOG.com or on a new device. So it's actually possible for people to look for reviews of them.
The current fight is to discourage the spiders from looking for content that was put on my site by the hackers. It took me ages to notice because I hadn't really been paying attention to the site for a couple of years. It wasn't until google webmaster tools sent me a "Your site has serious problems" type email before I found out. The extent to which the site had been compromised was serious.
Fortunately, I had been thinking of moving to a new host and had a site backup from when I was actively maintaining it. The crap was left behind. The good stuff was moved.
So, I'm giving myself a day or two off and then going to try writing new short stories for the site. It's time to be known as a writer of fiction, not a reviewer of games.
The game reviews - well, some of those games are still around. Maybe via ebay, a friend ditching old games, GOG.com or on a new device. So it's actually possible for people to look for reviews of them.
The current fight is to discourage the spiders from looking for content that was put on my site by the hackers. It took me ages to notice because I hadn't really been paying attention to the site for a couple of years. It wasn't until google webmaster tools sent me a "Your site has serious problems" type email before I found out. The extent to which the site had been compromised was serious.
Fortunately, I had been thinking of moving to a new host and had a site backup from when I was actively maintaining it. The crap was left behind. The good stuff was moved.
So, I'm giving myself a day or two off and then going to try writing new short stories for the site. It's time to be known as a writer of fiction, not a reviewer of games.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Ah - checking the stats
The site build provided by Digital Pacific for the new pibweb.com includes two stat programs.
They give different results. One strictly gives stats by the page. The other can show hits for individual images as well as pages. So I discovered that my most downloaded item is actually a Sims 2 screenshot. Hmm.
The other thing I am spending far too much time on is the error log. My previous site had been hacked into :( and some of the errors are references to hacker scripts that had been on the site at some time. But there are pages that I've moved and an entire section that I've simply not uploaded to this new site.
The unmoved section was software reviews. Given the software reviews are a decade or more old, those reviews are invalid since you wouldn't want the versions reviewed.
Game reviews are still on the site. The games would not have had newer versions and much patching like the normal software would have. I have no idea how hard they'd be to get on ebay or something. And some have since been ported to new systems - like Monkey Island is on IoS now. Still the same game!
They give different results. One strictly gives stats by the page. The other can show hits for individual images as well as pages. So I discovered that my most downloaded item is actually a Sims 2 screenshot. Hmm.
The other thing I am spending far too much time on is the error log. My previous site had been hacked into :( and some of the errors are references to hacker scripts that had been on the site at some time. But there are pages that I've moved and an entire section that I've simply not uploaded to this new site.
The unmoved section was software reviews. Given the software reviews are a decade or more old, those reviews are invalid since you wouldn't want the versions reviewed.
Game reviews are still on the site. The games would not have had newer versions and much patching like the normal software would have. I have no idea how hard they'd be to get on ebay or something. And some have since been ported to new systems - like Monkey Island is on IoS now. Still the same game!
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
On acting and drawing
We went to the Doctor Who festival held in Sydney last year. It was a lot of fun and I'd certainly do it again if it comes back.
One of the sessions we attended had audience Q&A time. An audience member asked Peter Capaldi if he thought acting was an innate talent or something that you could learn.
He compared acting to drawing. A lot of people think they can't draw so they don't try.
But if you want to learn it, you can do so by drawing every day. You may not end up as a great artist but you will be able to draw. His conclusion, acting is also something that you can do by practicing.
I don't know about acting, but the drawing thing is dead on. I find that many people insist they can't draw and so they don't draw. I actually didn't think I could draw either. But after doing a round of 30 days of sketching, I went from pathetic to all right. More practice and I've gotten better. Much better in fact.
Right now, I'm filling in a sketch a day journal. Each day is a small sketch. I spend maybe 5-10 minutes on them. By the end of a year, I expect that I'll be that much better. And even more so when I take my time drawing on a larger surface than those small sketches.
One of the sessions we attended had audience Q&A time. An audience member asked Peter Capaldi if he thought acting was an innate talent or something that you could learn.
He compared acting to drawing. A lot of people think they can't draw so they don't try.
But if you want to learn it, you can do so by drawing every day. You may not end up as a great artist but you will be able to draw. His conclusion, acting is also something that you can do by practicing.
I don't know about acting, but the drawing thing is dead on. I find that many people insist they can't draw and so they don't draw. I actually didn't think I could draw either. But after doing a round of 30 days of sketching, I went from pathetic to all right. More practice and I've gotten better. Much better in fact.
Right now, I'm filling in a sketch a day journal. Each day is a small sketch. I spend maybe 5-10 minutes on them. By the end of a year, I expect that I'll be that much better. And even more so when I take my time drawing on a larger surface than those small sketches.
Monday, February 08, 2016
Finally - web site revamp is live
It took a bit longer than I hoped it might but the new version of pibweb.com is live.
There is a lot of old content that doesn't have the new look, but it's also not linked to the current site. I'll keep an eye on usage for a bit, if it seems to attract too much attention, it has to either get an update or be deleted.
It is nice to finally have a clean modern looking site again. Also, the links are all in date since all pages with old links are part of the 'ignore it unless too popular' category.
There is a lot of old content that doesn't have the new look, but it's also not linked to the current site. I'll keep an eye on usage for a bit, if it seems to attract too much attention, it has to either get an update or be deleted.
It is nice to finally have a clean modern looking site again. Also, the links are all in date since all pages with old links are part of the 'ignore it unless too popular' category.
Friday, February 05, 2016
I've been on the web a long time
I've just been trying to reconstruct my web site history a little. According to one version of the home page - it was started in late 1994. That's old. Not quite the absolute start of the web but the web was still new.
The first versions were personal pages attached to the university web site I worked for. The wayback machine doesn't actually find any pages prior to 2001 but I'd actually long since moved the site to the second home it would have.
The second home was on a system called ultranet. The earliest pages that the wayback machine finds for those is 1999.
Eventually, my husband bought a domain name for me. Thus was born pibweb.com. The earliest references the wayback machine can find for the domain is 2001 - which is probably close to correct. That makes my domain 15 this year.
Just imagine, my sites pre-date google. In fact, somewhere in this house is a check from google for participating in their initial campaign to raise awareness of Google. I can't remember why it wasn't put in the bank at the time but it's now historical and would not be valid to cash.
The first versions were personal pages attached to the university web site I worked for. The wayback machine doesn't actually find any pages prior to 2001 but I'd actually long since moved the site to the second home it would have.
The second home was on a system called ultranet. The earliest pages that the wayback machine finds for those is 1999.
Eventually, my husband bought a domain name for me. Thus was born pibweb.com. The earliest references the wayback machine can find for the domain is 2001 - which is probably close to correct. That makes my domain 15 this year.
Just imagine, my sites pre-date google. In fact, somewhere in this house is a check from google for participating in their initial campaign to raise awareness of Google. I can't remember why it wasn't put in the bank at the time but it's now historical and would not be valid to cash.
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Web Site revamp
Well, the new look version of my ancient domain is complete.
The old version looks like
Which is very dated. I really hadn't felt like dealing with it since I was also dealing with a corporate web site. I no longer have other people's sites to maintain so updating my own seems like a great idea.
This is the new look. It's using Bootstrap - which has easy to use code for many features. Bootstrap is responsive by design - the pages will work well on phones to desktops.
I am thinking that I should add a background image just for a bit of visual interest but I don't need to worry about it yet. It's one of those things that can be done later.
I'm ditching most of the old content. It's going to be on the new server (mostly) but not referenced by my pages or updated to the new look. That way links to those pages don't break but I don't have to update reference pages that might have nearly all broken links.
The old version looks like
Which is very dated. I really hadn't felt like dealing with it since I was also dealing with a corporate web site. I no longer have other people's sites to maintain so updating my own seems like a great idea.
This is the new look. It's using Bootstrap - which has easy to use code for many features. Bootstrap is responsive by design - the pages will work well on phones to desktops.
I am thinking that I should add a background image just for a bit of visual interest but I don't need to worry about it yet. It's one of those things that can be done later.
I'm ditching most of the old content. It's going to be on the new server (mostly) but not referenced by my pages or updated to the new look. That way links to those pages don't break but I don't have to update reference pages that might have nearly all broken links.
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