Posts tagged as:
internet
OpenDNS
My ISP, Karoo, is notorious around these ‘ere parts for being generally crappy. The latest in a long list of complaints being the redirection of unsuccessful DNS lookups to ask.com. Their DNS is usually pretty slow to catch up with changes too, a fact illustrated every time I change the nameservers on a domain that I own. This is just one sucky thing about them, I would list everything but won’t for fear of everyone falling asleep after an hours reading.
However, thanks to OpenDNS I have one less sucky thing to deal with. Somebody told me about this service when the whole Karoo / ask.com debacle first came to light, but I’ve only just gotten around to signing up for it. No more ask.com for me!
It’s already proved how much better it is. I’ve just moved a domain name from one host to another - generally the switch takes at least several hours but as soon as I switched to OpenDNS the domain appeared at the new host. I know this because checking it on a machine that I haven’t yet switched to OpenDNS still shows the domain at the old host, even more than an hour after the change.
There are other useful things about OpenDNS too. You get a nifty control panel which allows you to blacklist sites either by a domain or by blocking whole categories, which is a nice feature for parents. You can also turn on logs which gathers stats about everything you do on the internet, add domains to a whitelist, create shortcuts and probably other things that I haven’t looked into yet. There’s a full list of features here.
On the whole, it seems really good. I’ll keep using it on a per machine basis for a while before switching via the router, just to be sure nothing bad happens like the internet exploding on me or something. :)
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Catching Up
So, it’s been a while. With that in mind I thought I’d write a general ‘catch up’ post.
At the beginning of this year I took an extended break from my regular online activities (including Jaiku, a rarity for me!). I went over a month without checking RSS feeds, micro-blogging, checking Facebook etc. It really did me a favour too, gave me time to step back and take stock a little. Anyone who knows me will realise how much of a ‘web 2.0′ addict I’ve become, and while I still find those things fun I’ve slowed down a lot.
There are changes coming in my life - my daughter will be 15 this year which means that being a full time mother isn’t quite so full time as it was these days. By that I mean in the sense of she is relying on me less and less. Which also means that soon she’ll be pretty much gone altogether, before I know it she’ll be packing herself off to uni, and I need to prepare for that and have something constructive to do with my time. Preferably involving money! Not that I’m expecting or even wanting to earn fortunes, but I need something. I have two choices in mind and I can’t quite decide between them, one of which is going to depend a lot on personal circumstances as it will take some initial capital to get up and running. At this moment in time said capital is nowhere on the horizon, but things may change in the next 6 months or so.
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Sometimes, even my life is busy
Yep, it’s true. Even no-life little ole me sometimes has busy periods. During those times I’m less inclined to blog, though I do have a nagging little blog voice at the back of my head telling me to go write something. So here I am.
What have I been busy with? A number of things really. My personal life has had a few ups and downs over the past couple of months, which has left me a little stressed out. But it’s not all bad - on the 8 July I’ll finally be realising an ambition that I’ve had for a couple of years now, I’m doing a one day course (along with lots of ‘homework’) to get my first degree Reiki certificate. I realise a lot of you don’t even know what that is (go here for more info if you want to find out), and those who do often give me a sidelong glance as if to say I’m nuts - but hey, I’ve been used to that all my life and I no longer care! Suffice to say it’s made a huge difference to my life, and I’m really excited to be finally completing the first stage.
I’ve also been attempting to learn Ruby on Rails, though I’ve gotten sidetracked a little with that. It’s been great fun so far, and even though I’m nowhere near having a clue what I’m doing yet I’m determined to persevere. I doubt I’ll get to a professional level with it but I love learning new stuff, especially new geek stuff. Though if by some miracle I did become a RoR expert I wouldn’t object to being paid to do it of course.
I haven’t been completely inactive around the web though, I’ve just been using different mediums. My latest obsession is Facebook, and since they brought out their applications platform I can say for definite I’m not alone. If you’re also on there feel free to add me as a friend. Just do a search for Jackie Plage, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person with that name on Facebook. Twitter posts from me also appear semi-frequently, though in the last few days I’ve been exploring - and loving - Jaiku. There’s probably a post about the differences stored up in the depths of my mind somewhere which I may do in the next few days. Despite outward appearances, they’re actually very different.
I’ve been neglecting my blog I know, but I’m not going to promise it’ll get any better in the near future. I’m having far too much fun doing other things right now. :)
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Last.fm widgets and playlists
My favourite music site has just introduced some nice new features.
Widgets
You can now use last.fm widgets on your blog / website. The widget choices we have are recently played / top artists etc., a quilt made up of the covers from your most listened to albums, a playlist player and a radio player. You also get four colour choices - last.fm red (which looks pink to me), black, blue or light grey. You can see the ‘recent tracks’ and playlist widgets in action on my sidebar. I was thinking of adding the album quilt too, but decided that might be slight overkill.
Playlists
Playlists themselves have been around for a while, but whereas previously they only played snippets of a song, they now play the full length tracks (providing they’re available in the last.fm catalogue). Using the aforementioned widget, that means you can easily share your taste in music with your site visitors. The only ‘catch’ is that your list will play in shuffle mode - this is presumably to get around licensing restrictions.
Charts display
It’s now possible to select different periods of time for the charts that show on your profile page. You can choose between your overall charts (as it’s always been) or 3, 6, or 12 month rolling charts. We’re also told that more customisation is on the way.
You can view the official announcement here.
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Zen’s Bits
No, not those kind of bits you filthy minded swine! Aherm…
I’m referring to my new domain name zensbits.com where you will find my tumbleblog / tumblelog / whatever you want to call it, which is hosted by Tumblr.
Tumblr is a strange thing. Essentially it’s a blog without comments. I have wondered myself what the point of that really is when I already have a blog, but I’ve become kind of addicted to the simplicity of it all. Tumblr has a great little bookmarklet through which you can automatically embed video, images and quotes. For lazy people like me, it’s ideal. So I’ve gone from wondering what the point is, to being amazed at the simplicity of it all, and then to question if I really need another place to post stuff, and finally to thinking sod it and becoming wholly addicted to hitting that little ’share on Tumblr’ button. I’m also routing my shared items from google reader through it, so that saves having yet another feed for people to track, and it keeps my links of interest (well, of interest to me at least, I don’t know about you) all in one place.
Anyway, the point being, I decided that my little tumbleblog was here to stay, and so I got a brand spanking new domain name for it.
Update
I’ve also set up a music tumblelog at music.zensbits.com
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