Mat Bowles

So, my web host package for TaKtiX expires on Tuesday, so given I'm barely using it I'm backing it all up to prepare to move it all to a cheaper server.

While downloading the entire HTML content I found that the server stats programme provided by my host backs up the stats page monthly. This I knew not. Oops. So I read them through, and realise that I've been misreading them a bit. I thought they were cumulative in that programme, but they're not. Most read are the various feeds the site releases. After that are the graphics I use here on my journal. Next up? Well, this surprised me, so I dug out the old Statcounter account.

For the non-Voting parts of the site, there are about 700 visitors per month. Thing is? Half of them go to one page. Mr mapp? Your old review of the Tau Codex gets about 350 readers a month. Still. Virtually all from Google.

Shame I don't play Warhammer based stuff anymore, appears there's some decent ad revenue to be made reviewing the books if a two year old review can still get that many readers...

K, I've mentioned several times, and I've had my 'replacement' site set up for ages anyway. But, y'know, other things to do, etc. Never had the impetus, or the reason. Well, guess what? ( LJ have deleted a bunch of accounts again )

( The law in the US is fairly clear on the point though, they had little choice )

( So I'm going to use my upgrading hosting package to set up my own site )

( Anyone wanting to help out welcome )

So, beta testers useful when I've got it installed. Others thinking of jumping ship and self hosting+cross posting also welcome. Others using Wordpress for other things are invited to help out the codebase, suggest useful plugins, etc.

I've been putting this off for two damn long. eclexys and johnwordsworth both prove you can maintain an LJ as well as a WP powered blog, and there are many plugins that could make lives even easier for them.

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[1] I'm exhausted anyway, didn't sleep at all well last night, so I'm not going to Inferno this evening, I've been ill on and off all week so I'll stay in and relax.

Oh yeah, they've made the Message Centre almost usable, although the removal of links to pages beyond the first is annoying.

Can't sleep, at all, so instead you get an insomnia fueled ramble. Not sure if the PC now being at the end of the bed in the new place is a good thing or not, I liked having a desk in a separate room, ah well...

( Getting back into writing again, hopefully. )

Y'see, something worries me. It's a bit of a rambling worry, but, well, bear with me.

Remember Mr Blair's Big Tent?

( Big tents and partizanship )

So, what am I worried about?

( Duverger, the Stupid Party and The Project )

Too big a landslide caused Labour's problems

( Lack of genuine reform means the day to day issues are worse )

What if the Tories get a landslide?

( The Tories could actually win, on their own *gulp* )

( My ideal results... )

Anyway, back to voting_taktix, and me being part of a team. I need one. ( No experience necessary, but an interest in freedom would help )
Anyone want to help?  No commitments required.  Honest.

Two things. Livejournal this week launched their new ESN system. I love it, I can track comments on interesting posts, and getting everyones new userpics in one little bit of the site is just cool. That's not the topic. When Brad launched it, he described it as "non-stalkery", and I agre, it's not. On that discussion (in news here), many people commented that this was good, and compared it favourably to the new Facebook stalking features. Now, I don't use Facebook, it's only available to students, and, well, much as I'd like to be again, a) I'm now working and have no money and b) they wouldn't take me back in. So what, why do I care?

Well, because people can at times be stupid. Y'see, the new, controversial, Facebook features? Don't tell you any information you couldn't already find out, and could be switched off anyway. If you're on Facebook, or know someone who is, spread this link around, as those making a fuss seem, on what I've read, to need a great big slap for not actually getting what public, private and "social network" actually mean.

The utter cretin’s guide to privacy on Facebook

Second point. I'm playing around with a WordPress install on Voting TaKtiX. Ye gods it's good. So very very good. It's so much easier to use than Blogger and LJ. Importing all my old posts from NLE was so easy. Wait, I said my old posts. It even managed to recognise Paul as a user, and set him up as one, automatically, without me telling it to. Now all I need to do do is figure out how to style it (there are some good features on The Slant that I like the look of), go through the archives and categorise every post of note, get everyone linking to NLE to update their blogroll, shut down NLE formally and invite the other new authors in. All I need to do. That's about a months worth of spare time all on its own. Why didn't I do this a month ago?

Oh, because I thought installing software on my webserver would be difficult. D'oh!

OK, as part of my "messing around with TaKtiX to see what works" project, I set up a blog for GW's Warhammer, on the grounds that a) I don't work for them anymore b) I know a lot of players, some of whom are pretty good writers and c) it should be a semi-popular subject.

So, we have a new feed account for it, warhammer_tx_fd. However, I recommend everyone goes to read this review, Tau Empire Codex - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly by mapp, simply because it's great. This has nothing to do with me liking Tau a lot. Mark's a cheesy git when it comes to winning though, I was convinced he was doomed at first, but Pink had no anti-tank on Sunday. Bwah ha!

Thanks Mark, pretty much exactly the sort of thing we need. In case you're wondering though, because blogger auto parses linebreaks (I can turn that off but don't want to), it means you're better off doing <h3>this</h3>with header tags, looks ugly when coding but removes some of the whitespace. I could do something witht he CSS, but that means, um, learning how...

I also like the way the template looks on that page, likely use that basic layout with a better colour scheme for the whole site once I've got it set up, yay!