Google Analytics and Censorship

A bit of a meta post this one. Google analytics is a free service that anyone with their own website, even just a simple hosted blog like this one should give a try. google analytics is basically a site usage reporting tool - a big step up from the hit counters of the internet's infancy.

The statistician in me loves to pour over the reports it offers and it's always interesting to discover how people find this blog and also what they check out while they're here. I usually check once a month or so and see how the latest ran has been received etc and to see where I get he visitors from. I've linked the blog from my facebook profile, my Twitter and other social bookmarking sites so the majority of direct traffic comes from there. the other traffic comes from search engines like good ol' google. i can reveal that the most popular searches have been along the lines of "gym motivation" thanks to the couple posts I did on that and also Jonathan Ross whose podcast I wrote a review of - I guess the scandal with Russell brand has kept those searches going. There is of course some gaming and f1 searches due to my leaning toward writing about those subjects. in the past I've tried those search terms which have led people here and fair play to them digging deep through the search results as they didn't show on the first couple of pages for me!

Now I took a stance that I would not go on about my current job although I have no doubt made my thoughts clear and even lamented about them in a Your New Favourite Podcast episode. I have also named my employer, only once and that was a "first day" post but someone managed to stumble onto the blog. I fear what kind of impression they would get from the rantings of one of the employees. it's also worth reiterating that any thoughts and opinions expressed here within this blog are mine and mine only and in no way reflect that of my employer. Checking the google analytics recently and it seems someone (or many) have been clicking round the blog, in particular the "work" category.

Until I had to answer the phone late on in the morning one day, the only words to fall out of my mouth were "Spineosaurus" and humming of the Jurassic Park theme

Everything written here was correct as at the time of writing and to be honest I'm a little sick of censoring myself. I do it constantly at work, being on the phone to strangers means I can't really say what I think.

In fact I had some work colleagues as friends on facebook and xbox live but I've decided that I will draw a line at the office hours - all other times I should not feel restricted in my opinions because of fear that someone from work may be listening. of course I know better than to bad mouth the company - I have some sense of professional integrity combined with an ever present fear and anxiety of my actions towards others. That being said I should be able to say whatever I feel like and I'm not fussed by being confronted by people over these words. It's all my opinion, and it's true, but who really pays that much attention to what I say and do - I can say that at work that that's not the case. Until I had to answer the phone late on in the morning one day, the only words to fall out of my mouth were "Spineosaurus" and humming of the Jurassic Park theme - thank you /filmcast!. In fact, I feel it's become so bad that I actually think of the person you see during the working day as a different persona, a separate slice of me is a better way to put it as I only share a small section of me - I am content to share this mostly silent but sometimes blithering idiot that they call "Jonathan".

Apologies for the rant but I'm making a (small) effort to blog more as a friend has recently started blogging and another friend is keen on starting a podcast with the working title "the toast rack" which I think sounds awesome. so look at for more blogging, hope to get back into the routine of reviews in what ever form they take, and maybe some more Your New Favourite Podcast episodes time permitting of course.

Read full post >>

Red Hair Revelation

I've been meaning to put together the very first episode of Your New Favourite Podcast for what seems like ages, and thanks to unexpected events this week, it has still not been possible. So, I'm going to offer up the content of that planned episode in a blog post which I'm gonna put together over my lunch break.
I was going to cover a fair few subjects in the podcast, but here I'll stick to something which has been at the forefront of my mind for the last few days, well when I haven't been in a terrible mood, but that's gonna be left for another time.
I was in an absolutely fantastic mood at the start of the week, I was dropping some suggestive hints through my twitter tweets. The reason being that I've developed a crush - it's a good time at the moment, right before I become far too obsessive and self-destruct my chance.
Yes, an upside of this crush has been the elevated mood, it's strange (well maybe not that strange) that music seems to get me incredibly pumped, like it's never resonated so strongly it what seems like forever. That being said, I think doing some of the vocal stuff in Rock Band has also encouraged me to sing along with the songs.

I'm not going to go into the details about the crush here, it seems a little wrong to tell the Internet before I tell the poor girl. Anyways, I'm not sure it's just the crush, I've been feeling a little more susceptible, being more aware of the laydees, although it's probably down to last weekend's festivities, going out with the Kidderminster crowd. Friday evening consisted of a gathering in the infamous Red Man, and Saturday we went off to Wolverhampton for some alternative (read: metal) goodness at the Planet. The weekend was overall very good, although as I've felt before, I don't have much in common with a metal crowd. That being said, as mentioned above I was defintiely feeling attraction to a fair few girls over the two nights.
On top of the crush, there was Jill, one of Neo's exes on the Friday evening. Now, she came over late on in the evening and insisted on touching my fringe. I'd rather not have strangers coming up and entering my personal space like that, but there was nothing negative about it, if anything I only consider a good thing, my hair was obviously of such interest that she couldn't help but be curious.
On the Saturday, I remarked to Wilson via a typed message (it was far too loud inside the club) that this girl Deb (or Debs) was quite hot. Apparently that makes it 2 for 2, although it is possible to find some people attractive, but not actually fancy them. Plus on reflection she was a tocuh naked, and OMG she has red hair! For those not in the know, on DiggNation they covered a story where they found that people with red hair have the healthiest sex lives, and possibly more eyebrow-raising is that people who dye their hair red are subconsciously sending out a message that they are looking for a partner. So maybe that helps explain my initial thoughts towards Deb.

Strangely enough, during Sunday I was ironing a shirt ready for work and I popped on the TV to have some background noise/sights whilst I ironed. As it turned out Scrapheap Challenge was on. It used to be a staple of earlier years but I've outgrown it a little, although the odd episode every now and again is pretty enjoyable. Anyways, for the unintiated the show is hosted by Robert LLywelyn (Kryten from Red Dwarf) and Lisa Rogers. Now, the show has been running for quite some time - 10 years if Robert is to believed, and Lisa Rogers is still very attractive. She would be even more so, if she didn't put on the exaggerated voice to be more in fitting with the show. Anyways I was watching the show, this week's challenge was to build some boats. Now in tradition with the show, any boats built have had the tendency to either not work, or plod along really slowly. It turned out this week, that one of the teams had built a machine which could travel at a fair nick. Anyways, they had Lisa Rogers in a boat for the "trackside" view and once this speedy racer got going, they literally couldn't keep up and then the strange thing happened.

in fact she was looking out of my TV at me, who by now was transfixed onto her smile

The boat Lisa Rogers was in had to really push to keep up with the action, and there was Lisa staring into the camera, and she looked so incredibly cute. It was as if she wasn't staring at the camera, but in fact she was looking out of my TV at me, who by now was transfixed onto her smile. Her expression was of pure delight and excitement - like holding each other, swinging around in a meadow. It sounds ridicolous reading it back but it stunned me, but in a good way.

EDIT: I'm not sure if now knowing that red hair, whether that be natural or artifically created, is the indicator as described above is now affecting how I look at ladies now, but my head seems to turn in their direction much more. Actually on a recent trip back to Shropshire, there was one red-haired girl on the way down on Friday, and then another on the way home on the Sunday. Hell, even the lead female singer of my "solo" band (Bobion the 3rd! yeah!) in the World Tour on Rock Band had, until recently, red hair, mmmm.

On closing, I need to pluck up the courage to do something about this crush and maybe sometime soon I'll be able to put together episode 1 of the podcast. I'm sure once I get started it'll be easier to keep going.

Read full post >>

Just checking in...

My blogging has been put on hold as of late. I've been spending a bit of time with the new layout design and of course sorting out the logistics of getting a podcast working. What I will say is that I'm almost there. I've set myself a semi-target of getting the first episode out this weekend, so we'll see how that goes.

A lot of recent twitter tweets have involved progress on the blog and podcast, but there hasn't actually been a lot of change here. Checking out a few blogger hack sites earlier in the week and a very sensible recommendation is to set up a test blog to trial new features, layouts etc. So I have set up a beta blog as well it's not like there is any extra cost of having an extra blog.

I'm not going to link it here, as well it's quite messy. I rather annoyingly spent about 2 hours fixing the layout as IE is still a pain when handling CSS, it still has a different interpretation of paddings and margins arg. It looks fine in Firefox, and exactly how I expect it to but not in IE. Anyways, I got it to a point where it looks the same in both browsers, so I stopped for then.

I was planning on watching Clerks 2, my other lovefilm pick this week, but I completely crashed - one good thing is that I got a lot extra sleep so should be refreshed for the weekend.

IE is still a pain when handling CSS

Hopefully that means I might be able to make good on my promises of delivering the podcast + new layout this weekend, we'll see.

So basically, the blog will resume normal operation soon, I'll get one episode under my belt, move the changes over. One thing that has been set up here and not on the beta blog is the ratings widget which should be seen at the bottom of each post. Sometimes it takes too much effort to throw in a comment, saying how awesome the post was, but clicking on some stars should be something everyone can do.

Read full post >>

Testing the feed (Wilson's Corner!)

A recording of the mighty Wilson's Corner 15/02/06, starring Wilson, JC, the Rob and Damon!

Further to our recent conversation, please find included a recording of one of the Wilson's Corner shows we did way back when on Raw, the student radio station at Warwick.

Anyways, enough of that semi-professional talk, I've uploaded this and added it here, to help test out the feed, make sure it's all working. Once the feed is sorted, I'll submit it to iTunes and then that will pave the way to future episodes of Your New Favourite Podcast.

The blog is being put on hold until I can get this all sorted, at the moment I'm checking out some podsafe music to use in the podcast, and at the time of posting I had recorded some stuff for episode zero (a whole 10mins worth!), but listening back to some of it, it does need some polish, I obviously need to get a little better at directing a monologue at my monitor.

Watch this space for further YNFP announcements...

Read full post >>

One step closer to the Podosphere...

I am quite excited that progress into launching a podcast is now a small step closer. During a brief (very brief) brainstomring session into potential names for what will become my second podcast, a colloboration with my good friend Wilson, think of it as The Corner, Mark II - For those uninitiated, The Corner was the radio show we had back on the student radio station. Anyways, there's still a lot more thought and/or work to go into that one.
Back on topic and I am proud to announce that the rather obvious name of my personal podcast was struck upon during the above session. My podcast will indeed take the moniker of "Your New Favourite Podcast" - pretty hot.
The small step is the step up in research and preperation for putting together a podcast. I've been checking out podcasts about podcasting (how beautifully meta...), also reading into the hardware setup required to record, the other side of the coin being the software needed to put together a podcast. Now where the software is concerned, Audacity seems to be a well-regarded tool. It's rather good in that it is indeed free, but also has the power to edit recordings, mix down multiple tracks, and output the final product to mp3. Another alternative is Garage Band, but I'll need to get more upto speed with my Mac Mini, but at least there are options.
I have also ordered a headset which I can wear to enter podcasting mode. I was reluctant to spend a great deal on something which might not prove that fruitful so we'll have to see what the results will end up like. From what I've read there is a clearly defined limit on what quality can be achieved with a mic with a 3.5mm jack, but I think it will have to do for now, and possibly further down the road I'll look into more expensive purchases.

I've also been checking out possible hosting options, again I don't really want to spend a lot (if any if I can get away with it). I'm not expected a huge listener count at first, but it would be rather cool for that to grow and grow, I can only hope. I took a quick look and what is required to submit the podcast to the itunes music store, there's really not that much to it, so that should be fairly painless.

I've also been thinking of potential sources for music to use to bookend the podcast with the usual blurb, "You're listening to 'Your New Favourite Podcast'...". There are a few candidates, although I need to decide on one, think there goes an afternoon while I tinker in Audacity. Of course, any music I do use, I will obviously give credit to, that's the least I can do.

One of the sources I read recommended putting together the first 5 shows to hit a stride, get an idea for content, length, pacing, not to mention an idea of the time required to put together one show. Saying that, expect myself to go a little dark in terms of announcements for a while, I'll get the first few shows knocked up and then I'll announce to the internets. When it does come, please check out, listener interaction in the form of emails etc would be pretty cool, and I am open to a potential co-host, guest spots if they match up with the theme of the show.

Read full post >>

Jimiminar takes to the airwaves!

It's no secret that I've quickly developed a love for podcasts - who ever knew there would be such (mostly) great content out there, and free too. So much so, that for pretty much everything out there, if you like something so much, then it is a natural step to want to emulate that. I have been giving some serious thought to maybe knocking together my own podcast, and the reality of this could be closer than you think.
I have looked into what it takes to actually produce a podcast, and all that is required at it's core is a microphone and a means of recording it. I also checked out methods to host the podcast themselves, and there are free services for low requirements - i.e producing a small(ish) podcast on a weekly, or fortnightly basis.

Now, I am planning to post about some of the cool (and not so cool) podcasts I have discovered on my travels over the Internet and the iTunes store (lol), and one thing that does hold true is that 2 is the magic number. That is, podcasts work (in my opinion) the best where there are two hosts. With just one host, it does seem to much of a monologue - with two hosts banter and the back and forth can be had. It also means that that the other host can pick up the slack, as with the desire to keep speaking throughout. With three hosts, it generally degrades into chaos - everyone talking over each other; only with great discipline can order be achieved.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned a while back, that I would happily entertain the idea of putting together a podcast if a co-host could be found. Now, fast-forward to last weekend, and in the attendance of my good buddy Wilson, we checked out an archive recording of Wilson's Corner - a show we put on the student radio station, RaW. During that session, I showed Wilson some of the video podcasts and coupled with the infliction of nostalgia, the idea of resurrecting Wilson's Corner was quickly suggested.
Now it would be pretty pr0 to do that, I definitely had a lot of fun putting on Wilson's Corner, particularly the pre-show meetings we had, which were let's face it, an excuse to grab some ales. Whilst it would be a good thing to start up again, I do have my concerns on the form the rebirth could take. Looking back on Wilson's Corner, something that was kinda clear back then, but painfully obvious listening to it today was how disjointed the show was. There was no real cohesion, Wilson and myself coming at the show from two completely different angles. Never was that anymore obvious than the music which populated the show; and how often we argued for our own songs to receive the airplay.

Yeah, so a new show would be pretty cool, but we will have to decide what to base it on. It makes sense to have the banter on things which interest us, which for myself would probably turn into a bit of geek show, much like the podcasts Extralife Radio and The Totally Rad Show. Now I can't Wilson wanting to indulge in that, his thoughts on watching the live Amsterdam episode of Diggnation (with more mainstream and accessable stories it has to be said) being:

"Well it's geeky, but there were some laugh-out-loud moments..."

If the podcast show does get it off the ground, ideally I would probably knock up a solo show of my own, so I can get my geek on. That show would be more of an audioblog as such, rather than a podcast. I keep going on how I should be more of a proactive blogger, so jumping on the mic would be so much easier to keep the blog uptodate.

To go on a slight tangent, WoW introduced voice chat natively into the game as of patch 2.3 and that got me thinking it was time to buy a headset. Especially if I want hit my aim of being part of an active raiding guild, they usually have a ventrillo server set up. So getting a headset could have double the usage. One as used in WoW, and the other to produce podcasts with.
I plan a two-pronged attack with the personal podcast as well. Not only would it keep the blog uptodate, but it could help boost the confidence. I always "enjoy" leaving answerphone messages and literally talking into a mic would be an extension of that. I can imagine that I would probably be "erring" and "umming" a lot at first, but eventually it would probably get smoother. Also, the production would hopefully increase as I get more familiar with producing podcasts and have a go at editing and all that fun. As Randy Deluxe of The Instance Podcast fame says: Once you're able to talk comfortably with four listeners, it's the same with more and more listeners, to paraphrase.

It looks like the purchase of a headset will have to wait till after next payday, but it's definitely sooething I want to try so watch out.

Read full post >>

An Apple a day keeps Microsoft away...

Hey hey hey! Just doing a mini-post from work, a habit which I could possibly develop if workload is low, but anyways, here was me saying I would blog more, and oh crap! we're already a month down of 2008. My friend Adam has decided to go on a solo
holiday to Amsterdam, and he's documenting his travel adventures here, so go check that out, it's got lots of lovely pictures (which can be enlargened oh yes!) and it's well written, but I've got a slight bias there.

Anyways, Adam was going through selling a lot of his stuff, and naturally being one of his good friends, I got first dibs on some of the stuff. I got a few games, Halo 3 legendary edition (yes, the one with the helmet! :D) and the ultimate amongst the list is the Mac Mini. Slightly embarassingly I have not properly set it up, but what began with mere curiousity to the Apple approach, is slowing becoming fanboy status of the sliding scale. I'm not there yet, but I would only keep Windows for games and really the only games I stick on my PC have been WoW and the football manager series, and it is possible to get Mac versions for those, and if that's not enough, thanks to the Macs being Intel-based, it's much much easier to get Windows apps or indeed Windows to run natively without any hacky emulators and the like.

I am slowly going to make the transistion. Although not really an Apple product as such, but around the same time, I've been checking out some podcasts. It kinda started out with ExtraLife Radio (please check out this guy he is super talented, so much so a part of me resents him) and having that play whilst I've been working through the tiresome later stages of the career in Forza 2. Oh yes, please check out the rest of the site, the web comic he makes is absolutely pr0, I stumbled on it thanks to the heavy WoW content much earlier on, but basically it's a geeky comic, so win!
This led me to check out iTunes, again with the Mac influence (I've tried it before and found it rather clunky compared to Winamp). Anyways, I will eventually get an iPod classic (I know, too many Apple products), so it's good for me to get familiar, make sure all my music is added etc. Anyways, I have to say that using the iTunes store to find podcasts is awesome, so I've added all my old subscriptions and a couple new ones, like the Jonathan Ross one which I still need to check out.

I also took this opportunity to check out the diggnation podcast which is really really good. I've got the HD one so I can enjoy it in all it's lovelyness through the 360. Anyways, it's basically two guys (which actually work for digg I later discovered) that have a chat on a couch over some popualr digg stories drinking beer. It doesn't sound much as a concept, but it's pretty godamn entertaining, and the two boucne off each other really well. It's so good in fact, I've downloaded some of the back catalogue as I really don't mind the chat about old stories such as the Halo 3 4 player online coop announcement etc etc. Yeah so check it out, I did it and think it's awesome.

All this podcasting stuff got me thinking that maybe I could knock one together, just have it be a light-hearted topical chat/rant show. From my limited past experience it is best to have 2 contributors, just 1 and it's just a monologue, not that great, any more, and there's just words everywhere. So, I'm appealing to the intermawebs to see if someone would like to be a co-presenter of some kind. Scott Johnson of Extralife seems to simply record his skype conversations, so it wouldn't be too hard to get up and running, and plus it would mean that I would be posting to here more often, so it's all good. Comment me up and that would be cool.

Anyways, posting in my lunch hour when I really should be lunching.
Take it easy

Read full post >>