Posts Tagged ‘Projects’

Still Deliberating

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Well, I slept on it.

Repeatedly.

Still thinking about it.

I have a very strong leaning right now, though, to the reseller hosting of FlexiHostings. It has huge stats, the price is quite good, and there are unlimited client accounts, something which the other hosts don’t offer. The highest on NetLogistics is 30 (which is just too small if I want to do this long term) and the highest on MD is 100 (better, but the reviews are still bad).

The only question I have is about support, which I am waiting on a response for.

I will need to wait until next weekend to get the weekend special (buy 1 year get 2 years worth).

Until then, I have registered http://www.siteflight.com.au on MD. Yes, MD Web Hosting. It’s okay though; it’s only going to be my domain registrar.

On Friday, I got an ABN, Business Name Registration and potential client! I was text messaged by a girl that is also doing the NEIS course, and wants a quote. I’m waiting on an email from her explaining what she wants exactly. I’m not really ready to start trading yet, but whatever!

Hosting, hosting, hosting

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Oh man, there are so many hosts out there, and I don’t want to rush into things.

In my comments I’ve been recommended two hosts, plus there are some more that I have been looking at and may also be good, but it’s hard to tell. Some have very few reviews, some have some bad reviews, some have good reviews which may be suspect – how do I know they didn’t pay someone to write that review?

So, I am going to really have to think about this carefully, since it is something very important to my business. Now, my current international host servage.net has a lot of bad reviews out there, though except for the hacker I haven’t encountered any problems, and their support system is great. So it’s not only the good reviews I have to take with a grain of salt. Some decent companies can have their names tarnished by just a couple of angry customers – and given how huge Servage is, it’s natural that there are a handful of people that aren’t satisfied.

So I’m brought to a point where I may just have to fling myself at a host, and if I’m not satisfied with it, I’ll need to move.

Here are some of the plans weighed out. Included are the things I consider somewhat important.

Host: MD Flexi Hostings Net Logistics Web City XKO
Disk Space 0-20gb 1-300gb 1.5-2.5gb 5-100gb 0-10gb
Bandwidth 1-20 gigs 50-4,000 gigs 30-50 gigs 50-500 gigs 1-40 gigs
PHP and MySQL Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Add-on Domains 0-10* 0-3* 2-6 0-5 Unlimited
cPanel Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Reseller or Referral Programs Yes Yes Yes No (apparently, this comes from a reseller program!) Yes
Price/Month $3-$40 $5-$23 $20-$40 $7-$20 $10-$55
Reviews Bad Not Great Good Not Great Good (but lacking in general)
*Unlimited for reseller plans

Now, I don’t necessarily want to be a reseller, but it might be good to have that option there.

So looking at these laid out this way, I can see that each company has its strengths and weaknesses. I suppose I have to ask myself what is most important to my business, taking into account the most balanced plans in the table.

MD Web Hosting has some awful reviews, but the cheapest domain registration (not shown in table) and okay plans. It also has a large reseller program.

FlexiHostings is, ironically, the least flexible when it comes to Add-on domains, offering no more than three. However, it is great in most of its other stats. If I chose this, I wouldn’t be able to host any client websites through my account if I wanted to do so. It also has the odd scathing review. Bonus: I have had a personal recommendation.

Net Logistics is well-rounded, but can be pricey. It offers a reseller program, but comes short of FlexiHostings in terms of most of its stats. It may allow for up to 6 domains, but that hosting is $40 per month, which is simply too much for my fledgling business. I can actually get better value, in respect to this factor, at FlexiHostings.

Web City is apparently an offshoot part of the Enetica reseller program, and supposedly may have congestion problems (though I’m sure it’s probably better than Servage). It is quite good in its other respects, however. This is heavily edited thanks to comment #1; I was misinformed. Bonus: I have had a personal recommendation.

XKO is a little bit of an enigma. Its plans aren’t spelt out that well, but it seems like a nice little business. I think it may be a small operation compared to the rest, which I do want to support. Plus they have the whole “green web hosting” thing going on, which is pretty cool.

So, which one?

I just don’t know. I will sleep on it. Feel free to help me out if you want, but I guess the decision is ultimately my own.

Holy Freaking God

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

So, um, I started NEIS yesterday.

Noooooo!!!!!

It’s so much work! There is so much to know! There is so much to do in such a short period of time! This course, Certificate IV in Small Business Management, is not supposed to go for like a month. It’s supposed to go for a year!

Just these past two days have been… the definition of “crash course”. I’ve come home on both days feeling like I want to go right to bed. And yet, I can’t, because I have homework to do!!

From what the past two days have taught me, I have to:

  • Do a metric tonne of research including surveys, statistic tracking, reading, talking to people and studying competition
  • Register my business name
  • Make sure my home has Public Liability insurance
  • Write an extensive Business Plan on which I will be judged on the 17th of February, along with copies of things including insurance, driver’s licence, ABN and BRN.
  • Work out pricing
  • Choose a host and domain registrar sooner rather than later (like, before the 6th of February)
  • Make sure my website is up and running soon!

Who knows what further bombs will be unloaded on us… though I feel like it may include marketing and whatnot.

Oh man. Freaking out.

Logo and Business Name!

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

My Web Business has been on the backburner for a while, purely because it scares me. But, with the NEIS course less than one week away, I need to get on with it. So, tonight, I decided upon the name I came up with earlier, and created a logo:

Site Flight Web Design

I am very proud of it. I created it with the free illustration software Inkscape.

The most important things I need to do from here include:

  • Register business name
  • Get ABN
  • Storyboard the website
  • Create the web packages/templates
  • Work out pricing
  • Purchase domain and hosting (Servage, as well as being susceptible to hacking, does not offer .com.au domains)
  • Make the website

And that’s not even taking into consideration the actual business side of things. Guh.

Puff! First Tech Demo Released!

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

PuffI didn’t openly publicise the platform game I’ve been working on recently, though I did put it on my Projects page. Basically, Puff is a video game to go with the comic book I’m working on. After spending time playing Sonic games, I just had an overwhelming urge to play around with Game Maker. Playing around turned into utter smittenness. Therefore, I present to you the first tech demo of Puff!

Puff! First Tech Demo on Yoyo Games

If you install their player, you don’t even have to download and run it locally. Unfortunately, it only works with Windows.

The controls are: keyboard arrow buttons for left and right movement. Up arrow for flying upward, down arrow for ducking while on the ground. Space bar for flame breath attack, Enter for pause, Esc for Exit Game.

Do let me know what you think of it! It took a lot of work to get it the way it is (I had to develop controls, attacks, object behaviour, even where to stop falling – let alone all the different graphics for character poses and tiles. Game Maker is NOT for the faint of heart!).

In Other News

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

Awful hacking business aside, I got into the NEIS program, meaning on the 27th of January I am to begin my six week course to build my business plan. If I pass, I will then be funded about $450 a fortnight for 12 months while I get my business earning profits, and in the meantime I can still be working part time at Woolworths!

And as well as that, on Thursday morning I obtained my full driver’s licence! This means I no longer need my green P plates, plus my BAC is allowed to be above zero (I can eat a liqueur chocolate if I want, or have a beer a couple of hours before driving), I have more points on my licence and I can drive up to 110km/h (speed limit controlled, obviously). Oh, and my licence lasts five years before I need to renew it. Hurray!

Web Design Business

Friday, January 9th, 2009

Today, I signed up for NEIS, as well as its prerequisite, Newstart Allowance; the same dole I was on when I first returned from my travels. But it was a means to an end. The New Enterprise Incentive Scheme is funding for a year as well as a six week course in business planning.

So, this is the biggest step I’ve taken this far into making my Web Design Business. It’s terrifying, to tell the truth. But, I’m okay for now.

I’ve been kind of pushed along by my Dad, which I have mixed feelings about. Time will tell if I am ready or not to go through with this. For now, I still feel like a directionless child. I’m thinking it’s psychological, because I know intellectually that I am pretty mature and capable. I guess it’s just my past motivational issues coupled with my huge problem with people. I’m just crap at talking to people… for the reasons detailed on yesterday’s post about teasing. Yes, primary school people that teased me, it’s largely your fault I am this way. I trace most of my problems back to school years 3-6. The kids at Laguna Street absolutely vilified me. I was one of the major targets, besides Chris and Cameron. I never knew what I could have possibly done to invite such relenteless teasing. But I digress.

So, I’ll obviously continue to update you on developments. The next stage for NEIS is an interview, and I’m supposed to hear from them in the next few days. If I don’t get through, I may actually be a little relieved. But, it’s not like I want to stay working ten hours a week at Woolworths.

Also, last night I came up with the name “Site Flight Web Design”. I wanted to tie it in with an owl motif, since I collect owls and all. So “Site Flight” is the best I’ve come up with so far.

I’m not going to ask for suggestions (if I can’t even think of a name I’m pretty useless), but I would like to know what you think of it.

Drawing the Line First Draft: Complete!

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
NaNoFiMo 2008 WinnerWinner’s badge I created.

I got stuck into it nice and early today, and I’m proud to say that the first draft of my first ever novel, is now complete! Exactly in the timeframe I was shooting for, too.

The grand total word count is 121,601, at least according to yWriter. This is an incredible milestone. Not long ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed I could actually pull something like this off. I thought I was far too lazy to keep chipping away at something so enormous. And yet, I did 121k in just two months.

Now, by all accounts, the best thing to do is let a fresh batch of novel cool for at least a month before starting on the editing. It makes sense, because I view my current novel as a piece of crap not worth touching right now anyway. In a month or so, I will be able to view it objectively and edit it as such. I’ve never edited a story before (presumably why I was always marked badly in creative writing at school), so I’ll be borrowing a book about it from the library. I have the gist of what I should be doing, but mainly plotwise. The quality of writing, I will likely need help with to some extent. Probably one of my biggest pitfalls is that I don’t read much fiction. It’s pretty good for originality (no plagiarism from me), but very bad for sentence construction, ideas for similes and metaphors, dialogue, that kind of thing. I think I did a decent job for someone who read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley a few years ago, then didn’t pick up a single piece of fiction until midway through November this year (I read Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty, by the way).

But anyway, it’ll still be quite some time before this novel is ready for the public eye. But I will keep you updated.

So… Close…

Monday, December 29th, 2008

The climax of my novel is part way through. Believe me, it is going to need desperate amounts of editing. I cannot stress that enough. I have this horrible feeling that the editing is going to end up more man hours than the initial draft.

Nevertheless, I am about 98% complete. It feels so close, and yet it’s so hard to figure it out. See, I’ve outlined up to the end of this scene I am now writing. But I need to work out what happens afterwards, which is probably an important part of the meshing of the story. Well, we’ll see what happens.

Haven’t worked on the comic in a few days, sadly. But once the novel is out of the way it’ll be much easier to work on.

The End?

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Well, that’s the last time I use the WordPress “QuickPress” box on the Dashboard – I clicked “Save Draft” and my last post disappeared into thin air. Joy.

Anyway, I will try to recover the post as it was stored in my fallible human hard drive (also known as my “brain”). Ahem.

So, in keeping with my vow to finish the first draft of my novel before New Year’s, Drawing the Line is coming to its non-red-herring climax. Hurrah! Basically a chapter to go, or around 4,000 words. If I keep up what I did today, 1.8k, I’ll be done on the 30th. I will be finished by New Years.

Having said that, my climax is really hard to write now. My characters have developed beyond their original motivations when I planned this scene in detail two long months ago. Le sigh. Well, filling plot holes is a job for future drafts. My main mission is to get this junk out, despite my utter annoyance with it. I am so sick of writing this novel, you have no idea. I like my characters, but I am sick of describing all their actions and thoughts. They’re real enough in my head now that it seems like they’re lazy in that they’re making me write their stupid story, instead of them doing it.

On the NaNoWriMo forums, people kept talking about their characters as real people that had personalities and spoke to them in their head. I’m starting to understand it. But my characters are uncooperative. They keep willing me to stop writing about them doing heroic things. They just want to run away and hide. Screw you guys!

Do I sound crazy yet? I think writers need to have a crazy streak… writing begets crazy, and crazy begets writing. The circle of storytelling spins for eternity. Or something.