So the question floated around in my head the majority of the day, aside from being excited about the new season of Heroes, it came down to a bit in my brain going on and on about a new hosting promotion, package, offering, special, etc. trying to build up the finances, and in some regard I want to do it quickly, it’d be nice to have a infusion of a few thousand dollars, but growth one day at a time.
So it leads me to my question, what do YOU web visitor want to see in a hosting package? I already have had folks say “Windows Hosting!” well that’s all fine and dandy, but even then - what functionality do you need to make it a sale, and have you sign-up today? That’s the question I am trying to get answered, so if you get a minute, please take a second and post a comment about what you feel would be the best bet for hosting in your mind, it can be SSH access, it can be a full-on server, but please take 2 seconds out of your busy day, and post what you need in the realm of hosting, and what you’d be willing to pay.
In other quick news, Wordpress 2.3 is pretty slick - so far so good, even has Tags support via Textmate (use Keywords) - pretty slick indeed! More later.
So for the record, I didn’t die. It may of seemed like it, but the truth of the matter is - I got fed up with SPAM, so of course, I do what any good server nerd would do…. start testing everything I can get my hands on - and I came across some great tutorials, some great software, and sort of did a mix of them all to see what I could come up with, and I think I made myself a pretty nice proxy for mail, basically the way mail flows now is as such:
Outside World -> Filter -> (if clean) -> Server
So it’s pretty nice, reduces the load of servers a bit, but the catch to the system as-is, there was no front-end to manage users in the system, so in other words, I unlike my other option (which wasn’t supported by most Datacenters) which was easy simply add the domain, it did the rest, this one requires each… user… for…. each…. domain….. to… be… added. So the original method was using phpMyAdmin to manage a database layer which managed users, which while was handy, for adding say, oh I don’t know 350 users, would be a pain in the but to do at some level, so what did I do? Spent the last two days developing and deploying a very ugly, but functional PHP application which while not GREAT code, it works and allows me to make as many users at one time as needed, so if I want to add all the users on a single domain all I do is make it as such “user:password” - the system does the rest, whatever domain it is managing it appends that domain to the user so say I was using this domain, it’d append @charlesabrown.com to the name for me automatically.
Needless to say I was pretty happy, and the system has some great tools for the end users which I didn’t code, but I am going to spruce up and customize a wee bit to make pretty for my customers, but so far the testing has gone really well - my parents both have accounts on a domain I own, and they were test subjects, so far it’s tagged about 4 good as spam, but that is because I have things turned up to the highest filtering on their two accounts, simply because they get a decent amount of spam, so currently as their MX records update, they are getting a slow steady stream of things going into their Quarantine - it’s lovely.
So that’s where I have been - My goal is to spruce up the code over the next week or so and make a interface for end users, thus it’s hard wired to a customer domain, so if a customer wants the filtering - they have full access to add users, and create new logins for the training interface for their users, needless to say, very nifty!
Tomorrow I am getting my car washed, my friends are working a car wash for my old Jr. High’s music dept. and quite frankly I am a sucker for music programs and I want to do my part, told them if they sold candy too I’d buy it all up but with some light rain, a little car wash will do nicely I hope! But other than that, no major plans for the weekend, I know I have some things to do around here (read: clean room more), and I am still trying to get the budget happy so I can get on my way to an apartment, so if anyone wants to give me money on a constant basis, please do! Heck I’d even work for it if needs be… well work within reason.
Anywhoo - thats really the catch-up of things, a pretty nice week, some good things taken care of, have some sites to clear from servers tonight, and some final bits of billing to adjust for customers, but all in all, tonight should be mellow, I think since no one has responded to going to Denny’s later, I am going to go put in a pizza, and then watch last night’s Burn Notice finale, next week all the good TV starts, how will I get any work done?
So today has been quite the Monday, but in a good way, just busy busy. I solved a Frontpage server issue, which was nice, well by solve I mean the customer hasn’t come back saying it didn’t work, but it’s only 2:30pm so the day is still young! But there have been some nice things evolving here for me, so far very nicely:
New Billing System Reviewed - I enjoy it, I think Customers will too!
New Credit Card Processor - Lots of good reviews around the web, applying tomorrow - hope it helps fix up processing issues.
New Server Setup - Been wanting to do this for a while, not 100% up thus far, but by Friday hope to move support/main websites to a new server.
New Affiliate Application - To help encourage sales around, I am going to give an affiliate program a whirl, should be fun!
New TN Website - Layout is simple - not going for a lot of FLASH, just going for lots of clean, simple, concise information.
But all in all, quite a day, still a lot to do on all these projects, as well as on a few others, but it’s a start, hopefully this week I’ll get more info on the other client projects in the wings right now, as well as some side work for the kMan, would be nice, a good day thus far, though I am hoping to take a short cat-nap @ 5pm and then come back to it into the evening (unless I get a invite to dinner) - but the billing stuff looks awesome! Pretty excited overall, means a full billing audit & transfer, but well worth it!
Anywhoo - back to it, few more hours to put in before a good break… okay okay, maybe a short break to play a game really quick… lol. More later.
Weekends are always… well uneventful, mainly I use them for sleep, or getting into trouble (muwhahaha) but this weekend was nice, got to hang out with some friends and have some food (which they paid for, thank you Noah & Rosie) - heck they even bought me ice cream - total score but also got to have some good times hangin with the kMan at his new temporary office which is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from me down the freeway, which is pretty cool, even got a key!
But the new week is coming, and I am actually pretty excited about it, get some more money coming in - tomorrow I find out about some server services, which could infuse the business a bit more, which is nice, also helps me pay some bills, not to mention get one step closer to an apartment, so pretty jazzed indeed, already increased the monthly revenue about $350 a month, just need to keep it rolling and keep the side work flowing aside from hosting, I really want to try and wing it before years end for real this year, so some work this week as well on the hosting front’s finishing up a re-vamped/re-tooled TN and get a new special/touch-up the FH site which just had it’s back-end all updated to all the newer security patches, went very smoothly.
Keep me in your prayers, while I know not a TON of you read this daily (heck I don’t post daily) - I know some of you check in on this now and again, and I’d appreciate some prayers, really working hard to find a good balance in life between work / family / friends / and most importantly faith - so hopefully as things level out these next few weeks I can really make a good effort to get things taken care of in that respect, not to mention finding a nice apartment in a good area, already have 2 places picked out from online, I need to go out and see what they are like aside from what the monitor shows me already have had several friends in town offer help in moving, so very grateful for that.
Anywhoo - thanks for stopping by, thanks for taking a minute to read this ol fart’s blog of thoughts, hopefully this week will turn out as good as last week! Take care all, have a good week!
Well it’s life, budget has really bounced back some, granted wish it could be better, but it’s getting there - should level out over the next 2 months I’d imagine, and some more options coming up for money so pretty jazzed up, and I am going apartment hunting in the coming weeks as things really firm up and look at the option to get that rolling, while I have enjoyed the last few years here, rent free, really getting a chance to help my parents with their health issues, the last 2 years they have more or less gotten a lot better, and I am not as needed as I once was (or chose to make myself) - so back to a living on my own bit.
Which leads me to projects, projects galore, one I think is officially dead - took over 1 month for one of the folks involved to reply back on a staff board we had setup, I am not blaming anyone, if anyone is to blame I’d go for me as I am essentially the lead coder, designer, hosting guy - but at the same time each of these guys have other things going on as well (just like me) and thus I am not sure if it’ll happen - so I am going to take a lot of the code I have written and look at making a little tech blog sort of a Q&A bit for folks to ask me random questions on tech, and sort of do that, granted if the group gets together and says “Let’s go!” and we can make a REAL plan, I’ll definitely poke back at it for a while - just time lately I want to really hop into something fun, something that makes a little bit of revenue ($10 a month at least) and help others in the process.
Personal life - I dunno, I think I still have one sometimes lol - all the stuff lately with getting worked leveled out has taken a good chunk of my time up, which in itself isn’t a HUGE deal, but really it’s time consuming, nailing down a strong monthly budget with at least $150 above and beyond the set budget, which includes fun money already so $150 pad isn’t too shabby, but I am looking to do a REAL audit of all my hosting services, and I am feeling strongly about this new billing system, saves me some monthly money, as well as makes it easier to build an affiliate system - so going to peruse that for sure, but the apartment will help, having my own space, my own crazy habbits/hours/etc. and easier to have folks over to party like it’s 1999 so I am looking forward to that, and hoping that all the stuff that’s pending really pans out.
But there it is, things right now are mildly crazy, but I am enjoying some of the projects before me, some good fun, I am getting to really lay things out, learn new web functionality like AJAX and such at a more complete level vs. just recycling other scripts, which is making for more streamlined scripts, heck this last little bit deploying ajax and building a custom filter to scan the database for usernames already in-use, wonderful! So pretty excited, some fun things I can deploy using it, and really spice up some older apps I think, so we shall see.
Anywhoo - it’s 1am already, amazing how this evening has really gone by, only a few minutes it seems like it was 7pm - but such is my great grasp of time as of late but life goes forward, still looking to get an iPod, leaning towards the 80gb 6th gen, while the 160GB would be nice, all in all 80gb is MORE than I need, and I can use the difference to get the new iPod cable for the iPod to hook it up to my TV on occasion and watch flicks I have purchased on the TV - so we shall see what this week brings! Take care all, have a wonderful week.
Well headache is finally gone, and so far today things are going good - even got a call from family up in Washington State who invited our family up to Washington for Thanksgiving! Which could be fun, and I looked up rates for flying - $289 round trip! So something to set aside money for I think, of course going to see what the rest of the family is thinking, though if they aren’t, I might, be fun to spend a holiday with my dad’s family - I don’t get to see them that often.
Projects are going good - got the project me and Dan are working on setup on the server, no website just yet, but I am going to wrap up the loose ends of the database this afternoon/evening and get things online for tomorrow so they can offer pre-registration, so very excited, plus the owner of the site wants to give me more money next week, so thats a plus as well!
The kMan okay’d my price list, and I sent him a invoice of the work I’ve done thus far, no word back, but after lunch (which is beeping at me now), I am going to give him a buzz and see if I can get paid today or at the very least a good chunk of it as I need to get the ol bank account up and happy again (stupid budget!).
Well the afternoon has continued on, and I am still mostly alive, got a few new job offers on the table, my brother called with a option which ‘might’ be open to being a “remote” job for internet marketing for the company he works for - pays like 50k a year, so could be very good.
In other job bits, got to talk to the kMan a bit about job stuff with him, not sure how that’s going to roll, granted I like the idea he purposed of being fair to me and breaking things down hourly + the core services I provide for his servers, but I dunno if it’s the price range he was hoping for - but none the less going to write it up and submit it, and see where it goes from there.
Just trying to really pray this up, about to step away from the puter for a bit and just really pray on this for a while, just feels like things are going two different ways, and the whole idea of a 9-5 job keeps looking better and better, I mean standard hours, a REAL job description, not just “Can you get XYZ done today?” - I don’t mind a free-form bit of work on occasion, but a steady bit, knowing what I am to do, that’s a better gig, I’d really appreciate the prayers though, I want to go for the right thing, but so many things poping up Which is first and foremost awesome, but then there’s just so many things to choose from So keep me in your prayers.
I am off - have a good final bit of Fake Friday folks.
- so far so good, even has Tags support via Textmate (use Keywords) - pretty slick indeed! More later.
but also got to have some good times hangin with the kMan at his new temporary office which is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from me down the freeway, which is pretty cool, even got a key!
