One Year Of WordPress

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: April 23rd, 2009 | 1 Comments

It is exactly a year today since i first started to use Wordpress. Thats not to say this site has not been here more than a year. Before i started to use Wordpress i was just using a plain old html site, it was not even a blog,  since this URL 'leateds.com' was my first ever domain i was new to the whole scene of creating websites.

I used to make some old very shabby looking sites in basic html,that i would then host on a free hosting account that would be riddled with bloody advertisements. These sites would i suppose provide some use, first off they gave me the ability to begin to learn how to code a basic site, then the other service that it provided was for when i was in school, since the schools would block links to certain websites i used to have available on my site a proxy version of certain sites available through an iframe. My whole class started to use it to get into bebo and then a few other years began to find out about the site and that they could get into bebo that way.

So in order for the teachers in the school to not be able to get onto my site i added a password to it so that they could not block the links that i was using on my site :D and then i gave the password out to the class, even if they had blocked my main url i would just create a new one and use the same content. Luckily enough they were not smart enough to think of blocking the main url :P, but they did see my site popping up in the history a lot and would try to find out who's it was, they never found out though!

Anyway, the reason i started to use wordpress was because i like how easy it is to manage all the content on the website and instead of creating pages manually i would just have to click a button and it would just create one for me :D, simple and fast. Also i was terrible at designing sites so with the vast amount of themes available to the wordpress community it was basically a no brainer to switch.

I had however never heard of Wordpress until i came to college, one of my fellow college classmates showed it too me. So then i decided i would just give it a go and see if i liked it or not, and now here i am a year later still using it :D

Also i never intended on using it as a blog, if you look at the first month of posts in the archives page you will see that the posts basically relate in no way to blogging, they were basically just me adding things i liked such as some videos.

I also never really knew what blogging was :O, i didnt really read too many either. But now i read many blogs and subscribe to loads of different rss feeds, from news to entertainment and personal blogs. Reading through other peoples blogs gave me an insight into what the main kind of trend of blogging was. So eventually i decided to give it a shot, at the beiginning i was not too successful, i struggled to gain any traffic and my site was bearly indexed in google, my posts soon began to get less and less each month.

I finally decided towards the start of this year to give it a proper go, it was now or never, so since the start of this year i have started a constant posting of posts on a regular basis, and since i have started to blog on a regular basis now people seem to return to the blog and also the stats show that the visitor count is on the rise every month!:D

By beginning to use Wordpress i have broadened my knowledge of coding websites. I never had any understanding of php code at all and now by using wordpress in order to be able to modify the site i had to learn at least the basics of php code.

Nobody had ever taught me how to code sites. Back when i first started out i was using Microsoft's Frontpage Express. Then i moved onto the likes of dreamweaver and text based editors such as textpad. When i came to college then i had a few classes which taught the basics of html which i was fairly confident about and then i was also taught css code which was all new to me.

And now since the use of Wordpress i know more advanced coding techniques such as php. The next step is a new way to create a website, i know that next year in college an assignment that we will be set is to make a website using Visual Basic!

Anyway, one year so far with Wordpress and i expect to have many more in the future. I have no intention of changing the platform that i am using for blogging :)

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The Harry Potter Collection

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: April 23rd, 2009 | 1 Comments

I love to read books. Not a lot of people i know actually read a book. They would rather either watch a television show or go on the internet. I do them both but i also read. Some people see a book and say ah sure i will wait until it comes out as a film, they dont realise that films can sometimes ruin a book and all of the time films tend to leave large chunks of a book out in order for the film not to be too long.

Out of all the books i have read i would definitly say that the Harry Potter collection is my favourite. They go into such great detail and are by far the best story about magic that has ever been written. I started to read the books back when the first one was published, and i continued to read all the rest of them as they were released. Now there is a total of 7 books and now there will be no more :(, which is disappointing but if it was to go on there would really be nothing else to talk about and it would likely ruin the story.

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Author: J.K Rowling

The 7 books are available in 2 different styles, one is the childs version which is a cartoon like cover and then the other is the adult version which would have a real picture. The first 5 books in my collection have the childrens covers and then the last two i bought have the adult cover.

I think the adult cover looks much better and i reckon that i will eventually buy the first 5 books again just so that i can have the full collection with the adult covers :D

So far the first 5 books have been made into films and they are really well portrayed when compared to the book however a lot is left out and i would of loved to see more in some of the films. It is however a difficult task to choose what will make the final cut for the film but it would be great to even have additional scenes available on the disc when it is released.

The next film to be released is 'The Half-Blood Prince', and from what i have seen so far it looks great, the director of this film is David Yates and he has been directing the Harry Potter films since 'The Order Of The Phoenix', he has been doing such a great job that he was asked to direct the remaining films so in total he will have directed 3 of the 7 harry potter films, he is the longest standing director of the films so far, all the other directors only lasted for one film each apart from Chris Columbus who directed 2 of the films.

Technically David Yates will be directing 4 Harry Potter films since they have decided to make the last book, 'Deathly Hallows', into a 2 part film. I think it is great to have the final film as a two part film since we will get to see the majority of the book on the big screen :D The final film should be really epic!

'The Half-Blood Prince', film was supposed to be released late last year but instead was delayed until this july, they did this so there would not be a massive gap between this film and the final one. It would of been at least a year and a half and they decided it would be better to only have to wait about 10 months instead of a year and a half to see the last film.

Check out the trailer below for the next film to be released; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:

Summer Break On The Horizon

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: April 22nd, 2009 | 2 Comments

This year at college will soon be coming to an end. There is not much time left now until my exams. I have only 2 weeks left of classes in college now, then i will have a week off for 'Study' then over the following 2 weeks my summer exams will take place.

So in total i only have 5 weeks before my summer break and it will definitely fly by between now and when my exams begin.

This summer i have a fair bit going on, i will be visting England for a while to see my relatives and also will be returing later to Scotland for a trip with a few of my friends. Also i will be working my ass off in my job because once the summer comes the hours i work usually go up a lot, this is great since the only thing that keeps me going is the thought of how much i will be getting paid :D

My online presence will also increase a fair bit this summer with my intentions of focusing on building up on various sites that i am working on. One such site is a .ie site, i havent said much or if not anything about this site yet because i am still waiting on confirmation for the website.

In order to build a .ie website you have to get given permission by the IEDR, basically they do this so they can monitor what content will be available on the irish network of sites, if they do not approve then you cannot have the domain. It is a lot of hassle to get a .ie domain and also expensive, so if all goes to plan and we get the go ahead i will update this blog with what the .ie domain will be about :)