Well here’s what happened and I’m in the middle of and writing about. This is more for historical purposes for me to read later on, once I get this “Focus” thing under control.

The problem really is, my head thinks up stuff faster than I can do it. Anyway this is a quick summary of tonights action.  I had thought I should start a blog just on what stuff I thought of and never got done but that’s just another distraction…

Too many websites and blogs, too many project ideas and lots of marketing ideas all combine to my needing to have eyes like a fly to focus on this many things. Harder still is prioritizing them. I do think sometimes I should just be the ideas guy and get others to do the “doing”. But I’m not at that point in life yet, or am I?

Here goes…

The trouble began by reading my emails… Now who said email marketing is dead? I’m on a few lists and get a few emails each day and one or two grab my eye and I have to check out what’s going on out there. Am I a victim of “Curiosity Killing the Cat Syndrome”. There’s a topic!

So I opened an email from someone I am familiar with and clicked on the link and ended up on the website. Well a little investigation showed it was a program I had paid up and joined some years back. Actually way back in June 2008 would you believe.

The program in question turns out to be “InfoProductKiller” which I was very impressed with way back then and it’s still going. I did a review on it at my site at http://www.YourAffiliateReview.com So being curious I dug up my info and lo and behold I can still access the members area and get the latest and greatest updates.

Now that is great service. Lifetime membership means just that, Pay once and get updates forever. Plus what was in this course way back then was truly remarkable. Who knows how good it is now , after two years of refining it. Seriously, if you ever do anything, grab it, as it covers more for a newbie in getting profitable websites up and running than I’ve seen before.

Everything I saw, heard and read from that course came flooding back. Which is curious as I’ve just been thinking about it and how I should be assigning some time each evening of putting up a new niche website. Even one day a week… And as I’m always dreaming up new scripts, new lessons for mys students and having brainstorming sessions instead of doing… I’ve not been doing the simple stuff that works.

I did buy a few domains though! Of which I have a few laying about , parked, begging for some attention.

Anyway, I’ve recently been introduced to another program regarding WordPress and monetizing sites, again with lifetime upgrades and lifetime mentoring and hopefully I’ll be able to add my 10 cents worth after having chatted to the owner… He saw my site over at http://www.AdvancedWordPressTutorials.com and liked it.  Anyway , any further developments on that front are for later…

Now I have a few blogs, and when I see something of value to write about, the ole – “where do I write what where?” starts the seeds to mass confusion. The answer is, On One Blog at a Time. So here I am, sharing my story about my dilemma in an attempt to impress upon myself  the importance of being more focused without being a smart ass and reaching for my glasses – wrong kind of focus.

I think the real problem is this dreaded sense of urgency and possibly a sense of failure if something isn’t done quickly. What puzzles me though is I am a pretty determined and patient guy. Give me a problem and I’ll bash my head against brickwalls ( probably a bad visual example ) until I solve it cause I know I will. And I do!

And I’m also guessing it comes down to practice. Focus on something, complete it, get that warm fuzzy feeling of achievement and move onto the next task. I’m also guessing that this urgency to get something done quickly is a form of wild Panic – “Quick , get it out there…. Oh ran out of time”. Tomorrow arrives and it starts over again on something else.

And a very over imaginative mind, which I just had troubles spelling imaginative. A big thanks to whoever invented spell checkers. I wonder if wizards invented them first and someone heard the expression and thought “Ah ha, we could do that with these fancy puter things that let you write stuff”! There’s an idea for a post for http://www.NoahCunnyFunt.com one of my alter ego sites for fun.

Hmm this is turning into a ToDo List if I don’t watch it.

Well it’s nearly time to turn into a pumpkin again and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

It really does come down to, don’t be scared of thinking up lots of ideas, write them down and get to them when you can. “Complete the Job At Hand” and yes that is an available domain name  and no I’m restraining myself from buying it. After all, I got other things to do!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I do hope you get something out of it. I know I have. If it sticks is another matter but now it’s here in all it’s glory for me and others to come back and read. There’s no escaping!

Take care and keep plodding along.

Cheers

Tim

Now I have been running Kubuntu 8.04 ( the KDE3.x version of Ubuntu ) for sometime. It’s been upgraded from 7.04 and had a bit of “stuff” kicking about.

Windows 7 and No Printer Drivers

Anyway, my wife went and upgraded from XP to Windows 7. Which by sheer misfortune, there ain’t any drivers available for our Canon Laser Printer LBP5000 ( there was for XP!).

So I’ve raised my hand and said, well Linux can talk to it, let me set it up on mine….. Well that was a mistake. Linux and Ubuntu don’t play nice with setting up printers. As nice as Kubuntu is, it still has some serious issues which Windows has had solved for a very long time…( yes I did just say that!).

Printer Setup on Linux

So here I was, trying to remember how to setup a laser printer… It’s certainly not for the feint hearted when the system doesn’t know about “Your Printer” and I’m figuring those who are not patient or just don’t have the time to bash their heads against a brickwall for a long time.. will promptly run back to Windows…Because – most times – it works. Linux will work – but be prepared to do lots of forum reading… and lots of downloading and command line bashing.

Setting up for a Canon LBP5000 – https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CanonCaptDrv190 (This worked for 9.04)

For 9.10 I followed these destructions and got it up and running real quick smart. I’m guessing it’s all the practice I’ve had..If you need help with this, let me know. Ubuntu 9.10 LBP5xxxx setup can be found at http://www.unixmen.com/linux-distributions/ubuntu/229-installation-canon-lbp2900-on-linux

Continuing on….

I had tried to upgrade my version from 8.04 to the latest 9.10. It’d get so far along then complain about incompatible packages that might break things…. It’s certainly not an easy task to discover and rectify those packages “in dispute”. I must admit though, being under the pump to get somethings done can lead to the dreaded “Sexy Fingers” Syndrome and I’m certain I fell victim to that.u

It’s the old rule  – get what you have to get done, done and don’t get sidetracked fixing other things… Like up-grading Apache etc….And I’m thinking I had a few packages I tried to update that were left over from the attempted update to 9.10 and of course I’ve tried to install some of those…

After messing about a little too much. I attempted a system reboot and my fears were realized…. It wouldn’t.

Error 15: File Not Found

It was very trashed, hosed, cactus, not working, take your pick…. But this particular incarnation of strife was new to me so more learning time coming up…

I’d gone and removed too much of that “old stuff” that removed some vital bits. A bit like if you pull out a nose hair and your brains come out… (I’m tired – give me a break!) How about plucking an eyelash and your eyeball comes out! It’s got to be something painful cause this sure was. Anyway, that’s kind of what can happen and it did!

Just Install Kubuntu 9.10

So my 8.04 System was trashed. No Problem – I’ll just do an install of Kubuntu 9.10….After all, I’ve never had a problem before….

Umm yeah! Famous last words. Instead I did a fresh install of Kubuntu 9.04 and it ran a treat. I had a quick play with it and rather liked it. I found this neat little package called envyNG which correctly and quickly installs your NVidia Drivers and I had my Dual Screens set up in seconds. In the past, that was one of those loooong sessions to get it setup.

Great, how wonderful. That works! So I upgraded straight to 9.10…. EnvyNG wont work in this version, so after a lot of reading etc I ended up installing the NVidia Drivers and the Dual Screen the ole tried and tested way. So that worked…I can’t quite remember what else happened but it was bad enough that I decided to go back to Kubuntu 9.04.

Where did the Steering Wheel Go?

There was lots about it I just didn’t like.I’m not sure why but alot of the functionality I was so used to on 8.04 (KED3.x) just wasn’t there. It was a bit like sitting in a new car and looking for the steering wheel but instead you had to lean in the seat to make it turn. You do that on a motor bike, don’t you? I was thinking some M$ guys had snuck in on the project and added their brilliance on these “Changes”….. Hmmm! I’m sure they had their reasons for leaving them out….

So I went back to Kubuntu 9.04. After which I found the magic guide to installing my Canon LBP5000 and got it working….

I plonked my thunderbird and Firefox back on and had it up and running in minutes…. That’s one of the many things I love about Linux. You can copy and paste most things from the old to the new. Oh, I used to have a Raid1 System so all my “Old Stuff” was backed up on the 2nd drive – Plus I’d copied my home folder onto another Hard disk for safety. I’m not worried about the MySql Databases etc.

I also found that konqueror/dolphin didn’t have the “Right Click” Action -> Edit as Root. This is very useful to make system changes for instance , updating your xorg.conf file once the NVidia Setup tool has done it’s stuff, not to mention udpating your Apache2 virtual hosts file and the systems hosts file….

It seems this feature is not included in Gnomes -  Nautilus 2.28.1. It may have been chopped across all Distros! I’ve not run Gnome for years so can’t remember if it was in earlier versions.

Then came VMWare Server 2.0

Then I tried to reinstall my VMware Server. It used to be painless…… But now – No joy, it bitched and wouldn’t compile and carried on like a bear with a sore head!

In the meantime I thought I’d check out Ubuntu 9.10 which is the Gnome Desktop ( not as fancy… but very solid..) So I re partitioned the Hard Drive (adding a separate / partition and forgetting to partition  my /var/usr separately. I had made the / partition way too small). In the meantime, I’d discovered how to install the latest version of VMware Server 2.0 on 9.10 and it worked straight out of the box – well it did for me….

I installed it off the Live CD and it went through it’s paces and I made those silly diddles to the Disk Partitions .. .and on reboot, the X Server ( The graphical bit ) wouldn’t run… In fact it sat at the text login and with the screen flashing madly. So bad in fact, it wouldn’t accept keystrokes to login…. I’m got in with an F8 on reboot and used the recovery mode.

The problem was the NVidia Driver – I got into the /etc/X11/xorg.conf and renamed the driver from NVidia to NV. (Something I learned from my setting up in 8.04 days)

So here I am – sitting in front of Ubuntu 9.10 with my VMWare Server 2.0 running and was just putting back the VMware files for one of my Windows Installs ( 20Gig HD = 10 x 2Gig Files) and I’d run out of space…. I’d gone and set /usr to be a whopping 10Gigs not considering my VMware OS Files were going to be bigger… Whoops. Isn’t this how you learn stuff?

No VMware running – I’ve since missed two of my Classes this week – two run on consecutive days…Friday and Saturday afternoons Australian time.

This being another lesson in getting distracted and running off doing other things…. which will stop you dead in your tracks in what you were hoping to get done!

“I’ll just do a quick upgrade and get straight back onto my Schedule…” Never more famous words mispoken. It’s now Saturday Afternoon and now I’m trying to decide which version to settle with… I’m going to be doing a fresh install of something. I’m guessing Kubuntu 9.04 at this stage.

It’ll be interesting what happens from now till I get back here up and running again. Well I’m excited! Who knows what will happen.

Cheers

Tim

I still love Ubuntu/Kubuntu. I won’t be going back to Windows as my development system anytime soon ( read – never!)

Resources I found useful through all this….

Printer Setup – https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CanonCaptDrv190 for 9.04. (this worked but the link below is probably much better)

Printer Setup – http://www.unixmen.com/linux-distributions/ubuntu/229-installation-canon-lbp2900-on-linux for 9.04, 9.10 and other flavors.

VMWare Server Setup – how to install the latest version of VMware Server 2.0 on 9.10 (It’s a good idea to set the default /var/lib/vmware folder somewhere where there is a ton of room for your Virtual Machines. – another drive would be good due to their size. That’s if you have them big >20G like I tend to. )

Getting Root Actions back into Konqueror missing in 9.xx (KDE4.x) – https://launchpad.net/~samrog131/+archive/ppa/+files/servicemenu-rootactions_2.4.7.1~karmic~ppa1_all.deb

[UPDATE] I’m running Ubuntu 9.10 – totally repartioned the world – read as done correctly… and I put on Kate, Konqueror and Kwrite. Why? Well because I like them. So I’m running a mix of Gnome and KDE Apps which is pretty neat! Who said this wasn’t fun!

All I really had to do…

Was just get the old drive back up and running on Kubuntu 8.04, do my classes and then attempt an upgrade when I had time. But it was meant to be quick in the first place…..

Conclusion

All Roads lead to Gnome!

Now that I’ve had a baptism of fire with these various distributions, the one that came out on top as to ease of installation and up and running for anyone wanting to use a Liunx based system had to be Ubuntu 9.10. Remember that’s the Gnome Desktop version and not my much favored Kubuntu with the Fancy KDE desktop. There is a very large support base for the Gnome Version and I can see why.

Hmm I might get my VMWare problems sorted out another way – just specify a new folder somewhere else….I was trying to install Gparted but one of the aussie servers seems to have gone offline… It never rains…. I’ll get there through shear determination ( some might call stupidity).

Oh and there is an educational release which I’d like to try out. It’s bundled with all the stuff a student/kid would need…. It’s called Edubuntu.

To check out all the Ubuntu Flavors goto http://www.ubuntu.com/

Time to go and do some more stuff….

Cheers

Tim

Well I’ve had a hugely busy week at work trying to get some testers completed with two weeks to go before I’m into this Full time and then….

My Computer starts having panic attacks! Well at first my RAID1 system took a dive. One Drive wouldn’t boot. Not a problem, I have Raid1 – which means I have two Hard Drives which are a mirror of each other. So in fact they are meant to be exact copies at all times.

So if one breaks (it’s more unlikely although not impossible to have them both break at the same time ) the other drive will get you up and running…

Well as Fate would have it, when the drive stopped booting, the 2nd “Mirrored” Drive turned out to have about… Oh over a years worth of missing files. Something happened a year back unknown to me that stopped it mirroring..”Oooops”! Red Face moment!

Anyway, got a backup drive to boot from (I’m using KUBUNTU 8.04 LTS) and got to talk to the faulty drive – HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF!…. So my Data wasn’t lost. Umm what happened to doing backups?

So after a bit if reading I got the “Non Booting” faulty drive up and running. Somehow the MBR got clobbered ( geek for it stopped booting) So I fixed that up and got up and running…. Then – the Video Drivers went AWOL. My Beloved Dual Screen was Kaput and my Video card wasn’t being recognised.

That was Tuesday… In the meantime, I’d come down with a mighty grand Flu/throat infection with a Fever so I was out of action for 3 days….

Come Saturday Morning and I’m trying hard to get my system back up. I eventually get it running well enough to hold my Class at InternetNicheLab and that was quite interesting with me attempting to do all the talking…

We did a bit of Database Design using DIA ( a free diagram program) and got into how to market a website and how to handle affiliates wanting to advertise on your websites. Hmm after all these years a lot of common sense came forth which I was quite delighted with. We also covered using Inkscape for performing Website Layouts, of which I had a few I had done and showed them to the group over the desktop sharing. Ahh technology, don’t you just love it…

See it does get in…. With just two weeks left before I’m doing this Fulltime and Fate wanting to throw it’s worst at me… One thing showed up and that is I am persistant! Giving up, hmm well that’s really just quitting. But taking a break and going onto something else to come back afresh on the problem. That’s just common sense and usually ends up solving the problem.

See, I got my video to work on one screen so I could at least hold my class.

After the Class, I got my dual Screen system up and running. Why it stopped… was due to a Kernal Upgrade which this time, wasn’t so smooth as usual.

Now just have to redo the Raid System and resynch it all…[Update] – All done. Both Raid Drives are up and running and synched with another drive on the side for occasional ( weekely ) backups, plus DVD backups of all my “stuff” I’ve created.

Fate tried it’s best…

Fate has tried it’s best to put a huge damper on things, but persistence must have made it decide to give me a break! If you believe in that stuff!

It’s true that great things happen when you are on the verge of everything going pear shaped.

Anyway, back to the planning, big things are afoot.

Social Marketing does Work!

Totally off topic but Sokule is going great guns. Check out my latest Sokule Page with all my affiliate links etc….I can even put up a Video and audio on it. But that’s for later on…

All the best

Tim Brownlaw

There is a great amount of info on getting up and running with this application and I did get as far as hooking together all my relational tables to generate the correct queries. So for those of you that attend my classes, Yes I gave it a go.

There are some little differences ( as expected ) between the SQL, it wants to generate as opposed to MYSQL which I’m more familiar with. I Never really got too deep into using Microsoft’s Access only because I didn’t have a real understanding of proper Database Design at the time.

Time has fixed that. I’m at home with MySQL and Stored procedures. Not everyones cup of tea but I enjoy creating useful, safe applications with it. The only problem is with the Data Sensitive stuff is you really don’t want up on a Website. There are various ways to make a Desktop application ( NOT Windows only based…) that works on all platforms and OpenOffice is a quick and easy and FREE way to do just that.

Anyway, I’ve got somewhere, rather quickly with it and it’s probably a very good platform for explaining the correct way to design a Database. I was impressed.

Now I’ve just got to get a handle on the interface ( forms ) and interacting correctly with the tables and enforce proper data entry rules across tables. Should be a fun excercise.

So while I’m in Hospital this Saturday (my time) getting my Infususion, hopefully the wireless connection will hold up and I can demonstrate database basics a lot more clearly. Got to love Desktop sharing conference calls.

I’ve been doing quite a few installs now on various sites for myself and others of late. There is still lots to learn. I’m now in a comfy position where I can get very “experimental” with wordpress and mold it to do my bidding. Now I just got to get the design “thought” processes flowing….

There may be some links about on the site that are still in the “Textile” format used in Textpattern. The next task is to fix those up. So off I go to do that.

In the meantime, I’ve come across a number of very good products which may help you. Of course it depends on what it is you want to do. The problem is, there are too many “ways to go” which causes many people, including myself, to check them all out but never get time to properly implement any of them. I believe the term is Not Having “Focus”. We need to get the blinkers out, focus on something and go for it with avengence! Then go onto the next thing….

Anyway, for now, my next thing is to get this site tidied up and add in a few more things I need to have on here… So till next post. Take care and have fun

Tim

It’s not as popular in my circle of friends as Joomla is but we might get to change that…

It’s only because they’ve never heard of it or it appears to be too hard.

I must say that Joomla has one of the nicest admin user interfaces I’ve seen in donkey ages. (a long time).

BUT, and this is what attractted me to TextPattern to begin with.
Is TextPattern is CSS style and LAYOUT Driven.

I love CSS layouts…They can be a real pain to get right and make cross browser friendly, but it’s worth it.

If you ever get the CSS bug, which you should if you play at code level and hand code your sites, it’s a must.

I’m no CSS guru, but I get by and as with anything, I’m always learning from what others have done. And some of that is absolutely incredible.

Table layouts are a dirty word (or two). It was due to my having to “Fix” an existing site that was setup in Table Hell, that drove me to learn CSS.

So thats one point why I like TextPattern – It’s CSS heaven.

The other points are:
It has a very simple but powerful admin section that’s been given a lot thought. It takes a few minutes to learn your way around, but even if its the very first CMS program you’ve ever installed, you can be up and running pretty quickly.

It does have a Downside with adding new templates. It does require you (at this stage) to manually install all the bits to make it work.

For some one new, this might be very daunting, but it is doable.
The instructions the template authors give are very good.

With a little patience and maybe a “Whoopsie” here and there, you should be able to get your new templates installed.

Just be organised and don’t rush and you’ll get there…

Actually ,now thinking about it, I see it as a Huge Plus in regards to teaching you what you can actually achieve with TextPattern.

You are at the coal face, and with your trusty Coal Pick, you get to quickly learn how to get coal.

That’s a crappy analogy, but you will be enlightened by getting installing TextPattern somewhere you can play with it, getting a new template (Free from the Web) and installing it.

Go for it….

If you want the auto, push button, I just want to make it work solution and don’t give two hoots about what its doing or how it does it and have no time to learn how to tweak it etc.

Just get Joomla and play with that.

We all have to start somewhere

The old site was straight out the box, “Dull and Boring” but this template has just what I want and with a few tweaks, it’ll be grand.

Performing a search on the web for Textpattern Templates, I stumbled upon this one – Serene – by Vladimir Agafonkin – Credit is due, where credit is due.

Thanks Vlad, you’ve saved me a few hours work…

As with anything “NEW” like Textpattern, the learning curve is more about getting your head around what it actually does.

Once you get past that stage, you’re pretty good to go and start hammering out stuff – Good or Bad.

It’s power becomes more apparent with use.
But with anything, that is due to an increased understanding of how it works.

So I may soon venture into writing my own little plugins.

I’m in the middle of researching a good CMS program for an existing community website SMAAustralia. [update - I am no longer associated with the webmastering of this Website - Still a good cause though!.]

I have a few templates that I have created that I need to port across (rewrite) to fit into the CMS that finally gets the Nod from the board members that will be using it.

So we are getting there…

Of course it was required yesterday, but good things take time when you don’t have a lot of time to spend.

Then I have to teach those using it on “How to use it”.

More guidelines to write but it’s what I enjoy doing.

Anyway, Let’s see where all this leads too.

Cheers

Seems this is a common 1st entry for a Blog – sorry for being the run of the mill there but I guess its more a case of “Look at me Mum – No Hands” or in this case – “Look Mum – My Own Blog”.

I’m very certain that I’ll settle into some seriously crazy but hopefully meaningful entries.

I have suggested on my other sites that the best name for any website is your very own name.

A few tweaks here and there and I’ll master this little ripper of a CMS Script and then there’ll be no stopping me. Well except lack of sleep maybe.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment or three.

Cheers