Well, last week I had a really stupid idea, lol. For some unknown reason, probably boredom, I decided it’d be a good idea sort out my contacts lists, in Windows Mail and MSN. The idea was to merge the two lists of contacts, so it would be easier to know who’s who. Another stupid idea was to unblock everybody that I had blocked on MSN, and also readd everybody that I had deleted over time, from both my current MSN account, and my previous one. Who knows, doing that might throw up a few old friends that had been forgotten, good times! Well, yes and no, lol …
In the end I ended up with a contacts list of around 370 people! Considering that before that I had around 40 odd people in my MSN contacts list, bugger me, that’s quite alot of deleted and blocked people, lmao! God knows why they all got deleted, and I can’t even remember who most of them are, lol. But what the hell, I then decided to add everybody to my MSN account anyway, along with Windows Mail and Facebook as well! If you’re wondering how I got back onto Facebook after being banned, I just made another account, pretty simple really, lol …
While I was at it, I had another stupid idea, invading both WAYN and Facebook to find some completely new friends. No hidden agenda, just looking to meet some new and interesting people, beats sitting here surfing YouTube, that’s for sure, lol. So, if you’ve got a friend request from me, and you already know me, hello again! If you’ve got one and we hate each other, remind me why so I can delete you again, lol! And if you’re somebody new, nice to meet you! Here’s hoping on finding some cool people to chat with. Speaking of which, I’ll take this opportunity to say hi to the evil bunny (Becky), Becca and Cara! You’re all a good laugh, so I’ll talk to you soon, hehe …
Ahhhhh! Pendulum are comming to France! At last! It’ll be the second event of their european tour, which will be held at Elysee Montmartre in Paris on the 9th of November, starting at 7:30pm. I went to see Pendulum live in Cardiff in Wales back in May, which was their first live event in europe from the In Silico tour. It was also the first proper live concert event I’ve been to, and I must say I loved every second, it was epic beyond belief, Pendulum really know how to put on a good show, great music, great light show, great atmosphere! I took some photos and videos at the concert as well …
Here is a couple of videos I posted on YouTube of them … 
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUnP8V2A3hs
Pretty good huh? I can’t wait to go and see them again. As soon as I got the email with the tour information I just couldn’t resist temptation, so I went ahead and ordered myself two tickets … Here we are a few days later and they’ve just arrived by registered post this morning, w00tz!
Now all I have to do is figure out how to get there, lol! I’ll be going with my friend Jym, who’s also a fan of Pendulum, so that’ll be great. There is one problem though, we both got two tickets each, lol. I had an idea of who I wanted to invite to go with me, but as it turns out, that won’t be happening, which sucks! So I have a spare ticket now, and nobody to go with me! So if anybody wants to go with me for free, let me know, especially any girls, lol! Jym should be alright though, as far as I know he has a list of potential people to invite, hehe. Ahhh, I can’t wait, lol!
Well, I actually got banned from Facebook last month! I guess at this point you’re wondering what the hell I did that was so bad it got me banned, arn’t you? Must be something truely awfull, right? Well you’d be suprised! I actually got banned for, wait for it, adding friends! Yup, that’s right, I got banned for adding friends, just a little too quickly. What outrageous behavoir eh? So, here you go, I’ll show you exchange of emails I had with the Facebook support people …
First I recieved this email …
Hi,
Our systems indicate that you’ve been misusing certain features on the site. This email serves as a warning. Misuse of Facebook’s features or violating Facebook’s terms of use may result in your account being disabled . Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.
If you have any questions, please contact warning@facebook.com from your login email address.
The Facebook Team
To which I replied …
My account has just been deactivated, only 5 minutes after I got the warning and I had already stopped once I saw the notice on site! All I did was add some people as a friend, how can that be abusive?! Please reactivate my account!
Daniel Clayton
Which got me this reply …
Hi Daniel,
Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that other users may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the specific rates that have been deemed abusive.
Your account has been disabled because you exceeded Facebook’s limits on multiple occasions when sending friend requests, despite having been warned to slow down.
After further review of your account, we have determined that you violated our Terms of Use by misusing our site features to harass other users. We will not be able to reactivate your account for any reason. This decision is final.
Thanks for your understanding,
Jackson
User Operations
Facebook
To which I replied with …
You put limits in place, yet refuse to state what those limits are, thus there are no guideline to follow. How is anybody supposed to know what level of usage is deemed as abusive or not. I got a warning once, and slowed down, about two weeks ago, and the other day I got a warning again, and stopped immediately I saw it, yet you still disactivated my account only 5 minutes after emailing the warning! What proof of abuse do you have besides I added a few people as friends a bit quicker that you deem normal? Furthermore, has ANYBODY complained that I have been harassing them? I say this is a blatant abuse of administrator rights, as I havn’t actually done anything harmfull at all! ” misusing our site features to harass other users “, what complete nonsence. You say you won’t reactivate my account for any reason, well ok then, there’s nothing to stop me registering again with a different email address and IP if I wanted, but why bother, there are plently of other sites that don’t unfairly and abusively ban their users …
Up yours sincerely …
Daniel Clayton
As you can imagine, that last email got me nowhere …
Hi Daniel,
One of Facebook’s main priorities is the comfort and safety of our users. Your account was disabled because you engaged in behavior other users reported as harassing in nature. It is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use to harass users on the site, whether through unsolicited messages, friend requests, pokes or other features. We will not be able to reactivate your account for any reason. This decision is final.
Thanks for your understanding,
Jackson
User Operations
Facebook
But at least it made me feel better having a rant. It really is sad and stupid that you can get your account deactivated for such a stupid reason, I mean come on, is a simple friend request really that abusive? Does it merit being banned from the entire site? I certainly don’t think so! Why don’t they just block the add friend button when you reach the limit so that you can’t use it any more, that would be much more sensible, don’t you think? I mean, how stupid is it to have set limits like that, and then refuse to tell the users what those limits are, so that they walk straight into the limit trap and get themselves automatically banned in an instant.
In my case I was surfing the site with multiple tabs, so I guess I didn’t see the warning notice until it was too late. Basically, their system and administrator attitude is outrageous. After all, they’re not just banning somebody from some two bit forum, it’s a social network, and one of the most popular at that, getting banned cuts you off from all your friends and contacts, thank god I had most of mine in MSN as well! So, there you go, that’s the story of how I got banned from Facebook, lol …
Most Saturday evenings, Jym (a friend of mine) and myself have a little traditon. He comes over to my place with his computer, and we spend the night playing various PC games either online or on local LAN, and generally having a good laugh. We start around 9pm, and usually don’t stop until about 5 or 6 in the morning, lol. We usually play racing simulation games like LFS or GTR2, as we both have G25 wheels and what not, but we have been known to play other games, like Flatout, Need For Speed, TrackMania, Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam … amongst others. A while back we used to have proper LAN parties here, with upto 8 of us every Saturday night, but that came to an end as we became a bit too ambitious. The others had the idea of starting up a proper gaming club and so on, which we did start, but in the end nobody was motivated enough to make it happen, so it fell apart, and the LAN parties went out the window with it unfortunately. So these days, it’s just Jym and myself, lol …
Here is a photo from last Saturday to give you an idea …
Last Saturday evening was the first time we played GTR Evolution online together, as Jym finally got his genuine copy of the game that very afternoon, it took him long enough mind you, as I’ve had mine since almost 2 weeks before that, lol! I must say that GTR Evolution is going to become one of my favourite games, I really do like it alot. I’m kind of getting bored with LFS now, which I have been playing for what, must be 4 or 5 years now! You can only enjoy so much of the same thing all the time, so I think GTR Evolution is a good new game to replace it as my obsession, lol …
I love everything about GTR Evolution, the sound is brilliant, the graphics are good too, and the cars handle well with the G25 wheel. Having said that, there are one of two little annoyances, like the online servers menu that keeps jumping about and changing place when the pings update, how annoying is that! The handbrake doesn’t seem to work either, and the headlights are random at best. You have to love the attention to detail though, like the sound effects of the brakes and the crashes, and the bugs/dirt splatting on your windscreen or helmet, which you can then remove with the windscreen wipers, excellent, lol!
My favourite combos at the moment are the Mini at Zandvoort Club, the Caterham CSR320 at Pau, the Radical SR4 at Macao Reverse and the Honda Accord R at Brands Hatch. Not to mention that the Nürburgring is simply epic in any of the cars! When I get a chance I’ll take some screenshots and videos of it. Racing online can be quite heated, there’s some good drivers and some noobs as usual, but the racing is pretty close and great fun, with some epic argy-bargy behaviour in the minis, lol! So there you go … here’s looking forward to the next session!
Even though my server is now at Dedibox, I have kept all my domain names registered at OVH, as Dedibox don’t offer the service of buying or registering domains, they only offer you dns servers for the domain names that you have already bought and own somewhere else. As OVH’s dns servers seem to work fine, I didn’t see any point in transfering them to somewhere else. Unfortunately last month there was a problem with a refused payment dating from back in May, and OVH turned off my account with no warning! Cutting all access to the manager, the support, the domain settings, and so on! What bastards!
They cound have at least given me some notice, a warning, and a chance to rectify the problem! But no, they just turned off the account without saying a word. It took just under 2 weeks of harassing the support, by any means possible, emails, telephone calls, even another account to get access to the support form, and so on before I could get a proper reply as to why they’d cut me off. On the telephone they were no help, in fact giving me completely wrong information! In the end somebody replied with something usefull, and about 2 weeks later, I managed to get my account back on, with a bit more fighting, as even once I’d payed the bill in question that had been bounced, they still hadn’t turned the account back on, so I had to complain to the support a few more times to get them to do it! I’m gald it’s all over anyway, as it’d kill me to loose my domain names, already been through that once, never again!
But anyway, by the time I got my account back, about 6 of my domain names had expired. Sod’s law isn’t it, they would cut your account off just as you’re going to renew some of the domains! I did manage to get them all back though, except one, sillyproject.eu, which for some reason it won’t let me reregister, but that’s no great loss, I’m happy that everythings back to normal now. As I was renewing my various domain names, I thought I’d take the opportinity to snap up some new ones, so I am now the proud owner of 38 domain names, lol!
Here is the list of the domain names I own at the moment …
- buggerations.com
- cart-tec.fr
- d4n-team.com
- danielclayton.com
- danielclayton.me
- danielclayton.net
- danielclayton.org
- danzforum.net
- danzserv.com
- epicserv.com
- idliketo.be
- jonluck.com
- kimsufipas.com
- liveforsilly.com
- martysport.com
- mixpostcards.com
- nfactor.fr
- nitaclayton.com
- pringlez.com
- pwnage.fr
- sillynoodlz.net
- sillynoodlz.org
- sillyos.com
- sillypringlez.com
- sillypringlez.net
- sillypringlez.org
- sillyproject.com
- sillyproject.fr
- sillyproject.info
- sillyproject.net
- sillyproject.org
- sptr-team.com
- starofmymind.com
- starofmymind.net
- team-sptr.com
- theotherserv.com
- xr4iproject.com
- zombieserv.com
That’s quite a list isn’t it, lol. There’s some quite good ones in there too. Most of them just redirect to danielclayton.com though, until I find a better use for them anyway. You can make some pretty cool email addresses with those domain names as well, lol. It’s nice that i got back some of my old domain names that I’d given up a while back too, like sillynoodlz and xr4iproject. I just wish I could get sillynoodlz.com back, but some domain selling company got to it before I could and are asking some really stupid price for it, so that’s that really, not much I can do about that unfortunately …
As some of you know, I have been with OVH for almost 2 years now. I’ve tried most of their services, from normal website hosting, to domain names and dns servers, to full on dedicated servers, running either Fedora Linux or Windows Server 2003. I’ve generally been a fan of OVH, they always seem to offer great deal, good hardware, good connections, and reasonable prices …
Back in the days of SillyProject I had a top spec quad core server running flat out with about 50 games servers, web, email, radio, you name it, it ran it and never missed a beat. Once SillyProject came to an end (that’s a story for another day…), I downgraded to a cheaper Pentium 4 server on a 100 Mb connection, but found that a bit slow, so I went up a notch to a Core 2 Duo based server on a gigabit connection. That server was more or less perfect for what I was doing, being quick and having lots of space. I used it for hosting my own websites and some of my friends ones too, along with my streaming radio, a few small games servers and for downloading torrents, as it’s quicker than downloading them directly from home, lol.
But, anyway … cutting a long story short, the other month OVH changed their offers, and brought in this stupid new system. I guess they got sick of all the abuse their servers were getting, and they’ve now brought in a whole load of new security checks and stuff. The worst part is the new server offers though, with this different level of service bollocks, Platinum and Diamond and all that. Basically, it’s an excuse to double the price of the server you want, quite literally, as all you seem to get is a few extra IP addresses. They say you get better support and what not with it, but I’m very sceptical of that, their support is poor at the best of times, especially if you’re on Windows, where they couldn’t care less …
Anyway, enough ranting, as I’m sure you’re not interested, lol. In the end I decided to try out Dedibox, another french hosting company, who brought out a new range of pro servers just before OVH brought out their gay new offers. Dedibox’s pro server works out alot cheaper than OVH, as they only have one level of service, and their Windows licence is half the price too, and you get Server 2008 for that, not Server 2003! For the same hardware spec server at OVH, with the Diamond package, it is quite literally double the price of the Dedibox one! Not to mention that the Dedibox one has two gigabit connections, not just one like the OVH one. How OVH justify the price of that Diamond package is beyond me. Getting a new server from OVH was out of the question, and keeping my old Core 2 Duo one was out of the question too, as it was costing me more than the new Dedibox offer, which was twice the spec! So that’s how I ended up at Dedibox, and I must say, so far, touch wood, fingers crossed, and what not, I’ve had no problems at all, everything works like a dream! The specs of my Dedibox Pro server are quite impressive for the price, being an Intel Xeon Quad Core X3350 (4 x 2.66 Ghz), 8 Gb DDR2 ECC (Error Correction), dual 1Tb hard drives, dual gigabit connections and Windows Server 2008 Standard 64 Bit. So, there you go …
Nope, you’re not imagining things, I am using WordPress! Shock horror! I know I swore never to lower myself to the ranks of the bloggers, nor to use a website system made by somebody other than myself, but what the hell, everybody else is doing it, lol. I’ve always been of the opinion that making my own website is much better, at least then you can say ” I made that! “, and even if my old websites were never that great, at least I always kind of had my own style, lol. I have a terrible habbit of starting a website project, but never actually finishing it, laziness being the problem I guess, haha!
So anyway, I thought for a change I’d try using something else, and see how I got on with that, maybe then I’d have the motivation to fill it up with some contents. I did try Drupal a couple of months ago, but I didn’t get on with that. Drupal sucks, to put it bluntly, lol. The addon mods were shite and only half worked, and it didn’t seem to like my server either, being epically slow if you turned URL rewriting on.
Alot of people seem to use WordPress, so I thought I’d give it a go, and so far so good, at least this seems to work as it should, apart from the odd 404 error on redirections in the admin section, but that’s no major problem, click refresh and it loads. I must say, I’m loving this Devart theme as well, which mimics the style of the DeviantArt website. I did have to search how to fix the top navigation though, as there seems to be an error in the coding of the theme …
It turns out you have to change the following line in header.php …
<?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=’); ?>
… to the following …
<?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=&depth=1′); ?>
… which effectively stops the title overlapping problem when you have subpages. I’ve also added a photo gallery plugin (nextgen-gallery) and a poll plugin (wp-polls), which will be usefull once I get motivated enough to fill them with content, lol. So we’ll have to see how it goes, maybe I’ll keep this WordPress system if it doesn’t break, or maybe I’ll go back to using my own websites, only time will tell, so until then, I hope you enjoy what you see here, and I hope you’ll come back again soon to see what’s new!
Hmmm, it looks like posting here works then …
