February 25th, 2008 by olstar

If she would marry me!

And she said yes!

February 25th, 2008 by olstar

Towards the back end of last year i had a day where i was out and about trying to find wireless internet to use, as gemma was in a training course all day in warwick. It was a lot of fun to be honest, using the internet on my phone to find wireless network hotspots and then using my google maps on my phone to find the location, then sitting outside leaching their bandwidth.

I tried McDonalds in warwick, as all McD’s give out free internet - but i could get it to work for some reason. Today im in sheffield, and gem is on another course for this morning. I came to McDonalds for some breakfast and brought my laptop in just in case i could get it to work this time..

TaDaaaa!

Free wireless! And i have all the food in the world about 2 seconds from where im sitting.. Mmm McD’s breakfasts!

Anyway, gonna do a few bits of work this morning as im not going to be able to do much this week due to the fact i will be in prauge!

February 24th, 2008 by olstar

I have been a huge prison break fan since it started, i think its possibly the greatest tv program ever made! I have recently just finished watching episode 13 or season 3 - which has been described as the “winter finale”.

For a while, the episode details have suggested that this may of been the last prison break ever! Tv.com only go’s up to S03E13 and i couldn’t really find out any new info on what is happening after this episode.

I was doing some browsing last night trying ti see if i could dig up any new information on whether or not we would see Michael and the crew return any time soon, when i stumbled upon this news article from Dallas News.

It talks of plans to move the filming and production of prison break back to LA, as they have been doing recent production in north texas.

“The producers have an exciting idea for next season’s storylines, and unfortunately, it may require moving the series back to Los Angeles for creative reasons”

It doesn’t state anywhere that there will actually be more episodes, but the fact they are STILL making it is a pretty good sign don’t you think

“The news of the potential move came suddenly, Ms. Burklund said, after the Dallas Film Commission was already in negotiations to keep Prison Break in North Texas for two more years, long enough to assure the show of syndication. The two additional seasons would have meant direct spending of $61.6 million and an economic impact of $154 million, she said.”

Could this mean a season 4 AND 5? Based on the events in the last episode, im not sure it could really warrent another tow seasons! I kinda hoped that 3 seasons would of wrapped it all off, as dragging it out too long could cause it to get a bit lost (like lost ) but i guess one more season could be interesting so we can see big mike kick some more ass.

Ill keep my ears to the ground, and i know wiggy will too - so hopefully we’ll be able to find out soon if prison break is going to continue blowing us all away

February 23rd, 2008 by olstar

I am forever changing maxxd.com, but quite recently i havent really done much to it. I was having to piss about with vbulletin’s really over confusing admin system just to make slight changes to stuff, and everything for it costs money.. I wanted a seo mod, and its like as much as the frickin software!

My other forum (SSDB crew!) runs MyBB and has done for over a year, and its the best forum software i have ever had the privilege if using. I have used EVERYTHING at some point or another, and none are as easy to work with, customise and enjoy as MyBB is!

So, after plucking up the courage for weeks and weeks, i planned to shut the vbulletin forums and start moving the stuff over to the new fresh shiny MyBB installation that i had installed onto a subdomain.

I needed to gather the scripts i needed to perform the merge, i got myself the latest version of phpbb installed, and mybb, and installed easyphp onto my computer.

I got a converter for vbulletin 3.6.7 to phpbb2 from here, and did a bit of swatting up on peoples previous attempts to see if they ran into any problems. I installed phpbb onto my local machine, and started downloading the vbulletin database. The mybb merge system was downloaded from the mybb website

Due to the fact the forum was fairly large, and vB stores attachments in the database, the mysql db was huge! The last time i did something like this the most time consuming task was splitting the database down to workable sizes.

As i was installing it on my local machine i was able to copy the db (once it had finished downloading) to a directory on my local machine and edit a config file so that it was available in a drop down box on the file import screen of phpmyadmin. And although at times i thought it had crashed - it finally finished loading and the db was imported successfully.

I then realised that in order for the vB to phpbb merge to work, all the tables needed to be on one db. Ah shit. So i removed the one i had jsut created, and opened the phpbb db. Did the import again, and it worked.

I then ran the phpbb merge script and followed the instructions on it. I noticed that on the first step it claimed to not have picked up the vB tables in the db. But it actually had! I had to adjust the timeout limit in php.ini as a few of the steps (thread and post conversion) timed out.

Once i had finished, i removed the old vb tables, and removed the mer4ge script so all i had was my forum in phpbb format. I then exported the db from my local machine to a sql file on my desktop. It hadn’t copied the forum permissions, usergroups or attachments, but i wasnt bothered. The lack of attachments meant the db was TINY in comparison.

I then imported the db to my webhost, and started the mybb merge system. I have to say that their merge system is much better than the one i used a few steps ago, much more stable and professional. It didnt take that long to complete apart from the post and thread parts. As i had chosen to only do 200 per page, and there was over 30,000!

After it finished, i was left with all my forums, users, posts, polls and threads. No attachments or PM’s but that was a small price to pay to now be running the best forum software available. One thing i had to do was go into the admin panel and go to the recount & rebuild section in order to rebuild the “Last post” bits on threads and the forum index.

After a day of re-doing the groups and making it look pretty it was done. I have been slowly adding plugins to make ti better, so far i have the latest attachment gallery, the warning system and the SEO plugin. I had the image resizer oen too but it was messing up large images, saying something about hotlinking not allowed. I turned it off and the images work fine now!?

Anyway, i thought i would share this with the world, to maybe try and persuade a few other people to move away from vbulletin to a much better piece of kit. MyBB

February 15th, 2008 by olstar

I understand that not everybody has the same point of view as me on nature, and the great outdoors. I would be so happy living on some beach or up some mountain miles away from anyone (as long as i had the internet somehow hee hee) with just my girlfriend and my poochie to talk to. To me, that is the perfect existence.

Since gettin bonnie i have done lots of walking and both me and gem have both started appreciating the outdoors even more. We walk her in the mornings around this huge field thing right next to our house. There is a big bit of overgrown grassland, a old road that go’s right round the back and if you walk up that a fair bit you can cut across to this HUGE sand field. Its a really good walk for her (and me) in the mornings as there is lots of room to throw sticks into the grass and on the sand bit. Bonnie loves it!

PIC

Our first beef with this walking area, was the dog shit. My latest beef, is with the bellamy road scumbags who see no harm in dumping their shit along the road at the back of the wasteland. There is a lot of rubbish around anyway, as i dont think the land is looked after by anyone, but we went out the other morning and there was two HUGE piles of shit. Carpets, bags full of polystirene, old fencing, boxes.. Even some old plant pot type things! You name it, it was there.

PIC PIC

And we were out this morning, and someone had burnt out a (probably stolen) mini motorcross bike.  The wheels were in fine condition, and to be honest the engine didnt look bad, but all the plastics were melted so it would of been impossible to fix. It was just lying burnt out in the middle of the track. Why?

Why steal it in the first place?

Why burn it out?

Why blatantly litter a lovely little trail that MANY people walk dogs along?

Why why why??!?!

Its times like these i wish i had patience, cos id sit there for days and days waiting for the little bastards to come back then set them on fire and leave them to burn in the middle of the road - see how they like it!

When i have a jeep, or when the pickup is working, im gonna go down the track and tidy it up i think. There are lots of bricks and stuff im gonna steal and build a BBQ in the back garden, and the rest of the stuff i will take to the tip.

Then i think im gonna do some flyers, and post them in every door in this area so that people know i have cleaned it up, and that im watching the fuckers and if i see anyone flytipping ill ring the police after shooting them from my bedroom window!

One day these inconsiderate fuckheads will learn and witness my wrath!

February 15th, 2008 by olstar

Becasue they have put their unleaded petrol down to 99.9 a litre. Its so much more satisfying going and putting£10 worth of juice in and getting MORE than 10 litres - it is still extorsionate though isnt it!

PIC

February 15th, 2008 by olstar

As you may remember from an old post, i painted my N73 fascia as im poor and cant afford a new phone. This was going swel for a while until a lot of the paint started to peel off, so i used my skillz and took the cover off again - and set about painting it once more. I opted for a chrome look, so i sanded most of the bright orange off, gave it a matt black under coat, then a chrome-look top coat. I let it dry for a day.. Was still wet.. Left for 2 days.. Still sticky.. Hmm

All the paint had reacted, and NEVER set right, so the phone would stick to my face, and the thing you listen to people through was blocked with paint so i couldnt hear anyone. It was a disaster!

So i searched on ebay, and found that replacement fascias from china were only going for about £7 - so i looked about and found a really cool one and bought it! A week later, it arrived, and i set about fitting it to my phone!

PIC PIC

I first removed the old cover, and wasnt bothered if it was damaged as it was going in the bin, it was most satisfying ripping it off and screwing it up into a ball.  I then compared the bits i had removed, to the bits i was gonna put on - they all looked about the same so i started cleaning the phone so that when the new case was on it was nice and sparkly.

PIC PIC

It didnt take long for the new case to fit on, and what a fit! It was as if it was made by nokia! The only thing i couldnt replace was the joystick thing, as it didnt come with a little pole thing, and the pole thing in the old part wouldnt come out. Apart from that the front, back and keypad were all new - making my Nokia N73 look like a new phone! Not bad to say its over 2 years old!

February 15th, 2008 by olstar

We have had a dog now for about 3 months, and we both love every minute of it. I love going out for walkies, i love playing with bonnie and her toys and i love snuggling up on the settee with both of my angels.

What i dont fucking love, is mother fucking pieces of shit dog owners that cant handle their dogs, dont know how to discipline them and DONT CLEAN THEIR SHIT UP!

I dont want to walk my dog and have to CONSTANTLY tell her to leave huge steaming piles of shit left by the dog in front. We always clean bonnies poo up, i remember a lad in my school got BLINDED because someone kicked some dog shit up into his face. I get so fucking angry. Its so ignorant and disrespectful to other dog owners, as if someone has a new puppy and its on its first walk it can still get ill from other dogs poop.

I wish i had some kind of power over people, as if i saw them not cleaning their dog shit up i would pick the fucker up myself and throw it at them!

I know its not the nicest stuff in the world, and it stinks like.. well, like shit! But it takes 3 seconds to pick it up, and if you pick it up in a bag your hands dont smell and once tied you can no longer smell it. If its left, and kicked up in some kids face, they are blinded for LIFE.

Stop being ignorant fuckers, and CLEAN UP YOUR SHIT!

Another thing that fucking winds me up is people who’s dogs are uncontrollable. I was out with bonnie, as we do every morning, and we went round the corner onto the field next to my house, and there were two black labs there off the lead. One was old, and one was a lot younger. The younger one was a BIG dog though. Of course, he saw my pretty bonnie chops, and LAUNCHED himself at her. The fucking dozy BINT who owned the black lab was all like “Oh im sorry, hes always like this!” - Is that supposed to make up for the fact he TERRORISED my dog? Does your lame stupid fuckeyed comment make up for the fact your dogs a twat and needs discipline?

Twats like her shouldn’t be allowed dog’s. And its not cos shes a woman, cos the family at the bottom of our road have a lab called max, and he’s a big fucker, but even if the lady is out by herself she is still able to control him perfectly.. Ok so he gets a bit excited when he see’s bonnie but he doesnt chase her and make her scared.

I think all dog owners should have to go and do a doggy driving test, and if they cant control their dogs under certain situations then the dogs should be taken off them or be made to wear a muzzle at all times.

I know dogs play and shit by fighting, but you can tell when its nice fighting and not-nice fighting!

/end rant

February 7th, 2008 by olstar

I have quite recently purchased some new goodies off eBay to spice my laptop up, and make it more suitable for use in my home office.

I bought some cool usb speakers, a usb sound card as mine was screwed, and a pcmci USB2.0 card

But then the problems started to happen.. I think my laptop KNEW i wanted to replace it eventually… or saw these upgrades as a way of me saying “YOu are not good enough!” so the day i got my USB 20.0 card, it shit its self and i needed to reformat it. I managed to get all my data backed up first though, so two days later and i had it back up and running how i wanted it..

And then.. I got given a new computer! (sods law)  And i had to format that, and rebuild it to my specification! Argg!

Over the last few days i have come to the following conclusions!

1. Google browser sync RULES!
2. Usb2.0 RULES!
3. Trying to run NINE USB devices off a laptop with only 3 USB ports in the back ISNT a good idea!
4. Sods law is a mother fucker!

My new pc is a dell, and its the first time i have not had a toshiba computer since my FIRST ever pc, about ten years ago! Its really cool, has a mint spec, big monitor and means i can now do my graphical work MUCH easier and much more precisely!!

I have also bought a cool cover for my 2.5 year old N73 as it was totally fucked! It now looks like a brand new phone!

I will update more tomorrow, as this keyboard is LOUD and people are trying to sleep!

February 1st, 2008 by olstar

I have blogged a few times about how this website has interfered with my life in many ways, and again it seems to have kicked me in the bollocks.

This blog has seen me through many a hard time (and of course many good times too) The people that comment have reassured me and moaned at me - but its made the whole blogging experience worth while. I have had about 4 or 5 different blog setups, using three differnet blogging platforms (Joomla, Bblog and Wordpress)

And i dont want to even start thinking about how many times i have changed the overall look of it! Yet nothing has ever deterred me from bloggin, and nothing ever will.

Anyone that knows me knows that i am shit at remembering things, i don’t remember birthdays, i dont remember special occasions, i dont remember why i start blog entries… Oh yeah.. Erm, yes.. my bad memory.. Anyway, i use this blog as a way of earmarking things for the future, i was able to clarify the exact date me and Gemma got together, as i blogged about it, i can look back and find the exact date i moved into my new house, because i blogged about it.

And that about sums up my blog and the reason i continue to use it after all these years. I dont blog for the benefit of others, i dont blog for the sake of it, i blog becasue if i didnt i would probably forget everything that has happened to me in the last few years - wether it be good, or bad.

I also blog becasue some times i feel that i need to talk to someone, but dont want to bore anyone with the really boring and stupid things i get depressed about. Most people have brothers, sisters, best mates, even just a close mum or dad they can chat shit to, and be reassured that “it will be ok”. I dont feel I have any of them.

I know that there are probably people i can talk to about stuff i do have a very understanding girlfriend, a lot of very good friends and assocates, but again, i dont wish to waste anyones life by talking to them about me for more than 5 mins.

But (and this bit IS for someone else) just because i write these things down, and not store them at the back of my mind so that they come up every now and then to haunt me, it doesn’t mean that i still think about them, and it doesn’t mean that how i was feeling at the time is still how i feel now.

I dont blog from the heart much any more, but from time to time i will. Looking back at my blog from a year or so ago and you can really see how i have changed as a person - i have grown up so much, although i still make many mistakes as i make my way through life.

I wouldn’t change 1 single thing about my past, because your past makes up who you are today, and i probably wouldn’t be with someone i love, in our own house, with a gorgeous baby puppy asleep on my feet if i changed something.

Anyway, if you have read this then sorry for wasting 10 mins your life.

Ill make it up to you, somehow.