Change Coming To This Blog – SSL Status

After weeks or maybe months of considering it, I have decided to make a small change to the jduck1979 website / jduck1979 blog you see here.

In order to keep Google and assorted Web Browsers happy with the SSL / HTTPS status of this place (and because I need the advertising revenue), I have decided to switch this place over to a sub-domain of one of my other websites in order to avoid having to cough-up £125 a year to the Web Hosts for more than two SSL Certificates.

Using SSL / HTTPS will (in theory) keep this place more secure, and maybe even make it run a bit faster when I’ve got it re-wired properly. Continue reading “Change Coming To This Blog – SSL Status”

Bought Some More Domain Names

Once upon a time I ended up owning around 120 domain names after a wild stab at trying my hand at domain name investing around 2007/2008 after 1&1 UK (now “Ionos“) tag teamed with a company called SEDO.

In the intervening years after turning some of them into actual websites, or getting shot of them to save money I wittled them down to only having around 14 of the things.

Now I seem to have developed an urge to have another go at it, and picked up 6 of the things in the past month.

Might pick up a few more in the coming months if I see anything decent going cheap.

I picked up “StupidSillyStuff.com” + “StupidSillyStuff.co.uk” to go with the “Stupid Silly Stuff” facebook page I inherited that’s somehow grown to 10k followers.

I’ve bagged “FunnyCatVideos.co.uk” because “Funny Cat Videos” is apparently a cheap keyword with lots of traffic. Continue reading “Bought Some More Domain Names”

Ramping Up Instagram

I’ve had an account on Instagram since at least March 2013 (based on my earliest upload there I can find), but been pretty hobbled with what I could do with the place since all my devices got too old to run the latest version of the app.

 

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Not that it was much easier to get stuff up on there when they still worked, having to first transfer stuff from my camera to the PC to the device in order to get it up on Instagram.

Once the mobile devices were no longer an option, I kinda left it for a while until having a stab with Android emulator software Bluestacks. Continue reading “Ramping Up Instagram”

Changing Blog Themes

The other day I finally got round to changing the wordpress theme on this blog.

I’d been meaning to for at least a year, maybe 2 years, but like many things never seemed to get round to it.

I’d already done a similar switch on some of my other blogs where I’d been using one called “Responsive” after google started getting naggy about how you make your website around 2014-2016 insisting you use “responsive web design” (shortly before they then got naggy about using AMP as well / instead of)….

As much as I like the theme when I first installed it, the creators seemed to make a bit of a hash of it through numerous theme updates.

For now I’ve gone with the “Twenty Sixteen” theme until I find something better. Still probably have a bit more fine tuning to do with it.

Honeywell HTF090B Turbo USB Fan – Best small fan

Recently bought this Honeywell HTF090B Turbo USB Fan to replace a cheapo USB fan I bought on Amazon back in July 2010 after the wire snapped on me.

Button on the front provides 2 settings: on or off.

When it’s switched on it feels almost as powerful as the Prem-i-Air 3 speed mini tower fan I bought at the same time as my old USB fan does on it’s lowest setting.

The USB cable is a thin 2-wire affair similar with a jackplug type thing at one end similar to a voltage adapter plug thing 1980’s/90’s kids may be familiar with from running their old Walkmans + Gameboys off the mains to save on batteries…. the other end a standard USB thing, so you can power it off a PC or I’ve also managed to plug it into the USB mains chargers than came with my old iPhone 3GS + iPad2.

The battery compartment has a plastic battery holder that pulls out via a ribbon to reveal the other 2 of the 4x AA batteries hidden inside. Item came with 4x fairly respectable “GP” branded Extra Heavy Duty AA’s ready fitted.

The fan tilts on a click-wratchet so it stays put when angled.

Only problem I’ve had with it is that it has a habit of readily falling over if you have it angled even the tiniest bit forwards.
Sends it clattering down off the top of my PC case nearly every time I turn the thing off, or when I pull myself up out of my gaming chair.
Normally it just hangs there on the cord like a stranded bungie jumper, and only twice has it fully made it onto the floor – once with the cable parting company with the fan, and just before I wrote this review it took the USB clean out of the socket.
Still working fine despite it’s lemming-like tendences to come crashing down onto my keyboard or the floor.

Honeywell logo printed on front of it barely lasted a few weeks before it’s almost faded to nothing.

Encounter With a Badger

The other week something happened vaguely interesting enough to try turn into a blog post, so here’s my effort to try turn it into a blog post.

It was the early hours of Saturday morning (19th June), and after several days of sweating my nuts off due to the heat/humidity of the weather, it had now gone cloudy with a hint of possibily raining.

This mean’t once again my Dad turned the gas fire on in the livingroom (even though it wasn’t cold enough to need it on), and once again he’d whacked-up the thermostat for the central heating to levels not even needed in the middle of winter unless the weather flips to the sort of thing only normally encountered by polar explorers.
Continue reading “Encounter With a Badger”

Trying To Create Content, Without Really Being Able To

I started this year kind of wanting to try a bit more to push forward with the content creator thing writing my blogs here and elsewhere, as well as try and get my YouTube channels back on track.

As with a lot of content creator types who mostly rely on going outside with a camera doing things to get their content, that has pretty much gone right down the s****er.

This has also had a knock-on effect on trying to cobble together blog posts on things that don’t require me to go outside to do things to be able to put together some content.

I kind of get ideas for things I could write when I’m away from where I can actually write things down, but then when I’m sat back down here where I can actually write them I’ve forgotten most of it. Or just as I’m about to try write something, I get called away to do other stuff.

I’m just really creating this post to try get out of the funk by writing any random s**t that comes out of my head to try get back in the habit of more frequently tinkering with my websites and social media. Continue reading “Trying To Create Content, Without Really Being Able To”

New Mouse Mat

So, my new replacement mouse mat arrived back on 28th April from Amazon UK.

I was originally aiming for an Amazon Basics gaming mouse mat, but that became unavailable a few days before I had the money available to put the order through, so i got a Kensington Memory Foam Mouse Mat instead, which at least brand matches the Kensington Keyboard wristrest I got before I later bought my leaky old Fellowes Gel Mouse Mat (thought I got it around same time, but looking back through my Amazon orders shows otherwise) Continue reading “New Mouse Mat”

My Mouse Mat Sprung a Leak!

By the start of 2016 I figured it was probably about time to invest in a new mousemat, as my original from 1999/2000 was starting to look a bit grotty + the rubber/neoprene stuff it was made of was starting to come to bits.

After poking around on a well known popular online mail order shopping emporium, I opted for the Fellowes Crystals Gel Mouse Mat with Wrist Support thing in black, and ordered it at the end of January.

It still appears to be available for around a tenner.

Earlier on this morning I was playing CS:GO (as I often do), and discovered it had developed a slight technical problem. Continue reading “My Mouse Mat Sprung a Leak!”