Monthly Archives: June 2008

RikeMedia Update

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I just thought I would fill you in on the status of RikeMedia. We’re in the process of re-launching. We realized we’re not too good at the promotion part of owning sites…well….actually its not that we’re not good at it, its just that we have no money, so cant afford to do it!

We decided the best thing to do would be to flip sites. Make em’, sell em’ or buy em’, fix em’, sell em’! I’ve been watching the videos at SiteFlipAcademy and Justin has done a great job! He’s got some great information on his site, and in his videos. Anyone looking to become a ‘flipper’ should take a look at his site.

Currently I’m working on getting our new RikeMedia site done, which will run on WordPress, but not be an actual blog. I like wordpress and the way it deals with content…there’s no reason why it cant be used purely as a content manager!

I’m currently integrating the design. After that I will re-write all the content and such as well as insert a portfolio for all the sites we make/sell.

Mikes working on a custom CMS which we will use on some of the sites we make to sell. I’ve not seen it yet but it sounds pretty fancy….custom licensing system, modules, template engine, all the cool little features you’ll ever need. Oh, and complete integration with vB 3.7.

We are thinking about licensing it out (I.E selling licenses) as it will match if not beat the features and functionality of many premium scripts out there.

For the sites that don’t need a CMS we’ll probably just hand code them. There will be a few as not all site needs/wants a complex system.

Our first site up for sale is WebmasterStash. We simply lost the will to keep this going. Its a lot harder than you think, especially when you don’t get a return. It took us over 6 months to make WebmasterStash, before opening in December. Its gotten us nowhere!

Anyway, I’ll post another update about Rike once its up and running.

In other news, next week is my FINAL week of college…it feels really weird, and will feel even more weird when we go downstairs in the lift for the final time. We decided that we would all go to the pub on Tuesday, along with all our tutors (which could be interesting!). A final laugh all together, before we all bugger off to Uni’s all over the country!

Right….thats all for now folks!

Server Woes

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Sigh…I get through servers like some people get through cups of coffee!

Our VPSLink server, which has been online for several months, recently started having…problems, and when I say problems, I mean it decides to reboot every 15-20 minutes!

The cause? LXAdmin, the worlds worst excuse for a control panel! Seriously, this thing is so buggy its unbelievable. I think it may be the first application to ever have had more bugs than Windows Vista!

I go to do something….anything on LXAdmin, and it decides to “Reboot the backend” which it never does, and I have to reboot the server to get it to respond. Its pure rubbish.

Anyway, this site is hosted on the server and I’ve had enough. I’m moving everything over to our WSDReg servers for now as I’ve not decided whether to ditch the server or just LXAdmin.

Sorry if this site is slow, offline, etc….blame LXAdmin!

Creating my new presence

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I’ve been wanting to get my own unique site up here in a while. At the moment I use a free WordPress layout which is great (minus the bug in IE, but I’ve come to expect those!). I started working on a custom wordpress theme for this site yesterday. I didn’t get very far however as I realized that after my upgrade to OS X Leopard I had forgotten to reinstall Photoshop (which I will do today).

Once the new layouts completed I will post it up for download should anyone wish to use it! I did think about moving away from WordPress. A guy I met on the VPSLink forums, Kelvin recently did the same and taught himself Python. His site is now running a totally custom system, and looks fantastic. I was thinking about doing the same, however I really don’t want to learn another language until I’ve sorted some more important things out (I.E WSDReg, Sites, etc). I may still do it, however not until at least next year.

I also was talking to my friend Mike about something I wanted to do. I am planning on creating myself my own management area. Basically with all the sites I have, if I want to check the emails I end up having to jump around all over the place to get to the accounts. So I decided I would make my own mail client (in php) which would allow me to add additional accounts to it from multiple sites, thus providing me with a single interface to manage the accounts with!

At the same time I also want to make myself a code library with reusable code, so I thought why not make it a complete “localhost” system to manage all my web related projects! I’ve not started the mail part, but the code library is getting there.I *may* give the system out when its completed, however I’m not 100% sure if I wish to do that yet.

I will also be moving RickyMills.com to a better host soon. I’ve been with VPSLink for a long time, however my VPS has stated rebooting, and the LXAdmin control panel is god awful to use…the amount of times I’ve had to reboot the server because it ends up hanging on a command or tells me the “back-end is being rebooted” is unbelievable!

VPSLink are really great, but LXAdmin sucks something terrible! So I’ll be getting a decent shared host that I can get a good deal with. Not sure who yet however it wont be until I finish college (about 3 weeks time).

I think that’s it for now!

Getting back into the swing of things!

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I’ve recently had the urge to get back into development. I’ve been pretty slow when it comes to buying/selling sites since about October, most likely because of college work, and the events that happened a year ago.

I am now however finally starting to get back into it, in the last week or so especially. I have a development server, which was replaced by my fantastic insurance company when my last one was ruined in a flood (the server was running in our garage because it was hot and noisy). So the insurance company said I had XXX to spend on the parts, and I would be putting it together…this is about 6-8 months ago.

The server has been working fine, however its big, heavy, noisy and gets very warm (the RAM more than anything!).

So I decided I would try getting something a little smaller, cooler and quieter…then it hit me….a Mac Mini! These little things are tiny, silent and can run headless (I.E without a screen, keyboard and mouse).I looked around the web and found some really great articles on setting up a Mac Mini as a server. One guy has even taken 2 mac minis and put them into a single 1u server…giving him 2 top speed servers!

Anyway, my Mac Mini is due to arrive today, so I’m currently waiting patiently :p I got a pretty great deal, Intel C2D 1.68Ghz with 1GB RAM and a 100GB HDD for £250 (the current cheapest Mac Mini is £399, or £350 with astudent discount). I also happened to sell my old iPod Touch at the same time so ended up paying £150! Very good deal!!

Once its all setup, I’m going to start setting up and selling sites once more, and will also do a bit of flipping (buy, fix, sell). I’ve not done it in a few months (well, I did do FotoRazor however that was a bit of a failure in the end!).

I also hope to get myself a large library of small sites that will generate a small Adsense income to keep my account ticking over. Plus I will be making a page with sites for sale to go on my site.

I’m making another post after this one with more info as I don’t want to overwhelm you all in a single post!