Personal Blog of Ricky Mills; Web Developer, PHP Programmer and Mobile Application Developer
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Started Uni!

October 14th, 2008 | Posted by Rick in Apple | Education | Personal | Random - (0 Comments)

Well my reason for not posting since just under a month ago is because I started University 3 weeks ago!

I’m now a full time student studying Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire. The best bit is that on my induction interview I was asked “You do know you got a £3,000 scholarship?” to which my reply was “Uh…no….but thank you!” :p

With my little (free) nest egg, I’ll be buying whatever new Apple laptop gets released tonight/tomorrow morning! I’m going to be buying a MacBook Pro to replace my 8 month old MacBook!

So, tomorrow afternoon I will post the unboxing pictures!

(ok, ok….this was a poor excuse for a blog post, but I am getting quite excited at the prospect of finally owning a MacBook Pro!)

Moving Time!

August 28th, 2008 | Posted by Rick in Education | general | Personal | Random - (0 Comments)

Well as some regular readers already know, I’m about to start my first year at the University of Hertfordshire, studying Computer Science. Last week I got a letter to confirm my place so we opened a bottle of bubbly to celebrate before going to Scotland for a week (See flickr for photos!).

I’ve now started the mammoth task of moving from one room, to another…why you ask? To fit in 2 brand new desks! I was all prepared to put them in the current room, just about to go and buy them and did a final measurement of where they were going to go….only to find they weren’t going to fit! So I’m now moving to a MUCH bigger room, with lots of space for the desks. I decided whilst I was at it I may as well go all out and get wooden/laminate flooring put in too. So today I’ve gotta get everything out of my room (which is currently pretty cluttered with total crap so its gotta be a good thing!)

So, once I’ve moved in to my new room, I’ll post some pics of the workspace. I know members over at the MacRumors forums love seeing other peoples work spaces (and I have to say, so do I) for inspiration, so that should make a few people happy!

So yeah, that’s about it…I know this post probably wont interest many people, but I’m excited and had to air that excitement somewhere! (Yes, I can be sad :p)

RikeMedia Update

June 26th, 2008 | Posted by Rick in Education | general | Personal | Project Updates | RikeMedia - (0 Comments)

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!

Ok, I know….I’ve not updated in ages…but, I do have a very valid reason!

I’ve been doing college work, and having to revise for a last-minute maths exam which I had yesterday. No idea if I passed it yet, however I *should* find out on Monday! I need to pass to get into Uni so I’m pretty much relying on the results.

Work wise, I’ve continued to work on WSDReg, however not as fast as I would like (due to college). I’ve got about 2-4 weeks left until I finish so after that I’ll whiz through it.

WSDReg seems to have had a huge increase in activity last month, and this month. We’ve had almost triple the usual amount of monthly sales in the space of about 2 weeks! Considering our entire operation has never had any major paid advertising, we’re doing really well.

Once the move to AWBS is completed, we’re also looking at expanding to have a UK site, and a Euro site. We recently also managed to secure a great partnership with BurstNET which will allow us to offer some of their services, including the services from Nocster at reduced rates. We’re looking at offering dedicated servers, as well as several other packages. We’re also looking at offering servers in alternate locations.

Burst has a datacentre located in Pennsylvania, which is great for US based customers, however we want the option of offering customers servers that are better for Euro use…we’ve not decided how we will approach this yet however my feeling is that we should use a UK dc and our own servers, which would allow us to also offer co-location.

Now, I know WSDReg is primarally a domain registrar, however we are looking at going furthur into the hosting industry. This will allow us to expand our great low prices that our customers have come to expect from our domain registrations.

Here’s a lineup of what we will be offering once the new site launches:

  • US Based Dedicated Servers
  • US Based Linux and Windows VPS Hosting
  • US cPanel Shared Hosting
  • US cPanel Reseller Hosting
  • Improved SSL Certs
  • Backup Services

We’ve already secured all of the above, and are hoping to get some contracts with data centres to offer co-location.

Anyway, this post has turned into more of a WSDReg promotion! I’ll stop talking now.

I will endeavor to update over the weekend as I’ve got more to write…but I’ve also got college work to do so may not get time. I’ll do my best!

Have a nice weekend all!