Current Mood:
Mischievous
For the last six years (on and off) I’ve been a staff member of a rather large Community Administrators forum. On 5th January I stepped downrom my position there. The reasons are many, but I do not wish to bash the site in any way, so will refrain from commenting on them.
After I resigned I received a lot of messages all saying the same thing – that i should open a Community Administration site of my own, that I could bring a decent community together. I don’t really think I have that much sway over the forum communities personally, and I’ve never raelly wanted to go up in competition aginst the existing Community Administration sites so had never considered doing such a thing before. I don’t know, maybe it was just the right time, maybe these people’s comments caught me in the right mindset. But, whatever it was, I finally took that step and agreed that yes I would build a Community Administrators Resource/Discussion forum and so Admin Extra was born.
I brought a team together on 6th Jan and we uploaded a vBulletin forum to our new account and set to work. By Saturday the 9th we had our forum structure and skin in place, and started to focus on content and by Sunday 10th January 2010 we were ready to take the site live. Within a few hours, our link had been shared and things just seemed to gather momentum.
Today is the 2nd February 2010, we’ve been open just over 3 weeks and have passed the 7,000 post mark. Our activity and content is outstanding for such a new site. We have interviews from some of the wellknown names of the Community world, amazing graphic downloads available free to all our members, help and support with running communities and a fantastic memberbase and staff team who have really gelled in our short time online.
So I’d like to invite all of those who read my blog (yes, we have a section solely about blogging and social networks too!) to come and join us at Admin Extra.
3 people like this post.
© 2010, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: admin extra, administration, community administration, discussions, Forums I Visit, interviews, Invision Power Board, myBB, phpBB, resources, vBulletin
Posted in Communities, Internet | No Comments »
Posted on 2 February '10 by Lisa, under Communities, Internet. No Comments.
I’m back from my offline escapades – sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Trust me, it wasn’t!
Phone line switched over to BT on the 3rd December without a hitch – which was nice! Then we discovered that Sky couldn’t supply the broadband package we wanted due to “the equipment not being available in the exchange or something. So we had to do some searching around for another provider. Finally settled on Orange – mainly due to the fact that they gave us a discount on the price because we have contract phones with them. It switched on within 5 days – which I’m pretty sure is good going! So internet came back online yesterday and it seems a lot faster than it was with TalkTalk.
Speaking of TalkTalk – we got the oddest bill ever from them yesterday and I can’t quite figure out what it’s telling me. Upon first glance it appears to be telling me they owe us £158 – which is pretty cool, but I imagine they don’t and it’ll be some crappy balls up on their end (as always!)
Sorry, this is such a short post. I have more to say but I need to go away and do some writing first 
3 people like this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: BT, offline, orange broadband
Posted in Everyday Life, Family | 1 Comment »
Posted on 12 December '09 by Lisa, under Everyday Life, Family. 1 Comment.
Current Mood:
Angry
I’ve blogged before about my 18 year old stepson who, at 16, turned from being a nice person to a nasty mean small-minded snotbag, moved out, accused his dad of all sorts of things (which only happened in his head) and denied any contact with his family.
Well, I thought that just because he’d fell out with me and his dad that his sisters shouldn’t lose contact with their brother and, against his dad’s wishes, I instigated contact with him again – allowing his 7 year old sister to chat with him via facebook.
From today, that’s finished. His dad was right not to let the girls speak to him and fromhere I’m fully supporting the decision. His seven year old sister contacted him this morning on facebook and, being a little girl, she opened with a silly “hello matthew the fish”. Did he reply with something equally as silly? No, he responded by lecturing her on name calling and how wrong it is.
When I cut in to explain that she was only playing and she’d been playing Fish World or FishVille or something on facebook and that she’d named all her fish he then decided to try and lecture me on allowing my children to insult people. For those people out there who know me, I’m pretty confident you’ll know how it went from there. The terms “act your age”, “grow up”, “acting like an adult” were used. He accused his younger brothers of putting his sister up to calling him a fish (they’re both at school, she’s off sick) and then went on to say that when he lived at home everyone called him a fish all the time – something that didn’t actually happen anywhere other than in his own mind.
Maybe I’m just overreacting but where the hell does he get off accusing a 7 year old of calling him names when she was just trying to play with her big brother who hasn’t even bothered coming to see her for months, hasn’t sent her birthday cards, or called her or made any effort to see her or her sisters for the past two years and has never even seen his youngest brother at all.
I’m bloody furious with him. So much so I’ve actually removed him from my “friends list” on Facebook, where I’d added him in the hope of being able to give him some contact with his family.
5 people like this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: asshole, growing up, insults, lectures, matthew, name calling, stupidity
Posted in Everyday Life, Family | 3 Comments »
Posted on 19 November '09 by Lisa, under Everyday Life, Family. 3 Comments.
We’re currently with TalkTalk for both our phone and our broadband (I use the term broadband loosely as we rarely get more than 1meg speeds). We originally went with them because they offered a good deal where we could get two mobile phones which could call each other and the landline (and the landline could call the two mobiles) for free. In September this year they sent letters out saying that was no longer going to be an option and so I called them to cancel the mobiles. Imagine my surprise (or not!) when I discovered they were still taking the £20 per month out for the mobile phones for two further months. Without the mobile deal it’s barely worth us staying with them for our phone/broadband now, and so I started looking around for other deals.
Sky looked to be the best – we already have Sky tv, so to boost it up to the sky Movies package, HD, phone and broadband it would take the full cost up to £68 a month which worked out £7 more than we’re paying now for Sky basic packages, Broadband and telephones separately. So essentially we would get movies and HD for £7 a month more than we pay out overall now. Good deal. So we signed up to HD and movies and started the process of moving from TalkTalk to Sky.
Only it’s never that straightforward is it!
It turns out that TalkTalk use something called LLU which means if we ever wanted to change our provider we had to revert our phone equipment back to BT and to achieve that we would either have to go with a company who would charge an installation fee (Post Office wanted to charge £107 for the privilege) or go with BT on a 12 month contract. And so the decision was made that we would return to BT for our phone package.
Now for the fun part (can’t you just sense the sarcasm?)
Our current contract with TalkTalk is up on the 2nd December and so to avoid any cancellation fees of £70 BT will have our line ready on the 3rd December. This means we may be without a landline for 24 hours – not a big deal as everyone has our mobile numbers (yeah, we had to get a new mobile provider too and that’s a whole other rant!) We’re not going to take BT’s broadband, however, as it’s ridiculously priced and not worth the money they want. We still want to go with Sky. But, and here it comes, we can’t order Sky Broadband until the BT line has been running 5 days. That puts it at the 8th Dec before we can put the order in.
So, on the 8th Dec (if all’s gone well with the landline) we’ll put in a broadband order with Sky. Apparently it takes up to 7 days for the router to arrive (which I’m not really bothered about as we’ll have our own router already) and it takes 15 days for broadband to be set up. It’s December.. it’s going to be Christmas week… chances of broadband being switched on that week? Minimal I’d say! The week after is New Year.. I’d say the same odds apply… so we’re likely going to be without broadband for the whole of December.
I can cope with being off line for the month, not sure if I can cope with the hassle we’re going to get from the two lads who won’t be able to feed their Xbox Live addiction for the whole of December though……
1 person likes this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: broadband, BT, mobiles, online, phones, service providers, sky, talktalk
Posted in Internet, Personal | 9 Comments »
Posted on 12 November '09 by Lisa, under Internet, Personal. 9 Comments.
Current Mood:
Happy
Just a quick post – been “trick or treating” with the kids this evening. Went very well! A lot more houses actually made an effort this year, which was nice to see – and a bit irritating too as this is the first year we’ve not done anything ourselves. Next year we’ll have to do something bigger and better than what we normally do – so planning is already in the works! There were some nice touches with one house turning their front garden into a graveyard, and another turning their whole front/back garden into something like a funhouse – with people dressed up in various outfits jumping out and scaring the kids.
Hope you all had/have a great Samhain and celebrate it in your own distinct ways. Will post up pics later of the kids dressed up in their various outfits!
2 people like this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: 2009, halloween, samhain
Posted in Family, Local, Personal | 3 Comments »
Posted on 31 October '09 by Lisa, under Family, Local, Personal. 3 Comments.
Current Mood:
Alarmed
I made the decision yesterday to resurrect my Azhrialilu dot Com blog – it used to be my personal blog before I moved everything to Whimpulsive. I decided that while Whimpulsive was great for random things that flit through my mind, I wanted somewhere separate for more “geeky” related posts about online communities, social networking, etc.
After spending a few hours fiddling with the layout, plugins and suchlike, I moved a couple of my tech-based posts over there and decided to officially open with a blog post regarding the furor going on about IB and vBulletin. I’m not going to rehas the whole thing here, but I do have to comment on the amount of hits/comments I received. To say I was surprised would be an understatement! I didn’t think my relatively unimportant opinion could cause such an onslaught!
1 person likes this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: azhrialilu dot com
Posted in Internet, Personal, Random Miscellany | No Comments »
Current Mood:
Esctatic & Happy
I’ve been conspicuous by my absence on Whimpulsive over the last month – this isn’t because I’ve decided not to blog anymore but because I’ve been very busy with a new venture.
Without further ado, I bring to you the Mystic Links Network.
Mystic Links Commerce
Mystic Links Gothic
Mystic Links Discussion
and coming soon Mystic Links Blogs.
Our stores sell a huge range of items from all manner of Spellcraft/Ritual tools, Divination items, books, incence, herbs, right through to Alchemy Gothic and Nemesis Now items on Mystic Links Gothic. Our Discussion Forums are very much in the birhting stages, but anyone is welcome to join and our blog system is not quite finished. I look forward to hearing your comments and/or seeing you over there as well as on here
1 person likes this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: mystic links
Posted in Communities, Internet, Miscellaneous, Paganism, Personal, Religion, Religion/Spirituality | No Comments »
Current Mood: Mischievous
We’ve all had them -emails stating you’ve won the lottery, or there’s a prize waiting for you so long as you send all your personal information to youthinkimanidiot@tryifyoucan.com and let’s not forget the woman/man who’s dying or died and left oodles of money and you.. yes you, you lucky person.. have been chosen completely at random to receive billions of dollars (it’s never pounds, is it?) into your bank account so long as you jump through hoops. Well, I received one today that is homegrown.
From no less than the Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown. Yes, you read that right, the PM himself has sent me an email and he’s told me that he’s sent out a visa card with 2 million pounds on it for my spending pleasure. I’m allowed to spend £5,000 a day with this card – how cool is that? And of course it’s come from the PM’s personal email address… it’s a bit odd the email, mind you… being info@mail..webster.ac.th. All I need to do to ensure I receive this money is to send my Full Name, Address, Nationality, Telephone Number, Occupation, Country, Age and Postcode to directgov@8.am and not to converse with any other person or office to avoid any hitches in my receiving this payment…. and it’s signed… yes… SIGNED .. by Rt Hon. Gordon Brown.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a copy of the full email below.
OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER
TREASURY AND MINISTER FOR CIVIL SERVICE, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM.
Our ref: ATM/13470/IDR
Your ref:…Date: 30/09/2009
IMMEDIATE PAYMENT NOTIFICATION
I am The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP,Prime Minister British Government. This letter is to officially inform you that (ATM Card Number 048000101775550) has been accredited with your favor. Your Personal Identification Number is 477.The VISA Card Value is £2,000,000.00(Two Million, Great British Pounds Sterling).
This office will send to you an Visa/ATM CARD that you will use to withdraw your funds in any ATM MACHINE CENTER or Visa card outlet in the world with a maximum of £5000 GBP daily.Further more,You will be required to re-confirm the following information to enable;The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. begin in processing of your VISA CARD.
(1)Full names: (2)Address: (3)Country: (4)Nationality: (5)Phone #: (6)Age:
(7)Occupation: (8) Post Codes
Forward Reply To: directgov@8.am
TAKE NOTICE: That you are warned to stop further communications with any other person(s) or office(s) different from the staff of the State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to avoid hitches in receiving your payment.
Regards,
The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
Prime Minister
Of course, only a fool would fall for the above email. Or I’d like to think that to be the case. But I do have to wonder how many people do actually fall for these things and end up out of pocket themselves.
5 people like this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: Gordon Brown, money, Spam Email
Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »
Posted on 30 September '09 by Lisa, under Miscellaneous. 5 Comments.
Current Mood: Mischievous
I was having a chat with Richard this morning (as I do most mornings while having my morning mocha and mail check before starting on the daily housework) and we ended up on the subject of the way health and safety is going nuts at the moment. He made a post about it on his blog and, since he’d set me off on a rant (which he also does fairly often) I thought I might as well share my thoughts on it too.
Health and Safety in itself is, of course, a good idea – no one wants to get hurt, or cause someone to be hurt by their actions… well, okay most of the time we don’t want to cause/inflict hurt on someone, there’s always the odd occasion where you could happily murder someone – I’m happy to admit that and you’re lying if you don’t :p – but I think it’s being taken beyond reasonable limits.
Take, for instance, last week at school. A friend’s daughter has had her ears pierced. The policy is that children either take out earrings or cover them up for PE – understandable in case they get caught on something and rip out. But to take this further, the school were not allowed to put plasters over the child’s ears in case the plasters caused an allergic reaction of some kind. Her mother not only had to go and purchase plasters to cover her daughters ears, she then had to go into school and place them on her ears personally. Then mark the box of plasters with her daughters name on and leave them at school with permission for the teachers to use them in every PE lesson from then on.
My daughter fell over at school last week. She was wearing tights and since the teachers were not allowed to remove her tights, they could not check to see if she’d cut her knees. Luckily it was hometime so I was able to check myself.
Neither of these situations were the school’s fault, but the Health & Safety policy they have to follow. To me, H&S protocols are hindering more than helping of late.
As Richard pointed out in his own post, when we were kids growing up in the 70s, we were running, jumping, climbing trees, getting into scrapes, getting dirty and playing rough and tumble games without a care in the world. We’d go home and, to the disgust of our parents most likely, we would then eat without washing (if we could get away with it) and never came to any harm from having dirty hands, cuts and bruises or getting cuddles from the teacher when we felt out of sorts.
We could play outside our houses with our friends with toy guns, plastic knives – screaming and shouting, tying each other up with skipping rounds and generally running rampage around.
I think the mollycoddling of health and safety is having a kncok on effect with the way children are behaving. They’re so mollycoddled and undisplined because adults are fearful of being accused of child abuse, etc, that they’re no longer learning respect or right from wrong or that there are consequences for the actions and decisions they make.
I spank my children. I’m not afraid to admit that. I don’t beat the living crap out of them for the slightest misdemeanour, but when all else has failed and they will not do as they are told, they will get a smack – it’s a last resort method of discipline and one I feel has its necessary place in growing up. Before all the fluffy bunny treehugger types start posting death threats, understand this. My children do not fear me, they understand right from wrong and they understand that there will be repercussions if their behaviour crosses a line. They know what the line is, and being children, occasionally they will cross it. Crossing the line doesn’t always result in a smack. We have a three-strike method in our house, ie three warnings before any action will be taken. If they choose not to heed the warnings, then the next step is taken where they are sent to their rooms, if they continue after that they will get a smack.
My children don’t always behave at home, but I can guarantee if I take them to someone else’s home they show respect for the house they are in and the people who own it.
Last week (lots of things happened last week it seems) I took my youngest to get weighed by the Health Visitor. While doing this, my second youngest decided she was going to throw a toy at someone. The toy wasn’t soft and would have hurt should it have made contact with the head she was aiming at. So, obviously, I called her name and told her no. The health visitor turned to me and said I should have let my daughter throw the object and then, to deal with it, I should have ignored her and gave my attention to someone else – this would, apparently teach my daughter that it was wrong to throw. . . . . I’m sorry, but on what planet is that going to work? If I ignore the fact my daughter has thrown something at someone and don’t tell her it’s wrong, how is ignoring the fact going to show her she was wrong to do it? If she doesn’t get told it’s wrong, at 2 years old she’s not going to figure it out for herself. In fact, if I ignore her she’ll do it again and again, thinking it’s fine to do so. Not to mention the potential for serious damage being caused. What if the next object she decided to throw was a knife or something that could split a head open? Is the health visitor going to pay the legal costs when I get sued for not stopping her? Come off it, just ignore her indeed.. I don’t think so!
This mollycoddled society that we’re bringing into play is producing children who don’t understand cause and effect, who have no idea about taking responsibility for their actions and don’t have the first idea of right and wrong. I personally am horrified by the thought of what the effect of this will be on our childrens future.
4 people like this post.
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: children, daughters, health and safety, plasters, protocols, rant, safety policy, school
Posted in Everyday Life, Social Issues | 6 Comments »
Posted on 21 September '09 by Lisa, under Everyday Life, Social Issues. 6 Comments.
Current Mood: Alarmed
I’ve never bought or sold anything on ebay before… how bizarre is that… am I the only person on the planet never to have touched it? Anyway, today I bit the bullet and added my vBulletin Bible eBook on ebay for a discount sale. The ebook will be delivered on a cd-rom with a custom access code to give the purchaser access to the support forums on the vBulletin bible Forums. How cool is that?
Now I’m just waiting to see if ebay is as good as people say it is.
Oh… and if you’re intered – the ebook is listed HERE
© 2009, Whimpulsive. All rights reserved.
Tags: eBay, vBulletin, vBulletin Bible eBook
Posted in Books | No Comments »
Posted on 15 September '09 by Lisa, under Books. No Comments.
