If you’re keeping up with my blog you will have noticed that my last 2 posts were book reviews. You might also have noticed I have rarely done this in the past. Well, last year I attempted my 210 in 2010 which I believe I probably completed but I ended up getting too lazy to update my list. So this year I am just going to review each book I read instead.

All my recent reads are listed under “The Montage” in my sidebar. There is also a link to my Goodreads profile if anyone wants to add me

Basically, Goodreads is making everything somewhat easier for me this year. I have also joined their book challenge with a more modest 70 book goal, although it can always be updated. You should join it! It list all books that you have read for the challenge. More info is below:

One thing I find though, is it is a bit buggy. You’ll set a book as read but it won’t show up on your Challenge list until you go into the book again and re-set the read date. Not a huge deal, considering how I was doing it before

Let me know if you’re liking the reviews and how they’re formatting. Oh and how the Montage looks for you!

At my work we don’t get a lot of discounts or cost price offers – I was, I’ll admit, hoping for really cheap domain names but it wasn’t to be – however, something we DO get is a few free hosting accounts to play with.

I have a reseller Plesk plan – something which I’d never heard of, let alone used before working there. For any hosts in ‘this’ community. Is there a reason that everyone uses cPanel instead of Plesk? – and I host someone on it! It was one of the first accounts I’ve set up and it was a bit scary.

So, that being said, you should all go visit Brooke and commend her for using Plesk It was actually an awesome endeavour for Brooke and I. Brooke was stuck on Byethost who was having all sorts of issues so in a split second decision I said “You’re coming with me!” and before she could say no I provided her with her control panel and FTP details and then, this is where the magic happens, without actually being able to see anything on the site I was able to upload WordPress but (oh no!) I couldn’t install it. Never fear though! Brooke was able to update her Hosts file (which, if you’ve never heard of before and would love to be able to work on your site on a new server and make sure it works before updating your nameservers, you should google) but I wasn’t able too… Windows 7 doesn’t like letting people change it and I talked her through the install and then abracadabra! It all worked

Is that the success of the title? Well, it is only one of them! Well, the other freebie we get is a VPS!! Yesterday, mine was provisioned and it is finally working (I had a heap of problems on the first platform they gave me, so they bumped me up to a vmware VPS instead) and… AND! Lazily is now coming to you from it.

I used the WHM migration tool and it worked first time and properly! YAY, success! (there you go)

Not only that, but I made some cool nameservers for myself:

ns1.my-ns.info
ns2.my-ns.info

Coolest ever right?

Yes! I was thinking of making a new layout but everything I looked at for inspiration, while beautiful (like these I love her style!), just wasn’t me. In the end I decided to change the colour (though, later when I thought about it. I always get comments that my layout is very halloween so perhaps I should have kept it) to electric blue! (is it too bright?) and tweak the other stuff. Seems like a good compromise, I’d love to get this layout exactly as I want it and to learn more about WordPress and CSS in the meantime. I’m especially interested in working on how my comments look, let me know if you have any suggestions.

Recently, I’ve had more time for my site and the internet (is that a good thing?) so I’ve been able to have some fun on the forums I peruse. After the hacking and lack of updates though my blog has taken a huge hit. I’m excited when I get more than 10 hits a day right now

I hope it isn’t related to the fact that I was off work sick 3 of the last 5 days. I hear that my boss was investigating how much sick leave I have (more than 2 weeks) and imagine she is quite concerned that I won’t be at work again. Although I’d love to do that I’m somewhat to lazy to have to keep getting medical certificates and I want to see the pleasant colleagues at least once more. I wonder if I’ll see them after I leave?

Do you keep friends when you change jobs? I have to say that I rarely do. I don’t treat them as friends either but I have with this bunch in some ways so maybe I will have some ‘real’ friends to say goodbye too this time around.

Phew.

I wasn’t sure if this week, or weeks, would end! It has been an incredible rollercoaster that I’ve been on in the past 2 weeks. The ups were full of stomach butterflies and the downs were full of… stomach butterflies but bigger mean ones.

I have survived it though and here I am on a Sunday afternoon sipping some citrus delicious green tea and realising that my very favourite mug is chipped… oh well.

So, I have this incredible urge to format this post in ‘YAY versus ‘BOO’ mode and as such… I will.

I had a great 27th birthday filled with unexpected gifts! Including some delicious brownies, though don’t get me wrong they weren’t ‘special’ just yum – YAY!

My period was late and my birthday began with dread and thoughts of being with child *shudder* – BOO!

My period was one of my unexpected gifts! (TMI? Because, really biggest YAY there was – well, until this point anyway) – YAY!

I missed getting a phone/real interview with a very possible job prospect because my ‘interviewer’ was sick!! Seriously, she called me and I had to re-schedule and she didn’t tell anyone!! – BOO!

I interviewed for a job for a web hosting company!!! Awesome right? I didn’t know there was one in my city! – YAY!

I wore incredibly wonderful, but incredibly high and painful boots to that interview and butchered my poor feet! Blisters half the size of pinky toes *cries* – BOO!

I got the job! Hurrah, I start in 2 weeks… I’ve known for more than a week now, it was the hardest secret to keep from my colleagues. No more secrets now though – YAY!

A certain consultant at my work made me want to poke myself in the eye with a fork! They are one of the reasons I accepted the job… and the boss knows muahahahaha! Unfortunately, the very thought of him makes me still want to do the fork thing. BOO!

Said colleague relies on me, pretty much completely! And I leave in 2 weeks. Take that punk! (too mean?) – YAY!

My website got hacked. It has never happened to me EVER and for some reason I couldn’t find a copy of my index.php so I had to wing it. Why do people do that? I have a harmless blog damnit! Die hackers! (will this attract them to me?) – BOO!

The lovely Jana saved me. Yes, I am a hosting refugee – it’s too bad as my host has big opportunities but the sites just keep going down – but that is ok, thankfully even though there are hackers in the world there are also lovely people! – YAY!

I think I’ll leave it on a happy note but mention that my local DVD place still hasn’t got my reserved copy of ‘Kick Ass’ ready and the pay phone ate my money!

It’s ok though because I have a fixed site and some citrus delicious tea.

This week I’ve learnt and also, frustratingly not learnt, how to do some new things on the world of the web.

Recently, my partner decided he wanted a website (again) and so we got to work on it and here is where we have gotten currently. He also has a forum attached which is phpBB. The website stuff is fine, if he has a question I don’t know I look it up and more or less it is an easy fix or add on but where the forum is concerned I pull out my hair!

He would like a list of most recent topics/posts in the forum to be displayed on the site, sounds easy enough right? Well, I’m still yet to do it. I’ve scoured ever phpbb forum I can find and yet my brain still hurts. It is now to the point where I’ve given up in frustration… any phpBB experts out there?

It has been nice to use more CSS though and get the hang of PHPincludes and I even validated my website! For the first time in her history, Lazily is validated! Doesn’t she just shine?

In all of this I’ve learnt more about cpanel too and my host is helping more learn more as I help him out with tickets and the like. They’re a very supportive host is Rewind and none of my questions are ever stupid.

As my confidence increases I’ve been able to answer questions on forums and overall help people out. It’s kind of incredible the week I’ve had.

So where does it all lead? Well, I signed up for my first SOTM competition and I’m coming second so far! I was scared I’d be dead last with only my vote to my name :P I’d love your help if you’d like. Click the button below to go to voting:

For the first time in the history of Lazily there is a comprehensive (well, comparatively speaking) “About” section, One for me (Mistress) and one for Lazily (Domainatrix). Tell me if you think the name Domainatrix is clever or stupid by the way

Writing Mistress was actually quite hard, I just don’t know what to write about me. What do people want to know that is of any interest? Generally, I don’t find myself overly interesting so it makes it hard.

Also, I’ve been playing with WP plugins. Now I can see what you do and when you do it (insert evil laugh here). Yes, I’ve added some stats and a who’s online plugin. All very neat! I love seeing where my audience is from, apparently I should be nice to east coast Americans and… somewhere that I think is in Europe – yes, yes I suck at geography ok! I’m sorry Europeans, tell me where you’re from and I’ll be super nice – all very exciting!

I’m also looking into a few more tweaks and such. I’m having a lot of fun with it really. Let me know if there is a plugin you can’t live without and I’ll check it out.

And lastly, I’m guessing you guys don’t like long posts… previous post wasn’t well received and yet, I was so proud! Oh well, back to the less serious things in live it seems.

Edit: You can hear me! And for the first time in a week I have been able to access Lazily from home. So what happened? Apparently my hosts host got hacked and everything went haywire. Rerun were onto it though and fixed much of everything in about 3 or 4 days (over the easter long weekend no less!). However, little Lazily didn’t come back, not for me anyway. I was incredibly concerned as many other people could access Lazily but just not me. I thought I was doomed!

Then out of the mist came my site monitor saying ‘Uh, your shit is down! And has been for 24 hours’ so I wasn’t the only one blind to Lazily. Re-emailed my host and asked what is up? Host looked into it more and BAM! Fixed a corrupted something or other and Lazily is open to the world again. Phew.

Earlier that day:

Can you hear me?

The site has been down for a week now but my host assures me all is good to go now. Now, lets hope I can access the site at home. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Yesterday I toiled over my PC and came up with a new layout for Lazily. This is the first that I’ve made in a long, long time. To the point where I don’t know enough any more.
I had some assistance though. I used melly.me‘s template Clean and editted and moved and this and that until I was happy with it. I still don’t know how everything works, it’s true, but I do have a better understanding. Let me know what you think.

Also, I joined Rev.iew.me a few weeks ago. It’s an awesome reviewing community. I haven’t received anything but honest feedback. There doesn’t seem to be any meanness around. It just feels like people who want to help other people improve their website. I wish there was more of a community though. Even just a forum would be nice. Maybe that is to come.

Also, lastly on the Lazily front, I will be creating ‘About’ pages in the near future. I had a suggestion that it could improve my blog and you know what? It probably will so keep an eye out for that.

Oh my woah! Will you look at Lazily? So Squeaky Clean my friends! It’s all pink and blue and beautiful. Alas, though, I did not make it myself. It is a free theme that I stole.. well borrowed, with permission. I thought it was time for something new and fresh and I didn’t have the time or the skills to do it myself this time. Plus, this has widgets! Oh my how I love a widgetized theme! *drools*
I’m also incredibly envious of the little girl up there (to the right) bikini and beach… it is so hot here today I wish I had a bikini and a beach and a few fish and a flower in my hair.
So what is new and happening here at lazily? Well, I’ve decided to start using tags! (finally) although I am too lazy to go back and tag all the old posts. They’ll be jealous I’m sure. I’m going to add some pages and such… you know all the stuff I always say I’ll do (but hopefully I really do this time). I think mostly though, I’m going to learn! I’m so far behind in anything wordpress and I feel bad because of it. I want to make these things myself damnit! So, I will learn and hopefully the next shiny and sparkly layout will be all mine

Now to go tweak!

Yes, the insane heatwave we had for about a week finally broke. This time last week was about 33°C (91.4°F) and rising! Today I don’t think we even hit 20°C and it was raining… beautiful beautiful rain! No humidity, no blistering, sweat inducing sun just fresh, delightful air!

And yet, not everyone can be pleased. I heard people complaining that it was just too cold today *shakes head* some people are never happy! Right now, I’m sitting here, with a tshirt and I have goosebumps as the breeze flows over my arms but I’m not moving, it’s just so nice being cool again.

As a side note, my website is now varying shades of blue! I wanted to update it to something a little more summery, I was thinking apricot, pineapple and citrus hues but then… well then, perhaps I looked outside and saw the sky? And it all changed! Let me know if it’s too bright or if anything is too small or too big and I’ll tweak here and there… this time I promise to get some decent smilies Maybe.