| It's been an interesting few years |
3 years ago I took on a new identity, as a father! Along with a global pandemic, it's been an interesting run to say the least.
In the original Improv spirit of this website, I started making silly educational videos for kids
I've also started writing a weekly activity newsletter awesome dad and kid activities in it.
It's been a looooong time since there were any new posts on this website. I'm kicking the tires here I guess to see if it still works (haha, there were a bunch of bugs I had to fix to get this post out). |
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| How to get discounts on the internet |
If you're ever buying something on the internet and you see a Coupon Code or similar field on the checkout page, take a moment to look around for a coupon that you can use.
RetailMeNot.com is one site that is dedicated to collecting coupon codes. I searched it for godaddy.com and got 10% off a couple of domains using digg as the code. Nice.
Google is another option, running a search for XYZ coupon can turn up results that Retail Me Not doesn't have. I just checked and it works for Sillysoft. |
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| HOWTO make your own devil sticks |
| This article describes the simple process of how to make your own Devil Sticks. The only materials you need are wood dowels and hockey tape, and it should take well under an hour. |
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| HOWTO make your own board game |
Here's the story of how independent board game designer Peter Morrison conceived, developed and self-published his own strategic board game VIKTORY (and now its sequel VIKTORY II). Pretty cool tale I think. I found out about this when Peter emailed me asking if I wanted to become an affiliate and help market VIKTORY II. After reading more about the game I said yes. The game mechanic is pretty unique, and has some lovely consequences.
Anyone who has played a lot of Risk (or Lux) will understand that getting into big battles near the start of the game is a sure-fire way to lose. The other players not fighting will grow stronger and eventually eat you for your cards. VIKTORY's mechanic is totally different, with players who attack (early and/or often) being at an advantage. The worst-case scenario of attacking is that your units get sent back to your towns at the end of your turn (rather then being completely removed from the board like in Risk). The consequence seems to be a fast-paced attack-full strategy board game.
Of course, this is just from reading about the game (and watching a video). I want to get myself a copy and try it out for real. If you feel the same then you could use this link and I'll get a little cut of the sale for my marketing efforts ;-). |
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| How to buy a domain name and set up a website on it |
A friend asked me today how to go about buying a domain name and setting up a website on it. Here's the process:
1. Buy a domain name from a registrar. There are tons of different places you can do this. I recommend GoDaddy.com  because they're cheap and popular (aka no bankruptcy). On their site you can play around by entering different domain names and they will tell you what's available. When you find one you want you can buy it online using a credit card.
One thing you should know about GoDaddy is that they keep their prices low by trying to sell you all kinds of other services in addition to the domain you want. Just click 'No thanks' for all the stuff they offer you and it will all go well. The price of a domain name there should be $10 per year or less. You can buy it for 2 or more years at the start if you want. This means you won't have to bother renewing it in a year, and sometimes there are further discounts for buying many years at once.
2. After you buy a domain name you need to get a webhost to serve a website on it for you. If you have a friend with a server then you could ask him to host it there. Otherwise there are a million commercial webhosts out there. I have only had shitty experiences with cheap webhosts, so I can't recommend any personally. I've heard some good rumblings about DreamHost though. A cheap webhost will probably charge from 5-20$ per month.
Once you have a friend or company ready to host your site you will have to login to your registrar's control panel (this would be at GoDaddy) and change your nameservers to whatever your webhost tells you to. This way the registrar knows to point everyone looking for your domain to your webhost, and your webhost then serves up the content.
That pretty much wraps up the lesson. Any questions? |
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| Clearing the DNS cache on Mac OS X |
Once Mac OS X resolves a domain name into an IP address it will cache the IP address for a while. If you want to clear out all the caching to make it resolve the IP address again you can do so using this simple command:lookupd -flushcache Thank you random internet page. |
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