I have just received my very first digital camera in the mail. What took me so long to join the digital revolution? I am a geek, right? Well I have been taking pictures for years now and there is something about holding an older quality camera in your hands that you can not beat. Man does this ever come close though!

The camera in question is a Nikon Coolpix 3200 3.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom. It has everything you could ever need in a digital camera and more! I might not be the best judge since this is my first digital camera. However though, I did do a lot of shopping around before I picked this one. The big factor that made up my mind though was looking at pictures people had submitted that they had took with the camera. You can put all the neat features you want on it, but don’t forget it is a camera. I want it to take pictures, and take pictures well. It does that just fine.

Here’s a photo of my desk that I have downsized a lot to make it easier to view and download on the Web. Now you can see where I do all my writing from. Pretty neat hu? I’m still giddy over my new toy, going to go play with it some more right now. Let the photo revolution begin!

This is definitely something worth getting excited about!

The Chris Pirillo Show

It has been a long time since I’ve been excited about TV or radio with a technology twist. I am just one of the many who miss the old TechTV/ZDTV. I will save you my rant about how much I hate g4techTV and all that jazz though. It is nice to see I’ll have something forward to listen to, heck… might even have to break down and buy an MP3 player!

There is no doubt that this year was a good year for the wild and wacky world of Web hosting. Due the popularity of blogs and many other factors, it would seem that everybody and their grandmother has a Web hosting account these days. From paid to free, you just are not cool till you have some hosting space! With this year behind us now, what does the Web hosting world have to look forward to in 2005? More of the same? Will business be picking up more or less?

One thing is sure, Web hosting prices have gotten cheaper in the past year. With the dropping cost of disk space and bandwidth, the consumer has been king. Now you can get a Web hosting account for as low as five dollars a month. It used to be the same account a few years ago would cost you around fifty a month to keep.

Many Web hosting companies these days are barely making a profit on one hosting account sold. The hope is that they will sell enough account in bulk to get more customers and to turn a larger profit. Where you used to make a ten dollar profit on one guy’s account you can now make a profit of fifteen dollars on ten guys accounts. Another thing to look out for in the new year is Web hosts making it easier for folks to upgrade their account. That way if the average consumer is getting a little paranoid about running out of space or bandwidth, they will have a one click solution to get a little more. That is if they are willing to pay a little more as well.

I would not look for the price of Web hosting to lower any though. Instead Web hosts will be adding more space and bandwidth to their already existing Web hosting plans. As I mentioned before, few companies are really making that much of a profit on one Web hosting account. Therefore they can’t afford to lower the price. However with the lowering cost of bandwidth and disk space for the Web hosts, that will become an easier poker chip to bargain with.

Customer support will take an upswing as well in the new year. Just look at the progress that has been made this year. Many Web hosts once only had a few E-mail addresses listed for support. Now we have the choice of live support chat, instant messenger support, help desks, help Web sites and so much more!

In the next year I believe there will be a growing upswing to create more Web hosting help Web sites for consumers. Tackling many of the average problems there will help visitors and clients find the answers to their questions quicker. It will also allow the Web host to cut down on some hours of customer support work. Yet again, another example of how the future looks bright for you as well as your Web host.

In this day and age having a Web site is becoming more of a need than a want. There are a million and one reasons to create your own Web site. It is up to you to find the right one for yourself. There is no need to fear the world of Web hosting though, because 2005 is looking to knock 2004 right out of the water.

That is right, I said it. Just finished another chapter in my Web hosting book today, and started on another. Due to some pre-organization, chapter eight has been cut. It shall be now known as the lost chapter to be released in the year 2056. By then I will be an award winning author with piles of money, babes and glory.

Well, can’t a guy dream a little at least? Chapter eight will actually be moved into another chapter yet to be written. It shouldn’t cut down on any content though, since I plan on splitting the first chapter into three. The plans now are to first finish up the rough draft chapters. There are four more to come. After that, I’ll go through and make spelling and grammar checks. Then I will divide it all up again into new chapters and segments. Once that is done I’ll be going through and doing a check to make sure everything is in the place it needs to be. Then I’ll be handing it over to my Mother (whom is this house’s other writer) who will be playing the role as my first editor.

Then I’ll get it formatted by chapter, as a whole document and finally as a PDF file. I also plan on doing some of my own illustrations and graphic examples. I’d say right now I am nearly at the half way mark, at least as far as the hard work is concerned. Thanks for all the E-mail, comments and input thus far, keep ‘em coming!

I just finished chapter four of my Web hosting book. In it I was covering the trials and tribulations you may run into when it comes to Web hosting support. Should be a good one for sure. That only leaves six more chapters for me to finish before I start editing what I have written to get it ready for public viewing.

Earlier this week I noticed that my first two chapters were a little longer than the others, so I might end up cutting them into smaller chapters once the editing begins. Still not sure yet though, I’ll see how the other chapters go first. If all goes well I should be able to get a few more chapters done this week along with all my other article writing activities.

For the first time, this is really starting to look like a real book! I’m proud of it already. I just hope others feel the same way after reading the finished product.

Here are a few free Gmail invites because I have no use for them. This is all I have so please don’t send me a dozen E-mails or comments asking for just one more! Thanks, and enjoy!

All Gone!

Well I had a very nice Christmas here and I hope all of you did as well. Not here, but in your own respected homes. Santa was pretty nice to me this year. Here is a list of some of my more tech friendly gifts I received.

All Thumbs – The Complete Collection

I love Steve Oedekerk. Ever since I saw, Kung-Pow he can really do no wrong with me. After I saw that great work of a film I looked around on Google for more information. Then I got introduced to the “Thumb” collection. This pack that I got for Christmas includes all the thumb movies Steve has done. Thumb Wars, The Blair Thumb, Bat Thumb, Thumbtanic, Frankenthumb, and The Godthumb are sure to be great additions to my already odd DVD library.

Mork & Mindy – The Complete First Season

I grew up watching this show on Nick at Night. Keep end mind, this was late the late 80′s to early 90′s period where there was no kid’s programming on at night. If I had to blame one thing for sparking the weirdness that later became much of my personality, this would be it. After being a devoted fan of the reruns of this show, I was actually telling people on the street that I was an alien. I watched a few episodes last night, and I have to say this show aged very well. It is still funny after all these years.

20Q

This thing is so freaking neat! It is a little ball that you play 20 questions with. So far it has been right 9 out of 10 games that I have played with it. How does it work? Heck if I know. It’s a nice distraction when I get too bored to write though.

Viewtiful Joe – PS2

I had heard the hype about this game for a long time. Since it was a Gamecube exclusive, there wasn’t much I could do. Now that it was out on PS2 though, I only have one thing to say. Believe the hype! This game is beautiful down to it’s core, and it’s fun to play too. Reminds me of a time where side scrolling was king.

Other gifts included a few pairs of pants and a nice shirt to lay around in. All and all it was a good Christmas this year, hope you had much of the same. Now the only thing left to do is to start surfing for post holiday sales!

Thanks to the holidays I will probably be a little light on posting here for a while. I do have some good news though for everybody to hear. I will have an article in the next issue of Ping! Zine. It is a nice and basic Web hosting basics article I think everybody can (and hopefully will) learn from. From your common Joe on the street to your Web hosting millionaire. Why am I so excited? Well this will be my first article to ever go to “print”. I’ve done hundreds for the Online world, but the last time I had something printed on ink and paper was my senior year in high school.

Subscription to Ping! Zine is totally free, so go check out their Web site and sign up to start getting issues. The magazine is basically aimed at people in or interested in the Web hosting field. Lots of good information and interesting content on every page. If you are looking at a way of learning more about the backend of the Web hosting world, Ping! Zine is the best resource out there today. I’ve gotten four issues so far, and every single one is worthy to be readable from front to back, over and over again. The issue that I am going to be in should be out in late January. This is a great way to start out the new year for yours truly. 2005, here I come!

If it wasn’t for the folks over at PopCap Games, I would have nothing to do to kill the time of the day where there is nothing much to do but trim my toenails. Now instead of pulling out the old faithful toe nail clippers, I can play a few addictive and fun games. All of their games are free to play Online, which is always a good thing. If you find yourself becoming too addicted, then you could also purchase them for offline use as well. Most of them are cheap as well, so that is always a good thing. Which ones are the best? Well here is my own personal top five favorite PopCap games.

Read the rest of “Top Five PopCap Games” at Lockergnome!

The next few days are going to be pretty hard on me, got too much to do and not enough time to do it all in. Then again, that is how the holiday season works, right? The next two days I’m going to be watching my two nephews and my niece. Keep in mind I have already watched them Monday and for a few hours today. I’m just about at the end of my sanity rope.

Then there is Christmas Eve, which should be a good day to catch up on sleep and watch a few Christmas movies on Cartoon Network. Hopefully before this time, I’ll have all my present wrapping done. Yeah, I haven’t gotten that done either. We just got our tree up here last week.

Christmas should be a rush, seeing as how my sister has to work. Hopefully we will get a few hours in between her jobs for some holiday fun and food. I’ve already told my Mother that I don’t care what happens on Christmas. As long as I get my peanut butter fudge, it will be a merry one for me at least.

So in between article editing, book writing, diaper changing, Christmas joy and peanut butter bliss I hope to get a few more side projects done. If not though, a new year is coming soon.. and new resolutions will be made to never get this far behind again.