SackBook - Social networking for Sack Boys/Girls

Hello Sack Boys/Girls! There’s a site available specially for people who live in Little Big Planet! Sackbook is a social networking site for gamers who play LittleBigPlanet. You can find and meet people with same interest as you. Also, it features a section whereby people can recommend levels to play! The site I believe is still heavily developing and therefore many features aren’t available yet. Still it is a cool site for people like you and me who love to have fun in Little Big Planet.

SackBook

Just take a look at the screenshots as well as the videos done by their own production team and experience it yourself by downloading it. I would advise that people with rather old computers or poor internet connection not try it out as it is rather internet-computer intensive.

Just upgraded to Wordpress 2.6 (huh? So soon? Yes I had the same reaction). Hit the jump for a video done by the official team on the new features etc.

At long last my site got approved. The screenshots they provided were awesome. The features they promise sound fantastic. Finally, I got to try it for myself. Just a brief introduction what Woopra is. Woopra is a traffic statistic tool used by webmasters to record down traffic details etc. Just take for example google analytics. It is somewhat like that but more of a desktop application. In addition, it uses beautiful and detailed graphs to display information, adds more features such as chatting with the users that is currently online etc. A small but great little tool for webmasters to use.

The information Woopra provides is detailed and well displayed. Using a world map to display where the users come from, a line graph to show the number of visits per hour for the day, the ability to switch between bar or pie charts for displaying of most of the information etc. Whatever you need, Woopra actually provides it. However, what makes Woopra something more special is its ability to show the current users that are browsing the page in real time. Meaning every time a user enters the site, it will immediately show it on its screen. Therefore, you get live statistics and is extremely useful for example when a sudden surge of traffic comes in, you know how to react or what measures to take.

One feature that actually makes me even more excited and pleased about Woopra, is the fact that it has the ability to link the current visitor with the webmaster. Woopra is empowered by a simple yet powerful chat tool that enables to create a bridge that connects the visitor with the webmaster by allowing them to chat over the net. It is that simple! Just talk about the importance of feedback and the need of communication, it is simply magnificent! Community is current discussed as one of the most important aspects of websites besides content and with such a function, it will definitely boosts the visitors’ impressions as well as the webmaster’s relationship with them.

So far I’ve been talking about how perfect and sleek Woopra is but haven’t touched on the disadvantages etc. The fact that Woopra is so cool and smart is undeniable. However, some minor bugs are present and that the server sometimes is unstable is kind of a problem. Since it is still in its beta stages and free for the moment, I am sure that in future all the problems would be resolved in due time.

For now here is a little video of the application I made and showing some of its functions and information is provides. (P.S Of course the chatting as well)

June 08 has been a month that is extremely packed and fulfilling. As most of you know, June has always been a month that students loved. The month of the semester break which means a wholesome 30 days of rest, fun and whatever. I have always had the same semester break for the all the past years. However, 2008 had been totally different. 2008 semester break has been nothing but chaotic, hectic and tiring. Rest? Nah, spent my days and time running around, flying and crossing islands. You can actually read it here at this article: http://www.swiftworld.net/2008/06/17/back-from-nco-camp-and-taiwan-trip/

With that I’ll just shift the focus to what had recently taken place. An NPCC event, yes again. This time it just happen a few hours ago so I can still remember whatever that have had happen vividly. I just participated in a NPCC Monopoly game competition. Monopoly? The board game? Well you can say so, but instead, it is somewhat a life-sized version of the game. Alright, I know all of you will go rolling your eyes already, me too when I first heard it was the monopoly, I was like hell yeah, slack and fun. However, to my surprise, it was a LIFE-SIZED monopoly. My immediate reaction? For heavens’ sake, no way! Still, I went and must say it was alright, not too boring or retarded as I thought it might be.

The monopoly game was held at NYGH (Nangyang Girls High), and obvious the NYGH NPCC was the unit in-charge of the game. We arrived somewhat late for some reasonable reasons and started the game early in the morning. We had to choose a group name and basically write in some crap in a neatly done handbook (our so called passport). The game then started with us throwing puny board sized dices to determine where, we, the life sized players had to go. We then started running around and around passing go around 4 consecutive times for the first few 10 minutes of the game. I seriously felt that it was like Physical Training or even perhaps some fitness re-test.

There were different stations and instead of properties, we had stocks. Stations were stops where we had to stop and complete some kind of task usually related to stuff we do in NPCC. Nothing too fantastic or disgusting etc, just plain everyday expected activities and tasks. Campcraft, brain teasers, drills and of course their favourite physical activities. After playing for around 2 hours we had some boring finale which I would love not to talk about. Got 3^rd and here is a picture of me and the trophy:

Some boring statistics about the site and the month of June:

Traffic Statistics

That’s all from me, for now just enjoy the medal and the bear =)

They contacted those who got through the first selection process by phone. I, being either lucky or a person that is worthy of being selected, had been called up by one of their staff (I think) to inform me about my acceptance into the top, well 10. I guess I felt happy, and excited at the same time upon receiving their call. It was kind of unexpected for them to call. I did not know how the selection process was like, or what or how they chose the top 10 of each category. But nevertheless I am hopeful and anxious to know what the results will be like and for the next few days I’ll be trying to pull votes in.

I hate my icon given to tag on my blog. Just take a look:

Why can’t I have stuff like:

or

Vote me or whatever. My bear wants the phone (Excuses. Heh)

Youth Category Link (I Play fair. You don’t have to vote me. Choose the best for yourself. May the best win I guess. *Shrugs*)

March

Attended a Mega Camp hosted by my Uniform Group during the March Holidays. The whole week was pretty much the camp itself and school practically follows after it. Did not have much time at all but managed still to upgrade my wordpress version to 2.5 without much errors etc.

April

Busy preparing for examinations but still managed to cook up a few reviews (2 to be exact) during the first few weeks of April. After that was mainly studying, revising and sleeping. Of course I took a few short breaks here and there (too many actually) to spend quality time with my PS3. I reviewed the Singapore hosted MMO dancing game, High Street 5 as well as a Anti-Theft Software that received quite a few comments from different users. Learnt a few important lessons that when people pay you to do a review, the review must be positive and not talk about the bad points of their product. Well, not really completely ignoring the bad points, instead the bad points must be brought out in a way that it does not actually matter. Heh, so that is basically my April for you.

May

May has been a month of happiness and grieves. Mixed emotions filled me as the days of the month of May progresses. At first, I felt relived and happy as my examinations are finally over (for now). Played hard but at the same time worrying as the days of releasing of results draw nearer. As I got my results, I felt sad and regretted not spending more time with my text books. No use crying over spilled milk now though, just have to work harder in the future and of course the final term which carries the most marks. Feeling sad is not enough, I had to feel tired and exhausted as well. Following the start of the mid-year holidays, I had a camp at Pulau Ubin; the survivor camp. Yes it is based off the reality show Survivor and we all know whatever happened in the show sure was hellish and tiring. May passed quickly as it was filled with many key events. (Time sure go faster when doing stuff you enjoy etc)

Swift World Traffic Statistics

Earnings and Revenue

Google Adsense: $1.97 (March) $2.93 (April) $2.29 (May)

That’s all. No more Advertlets, instead I tried giving Nuffnang a chance again. Have yet to receive any advertisement at all thus no income from them. Perhaps I might get one or two in June.

Off for Taiwan

I am going to fly to Taiwan tomorrow for around a week. Not going there for business or school related stuff but instead just holidaying there with my parents and grandmother. I will try to blog about some of the interesting happenings or events that might happen throughout the tour when I come back. Till then, adios and have fun if you are currently having your term break or holidays like me!

Plugin Auto Update

For lazy people like me, the new auto updating feature was like a god-sent gift. No more hassle going to the author’s site or wordpress itself to download the compressed file. No more time wasting to extract out the contents. No more effort needed to upload to the server. No more energy required to use the mouse to click on deactivate and activate. In conclusion, perfect for people like me. Just tested it out and it works extremely smoothly, giving me no problems as of yet. Here is a diagram to show you the new buttons included as well as the process to update.

Gallery Function

The new gallery features is kind of cool. But for users of other gallery plugins it is kind of useless. Basic viewing etc suits people who hates pictures and only posts around 1 to 2 images every year. For me it is so-so but can never be compared to the plugin I am currently using: NextGen Gallery.

New Interface

The new interface and colour scheme is pleasant to the eye though I need some time to get used to the new layout for each of the pages (writing posts etc). Everything now is almost adjustable as they become somewhat like widget style blocks. Cool but definitely needs some getting used to.
That’s all I have today. Projects flooding up and due within the next few weeks, examinations follow. Oh well there goes the updates again. Hey I’m not lazy this time, just busy.

Swift World Traffic Statistics

Goal: To reach an average of 100 uniques per day.

Earnings and Revenue

Google Adsense:  $2.05 USD ($2.84 SGD)
Advertlets:  Less than a Dollar

Total Earnings: $3.00 SGD

I excluded Nuffnang as it is not really earning me much money at all. Perhaps Advertlets would be next to go. I guess my visits aren’t enough or localized. They do not pay for most overseas traffic. Hmm maybe for the month of March I’ll put in Nuffnang only to see how it goes.

It is like winning a war but suffering heavy losses

I managed to endure through all the time consuming practices for my campcraft competition as well as the school’s birthday’s parade while still getting some good scores for my academics. However, the inability to clinch the scholarship was like a deep gun shot through my heart that was happy and almighty at first. Painful, but I doubt it will hinder in my goal and path to success. Like the saying goes “failure is the stepping stone to success”, I bet you that I have gain experiences through the process of completing the test. Let bygones be bygones, forget about it and continue looking forward to other opportunities. Right so here are my test results in school:

Average: 76.8%

The marking and grading scheme follows the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) examinations (7 is the highest obtainable grade and 1 the lowest). The test I took isn’t the real IBDP examinations but just marked according to it. I’ll be taking that major examination in around 4 years time. The marks I have achieved is not one of the top, but it is neither at the bottom. Above average I suppose.

*Combination of humanities subjects. (Geography, History etc)

For my mid-year papers, I would aim for such grades (my goals in other words):

You might be wondering why on earth I am aiming lower than what I achieved. Mid-Year paper covers a whole lot of topics thus being much harder. The first term paper ought to be the easiest among all four terms and thus the best opportunity to score extremely high marks. Therefore, it is rather realistic for me to aim a little lower for some subjects.

Enough about academics lets move on to other topics.

Reviews

Boxwave sent me a few of their products to my home for reviewing. It was kind of fun since it was my first ever somewhat “paid” review. Excited and eager, I came up with what I think was a rather detailed critic on the different products they sell. You might want to read the review here before deciding the purchase anything from their site. I reviewed mainly the PSP accessories as it was the only category I fit into. (I don’t have any phone models their accessories support). Some commented personally to me that the review was rather negative but still, it is all my honest opinion. Since they gave me the products for free, all the more I have to be critical and strict in my reviewing. Enough of me talking, go read it if you are interested.

Conclusion

It was tough in January but tougher in February. Still, I managed to scrape through those hard times and came away with what I would say a victory. Great job for me and I hope I will do better for the months that lie ahead. Oh and Swift World would be turning one soon in July! Whoopie!

Gamer ActionGrip™

PSP GameShield™

miniBuds™ - headphones

FlexiSkin™

Be sure to stay tuned for my upcoming reviews on the different products!