Amateur Protagonist Blog

If like me you have been using your website's default email client then you are either scared or crazy. You may also be crazy scared or scared crazy but that is for another article.

I have had my AmateurProtagonist.com email for some time now, three years to be spot on. At first I used squirrel mail which handled HTML emails like how I handle assault inquires, I don't. After that my host was kind enough to upgrade me to round cube. Which honestly is really, really good.

However I have an Android phone, for years I have been setting up my POP3 accounts left right and centre, I could tell you my default settings off by heart. I have a terrible memory yet I have had to setup my email so many times in so many places I might as well be a qualified expert in setting up my mail. Hell I should start charging my server host for handling their email troubleshooting.

The problem is POP3 has some big draw backs. The main drawback is POP3 is dumb. Just like how owning an Apple product makes you a cunt, using POP3 makes you repeat yourself a hell of a lot.

The difference between IMAP and POP3 is POP3 simply "pops" emails (see what I did there?) it just says "hey, here are all your emails, fucked if you have read them or not, I am just a POP3 server." However if you use IMAP your email is two way, if you read an email on your phone it is marked as read, delete an email on your tablet? It is deleted from the server (if you wish.)

GoogleMail is perfect for handling multiple emails and if you own an Android device it will reduce your email clients to one, just Gmail.

Here is a simple guide to making the right decision.

Step 1 - Login to your Gmail, now go make a coffee because you are a hard working son-of-a-bitch.
Step 2 - Click the giant cog (settings) on the top right of Gmail, make sure you select settings. If you fail at either of these steps I suggest the suicide for dummies books in your local library.
Step 3 - This step is if you use mail clients, if you want to simply use Gmail app and Gmail in your browser skip this step.
Step 3.1 - To enable IMAP click on forwarding and POP/IMAP tab along the top.
Step 3.2 - Scroll down to the radio buttons regarding enabling IMAP. This may come as a shock to you but now you want to select enable and click save. Big shock I know.
Step 4 - Select Accounts from the tab along the top inside of settings.
Step 5 - Setup your email in the outgoing, the second section (labelled: send mail as) is where you want to go. Click Add an address you own.
Step 6 - Fill in your details and unselect treat as an alias.
Step 7 - Select send from your own domain via SMTP. It will then ask you for your details to connect to the server. We do this step so you can still send emails from your own server than having the shitting sent from Gmail bullcrap. I mean come'on Gmail I love ya and all but I don't want people to see us together.
Step 8 - Your sending email should now be setup. Now Select check email using POP3 for getting your email from your own domain. This is under the label for send mail as.
Step 9 - This setup is very much like step 7 and should be extremely straight forward. I suggest ticking the box to leave the messages on the server just in case. It is always nice to have a backup. Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox size once a month or so, like I said it is just a nice backup incase you don't like Gmail or you find you are into homosexual relationships. Nothing against gay people, but if you don't like this new setup you may also enjoy a dick in your arse.
Step 10 - Enjoy the coffee you made in step 1 as your emails are been pulled down and you are now a demi god.

It is really is that simple, for years I have been worried about linking my email with Gmail with fears of things going wrong and down time. This method means no interruption and no more fears about missing emails and no need to change any name servers or DNS's.

I am really enjoying this new setup. Personally I use Gmail on my Android phone and then just have a tab open in my Google Chrome with Gmail open. Did I mention I had a Google tattoo on my dick?

Hope that helps you crazy scared crazies out there.

You know what the problem with most 1.2 Minecraft Servers? Hell even most Minecraft Servers?

They are scared of players using new features and having a good time. I don't want to join a server to find a list of do's and don'ts. If I want to go and set fire to every wooden house or steal the Minecraft diamonds out of all the chests, then who are they to stop me.

We at Mein Kraft the greatest PVP Minecraft Server agree that this is fucking stupid.

You know what would be better? A fair playing field where everyone can do anything, no mods, no rules, full PVP. This is the perfect 1.2 Minecraft Server.

Our Minecraft Server is free to play, you don't have to give us anything unless you are feeling extra kind. Also we do not see a problem with griefing or PVP. If you want to make some new friends take them miles away and have them dig Minecraft diamonds before killing them, you can!

Our 1.2 Minecraft Server does not have mods, our users do not have client side mods. This is the real raw Minecraft experience people where hooked on.

We like pure, which is why all our server admins have killed all relatives that were not pure blooded minecraft fans.

Go dig all day, go burn all day, go live in our 1.2 Minecraft Server all day. Our Minecraft Server is not here to make to do lists or even have you play how we want, our Minecraft Server is there so we can all have a laugh.

Build that skyscraper, defending it during the night, defend it during the day from other players. Steal some gold, trick someone to drink lava, find a creeper and hug it.

We believe in a pure Minecraft Server, so join our new 1.2 Minecraft Server today.

English ~ British Minecraft 1.2 Server ~ Fuck Yeah

Want more? Well we have reset our world just for Version 1.2 of Minecraft. So we have the latest and newest of everything. New villages untouched by anyone. New animals never seen by anyone. Be the very first in our Minecraft Server.

We know it's never fun to join half way through, so now is a chance to be a founder. Be the core of our Minecraft Server. You could be the first to get Iron. You could be the first pimp with your gold armour. In our Minecraft Server you can truely be king.

So join our forums or just simply jump straight into our MineCraft Server. I'll see you there.

So if you see SirProtagonist, run as fast as you can.

6. You Are The One With The Accent

So you stroll into your local Subway and walk up to the counter. The pretty lady on the other side of the mystical screen guard asks what you want with a seductive wink.

"White foot long please." You reply with your British charm oozing out of you.
"Sure, what bread do you want."
"Erm I am pretty sure I told you. "White please."
"Oh, I am sorry I couldn't understand your accent. I thought you said one foot long." You both laugh as you make a mental note to never go back.

This happened to me here in Australia. When in England I simply had an English accent. Now I am in Australia I have a very strong cockney accent and sound just like Jimmy Carr.

Not Me

Now you are the one from faraway lands with the strange twang. This can come as a bigger shock than you would think. For one you will be repeating yourself a lot more and trying to pick up the local accent just so people hear you the first time.

5. You Lose The Ability To Detect Accents

Before I came to Australia I could pick up accents very well. To the point I could place a person in England to their stereotypical region perfectly almost every time. Now I fail to even pick up a plain British accent.

The problem is an accent that is the same as yours is not an accent, it is how you are meant to talk. You need to program yourself to listen for the normal to pick up the same accent. Four months I have been living in Australia and everyone sounds strange to me.

So Where In Iceland You From?

4. Your Common Knowledge Is Worthless

Everything you know about where you live is now wrong. Everything you say to anyone is now wrong. The problem with different countries is everyone has their own interpretation. For example in England it is rude to speak to a stranger. People keep to themselves. However in other countries it is rude to not acknowledge someone.

If you believe shaking with your right hand is common knowledge, you are wrong. Some countries you shake with your left and you look like a complete fool.

Sniff my what?

You are better off assuming everything is wrong and asking too many questions.

3. No One Had The Childhood You Had

What do you mean you didn't make mud pies as a children when it would rain? Probably because it is always raining in England. Oh well you really missed out.

Places are different and the culture is different, everyone knows this as a fact. What you might not know is everything you loved about your childhood is different and makes no sense to anyone else.

It is best to avoid talking about your childhood and what you go up to as you can easily sound extremely offensive without knowing what you done wrong.

2. Normal Is Totally Fucking Weird On A Whole New Scale

When it was snowing in England I was in 30 degrees C. The problem with this is it is normal. No one is sweating, no one is complaining because everyone (but me) knows it is only going to get worse.

Everything you think is strange and out of place is more often than not completely normal. Again asking too many questions can help you out here. Simply asking if the weather is always like this at this time of year can save you a ton of awkward conversations.

Also remember everything you know as normal is totally fucking weird. For example I never got a driver licence because I lived close to work and in England public transport is not the worst thing in the world (underground Kings Cross to the O2 in 20 minutes.) Problem here is everyone in Australia has a licence, simply because you have to.

1. No Understands Your Humour So Shut Up

Turns out humour is not only subjective but it is also dependent on where you are from. Sometimes your flavour of humour is extremely offensive or makes no sense. Worse your type of humour might be seen as childish! (unless that was the point.)

I would fucking love more Potato thanks!

So you need to be extra careful who you joke around with. To the point you might find the first weeks of meeting someone new to tell them I am joking after everything you say. It's OK though, just watch some old British films and comedies to cure that home sickness!

So you are chilling with friends, when one of them pipes up. "Hey guys lets go play some Minecraft and have some fun." So you go on the internet and look up some Minecraft Servers. Some you need to sign up to, others have a whitelist. You even find two where you need to pay the owner. All the rest have stupid amounts of mods which turn their minecraft server in some FPS game.

The point is good servers are hard to come by. Sometimes you just want to have some fun doing what you love in Minecraft, but you want to do it online with friends.

Our Minecraft Server is designed to run the latest vanillia version of Minecraft. We don't use any mods and we don't expect you to use any mods. This is the fun and joy of single player Minecraft with friends on a Minecraft Server.

So here is why our Minecraft Server is the best PVP Server for Minecraft ever.

• We don't use any mods and we do not allow mods. Everyone has a fair chance as the next guy.
• There are no rules, if you want to chase your friend to the ends of the earth and push him off stealing his stuff. You can.
• We allow griefing. The world is open to do with it what you desire. You want to turn Minecraft into a fire place, you can.
• No whitelist, not now, not ever. We believe everyone is welcome no matter how active.
• Only 8 slots. By keeping the slots small we can devote more resources to keeping the game fast and lag free.
• A British owned Minecraft Server
• We believe in fun. Do what you want how you want. No one tells you how to play Minecraft, so why should we?

Also the world has just been reset. So now is the perfect time to make your mark on the world. Build massive buildings to the sky or tunnel through the ground to find all them tasty Minecraft diamonds.

So join in the fun and bring your friends. Careful not to make too many enimies...

The latest and greatest in Minecraft 1.1 Servers is back up and running. We here at Mein Kraft pride ourselves on full on PVP action with no rules. You know what made the single player Minecraft so much fun? You could do anything you wanted.

We have but one rule, keep it fair. No mods allowed. If everyone has a fair playing field then they can do what they want. For example if you find some amazing sand built house on the beach you can move in or flood the place. What you do is completely up to you.

Finally a Minecraft Server where you and your friends can do what you want and muck around, we keep our spaces limited to reduce lag and so you dont get hoards of random people joining then leaving.

Our Minecraft Server is running the latest 1.1 Minecraft Vanilla edition. We dont have a whitelist so anyone can hop on and have a go. If you are interested in learning more or want to be heard by the admins you can use the forums right here! (Link on the top of the page, Mein Kraft.)

So be sure to save us in your top servers, why? Because we dont require you to give us money, or put you through some bullshit sign up process, we always have the latest version running so little or no down time and we want you to enjoy Minecraft back before you could play it online. To enjoy them amazing moments with friends as well as making a few new ones.

Then killing the new friends, burning down the home you built together and running off with their loot. Its a tough world out there so come join us.

Minecraft Server, Always Awesome

Also we always seem to have a problem with people pretending to be Admins. Here is a quick tip, ask to be kicked. When kicked you are told and discounted from the server, you can join straight back with no problems. A real Admin is happy to kick you no questions asked.

So go punch some Minecraft Server Blocks!

Many different online companies try heaps of techniques to get you to buy again from them. It is important I say again. You need to remember there are two methods when it comes to increasing online revenue (They may apply offline too but that isn't my gig.)

Increase the number of customers or increasing the average spend per customer. This is being very black and white, for example adding offers to get someone to buy more at once falls into the later category as it is about increasing the amount people spend, whereas mass indirect advertising would be increasing number of customers (However an email campaign to existing customers falls into increasing average spend).

I will be talking about making your customer spend more and turn into repeat business. If you have a steady conversion of around 3-2% and get over 1,500 customers on your site a day, then increasing average spend should be your focus. If you are not getting that number of customers you need more business as your figures can change too much, thus harder to spot trends, alternatively if you do not have a good stable conversion to monitor changes by you need to think about your website's flow and why people are dropping off the cart.

We are going to talk about an interesting study with is commonly known as "BF Skinner's Box". Basically rewarding an action, in the study a rat was reward with food for pressing a button. This is the basic idea behind action reward.

What happens when a customer adds something to the cart? Are they rewarded? Here is an interesting idea for you. Let's say all your orders get free shipping, you have a few adverts around the website telling them so. However in my personal experience most people over look such large important adverts unless they wanted to know about shipping. Some people want to know the shipping before they get to the cart so it is important to publicise your costs. What if when your customer adds something to the cart you tell them they have now qualified for free shipping. So if you have an overlay there is a banner image before the confirmation, telling them they qualify for free shipping, or if they go straight to the basket a larger full width banner with the same information.

What is important here is the customer has received a prize. They did not have free shipping before, now with these items they do. Now in the example I just gave, this is more geared towards increasing your conversion rate, however it is the underlay for all examples and ideas I will give, action and reward.

People like to achieve things, personal achievements make a person feel good and unique. There is a fine line between every time someone clicks a link they get an award to spending ten times the average amount in one go. You need a balance between possible and not common.

Let's say you give free shipping on order over 50. If you have Google Analytics linked in with your ecommerce store you can easily find out your average customer spend. Your best bet is average spend is 52 or something like that. So what do you do? You raise the free shipping to 60, basically increased it by 10-20% with hopes of your average spend increasing.

Now it is not just good enough to keep on pushing that number up. You need to reward people for getting to your free shipping. Products that are over the free shipping threshold need to have that displayed, clearly. Make a big deal that "Buying this products means free shipping anywhere in the United Kingdom!" For products that do not get free shipping simply show the shipping cost are per normal. However I want you to change the basket page. Work out the difference between their cart total and the free shipping threshold and tell them. "Spend another $7.30 and get free 2 working days shipping." Now you have this displayed you need to make getting that reward as easy as possible. A good idea is to then show related products under this notice. Alternatively, depending on your market, you could show more expensive alternative products that do qualify for free shipping.

Let's move onto another idea as we have covered that one a lot. Reward points, now I am not talking about the bullshit every 10 you spend you get one point, get a thousand points and you can have a free yo-yo. I means every item has a custom amount of reward points. When your account gets to say 300 points your next order gets free shipping. Leave a review for an extra point, leave a video review, if approved gets 100 points. Get your users to treat your website like a computer game. Actions equal points. Buying more than five items? Double points on this order. The best way to use this technique is to only tell them about the basics to getting points. Here is my example.

Buy this shirt and get 150 XP. Leave a review of this shirt and receive 20 XP. To get to level 2 you need 190 XP, your award for getting to level 2 is free shipping.

In this example the points are XP and getting a set amount of XP levels the customer up. Each level comes with perks that are exclusive to that level. Also note that simply buying the shirt and going back to leave a review will leave the customer just short of the next level. This is a rough idea that can easily be improved based on your market. Let's say you have a website that sells watches, you don't really want to advertise points and repeat business can be extremely hard. This idea is far more complex than the free shipping and is also limited to what markets would react well to it. However you can use the principle in other ways.

Every customer has a customer level. This level can be standard, regular, loyal and executive. You need a number of points to get to each one, 0 (simply register), 3, 5 and 20 respectively. If you place an order you get a point, if you click a link from an email campaign (the first time) and you are signed in you get another point. If you place an order over 70 you get a point. A customer is told these simple rules to their customer level. A customer can very easily get from standard to regular within a single order, their next order will easily see them level up again, however each level from that point on will get a little harder. The idea is it starts of stupidly easy but slowly gets harder. Now how do you use this? Well the highest level will get emails and offers of all levels however the lowest only gets the basic email. If you are a loyal customer you may get an email that says for loyal customer level's only etc. Also you can one day send them a free small gift in the post and simply say free gift for loyal customers. This idea is not so much to make them spend more as a really good reason for you to stay in contact with your customer. We have some stock we need to sell this week, let's email everyone. Now becomes we have some stock that needs to sell this week, target these customers only and tell them they have 4 days left. Then 2 days later send an email to everyone including the selected levels from before and tell them they have 2 days left. If you make it clear in both emails that the selected level's got it first (even better if you can show the stock has decreased) it will motivate customers to act quicker to your deals and to give your marketing emails more attention.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas on how to increase your customers spend. I might write another piece depending on the reaction to this one. If not I will move on top another topic. Maybe another list of websites doing things I hate. As always any questions about anything I have written, just use the comment section or get directly in contact!

Every day more and more website join the mobile revolution. Sometimes you will be having a quick search on your phone for the closest kebab shop only to find they have a website, which when opened has a mobile optimised interface (this has never happened to me but should.) Or maybe you where booking tickets and couldn't get to a computer.

It is the same story everywhere, you get a sudden surprise when yet another website creates a special mobile experience. Which don't get me wrong is a nice thing, just so many people get it so very wrong. So here are my top five sins of mobile websites.

5. Look At Our Special Mobile Website

Now when I do a search on Google for the latest stock information on peanut butter and click on the first link, I expect to see what I was looking for. This has long been the accepted convention and is the correct way if you ask me.

So why has it suddenly been ok for websites to detect you are on a mobile device, take to you the special mobile skin and then redirect you to the home page. This just pisses me off to no end. Normally problems I talk about can be pretty complex to solve, however this is just pure laziness.

You designed the mobile skin and for some strange unbeknown reason said to yourself that they had to see the home page so they understand what is going on. Even better if you have a little sign that says You are now using our mobile layout." Thanks Mr Website for a second there I thought you had a really strange resolution and button layout.

It may be hard for you to understand but even on a mobile device I want to get stuff done, quickly. If anything I want to get it done quicker on a mobile device than a desktop. I will see you have a special mobile skin and appreciate the work you put in as I read / look / buy the said thing I came to you for. If you take me to your home page I will leave.

4. This Layout Is So Special You Get Nothing Else And Like It

So I have your tasty nice mobile layout. I am enjoying using your service and browsing your site. Let's say I want to buy the product I am looking for, or maybe I want to email this product to a friend. Not everyone has but I have, accepted that sometimes stuff doesn't work on the mobile platform and is normal website only feature. I am ok with that, really I am.

I am not ok with you not giving me an option to go to your normal website. If you are going to have a mobile website here is the top feature you should have no matter what. A button that says go to our desktop website and a button on your normal website to go to the mobile one.

Granted this is a technical issue and is only achievable if you program your website to make use of a mobile session or cookie and track the state. Basically you are always ready to show a page as mobile or desktop at all times, if the mobile is not available it will show a friendly error telling you to try the desktop version if you need to. Also don't just show the option to change at errors. At all times I should be able to change in between the two formats with minimal fuss.

3. Look At My Featureless Limp Mobile Website

Let's say you run a burger van and you have a website to tell local businesses what the specials are that day. One day someone says Why don't you have a mobile version because I am slightly unhappy with your current service and I am related to a horse." Ok maybe not the horse bit. Either way you go off and get a mobile website designed to run next to your normal website.

Your website looks great apart from one thing. You cannot view the daily specials, which was the whole point of the website originally. Sure you can sign up to the newsletter but do you honestly believe I just wanted to get your bi-monthly emails so badly I would load your site up on my phone and be happy that is all I can do?

This sin comes hand in hand with no being able to switch back to the desktop website. If your mobile platform removes what can easily be considered core functionality with no way to get that functionality on a mobile device then you may want to reconsider even getting or having a mobile website.

2. The Slow Loading I Have No Clue Mobile Website

Every now and again someone will commit a crime against humanity, creating a highly specialised website without thinking about why it is specialised is one of them crimes. I have stubbed my toes, I have been kicked in the balls, I have even had staples in my head, yet every time I see a slow loading graphic intensive mobile website I shudder and die a little on the inside.

Mobile websites, believe it or not, are designed for mobile devices. Let says for arguments sake that if you are on a mobile device you are more likely to be running 2G/3G/4G and not broadband speeds. Let's say that you are billed based on your data usage and bandwidth used. This may come as a shock but that is in fact not a hypothetic situation but real life.

There are two reasons for creating a mobile website, one to optimise your website to look it's best on a mobile device so no wasted white space, forms are nice and big, easy to use navigation for someone's finger. Secondly so you can cut out any large slowly loading images that could hold someone up if they are not on an ADSL/broadband connection. If the website loads quickly even on a 2G connection you have a major advantage over your competition. Even a very basic display with core information and then the page they were looking for with a button to go to the desktop version would be perfect. You straight away give them what they are looking for, contact details if they need help urgently, some basic functionality if they need to browse the site and most important of all a way back to the desktop version if they need full functionality and accept it will be a tad strange on a mobile device.

1. The Mobile Website That Is A Completely Different Website

This is easily the top sin and has happened to me not that long ago. The major issue here is when your mobile website and normal website are running completely different and unrelated databases. What I mean is two websites that are basically the same (one mobile, one normal) however if you register on one your login details do not work on the other because they are running different databases and your details only exist on the first instance.

My personal experience with this was attempting to buy some movie tickets online, due to us being slow on agreeing a time it came down to me in a bar at lunch to book them. So out comes my phone and I load up the website. Much to my surprise they have a very good nice mobile website with full functionality. I am able to sign up and get everything sorted bar the payment due to a redirect error that would be fine on a desktop but not a mobile device, so poor testing on their part but basically everything was done so I was happy to wait till I got home.

I got home loaded up the laptop and accessed the website, their normal website is just as nice and all the colours and styles are in line with the mobile website. I go to login only to find it did not work. So I opened my emails where I had an email with my email and even my password and a link to the login page, still nothing. I tried forgotten password only to find my email did not exist on their system, despite having an email from them.

I called up and found out I would have to register again as their data servers only sync every week. EVERY WEEK. So in about three days time I will be on their system twice with identical records. All because they did not believe someone would go from one device to another within a weeks time. Also this is not my account did not get created correctly the first time around as my account was valid and functional. I could not enter a billing address without completing their labyrinth questionnaire first.

Maybe next time they will run their mobile and desktop website off the same database and save everyone a whole heap of trouble.

The latest and greated Minecraft Server is now open again. Due to some changes on our end we were a little behind the crowd for once. However we have once again go our server ready for all you loyal Minecraft fans.

Minecraft is officially out of Beta, it is now a finished product to be enjoyed by the masses. We pay for our server with our own money so you can enjoy this great game. So what do we ask in return to be on our Minecraft Server? It is dead simple. No mods, none. We do not have any mods on our server and we don't want you to have any mods!

So don't wait around for us to get you to join, just paste in our IP (shown below in the banner) and away you go to the amazing world of Minecraft via your friendly friends at Mein Kraft the greatest PVP no rules server of all time!

So there we have it the latest Minecraft 1.0.1 Server ready and waiting for you. Our server is open 24/7 and is based in London England. Just in case you did not know where London is...

We have a no rules policy as well, so you can grief, you can mine, you can attack. As long as you are not using mods and it is an even playing field for all then we allow it. So our server is open to you! Invite your friends and make some new ones!

Our Minecraft Server does feature Administrators as well. Look on our forums for more information about them. If you are ever unsure if someone is an Administrator ask them to kick you, being kick removes you from the server but you can join right back in. Plus the Admins love to kick people.

So why do you want in on our Mien Kraft Minecraft Server? Well for one we offer no rules fun, we offer amazing awesome enjoyment, we also don't tie you into anything. You play when you want and we pay for the server. So come and enjoy before we have a change of heart and turn on the whitelist :P Don't worry that is... Slightly unlikely.

I have finished my latest freelance work for Blue Sky Yoga (link at the bottom I promise!) and it has gotten me thinking. I have never been a man to stop and meditate. If I am honest I am damn right against it really. It boils my blood when I am told to "get in touch with my spiritual side" never really known why it annoys me so but it does.

After finishing Blue Sky Yoga I got it all up and running, keeping a close eye for how the new owner is liking it, yet at no point have I really thought about yoga. I mean I know what it is and why people do it. I mean really think about yoga, as in go out and do some yoga and try to not only see but feel why people do it.

My life is currently going through some big changes, to the point anyone I talk to I fear I am simply complaining about everything that is happening. I have for the past three hours been sorting bank accounts, waiting for emails, trying to update this websites code and wondering about work tomorrow. I have always been someone who would be doing something and keep on going than to stop. I do not enjoy loose ends and it bugs me to stop and start.

Sadly this means I will start a project and work until I can't or just hate what I am doing. This is often the case with my own personal projects. I will often get half way through and then simply not be happy with it and thus not want to return to it. In the past three months I have done a total of 5 website designs and back end programming. Yet at no point have I stopped to reflect on any work once completed. I simply learn while working and then deem it completely unless the client has more suggestions or wants changes. I often work to the tune of "Once completed you should never revisit this." This has served me through over three years of being developer. The idea that I should get it right the first time it is written off, then for the next week iron out bugs and deem it complete.

I have no idea how important reflect of your own work is as I have never done it. With loads of changes in my life, many of which I am completely in the dark about, I have to wonder if I should also change how I approach my work life. I have always been overly dedicated to my job, some people say that is character others say it is because I am a Leo. Either way taking a step back is not something I enjoy or ever aim to do.

Maybe now is the time to reflect on what I have done in the UK before I leave for Australia. Running servers, maintaining e-commerce websites, online support, re-designing/re-programming per clients spec, software/hardware support and even a little business management, sometimes I wonder what is more important a CV with achievements and driven aspirations or the ability to know when to slow down. Maybe the knowledge of when to stop comes with age.

I have never tried yoga and I guess thinking about it I don't understand what it truly means to be at peace. I wish Blue Sky Yoga The best of luck with their new website which I hear has already attracted new clients. Please do visit Blue Sky Yoga and hopefully you can find time to slow down.

If there is one aspect of my day to day computing habits I would like to change it would be my choice of operating systems. For a long time now I have yearned to move over to Ubuntu (having tried other Linux distributions I am simply not comfortable enough yet.) Yet I have never made the full transition to Linux, I always keep my main computer Windows.

Now I am not talking about dual booting here either, I mean full on leave Windows behind. There is a list of reasons why I want to do this. Firstly I believe truly believe I will come out a better programmer by having a more in depth knowledge of Linux, I whole heartily believe that. I also know that personally I learn by working with a product day and day out. I also want to increase my general knowledge of computers. Troubleshooting a problem in SUSE I learnt more than days' worth of trouble shooting on a Windows machine. The reason really comes down to Windows generally being a more polished system in my eyes (That is a personal opinion and it may be wrong, however I strongly feel that is the reason.)

I like the idea behind the flexibility and freedom that Linux offers; do I have a requirement for that freedom? No. Do I have a requirement to develop on mobile devises? No, but I always insist on getting developer focused products. In my mind to be a better programmer and developer I need to immerse myself in as much language and day to day running's of programs as possible.

I have no hatred for Microsoft or their products. I have tried out the developer preview of Windows 8 and it is simply amazing. I love what they are doing and fully support what they want to achieve. Looks how Android is merging tablets and phones. Now think about all devices, mobiles, tablets, computers and consoles that is what Microsoft wants to achieve. Complete synchronicity between all electronic devices. I believe that to be a beautiful dream.

I am a .NET developer and normally find myself working on IIS. That said I can still do all of that from a Linux machine. Turning your computer into a localhost server? Just as easy on Linux as Microsoft, so what is really stopping me?

To be extremely blunt and simple, fear. I fear what I could miss; I fear I could lose out and become stubborn in my ways. What if I am required to use a product and I can't on Linux? Prime example Visual Studio, realistically speaking you should always develop on the OS you are developing for, simply because it makes fucking sense. Which ties me into my greatest fear, becoming a Linux/PHP only developer, why should I dual boot to work on .NET for Windows? Why not just use Windows then? I do not enjoy dual booting, having multiple machines, having multi copies in different locations. I am an extremely tidy person when it comes to my virtual storage and use. Different browsers have set uses and locations, everything is in place. Why should I go and do that twice, one for each OS on the machine.

Programs and games, games not so much, however sometimes it is not good enough to simply get an "Alternative" prime example, Photoshop and GIMP, how people even compare the two amazes me. I am sure you can do the same quick jobs in both but the ease and pleasure will always for me sit in Photoshop. The point I am making is sometimes the best programs and tools for the job are simply not on Linux (That said it does happen the other way around however that rarely impacts me.)

Maybe I should move away from Windows and .NET but then my skill base will shrink. Linux and PHP developers seem to be popping up all over the place with dirt cheap rates. The only way I can compete is by going into .NET with my past experience. The jobs for .NET seem to pay more and offer more longevity whereas the PHP based roles seem more expendable.

One day I hope to move to Linux and truly gain a grasp of computing and at more core level. However until then I guess I will stick to getting my head around networking or some other code.