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Neil's Blog

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About this blog

the eFestivals blog

Entries in this blog

frying tonight

It's not frying tonight, it's flying today. There's a break in the weather, and for the first time in weeks I get to go flying. :)

Neil

Neil

tonight's the night...

... when everyone should be watching the footie, and defo not tuning into Radio 1 at 9pm for their show "In music we trust...", which tonight is titled "Radio 1's Ultimate Festival Guide" and will probably include yours truly blabbering on about festies.

Neil

Neil

slowing down / thinking forwards

well, things are starting to slow down at eFestivals now - there's finally time to breathe - as most of the announcements about festivals for this year have been made, so there's not so much in the way of news and updates each day. But even with the extra resources that eFestivals now has there's still lots and lots to do, with the chance (finally!) to catch up on some of the things that have been put to the side - sometimes for several years - because there's just not been enough hours in th

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more Blog software

A few of the default settings have been changed (for the better, hopefully), and the link to the FlashChat chatroom has been added to the Blog pages.

Neil

Neil

on the blag

Why does the world and their dog think that eFestivals is here to provide their organisation with a special and personal service for free? Very regularly, eFestivals gets emails from research assistants who want to get us to do their research for them. Very often, the info they're after is easily available and easily findable on the website, but they can't even be bothered to look. Not only that, they are very often offended at being told that us doing work for their commercial benefit will c

Neil

Neil

system upgrades to servers

I've spent most of today updating the system software on the eFestivals servers (which explains why they've gone off-line occasionally today, if you were wondering), and despite my novice knowledge of linux they've all gone exceedingly well. The newer server is all completed, but there's still some stuff to do for the older one. Because its an older installation and hadn't been updated before (whoops ) there's still a little more to do... Back to it.

Neil

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I hate plumbers

Why the f**k do plumbers say "I'll see you in an hour", and two days later I'm still waiting?

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time to get busy

The festival announcements season starts hard and fast today with at least four biggies being announced this week.

Neil

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eFestivals myspace

... is very obviously at http://www.myspace.com/efestivals And I hate it - it's the most user-unfriendly website I've ever had the misfortune to interact with. Can anyone tell me how I can edit the URLs that display on the page? I want to link to the main efests site, and can't work out how too.

Neil

Neil

getting a bit flash...?

For ages I've wanted to jazz up this website a little, but simply never had the time. With new hands at some of the controls I've finally got some time to start to work thru that horrendously long to-do list. One of the things on the list is a re-jig of the photo-galleries, to make them a little less of the quickly cobbled together mess that they've always been, and hopefully one side result of the re-jig will be a bit more eye-candy from photos thru-out the site. Anyway, I've wanted to use a

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Neil

latest website changes - galleries

The latest changes to to the website have now gone live, with the re-jigging of the photo albums/galleries now just about complete. The photo albums pages have now been split into years, and a photo from each photo album added alongside that album. For albums from this year, there's the option to view the album as either traditional galleries or, via a Flash application, as a slideshow. One result of the changes is that currently the eCards program is a bit messed up. This will be fixed an

Neil

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"secret show" - utter bollox

I get endless press releases about various bands playing a "secret show" - it's so secret that they're sending out press releases. What's the score with this idiot tosh? Is it something that's been made up as a marketing tool in a "oooo, I got tickets to their secret show, I'm such a big fan" kind of way, or are they shows that they thought they didn't need publicity to sell tickets for but then found they couldn't sell the tickets? Either way, they're generally for bands I wouldn't for

Neil

Neil

cor blimey guv, why didn't i think of that...?

I've spent much of the last couple of weeks thinking how to get the best out of the efests servers during the mad Glastonbury ticket rush tomorrow, mostly doing little things which combined will add up to something hopefully worthwhile ... but just now I've had a brainwave which will make a great difference to things.

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Neil

now with added eye candy

With more staff on board, there's more time to spend on doing all those those things which there was never time to do... The latest change is added eye candy on the main news page. As time allows, similar things to pretty up the site will be added.

Neil

Neil

moan moan moan

Six months ago I got flashed by a speed camera in Bristol (where I live). Thru came a form giving me some options, I ticked the "i want to pay a £60 fixed penalty", and sent it back. Then nothing. Today I got a summons. So not only have I not had the option to actually pay the fixed penalty (the first form didn't give the option to pay at that point), the frigging summons is for Taunton Court - how does that work then? So I phone the camera unit and say "I never had the option to pay the

Neil

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upgrades

eFestivals has been moved to a new server, to help ensure that on the busiest days everything will still cope. Fingers crossed that the new configurations works as well as hoped for.

Neil

Neil

WaterAid - eFestivals chosen charity

As some of you might be aware, eFestivals is committed to giving 1% of turnover (turnover, not profit) to charity, and our chosen charity is WaterAid. I've just given them another sizable donation (the second this year) as a result. Thanks goes to every user of eFestivals - without your support of eFestivals, this just wouldn't be possible. WaterAid is an international charity dedicated to helping people escape the stranglehold of poverty and disease caused by living without safe water a

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I sleep all winter

Now is the time of year when most people seem to think I spend my time sunning myself on a beach. I wish. Although there's not much festie news at this time of year, now is when lots of little bits and pieces on the website get improvements made to them, the company accounts gets sorted out, deals are made for next year, new servers are installed or upgraded, etc, etc, etc - it all takes time, and normally more time than I think it will (hence me asking for a php programmer to help me out wi

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holidays

Well, for the first time in six and half years of running eFestivals, I decided to take some time off last week. I'd forgotten what doing nothing was like! And now I'm back, refreshed and raring to go ... watch out world.

Neil

Neil

MyFestivals groups

Many people appreciate the tight moderation of the main forums here, as it keeps the forums focused on the festivals they're about - unlike other forums on other websites, they don't become full of posts about what someone had for lunch and other very-off-topic things. To give those users here who would like more freedom to chat about their favourite festivals and anything else, we've now added MyFestivals Groups. Anyone can create a group along with a forum for that group, and the leader of

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one for the personal 'cool moments' list :)

I stopped at a garage today to fill up with some petrol, and about a minute later a posh-ish motor pulls in. Out gets Peter Gabriel, and he looked across at me, nodded and said hello.... like I'm his mate. OK, I had met him earlier in the afternoon at a press conference, but that was there (I don't count something like that for a 'cool list' as I expect to come across such people now and then thru my job), and this was out there, on the street. BTW, if anyone is wondering if Peter is get

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crap bureaucracy

I just picked my post up from my doormat. I opened a letter from DVLA, saying that I hadn't sent them my licence to be endorsed for speeding as they'd requested, and so my licence will be revoked from this coming Sunday. I open the next letter, and it's also from DVLA .... all it contains is my licence, newly endorsed for the speeding offence. If the guys at DVLA could add two and two to make four, they'd be dangerous.

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Neil

forums upgrade

The forums software (including the galleries, blogs, and chatroom) software has all been upgraded to the latest versions.

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eFestivals servers coping fine

Today is the first really busy day since all the recent upgrades were put in place ... there's currently over 900 people on the forums (and many times that number using the green pages of efests), and the servers are ticking along nicely, no stress at all. Good news!

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eFestivals on TV?

I've just had a chat with a reporter from Channel 4 news. They'll be running a piece (probably this Thursday, 7pm) about the explosion of live music and festivals, and they wanted my expert ( ) advice to help with their piece. They said that eFestivals would be mentioned, and it would either be a quote from me (not my voice tho) or a screenshot of the website ... but I never quite believe these things till they happen. Anyhow, fingers crossed!

Neil

Neil

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