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Introduction

Ackadia has been gradually growing since 1998 and covers news, views and resources on computers, web design, games, education and general interest. The main emphasis of the site however is web design and the IT industry from a consultants eyes view.

Essentially, Ackadia is a huge help-file for my family, friends and any and all visitors. It is updated as often as I can and will eventually hold over 10,000 pages of unique information.

~ Paul

Service Update 30th April 2008

Yes, I know, nearly a year after I said I'd get on with it…

"Please miss, I got a letter from me mam"

From the doctors really, currently dealing with a HSP, a degenerative neural disorder that, amongst other things causes your muscles to atrophy. Had it about ten years now but it's a tad insidious in that it tends to start at the legs and progress upwards…

Reached my bladder, thickened the muscles there and collapsed my ureters leading to kidney failure from hydronephrosis. Acute rather than chronic but two years on, while not life-threatening at present, still needs frequent hospital check-ups and days were I turn a funny shade of grey and keel over.

On top of that, and apparently the biggest contributer to my problems, mental if not physical, is also being diagnosed with PTSD. A little before said kidneys packed up I was in a road traffic accident with my son, run over on a pelicon crossing by some . I had negligible injuries, he had "slight injuries" according to the police report (*cough*, cover up? *cough* back-hander?). "Slight" including a fractured skull and brain swelling than left him comatose in an intensive care unit in Manchester.
Slight my

Anyway, I am slowly trying to get some semblance of normality back into my life and this site back on track. Just going to take longer than I intended. Ho hum.

Personal update, 1st July 2007

I've had a ghastly week, it feels like my blood urea is right up again and my kidneys are giving me loads of grief - not a good thing as by the time you can feel the pain… Just as well I'm back in hospital next week to have my stents changed, 'cos I feel like kak!

If the upcoming surgery doesn't kill me (I was in 3 months last time), I'll try and shake this lethargy off and build my sites up again.


Service update, June 2007

Shaking the dust out!

Just trying to get my act back together after a really bad year or so. Normal service and daily updates should resume shortly!

OK, the gallery and forum are sorted, if a little sparse. Next to choose a decent blogging system. Personally I'm quite happy doing the pages manually, but you loose all the connectivity of RSS feeds, usuable comment systems etc, so I guess I'll bite the bullet and integrate one. Should be in within the next week or so.


The last month or so I've bounced from one provider to another and back again - At one point I think I was trying to manage five servers with three providers. Clearly untenable and cost me a fortune in hosting fees but I'm finally got a dedicated server that I'm really comfortable with. No affiliate link (yet ) but if you are wondering, it is Hostgator.

Nielson Ratings

If you are a web developer and/or run a commerial website, you should find the following link of great interest:
Nielsen Netratings Global Index Chart
It gives the latest data on average computer usage. For instance, for May 2007:

• Time surfing: 31½hours
• Sites / Domains visited: 71
• Pages read/viewed: 1,509
• Pages read per session: 41
• (Sessions lasted 55 minutes)
• And the important one, I think, time spend reading a page: 45 seconds

So, in mass market terms, Internet users will log on for an hour, glance at their email and maybe search for something particular and then flick through an assortment of sites before getting bored and finding something better to do. You have a few seconds to gain their attention and confidence! As an aside, I believe you have about 3 seconds to impress them as the page loads, else, off they toddle.

~ Paul

A look at FreeIQ

Introducing Free IQ : The Marketplace for Ideas!

Still in beta but this has the potential to be the next 'YouTube' style phenomenon! Before you think of visiting what could be the 'next big thing', read my thoughts on the matter:

At the most basic level it is a fully searchable, peer rated, free to join, information media sharing and shopping portal.

At present media means pdf's, audio and video clips - up to 100Mb in size. These files can be free or for sale, intro's, samples or full 'products'. There is no charge for uploading nor host and streaming and you choose if you want the items to be free - or sold. In the latter case, they handle all the e-commerce sales, taking a small commmission and handling charge and handing over the rest to you.

Just to reiterate, they will host and stream your media for free. You even get an easy to edit web page to present yourself to the world and expound your expertise.

On first glance it is just appears to be another affiliate/marketing thing and indeed that's what is populating it at the moment, but I believe this is narrow-mindedness on behalf of the person behind it, Brad Fallon. And yes, I have told him so more than once (in forums). That said, other pages on the site do extoll his full vision and foresight, as the following quote shows:
If you are an expert on just about any topic, Free IQ is the perfect solution to display your ideas and showcase your knowledge.

Joel Comm is one very well known name (is his field) using it to promote and sell the likes of his .pdf Google Adsense guides. Others are selling seminars. Here's a few other uses, things I've recommended to friends:

One couple have a luxury holiday apartment in the South of France. They are now considering making a promotional video of the place to share with potential renters.

Another primarily sells car and bike products through trade shows and will be using it to showcase videos of these. He also sells digital camcorders and will be doing clips to show off the quality of these.

Yet another group are musicians and are looking into this as a way on promoting and even selling their songs.

Early days yet - it's still in beta development - but give it a year or so and a wide enough diversity of users and I reckon you will see explosive growth, move in terms of the number of people using it, and in terms of it's actual usefulness.

One of the key feature they are promoting is that they base their search result ranking algorithms on the feedback and reviews by people all around the world. (Patents pending). The results page displays all the free content in the the main area of the screen, while content that's for sale is displayed in the small right-hand column, just like the paid search results or 'sponsored results' of all major search engines.

Anyway, go take a look, you could be surprised!

UK Competitions
UK based, but if you bookmark nothing else, this is THE ONE.
No really, in over a decade on the internet I've never seen a more useful competitition website!

Top link EVER: Processlibrary
Seriously, anyone - everyone - in tech support and related roles NEEDS to visit this place. And if you aren't in these roles, but have a healthy dose of sensibility, curiosity and/or paranoia, get yourself hence! This is going to make our life so very much easier!