I’m still not 100% convinced that paying for an online education is a good idea, but the fact that it’s O’Reilly makes me much more curious.

Course List:

For the complete I.T. beginner:

* Introduction to HTML and CSS
* Learn Object-Oriented Programming Using Java
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin I: The Basics of System Administration
* Learn C Programming, Part 1

For the beginner/intermediate student:

* Introduction to PHP
* JavaScript 1: Client-Side Programming
* Learn Perl for CGI Programming
* PHP/SQL 1: Introduction to Database Programming
* Learn SQL for Database Programming
* Learn C Programming, Part 2
* Learn VB-Script
* Learn Unix for Web Programming
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin II: Networking and DNS
* Learn XML

For the intermediate/advanced student:

* JavaScript 2: AJAX
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin III: Unix Services (including email and web servers)
* Linux/Unix Sysadmin IV: Scripting for Administrators, Sed, Awk, and Perl
* Learn Visual Basic .NET
* Learn C#.NET

So a few of us have been working on a new community site geared specifically towards geeks. The site is still being developed, but the forums are up and running and the official blog is only days away.

Check it out at zengeeks.com. A bit of a warning though, this community is not for everyone. It’s for the geekiest of geeks, e.g., TWiT fans, digg fans, gamers, coders, technology enthusiasts, sci-fi fans, movie buffs, web 2.0 geeks, cyberculturists, Mac heads, hardware freaks, modders, podcasters, bloggers, internet junkies….

If you don’t have an interest in at least one of the above topics, then save yourself a trip. You would most likely die of severe geek shock. In fact, just to be safe, I set up a little geek test for you below. See how you do. Don’t cheat!

You must know one or more of the following people (and if they’re fictional or real):

• Joss Whedon
• Steve Wozniak
• Leo Laporte
• Kara Thrace
• Kevin Rose
• Boba Fett
• John Carmack
• Gordon Freeman
• Linus Torvalds
• Kevin Mitnick

You must know what two or more of the following stand for:

• LotR
• IBM
• BF1942
• HTML
• USB
• RSS
• WoW
• 1337
• HTTP
• BIOS

You must understand and accept the following:

• The internet is not a series of tubes.
• Web 2.0 is not the next version of the web.
• When someone tells you they’re in a clan, don’t assume they’re racist.
• Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, & 3 suck!!
• A hacker is a programmer, not a pimply faced kid in his basement trying to break into your computer.
• Never use the term “l33t haX0r” in a sentence, written or verbal, unless to tell people never to use the term “l33t haX0r” in a sentence, written or verbal.

Was that so bad? If you think you did half way decent then head on over, register a user name, create a profile, and start geeking out. The more the merrier. The more the geekier. Sorry, I had to say it.

My blog obviously made it onto some dark and loathsome list. I’ve been so busy with the new website that I haven’t really had the time to combat these evil spammers from hell. Some good news though, the new website is coming along nicely and will hopefully be ready within the next 45 days or so. Yippee!

I set aside some time tonight to install some spam thwarting plug-ins and scripts. For the love of God I hope it works. I am so sick of seeing ads for Viagra and discount perfume and cheap tickets and phentermine. What the hell is phentermine?

Wish me luck. I’ll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, if you see a comment from someone like jim@bigboobs4all.tv or stiff_one@viagracheap.ru, please, just move along. Unless, of course, you want a good deal on Viagra. Then yes, stiff_one would be the man for you.

Phrostbyte holds a certain amount of sentimental value to me. It was an ugly site when it was up, but it was completely original. I wrote the site entirely by hand in html, which I learned as I went along. Later, I added things like javascript and CGI, skills that I had also picked up along the way. I added chat rooms via IRC, integrated into the site with javascript. I embedded multiple search engines within the site. I had reference pages, shout boxes, arcade games, you name it. I wanted to try everything I could. I even had my first taste of SQL, PHP, and CSS with Phrostbyte. It has been a great experience.

I also had a pseudo-blog on my site. This was long before I even new what a blog was. Blogs have been around since the mid 90′s, just not on my side of the net. I was a member of the forumsphere, so to speak, not the blogosphere. On the front page of my site, however, I had a column where I would write on a variety of topics. The mechanism even worked the same way as a traditional blog. Every time I made an entry, the previous entry would be pushed down and replaced with the new one, complete with a time & date stamp. Very blog like, huh? I guess you could say that Phrostbyte was my first real blog.

I’d have to say that my favorite part of Phrostbyte were the discussion boards. I used a great software package called Ikonboard. I later switched to phpBB and then to SMF. As far as free software goes, I still like Ikonboard the best.

It wasn’t the software that made the forums great though. The forums were tiny, with only a hand full of close friends that used it regularly, but it was always active and we always new where to find each other.

The site has been dead for quite some time now and it’s the right time to shut her down. I still have skyecade.net and I’m also working on a new community site which will, in a sense, be replacing Phrostbyte. I hope to officially launch it within the next 2 months.

I would like to bring Phrostbyte back sometime in the future. What form she’ll take I can’t say. I’ll probably use her for some other educational endeavor. Perhaps Python or Ruby. Or maybe even a little Ajax. Time will surely tell.

Here is a list of what I’m looking for:

• Reasonable amount of disk space (5GB to 20GB)
• Reasonable amount of bandwidth (15GB to 50GB)
• POP3/POP3 Secure Email Support
• IMAP/Secure IMAP Email Support
• Aliased Domains
• Subdomains
• MySQL Databases
• CGI-BIN
• Server Side Includes
• FTP Access
• Shell Access (SSH)
• Cron Jobs
• PHP Version 4 or 5
• Perl 5
• Python
• Ruby / Ruby On Rails
• MySQL 4.1
• SSL Secure Server (maybe)
• Half way decent support
• And it must be on a Linux box

Price isn’t too much of a factor and I really don’t need everything on that list, but I would like room to grow if I need it. GoDaddy doesn’t offer cron jobs on their shared hosting accounts. I really could have used that feature a couple of months back. Oh well, you live, you learn

I’ve narrowed it down to 7 companies. They all come pretty close to what I’m looking for and they all have a pretty good reputation. Some better than others.

And the final contestants are:

• Site5
• Liquid Web
• Dot5
• Bluehost
• Hostgator
• asmallorange
• Servage

Here’s where it gets tricky. Some companies have every feature that I’m looking for, but receive mediocre reviews from its users (Bluehost), whilst other companies receive stellar reviews, but lack certain features I would really prefer to have (Hostgator & asmallorange). When will this madness end!

After months of reading reviews and talking to admins, I’m going to buckle down and pick a hosting company tonight. Or maybe tomorrow night. Let me just read one more review. Just kidding, I’ll let you know who I choose and why.

robertsinclaire.com

I figured I should scoop this up before some other Robert Sinclaire snatched it. Luckily, the spelling of my name is pretty rare. Take notice of the e at the end of Sinclaire. That little baby sets us apart from the rest.

Sinclair, on the other hand, is a very popular name. In fact, both robertsinclair.com and robertsinclair.net are already taken. One of the Robert Sinclairs is web designer, and a pretty good one at that. Neat, huh? The other is a hair dresser. Umm, that’s neat too, right?

Sorry, I’m babbling.

This brings my domain name count to 8, with about another 5 I have my eye on. One project at a time though.