Things have been getting
a little behind lately. I've also had several emails from people asking
why I haven't posted this or that. From time to time I also get asked
what is involved in keeping a site like this going. I decided it was
time to sit down and write a webmasters diary so that people could see
exactly what is involved. Hehe people think it's all glamour and loose
women but as you will see the reality is quite different. Here is a day
in the life of the Frugmeister.
Diary of a Webmaster - By Mark "Frugal" Bush
7am the alarm goes off.
Dang, time to get up already. I drag myself out of bed have a cup of
tea and a smoke then it's into the bathroom. I emerge ready to face another
day at work by 8am and arrive at work at about 8:45. After a coffee and
a smoke the long hard day training people to work on the tech support
helpdesk of a major ISP begins. Today's subject is POP3 and SMTP we manage
to have fun with it despite the dryness of the subject due in part to
my acting the fool and making fun of myself.
I meet Jazman for lunch and we discuss the redesign of the site and a
few other projects including Jazzmans own site fragged.org. Then it's
back to work and I get my trainees telnetting into mail servers to put
into practice the theory that they learned this morning. It's pretty
satisfying, I have taken 5 normal guys and turned them into geeks in
less than a week :-) By 6 pm I am done for the day and to be honest I'm
feeling pretty done in by now. It's surprising how tiring this training
lark is.
I arrive home at about 7pm and the next 2 hours is family time. I spend
a few hours with my kids, hearing all about their day at school, playing
with them and breaking up the endless fights and arguments between them.
By 9 pm it's time to put the kids to bed, they usually have other ideas
at this point so another battle often ensues. Finally the kids are in
bed and I am feeling completely done in. It's surprising how tiring this
parenting lark is.
9-10pm is dinner time. This is my first real chance to sit down and relax
so far today and I get to spend some quality time with the wife and maybe
watch some TV. This is the danger zone as far as being a webmaster is
concerned. Once I am relaxed and comfortable it takes quite an effort
to get my ass out of the chair and get to the PC.
10pm time to go to work on the site. First order of business check the
email. Crap… there are 187 mails tonight, nearly 100 of those to the
ibeta mailing list. I work my way through the email and by 11:30 I'm
ready to update the news. Luckily 2 of those emails were news submissions
so I'm already off the ground with a couple of news items for the day.
I then go through approximately 30 sites looking for updates. Today is
not a bad night for news as I find a Super Hornet review on Gamespot,
a Gunship preview on SimCombat,
an online shopping article on Furball
Magazine and an IL2 interview on Dogfighter
to add to the 2 items that were submitted by email. This whole process
has taken me up to almost 2am and I'm feeling pretty done in. SimHq
have posted some good articles lately that I still haven't had the chance
to read fully so I will try and get back to them tonight. It's surprising
how tiring this news hound lark is.
Before I do anything else I need to do some admin on the Falcon 4 Webring.
After logging into the ring I check the sites in the que. A couple of
the sites are ready to be inserted into the ring as they have added the
code and graphics but there are another 3 sites that still haven't added
the code. I am a little concerned for these sites as they have been in
the que for almost 2 weeks and will automatically be dropped from the
que if they are not added soon. I decide to mail these sites to let them
know that they are about to drop out of the que but I am tired and I
forget. It's surprising how tiring this webring hosting lark is.
Now it's time to check the forums. I make it a point to try and read
every post on all our forums every night. That's getting harder and harder
as the forums are starting to get quite busy. As I go through the forums
KC23 is on line so I chat to him about the site, simming and other such
things. As he goes off line BBall appears on line. BBall is currently
on layover on a long haul flight. While he has been alone in the hotel
he has put together another log book article about the heroes he has
encountered during his years as an aviator. He sends it to me and as
I read it I wonder what I have done to deserve such incredible people
working with me.
By now it's 3am and I am finished checking the forums. I continue to
chat to BBall about upcoming sims and we try to decide on a title for
the logbook article. I am also chatting with a few other pals such as
Redwolf from Dogfighter, Bob
from Sim Arena
and Stardog form the Sim
Shack on ICQ at this time. At about 3:30 am BBall goes off line.
I decide to forgo formatting the article at this point as it is pretty
late and I'm very tired.
I still have some Gunship Screen Shots that I need to format but this
is also too big a job for this point in time as first I have to make
thumbnails, then I need to optimise all of the images. Then the job of
actually putting it all into html is a laborious process for screen shots.
I will leave these things for the weekend. I also need to find some time
to bring the links and files pages up to date. I've also got to do a
review of the Fighter Systems HOTASS. Hmm things are getting behind.
I decide that tomorrow I will write this webmasters diary to give people
some idea what is involved. I scribble some quick notes about what I
have done tonight for reference.
I decide that it's time for bed. I'm feeling really done in by now. It's
surprising how tiring this webmaster lark is.
random irc quote: <Paul1212> My reality was worse than yours. No one ever tried to kick my ass. No one ever offered me drugs. I didn't exist, I guess.. 8-(
