Crazy Gray Magnet

Humanist Library of Leeds

2011-05-29T18:14:00.003Z

At the end of last year, and I do mean the end of last year (it was started over Christmas!) my charity embarked on a new project, to bring together a great collection of literature on humanism and the surrounding subjects.

The idea was to create a Humanist Library here in Leeds which could be a world class collection made available to researchers and in the long term the general public as well.

Similar collections already exist at places like Conway Hall and the Bishopsgate Institute, both of which have excellent collections, unfortunately these are relatively inaccessible to people based up north who don't have the time or money to travel to London on a regular basis.

While the project will no doubt take a long time to really build up a great collection, I'm happy to say that the initial building blocks for the project are in place and we have a good foundation to expand out from.

Humanist Chaplaincy Network

2010-10-03T19:19:00.003Z

In recent years the demand for non-religious pastoral care has grown significantly. As more and more people lose their faith, the demand for occasionally needing "spiritual advice" or someone to talk to has continued as ever and as such as gap in the market has opened up if you will as non-believers search for the same service on their own world view.

As a consequence a number of chaplains have sprung up, most notably Greg Epstein at Harvard University who gained notoriety with his book Good Without God. Here in the UK, the universities in Glasgow are now supported by a humanist chaplain too, in the form of Mandy Evans Ewing.

To help this much welcome growth continue, CWF recently established the Humanist Chaplaincy Network to provide support, training, networking and resources for those volunteering and working as humanist chaplains.

It's Only Water

2008-12-31T11:03:00.002Z

It's been a long time since anyone posted on this blog. Indeed, it's been well over a year. That really is a long time. It's not that there hasn't been things going on since then, things have, not to such an extent has they were before but never the less things are moving forward. Somehow this didn't filter down to the blog though.

In any case, I wanted to talk about the It's Only Water campaign as I believe it is a good cause. The aim of the campaign is to better educate the public on homeopathy and reduce public spending on it.

The best damn thing the web has ever seen

2007-08-30T15:55:00.000Z

It's hard to believe that this blog has been going for two years now. That's quite a long time. My own personal blog has now been going for three years and while that isn't much time at all compared with the old school bloggers who started back in the day, it's interesting to read back through my earlier posts and think about how long ago it actually feels (I'm apparently getting old).

Never the less though, some things never change. Like how awesome Avril Lavigne is. While I'm not quite as big a fan of The Best Damn Thing (her new album) as Under My Skin, it still has some real kick ass songs on it, and if nothing else, it brought back a lot of memories.

With that in mind, the latest addition to the network is Avril Addicts. This new fan site contains loads of information including a database of all her releases (albums, singles, etc) with cover art, a song trivia section, a song meanings section, articles, some quality content rather than the 3 pages of photos and a Wikipedia ripped off biography (it has the photo galleries as well! Plus an original biography I wrote especially for the site too). So hopefully it will be a bit better quality than a lot of the sites out there.

Everyone loves Booty Luv

2007-07-02T19:52:00.000Z

That of course isn't true. But it should be as Booty Luv are one of the best funky house outfits to come along in a while. So from now on you can keep on top of their latest activites and releases on our new site, Booty Luv Fans.

Haunting error messages

2007-02-14T01:45:00.000Z

Slip ups can haunt major websites for a long time - especially with our new site launch in which users can upload screenshots of major websites when they are having problems and displaying error messages :P.

The site, named Server Problems Maybe? will feature the most amusing screenshots we can find. The first screenshot to be uploaded is one of Sony Music displaying some PHP error messages when it was unable to locate an include file.

A site for Miss Clarkson

2007-02-11T14:25:00.001Z

While most of us are quite content to deny we actually like the product of American Idol, stick one of her songs are and at least half a dozen people in the room will eventually start singing along to it.

With that in mind we've launched I Heart Kelly Clarkson to show our appreciation.

OTVDB

2006-12-27T15:49:00.000Z

It's Chrismukka so we've decided to put a little time in project development. Well, we've been developing a while actually but we have finally decided to launch it's public face. OTVDB, or the Open Television Database, is a freely available database available under Creative Commons so anyone can use it.

We don't have editing online yet to allow people to contribute but the information that is already in there is now online for people to use.

Money, money, money

2006-12-23T23:11:00.000Z

These days life seems all about money. Even though we are increasingly having less of it with debt and such. As such, this blog presents the trials of tribulations of dealing with credit cards, overdrafts and generally living without having any money. If students can do it, so can everyone. Bottom line is, Debt Is So Underrated.

The goblins are getting us back on track

2006-12-12T19:02:00.000Z

It's been a while since we've had a good solid service launch. Site launches have been a little sparse lately let along full blown services. On saying that we did launch BBMFS and TV Grapevine so it's not like we've been devoid of such launches.

Still, this will certainly pull us back on track. We're launching a new image hosting service called Image Goblin which lets you upload images which you can hotlink to on forums, blogs, websites, auction listings, whatever takes your fancy.

It's just launched in public beta today and features some pretty neat features like image tags and image resizing.

Find more of the TV you love

2006-11-08T19:40:00.000Z

It's rare that some kind of an experimental project gets turned into a site. But sometimes we get the bug to try something and it ends up actually working (we often get the bug to do something but it actually working - now that is a rare treat).

Such as our latest launch, a little something called TV Grapevine which presents a graphical map of a show and the related shows. So for instance you may start off with Dawson's Creek and you would see a map linking it to The O.C., One Tree Hill and other such shows.

The idea is you can start with your favourite show and find other shows which you may not be aware of or may not have looked into that you would actually really like. And therefore discover more shows which you'll love.

Some would say a day too late but still

2006-11-01T20:31:00.000Z

It seems a little ironic that we should launch a horror website the day after Halloween. I also think it's important to point out that this was not a failure on our part - we had no plans to launch it yesterday and just failed to do so.

Indeed we didn't actually plan to launch it today. We were planning a later launch date but decided to move it up due to it basically being ready - there are still things to develop but content is the most important part of any site and that is online, everything else can wait, it's just extra clutter after all.

The site itself is called All Very Scary. I thought the name up a few weeks ago and thought it would be great for a horror site. Given I already wanted to do a horror site plans were soon in place to launch said site. Here is our first attempt at a result.

It's perhaps not as fantastic as it could have been but if it was we would probably spend forever developing it with these amazing features and never get round to putting content on there which would be somewhat of a bad move so we're focusing on the content for now.

Futurama must be saved

2006-10-25T17:56:00.000Z

If your a big nerd that spends all your time watching TV - well, we're right there with you! We all love our TV and there are few things more annoying than your favourite show getting cancelled. I mean seriously, Futurama was brilliant.

In this spirit we've just gone and launched a new site. It's called Bring Back My Favorite Show (spelt the American way to help our US friends out because we're really nice like that) in which you can sign petitions to get your favourite shows brought back to life. If enough people sign it the studio will start paying attention. So what are you waiting for?

Know Leeds is live

2006-09-29T16:13:00.000Z

We've just officially launched our Leeds guide so if you are living in Leeds it is the website to check out. We figured that as all the freshers have now arrived at university (a total of about 50,000 students are now in Leeds) we should get the guide online.

Tools for your non-average Joe

2006-09-27T19:32:00.000Z

Have you ever wanted to get your hands on a find and replace or other little programming function while not programming? Wanted to add line breaks into the copy you want to paste directly into the web page or do some word wrap?

Introducting Web Tools Playground. It's a set of tools currently in development that will give surfers easy access to basic functionality that you don't always want to open an application or write a script to use.

Greg finally has a voice

2006-09-13T23:09:00.000Z

The problem with movie reviews is that they are often quite lengthy. This is great when you want details but sometimes you just want to know straight up what someone thinks of a movie and whether it's worth you seeing it.

Enter Greg. We've given him a voice on the internet in the form of Greg's Movie Reviews. They are short, break down the good, the bad and on occasion maybe even the ugly so you can quickly see if a movie is worth those 90 minutes of your life.

Blogging on the next level

2006-08-13T12:32:00.000Z

Here at Worfolk Online we quite like Web 2.0, AJAX and all the other buzzwords floating around at the moment. We like keeping on top of the latest technologies and thinking and so we decided the best thing to do was to create a blog about it.

Enter Concept 2.0, a blog about the latest thinking, ideas and technologies that are shaping the future of the world wide web and the people on it.

Miss Lohan gets more appreciation

2006-08-07T15:31:00.001Z

Yeah, that is just what we need, another celebrity blog. We've overloaded with them! But then, one more can't hurt right? Along those lines, our latest site is Simply Lindsay Lohan. With a nice shiny custom look too, something which is perhaps missing from too many of our blogs.

The Talent have a home...

2006-07-18T21:51:00.000Z

...on Worfolk Online. We've just launched This Suffering which is a fan site for the Canadian punk rock band Billy Talent.

Emo Blog

2006-04-21T12:46:00.000Z

Emo Today now has a new section to the site - well in fact, it has two new sections to the site. The second is a guide (although technically it's the first in tab order, but second to be put on the site).

The first is a little something we like to call Emo Blog. This will feature quick reviews, news, release information and various other random postings related to the site.

Let's get religious

2006-03-27T15:14:00.000Z

We've just launched a new discussion forum named Religion Forums. I've spent a lot of time dating religious issues and indeed the concept itself so I thought it could be interesting to start a message board and see what good discussions we could get running as it is always a hot issue.

Leeds Goths is up, sort of

2006-03-26T22:00:00.000Z

Well, it's the sort of launch of Leeds Goths! The site isn't exactly what I had imaginated but I'm not having it sitting round doing nothing whivh when you consider the investment put in, is effectively costing us while it isn't doing anything.

It doesn't have a photo gallery yet, or indeed a homepage (it just redirects straight to the forums) but as the forums were the main feature of the site anyway I think it can begin to form a community by itself.

So yeah, if you consider yourself a goth and you live, go to uni or generally hang-out in Leeds, it is the place to be online.

LeedsGoths.com

2006-03-07T22:24:00.000Z

Although it's not an official launch, I think if something doesn't happen it's just going to get forgotten about it. So it's a project that is still under development but the community is already kick-started.

At least for the moment the Leeds Goth Forums are online.

AudioSenate.net is back

2006-02-19T13:15:00.000Z

Yes, the rumours are true! Ok, there are no rumours, I announced it on my personal blog but that's not the point. After months of developing a new site, the new AudioSenate.net is live.

What's changed since version 1 (of the development)? Well the whole dynamic images with the band's name on have gone to be replaced by a very similar looking background image with the band's name in text :p.

A better tabbing system, some re-naming and URL changes, there are now way more albums for each artist as these are now automatically indexed, there are links to submit reviews and buy the album, a whole new review submission system, news and articles are automatically displayed for the artist and there is probably more stuff I have forgotten to mention too.

Let's get SMF

2006-01-29T22:03:00.000Z

I'm thinking of going in a more forum-y direction. I know they are way overused but I think maybe I am underusing them. Also I think I am underusing SMF which is so simple to upgrade as it does it all for you, it's brilliant!

In that spirit I've just launched Hilary Duff Boards. Go and help me kick start the discusssions :).

And the beat goes on

2006-01-19T11:18:00.000Z

Thanks to some new hosting from Zest Network (they're site isn't online yet), I've just got a new Britney website online named Britney Beats. It's very fansite'ish, styled all in pink (I know, I know ;) but meh I was out to have some fun with designing rather than make it nice and usable.

Plus it has a cool scrolling thing for the images - they are all in one line and the div uses overflow to make it scroll sideways. Again something you should never do on a usable website but it's a fansite and therefore exempt from the rules :p.

Blogging insanity

2006-01-14T13:48:00.000Z

I need to stop with the blogs! I've just launched a new one and neglected to mention that I forgot to give a mention to Made Up Stuff too which I launched before Britney Blog. It's basically another celebrity gossip blog except that all the stories are just lies. So thinking about it, it's probably exactly the same ;).

Anyway so yeah, I've just launched a new one which is going to run alongside the Blog Steak network but won't be doing all the inter-linkage stuff as I'm finding that a little messy and I think that the topics restrict me a bit. This is going to be about anything that's entertaining really.

I was going for a nice and wierd title like I Don't Like You In That Way or If I Were Jimmy Pop. The result is If That Is Your Real Name.

I'm into blogs at the moment

2006-01-10T20:45:00.000Z

Blogs are cool. They are talking over the web. And I'm not going to be the one to stand against the tide until I get knocked over and dragged along the ocean floor like some kind of insiginificant rock. Because that's just not my style. Unless I take a stance, then it's totally my style.

Anyway so yeah, I've just launched a new one called Britney Blog. Suprisingly enough it's a blog about Britney Spears ;). Original huh. I'm pretty pleased with the domain name I've got, it's catchy.

I want juice

2005-12-30T17:53:00.000Z

If only I could be bothered to walk all the way down to the kitchen and get some. But in the mean time I'm working on launching on a new site dedicated a singer I have really got into recently, Heather Nova.

For you Dawson's Creek fans you may know her from the song London Rain which was used in the show. You have to listen to her other stuff to really get what she is about though.

Getting those projects running

2005-12-18T16:24:00.000Z

I often find I have a lot of projects I have started, even got domains for and have on the internet but never really finished. So I decided I should have a flick through my inventory and see what was there. One of which was FanSites.ws which officially launched this morning.

All that really needed doing was to finish the application form and homepage off, easy enough. The directory needed updating too, it's powered by Particle Links which is a solid script (I know because I wrote it :p) so static URLs just needed putting in place and the sites that had not yet been added were put in.

Blogs are the way to go

2005-12-17T15:44:00.000Z

Ok, I admit it, I've gone crazy. I've gone OTT this time. No less than five new blogs launched yesterday. But only four domains, one of them was launched on a sub domain which I think shows considerable restraint on my part.

As I mentioned in my personal blog, I have been working on Horror Blog which is now online. I've also been working on a new network of blogs which includes Movie Steak, Music Steak, Hollywood Steak and DVD Steak.

Branch Planet get a forum

2005-12-15T15:44:00.000Z

One of my fansites is Branch Planet which is one of my main ones that I make sure I have something new for every day. Anyway, I've finally got round to launching a forum on it. Has a custom skin and everything. The one I did was way better integrated but sucked. It was awesome actually but it just wasn't working for me.

Bringing the linkage

2005-12-13T16:54:00.000Z

I've just started playing around with the static page capability on WordPress as I'm using it to power a new site, Celeb Linkage. The site was just going to be a directory but I felt I needed some content too so I thought I might as well just use a CMS as there wouldn't be that many categories.

I'd also toyed with the idea of doing a celeb blog recently but I couldn't produce enough content to make it a site on itself. You need fresh pictures every day for that and Leeds isn't a hub of celebrity activity really. But I thought I could incorporate it into the site so I decided to give WordPress a go and see what happened. Seems to be working out ok so far.

New blog

2005-12-09T18:55:00.000Z

I've just set up a new blog on Blogger which charts stuff that is happening at my halls of residence at uni. As today is like the last day it doesn't have a great deal on it at the moment but over time it should build up. It's called Grant House Gossip.

Indie movies channel

2005-11-27T16:41:00.000Z

I have been toying with the idea of launching an indie movies website for a few weeks now due to my renewed interesting in film making and because of my involvement with the film making society. That said I didn't want to invest huge amounts of time in creating an all new site.

The result was that I decided to launch an indie movies channel on Blair Space. As the site already has integrated video posting capabilities from when I launched the Celeb Storm Show it was pretty easy to do.

It's major change though - until now, BS and Rawice only had six core channels - movies, music, celebs, TV, tech and games. All the rest were different, they weren't part of the integrated system. The new channel however, is.

Carmen, you rock!

2005-11-10T16:03:00.000Z

I still love the blog title. But right now I have more issues to worry about. Or celebrate. I consider this a celebration blog really. To celebrate stuff. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I should probably reach some kind of point.

The point being that Carmen Electra rocks! She really does, I mean actresses almost always look good but they simply aren't in the same league as Carmen. Hence I decided to launch Carmen Electra Planet. Please give the site a nice smile and welcome as the latest member of the network.

In other news I had the first problem with my desktop today. It's new and I have had a few problems but today I had my first application lockup (Firefox, damn you, closing with all the pages I had researched). Not happy. Need a new desktop I think, this one is like two weeks old now.

The next Jessica

2005-10-29T17:55:00.000Z

Been busy today working to get a new site online. Yet somehow I still don't have a Jessica Alba site. I do however now have a Jessica Biel fan site. She already has an impressive filmography and some equally impressive photo shoots too so I really had no choice but to build the site ;).

New celeb sites

2005-10-16T17:21:00.000Z

Ha ha, I love the name of this blog! I had totally forgotten what it was called (I wasn't trying to remember though, I just logged on without a thought to the crazy name I had previously given it) and noticed it listed. I love it!

Anyway, I'd like to draw your attention to two new sites we have just launched. The first of which is Michelle Trachtenberg Planet and the second is Christina Aguilera Planet. Seeing a pattern here? :P.

First shows first

2005-08-25T16:46:00.000Z

To get us kick started, I'm going to start with a new site launched like a week ago or something. The site being Palmetto Pointe Fans. It's a fansite to the new show going out on i (the channel formally known as Pax) this Sunday. It looks awesome.

Why? Because it's got that Dawson's Creek thing going on. It's not just a teen drama, it has actual DC connections in. John Wesley Shipp who played Mitch in DC is playing a character in it (albeit a parent) and I love DC more than anything (well not as much as Encoria or my business but it comes in third with my own life being forth :P).

So yeah, my new approach of carpe diem which is Latin for "seize the day" led me to do just that and take a pre-emptive stike and build the site. After all, I don't think I've ever found a teen drama I don't like.

Welcome all

2005-08-25T16:36:00.000Z

Hi all! First of all, I apologise for the template. There is actually only one good standard Blogger template and I have used that on every Blogger blog I have ever used and I needed a change. This was the next best alternative.

So questions. First of all, why the name? Well, I would ask you, why not the name? But yeah, I dn't know. I couldn't come up with a good name to suite the kind of posts I wanted to make on here so I just made up some random phrase.

The point of this blog is basically to track the new launches, crazy projects and miscellaneous "stuff" that Worfolk Online does. That's how I hope it will turn out anyway.