Claire's Random Thoughts

This is the second step in my guide in Developing Proxy Sites.

It is recommended that you use a custom template/theme to customize your proxy site, preferably one that is optimized for adsense or SEO more so than the default is. After all, the whole point of starting proxies is to gain traffic and collect ad revenue, right? I wouldn’t go for a paid theme. There are simply too many free ones for a paid one to be necessary. If you use a fancier theme, does that mean more traffic? Doubtful, unless your theme is so eye-catching that it becomes impossible for visitors not to remember.. anyway, I would stick with the free themes.

I give up in finding an organized site with an index of Glype proxies. They’re kind of all over the internet if you do a google search, but there is no single site with a large index of templates. one website I found with a few good ones is GlypeDesigns.com if you want to use Glype.

All Nuke Stuff has some nice ones for PhProxy

Zelune templates are a little harder to find, since Zelune is used less extensively overall. However, there are a few good ones, such as the one I used for my Clean and Simple proxy setup.

I started my Polyphasic Everyman sleep schedule just over two weeks ago, and I think it’s somewhat working now, despite the fact that I have not been adhering as strictly to it as I would have liked to. I feel like I’m getting at least some REM sleep during my naps! So now I get my stage 4 sleep to allow my body to repair itself during the core sleep and REM sleep during the naps to allow my brain to “defragment” and maintain my cognitive ability.

My slight deviations:
Occasional alcohol and caffeine that interfere with the quality of sleep
Naps are not always on time (or in a few cases skipped altogether) due to sporadic social, academic or career related activities that I refuse to miss
Some oversleep in core sleep to make up for above two errors

I read online that there was also a variation with 4.5 hours of core sleep and two naps instead of three. I’m thinking about allowing myself the extra 90 minute cycle of core sleep tonight to boost my immune system. After all, I did just get my flu shot today and don’t get the flu. If I have to skip a nap from now on, I might take a 4.5 core instead of the most popular 3 hour core.

Something else I might try is splitting up the core sleep to maximize stage 4 sleep. Taking a look at the chart of sleep stages, it appears that the first 90 minute cycle is most effective in maximizing stage 4 sleep, the most important for muscle repair. The longer you sleep, the less stage 4 and the more REM sleep you get. Since I’m already getting quite a bit of REM sleep from the naps, it might be better for my body to split up the core sleep into two 90 minute cycles instead. The next time I feel like developing my experiment even farther, I might more the core sleep slightly earlier, get up after 90 minutes for a while, and sleep another 90 minutes. Theoretically, if I stay up for long enough in between, I should start at the first cycle again and get a little extra stage 4 sleep.

I’m actually feeling better now than I used to. When I was on monophasic sleep, falling and staying asleep was definitely a challenge. I live with three other people, none of which who have 8am classes every day like I do. Naturally, that makes them want to go to sleep later. Unfortunately, this comes with the side effect of disturbing me when I’m trying to fall asleep or waking me up if I finally do get to fall asleep. I also had a little insomnia sometimes, which caused me to waste time lying awake.
This new everyman sleep schedule solves both of these problems. Now I go to sleep in the middle of the night, when everyone else is asleep, so they don’t disturb me anymore (I don’t disturb them either, because I just sit outside by myself on my laptop or in front of my books with my headphones on). Furthermore, I somehow never have trouble falling asleep anymore. I guess when I need sleep badly enough, I’m more willing to “let the day go”, something I had trouble doing before.
Maybe this schedule is good for people with insomnia and/or college students who can’t sleep due to excessive noise?

If I decide to revert to monophasic sleep, it will either be because I can’t control my diet, which will make me fat after a while. When I take a ballpark figure of my calorie intake, I get about 3500 per day, which is a little excessive, even if I work out. I need to work on either eating slightly less frequently or switching to lower calorie foods.

This post sponsored by PayPerPost v4.0

PayPerPost.com (definition in a nutshell) = How the starving blogger survives

A few of my posts in the past have been paid advertisements for merchants who hire bloggers to promote their sites and products through PayPerPost.com. Basically, advertisers pay you (bloggers) for exploring their sites and blogging about your opinion about them.

Now they have officially launched a new and improved version, known as PPV v4.0. Because this new version is still in alpha mode, users may still elect to log into the old version, if desired. And, of course, since v4.0 is still in alpha, there might be some bugs that cause abnormal functionality, so you may log onto version 3.0 if you encounter some of these. However, I have not found any problems thus far.

The new version, without a doubt, trumps the old version in simplicity and cleanliness without sacrificing functionality. There are only two essential tabs in the new version, opportunities and my account, and these are really all you need. In PayPerPost v4.0, there are still links under the primary “opportunities” and “my account” tabs that allow access to all the other pages available in the 5-tabbed version 3.

My favorite improvement, above interface improvements, is the new advertiser/blogger writing and payment policy. It used to be that bloggers would have to browse oppotunities themselves, pick a topic, and pray that the advertisers would even respond to written posts. This used to take up to a few months, if ever. Under the new policy, bloggers receive an email when a paid opportunity comes in and can either accept and complete within 3 days or decline the offer. Once submitted, advertisers only have 3 days to manually review your post, otherwise it is automatically reviewed. No more long periods of uncertainty in waiting for approvals! Because of this final improvement, I might start using PayPerPost more frequently in the future than other paid to blog services.

Those of you who know me probably know that I am obsessive and excessive over data backup. I have two separate external hard drives (so I can have a backup of a backup, as if one were not enough) where I keep an archive of all my files I’ve accumulated in this lifetime. Whenever I have a document that’s a work in progress, I obsessively email myself an updated copy at least every couple hours in case my computer crashes. Ok, so you get the point.

Now, instead of emailing working files to myself, I can simply use Dropbox. It’s a pretty new service, and I’ve just started using it, but I would definitely recommend it based on what I have seen so far.

Dropbox currently offers 2GB of free storage without advertisements per free account. That’s probably not enough for all your files, but it is definitely more than sufficient for working files that are not yet archived for the average individual. There are also a couple paid upgrade options, but I feel like 2GB is more than enough for my needs as long as I only store current files. Refer a friend and receive 250mb of extra storage per friend (If you do happen to sign up, then please use my link). They also feature a public folder option so that you can share files with your friends/family. This feature is also ideal for group projects with files that need to be accessed by more than one person.

You can access your storage account via browser or directly from your file explorer, available in Windows, Linux, and Mac, as long as you download their software. I definitely prefer the drag and drop file explorer, because it’s so well integrated that it feels like I’m copying to an internal drive!

Here are some screenshots (click pictures to enlarge):

I am running Ubuntu 9.04 Linux in this screenshot. You can see your folders and files almsot as if they were on your hard drive, but…if your hard drive crashes, the files will still be safe!

Wow, I have to admit that I’m a rare breed. I’m currently both a Linux and Windows 7 RC user. What’s up with that? Anyway, in Windows file explorer, you get roughly the same effect. Sorry, no Mac screenshot, but Mac users, I think you get the point. I’m not trying to be anti-Apple here, but I definitely can’t justify paying for most Apple products, so I’m sticking to Windows (when it’s free or included) and Linux.

If you prefer, or if you need to access your files on a computer without the software installed, then there is also a browser view option where you can upload/download files directly to on the dropbox website. Not as convenient or aesthetically pleasing as the drag and drop software, but it works.

What happens when Pinocchio says…