No, I’m not sliding down a bannister.  Instead, Santa brought me a Wii for Christmas (or rather Boots.com did a few months ago, before stocks starting running out, and I had it in a cupboard until Tuesday).

Wow, great machine. Immediately bought some Wii points and splashed out on a Virtual Console game (Mario 3, which Laura was struggling to play on her laptop) and the Internet Channel. So, if you’re thinking of getting one, here are some tips that I wish I’d known before…

•  Super Mario Galaxy is THE game to get. Very, very addictive.
• I didn’t think I’d need a second Nunchuck, but I was wrong. Lego Star Wars requires one for the second player. Cheapest price is £13.99 from DVD.CO.UK
• Some of the virtual console games WON’T work with a Wii controller, and require you to buy a classic controller. That will be an extra £15 (play.com, Argos, etc). Depends if old NES and N64 games are your bag though.
• You can buy Wii points from outlets such as Amazon but you can also buy via the Shop Channel on the Wii. It’s £7 for 1000 points (Internet Channel was 500 points and virtual games are usually 500-1000 points each).
• The Shop Channel is dog slow unless it’s on certain router channels (1 or 11 I think). I use 6 as I have a Super-G option.

And, thankfully a tip I found beforehand, Nintendo are providing free protective “jackets” for the controller. If you’ve not got one (or how many you need) then they’re recommended.

This site is generally now getting to how I’d like it. I’m slowly working through my old posts and tagging them, so expect that tag cloud to the left to slowly change. With over 100 posts, though, it’s a slow process (especially as I’m correcting spelling mistakes and sorting out image placement as I go).

Meantime, if you get a database error whilst perusing, I apologise. I’ve opened up the issue with Streamline.net, who provide the hosting, to see what they can do. I’ve never had this issue with other sites (but then again, Streamline have always had them on a different server).

Merry Christmas!

This is my first post since changing blog platforms.

I started my blogging life using Googles excellent Blogger. But time moves on, and I was looking for a more integrated method which I could have more control over.

A few weeks ago I tried out Wordpress which a friend of mine was using. I initially installed it onto a test domain and then once I was happy to use it, I purchased hosting and moved my artiss.co.uk domain to it. Wordpress was dually installed and I’ve moved over my Blogger posts using a built-in Wordpress import facility. All very impressive.

At the moment I’m playing with various plug-ins, so expect the site to change a bit over the coming weeks as I try things out.

My Blogger site is still there, but no longer updated. In due course, when I feel brave enough, I’ll close it (but not before I find a way to backup my Wordpress posts).

If you’re a Wordpress pro (or even an experienced amateur) then feel free to chip in with some comments and help me out.

I’d never heard of SQL Injection until yesterday.

But now I’m well versed (thanks to an article on Wikipedia) and already making changes to my sites. If you’re using SQL and don’t know what this is all about, I’d suggest a read!