If your regular followers of me you’ll know that I have had a blog for well over 4 years and in that time things have gone wrong and I have had to start again and then something new has come to my attention and I’d want to change again. While this is no different, I originally wanted use blogger because it was free right out the box and I wanted hassle free blogging, which it also did really well however there was just something there, that meant I really wanted to go back to WordPress and here is why I can think I wanted to go back.

While writing articles I found myself wanting to remember what articles were relevant to this and wanting to be able to link back to them, however if you want to link back to them they need to have direct relevance to your article not something that readers of the articles might be interested in. In WordPress, there are wide ranges of plugins that allow the related articles to be automatically generated based on the tags that are being used and Blogger just did not have that for me. This is something that I liked to use, to try to keep readers on my site and to give them more information that could be useful to them.

In addition, as a content management system WordPress has a lot more to offer than the Blogger Platform, it gives me the opportunity to expand further if I ever want to. I am not taking anything away from the Blogger Platform as it does exactly what it says on the tin, there is no maintenance to be done by you once your set up and ready to go which means you can concentrate on the material that you are pushing out. For that reason if you only want to make a blog with no ambition to make it anything else then it is the platform for you. However just like WordPress.com you are limited to what you can do which outside the box, which is why I am going back to WordPress.org on my own hosting package so that it allows me to expand the site if the time comes when I need to.

As for switching from Blogger to WordPress, taking all my blog post with me was dead easy; all I did was use the importer and followed the steps. It does leave me with one problem though and that is the fact that I have linked back to pervious articles in some of my articles would have had the blogger address to follow. As I am not a big blog at this point and the blogger address is, still active I am not going to go and look for the links and change them at this point. As I do not think, it will be a great problem.

Watching this program made me think about what we consider dangerous and whether we are right or wrong because here we had someone swimming with the top predator in the sea yet they were interacting with her not trying to kill her.

For me this led me on to thinking about how well do you know someone, when you don’t know them how do you know whether they are dangerous or not, different idea but stop and think just because they are top predator in the sea and have had incidents in captivity does that really mean these whales are a danger to us?  While I was thinking about this watching the program I started to realise that they have capability to be dangerous however these whales didn’t move a muscle to hurt this women that was swimming with them, they displayed high intelligents in the fact they were interacting with Ingrid.

In 2010 there was an incident where a Killer Whale in Sea World killed a trainer, but before you go blaming the whale I really do think we need to stop and think if wild Killer Whales interact or just ignore people swimming with them and cause them no harm what is the difference between them and their captive counterparts.  I am not qualified to answer that question but it is definitely worth thinking about because the documentary ok it was a little biased towards portraying these huge animals in a good light and how much we need to help them, but this women is doing this day in day out and not coming to any harm with them.

Captivity is something that I am on the fence with though, as I think they should be left in the wild and being kept in tanks isn’t good for them.  On the other hand having a few in captivity could be a good thing in the long run because your able to make people more aware of these animals along with breeding programs.  Which ok increase the population however whether or not they can be successful reintroduced into the wild I am yet to find a definitive answer for.

All in all though I found this documentary very insightful and if you get chance to catch it on BBC IPlayer it was while worth a watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0147dw3/

http://www.orcaresearch.org/

Now I would just like to make this point before I started this review I have never seen the Planet of the Apes.  Although it some respects when you look around at movies it is probably one I should have seen but I haven’t.  Anyway back to the movie in hand, you have a scientist trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and it experimenting on chimps.  When he realises he has made a break through wants to show his boss and investors that they drug shows drastic signs of improving their ability to think and increase intelligence.

However when it comes to the meeting they try to get the Chimp that is showing the best improvement out and it reacts in an aggressive manner attacking, people and the experiment is shut down with the apes being put down.  When it comes to looking into the apes catch that went off on one they find a baby and none of them have the heart to put it down so the scientist takes him home and that is where the story basically kicks in.

Overall I found that this movie was really quite good, and the acting for the most part really good.  Tom Felton was in this movie who played Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter although it was a good performance by him he was playing a very similar role as he did as Draco and when I saw that he was in the movie I was kind of hoping that the young actor would show us something different.

In conclusion I would say this was a good movie, I am not sure that it lived up to the hype surrounding it however I would give it a respectable 7/10 because I did enjoy it.

Now first off I must apologies for any spelling mistakes and alike as I am writing this on my phone.

However last night I watched the Conspiracy Files on the BBC about the September 11th attacks and it got me thinking about the way in which we interrupt things and whether these interruptions hold any grounds. Now regular readers and people that know me all know I’m all for freedom of speech but there is a problem in my mind with these conspiracy theories.

The problem I see with these theories is the wording. When you hear the word theory in my mind theory gives me the impression that it is absolute fact and when you take the 9/11 attacks they have facts but they aren’t the most convincing. The reason for this is because while watching the program I noticed that these people were twisting evidence to meet their suspicions. My biggest problem is we already have an official explanation and for most they are ok with it which in turn gives some kind of closure for the people that lost love ones. Keeping these theories going means it brings up the horrible event again.

That being said though the program itself might have its on biases what are your views on conspiracy theories do they have there place?

Going into this movie I was a little concerned about what happened with The Simpsons Movie.  Which was good however you just felt that they run out of material and forced the upgrade from a TV Series to a Movie.  That being said however you will not be disappointed you kind of felt that it dragged its heels a bit in places just to pad itself out.  Not that it really damaged the movie.

While watching this movie, it will take you through a journey as you see the transition between relationship changes and realising what the priorities in life are, with that in mind though it brings laughter after laughter and you can’t say a bad word about the acting and material, because it had me in stitches multiple times.

In conclusion this is one of the best movies I have seen this year and ok it’s not serious but its a great extension on the series the more worrying bit for me is that it does seem a fitting ending to the show.  So if they do end the TV Show now its a fitting end.  I will give this an 8/10 I really enjoyed the movie and would say its a must see but I don’t think this could be to everyone’s taste.

As a blog with a custom domain name you have a brand.  The problem then becomes do you think about it and worry about your brand image?  The truth is here at Total Reach I don’t really and my blog has very blurred lines.  My major point is I am not a business, I use it as my corner of the internet where I post things that I think is going to help others or stuff that matters to me and I want to get off my chest.

However Total Reach in itself is something that I would consider to be a good business or brand name and part of the reason why I chose it many moons ago.  With that in mind though it is its own brand as it gives my blog its own identity and kind of keeps me as a person separate from the content that is on here.  Ok my blog is a bit of a mix of personal and shall we say professional material (which is stretching it a bit).  However unless people are pointed to this blog by me there is very little to link me to this blog, because if you google me your very unlikely to find this site.  So if I was to have a future job opportunity they would be very unlucky to find this unless I directed them to it.

You might want to think about your brand more however if you want to make it big time in the blogging world you need to portray and image that suits the type of readers you want to attract.  Along with having a good branding it enables you to make your blog bigger.  The problem you have with that is, what are you trying to achieve for one?  The orginal idea with Total Reach was to make money and then slowly over the years it just become somewhere for me to put what matters to me on here and hopefully also helping people out.  So professionally I am not to worried about branding.

Like anything it needs thought and you need to work out where your going with your brand or blog along with what you want to achieve.  Branding could be highly important to some and not others.  For me branding at Total Reach isn’t it just gives me that base to publish material without having a direct link to me personally without people really going into it.  Although even that point I would have to say isn’t a strong one because obviously its my photo up there on the top of this blog post.

Blogging and Journalism we have for quite some time put in the same sort of category, and in a sense they are one of the same thing as people are effectively writing articles and informing people on the web and in the paper.  However have you really stopped to think about it, the truth is blogging is a tool used by Journalists but it doesn’t necessarily mean every blogger is a Journalist.

Now I know that sounds a bit harsh and some Journalists have started off from blogging, but if you stop and think how easy it is to create a blog and how many people do it, if you considered everyone that blogs a journalist that would be offensive to journalists as they are skilled people.  What makes them different is the way they deal with the material and how it is reported.  I know from my experience of blogging it is just a tinted view on what is happening in the world and the idea is to produce balanced arguments.  Not saying that bloggers don’t but the media lends itself to opinion more than professional journalism.

While people strive to be the first ones to report the story in the world of Journalism the same can be said about bloggers, just I have the feeling some times that yes it is good to be first, however it’s not always essential the internet is a weird and wonderful place and people will read the content that they want when they want.  Where as if your writing for a paper then you have deadlines to meet you need the latest and greatest on time you have to be a lot more cut throat.

In conclusion to this article I do believe in many respects they very similar but the whole model between them can differ greatly, with blogging tending to be more of an opinion than fact however much the author tries.  That being said though you do have the same with papers, and the need to be more cut throat in journalism than in blogs.  Obviously all depending on what you’re trying to achieve though because every situation is different.

While it didn’t really bother me an idea that I was playing around with earlier was how daunting Empire Avenue can be if you’re not really a regular content producer, as your dividends seemingly come from your social interaction.  While this is true don’t panic if you want to try Empire Avenue but you are not really a producer of a lot of content that doesn’t mean you can’t do well.

Now yes you do need to produce some content, but you would be surprised what qualifies and what can be used to produce dividends.  So you only tweet 5 times a day, blog once a week and visit Facebook once in a blue moon it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy Empire Avenue and try to meet new people.  The trick is just like the stock market good investments.  Now I am not going to confuse that I know what I am doing, because I don’t and to be honest this blog was written because it seemed like a good idea and they are my findings.  I have been quiet for the last week or so on my blog front, along with being somewhat estrange from my social media but I had been investing in a few people.  I found that even though I wasn’t producing my normal amount of content my yield was going up thus keeping share holders happy.

So in conclusion if you are a content producer and are just going through a dry patch or you are someone wanting to try out Empire Avenue but are worried that you don’t do enough in the social media world don’t worry, there is more than one way to skin a cat in Empire Avenue.

World War 2 propaganda and mockery eat your heart out.  While that kind of sums up this movie in one sentence in some respects, that being said don’t write it off just yet.  Now I must admit I am not the type of person that reads comic books so when I see these movies I see them as movies and not what was written down on the comic strip so I can’t really compare it to that.

The opening statement I made is true however it can be a little harsh because although this movie is based on a person wanting to become a solider in World War 2 and server is country the movie quickly moves away from World War 2 and becomes Good vs Evil, which in my view was a good thing because it took itself away from a real historical event into the land of fantasy set in our world.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie it is something that you could see with near enough anyone and it would bring laughed and satisfy most people’s needs for a movie.  The action scenes I thought was good along with the acting, that being said though I felt that Hugo Weaving was probably the let down of the cast.  The reason for this I felt he just didn’t fit the role and consequently made the villain slightly weaker in the movie.  That being said though this movie is a definite go and see.  I really enjoyed it and thus give it 8/10

On my quest to find out more about push notifications mainly for email after looking at Blackberry as a phone.  Part of this was for battery life and it seemed as long as you’re not receiving notifications every second of the day it is better on battery life due to the fact your phone isn’t collecting data when there is no need to request data.

Now you’ll be pleased to learn that you can actually get push mail from most providers that I didn’t really know until I looked at the subject in more detail and unfortunately for me this was after I purchased my Blackberry.  Although that move I still stand by because Facebook and Twitter are also pushed on them not just email.  However back to the topic in hand, my money is that your email provider gives you push email you just don’t know it.  We all know that Google offer it along with Yahoo, but stop your own domain can give you push mail as well.

The trick is to find the right client that supports push mail.  As I have only had an Android and Blackberry the Android default mail client doesn’t other than the GMail application, but you can get a K9 Mail that does to instead of the Mail client included with Android.  The only other thing you will need is to use IMAP setting not POP.  It seems that IMAP has the ability to send out push notifications and keeps the connection alive but not using any data until it receives a new message.

So don’t feel like Blackberry are the only ones that offer push mail for other email addresses other than GMail and Yahoo because they aren’t all you need to do is use IMAP settings and a client that supports push technology.