At the start of January, i told you guys what i was going to do. In a nutshell;

• Get BeerChief online
• Get my new netbook and kit it out
• Revamp the BeerChief blog
• Revamp smemon.com
• Pass my Christmas exams

BeerChief Launch

BeerChief was launched on January 27th. We had some problems at the last minute, but we’ve worked through them and starting from tonight, we’ll be getting some of our major features back online. Once they’re all in place and thoroughly tested, we’ll be focusing on promoting the site for the first time.

For the past 6 weeks or so there hasn’t been a day where i haven’t done some work on BeerChief. That work rate is what’s powering the site forward and i intend to keep it up right through February and beyond. It’s becoming more fun to work with now that the community is giving me feedback and sharing in the changes with me…

Got my Netbook

I got my netbook in early January. It’s already become an essential tool at college for me. The consistent 6 hour+ battery life crushes everything around it… when batteries start to die around me, i’ve got 3/4 hours of juice left Turning off wireless, on zero brightness and i could probably get 7 hours+

One problem i have though is with my college’s wireless network. It’s gone to hell recently and keeps dropping connections and blocking me from logging in on major sites. Further to that, college email is up and down like a yo yo and i can’t check my timetable due to our department’s website CONSTANTLY giving database errors.

More on this to come shortly – i’ll soon be taking matters in to my own hands

Revamp the BeerChief blog

The BeerChief blog was revamped in mid January. It took me a while to settle on a theme and kit it out, but i think i did a good job and the blog is looking fresh and unqiue. I still have to blog more on it, but finding the time is really difficult as getting BeerChief.com sorted is more important at the moment.

Revamp smemon.com

All of the above was complete bar the revamping of smemon.com. I just haven’t had the time to work on it. This blog isn’t just like a normal website for me – i’m using it and looking at it daily so there has to be thought put in to it. At the minute i barely have time to think about smemon.com, never mind act on those thoughts

Pass my Christmas exams

I got my results on January 21st from my christmas exams and passed all first time around. Average of 61% which is bang on what i predicted.

Other

In January, i really got stuck in to twitter. I’ve added over 400 people to my follow list and in return, i have over 200 people following me! I don’t really care who follows me – that’s not why i’m using twitter… i’m using twitter because it allows me to get real time news unedited, straight from the horses mouth.

Whether it’s football scores, airport problems, planes crashing in to rivers, bargain alerts or just talking with like minded people, i now rate twitter as the most important site i visit ahead of google reader, digg, bebo or any other social network.

It’s like a blog/social network without the crap and without the small talk and at the minute, manily used by IT professionals and enthusiasts. Long may it stay that way