The Nitron Works Blog

Fear of confrontation destroys dreams

2006-02-17T12:07:00.000Z

Over the past few weeks I have been dealing with people in the centre who have been, let's say, less then pleasant. I spend a lot of my time pumping myself up with enthusiasm. I constantly think positive and always look on the bright side of things. One of the reasons you very rarely hear about some of the real problems that I face on a daily basis is just that I try to construct my reality so that I can always feel light, bouncy and positive.

because of this I tend to think of other people as people who can basically be trusted and that the majority of people are good and honest. However, this has meant that I have slow to deal with people who start to cross the line between what is acceptable in a gaming centre and what isn't. This was partly because I wasn't totally sure what should and shouldn't go on myself.

Over the past month I have focused my views on what is acceptable behavior and what isn't and Yesterday it culminated with the banning of several people from the centre who crossed the line big time.

I have learned a lot in the past few weeks. Stuff you can only learn from being in situations like these and that experience, regardless of how unpleasant they were, I would not trade for anything. I believe that I've started to cultivate a real no bullshit (bad word justified) attitude to people when it is clear they have no intent to follow rules put in place to benefit others, and who will wiggle and squirm and use the most stupid and foolish techniques to get what they want.

In this episode I have realized just what it was at the beginning that stopped me confronting these people. Fear of confrontation. Every time I had to approach people and tell them to behave in a different way to that they were acting in, my heart beat would increase and I would sweat.

What kept me confronting though, and not backing down, was my remembering my views on change. That change is constant and that in this world, you can only succeed by changing. I realized that if I feared confrontation I would be fearing the thing that I claimed I wanted to represent, change.

Now I barely need to think twice before telling someone that their behavior is unacceptable and to tell them the consequences of the continued behavior. I wonder though how many of the people who are afraid to go into business for themselves are afraid to do so because of the fear of confrontation....

- James

Open Source Stuff

2006-02-13T17:02:00.000Z

Ok!

In the last post I was talking about Open Source software and how valuable it can be. I got quite a few responses from both the blog and off it so here's the list. :-)

Open Office:

The open source equivalent of Microsoft Office, providing you with a complete suite of office applications, the more obvious being a presentation package, a writing package and a spreadsheet package. Other less obvious ones are a math package and drawing package and a database package. These programs are all compatible with office documents and can save into the office format so there is no compatibility problems. Some of the buttons are placed in different places but generally all the functionally of Microsoft's versions are in these open source ones.

Fire Fox:

So much has already been said about Fire Fox that it doesn't really seem necessary to do so here apart from the fact that it's a kick ass browser with a bookmark system that I wouldn't swap for anything!

Ink Scape:

Open source's answer to the likes of adobe illustrate. Of all the open source Apps, this is the one I am most in love with. It is so easy to find your way around and combines the very best from all the other drawing systems such as Flash, Coral draw and Free hand. I installed Ink Scape and literally within the hour I had figured out my way around just about all the basic functions of the program. The more complex functionalities took a little longer but once they are figured out. Well, it's just awesome. :-)

NVU:

The Open Source web developer package. Being able to go toe to toe with the likes of Dreamweaver is no small feet but NVU manages it.... just. Although it does lack some of the functionality of Dreamweaver (Such as a dynamic online/offline file management system) NVU totally schools it when it comes to table management. While Dreamweaver is clumsy and confusing in it's table management system, NVU is easy, simple, and understandable. All in all, if you are a casual webmaster or someone who designs websites purely for their own ventures, this software is a must.

Blender:

I haven't done much in the way of 3-D Graphics or animation so I would really have trouble trying to compare this software against its peers in it's industry segment but if anyone who does work in this area could tell me what they think of this software then I'll update the blog with a thumbs up or down :-) Having said that, from my limited experience it looks like a serious bit of software.

GnuCash:

An open source accounting program. I'm constantlly telling myself that I need to start to take proper steps to sort of my accounting and I'm confident that this program will help me with this no end. Although it should be said that there are several programms out there that are designed to sync with the commersial accounting pacakages and until they all support GnuCash it could be problamatic. But still.... £150 saving is not to be sneased at ;-)

The Gimp:

And finally! In the world of image editing there is only one constant rule. Photoshop is king. It really is hard for any product to go up against it and one of the reasons for this is it just has an unshiftable reputation as the best and that reputation doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. However at over £500 for a full commercial version of the package it isn't cheap and unless you are going to make full use of all it's functionalities it really could be an expensive investment when you consider the open source version. The Gimp has gained something of a cult status around the graphic community especially among Linux uses who, have no other option.

Naturally the great thing about all these programs is that you can try them out at no cost before deciding whether you want to rely on them. It's unlikely that you will prefer every software package over it's closed source peers but even then the cost factor may well swing you. I recommend that you try all of them out. There's nothing to lose and a few thousand quid to gain ;-).

It should also be noted that I haven't covered Video Editing packages. After a good deal of searching I concluded that, unfortunately, the open source video and sound editing programs just aren't mature enough for them to be seriously considered. For those who want to do videography... A mac is still your best bet.

Have fun!

- James

Linux and Entrepreneurship

2006-02-06T20:54:00.000Z

Linux?! What about it?!

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when I was first told that I could use it in my business. My second reaction was “No games run on Linux. None, Zip, Keine, Niches, Zero” Then I actually engaged my brain and realized that businesses don't need to run games on their computers and that they are by far the biggest buyers of Linux machines.

I did some more research. My heart raced, I was in “The Zone” I was learning stuff. Stuff I had absolutely no idea even existed. In fairness I was already primed to receive this kind of information since I had been going on an open source crusade for various bits of software for a while but now I've started to put all the pieces into a business concept that I could consider mature enough to seriously pursue.

Many of us who are website developers, graphic artists and the like are no doubt familiar with the very high prices that many software packages command. Dream weaver costs £375, Coral Draw costs £300 and so on. For a cash strapped entrepreneur who needs to start his business on the cheap or a large company with hundreds of computers this is no small deal. Even, arguably the most basic productivity software packages, like office, cost £300.

In fact this is true to such an extent that I've identified 8 software packages that I need to have on the new computer I want to build for my business and these software packages cost a total of £2,358! That is a lot of money!.... However the really cool thing is that for each of these packages I've found an equivalent open source project that is at least comparable and in many cases better then the industry standard version!

Linux is just another open source project. The biggest problem with it is that it can be hard to setup on a system, but once that is done, it's just as easy as windows to any normal user. The fear of it being this insane thing that only computer geniuses use keeps a lot of people from using it.

The concept of saving £2,358 on a full development computer got me thinking that, surely there must be other people who would want to save that kind of money, but don't what to learn how to install Linux or spend hours searching through all the different open source projects for the really good ones. Naturally the biggest stumbling block is that people simply don't know about this other way of doing business.

In the next few months I'm going to be doing a few experiments into this to see whether my suspicions are correct.

The first experiment is this, Comment if you want my next post to say what all the software packages I found are and where you can get them for windows. If I get enough shouts I'll post them ;-)

- James

Portal Metafisica Torny!

2006-02-05T13:40:00.000Z

OK!

Yesterday was quite a packed one and I learnt some very valuable lessons.

Yesterday was the first Portal Metafisica tournament and despite not quite as many people turning out as I would have hoped, we never the less had a rally great time. I currently use intellicontact to contact all the members of portal metafiscia (of which there are now over 140) whenever I have news for them and although I did send out an announcement of the tournament, I now see that I left it a little late and more crucially, only sent it out once.

The next time that such a tournament will be on, I intend to send it out at least 3 times over the course of 2 weeks before the date of the event. Packed with lots of other great stuff about the centre naturally :-). We'll see how that improves the attendance rating and I'll post the results on the blog ;-).

The actual torny itself was really cool and it came down to a show down between Mevs and Mini Disc. They were drawing in points at the end and drew another 2 matches matches before Mini Disc finally got the crucial shot in that sealed the torny for him. However, he then decided that he'd be willing to trade the copper head razer mouse he'd won for Mev's prize, 7 free hours on his account. So everyone went away happy :-D.

In other news I'm working on a side project that I hope to show you guys the finished results of soon ;-). Oh, and I've started reading the Ebay Millionaire which a how to book of Ebay from a group of Titanium Powersellers.

That's all for now!

Cya!

- James

The Nitronworks Blog One Year Anniversary!

2006-01-23T14:35:00.000Z

Today we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the Nitronworks Blog and Wow! I'm not sure whether or not I expected to still be doing this one year on but I know that I hoped I would be. A year is a long time and soooo much has happened in that time. Two of the largest things that have so far happened in my life happened in 2005. They were finishing a 14 year project known as school and the second was the founding of Cyber Management Ltd and the starting of Portal Metafisica. The Project known as sleepy ninja had been in my mind for a long time. In fact, to see just how long lets take a quick look back in time.

That's what I love so much about Blogging; you can see what you were doing a long time ago with little effort and look at how your mind has changed in that time. Here is an excerpt from the very first post ever, here on The Nitronworks Blog

23rd January 2005

“..... Other things that I will have to do between now and the exams are the Extended Essay and finishing off my TOK essay. The extended essay is a 4,000 word long essay. The research question that I have chosen is "What are the key success factors for entering the cyber café business in the UK in 2005?"

Just 3 months to go... But they will be seriously cramped ones, so I'm going to sign off now and work on my extended essay.

- James”

That gives a good idea of just how long sleepy ninja has been in the works and, not only did I complete an essay on the subject, but I also completed what I said I was going to do in the essay title! :-P How cool is that?! ;-) and as The Nitronworks Blog has been going for a full year now I thought I would share some cool statistics about it and Nitronworks as a whole.

1.In 2004 500 unique people visited Nitronworks.com, in 2005 the number of people who had been to Nitronworks was 6 times that amount, 3,000 people.
2.The number of sessions in 2005 was just under 15,000.
3.Over 2,000 people have been sent to Nitronworks from other sites and on average each one has returned 6 times.
4.Nitronworks is listed as number one in Goggle for Nitronworks and Sleepy Ninja, is number 3 for James Coombs (we'll see about that) and number 50 for Space entrepreneurship (ditto).
5.The Nitronworks Blog now has 80 posts with more then 23,000 words.
6.Nitronworks as a whole holds page rank value of about 200 PR.
7.The record number of comments on a Nitronworks Blog post was on Thursday, December 15, 2005 with 8 comments.
8.In 2005 the Google Bot has visited Nitronworks over 1,200 times.

Here's to the next year and may my world change even more in it! :-D

- James

Sleeping in the Dungeon of the Sleepy Ninja

2006-01-17T23:10:00.000Z

Lots of cool stuff been happening at the centre. Membership now up to 120... still a fair bit to go before we hit our target but we're getting there.

My Dad has gone off to Bath for a few days which left me with a bit of a problem. Namely, I didn't have a clue how I would get into town to get to the centre. After looking around at the options I learned that I could either sleep at the centre or pay at least £20 for a B&B. Well the obvious choice was right there, especially since I had just finished “Sam Walton's: made in America”. :-P

So I'm writing this as I sit in the centre with the lights off and getting ready to sleep on the sofa, with the small fridge stocked up with precooked pizza. Ahhhhh! It's must be the life of an entrepreneur :-P.

We have the retail section up and running although the selection we have isn't the best. I'm working hard to get it up to full capacity and stocking the really popular games. I've also been working with some of the people who visit the centre (and who read the blog, hi Will) on the portal metafisica website. I'm going to split it up into two different sites, one focused on the centre and it's community and the other focused on the retail section. This is important since a lot of the retail goods we sell can only be sold in any volume over the Internet as they are specialist products.

I've also been doing some conceptualizing about a possible future project that I've nick named Chatty Ninja ;-) and for a while that's what I'll be referring to it as, so get used to it :-P. At least until it's much further down the project path :-).

- James

To Some it's Fascinating, To Others....

2006-01-06T19:29:00.000Z

OK, don't have much time to post so here we go,

Finally got the account with pinnacle sorted out and put in an order for most of the gaming titles that I'll be stocking. Naturally it's only a working list as there are a few more distributors I need to bring on board and titles will continue to be released over time, but for the time being, I have my gaming title retail section taken care of. The suppliers do next day delivery so I'll try and get some pictures up once everything is done :-D.

Now! The Computers.... Well, yesterday was quite a day and they were full for a good part of the afternoon and evening. I mean really full, I mean that there were about 9 or 10 people hanging around waiting for computers to become free! :-D. The membership is also growing steadily. One of the centres goals is an active membership of 200 and we're now almost half way there.

That's pretty much it for the moment. I'll let you know when I start doing something a bit more interesting. In the mean time... :-P

- James

Sleepy Ninja Grows!

2006-01-04T10:44:00.000Z

OK! Firstly, a quick update on how things are going in the dungeon of the sleepy ninja,

The centre has been buzzing! We now have over 70 members signed up and on several days we ran out of computers for people to go on! :-) I also a new picture done and up.

Things have been considerably slower on the retail side of things. In the UK there are about 3 different distributors of gaming titles and each one has exclusive rights to a number of gaming brands.... They aren't the most efficient companies I've seen and it has taken me months to get accounts set up with them. I still won't be able to get the retail side set up any time soon, since It's just after Christmas and thus the distributors have almost nothing in stock.

Anyway, enough of that. On to the next thing.

Yesterday I was talking with 2 of the gamers in the centre and they were asking if there was any work I had available that they could do in exchange for time on the computers. Now since the marginal cost of an hour of gaming time to me is nothing this is a pretty good deal if I can find useful work for them. So I thought about it for a while and decided to try out an idea that I'd had a while back but hadn't put into operation because of not having the time.

I decided to try a leaflet campaign as a way to increase awareness of the centre. I took some time on Photoshop and came up with a good looking, simple leaflet.

Now since one of the most important things in any marketing campaign is being able to measure the results I also put on the leaflet a special deal. Anyone handing in the leaflet also gets an extra free hour on sign up.

I then printed out 75 copies A4/2 copies and after cutting them in half to make them in half to make 150 A5 copies and then they went out for an hour giving them out on the streets and getting them put on shop counters and the like.

We'll soon see how effective this little experiment was and if it works... well those of you who have read the art of profitability know all about the entrepreneurial profit model ;-).

- James

BrianWatkins.net Is Going Live!

2005-12-29T11:48:00.000Z

Almost a year ago now, Youthcove was visited by a really unique individual, Brian Watkins. Throughout 2005 he has pretty much become part of the furniture and has given an incredible amount to Youthcove.

A long, long time ago we were all together in a Youthcove meeting talking about personal websites, their power and the potential they give to whoever uses them, and Brian was one of us who swore that one day he would have a personal website up and running. Well, We've had to wait quite a while, but on the 1st of January 2006 BrianWatkins.net will finally be going live and we'll see what he's got for us :-D.

He's even got a count down on his website so go and check it out and be sure you're there for the launch on the 1st!

Brian Watkins

The Begining of 2006 and the End of the First Week

2005-12-27T11:35:00.000Z

Whew, What a week :-D

Well the centre has been up and running for over a week now and WHOA! What a week it has been!

We have signed up 29 members over the past week and they are continuing to join at a pretty steady rate. Even on days like Christmas eve and Boxing day which were pretty quite the centre still managed to make just about enough to break even on those days and the next step has yet to be taken.... Retail!

Only half the centre is being used at the moment and the other side is set to be stocked with all kinds of games and gamer gear. I've already got deals with most of the major distributors of games and in the next few weeks I'll have the full set.

Some of the people in the centre have been coming in pretty regually. Insomnia for example (everyone knows each other by their login names) Comes in pretty much everyday and although I have my things to do at the counter I manage to find time for a good game of counter strike every now and again. I think having the guy behind the counter being more then just a body to take cash and fix the computers is very important, especially when pretty much the only way the business can work is to create a dedicated customer base so trust me, those great gaming sessions are real work ;-).

I've also started to write my first article for the Youthcove Blog (which will be up and running pretty soon, nudge nudge ;-)) on how to apply online marketing techniques to offline businesses since I have recently realized just how powerful this can be for a traditional offline business. Email has become such a common place form of communication that we can forget just how incredible it really is. What other medium can you instantly communicate with your customers with? What other medium is completely free? What other medium do people access just about everyday and are pretty happy to give to just about everyone and their brother?

Needless to say that any email marketing done with an offline business has to be done well to be affective and I will be considering this for some time before I implement any kind of campaign. Being accused of Spam is defiantly not on my things to accomplish list :-P.

what else?... Oh yeah! Christmas! I almost missed it :-P Nah, not really. I had a great day off from work and got a bunch of presents all of which I really like. One of them was a CD Set by Napoleon Hill and listening to that was just what I needed at a point where I was starting to feel businessed out from 4 months of solid work... Businessed out!? I hear you cry. James Coombs?! Never! Well guess what, it does actually happen, but I realized that it is just those points that are the true test of just how good I am at this game and damn it! If I want to be the Best then I'm not going to let a little thing like 4 months of work slow me down for any length of time! :-D I feel ready and fighting fit! I have the fire in my eyes, the grit in my stomach and 2006 is not going to know what hit it!

WHOOOOOOOO!

- James

First day of profits :-D

2005-12-21T19:37:00.000Z

Well, as I said yesterday, I need to be making £90/day to break even. Well... Today is an historic day in the story of Portal Metafisica. And it's only day 3! :-P. I can't say exactly how much profit I've made today because I lost count after about £120 which is pretty comfortable :-). Considering that yesterday my take was £30 this is going in the right direction ;-).

There were a lot of people in today. I got 7 new people signed up and many of the people who were here yesterday came back as well. Two of them bought 10 hours each at once :-P.

One of them also brought his own xbox hard drive with him so they got the 360 working as well and they spent a good few hours on that too :-D. Sold a load of drinks and snacks... All in all... I'm pretty happy just now. :-D.

I totally fogot to get pictures though :-(. Oh well, I promise to get some up before too long!

Some of the people I've had drop by have been pretty interesting. One in particular is an artist and we spent a good bit of time talking about how we could make the walls look slightly less bear then they are at the moment. Every one who's been coming in has had nothing but Ooooo's and Ahhhhhh's coming out of there mouths, with the occasional, Holy "£$% :-P

I've also been working on the Portal Metafisica website and I plan to have that up before too long. The website is going to have two functions. Firstly to act as an advertisement online and community centre for the gamers of the centre. Secondly it's going to have an online shop where I will be selling some of the really cool stuff I've been getting in from all over the place.

Ok, well I think I've just about said enough for now,

Looking forward to the future :-D.

- James

First Customers!

2005-12-20T14:15:00.000Z

This is a quick update to say that I've just had my first, not one, but six customers! Wooooo! *breaks out a bottle of vintage water*.

They were seriously impressed with the look and feel of the place and in no time they were Pwning each other on Counter Strike: Source and Day of Defeat :-D.

Some of them wanted on the 360 as well. Unfortunately it wasn't fully up and running yet but it gave me extra energy to get on with it and get it up and running. As soon as I get the memory card I bought off eBay and a few more games (Yes DAS I'm getting Perfect Dark :-P) It'll be up and running and ready :-)

- James

Opening and Open Source

2005-12-20T11:27:00.000Z

Everything is Done!

The other day I completed everything that needed to be done to get the centre open and yesterday I opened my doors to the public. The public, naturally, had no clue that I had just done this and so the amount of attention I attracted with this historic event was not surprising :-P.

I have now moved the game forward. From a mindset that said "I'm opening a business" To one of, "How can I make the business I have grow?" And it is this that I am now focusing my full attention on.

OK, it's numbers time. :-D. I have to make £90/day gross profit to break even so this is my first goal. I had a great session of Youthcove Meeting with my fellow Youthcover's yesterday and got a great number of ideas and concepts from it that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.

Since I retail quite a few products from overseas that are not available in the UK and I get quite a few enquirers about them, my first task will be to get my website online from where I can market them better. The domain is www.portalmetafisica.com which, as you can see, doesn't have much on it at the moment, but fear not! Soon it will :-).

Which brings me neatly onto my next point.

Since I am currently watching the pennies very carefully I was trying to find an alternative to Dreamweaver to create my website with. I have a copy of it on the computer at home but there is not a chance in hell that my Mum would give it up ;-). So I had to find a different option. After surfing and searching for a long time I was finally pointed in the right direction by my Good friend Jonathan Wold. He sent me to www.nvu.com which is a complete web development tool and best of all, It's open source! :-D Woooo! The heavens opened for me and a beam of light pierced through the clouds!

After playing with it for a good few hours I found that it's just as good as Dreamweaver and in many ways, better. I especially like the way it handles tables, MUCH better then Dreamweaver and although it lacks a test server administration tool it's a small price to pay for saving a good £330 which is what Dreamweaver would have cost me.

OK, it's almost Noon which is when I'm opening so I'll take my leave of what has been quite a full packed few days,

- James

Looking So Good I Want to Eat Them

2005-12-15T23:04:00.000Z

Time to update everyone on what's going on in over here :-)

The past few days have been going by really fast. Every day we get into the centre early and leave late having got a lot done and being just that bit closer to finishing. It's getting really close to the finish line and then.... well, that's when the real fun starts *evil grin*.

We now have all the computers up as well as all of the wiring minus the Ethernet cables. The sofas for the Xbox 360 are in place along with the finished screen and the projector. It looks absolutely stunning!

I've been using eBay quite a bit over the past few months now and have bought a total of 10 items from it. I'm at the point now where I'm very comfortable to use eBay as a sourcing medium and know what to look out for and where the best deals can be found.

Well I've also got some more pics to show you all :-D

I don't know about any of you guys and girls but I think that these little units look so good I just want to sit down and eat them. Washed down with some 360 action natually ;-)

Very shortly everything will be complete, the centre will be open, and I'll start focusing on the next challenge, something that I haven’t had much time for since I've been putting all my effort into the infrastructure of the centre; Marketing the centre and building a community around it. That's going to be an entirely different packet of ninja crisps but I'm confident that I'll be able to meet or better what I'm going for.

For now, this is the James, reporting from the Dungeon of the Sleepy Ninja,

Signing out.

Proud to be a Youthcover!

2005-12-11T23:47:00.000Z

Today I wanted to link up this blog with two really cool people out there on Youthcove.

The first one is Evan Briones who's website, http://blog.evanbriones.comfollows his life as an entrepreneur who, like so many of us, is starting out down the path. If you want to follow the life of someone who is putting together all the thought patterns, habits and attitudes that lead to success in the world of entrepreneurship then this is the blog to read ;-). Looking forward to some truly great stuff from Evan!

The second is Kristan Hart who in a really short space of time has become one of the most respected members of Youthcove. Her blog, Mud and Milk similarly follows her first steps down the path of entrepreneurship but also follows her path down the road as a mother and the seamless integration of these two things even though they often seem miles apart and both of which can be very stressful. She has also recently launched her first website, NaturalBirthandBabycare.com which gives information about natural birth and baby care (surprise surprise :-P).

Hats off to both Kristan and Evan! Bows down :-D

Proud to be a Youthcover! ;-)

- James

Evolution of the Centre

2005-12-11T21:28:00.000Z

Just got back from the centre... Whew been quite a productive day's work but then, at the moment, everyday feels like that. The amount of progress on sleepy ninja has been quite amazing. It seems like everyday the whole centre evolves again and again.

Here are the latest pics from the centre including the signage on the outside:

As you can see the walls are now both built and painted as well as the counter and projector screen. Managed to find get my fingers on an Xbox 360 something I didn't think would be possible but I'm really glad I did. It'll really make a good edition to the marketing campaign ;-).

It’s really cool being one of the people in the distribution system for computer games. You get updates and previews on many of the games before they are released. On the 14th of December for example Darwina from Valve will be released and BOY does it look sweet! I’ll defiantly be offering it in the centre although I would be able to any way since I have a license deal with Valve which means I can use all their games ;-).

Tomorrow we’ll be getting all the computers and systems in place. This will involve getting up seriously early with the van so that the morning run doesn’t hit us and trust me, getting caught in that with a van is not pleasant. This means a get up time of around 6:30am which for me is really early, still, I’m not complaining. Indeed, what is there to complain about? hehehe :-D

In other news I just finished listening to a seminar by Tom peters on “The New Organization” from 1992 and “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” from 2001. Both good reads and both I would recommend. I’m getting together a list of books that I think, in combination, will greatly increase someone’s business thinking and sophistication. It’s got about 5 books in it at the moment but it’s being added to as time goes by. Some time I’ll probably post the complete list.

Well that’s just about it for today,

- James

More Building and Marketing

2005-12-04T12:55:00.000Z

Hi,

Been working hard over the past few days and have got some more pictures for you all,

I really like the way the banners turned out in the end. I was concerned that they would look, well, just off. But they don’t! :-D. Also, in the last few days, We’ve got the signage up on the front of the centre and although I don’t have a picture of it yet I’ll get one up ASAP.

The units for the computers are even better then I thought they would look and although I was concerned that about their strength and stability it turns out they have the both the strength and stability of continental drift. :-)

That’s about all for today’s blog post, Still got a lot of building work to do, including the walls the last computer unit and the counter. Ah, I LOVE this! Hehehe

- James

Building Work

2005-11-30T23:02:00.000Z

Today has been quite a day. After getting up and handling a load of email, phone calls and assorted odds and sods, We went to the centre to get building the units for the computers. After about 8 hours of bodging, innovating and sweat we had completed a module with 5 of the computer units in it.

By the time we had completed that it was time to call it a night and head for some well-earned rest. Tomorrow I'm planning to get one of the other ones finished and perhaps make some progress on the last one since we now are much more familiar with our design.

Cya world!

- James

The First Look Inside the Centre

2005-11-29T20:39:00.000Z

I promised picys and here they are :-D.
The centre is really starting to come together now and although we are still having some problems getting the internet set up (not a trivial problem with a gaming centre) everything is moving fast. This morning we took delivery of the Dell Optiplexs that we were waiting for. They are really good systems and the games I've tried on them so far looked incredible, so much so with the monitors we are using.

After we had given the computers a thorough test-drive we went to pick up the wood we ordered yesterday that we are using to build the partition walls and counter with.

We also got the slat hanging wall mounts for the retail section of the centre and we spent a good few hours playing around with where they would best look. A lot of people have been showing interest in what we are doing and have been poking there heads in the door every so often. We had a great chat with one person in particular that lasted a good hour. Just about everyone we have talked with has said they thought it was a great idea, either because they would use the facilities or they thought that Penrith really needed something new and trendy.

Well now that we have all the wood pilled up on the floor of the centre we have to build it. That's going to be fun :-P. I was surprised by how much wood we actually needed. It ended up taking up almost a third of the whole van!

Oh one other thing. We got the projector the day before yesterday and have tried it out on the wall of our house. Man that thing is incredible! It makes our normal TV look small and pathetic by comparison and this was only on a normal wall without any special paint on it or anything so what it will look like once we are finished with it... well, it boggles the mind :-D.

- James

In the Dungeon of the Sleepy Ninja

2005-11-27T22:15:00.000Z

Well I know I haven’t been at my blog much in the past week. It’s not surprising really, I mean, I’m so deep in work it’s not funny. Well ok, maybe it is a bit :-P.

In the past few months that I’ve been working on Sleepy Ninja I’ve been surprised by just how focused I’ve been. I look back at the past 10 weeks and realise that I’ve never been this focused on a single project for such a sustained period of time. I’ve been so busy with calling people, sending emails, filling out forms, etc. that I haven’t even had time to do the things that I’ve come to see as just part of who I am, this blog being on of those things.

I only just realised that I really need to work more on the Nitronworks blog and that it’s really important that I have both the self reflection that comes from it and the record of how these days have been. So much of the detail of the days has been lost from me already. I’m learning things so fast at the moment that I feel like I’m in danger of forgetting really basic lessons, lessons that I learnt a long time ago.

So, today at the youthcove meeting, I decided that I would pledge myself to writing in my blog at least twice this week. I anticipate that this week will be even more crowded then this weeks was but I will still make a great deal of effort to stick by this modest but (to me at least) oh so important goal.

Now that that’s out of the way I can update you about what I’ve actually been doing.

In the last week me and my Dad have received delivery of a bunch of stuff that we’ve ordered including the monitors, laminators, furnishings, printer, projector, and tons of other little things. We’ve moved the chillier into the centre and built all the desks and chairs. The change in appearance is great! It’s starting to look like what it will look like come finish.

I’ll get some pictures of the centre up here tomorrow, I promise!

I’ve also created the graphics for the window banners, membership cards and still have to create the graphics for a load of other posters. We’ve talked to a fire person and ordered the fire safety systems. We’ve striped the previous sign off the front of the centre so we have a blank canvas to work from when we get the signs put up and designed the pricing structure of the gaming systems.

I’ve also been talking to suppliers and getting agreements set up with them for the retail section of the centre. While looking around for headphones I realised that there are no headphones with mics available in the UK that really give the quality and value for money that gamers need. So after what felt like a month of searching I found a company in America called Listen to believe that makes absolutely amazing headphones and after a good deal of chatting with them I’m now their sole distributor in the UK. We’ll be getting the first 2 cases of headphones, hopefully, within the week.

I’ve ordered the computers as well. We are going with the Dell Optiplex as it’s a great value for money machine and because we could deal directly with the makers and get a great price on them. With any luck they will be here by the 1st of December. The monitor we decided on is the Samsung Syncmaster 930BF which is a 19” flat screen with a 4ms response time.

With all this talk about the project you call all probably guess what it is as well. Yep, it’s a gaming centre :-). The centre is going to be called Portal Metafisica and I’m aiming for a Dec the 1st opening, although in reality, the chance of that happening now are pretty small. The main bottleneck at the moment is the internet since I doubt we’ll be able to have it up and running for another 2 weeks.

Well, that’s a pretty comprehensive update so I’ll now be signing off,

Cya World!

- James

Cyber Management Ltd.

2005-11-17T08:34:00.000Z

Just woke up and decided I should update since I haven’t for a few days and a LOT of really cool things have been happening here.

For the last few days I feel like I've been living another life. I've been getting up everyday at 8:30 and working solidly until dusk. Yesterday alone for example I think I made over 10 phone calls and received a possible 10 or so more. Compounded by a lot of paperwork and still more research, yep, it's been good ;-).

But on to the really cool news. :-D

On Tuesday I finally had all the papers in place for companies house and I became, along with my dad, Director of our new company, Cyber Management Ltd. :-D. Yep, and once that was in place I could run around opening accounts with suppliers and so forth like there was no tomorrow.

And then, yesterday, I made another big step in the formation of the business. I finally signed the lease for the property we want :-D. Me, my Dad, Frank and Liz (who own the property) all got around the table and went through the lease, got it to a point where it was acceptable to both of us and then with Champaign in hand we signed :-D.

Whew, When we finally got back home it was 10:00pm and I was shattered so forgive me for cheating a bit with the blog entry :-P.

Anyway, a brand new day lies ahead of me and now that I have both the company and the shop I really can get down to work on many of the things that need to be completed before the planned opening of (fingers crossed) Dec, the 1st.

Cya world!

- James

Number One!!!

2005-11-13T22:46:00.000Z

I did it!

Wooo!

After over a year of building Nitronworks.com as my personal website I now FINALLY command the top place in Google for my own name. The scientists, the war veterans and the book writers are no more. Nope... now... James Coombs, in the eyes of Google and therefore the world, means me! :-D

Muhahahaha!

whew, just needed to get that out of my system :-D. Naturally I couldn't have done it without the help of a whole group of people who have linked to my site so thank you so much Jonathan, Matt, Mandy and Brian as well as Youthcove and Zeromillion, and, strangely enough, a load of casino sites who haven’t yet taken the hint that I don't want to trade links with them :-P. (I hope I didn't miss anyone)

In other news I've created a frappr map for youthcove! :-D. You can check it out and show where in the world you are here: http://www.frappr.com/youthcove

Cya World!

- James

The Cleaning Crew

2005-11-13T16:43:00.000Z

Well I'm half way through today and decided I should update my blog now since I don't know how much time I'm going to be having later on.

Got up at 9:00am, a time that, although late for most, I have been managing to maintain quite proudly for the last week.

After a good breakfast me and my dad got to work moving the drinks cooler from the van into the house so we could test it and get it cleaned up. Man! It was a tight squeeze, it only just got through the door, but after we got it in and placed it in place it looked great.

We had a few problems with the fan when we turned it on. It sounded Horrible, like, no matter how cliché it is, a cat with it's tail caught in a door :-P. A quick drop of WD40 later and it was working perfectly. I suspect that the horrible noise was the reason the previous owners wanted rid of it *Grins*.

We then got to work cleaning it up. It was really dirty, both inside and out but after a good hour with a soapy water it was in a state good enough to be photographed :-D. That's the one of on the left in case you hadn't guessed :-P.

We then went into town to get some even better cleaning tools to make it fit to put drinks in and left it on to test the cooling mechanism. When we got back we arived to a lovely cold fridge :-).

And at £200 when these things cost over £1,000 at retail I think I got a good deal ;-)

Well, that's about it for today, so far.

Cya world!

- James

Driving to Glasgow for a Drinks Cooler

2005-11-12T22:29:00.000Z

Really… tired…. must not…fall…asleep…must…write.

Got up nice and early, it looked to be a good day. I knew that today was going to involve a whole lot of driving, a whole lot of lifting and a whole lot of Glasgow. :-P However, I only knew this for certain once I got a confirmation from the person I was buying a drinks cooler from on eBay.

So it was pretty much the same story as the day before yesterday, except that we went to Glasgow instead of Nottingham. We left at 12:00 and arrived at a very good time of 3:30. The cooler looks great and will look even better after a good clean and putting in place. I’ll try to get some pictures up as soon as I can ;-)

After I got home I decided that I would get to work on the Youthcove Newsletter since I have been quite removed from normal Youthcove life for the past few days. I spent 3 or 4 hours on that after which I decided that I would update my blog. So here it is, an updated blog… I hope you are all happy :-P.

Oh, also called Companies house to find out how my company registration was going and found that I would have to add 2 things on the forms that I seemed to have missed. Hmm.. That’ll push my schedule back a bit since I need the company before I can do pretty much anything else.

But apart from that little blip everything is going great! :-D

But I am… Really… Tired… *head hits keyboarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

A Full Day... One of Many.

2005-11-11T21:15:00.000Z

Strike one more day off the calendar!

Today I got a bunch of stuff delivered for sleepy ninja :-). Not my company registration unfortunately but all in good time ;-). Needless to say the delivery guy was a little surprised to be delivery 17 leather backed executive office chairs to a residential house :-P. We also got the cash machine we ordered, all heavily discounted naturally ;-). I spent a lot of time playing with it and learning how it works and after several hours pouring over text books and a lot of receipts coming out of the thing I think I have a good idea as to how it works. I also downloaded a trial version of the admin management software and have been learning how to use that as well. All in all, a very full day :-D.

Going to bed now, as I’m totally shattered.

Cya World!

- James