• NPF closed down today.  This was due to what I can only describe as a revolution whereby the posters questioned the administrators justification for the banning of certain users and their handling of criticism.  They then handled the situation in the same way as an infant child would have by posting:
  "As of 9th May 2011, Newcastle Poker Forum will be closed indefinitely to new registrations and new posts."
  I recall being told by the site administrator that my peers and I "weren't worthy of tying his bootlaces".
• As a result of the closure, I felt that an opportunity for a niché poker forum had arisen and spent 3 hours preparing my latest little love child.  The North East Poker forum

Reposted from http://www.nepoker.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=58

Hi guys, and welcome to the North East Poker forum.

I will keep this as brief as I can but thanks for visiting and I hope you find the time to register and post in the NEPF.

What is the North East Poker forum?

The North East Poker forum aims to be a community where poker players from across the north east of England can come together to discuss poker. It will be a open and friendly community; a place to vent about your beats/experiences and hopefully in time a place where we can come together to support games, organise home games & even some road trips to bigger games across the country/world.

What can I find on the North East Poker forum?

The North East Poker forum will contain up-to-date poker schedules for all casino cardrooms in the north east, tournament updates/sweats and results. In time the North East Poker forum will also provide it's own weekly and monthly schedule via Pokerstars home games.

Who Runs the North East Poker forum?

The North East Poker forum is owned by Stephen Groom and co-ran with the help of Gaz Walker.

 

Reposted from http://www.nepoker.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18

Well I guess it's time I explained myself.

Everybody knows the circumstances under which I created this website today. If you are not aware then I will explain very briefly. Since July 2009 I had made a local poker forum my haunt. Unexpectedly on May 9th 2011 the forum closed, and http://www.nepoker.co.uk was born. The old forum closed at around 5pm on the 9th of my and NEpoker was born 3 hours later. I am the founder, and site administrator.

My name is Stephen John Groom and I am a 3rd year student of BA Music Enteprise. I am a live sound engineer by training, a keen poker player in my spare time, a poker dealer by proffession and for the last 8 years I have been the webmaster and/or administrator of a number of websites with varying degrees of success.

Currently across the internet I have my fingers in many pies.
I created and am trying to launch Rent a Producer. A jobs market for freelance sound engineers like myself.
I write a blog fairly infrequently at http://www.groomi.net.
I am playing $3-$5 SNGs at PokerStars semi-professionally (I break even in my spare time).
I also procrastinate on facebook when I am supposed to be working.

If you don't know me already, I am most often seen at Circus or G casinos playing small-stake cash games. I also work at Aspers casino meaning that I definately spend over 50% of my life at live cash game tables.

I look forward to seeing how this community can flourish and develop.

Freelance music jobs website Rent a Producer (www.rentaproducer.com) is officially launched today.  The website aims to provide a network  in which freelance music professionals can connect with clients.

The website has two aims:

• To provide freelance job oppurtunities for music professionals
• To give musicians and other consumers the oppurtunity to advertise music jobs for free

Artists:

• Post projects for free
• Advertise to music professionals worldwide
• Specify project budget
• Use producer rating system to choose the best candidate
• Pay via Rent a Proudcer secure escrow

Producers:

• Search and browse projects for free
• Promote your business and services
• Build an online professional portfolio
• Bid for jobs and recieve ratings & feedback
• Ensure artist pays before work commences with Rent a Proudcer secure escrow

I am very excited about the launch of this website and hope that you are too.  Don't forget to share this news with your colleagues and clients!

Stephen Groom
www.rentaproducer.com

It is very useful for tight fisted people like me who begrudge paying 50p/minute for support from companies when I pay my phone operator enough already for free minutes to standard landlines

For example.. To phone Sky Digital on their standard phone number ( 0870 2404040 ) will cost you around 20p/minute, maybe more - maybe less. With [url=http://www.saynoto0870.com]saynoto0870.com[/url], a quick search reveals the local-rate number 01506 421726. For those of you with inclusive minutes, this call will be taken from them and you won't be charged. For all others this will probably cost you a fraction of the price of the 0870 number as this is charged at the rate of a landline call to Bathgate (Don't ask, I don't know where this is either!)

From their website:
[code]Many people don't realise that there are many phone providers offering cheaper calls to standard telephone numbers (those beginning with 01 or 02), which don't apply to 0844, 0845, 0870 or 0871 telephone numbers. - Please see the links page and click on Cheapest Call Provider for price details. This shows that by using multiple providers, you can reduce your call cost on standard telephone numbers to as little as 3p fixed cost (regardless of duration), whereas the cheapest provider to 0870 numbers during the day that I am aware of charges 4p/min (+ 3p connection fee) to call.

Worst still some companies that use these numbers are actually receiving a cut of the phone call costs.

If you have an 'inclusive landline calls' phone package, then it is very rare that 0844, 0845, 0870, or 0871 numbers are are included in your 'free minutes' allocation, unlike normal numbers. Many mobile phone packages also exclude freephone 0800 and 0808 numbers for your bundled minutes.

Many companies advertise a separate number that can be used when calling from abroad - This usually begins in the format +44 - There is nothing to stop you using this number from the UK (as it is a normal rate telephone call), and will be included in any inclusive minutes provided by your landline or mobile phone provider. Many others will give you a standard number if you ask.

This site is all about listing these numbers, saving you money, without having to pay additional charges. To get started and find a particular number, please click on the 'Search to find an alternative number' link at the top of the page.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the site. Please continue to add any new numbers as and when you find them. [/code]

Check it out at [url=http://www.saynoto0870.com]saynoto0870.com[/url] :thumbs:

Stephen

Today I found myself stuck at college with a crashed dedi and hundreds (ok tens) of angry [url=http://facebook.groomi.net/dragracer]Drag Racer[/url] players. I tried to get my provider to do a remote reboot, but this takes hours so I set about trying to find another way around it

Ofcourse at college we are stuck behind a Proxy server restricting access to almost everything. I also can't download/execute .exe files in windows so this ruled out SSH. I tried telnet by typing "telnet://groomi.net" into IE, but to no avail!

So.. I fired up google and searched for "Online SSH Client". I was fairly pessimistic and expected to find java applets that point to specific servers. At first this was exactly what I found, but after 2 or 3 results, I found what I was looking for!

[url=http://www.serfish.com]serFish.com[/url] is a web based SSH client which allowed me to connect to my SSH using only http (AJAX / Javascript) in Firefox, which allowed me to restart Apache and resurrect my server and respective websites. I owe this service many thanks and will be using it in the future providing that my dedi isn't hijacked. There was a massive lack of confidence instilling SSL certificates or any information about the service so I won't be suprised if my passwords go walkabout soon . One complaint I do have however is the Captcha images. Every 2 or 3 minutes I was pestered by an image verifying that I'm not a robot. Surely 1 per visit is enough?!

From serFISH.com:

[code]
consoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH clientconsoleFISH: Free web-based SSH client

Access your secure shell server by use of this free browser-based web SSH client. No more firewall or proxy restrictions for server and system administrators.
As a free AJAX SSH client, the consoleFISH provides web-based access to any SSH server. It can be used to bypass firewalls and proxies on a secure HTTP connection. Moreover, the consoleFISH makes it possible to anonymously open SSH connections as the IP address of the connecting web client is not sent to the remote system.

The service is designed for server and system administrators who want to have backup remote access to their systems but do not want to install their own SSL certificates, AJAX SSH software, etc.[/code]

That's all for now :wave:
Stephen