Spam and more spam!

I've got a lot of spam comments on my posts lately. About 99.9% of all comments is spam.
As I get sick of removing all the spam posting each day I decided to change the settings.
If you now like to leave a comment then it will ask for a word verification.
I'm very sorry for this but it is the only solution I have at the moment. Maybe in the future I can change the settings back to what they were. Hopefully the number of spam posting on my blog will drop or even stop.

Thanks for reading.

Ten years of blogging!

Just a quick post to let all of you know that today my blog has hit it's 10th anniversary. Not that it will be a big party.
I know that my blog ain't that popular and I also know that I don't have many followers and viewers. But that ain't something that surprises me. Can't say I'm a very active blogger. I even came to a point that I wanted to quit with this blog. And doing no posting for more then a year ain't helping either.
Even now I still don't know if I can or will keep this blog up. If I look at the views can't say they are increasing much. All I can say is that I'll see what happens.

Some facts.
Followers: 134 (but I doubt if most of them still read my blog).
Posts: 354
Views: 129.684


There ain't much more to tell.

Till later.

A post explaining (a little).

Well finally new post. But not a post about new painted miniatures or about games played. This post is more about a little explaining why I don't post that much anymore. I am not going into details too much. Enough is to say that I have a lot of problems in my life that need to be solved first. Something that is way more important then this blog at the moment. How long it will take I can't tell. Also I don't have any idea when I will place a new blog-post. One thing is certain there probably won't be many blog-posts this year.

Until later.
Hein

Liebster Award!!!

Several day's ago I was nominated for the Liebster award. It completly slipped my mind because of the hard work in this last month of the year. I must say that I am a proud that John at Stumpy Heaven nominated me for this award.

The rules of the Liebster award are fairly simple:

1 Copy and paste the award on to your blog linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
2 Pass the award on to your top 5 favourite blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing them on your own blog.
3 Sit back and bask in the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing you have made someone’s day!
4 There is no obligation to pass this onto someone else, but it’s nice if you take the time to do so.

Now for me the big task is to find 5 other blogs to nominated. This was not so easy as it looked. A lot already received this award, most blogs have more then 200 followers and then there are blogs that haven't post anything in more then 6 months or longer.
But after long searching in my list of blogs I found found 4 who deserve the award.

In no particular order.
Moed beleid en trouw.
Not a blogger who post much but what he post looks, in my opinion, great.

Crac des Chevaliers
Again a blogger who seldom post on his blog but when he post something of his painted miniatures they look amazing.

Scary Biscuits Studios
A blog by Mike Haught. Simple said a great blog. Posts with nice painted miniatures, background information and more.

Paint-In
He deserves it and I almost forget about this blog.

Thanks for reading.

New look.

After almost three and a half years I gave my blog a complete new look and layout. In the past I did made some changes to my blog but each time when I changed something it were only minor changes. One of the things that never changed in those three and a half years was the yellowish and camouflage background. But lately I did get bored by this background and found it was time for a new (fresh?) look. A more modern but simple look.
The first thing I did was to make the blog bigger, creating more space for the posts and bigger pictures. Next was the colour. It had to be dark but not too dark and certainly not black. After some tinkering I came with the result you see now. The only thing I kept is the header picture because this one is fairly new. It only became bigger and I changed the look of the blog name.
Personally I am pretty happy with the result how it looks although I have to get used to it after looking for three and a half years at a camouflage background. I hope you all like the new look too. Let me know what your opinion is of the new look, positive or negative.

Thanks for reading.

I HATE BLOGGER

Yes I hate this fucking Blogger. With their so called great improvements and great new ideas and new gadgets.
The result. I no longer can post comments on somebody else's blog. Hell I can't even comment on my own blog.
When I started everything worked so well and nice I had no complains but now Blogger is completely ruined.

A pissed Blogger user.

Thanks for reading.

The strange behavior of 'Comments' 2.

OK I have enough of it. It is getting frustrating that each time I post a comment it disappears and is placed in the spam filter of the persons blog I posted a comment. I tried all kind of things but nothing seems to work.
The other way around, when people give a comment on one of my posts, everything works fine.
So if you want to know if I posted any comments please check you spam filter. It is probably the place where you can find my comments. There you can also mark that my comments aren't spam.
I am out of solutions.

Thanks for reading.

The strange behavior of 'Comments'.

This is something I only found out yesterday and today. Each time I place a comment on someone's post on a blog page I follow, the moment I post the comment, it disappears. It seems that this problem is acting up longer then a few weeks and seems to be a problem with blogger.
The strange thing is that it don't happen on all blog pages.
For example some of the blogs of which the comments disappears are:

-15mm paint shack

-BLMA (BigLee's Miniature Adventures)

-WWPD

-The Angry Lurker

But there are many more.

A few blog pages which don't have this problem are:

-Wargame News and Terrain

-Don't throw a one

So don't be mad at me if you think I am not giving any comment on any blog post. It is something I can't do nothing about. I never removed one of my comments. I will keep posting comments maybe one day it will all work again and you can read them.

Other thing is how many people, that are following my blog, have posted a comment that I never read because the same thing happened to them. Thus if I didn't respond on any of your comments I can't help it simply because your comments were never published.

Thanks for reading.

2012 A look forward.

Let me start by wishing everyone a great and healthy 2012. With lot's of painting, gaming and spending time with your loved ones.

What are some of my New-Years Resolutions.
I have decided that I won't start a new FoW army. I first going to finish my Early War French army and I will buy, once in a while, some new blisters to expend my already existing armies. I will concentrate more on new book(s) like the new rulebook.
This leaves me with some more money to spend on other things I like besides gaming.
An other resolution is to paint more. Nothing more to say here.
What a big failure was last year, making my own terrain, is now something I certainly going to spent more time on.
Having different armies is nice of-course but if you don't do anything with it, it is a waste. So I have decided that this year it is time to play more games.
I am going try post more messages on my blog for you all to enjoy and I am even going to try to improve the quality of my posts. In writing and pictures. Last part will probably the hardest thing to do for me but I can always try. :-)
I am going to try to do more those things I really like and enjoy to do and spent less time behind the television or my computer. Time to stop with social media?????? Hmmm already don't spend much time on that.
I have some more New-Years Resolutions but these are private and not for everybody's ears.

Well this is my first post in 2012 let's hope many will follow.

Thank you for reading.

2011 A look back.

We have reached the end of the year thus it is time for a look back.

The blog.
At the beginning of the year I set in my mind that i wanted at least 100 messages placed on my blog or close to that number. As you all can see I am not even close to it, as a matter of fact I even post less messages than last year.
I can come with a lot of excuses but the simple fact is I just didn't post enough. But to give some examples, I had planned to post more messages about Dutch WWII History. Also had some other projects planned but which never came of the ground. And real life got in the way, namely work. Hopefully next year is a better year.
Positive things are that this year the number of followers went over the 100 and that I had more than 15000 visitors, counter is now over the 17000.

Painting.
First there is my DAK kompanie. It should have been finished months ago but now with the year almost done I still have to paint 1 platoon. This was a frustrating project simple because of the fact that it was hard to get all the required platoons for my list. Now I hope this last platoon will be painted in the beginning of 2012.
About the new project I started this year, the "Escadron de Reconnaissance" for Early War. This project is on schedule maybe even a little ahead of it. This has always been planned as a long term project but if I can keep up with the painting there is a change that this company is already done before June / July coming year.
The failed project. I had planned to built a lot of terrain this year, like bocage, hedge and fences, just all kind of terrain for the FoW table. When you followed the blog you can see that I never posted anything about this. This was simple because I never even started with building any terrain. I feel so ashamed. This is something I really hope I can get of the ground next year.

Army files.
Maybe most of you already know but it was the year that i stopped with make army files for FoW briefings. I have one more planned and after that I only will make army files of those briefings I really like and army's I have myself. And I will update, if necessary, older files made by me.
Speaking of updated files maybe people should check it out because some files are updated.

Personal life.
Two major things has happened this year in my life. A surgery and a new job.
First the one with a major impact on my life. At the beginning of the year I had a 4 hours long brain surgery to remove a tumor from brain. It all went well and I am feeling great. Had a check up a some weeks ago (MRI scan) and all is looking great. There was nothing to see.
The other major thing is that I found a job. Maybe not the greatest job of all but it is good to work again and earn some money.

I like to thank all my followers and readers of this blog for being here and staying here and, hopefully, enjoying all my scribblings.

You all have a Great and Happy New-Year.

See you in 2012.

A new fresh look.

Some of you may have already noticed, others will when they read this post.
As you all can see I have changed the look of my blog. It is not that I didn't like the look of the old one any-more, one of reasons is that I just thought that after two and a half years and now that we are getting close to a new year it is time for a new fresh look.
At first I wanted to change the old blog by hand. Because that one was an old template I had to do all change by hand using HTML but at 1 point it became such a mess that I decided to choose one of the blogger templates and made the changes I liked. At the end this was much easier and it is now much easier to change things because I longer have to do it by hand.

What has changed.
Let's start with the minor things.
First the background. The background stayed the same but now it is fixed in place it no longer moves when you scroll up and down.
The header. The picture of the US paratroopers is gone and replaced by a picture which shows a little more what this blog is all about, painting WWII minis. I am not to happy with the picture and maybe will replace it later on but somehow I can't manage to take a nice and good looking photo.

What major thing has changed.
The blog it self. It just became must more clear to look at. The blog posts are in the yellow background while the links and other stuff are in the transparent part.

I hope you all like this new look and comments are always welcome even negative ones. :-)

Thanks for reading.

100 Followers

A week after announced that my blog had reached the 15.000 hits I can now proudly announce that I have reached an other milestone. There are now 100 people crazy enough to follow this blog. Still haven't figured out what goes on in those peoples mind that made them decide to even follow my blog.
Anyway a great welcome to all new followers hopefully you will enjoy the ride. And a thank you to all the old followers for staying.

Thanks for reading.

Hit 15,000 times.

Today I reached the total of 15,000 visits on my blog. These 15,000 blog visits are good for a total of  28,705 page views. Where it took me 2 years to reach the 10,000 visits it only took 6 months to have 5,000 more visits to reach the 15,000.
As always the most visitors are from the US followed, although at a great distance, by the UK . The rest follows on an even greater distance.
The most popular posts and page are the ones about the home made army files.
I only need 7 more followers to reach the 100, but at the moment it seems that I am stuck at 93.
A great thanks to all followers and readers of my blog, I hope that you all still enjoy and will keep enjoying my blog.

Thanks for reading!

The plans for this blog

I was looking the other day how many posts I placed so far in the month of May and saw that so far it was a grand total of 2. I was a little shocked about my inactivity on my blog. I know that starting with a new job was a reason but not to have only 2 posts so far.
Anyway it made me think what I really want and what my plans are with this blog. So after many hours I know what my plans are for this blog. And now it is time to share these plans with my followers.

The Layout of this blog.
This is something I have thought about many times in the past. I never were sure it was a good and nice layout and maybe had to change it. Now I have come to the conclusion that I like the way it is now and that I won't change anything. There is always a chance I change little things like a new avatar, add or delete Gadgets like the Follow by Email gadget which wasn't a big success. But the main layout will stay the same.

What can you expect to find in this blog.
-The main focus is and will be on the progress of all my Flames of War forces. Don't expect to see posts here about any other game then FoW. This means that most of the posts will be about painting my FoW forces. To bad that because of circumstances I haven't been able to pick up the new ordered mini's from my game-store so this means it is a bit quiet on the painting front.

 -I will continue with building Army-files, even though the making of these is put on hold for the moment. As soon as new files are built, beside the forum this is the place where it will be announced.

-All other things that have to do with FoW, like terrain building, After Action Reports and such will also be shown here.

-The Today in Dutch WWII History posts will of course stay. I like to inform people who don't live in the Netherlands what have happened here during the war. This also counts for the post about camps here in the Netherlands. In the near future I am going to expand it with something new. It will be posts about important people in the Netherlands during  WWII. These can be resistant fighters, collaborators or Nazi's. I don't know what the exact title of this series of posts will be. The working title for now is: Important People in Holland during WWII: name of the person.

-Everything about WWII that I find important enough to let people know about. This can be books or films or news on the Internet.

-Then of-course there are always things that don't fall in the above mentioned categories but deserve a little post on this blog. Like bringing other people's blogs to your attention.

If people have suggestions or like to see things, please don't hesitate and let me know.

Thanks for reading.

I have been nominated for the Stylish Blogger Award

To my big suprise my blog has been nominated by one of my followers, who has an impressive blog himself, for The Stylish Blogger Award.

The award has some simple rules to follow by:

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award
Thank you Joe for the nomination and support of my blog. Visit Joe's great blog: Lead, Paint and the General

2. Share seven things about yourself.
- The main game that I play is Flames of War
- I mostly read Fantasy books. Currently from Julian May.
- Monday 2 May 2011 I start with a new job.
- 24 January 2011 I had a brain-surgery. They removed a tumour.
- I don't consider myself a good miniature painter.
- I hardly watch any TV.
- I live in the Netherlands. (not Holland) ;-)

3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
In random order.

- 15 mm paint shack. 
A great blog where he shows his awesome painting skills.
- Kages Flames of War 
A great blog to read and watch
- This ain't Living... 
A very nice blog to follow. I love the things he do.
- Sane Terrain
Everything you want to know about making terrain and making tabletop tables
- Camp Cromwell
 A blog full with battle reports.
- Cim's Warfare
 Maybe he has not many followers but do like to follow his blog.
- Bunker 3030
 A new blog but certainly needs your attention
- Scary Biscuits Studios
Great site filled with history, painting and gaming.
- Stumpy Heaven
 Just check this site out
- MiniStories
Also a great read and much to see
- Lair o the Uber Geek
What can I say you better take a look yourself. He didn't reached 50.000 hits because of nothing.
- Big Lee Miniature Adventures
Probably one of the best blogs about gaming.
- Bunker Hill
An overall good blog.

And all those others I didn't mention above, but else my list would become way to long!

There are more but most are or probably are already nominated.
Go visit the blogs mentioned above.  They all are great blogs with all their own roll for the gaming community.

4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award

Many are readers and will see the reward !

Thanks to all followers who read my blog.
Hein

I have reached the 10.000 Visitors

It has happened. I just looked at my counter and it has hit the 10.000 Visitors.
With that I mean that my blog has been visited 10.000 times so far, and still counting, and not page views.
These 10.000 blog visiting are good for a total of  19.311 page views.
The far most visitors are from the US followed at a great distance by Great Britain and far behind that the Netherlands and Canada.
Looking at the diagram below the Returning Visits number looks low but this is because after a certain amount of  time people who come back to the blog are considered as new visitors and not returning visitors.

Summary.

Now I also like to bring something else under people's attention.
At the left side between the counter and the search my blog, you will find a new item I added sometime ago named "Follow By Email". If you fill in your email-address here then you will automatically get a mail when I have posted a new post on my blog, if I have done everything correct ;-).
 
And now up to the next 10.000.

Thanks for reading

A Poll: the results.

Ok the results of the "Should this blog get a new look" Poll are in.
A thank goes out to the 9 people who took the time to vote. A special thanks for BigLee who also took the time to write a comment.
The results:
4 say yes it should get a new look.
4 say no it shouldn't get a new look.
1 says I don't know.
I only wish that those people who said yes would have mentioned what could be changed. That way i could try to make the blog only look better.

Conclusion is that the blog won't get a new look.

Thanks for reading!

A poll

At the left of this blog you will see that i added a poll. The "Should this blog get a new look" Poll.
With the look of the blog i don't only mean how the blog looks but also the contents of the blog.
If you say Yes then please leave a comment and tell me why and what should be changed.
If you say No it is always welcome if you leave a comment explaining why you like it.
If you say I don't know then you just don't know :).
The poll is open for 14 days.

Thanks for reading and voting!

One year of scribbling!

Today this blog has reached the age of 1 year!
I like to thank all followers and other people who take the time to read my posts and sometimes even like to give some comments. I hope people enjoyed en keep enjoying reading it.
I started this blog to post pictures of my painted Flames of War minis but it slowly has grown to a blog that contains more then only pictures of my painted stuff.
The first things that appeared on the blog beside the pictures of painted minis were the army excel files. Later followed by historical videos i found on the net. Also i posted pictures of the terrain pieces (not much) i made. One of the last things added are the "Today in Dutch WWII History" posts were i post little info about things that happened on that day in the Netherlands during WWII.
Also the looks of the blog has changed over the year to a, i hope, more appealing one.

For the future i will try to improve this blog and make it more interesting and appealing to read.

Some facts.
The blog has now 23 visible followers. It is unknown how much people following this blog in secret.
At the time of posting this post this blog has been visited 3383 times. Good for a total of 6382 page loads.
There are a total of 62 posts posted by me in this year.

Last thing.
I know that my English ain't perfect but that is something that doesn't border me writing this blog.


Thanks for reading!

Cleaning up a blog.

I made some changes to my blog.
First the most important one. At the left side a new section is included named: Pages. This was something that i wanted to add for sometime now but never did. But after reading a post in Indierockclimber's excelent blog: What Would Patton Do? (if you love AAR you sure must check out his blog), it gave me a push to add it.
The first page added is Army files. This is an index of all FoW army files made by me and at the end you will find a link to the side with a lot more files made by others. All new army files that i make will now be found on the Army File page.
Labels. Instead of one long column that only grew longer with each new label i added, i changed it into what it looks now.
The sections Army Excel Files (with the new army file page this is no longer needed) and my what to do list (i never liked this one) are deleted.
If people have any comments or like to see some more things changed let me know.

Thanks for reading.