We finally bit the bullet and laid out some cashola for a drone.  Now since were total NEWBIES at this game, we didn't spend a LOT of money, we wanted something that would give us most of the features you see everyone else using in their videos without the price tag as we're learning.  So we plopped down $55.99 for an HK 55 Drone and we'll be testing it out very soon.  So keep  checking out our next videos and you'll probably see the thing getting it's first tests......

I guess the itch to connect to both old friends and make new ones was too great to resist scratching.  Going to the WayBack machine, I realized we had all the basic foundations available to create a new Chat application from the ashes of the old chat program we used during our Radio Bijoux days.  Since we had it, we might as well USE it!  It has been a few years since we last installed a chatroom system, so there were quite a few updates to the package we had.  All of them making the app more more fun to use with lots of new and improved features.  (There are a lot of features that we'll still need to enable if they are not already enabled at the time you read this.  And MORE will continually be added and updated as time goes on...)

Features

• Supports all desktop and mobile browsers and ancient ones such as Intenret Explorer 11
• PHP5/PHP7/PHP8 compatible: no PHP errors, warnings. 100% HTML5 and CSS3 compliant
• Native code only - no additional frameworks/libraries apart from leafletjs, highlightjs loaded separately if needed
• Best viewed on any device - from 4-inch smartphones to huge 8k displays
• ChatGPT / DeepSeek included with global and conditional modifiers (prompts)
• Resizable layout, run it fullscreen or in iframes as small as 360x360px
• Registration system allowing 'guest' users with email or SMS verification
• Recognizing the country the user based on their IP address and displaying a badge in chat: FR US DE GB
• 🏅 VIP users with VIP codes that can be sold 💰
• A custom panel tab and a top-panel block to load custom content such as online radio station
• Online status: Online, Away, Occupied, Unavailable, DND
• Ignore option - chatters can choose to hide messages from other chatters
• Private one-2-one chats inside the main chat box
• Offline messages to/from chatters in the PM log
• Innovative method to reset forgotten passwords without sending emails
• Flood control - forced interval between messages
• Different sound notifications on (1) new messages, (2) when users enter/leave chat or change status, (3) private messages and when you are mentioned in a public room, (4) messages in background
• Material icons, native emojis, stickers & Tenor GIFs, 9GAG memes
• Doodle, share and play doodles in chat, doodle on images
• User settings: language, sound on/off, 24h/12h. Automatic timezone
• Splash page - a front page with a chat widget (who is online, statistics etc) and links to login/register pages
• UTF-8 multilanguage support incl. usernames with non-Latin letters
• Frontend translated in العربية, 🇨🇳 汉语, 🇨🇿 Čeština, 🇩🇰 Dansk, 🇩🇪 Deutsch, 🇬🇷 Ελληνικά, 🇬🇧 English, 🇪🇸 Español, 🇫🇷 Français, 🇮🇩 bahasa Indonesia, 🇮🇹 Italiano, 🇭🇺 Magyar, 🇳🇱 Nederlands, 🇵🇱 Polski, 🇧🇷 Português-BR, 🇷🇴 Română, 🇷🇺 Русский, 🇦🇱 Shqip, 🇸🇪 Svenska, 🇹🇷 Türkçe
• Widgets - display information such as users online, latest visitors, top10 chatters on external pages
• Predefined mottos, users can put their own one-line motto instead
• A set of avatars to pick from and an option to upload an image/photo
• Users can create and vote in polls
• Quiz games with scores and global score. Quiz datasets with 40k questions provided in our download center
• User groups with permissions. Adjustable rules to automatically move users from one group to another
• Room and PM transcripts
• Stealth users - invisible in chat; do not appear in logs
• Admins & Moderators can kick/gag and ban users and IP addresses directly from chat
• VPN & Proxy Guard - users behind VPN and proxies are not allowed to enter the chat

And a LOT MORE features you can read about HERE

Al & Val

Since we started our journey here in Upstate New York back in the summer of 2022 after moving here from the mountains of North Carolina and our former little town of Spruce Pine (destroyed in the flooding during Hurricane Helene in September 2024), we've made some considerable progress.  We've managed to build a house, set up an off-grid power system for our property, build our own furniture from wood sourced right here on the property, and start growing our own fresh foods.  Check out a few of our videos from our YouTube channel, @alvalonline  and keep coming back for our latest uploads, blog posts and other updates.  And PLEASE, LIKE & SUBSCRIBE to our channel!  Hit that Post Notification Bell and COMMENT!  It is fast, free and easy, and it REALLY helps us!  We APPRECIATE IT!

Al & Val