Online contact forms should be intuitive, simple and unintrusive. Whilst the form must aim to collect enough data to be deemed a successful conversion, simplicity should also be considered. Remember that this is not only the final stage of the online conversion, but also the first step of the customer journey to sale.

With this in mind, here’s a few tips for producing an effective online form:

Labels

Labels are pretty important for defining what information should be entered into each field. Without this basic information any validation you may have will be near impossible to guess.

Placeholders

As with labels, placeholders (a HTML5 attribute) allow default text to sit within an input field. Whilst many use this feature to demonstrate the validation on the field, I’ve now replaced my labels with placeholders. However, be aware that only certain browsers support this (I used some JavaScript to replicate for browsers which don’t support placeholders).

Segmentation

Separating your form into various sections can be a great choice if you’ve got obvious input segments. Adding an overview to the sections can keep the form simple and allow the user to know whats coming next. However, don’t hide/show areas depending on their position in the process – This can make filling in the form seem longer than it is, rather than shorter.

‘Optional field’ validation

Many forms still use ‘required’ fields, and that’s fine. But it seems (to me, at least) much friendlier (and more likely to get results) if you simply mark the optional fields, instead.

Validation

Validation is a must on all modern forms: Email specific inputs, digits only for telephone numbers, and set lengths for product codes should all be considered for each input field in the form.

Newsletter check boxes

Many forms have similar opt-in check boxes at the end of a form. I’ve always been torn about weather it’s better to have opt-in or opt-out check boxes. Providing they are consistent, I’d personally go for opt-out (to collect more data).

Auto-Filling

If you’ve got one main form, consider having a shorter version (with basic detail inputs) on the page with the CTA. This will mean users fill in the top level information before hitting the CTA, meaning less work on the action landing page / form overall.

Hidden fields

Hidden fields can be a subtle way to get additional information from the user without having them input additional information. Combining this with auto-filling can result in effective data gathering techniques.

Post submission

Once the users have filled in the form and submitted (converted) don’t leave them to find their own way out. Suggest other areas of your site to visit, or even a secondary call to action (we already know they’re willing to convert!). Have they tweeted about their conversion yet?

Advanced analytics

Finally, use advanced analytics to track how people are using your enquiry forms. Javascript libraries are becoming more and more popular in order to trace the behavior of randomly selected users. This allows you to see how many times they fail validation, which fields they skip or how many users fill in the form but fail to convert (fall out of the funnel mid-input).

Optimizing your forms with the features above is a large step towards maximizing conversion – After all, the customers want to give you their details, so don’t make your form so complicated they get annoyed and leave when so close to converting.

Forms are often overlooked, with landing pages taking the brunt of optimization. CTA’s come a close(ish) second. Truth is, that forms are arguably the most important part of the conversion funnel: They’re the critical link between the customer and yourself, and often take primary position on most conversion pages.

Landing pages should be specific, simple pages which follow on from the CTA. The landing pages (LPs) I’m going to talk about here are different (slightly) to those which you may create for traffic from a PPC or Email campaign, as the user is most likely already familiar with the brand, website and hopfully products on offer (hence them clicking the CTA in the first place).

Here’s a couple of pointers when designing and developing your landing pages:

Be clear

Clarity is important at this stage, as it’s where most of your traffic may fall off. Make sure there is an obvious action to take (such as a contact form, which we’ll cover in part 3!).

Relevance

As above, if you have irrelevant content your visitors won’t want to complete. Having several campaigns or CTA’s for one page is the quickest way to do this.

Load times

No-one likes waiting, so develop with the user in mind. It was once gospel that any page should load in under 3 seconds, but these days I suspect the benchmark is a lot lower. Consider the requirement for complex functions on landing pages.

Distractions

Don’t distract users with fancy graphics, roll-overs and animations. You’d be surprised how quickly a user can change their mind about completing on your landing pages, so don’t give them a reason to.

On-page Ads

Yesterday I completed on a LP, but must have had an average page viewing time of over 10 minutes, due to the rediculously placed ad on the page with a target:_blank tag. Why would you want to actively invite users to leave your landing page!?

Testimonials

Advertise to the user the benefit of continuing on the conversion process. They’ve come this far, so they’re interested – Now let them know how great they could feel (or something like that!) after they complete.

Hidden / tabbed content

Hiding content on landing pages is probably a bad idea. This could be using styling (for SEO) or using tabbed content (hide/show divs). The likelihood is that users won’t ever see LP content unless it’s obvious, so not making it readable by default is a big no no.

Remove your menu

Lot’s of websites are now beginning to remove their default menus from their landing pages. This is an attempt to reduce conversion fall-off, as mentioned above. Providing the page doesn’t lose consistancy, it’s a pretty good idea.

Tell them where they are

Just because the menu’s been removed, doesn’t mean the visitors should be lost. Let them know where they are, perhaps by using breadcrumbs or telling them how they can get back to other pages (by converting, coincidental!).

Social media?

Think seriously about hooking up your social media to your landing pages – It’s up there with the quickest ways to lose visitors from your conversion funnel, and there’ll be pleanty of time to get them to ‘follow’ or ‘like’ you after they’ve converted.

Optimizing your landing pages specifically for CTA’s is a great way to start increasing conversion rates – I’ve tried to emphasize that this is the main stage of the conversion process where visitors fall out of the conversion funnel. Don’t worry about producing other landing pages for your PPC, Email and other campaigns – In fact, actively try to separate your CTA landing pages from your campaign landing pages.

Call to actions should be seductively clickable, drawing the users in and promoting the reasons, advantages and key messages in no more than a couple of words. Of cause, the placement and graphics play a major part, too.

Here’s a couple of key points to help optimize call to actions:

Communicate the benefits

Why should users click your CTA? Add the benefit of proceeding, for example “and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours”. Help the users understand exactly what action they’re taking.

Add an incentive

As a secondary text line, an incentive can work well. If you’re offering something (such as a PDF or whitepaper) then this can work in addition to the above point.

Limit the numbers

Don’t have two many CTA’s. At most, two. There should always be a primary CTA which takes the main focus on the page, but you can often get away with a smaller, less obvious CTA too. Perhaps “Share on Facebook” or something similar.

Use ‘Active Urgent’ language

‘Active Urgent’ language is all the buzz-words you’ve probably seen on existing call to actions. Words such as ‘Buy’, ‘Call’ or ‘Register’ are active words, whilst ‘today’ and ‘now’ are good examples of urgent language.

Take advantage of positioning

Positioning is a much more in-depth topic than you may think. Whilst there’s ongoing debates about the best position, most now agree that the right hand side of the screen is much more likely to get the users’ attention: Either at the top (after the intro / logo) or at the end of the viewing journey (after the content has finished – The last point the viewer looks at when scanning the page).

Simplicity and whitespace

Whitespace is another topic that many can overlook. The more whitespace around your CTA the better as this usually makes your action stand out from the rest of the site content and imagery.

Contrasting colouring

Using the same colour for your CTA as the rest of your site can be a massive downfall, blending the CTA in with the rest of the site and allowing users to easily scan over it. Using an alternative colour helps the importance of the CTA stand out.

Size matters

Size really does matter here. Whilst you don’t want something that completely overbears the copy of the page, it should (as a rough guide) be about 20% larger than the next largest visible boxed area on the site.

Repetitiveness

This should go without saying, but your CTA should be on every page, in the same place. With the exception of landing pages and possibly the home page, your CTA should be familiar to the audience without them even necessarily realizing.

Stand out & planes

As a final point, using the graphical effect of ‘planes’ (as if the CTA stands out from the screen) can massively increase click-through rates, the most important point at this stage of the conversion process.

Taking these points on-board when designing or editing your CTA’s can help increase the click-through’s, which is paramount at this stage. Optimizing your call to action at the initial stage will help drive the maximum amount of traffic through to your conversion pages. From there, it’s down to the individual page to ‘seal the deal’.

But most sites have more than one ancestral level. To get the top level parent (highest ancestor) we need to use a recursive function, or IF, in this case). This will allow us to grab the ID of the oldest/highest ancestor and use it to grab the thumbnail (featured image), page title and page excerpt of that page.

First off, we need to pass the top level parent into a variable, like so:

<?php if ($post->post_parent) { //If the page has a parent (ie. not top level)

$ancestors=get_post_ancestors($post->ID); //Get the ID's of page's ancestors
$root=count($ancestors)-1; //Count number of ID's, minus 1
$parent = $ancestors[$root]; //Pass top ancestor ID to $parent

} else {

$parent = $post->ID; //Otherwise $parent is the current page’s ID

} ?>

$parent now holds the ID of the top level parent page. We can use this to grab that ancestor’s thumbnail, title and excerpt:

The thumbnail / featured image

$image = wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id( $parent ),
'single-post-thumbnail' ); ?>
<div id="imagediv" style="background: #e8e5e5 url('<?php echo $image[0]; ?>');">

The title

<?php echo get_the_title($parent), '' ?>

The excerpt

<?php $thepage = get_post($parent); echo "$thepage->post_excerpt"; ?>

So there it is. Note that the excerpt is slightly different to when using the current page/post’s excerpt, as get_the_excerpt doesn’t take an ID (from $parent).

In online marketing, these conversion pages are used (albeit behind the scenes) as much more than simply confirmation to the visitors. They are often tracked, allowing goals to be established and monitored in Google Analytics. They’re also used to alter visitor’s local cookies (3rd party from Google) in order to provide adverts on those PC’s at a later date via Google’s Display Network. This process is called ‘remarketing’ and is made accessible using Google AdWords remarketing code snippets.

If the conversion page is a ‘physical’ page (in the sense that it has it’s own unique code, URL and content) then adding the necessary tracking code and remarketing snippets is a pretty simple process – The two codes will only execute when that page is visited. However, more and more modern conversion pages are becoming ‘virtual’ pages. These are pages where the enquiry/purchase information is hidden, and the receipt/thank you message is shown – without the URL changing (it’s done by hiding and showing content DIVs, usually via JQuery).

This process can make adding the remarketing and goal tracking codes more complicated – as the codes only want to be executed when the conversion page (conversion content div would be a more accurate description) is displayed.

Google Analytics – tracking conversion goals with virtual pageviews

This is by far the simpler of the two problems to overcome. To track the ‘virtual conversion page’, simply push a pageview to Google Analytics using the _trackPageview function. By adding the following code extract (javascript) you’ll be able to set up and track a conversion page using the virtual page pushed to Analytics.



_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/page-name-to-track/']);

Google Adwords – Adding remarketing snippets into JQuery functions

You may want to add remarketing conversion snippets to a conversion page if you only want to remarket to customers who didn’t (or alternatively only those who did) convert on your site. To do this, you have to modify the third party Google cookie on a customers machine. This is achieved by  executing a code snippet upon conversion.

The basic remarketing conversion code is comprised of several javascript variables, a few external javascript files (hosted by Google) and an invisible DIV.

To execute the remarketing snippet (and the _trackPageview function) on a virtual conversion page, the JQuery code which shows the receipt mesage can be manipulated to include the _trackPageview function and the remarketing snippet. To add the remarketing snippet, first add the variables within the JQuery function as you would normally (JQuery and  Javascript working in harmony at this stage).

Next, you have to define and call the external javascript file. This is done by defining a variable with the relevant external javascript information and calling it before the document, using .insertBefore. As this will only be executed when the conversion message is shown, the external .js file won’t be executed until the conversion is complete. Here’s the code added within a JQuery function:



var s=document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0];
var ga=document.createElement(‘script’);
ga.type=’text/javascript’;
ga.async=true;
ga.src=’http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js’;
s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga,s);

Finally, the hidden div can be added at the top of the document, as this won’t execute without the variables and external files being previously ran.

Job done!

So that’s it - Hopefully that makes enough sense to you guys. If not, leave a comment and I’ll troubleshoot any issues you may be having. Note that Google have a pretty useful support archive, too. Visit the Google support sub-domain.

Change your iCloud / Apple ID  account password

1. On your new device, go to settings > general
2. Tap ‘iCloud’ and then the ‘account’ input field
3. Change your password. You will need to update this on all of your devices. Note that this will also change your Apple ID password, used for the App store and other apps.
4. You may have to update and/or verify your payment details, too.

Removing an associated device or computer from an Apple ID

1. Open iTunes.
2. Sign in to your Apple ID by choosing Store > Sign In from the iTunes menu.
3. Choose Store > View My Account from the iTunes menu.
4. From the Account Information screen, click Manage Devices.
5. Click the Remove button next to the device name you would like to unassociate.

Whilst most major firms will format your device before accepting a device, selling to an individual or having your device stolen may result in your information being compromised. If your device is stolen, there’s additional processes you can take, one of which is ‘Prey project‘ – an ‘open source anti-theft solution’ app (It should be available on the App store soon!).

Many customer relationships can be built through Twitter, Facebook and other networks – Engaging with customers on “their grounds”, and making the experience nothing out of the ordinary day to day activities of many. If done right (big if!) an enterprise, such as SuperDry, can boost brand, loyalty and most importantly sales. Do it wrong however, and it can have a completely reverse effect.

I’ve recently switched my hosting company. For the purpose of this, we’ll call them host A and host B. Setting up the server for host B was easy as anything – Their customer journey (from pitch to sale and beyond) was guided by friendly staff (both via telephone and live chat). When submitting a technical question, the support team got back to me via their ticketing system almost immediately (definitely within the hour) and were available at clearly stated, convenient times.

Comparatively, Host A (whom I was transferring from, which may have had something to do with it) were less than useless. Their american based ‘support’ team (available from 3pm onwards UK time)  failed to respond to 8/11 tickets I submitted, had very little technical experience and found it hard to communicate the resolution to myself – Mainly as they themselves were using an internal live chat to ‘domain specialists’, making explanations almost impossible. As if this wasn’t enough, they constantly tried to push the blame onto either Host B or myself.

The contrast between Hosts A and B was clear – Whilst one were a clean, friendly and well oiled machine, the others were unavailable, technically offensive clowns.

But it’s not just services which can be enhanced by customer service.

Help! My dog ate my Kindle

One of my close friends recently found her kindle half chewed by her parents vicious chihuahua (or some similar small dog). She emailed Amazon, not expecting a response even, let alone what came next. A few hours later a man from Amazon called and asked about the damage. With no warranty commitment, the Amazonian informed her that they’d send her a new one along with pre-addressed box to return the old one. 24 hours later, the new Kindle arrived and she could continue reading ‘The hunger games’.

I find even more extraordinary when you consider that Amazon actually lose $10 per Kindle they produce. No matter what the service or product, customer service really can give that competitive edge – It certainly made me glad I’d swapped servers!

With this in mind, I’ve been spending the last few weeks changing things – You may remember the article about business cards and new straplines? This (the website re-styling) is the next natural progression. Out goes the dark background and bold green stripe, to be replaced with a monochrome of grays.

The majority of this was done in CSS – Over 1,500 lines in style.css, as well as four other cascading style sheets. But it wasn’t just styling. I’ve also been busy optimizing the pages for speed and size. For example, the TTFB (time to first byte) has reduced from 5.2s to just 2.2s (a figure which is due to reduce even further with a full server migration).

The wordpress database has also been sliced from a massive 25,000Kb down to a measly 5,000Kb! All this, and still time to change the content on most of the pages (particularly the off-topic area).

Now if that’s not incentive to take a look around, I don’t know what is.

Replicated on this website, I’ve moved away from the dated strapline (‘computer scientist and IT professional’) in order to better reflect my career path, hobbies and passion. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to present:

John Alexander Rowley – Computer specialist and online marketing professional’.

So maybe a strap-line launch party would be a bit much, but I thought I’d take this time to go through the new lines added to the new cards – coming to a wallet near you soon.

computer and technology specialism

Ok, number one. I think the first few words are pretty obvious (especially to those reading articles on this site). The vast subject of computing and even broader area of technology is fundamental to my education, career and hobbies.

My grandfather used to say “There’s no such thing as a specialist”, and I tend to agree. However, the definition for ‘specialist’ over at ‘the free dictionary’ is pretty accurate to what I’m trying to convey. ‘One who is devoted to a particular occupation or branch of study or research’. Add something about pastime into the mix, and we’re just about there.

online marketing strategy development

This is much more accurate to my career path than the previous ‘IT Professional’. Whilst I hope I remain professional, I definitely don’t work in IT. I’m sure there is thousands of online marketers across the country that get as wound up as I do when approached with the line “Oh, you’re in IT then, right?”.

Online marketing is another massive and complex area, covering campaign analysis, brand promotion and online presence management, to name but a few. Add email & social marketing, search engine optimization and Pay-Per-Click analysis and you’ll hopefully have an overview of what this sentence is attempting to define.

website production and analysis

Half way through now. Phew. The keyword ‘production’ caused some concern. Attempting to summarise ‘design and development’ (as per previous business cards), website production covers the whole journey of a website: initial graphical mock-ups, structure design, coding, maintenance, updating and migration. Not to mention database management and server setup / migration.

The ‘analysis’ postfix was added to identify the overlap between online marketing and website production. As mentioned SEO and PPC, as well as SERP supervision and keyword investigation are all integral to producing a successful website.

business information management

My final point relates to my final year and experience in the industry in an effort to depict my business comprehension. With one third of my final university year being business orientated (as well as a twelve month placement the previous year) I feel this is justified as I continue to develop my personal credentials.

Studying and actively engaging in elements such as project management, KPI production and business analysis assists me in fine-tuning my knowledge of organisation’s critical information. Handling and analysing this data is defined as the process of ‘business information management’.

Interesting. Moving away from the 15 year old structure is surely a good thing – we all know how quickly technology develops – but replacing the entire curriculum with an open-source code based emphasis doesn’t seem like a great move, in my opinion.

The opinion of a computer scientist

As a ‘Computer Scientist’ (I don’t really think of myself as one, but I have the skill-set to call myself one at times like this) I understand the importance of being able to code. But as an ‘Online Marketeer’ (more inline with my job role) I respect the importance of knowing basic (and advanced) office IT skills.

Take for example Excel. It was the primary focus in ICT, with emphasis on advanced calculations and spreadsheet design. This will be removed and replaced with basic game development in some specific language (currently under industry review).

Now, I love being able to code. But I admit it’s not exactly a ‘life skill’. The number of people I encounter who can’t use a simple excel chart, Word document or Access database is incredible. I don’t think anyone can argue that being able to write a simple program is more important than basic IT office skills.

So why are these office critical skills being replaced? What’s the proportion of A-Level students who go on into a computer science orientated career? Compare this to those who go into an office based career where tools such as Excel, Word and PowerPoint are used almost daily. I think you’ll find the later is a much higher number.

The result of changing the curriculum

My expectation of changing the curriculum is that a lower number of students will take the ICT A-Level. Those that do will be more likely to proceed into a computer science degree. However, I expect this to be due to creating a more niche subject, rather than the effect of the course on it’s students.

In summary, the conversion rate of students moving into a computer specific career will increase, however the number of conversions will drop as more versatile students decide against the coding based A-Level.

If I were to have a say on the progress of the ICT course, I would suggest bringing the existing curriculum up to date (whilst maintaining the tools used). Almost an ‘ICT for an office environment’ course. In addition, an ‘Advanced computing’ course could be created, for those dedicated to software engineering and alike.

Of cause, that’s just my opinion.

So, we used a migration specialist, SEM Solutions, to aid with the process. They handled the database copying, which is always the tricky bit, and uploaded the entire file-structure (public_html in the case of the old server). This is really the first two points to be aware of.

1 – Exporting / Importing databases can be hard! Make sure you know what you’re doing before attempting this (I tried it once and ended up having to recover my articles via wayback-machine and Google Cache, although that was a few years ago!).

2 – Check your full URL paths. When linking directly to files, if you include the web root folder from the FTP be sure it’s the same on the new server. For example, on the new server is uses ‘http_docs’ rather than ‘public_html’ as the web root folder.

There’s another similar issue here; the server back-end UI. Be sure you inquire about which one comes with a server before making the switch.

3 – CPanel vs PLESK. Parallel PLESK is new to me, as I’ve always used old faithful CPanel. PLESK, despite looking less functional and more dated (in my opinion, at least) has similar sections in terms of functionality. It’s quite well documented too, as is CPanel, meaning a switch between the two shouldn’t be too much of an issue (it wasn’t for me, at least).

There was one final issue, which caused the delay in migration. It’s a site specific problem, but it can be applied to almost any website with a contact form.

4 – Mail Transfer Agent. The issue we encountered was the following: We have a contact form. It adds data to a database. It also emails the data to a range of email addresses and produces an XML (more to follow). The contact form was functioning, but it seemed sporadic in the emails (they always came through blank despite the data being added to the database. The solution, you ask? Well, after a few days of head-scratching we discovered it was in fact ‘\r\n’ in the functions file of the form being rendered differently by the new server’s MTA (QMail as apposed to EXIM). This produced an additional line break which ended the header section of the form.

As I said, site specific. But if your experiencing similar issues it’s worth checking the PHP functionality for unnecessary line breaks!

5 – Permissions. A final note – Check your permissions! The XML mentioned above was failing to be created (even temporarily) due to permissions! This is something a ‘live chat assistant’ can usually do over the chat-box.

Skill Set #1: Design

First things first – You need a good design. The attractiveness of a webpage can affect the users perception of credibility, the read rate and of cause, overall bounce rate. Here Photoshop is your greatest ally, quickly (a relative term at best!) mocking up several designs at (again relatively) little cost.

This skill set is as much about prior experience as it is intuitive design ideas – although the two do generally go hand in hand. Knowing what your audience likes is, perhaps, a skill of it’s own – ‘Monitoring’. Being able to take ideas from thought to paper (or canvas, in the case of Photoshop) is another paramount feature of designing.

Skill Set #2: Development

Phase two – The area that most ‘Website Developers’ are associated with. And with good reason. This code orientated skill set is based on taking the designs (from oneself, in a self sufficient methodology) and converting them to a functional structure. This often includes the knowledge of HTML, with DIV’s being the favored method for website structure.

CSS, a styling method, is also a must know language for development. The method in which a self sufficient developer does this is up to the individual; either opting for the quicker inline technique, or the more structured style sheet approach.

Skill Set #3: Content

This is the area that many, including myself, find most challenging. When done well it seems effortless and can definitely be the difference between a successful website and a struggling domain. But creating content for a page is a lot harder than it may seem from an outsiders perspective. Text is the key to most websites, and can change rapidly with altering trends. It does seem, for now at least, that the whole ‘Web 2.0′ friendly and personal approach is here and in full swing.

Text is only the start of it: There is images to contend with too!

Skill Set #4: Marketing

Often overlooked, this is probably the most important factor to producing a successful website (along with content, which is king, of cause). AdWords, Search Engine Optimization and all those other online marketing tools are essential for getting the word out to your potential readers / customers.

Managing your search engine result position (SERPs) with your chosen keywords is a fun and ongoing battle. SEO isn’t a one-time action: It takes constant maintenance (within reason) to ensure your audience keeps on flowing to your site (and converting, if that’s how you roll!).

Skill Set #5: Analyzing

The final piece to the self sufficient puzzle, analyzing those visits to the site is important in order to identify your strongest areas, possible pages of improvement and generally keep track of how you’re performing on the web.

You can track your performance against others, too. Competitors, friends or similar websites. Analyzing a developed website doesn’t mean that you’re finished: A good (proactive) self sufficient web developer will continuously use these individual skill sets in parallel to get the best results.

Demographics

Aligning your company’s demographic to that of social media users is critical in proving the campaign / strategy is worth while. There’s lots of useful information on demographics of social media users out there. For example, he older generations involvement with Facebook has almost doubled over the last year (up to 43%). Different social platforms have different demographics, so be sure to check out a range of sources to see which platform/s are most useful to your campaign! (LinkedIn is the most used social network for over 50′s, however it’s a very B2B platform, which may not suit all strategies).

Engagement

So, you’ve selected your demographic. If only it was that simple! You’ve also got to consider how your target audience interact with social media. For example, do 45-55′s comment on blogs more than 25-35′s? Theres one source (Forrester) who have a pretty awesome hierarchy ladder/model which considers the engagement level of users (Inactive/Spectators/Joiners/Collectors/Critics/Conversationalists/Creators). Identifying the percentages for each of these groups within your demographic can help you plan your strategy more precisely and predict which elements of a platform will be most utilised.

Strategy

Now you’ve got your demographic, your interaction model and your platforms of choice. It’s time to use that information (there’s lots more you should collect, too!) to produce your strategy. This essential document will map the usage and policy of your social campaign. To produce one can take time, but there’s lots of online documentation. The basis of a strategy usually orbits around four sectors; Monitoring, Analysing, Interacting and Engaging. This approach should form the foundations of a personal, customisable and iterative strategy.

Benchmarking

Your social campaign has been running for a while. Is it successful? Don’t know? Then why bother? Just like PPC, SEO and pretty much any other business element, things should be tracked! This tracking falls into two main sectors: Return on Investment and Key Process Indicators. Tracking these goals can be tricky, but there are lots of free (and paid) tools out there to help! Followers : Following ratio is a good example, as is Sentiment, strength and passion.

Results

Without results, don’t expect your social strategy to survive. This is linked (obviously) to benchmarking. It’s been shown, however, that if it’s done well, it can have amazing results! Take, for example, the 7 million views of the ‘Royal Wedding’ video hosted on YouTube by T-Mobile, the 20 million impressions by the ‘GoGranny’ SuperBowl campaign or the 25% increase in users for Under Armour’s ‘Ultimate Intern’ Twitter competition!

It all started on Tuesday, the first of the month and the first day of the new financial year for EvoEnergy. The previous day, however, had been far from tranquil. With government cuts affecting almost every sector, the FiT (Feed In Tariff) which effects Return on Investment (ROI) for solar panel installs was cut by 50%. No problems as such with that, it was forecast a long time ago. What was more of a shock to solar specialists, however, was the December 12th deadline (three months prior to expected!). Anyway, that’s probably as much (if not more than) I’m aloud to say on the subject. Needless to say, EvoEnergy sold a ton of stock on Monday and it’s been a pretty manic week for the company (all with a positive outlook, however). You can read more here.

Anyway, so my new position as Online Marketing Associate is based around the website structure / maintenance, E-Marketing and Campaign analysis. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics.

My own little desk space comes equipped with a lovely new laptop, 22” screen and peripherals, located to the right of the copywriter. There is also Suzy (Marketing Manager) alongside Daniella and Rachael, who make up the marketing team (headed by Tom, the Group Marketing Manager).

So, what’s it like!?

EvoEnergy is already a great company to work for; They provide tea and coffee (which is a great start) and gives the general atmosphere of the internal workings! The composition of young, skilled, professional enthusiasts makes the office a bussing place to thrive. There’s even a Kitchen area and sofas to ‘relax’ (although there hasn’t been much of that this week!).
Another great touch is the interaction and “real life” approach of the CEO, Dr. Kevin Hard, who is in and around the office regularly, and has real involvement with the office happenings.

So there is it, a bit of a review of my first “real” (excluding Thermo Fisher Scientific UK Ltd) week at work! Bring on next week (after a bit of a rest, please. Going out on “work nights” is proving a bad return on investment!

What?

For those of you that don’t know, Google Analytics lets you track traffic, keywords, campaigns and other interesting stuff that basically makes a successful website (page hits, visitors, demographics, traffic… The list goes on!). So, you used to have a 24 hour wait to see useful results, but now you can track website traffic down to the second (or minute, or hour). It’s a great dashboard layout (as is all of the Analytics pages… AdWords should take a leaf!) and is simple to understand. Wondering why you need to know who’s on your website at any specific time? Well you’ll have to wait until the ‘Why?’ paragraph, I’m afraid!

Where?

To get there is easy! Just log into your Google Analytics account (If you don’t have one, why not!) and make sure you’re using the new version. (You can switch to the new layout in the top right). Done that? Good! Now, go to the Home tab (top left) and then select “Real-Time” from the left most column! Hay presto, you’re done!

Why?

For some, knowing who’s on your site at a specific time is well useful! For example, say you just sent out a new email campaign. Gone are the days of waiting 24 hours to see conversion rates via Google Analytics, now you can see your page views increase as it happens. You can also get a better idea of how web behaviour changes throughout the day (for example peeking / dropping at lunch?) and lots of other cool stuff, too! I could watch it all day!

So there you have it

So there you have it, a very (very!) brief overview of Google Analytics Real-Time! It (could) change everything. At the very least, it’s a cool, and long awaited for some, feature from Google.

One. Steve Jobs has sadly passed away.
Two. It’s getting really cold after a lovely warm start to October.
Three. Apple have just released their newest iPhone in the range, the iPhone 4s.

Now, I’m a bit of a sucker for Apple tech… They’ve got me each and every year since the original iPhone was announced back in 2007. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it’s 2011, and I’m preparing for (yet another) upgrade from my iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4s. Now, I’m not going to debate whether its a viable upgrade for one main reason: My 18 month upgrade has come to an end (3 months early as I’m a gold priority O2 member), so it’s time to get a new phone!

I decided to take a look at a couple of options, and found that there is a more cost effective way of buying an iPhone than the typical 12/18/24 month iPhone contracts that O2 provide (Yes, I’m on O2, so I’ll be focusing on that.. Although similar tariffs will undoubtedly be available on Orange et al!).

Here’s the round-up for an 18 month contract (which I signed up to 18 months ago!).

Minutes: 600 per month
Texts: Unlimited (Debatable!)
Internet: 500Mb per month
Handset Cost: £140.00
Cost per Month: £42.00
Contract Term/Length: 18 months
Total Cost:(18 x £42) + £140 = £896.00

Now, bare in mind that if you intend to upgrade when the new phone comes out (presumably in 12 months) you’ll be eligible for 1 month early upgrade (as you paid over £520 already in the past 12 months) so will have 5 months worth of contract / £210.00 (18 months – 12 months paid – 1 month early upgrade = 5 months x £42 = £210.00) to pay off.

Here’s the alternative: Upgrade to a simplicity package.

(The one I’m upgrading to is O2 simplicity 600 12 month)

Minutes: 600 per month (same as above)
Texts: Unlimited (Debatable!)(same as above)
Internet: 500Mb per month (same as above)
Handset Cost: I’ll come back to this!
Cost per Month: £21.50 (Half as much as above)
Contract Term/Length: 12 months (6 less than above)
Total Cost:(12 x £21.50) = £258.00

What’s it all mean?

Now, that total cost does look a lot less.. But you do have to buy the handset at it’s full amount. This is usually around £500. Add that to the cost and you’ve a grand total of £758.00.

Now, Simplicity’s £758 is £138 less than the iPhone tariff mentioned above (£896). There is one major advantage, and one minor disadvantage to the simplicity method:

Advantage: The Simplicity method means that after 12 months, when the new iPhone comes out, there is no contract to pay off. If you think about it logically, with the iPhone tariff you’d not only have to sign up to another 18 x $42 a month contract, but also pay £140 for the phone and an additional £210 contract cancellation charge. That’s a total of £111 (18 x£42 = £756 + £140 + £210 = £1106 over 18 months). The simplicity tariff means you’ll not be paying any contract cancellation fee, simply signing up to another 12 month £21.50 per month contract and buying another handset.

The slight disadvantage is that you have to find the bulk of the money (£500+) at the beginning of the upgrade, where as the iPhone specific contract you pay a more even price over the 18 months. That said, if you upgrade each year then expect to pay at least [handset cost] + ([# months] x [cost per month]) at the beginning of the next upgrade!

Still confused?

There you have it. It’s a bit confusing, I know… To be honest writing this article helped me understand it myself a little better. Basically, if you can afford to pay the £500 for the handset (SIM free) and signing a “SIM ONLY” contract, then you’ll be saving money (around £138) over 12 months, compared to the bundled contract and iPhone deals.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to my timeline Facebook profile (annotations to follow!)

Iv’e blacked out the parts of the profile which remain (pretty much) the same, and highlighted four new / highly altered page areas.

When you see the new layout for the first time, it’s quite shocking. Not much has remained the same. I think a lot of people will be put off by such a large change at first. Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to talk about… So let’s get onto the four annotations.

Firstly, there’s the all new “cover” for your profile. This is a banner across the top of the profile, which users can customize by uploading their own images. Note that I’ve already been playing with mine, to incorporate the profile picture (which lays over the top of the cover). The introduction of these “covers” is a huge step for brand awareness via Facebook pages, as I’ll discuss in a minute!

The second alteration is the timeline. Contrary to previous speculation (including my own previous article) the timeline takes a vertical approach, rather than a horizontal one. The “horizontal rumors”, as we shall call them, were imagined with the possibility of reducing the amount of content under the fold of a typical profile. The ATFC (Above The Fold Content) has been addressed with annotation four, however!

Annotation number three comes in the form of conglomeration. Friends, Photos, GeoTagging, Likes, Music and much more are now accumulated in respective groups (almost like Folders) which can be expanded independently. This generally tidies the profile (in my opinion) and leaves more room for the all important “wall”.

The final point is the wall itself. Facebook have divided the area into two columns (4″ to 9″ wall, for those in the building trade?!) to maximize on space saving. This works well, especially with a blue timeline running down the middle to show when individual posts were added.

It’s a good looking, next generation profile layout (and it’ll look lovely if replicated for Facebook’s iPad app!).

What does this mean for Brand Awareness and Online Marketing?

Ok, so that’s an introduction to some of the new features of Facebook timeline profiles, but what does this mean in terms of online advertising?

Well, for starters the cover (as aforementioned) provides a huge amount of screen space for getting brand identity out there. Take the space as a free 850 x 315 billboard! It’s the first thing customers will see, and it makes a big impact if done well. Grab their attention – check!

Take, for example, the RedBull Facebok profile. It’s clever use of the cover really stands out, and accompanied with the custom background (I’ve not looked into this yet, but I think it may only be for pages rather than profiles) and clever display picture gives a great aspect of brand identity. You’re not going to confuse this page for “Monster: Energy Drink” anytime soon! RedBull have a large online marketing presence, and some of their campaigns have been added to the wall; Including a video and imagery.

Similarly, McDonalds have produced a great looking cover, and let the profile picture do the explaining. That’s fine for a globally recognized brand, but smaller organisations may have to do a little more explaining in their banners! Anyway, so McDonalds have promoted their Free WiFi with a lovely large promotional image and used the “about” information (below the profile picture) to describe their service (not that they particularly need to!)

To conclude, the new Facebook interface brings much more customization and a greater identifiable page to the profiles. Remember the day of totally custom MySpace profiles? Well, it’s not quite THAT changeable, but it’s a perfect blend of standard format layout and unique profile content!

The new Facebook layout will give a new slant on Facebook based marketing, and I think we will see more and more organisations taking to social media advertising as this new layout is rolled out.

First off there is the revamp of the Facebook profile pages, up until now laid out somewhat uniform, with the profile picture on the left, paragraph of information at the top, stream of tagged photos parallel and the wall below. It seems, however, that this is soon to change; In favor of a timeline approach style! This new style will (probably) conglomerate tagged pictures, status updates and activity on the social networking site, to eliminate (or at least reduce) the amount of content hidden beneath the fold (beyond the view-able screen without scrolling).

Secondly, as discovered a while ago, the iPad Facebook application is “launching soon” according to a 9to5 Mac article. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it launched alongside the Facebook UI updates!

So, this change again will inevitably cause a current of opinions in the world of Social Media… With everyone holding their own thoughts (and most posting/tweeting their feelings) be prepared (Social Sandbags?) for the next wave of “I love/hate the new Facebook layout” status’.

I leave you with this famous quote from Winston Churchill;

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Now, I’m not going to go into Social Media (such as Facebook) because that special someone might not have it!

However! Skype, for starters, allows a face to face conversation. The next best thing to an actual chat. Sure, it misses a couple of the main aspects, but it’s a pretty decent substitute. For the camera shy, there is a voice only option (VOIP) which is free and can even be downloaded on mobile devices, meaning you can chat long into the night! Save money and hear her voice! Two birds!

Another great app for the iPhone (and I think Blackberry now too!) is WhatsApp, a text, audio note and image/video p2p application which allows free text and media messages between people free of charge. Yes, you need the internet, but it’s a great way to share your costa coffee, digitally, with someone else!

So, moral of the (rather short) story: Long distance relationships (if you want to call them ‘relationships’) are feesable – You just need technology on your side!

If it gets too much, you can always download the “national Rail” app, and see when the next cheap train is!

FaceTime (by Apple) is good, but seems a little glitchy and disconnects the most of any that we used over the week. Another contender was Skype; This was much better, and I’ve used it before with no problems, but it seemed poor in signal quality and did drop out occasionally. (Although I blame her internet connection, as she could hear me perfectly! – Not sure if that’s how it works?)

Finally, we came onto Viber. Unlike other applications Viber allows a more traditional phone call experience, as the voices aren’t automatically on loud-speaker, meaning you can have more private conversations. There isn’t the feature of video conferencing either, meaning signal strength (for the most part) are stronger. It does drop out occasionally, but again, that’s a poor internet connection rather than the application. To top it off, the audio quality seems BETTER than when talking via actual phone calls!

Moral of the story; Get Viber! It’s free, and it will save you money (and presious contract minutes!).

I’ll start by reiterating; This isn’t a hack. It’s a simple work-around! No coding knowledge is required..

The “Film to Go” app gives users a promotional code which can be redeemed on iTunes (once per week, on a Thursday!) to download a specific film (chosen by Orange).

To get the App, simply download it from the Apple App Store. Next, you’ll need to get an Orange phone number from a friend or family member (Preferably one without an iPhone, so they can’t take advantage of the offer anyway. In my case, my Mom!).

Enter the phone number into the app (More -> Settings -> Mobile Number). A few seconds later your friend/family memeber should receive a four character/digit code. Simply enter that into your app and you’re ready to go.

If you do this on a Thursday you’ll get a promo code right away, and you can go download/watch your film – May I suggest you invite your Orange-phone-number-mate round to watch it with you, you probably owe them one!

The solution?

Navigate to the following page;

• Go to “edit my profile” of your Facebook home page.
• Click “Profile Picture” in the left hand menu.

And then;
Beneath your profile picture, “Edit Thumbnail” and “Remove your Picture” links there is a “Row of photos at top of profile” and an “Unhide All” button. Hit that. Not much happens to confirm the process is complete, but go check out your profile page. All the tagged photos of you will now be accessible, with the most recent 5 appearing in the image stream on your page!

In fact, it isn’t JUST a camera (queue the Marks & Spencer voice-over); It’s a Digital Single-Lens Reflective (DSLR) Nikon Camera 18-105VR lens Kit! All in all, a beauty of a thing!

Now, my house-mate and photography enthusiast Jack Hicks assures me it’s the top banana, and, well, I agree! Knowing little about cameras, i’ll try to explain; It’s frame rate and ISO rating (which varies light input, I guess) are at a semi-professional level at least, and the screen atop the camera displays aperture and the size of the hole for the lens, which can be manually set to capture things such as a match being lit!

I’m not going to pretend I know a lot about what I just said, but the camera makes a lovely snapping sound, just like the press! It also produces wonderful images.

Take a look for yourself!

Now though, I’m starting to lean more and more towards them, and not in the traditional sense. After the release of the final Harry Potter film earlier this month, I was persuaded by a housemate to download the full Harry Potter audiobook collection and give it a go. I was doubtful, but to my amazement, I’m actually rather enjoying it.

I started ‘reading’ (or rather, listening) to the audiobooks on Friday, and today is the following Tuesday. I’ve just finished the second book. That’s pretty amazing for someone who’s got really no interest in novels.

As I start on the third book of the series I’m starting to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of this style of ‘story-telling’ (keeping the terminology brief to include films, traditional books and audiobooks).

One major advantage is that the books, in this case read by Steven Fry, give a good balance of detail (with accents and voices being replicated) whilst still leaving enough to the imagination to maintain the elegance of a traditional book. Furthermore, audiobooks are perfect for long drives, and I tend to find myself staying up for “just one more chapter”, which I don’t think I would personally for a paperback.

On the downside, the books may be read a little slow for those who like to read a book a night (the first two HP books are 8 hours each). I also can’t imagine wanting to listen to the audiobooks again; I know some avid book-readers who like to re-read their books several times.

Overall, however, audiobooks are perfect (for me, at least). Those who already read may not see them as beneficial, but if you’ve not read the Harry Potter books (in particular) then I would definitely recommend giving this medium a chance!

Now, after a little digging, it became apparent that WordPress Dashboards are notorious for having slow loading times. The hunt began to resolve this issue, if possible with a WP-Plugin (after all, it was WordPress’ fault to begin with!).

Along came a cheeky little plugin called WP-Cache is;

an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make you site much faster and responsive. It works by caching Worpress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and the building the page from the database.

It works quite well. It’s made the dashboard a lot more responsive, and I’m starting to cut down on the amount of hair-pulling!

• 28% of small businesses said they used a corporate Facebook page
• 18% own a LinkedIn Profile
• 8% have a company blog
• 6% use YouTube or similar video-streaming service
• 2% own a corporate Twitter account

With over 2 million enterprises in the UK alone (according to the governments ‘Office for National Statistics’) that’s over 1.4 million businesses which don’t utilize Facebook, the world’s largest social media / networking website (with over 750 million users!).

Seems crazy, given the focus and publicity of these potential market avenues! Sure some businesses wouldn’t find all of the options necessary, but with such a high volume of service based business in the UK I can’t help but think some of the 1,000,000 businesses with no social media avenues are missing out.

Case Study: Ultimate Hairdressing, Wolverhampton.

To give an example of how Social Media can be applied to a range of industries iv’e used a case-study of my local hairdressers. ‘Ultimate Hairdressing Wolverhampton‘ (UHW) have recently re-branded after a number of years as a franchise. The newly devised business requires a number of Social Media avenues to keep them engaged with users in as many ways as possible.

Facebook

Facebook, as aforementioned, boasts over 500,000 users. That’s a lot of potential you could be missing out on without a company page. Facebook is a great platform to display photos, communicate with customers and market special events/offers. Using a Facebook Page (rather than a group) UHW can demonstrate not only model hairstyles but also produce albums of consumer’s haircuts.

‘Tagging’ users in an album such as this would allow friends of the newly trimmed customer to see the end product, spreading the word to a much wider audience than just those who get updates from the UHW page. This wildfire style of social marketing removes the boundaries of subscriptions; If each customer has on average 300 friends, and Ultimate Hairdressing takes 20 haircut photographs a week, that’s a potential of 6,000 Facebook users being recommended to UHW.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a reputation for being IT Industry specific. However, a huge variety of companies use the ‘Professional Networking Site’ to, well, network! Perfect for starting ventures, LinkedIn provides the ability to manage a professional identity and engage with similar professionals (not to mention consumers and colleagues, too!).

Whilst less of a marketing tool than Facebook, LinkedIn is a business tool which can be utilized by companies such as UHW to access knowledge, industry specific information and produce new professional orientated opportunities.

Corporate Website & Blog

Ok, so a website isn’t really a form of Social Media (not saying that every company shouldn’t have one!). However, a constantly updating blog (or online journal) can keep users informed of ‘behind the scenes’ on-goings. UHW don’t currently have this platform available, but articles could include their success in the ‘Trend Vision 2011′ and other stories which consumers may not necessarily know about.

Other articles could include featured haircuts, ‘A day in the life of’, new looks and salon updates. These articles could be shared via other social media sites too, further spreading the news. Competitions and special offers could also be detailed via a blog. Best of all, it’s free if you have some computer knowledge and an existing website.

YouTube

YouTube isn’t overly useful for everyone. Personally, it’s my least favorite of the social medias (in a marketing context). That said, videos do tend to have much higher click-through rates (I looked into it during my Mobile Marketing application development).

UHW could (and do) already use YouTube to show events (namely the Trend Vision 2011 finals build-up). With specific, rich media content such as this, users are much more likely to take an interest in the company as an organic, dynamic entity. Furthermore, videos can be embedded into other social media (Facebook, LinkedIn) as well as on Websites or Blogs.

However, bare in mind that a poorly developed, inappropriate or out of context video can have a negative effect on consumers. Make sure you only show customers highly tuned, relevant videos.

Twitter

According to the survey I read, only 2% of companies have a Twitter account. This, at first, surprised me. But come to think of it, there is a lot of confusion behind Twitter; What it does, and how to approach customer feedback.

Personally, I like to think of Twitter as a two-way communication tool, where as Facebook is more one-directional (outwardly). Each business should have a specific set of guidelines regarding feedback, and any responses should always be professional and with the company’s principles at the center of comments. That said, replying to ‘Followers’ is a brilliant way to engage your consumer base, and give an element of transparency to an organisation.

There is other ways to utilize Twitter too; Follow relevant companies also on Twitter (networking), Detail promotions and offers (advertising) and supply links to articles, blogs and Facebook albums (self-linking).

Twitter is an area that UHW are just getting into, and there are still questions to be answered and a clear route to be established. However, it’s definitely (in my opinion) worth persevering with; It’s much more than just for celebrities!

Conclusion

To conclude, there are a number of Social Media options available, each with their own advantages and marketing strategies to hand. These strategies are no longer specific to the technological industry, with something suitable for almost every organisation imaginable.

If your company or business doesn’t already have social media integrated into it’s website and business plan; Why not? Business plans are constantly evolving, and more recently ‘web strategies’ have become common headings amongst almost all of them!

Just a quick one folks; Need a beautiful word based tag cloud? Want to customise the colours, direction, font and make your personal cloud look gorgeous? Want to generate the contents of the cloud via website content or entering custom values? Give ‘Wordle‘ a go!

There is, however, a couple of issues that immediately spring to mind.

Firstly, ownership. Nottingham Trent University in effect own all the work and ideas you produce as part of their modules over the years you study there. Publishing these reports could land me in a sticky situation with them. However, a courtesy email could be sent out to confirm it was approved to publish before making the content available.

Next, there is the risk of theft and plagiarism: If the same (or similar) module specification is repeated with upcoming students, the availability of my work may give them the opportunity for plagiarism. This could raise some serious issues with the university, but again an informative email could solve this issue.

Finally, there is a more personal issue of privacy and hard-copy impact; If I were to put chapters of my dissertation online, for example, the overall effect of my beautifully bound thesis (not to blow my own trumpet, too much!) may loose some of it’s impact when shown or lent to others. This is a much harder issue to overcome; Maybe just the Thesis shouldn’t be put online? Stick to smaller module reports, which to be honest are unlikely to see the light of day now (stored somewhere deep in DropBox) unless someone asks specifically for said report.

So, what do you think? Vote below! You’re more than welcome to leave a comment too!

And what is the number one characteristic of SEO? Content! I’m sure iv’e mentioned it in previous blog articles, but key word rich, media rich, unique content is probably the most important element to a high ranking website.

So, how to keep things running smoothly?

SEO isn’t a one time thing; It takes constant tweaking, improvement and analysis to make the most! The last couple of days iv’e been revamping johnalexanderrowley.com with a whirlwind of new information. The result? Google robots scanning and searching this valuable new data to place me in the ranking system. It’s a bit of an experiment, if nothing else, replacing content in some cases, but replacing entire pages in others.

However, i’m already seeing some good improvement in Analytics and numbers; There has been a steady increase in unique and returning visitors over the last six months, and it’s climbing more rapidly than ever right now. That’s not to say it won’t peek and return to previous numbers, but for the mean time, at least, i’m enjoying soaring numbers.

Moral of the story? Do some SEO Spring Cleaning and see if you can improve your site visits too!?

I’m over the moon, doing especially well in the business orientated modules (Project Management: 80% and Business Analysis: 72%!)

It’s been a long and at times challenging four years, with highlights including my placement at Fisher Scientific, demonstrating my Final Year Dissertation and meeting lots of new friends along the way (not to mention the antics in the old Computer Society room!!).

So, that’s it. In to the big wide world…..

… Or at least it will be after a couple of weeks chilling out / going on holiday / graduation ceremony!

But fear not potential employers! Iv’e been working on my CV over the last couple of days (adding my results, mainly!) and I’m all geared up to start the hunt! Check out my LinkedIn profile if you want to know more, or get in touch via the contact page and I’ll send you a link / attachment of my full CV!

For now, it’s time to celebrate!

Suited and booted, me and others danced right at the front of the stage all night, followed by a walk through Nottingham with ringing ears to the after party at the city’s Student Union bar!

What a night! The Nottingham Ice Arena was dressed in typical ‘prom-esque’ white sheets, and the music, lighting and entire night was amazing! Also noticed how ALL the DJ acts had MacBook Pros (Just to keep the blog partially on track!).

Wicked end to an awesome four years at Nottingham Trent University. Now let’s just hope the results replicate all the hard work?!

It started off with an innocent update; and then it hit me – Formatted phone. No more apps, no more contacts. Oops! It was my fault really, so I don’t want to blame Apple (too much!). But that was that. One late night later and another lucky turn (most contacts were backed up on my Mac) and I was running almost normally again. Apart from the seemingly laggy camera feature. After a while (say a week) the lag on several applications was unbearable.

So, another format! (At least this time everything was backed up to the cloud, which is a great ‘new’ feature, by the way!). This time everything seemed smoother, and so far it’s been fine! I’ll be glad when Apple officially release to the public though; Hop fully it won’t be ANOTHER format?! (Especially with over-the-air updates!).

One gripe; Bluetooth streaming music seems less high-quality.. It could just be me, but the bass seems a little ‘off’? Also, track syncing (which is now a feature with the iPod functionality of the device) isn’t replicated by Spotify’s application. But I guess that’s down to Spotify!

Moral of the story; Back up your phones kids!

Take the characters;

• Ross vs Ted – Both overly enthusiastic (nerdy) about their field of expertise (history & architecture, respectively) and both also tell usually awful ’dad’ jokes.
• Chandler & Monica vs Marshall & Lily – The married couple, with their little quirks & shared personalities.
• Rachel vs Robin – The ‘eye candy’ of the two sitcoms, each has had a major fling / storyline plot with their geeky co-character (Ross / Ted).
• Joey vs Barney – Both womanizers, and both have had a ‘fling’ with the ‘eye candy’ – naturally!

Just a quick thought… But which is better?

Frankly, that’s something I can’t answer! All I know is that Barney is one of my favorite characters of all time! Ledgend-ary!

If you’ve not watched ‘How I Met Your Mother’ yet, give it a go! It’ll be amongst the best things that you’ve ever done!

WordPress changes the .htaccess file depending on the permalink style you choose. There are two ways to solve the 404 error problem;

Option A – Change your permalink style to the default, and then back again.

Option B - For the more webDev savy, go to your .htacess and add the following code;

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

That should fix it!

I rang up O2 this morning (2302 from an iPhone) to discuss the tethering options. A very friendly lady (Ruth!) pointed out that they have a new set of iPhone tariffs released. These tariffs are slightly better priced, however don’t include ANY cellular data (internet / 3G). For £6 a month, a data bolt-on can be added to the tariff. The best bit? The entire 500Mb are able to be used when tethering! Whoo!

So, let’s put this in context. I pay(ed) £40 per month for 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500Mb of iPhone only data. With this new tariff set-up, I pay £42 per month (£2 more – I’ll come to that!) for the same number of minutes, texts and data. The difference is that the data can be used as I like! Also thrown into the package is 20 picture messages per month, free of charge as well as the ability to connect to cloud and BT OpenZone hot spots!

Ok, so it’s not quite free, but it’s less (and a much better deal) than paying an extra £7.50 per month! Ok, paying £7.50 would get you an additional 500Mb, rather than the ability to use the same 500Mb, but there is a second bolt-on (£10 per month) which gives you 1Gb of data. So, £36 + £10, still better than the £40 + £7.50 I could have paid. It’s also a better deal than paying up to £15 per month for data directly to your iPad.

Take a look for yourself here. O2 (and Mobile companies in general) have a tendency to release new tariffs and not tell existing customers about them! They may suit your needs better, they may not. Let me know!

This got me thinking; The program, and people on it, seemed to put all the emphasis on Mr. Ratner, leaving the journalist (who obtained a copy of the leaked speech prior to Mr. Ratner’s delivery) without blame. To me, this doesn’t seem fair. Sure, Ratner was a bit of a clown for saying such comments during a speech, but he had made numerous comments during the previous decade, which were received well. Mr. Ratner was known for such comments. Shouldn’t the press who published, manipulated and “got a ‘splash’ story” from the happening be partly to blame?

Sticking with business satellite employees ‘voicing their opinions’, enter Apple. The IT giants were called ‘arrogant’, amongst other things, during the documentation, for what I can see, defending their products. On one hand, yes ok, Jobs probably shouldn’t have been pointing the finger at users for ‘holding the phone wrong!’, but on the other, calling a company ‘arrogant’ for claiming to have ‘the best’ products hardly seems justified.

I read an article today about Apple’s iPad (which I’ve been raving about recently). It commented that Apple do so well with all their products partly because of their ability to convey the functions, features and ‘magic’ to customers better than anyone else (revolutionary or otherwise!). They do this with a degree of enthusiasm (to put it mildly), but in my opinion this makes them good at marketing their products, not egotistical or arrogant.

I totally understand the documentaries point of view, regarding CEO’s commenting (possibly inappropriately) about products; But is there not room for a degree of humour in business? And should it be accepted without the batting of an eyelid that press hang off the every word of a comment, taking it out of context to tear down a multimillion business? And should an organisation be labelled ‘arrogant’ for believing in (and subsequently promoting with equal emphasis) their products? I guess that’s just the way it is?!

First up, Spotify! Iv’e gone for the 16Gb WiFi model, largely due to already owning an iPhone (with constant internet connection). The Spotify app is actually the iPhone version, but why re-make the wheel? Creating a playlist (‘for the iPad‘) allows me to control and constantly update which songs are synced to the device from my phone, computer or directly. Jump onto a wireless connection and hay presto, instant music library updates! In my opinion Spotify is one of the best (if not THE best) application on the iPhone, and it works well on the iPad. I just wish they’d make an iPad specific application.

Next is DropBox. There are a load of reviews about the magic of DropBox, so I’ll keep it brief; If you haven’t got DropBox yet, go and sign up. Then download the DropBox app for your iPhone and iPad and never be without your much needed documents again! It’s also a great way of wirelessly transferring content from/to your devices.

CoolPapers: It’s basically what it says on the tin: An archive of beautiful wallpapers to really customise your iPad experience!

BBC iPlayer: Wonderful! Watch all the BBC iPlayer content on your beautiful device. Perfect for bed-time catch-up! Really nice interface too, very 2.0, and looks amazing on the iPad’s shiny screen! My only gripe here is that some of the programs don’t quite fill the screen (due to aspect differences) and an over-scanning option would be nice.

Friendly. Until Facebook get’s on-board the iPad specific Application revolution, Friendly will be your best bet. It works and interacts well (after a little getting used to). That said, it did have some time-out issues this morning. However, it’s generally been quite reliable (according to a couple of friends).

mBox Mail. This is only really going to be of much use if you have a Hotmail E-mail account. Unfortunately the native ‘Mail’ app doesn’t sync all the folders (due to POP3 / Push / etc) of a Hotmail account. Something Mbox Mail overcomes seamlessly. Dear Apple, please add this functionality to iOS5. Regards.

Skype. I’ll be honest, I haven’t used this yet. But I have used the application on the iPhone. Seeing as how it’s ported directly from the iPhone to the iPad, I can recommend it. Although FaceTime put’s up a good fight against this. I guess it depends on personal preference, and weather your contacts are Apple-esk or not?

Twitter. Facebook should definately take a leaf (preferably one without bird poo!) out of Twitter’s book! A beautiful app, full of features and perfectly laid out! This is how the iPad expereince should be! Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, download this app! 10/10!

Flipboard. A very good, intuitive and modern approach to news reading. With the ability to customise the ‘contents’ page, you read the iPad like a book, with articles appearing in a digital 2.0 magazine style. (Page flipping transitions included!).

WordPress. Much like Twitter, this is a beautiful application. Purpose built for the iPad, in addition to the easy-to-use keyboard, this will soon become my preferred way of blogging. Look, I’m even using it to write this blog (with addition of my wireless keyboard, just to test out the bluetooth connectivity!).

Bonus Application: Google. I decided to add Google as a bonus application for two reasons. 1: I miscounted the number of non-native apps on the homescreen! and more importantly 2: It can often be overlooked, by default going to Safari and using the search bar. However, the Google App does much more than searching the net (as if that wasn’t enough). Google Goggles (search via images) and really good voice recognition make for a truly rich-media searching experience!

So there we go! The top 10, ahem, 11, applications to download for your iPad!

Apps, IMO, transform the iPad 2 from shiny white (or black) tablet device into a personalised multi-use device for reading, writing, gaming, painting, socialising and much more!

I spent a while downloading a huge array of applications from the AppStore, so here they are;

spotify, myO2, DropBox, weather, clock, liveprofile, skype, vouchercloud, shazam, nectar, sainsburys, twitter, calcuylator, sky sports, sky mobile TV, sky+, sky news, iLoaderHD, bigoven, coolpapers, winmdowshop, ebay, photosynth, imovie, photoshop express, wordpress, marvel, IMDb, DC Comics, Flixster, Rightmove, Yelp, GarageBand, Big top 40, Engadget, BBC News, IGN, Mashable, Google Earth, Google, Fisher Scientific, QI, Banner, bbc iplayer, good food, TV Guide, 4OD, stumbleupon, flipboard, facebook, friendly, airvideo, instapaper, tunein radio, penultimate, world of goo, pages, keynote, numbers, bloomberg, CNBC RT, RealRacing2HD, Angry Birds, Next, Wired, T3, Telegrtaph, The Times, Qwiki, betfair, convert units, mBox Mail, GoodReader, and a couple of web based apps.

Amongst the jungle of apps (helpfully found via iPad alternatives to those installed on my iPhone), the following made it onto the first page of the home screen, and are probably worth a look yourself;

It’s very much a case of installing apps that you want, in order to utilise the personal benefits of having an iPad. I’ll review the iPad 2 and corresponding applications in more detail after a couple of days playing with it!

Insidious is a much-acclaimed horror; Adverts show screaming audiences, reports detail people crying and there are numerous accounts of people leaving mid-film. My question after the film was this: “How did modern technology contribute to the making of one of the proclaimed scariest films in recent year?”

So, I watched a couple of ‘Behind-the-scenes’ clips from YouTube, only to discover a laughing, joking and smiling cast. Much different from the reported cast during the filming of ‘Poltergeist’. So, the cutting room and editing must have played some part in making the film as jumpy and scary as it is?!

Again, I don’t know enough about film production to comment on individual aspects, and the process in which a film goes from relatively placid film recordings (with laughing in the background) to feature film… But I suspect that A. The music and B. added special effects go some way towards achieving this.

Insidious is a pretty decent film; It’s got a plot dissimilar to many modern ‘run of the mill’ haunted house films, and keeps viewers entertained, scared and on edge throughout. Comparatively, I think the hype surrounding it (granted via very good marketing) has built the movie up to be scarier than it actually is. Either way, go and watch it, it’s definitely worth it. Unless you have a heart condition! Or your demon companion tells you not too!?

Wednesday: I went into GameCity to meet with the Managing Director of GameCity, as well as some other stakeholders related to the project. We discussed the application, it’s potential and the forward movement of the alternative route to content. There were some particularly interesting ideas regarding the application around the time of the GameCity festival, which I won’t go into right now (hold the suspense and all that!). Basically, it was a very positive meeting, with lots of appraisal and interest in the software. Resultingly, the application should hopefully soon be on the AppStore!

Friday: Demo day. Nottingham Trent University set up a day for final year students to demonstrate their final year projects to a variety of people including second year students, lecturers, assessors, perspective employers and visiting guests. I expected a little interest in the application, but the number of people who wanted to know more blew my mind!

On top of the two lecturers who I knew were visiting (whom were marking my dissertation) there was also a number of additional contacts who seemed interested in the context of marketing application development, as well as my portfolio in general. This took me completely by surprise, not expecting to have anywhere near as much external interest. Let’s just say I’m glad I had my business cards to hand (with one lecturer calling me a “smooth” operator, which I THINK is a good thing?).

In addition to the external interest, lots of students seemed positively interested in how the application was produced, the positive and negative aspects of iPhone development, and working with a ‘real-life’ client. All questions which I answered to my best ability (sorry, you had to be there to know my answers!).

The day was completed with some really positive comments from a number of lecturers, both from personal perspectives and passed on from other students/contacts.

Overall a really good day – Not boring at all (like some previous students had warned) – and a perfect finish to a year of hard work!

Iv’e had debates time and time again. More often than not, these seem to conclude with facts, figures, claims and so-called evidence based on “something [someone] read online”. The fact is, however, that almost any argument can be justified by something found on the internet. As a higher-education academic on a computer science orientated degree for four years, I have heard countless times the strategy of “only citing respectable sources”. This, it seems, is often focused on NOT citing Wikipedia. That said, Wiki pages do appear to becoming more and more creditable by academic institutions, backed up by a number of interesting reports regarding said credibility. (I wonder if those journals cited Wiki?).

Either way, it’s frustrating to come to dead-end debates based on something found online, with quotes usually being either out of context, cited in the wrong scope, or in some cases completely fictional. You’d (probably) take articles from weekly magazines with a pinch of salt, so why do we so regularly cite online content?

Take for example the Fukushima Nuclear Incident; One of my peers commented that the exact reason was known for the meltdown very quickly after the incident. Now, without going into too much detail, I had reliable sources that told me this wasn’t the case. News papers, online journals and other media was claiming to know the full story, quoting extracts of Japanese interviews, but this, for the most part, wasn’t the full story.

Basically, it’s just a case of summing up how likely something is to be true, and taking things with a pinch of salt. If the source is more reliable, reduce to a few grains of salt. Unfortunately, due to some content/rubbish posted on the internet (no comments on this website, please!) it is often necessary to use a full spoon of salt!

P.s. I took down the PlayStation Network, single handedly, using my sonic screwdriver.

Now, I’m not saying that I write the perfect content – Far from it – But I like to think I put a degree of effort into my articles and have a style of writing which people can at least relate to. Now, talking about ‘computer things’ (as my mom would put it) doesn’t require a specifically sophisticated level of vocabulary. Technical, yes. But not sophisticated.

On the other hand talking about some subjects (namely food and film) are two which are generally associated with understandable, well constructed English.

Why the rant, you may be asking yourself?
Well, because recently one of my house-mates has decided to take it upon himself to ‘review’ (and I use that term loosely) both aforementioned topics. His self-confessed “not good at English” approach makes reading anything hard, and is particularly annoying when coupled with a lack of basic knowledge to base his ‘reviews’ upon. I’m talking more about food than film, as he does visit the cinema quite regularly.

But food!? It’s something I have a genuine passion about. I buy British, in season top quality foods. Comparatively, said house-mate buys cheap, fake, processed battered ‘food’ from god-knows-where. Is this OK? Can his food articles be justified with any sort of background knowledge? Sure, go ahead and review KFC, but not the best sandwich shop in the city!?

So, yes I’m laying into one particular a little bit – But it’s really quite frustrating when I spend so much time trying to get an article, blog and general website looking/reading well, only to have some badly worded, unjustified, poorly designed excuse of a blog knocked up in 10 minutes.

Again, I don’t know why its bothered me so much; bloggers pride, perhaps?

Why? Because its a little dull. Sure, Iv’e got other work to be doing, like a 20 page report discussing the real-time happenings of a car’s engine control unit. Or start revising for Business Analysis and Project Management exams at the end of May! But none of this really seems to come close to the challenge, diversity and excitement of developing an iPhone application.

The iPhone application was not easy to produce. Tutorials online helped to an extent, but problems specific to the application’s code meant there were some late nights, Starbucks sessions and bloodshot eyes in the process of problem-solving! Although it was at times stressful working out why pages wouldn’t transition, images wouldn’t appear and random crashes occurred, Objective-C made it an exciting and fun activity. Moreover, the xCode debugger and online community of developers really helped!

Development was much more than just Objective-C coding too! There are always ‘software engineering’ final year projects which focus heavily on producing the cleanest, most efficient code. That wasn’t something I wanted to get into, instead opting for a more rounded project incorporating graphic design, project planning and client awareness (together of cause with a bit of coding!).

Finally, the excitement of producing an application which I could say I’d developed, on one of the most famous software stores (the AppStore) in existence, running on one of the most famous mobile phones (iPhone) of all time; Well, it was just an exciting time! Especially when the finished product was ran on the phone, the dissertation was bound and the demonstration video was completed!

Basically, the whole project felt like a great achievement, as it should! Now I just need my next angle to develop another iPhone application – Watch this space!

“Probably the most important report you’ll ever write”.

That’s what we were told at the start of academic year in September. Fast forward eight months and it’s typed, printed, developed and handed in! Now that sounds flippant, but trust me when I say, it was a complete adventure to get done.

I’m talking of cause about my Final Year Project, details of which can be found over on the ‘Final Year Project’ page. To give you an overview, it’s an application for a smart-phone device (the iPhone, naturally!) aimed at marketing a small organisation based in Nottingham, UK.

The principle was simple: Pull content from the client’s existing website and Social Media sources, add locational information utilizing the mobile device’s built-in GPS features and bundle it all in one place for delivery into the palm of a user’s hand!

More than 240 days, 135 pages, 80 source files, 5 Tabs and 1 iPhone Application!

After iterations of development, implementation and testing, not to mention typing over 130 pages of research, product ideas and project management, the application was finally compiled for the final release!

So, it was quite a large project, as you’d expect from a final year student… Consequently I’m going to write a bunch of blogs over the coming weeks, discussing more precise details ranging from the project methodology to development of particular features. Stay tuned!

I’m talking (obviously!) about the Navigation Pane, New and Improved for Word 2010. The navigation pane can be found by going to ‘View’ and checking ‘Navigation Page’ (obviously, again!). It sorts chapters, headings, sub headings and even sub-sub headings (providing they have been set up correctly via the ‘Styles’ feature in Word).

This indexes all the headings and sub-headings down the left hand side of the page, allowing for quick access to any section. Furthermore, using the format which allows the navigation pane to work correctly also allows automatic contents page generation, by clicking Insert > Reference > Index and Tables > Table of Contents.

Here is how I (eventually) managed it:

1. Log into NOW (http://now.ntu.ac.uk).
2. Click on ‘NTU Email’.
3. In the mail window, click ‘Options’ to reveal a drop-down box, then select ‘See all options’.
4. Select ‘Change Your Password’ on the right hand side.
5. Select ‘Change’ next to the [******] password.
6. A default password has been set up, which you won’t know…
7. Select ‘Forgot my password’ under the old password field.
8. Insert your email address as a windows ID (e.g. n0000000@my.ntu.ac.uk)
9. Complete the captcha.
10. Select an email response. You will be emailed a link to set up a new password.

So, that’s how to define and locate your password. From here it’s relatively simple.

For iPhone:

1. Go to settings > ‘Mail, Contacts and Calendars’.
2. Under accounts tap ‘Add Account’.
3. Select Microsoft Exhange
4. Enter your email address (N0000000@my.ntu.ac.uk) as the email address.
5. Enter ‘pod51007.outlook.com as the server.
6. Leave the domain blank.
7. Enter the same (N-Number) email address for your username.
8. Enter the newly defined password for the password.
9. Ensure that SSL is ON.

That should be it – New emails will now sync into your iPhone’s mail inbox!

For Outlook 2010

1. Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
2. When the window appears, Click ‘New’ under the Email tab.
3. Select Email account and click ‘next’.
4. Enter your name (or N number) in the ‘Your Name’ field.
5. Enter your N-Number (N0000000@my.ntu.ac.uk) email address in the email address field.
6. Enter and confirm your newly changed password.

After filling in the fields and clicking next, Outlook should search, find and complete your email address. Your ready to go!

A couple of important notes:

With the first/last name email address, the four numbers on the end is the starting year of your degree.

Both email addresses will receive emails (to the same inbox) – However setup requires the N-number version.

Existing emails will not be synced to the iPhone, only NEW emails will be received.

It had been in the back of my mind for some time, so the first available Sunday (after the stress of exams and deadlines for final year) I took my trusty (although ageing) camera (Cannon IXUS75) and an old Sony tripod into university to try and get some clips. I’d roughly planned out the sections I wanted to talk about, and had written five or 6 bullet points for each section on different pieces of A4 paper. These auto-cues were pinned directly under the camera (you can probably see my eyes move down slightly every now and then).

It was actually really intimidating talking to a camera, with no-one else in the room. The task of getting over a fun, bubbly character and also one who is serious about computing and work is no easy feat! However, I think I did OK, after about 25+ attempts!

So then the videos were reviewed and the best chosen; Into Windows Live Movie Maker 11 they went (which I don’t rate at all by the way – far too pretty with a lot of useful features removed!). There were however a couple of nice transitions, and knocking up the section headers only took a couple of minutes.

Finally I added a transcript using WLMM11 captions, which was tricky and time consuming. Finally, I used a piece of software called Watermark Maker 2 (Free trial for 20 days) to add the watermark in the top left.

Hey presto! One upload to youTube and a couple of blog articles later and I’m done. I’m pretty proud of the result, considering it only took one afternoon (and evening!).

Let me know what you think.

And why not read about how I came to make the video HERE!

Retail stores play a huge part in the overall “Apple experience”. When I went to buy my MacBook Pro (for my Final Year Dissertation) walking into the Apple store in Birmingham (UK) was a really exciting experience. I went early to avoid mid-morning crowds at busy peak times. This was a good strategy, with only a few people being seen around town and a relatively empty car park. Except for the Apple store. Considering the lack of people around, the Apple store was still quite busy, and was by far the most popular store. This gives a good indication to the prestige which many consumers hold for Apple as a company, its products and their services.

Now, It’s probably important to mention here that a lot of computer scientists, software engineers, and basically your average “Tech Guy” don’t like Apple. Why? Because they over-price for products which “Don’t perform” as they should. I’m not one of these “Tech Guys” because I love Apple. I seem to find myself time and time again defending their products, trying to convey that they aren’t targeted at the technical end of the spectrum (like Linux) and are more about beautiful design and providing a good interface between your average consumer and a wealth of features. Ok, so they are expensive, but it’s an Apple product!

So, what makes Apple really stand out from the crowd? For me, it’s not about the functionality, the price, the retail stores or even the products. For me, it’s the way Apple operate. The anticipation of the latest Apple product is exciting, and you know it’ll only be a couple of weeks between announcement to rolling out! Jobs does a great job (excuse the pun) at this, his enthusiasm and natural presentation skills at keynotes really pulling consumes in!

Most importantly though is my favourite line when trying to justify Apple’s greatness; “Apple don’t design new products, they design new categories“. Take MP3 Players. They were (lets be honest) a little crummy before the iPod came along. Fast forward to now and all other MP3 players are pretty much obsolete. Let’s try phones. The iPhone came along in 2007, and completely revolutionised the way which phones are today. Phones boasting touch-screen technology, Apps and other similar features are common place, but still can’t rival the fluidity and popularity of the iPhone. Finally there is the iPad. Don’t get me wrong tablets were already around, but the iPad took it to a whole new level. Competitors didn’t know what to expect and had to go completely back to the drawing boards.

To conclude, Apple are different. Some people love them. Some people don’t. But either way, you have to admire what Apple have done for the industry. Ask someone you know to name the first “hand held device” that comes into their head, and I think they will probably say something like “Oh, like the Apple <insert product here>”

So, I’ll set the scene. In a small suburban yuppie/student orientated quaint village(?) called West Bridgford (WB) there is a pleasant small cafe called Philo’s. I think it’s a small chain, as there is also outlets in the town centre and around Nottingham, however the one in WB is special. It’s special because it’s the venue of choice for my housemates and I if there is anything more than a 2 hour gap between lectures!

Philo’s specialises in sandwiches, which are simply amazing! My personal favourite is the Brea, Bacon and Red Grape on sliced wholemeal bread, but you can mix and match ingredients to create your own! One of my house-mates recently had a Chorizo and Goats Cheese on toasted white bread and quickly ranked it in the top three sandwiches he has ever had! I took some friends from home too, who are all hooked themselves now too! Not to mention my mom remembering it for the one time she went whilst visiting me in first year!

Basically, it’s amazing! The uber friendly staff are polite, well mannered and really chatty! It’s the perfect experience! The only criticism (if I was being super fussy!) is the amount of indoor seating; Enough to house about 20-25 people at any one time which can get busy between 12.30 – 1.30. However there is plenty of additional outdoor seating which I can’t wait to start using as the summer slowly starts to appear, and it’s usually only a couple of minutes wait if you can’t sit immediately (which has only happened once!).

If your in or around the Nottingham area it’s seriously worth the trip to go! HINT: The meal deal is £5.95 which includes a hot drink (personally tea – served properly with a cup and saucer!), a sandwich with amazing side salad (complete with balsamic dressing and coleslaw) and finally a slice of your choice of cake which seem to have been baked on the day or the day before!

It’s a true delight; And totally worth every penny! Plus, if you go, you’ll more than likely run in to me; It’s my second home!

It gives a really smooth shave, and is a delight to use! The blades are as ever quite expensive, but it’s worth every penny for the effortless and perfect shaving results which I seem to get time after time!

Please give it a go! I did, and now I’m raving about it to all my friends, family and anyone who doesn’t think I’m crazy taking about this revolutionary new piece of bathroom technology!

Normal service will now be resumed.

So, what elements should one strive to patch into a website to get the most out of their efforts? Well, it’s just that which makes a good blog; Effort. If you put a lot of effort into your blogs, being thoughtful in what you do (or sometimes don’t) say, provoking the reader to fire up a conversation via comments, then mission accomplished.

There are no magic rules for creating a good blog, but personally I like to read from a page which has a professional looking interface; Not specifically corporate, but looks like it’s been done by someone who gives a damn. If the aim is to look amateur with a sense of cartography, make it look that way, but lets see a degree of effort in the design to make it look like that!

Effort shouldn’t stop with design though. Each article should be clear and as mentioned, provoke a response from the reader. The style here doesn’t matter that much, but how it’s wrote does! No body will read something that’s been hashed together in 5 minutes with little thought, bad grammar, spelling mistakes and general lack of attention to detail. Adding images (fit for the style of the blog) can do wonders too; breaking up text blocks and adding a thousand words!

Of cause, it’s just my opinion, but if your reading this odds on you read the whole article, so I must be on the right lines, aren’t I?

But now I’m back, and have lots to talk about! In fact, as a signal of my return to the world of blogging, Iv’e bashed out three short articles on the work iv’e been concentrating on as part of my final year; Advanced Analysis and Design, Software Engineering, Business Analysis, Real-Time Analysis & Design and Project Management.

Iv’e tried to catagorise similar modules, using my own personal grouping criteria;

Advanced Analysis & Design and Software Engineering [The 'geeky' ones]
Business Analysis and Project Management [The 'business' ones]
Human Computer Interaction and RealTime Analysis & Design [The 'other' ones]

Of cause, there is also my Final Year Dissertation which I’ve been working on at points, which you can keep up to date with HERE.

Software Engineering was a console application developed to take in Algebra Expressions with sets as values and produce a structure tree, finally outputting a set of results. This was wrote in C++ and was supported by a 12 page explanation document. It was by far the hardest module I have had to complete over the entire four year course and isn’t a specialist area I wish to develop much above degree level. However it was an insightful lesson and made me quickly brush up on some coding practises which I had put to the back of my head.

Project Management was very similar to Business Analysis, covering some of the same material. However it is much less case study specific and a more overall view of managing critical processes and analysing data. Including areas such as Perato analysis meant there was a strong mathematical basis to the module (both modules, in fact) but it was all explained. Having a frankly pretty bad grasp of A-Level mathematics I worried a little at first, but everything was explained and I now feel confident around the relatively simple calculations required to give good business analysis emphasis.

Human Computer Interaction was all about the front end user interface and required students to design a direct manipulation training system (an interface which allows dragging, dropping, manipulating elements etc much like the Windows desktop). I opted to produce a cottage pie, and the interface (designed in flash) worked well with this concept. The user had the option and freedom to chop the ingredients as they liked, and simple steps ensured there was no serious error when replicating in a real kitchen.

This was a hard module to get to grips on, as I had no previous experience in Flash. I worked on this for the majority of the christmas holidays (including Christmas day!) but it was definitely worth it as I scored 78%, a solid 1st, which was the highest in the year! Proof that hard work pays off!

Iv’e never liked software simply for browsing photos – I think the default browsers in most OS’s do the job fine these days. Just a though, Microsoft, perhaps you should stop taking out some of the best features of an operating system (slight over exaggeration, perhaps).

The automatic renewal took place, and charged, on top of the usual hosting fee, a renewal fee of £13. It’s not a great amount, but if this automatic renewal happened to the long list of domains I own we could be talking some serious money! Bad times – Something to look out for! Put a note in your diary/phone/whatever to make sure your on top of this when it roll’s around!

Hosting providers WILL just renew, and make you pay for it. Mine even stated in their T&C’s that there will be further ‘admin’ charges if the amount isn’t paid within 28 days.

Symptom: Every link on the website redirects to a foreign page which hosts malware, which in turn redirects to an adverts page for medical equipment.

Now, I’m certainly no expert in cyberhacking, so it took some Googleing. The problem I had (and often have when fixing virus’) is that there are often various solutions to the same symptoms. In this case I found a couple of good ideas and started there.

Move forward an hour or two and I had the problem semi-fixed. The issues lay in the ‘.HTACCESS’ file, which had two lines of text injected into them. The first was a rewriteRule line which had the foreign website (‘googlle.in’) link in full. (Select line, delete!). There was also an ‘ERROR404′ line which had the same link (Select line, delete!).

So, problem semi-solved. The issue then was that Google had reviewed the website recently and recognised the hazard, meaning when entering the website a lovely red page would appear stating that the website was known to host malware and wasn’t safe! Great!

Fix: A trip over to WebMaster Tools to request a review for the website and 24 hours later the pre-page warning was gone. Horay!

Now, back to university work!

Technology is fighting back though. Exibit A: The North Face E-Tip Gloves. These fantastic gloves from one of the worlds premium cold-weather clothes creators keep you lovely and warm whilst allowing the conductivity required for most touch screens to go strait through! They work perfectly on iPads, iPhones and iPods! Check them out!

It’s not a bad effort. It’s really more of a set of advanced plug-ins for Chrome, rather than a whole new browser. I just have one major gripe with it. Simplicity! Google Chrome is simple and it works brilliantly, especially because most modern websites are designed to optimise the whole browser, usually in fullscreen. RockMelt uses a lot of this valuable screen space to incorperate it’s ‘features’. It’s really annoying having the search window pop up all the time. In my opinion, a better option would have been to incorporate an entire screen within the browser based on the Google homepage.

Never the less, it’s a pretty decent piece of software, I suppose. I won’t be switching over from Chrome though, and I expect very few people will. Facebook chat belongs on Facebook.com. Google searches belong on Google.com. Call me old-fashioned, that’s just what I think, any way.

It made me wonder, with the evolution of motion-based gaming (Wii, PSMove, Kinect) where has it left the hardcore gamers who want a more serious experience? It’s not that I don’t like being active, I work out each morning, but when it comes to gaming I want to be able to kick back, relax and chill out. None of this “jump around” and “experience the game like never before”. It’s a brilliant piece of technology mind, and will do really well I’m sure off the back of the success of the Wii. It’s just not for me – and thousands of other serious gamers! I’ll take my 6-axis any day!

Interested in Kinect? Brilliant prices for the full system and game over at Play.com

Spotify Premium, enter stage left! So yea, I went all out for a one year membership to the premium edition, which allows you to get songs on your iPhone or other internet enabled device using the variety of Spotify applications. It’s the best thing since sliced bread! Out and about and hear a song you like the sound of? A quick shazam later you have the track and artist, which links directly to Spotify and lets you add it to a playlist.

Offline mode is good too, if you are worried about the amount your streaming. Whenever your connected to a WiFi hotspot Spotify automatically starts downloading the songs in “offline” playlists, so that even if you have no connection the songs are still playable from the device! It honestly is brilliant!

My personal favourite bit is its ability to override the default iPod on the iPhone, so it can sync up to anything the iPod could. For example my car, so I can now listen to all those great tunes, anything from Spotify(!) while i’m on the move!

This post isn’t like the usual post you’ll find on this site – It’s actually a blog about… ME! Final year work has really brought home the frankly geekyness behind the degree which I’m doing. It’s software Engineering (Computer Science basically) which is pretty well as deep as any course will go into computing. Now, I’m not saying its a bad degree, after all some people love this kind of thing (100101011010) but its just not me! (If you don’t get the joke in the previous brackets it’s not you, either!).

The whole thing just seems like computing for computing’s sake. After a year in industry I really have had my eyes opened to the bigger picture. The marketing, the collaboration and the use of computers to accomplish goals, rather than accomplishing goals for computers. I guess what I’m trying to say is that although the course I’m on is fine, and I’ve learned lots of really interesting stuff over the first two years, the placement I undertook was much more inspirational and was definitely the kind of work I’d like to be doing in 12 months, rather than the work I’m doing now!

As a quick example, I’ll talk a little about some of my modules. I think you’ll get the picture. My favourite module would definitely have to be a toss up between ‘Business Analysis’ and ‘Human Computer Interaction’. Although there is almost no emphasis on computers at all in BA, the HCI module is really the softer side of computer science – The principles behind good design and how design is interpreted.

The least favourite modules would certainly be either Advanced Analysis & Design or Advanced Software Engineering. These two (both Advanced versions of the second year modules) are very computer specific and aim at developing mainly coding practise and designing the code (rather than the user interface like in HCI). They are much more ‘Computer Science’ than the first two, targeting much more in depth content (in depth to computing, that is).

I guess I’ll wait and see what happens by this time next year. One thing I am very happy with is my Final Year Dissertation, which incorporates a healthy balance of graphical design (HCI), marketing / business (Business Analysis) and coding (Soft Eng). I think it’s safe to say though that Iv’e developed considerably since year 2 at university and am certainly more focused on where I want to be in 12 – 18 months time!

During my time stewarding there, I got to talk to a lot of people. Not just gamers and geeks (If I’m honest that’s who I expected) but a much wider range of people. After all, there was a big white tent with booming music in the middle of Nottingham city centre!

I would estimate that about 60% of passers by didn’t know what GameCity was, which is what I expected. Those who came specifically already had a good idea of what it was all about.  It made me think how beneficial a mobile device application would be; marketing the event and explaining the concept behind GameCity to some of the audience who didn’t already know, and didn’t have time to stop and chat to a lovely, friendly steward!

The second thing was the schedule of the events within the festival. Due to Nottingham Council restraints (littering and other regulations), we couldn’t hand out flyers to promote the event. Because of this, stewards had to approach individuals and  talk directly about the fun things going on inside. Leaflets could be handed out inside the tent, but by that point the attendees could see what was happening. This backed up my idea for a piece of marketing software even more, free to download, which would get people’s interest and tell them of events taking place on certain days.

Not everyone would have the same device, but looking at the majority of mobiles at GameCity, I would say that the iPhone far outweighs any other device on the market. Some quantifiable research was done on site, and will be analysed soon.

sically, stewarding at GameCity5 was an awesome experience, definitely one for the CV, and one I’d love to do again next year! It also backed up my points about the added marketing of an iPhone application (or something similar) to draw even more people in and bump up attendance figures even more!

I’d like to thank Mira, who organised all the steward rotas for the event, and all the other GameCity staff, as well as everyone else involved, for making my “background literature review” so much fun!

As always, there will be a huge tent in market square which this year hosts an interactive gym as well as a lounge area where you can meet industry professionals and get some cool free stuff too!

I’ll be in the Lounge area between 12.00 and 17.00 on Wednesday and Saturday, so come say hi! I’ll be asking lots of people about their opinions on a GameCity application, so please drop by and let me know your thoughts! I’ll also be in Tonic, one of Nottingham’s top-notch resteraunts/bars at the same times on Friday, so why not grab a bite to eat and see some of the brilliant events on offer!

As a final note, there will be a game character out and about in Nottingham between the dates mentioned! If you manage to photograph him and upload it to your favourite site you could win some fantastic prizes!

See you there!

For example how to combine a TabBar based application with a Navigation Bar based application to create a multi-navigational application. This comes at a price. Load times! The application is already taking about 2-3 seconds to initiate (which is simply combated with a good looking splash screen and loading animation). I’m thinking that instead of using XIB’s I should be creating various views within one XIB. (Sorry if your not a developer, that last bit might not make much sense!).

But anyway, it’s been a good experience, and I’m already looking forward to carrying on! Iv’e got my phone details registered with Apple so I can develop and debug straight onto the device itself, which is particularly nice as Iv’e been playing with the Maps View (MKMapView) and tracking my actual location.

Iv’e created 6 versions (v0.1 – v0.6 in the project span so far) so I can tell already it’s going to be a big archive by the hand-in date next April. Because of this, I’ve created a page (under the Final Year Dissertation sub-page) where all the version revisions are logged. Check it out here. There is also an ever-growing list of functions and features which I intend to add at some point.

Week one – Success!

So, what is ‘Usability’? It’s a term which is thrown around more than a frisby in a game of ‘Disk-Golf‘, but rarely explored and focused upon when designing a website, software or new device.

Usability takes four main aspects into consideration, not just humans and computers like the module title would have you beleive. These are People (or Users), Activities (or Tasks), Context (the Environment) and finally Technology. People, Activities and Technology are all interlinked, and are largly controlled via the Environment.

Let’s put this into a real situation. Say for example I was designing a new library system for a client. The people involved would be the clients prospective or existing customers (Question: Who do you design the site for? Answer: Have a log-in area!). The activities could be anything from checking availability to ordering a book, viewing the abstract or renewing the return date. Context is a hard one, and would need considerable user reaserch, but it’s safe to say this software could be ran from home, work, on a mobile device and in the library itself. For this reason almost all external distractions could effect the way the system is used – so it must be designed to be ‘user friendly’ to mimimize errors. Finally there is the technology.

So, what is ‘Usability’? Well, a usable user interface should be acceptable for the people. I.e. It should fit around the users, rather than users having to ajust to the software. Secondly, it must be appropiate for the activities. (A really fancy UI with animations and fancy graphics probably isn’t necessary for a library booking system!). Finally, it must be suitable for the context in which it is used.

But now they have took another step in the right direction. Move Controllers. These WiiMote style devices work much like the Wii, pointing the controller at the TV to direct a hand or pointer. Where the PSMove excels though is that it has a built in accelerometer and gyroscope, meaning that it senses movement in full, as well as using the glowing ball on the end of the controller to track itself.

So, is it practical? Well, I used one for a couple of days, firstly with the EyePet software, and later with the Sports Champion demo. It blew my mind! It’s so much more precise than the Wii, and the overall experience is much better than anything Iv’e used before! I went out that very night and brought one.

But it got even better! Using two, you can dual-weild the remotes (with the PS Eye monitoring both) to play games such as archery, sword/sheild fighting and much more!

The Playstation Move controller is a much better peice of kit than the WiiMote, and has a much more serious emphasis on gaming, rather than a family pleaser! However, as software develops for it, I can see this growing into a beautiful thing! Iv’e ordered my second controller, as has my flatmate, so we can have one-on-one dual-weilded gladiator fights!

My advice, go and get the Starter pack, which comes with the controller, eye and demo game. A great game to test out the new system is Sports Champions – Move Compatible (PS3). You’ll never look back!

GameCity is a medium sized organisation based in Nottingham, UK. It holds monthly (GameCity Nights) and annual (GameCity Festival) events based around the broad area of gaming. As well as communicating with the project supervisor I shall also hold regular meetings with Iain Simons, Director of GameCity.

Various testing and research shall be conducted into the best platform to host the application, the content which should be included and the design/development of the ‘app’ itself. This will initiate at GameCity5 (the 2010 annual event) and proceed through various GameCity Nights, allowing for constant user feedback as well as other developments to be put forward and possibly included.

For the design stage, I will create a flow diagram style image of the iPhone during various user interactions. For this, I will require a template to work with. (NOTE: the screen resolution of the old iPhone is 320 x 480 pixels. The iPhone 4 is 960 x 640 pixels. For the creation, I will produce a large image and scale down the for older versions.)

To make the flow diagram look as realistic as possible, I am going to use an iPhone 4 Graphical User Interface (GUI) Photoshop template, which you can download here. This is an awesome file which has almost all the individual pieces you need to create a great looking design! You can even download the high resolution “Retina display” version of the file from here. Beware though, this file is big (20+Mb), and takes a lot of processing power (It’s 4074×2986 in dimension!), so bare than in mind before opening up and editing!

Another great designer tool is ‘MockApp‘, which is put to particularly good use in PowerPoint presentations. This template is less resourceful than the last, and also allows you to interact with the design. For example, a product manager could, when presented with an iPhone image on a projector, click the app icon to open up the splash screen, and then the home page of the app. This gives a realism to the design which the flow diagram misses, and is a real good seller to stakeholders who are 50/50 about the idea of an app. But MockApp doesn’t stop there! Not by a long shot. You can present the PowerPoint slides on the iPhone itself, for added bumph! This is a real gem, and gives a good insight to developers and managers alike as to what the finished app will be like.

So, to conclude, the first resource any iPhone designer should use is a good high quality PSD Template, as mentioned above. Design the overall screens, and make it look fantastic! The other step is to use the lower resolution images from MockApp to design an interactive version, following the flow diagram where possible, to create an overall package which will blow whoever you present it to away!

So, that’s the design stage began. Check back soon in the Final Year Dissertation category for more blogs about my progress!

An Orange spokesperson said today “We are aware that our mobile customers are currently having issues accessing Facebook via their handsets. We are working with Facebook to fix this as a matter of priority and would like to apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this may cause them.”

Update: I think this is now fixed, according to the other half, although some users may continue to experience problems until the early hours.

In March 2009 Foursquare was launched, primarily in New York, but soon found itself checking people in all around the globe! The concept is again simple: Tagging yourself instead of a photo (or other media) in the form of a ‘Check-In’. Other people can also ‘Check-In’ to locations, and a hierarchy can be build for individual locations. It’s a superb example of social media turned addictive game! It works brilliantly with the ever evolving capabilities of smart-phones and other IED’s (Internet Enabled Devices).

But let’s go back to the beginning for a moment. Dennis Crowley, one of the head developers of Foursquare created a similar program back in 2005 called ‘Dodgeball’. It was soon snapped up by internet giants Google and closed down in 2009 (to make room for ‘Google Latitude’). So, Foursquare is mature. It’s evolved. It’s developed. And it’s got competition.

Facebook Places. Announced August 2010. It’s a big hit for Foursquare. After all, who want’s to go up against Goliath? Places allows users to ‘Check-In’ much like Foursquare, but that’s about it. I see what Facebook have done, in keeping it as a simple status update style addition it refrains from encroaching on Foursquare’s USP (Unique Selling Point). But it could have been so much more! And it should have been too. I was so excited to see the new icon on the Facebook iPhone app, and thought that something being added to the home screen of the app like that would be more than an additional way of updating your status, in effect. Perhaps the Facebook team have bigger plans for Places? I hope so.

For me, Foursquare is a much more addictive, interesting and smart geotagging application. Seem’s like David may have slayed Goliath again!? It’s hierarchy scheme, locational advice/tips and badges make it far superior to Facebook Places. Personally, I will use both. Foursquare for its addictive, fun nature. And Places for it’s ability to update friends and family on Facebook exactly what I’m up to, the essence of social media.

Introducing Windows 7 Playlist Generator, an on-line application which generates a playlist based on track, album or artist, depending on the criteria you enter. It’s pretty awesome, and allows you to add individual tracks by hitting the [+] icon to the right of a track which is again similar. This allows you to build up some substantial lists and listen to music you’ve not heard before.

To add a playlist to spotify, you just use the nifty drag-and-drop feature of the playlist button. Right into Spotify, no messing.

A little birdy told me Twitter is changing. Re-designing. Evolving. It’s been speculated for some time, but last night (September 14th, 2010) Twitter began rolling out it’s brand new user interface to some of it’s users. The 141 strong employee team have been busy, producing not only a lovely looking interface but also an impressive video to demonstrate the new features. Check it out.

The re-design strategy, much like Facebook did in 2006, 2008 and 2010, is a smart move, keeping the top-dogs of the internet fresh and up-to-date. It’s a principle which I like to follow quite closely, re-designing this site quite often! (Could be less as my final year approaches!). Sure, some people will dislike the change, but such is life. You don’t see anyone moaning about Facebook’s latest interface like you did back when they rolled it out in February 2010!

Twitter’s new layout is very interactive. One could say it’s almost trying to resemble a certain mobile device application look and feel? Not that there is anything wrong with this (Just look at the success of the official Twitter App for iPhone!). The smooth glides and efficient persona exuded by the new website succeeds in giving users the concept of a well-oiled machine. A lovely development from the Twitter team.

But what does a logo really say about a business? And how much thought should be put into logo design? Let’s view our first example, the FedEx logo. Take a look at it. Seems like quite a lazy logo at first glance. Simple bold text, obvious colours and not much thought. Think again. Can you spot any obvious looking shapes between the letters? Perhaps an arrow, in between the ‘E’ and the ‘X’. That’s something Derren Brown would have come up with!

My second example is the Amazon Logo. Now everyone and anyone is almost guaranteed to have seen this logo at one time or another. It, like the previous example, is a relatively simple idea, with a good looking yellow curve underneath the text. Until, that is, you look closely and see the mustard line pointing form the ‘A’ to the ‘Z’ of the Amazon. With Amazon initially targeting the book market, this would presumably resemble the A-Z nature of book organisation. Nowadays, with Amazon selling everything, the A-Z idea still fits perfectly. You’ll never look at the logo the same again. I wont, at least.

There are tons more examples of discreet logo design (try and spot the bear in the toblerone logo!). This just goes to show the thought and design practise that goes into some of the top brands logo creation around the world. It’s like one of those images that’s a woman smiling and a trumpet player merged into one. When you have seen the little secrets you’ll never see it the same again.

To conclude, a good brand and logo in particular can get a business off the ground. It is, after all, the first thing most customers will see. And we all know the expression, first impressions are everything. Not to mention a picture is worth a thousand words!

“But what could possibly make DropBox even better than it already is?”, I hear you cry. Well, DropBox has typically been used for one user to sign up, and share folders and files with himself on other computers (using an online server). Next came along shared folders; The ability to share folders with other DropBox users. This is great for collaborative work.

Now though, AirDropper aims to evolve DropBox one step further. What AirDropper does is generate a link which can be shared socially or privately for people who don’t have DropBox. The link gives non-users access to download files specifically or a folder to choose from. Pretty impressive, especially for distributing to lots of non-users at once, much like how P2P works.

What’s even better though, is that links can also be generated for users to upload files to a User’s DropBox without having to have an account or download any software. This creates an ‘AirDropper’ folder, which I think is probably a security feature in the DropBox API.

Let’s only hope there will be more developments like this from both DropBox and third party applications such as AirDropper!

First things first, security. I decided that to give the PC a fighting chance against all the inter-nasties out there, good Firewall and Antivirus protection was a must. For a Firewall, I went with PC Tools Internet Protection. This software and I go way back, and I used to use it back when it was JUST a firewall. (PC Tools Firewall Plus). Oh, how times have changed. This latest version comes as an all-in-one security gold-mine! Firewall, Anti-spyware, Anti-virus and Anti-spam all under one roof! It also comes with IntelliGuard which protects anything and everything internet related such as your cookies, browser and network. Best of all, there is a freeware version, meaning you can get all this for free (with a few more advanced features disabled, granted).

To back up the brilliant PC Tools suite I decided to go with a dedicated Anti-virus app. For this, I decided on AntiVIR by Lavasoft. Again, this software and I have a deep and long history, but it’s never once let me down, and acts promptly whenever a worm, trojan or virus somehow got onto the system. It’s also free and is a brilliant program. The only annoying thing about AntiVIR is the annoying splash screen which appears from time to time. However this can be disabled quite quickly and simply by delving into the registry a little. Or just Google it.

That was the security sorted, and after a quick reboot I got a grip on the social side of things. First up, Google Chrome to browse the internet, knowing I was safe and secure. Spotify was next, so I could install the rest of my programs while singing along to my favourite tunes, followed by Vuze (formally Azureus) and DropBox to transfer files from an online repository I had made with all my files and folders. MagicISO and MagicDisk completed the set (in order to mount virtual disks I had created containing more files) and I was well on my way.

Finally was the working man’s tools. The obvious was Microsoft Office, so I took the opportunity to try out my university allocated Office 2010 student edition. This install took a while, and was the perfect break required to grab something to eat (If you’ve ever formatted a PC before you’ll understand the burden of looking blankly at loading bar after loading bar). Last but not least was the Adobe Suite, containing Photoshop, Dreamweaver and the other’s, which any serious website designer designer and computer scientist should invest in.

So there you have it folks. There are always a couple of additional programs worth installing (Adobe PDF Reader for one) but that’s my run down of the apps I installed on day one. I must say, it feels good to see the amount of space on my C:/ Drive again, and the PC feels as sharp and responsive as the day I built her.

It, I mean it.

There is a simple solution. http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com is a superbly simple web 2.0 styled page that checks out a domain to see if the issue is global, or if you have just been impatient. This solves the problem, but requires going to a whole other website and copy/pasting the web URL.

Google Chrome has reportedly shortened the whole process even further, by integrating the server check function right into it’s ‘cannot find the requested page’ message. A small peice of text may now appear under the main and usual body of text which reads: “Other users are also experiencing difficulties connecting to this site, so you may have to wait a few minutes”.

A quick and nifty improvement to, in my opinion, the best browser on the market today. Way to go Chrome!

To solve this, I wanted to use a set of IF statements (iv’e covered these previously in other IE-rant articles, but couldn’t figure why it wasn’t working this time. The soltion came after a fair while of googling and head scratching.

Rather than the simple <!--[if IE]>code if in Internet Explorer here<![endif]--> and then <!--[if !IE]>code if not in Internet Explorer here<![endif]-->. I had to use an extended version for the NOT IE (!IE). Here is what I used:

<!--[if !IE]><!-->code if not in Internet Explorer here<!--<![endif]-->.

It makes sence really, but took me ages to get my head around after I found it. Hope this helps someone as much as it helped me!

p.s. You’re NOT viewing in Internet Explorer!

Firstly, consider its use. Will this be a workhorse laptop, a desktop replacement if you will. This is most likely the case if you are embarking on a computer based degree such as Graphic Design or Software Engineering. For that, I would recommend something with a decent Quad Core or I3 processor, 4Gb of RAM (minimum) and a decent (preferably solid state) hard-drive to quickly compile code fragments and hold them in storage. Something like the Sony VAIO F12 Core i7 Laptop (VPCF12S1EB) is a good bet, with 6Gb of RAM and an I7 Intel processor, coupled with a dedicated NVIDIA 330M graphics card. Add a 16″ screen and 500Gb of storage and you’ll be set to compile your code, model your new characters or simply watch Star-Trek via Sony’s built-in BluRay player.

Of cause not everyone needs something quite so powerful (and expensive!). A more mid-ranged laptop for those more concerned with storage for their music and photos, as well as Microsoft Office and a bunch of other freebies to boot may want to consider the Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T (LX.PCR02.021). This mid-range laptop boasts an impressive 4Gb DDR3 RAM, coupled with a core 2 Duo processor which guarantees a fast start-up time and a moderate performance throughout. It’s got pleanty of storage too, with an identical hard-drive (320Gb SATA) to the 5741 mentioned above. On top of all that, it comes with a beautiful High-Definition 13″ screen (perfect for transport) and an integrated webcam (for Skype calls to “back home”). The price of this should be a reasonable £499.97, but for a limited time UCAS are offering promotional codes giving a £100 discount on this model. (See Here)

My final choice is the Acer Aspire Timeline 5810TG (LX.PDU0X.085), a similar (improved storage and screensize) laptop to the 3810G described above. This laptop would suit most students, with a dedicated graphics card for moderate performance, as well as a 500GB SATA drive (the largest one of the three) which will ensure all your videos and photos from freshers week will be stored no problem. It’s only downside is that it doesn’t come with Windows 7. However, Laptops Direct are offering an upgrade disk which any self-respecting student could install themselves for only £50. This takes the total to £499.97, which is still £250.00 cheaper than the recommended retail price. The beautiful 15.4″ screen and built in card reader is any university student’s dream. If your a bit geeky like me, at least!

It’s an important decision; The seemingly heartless machine will become your best friend as you spend countless nights together typing up essays in the dying minutes. To make life a little easier, Laptops Direct have listed their top selections, all of which UCAS are backing. Some even have UCAS discounts! You can see their choices Here. I would personally go for the Acer Aspire Timeline 5810TG as described in the previous paragraph. It’s a lightweight, stunning and good performance laptop.

Last but not least, you want to kit out your laptop with all the goodies you can. My recommendations would be to grab yourself a security lock cable, which will fit into almost any laptop on the market today using a generally un-noticed hole on the side of the case. I’d also get a wireless mouse, as long hours using a track-pad can be uncomfortable. Finally, a case with several compartments to carry the laptop, mouse and any paper based notes / books you may want to transport all in one bag.

I started by heading over to AffiliateWindow, a site all about affiliate marketing. Here it described how I could be making money online, quickly, simply and with relatively little effort. Now, to make big bucks everyone knows you need to do more than sit back and watch the money roll in (unless your Google!), but I was after a relatively small amount! It is a small venture, but a venture none-the-less!

After paying £5.00 to AffiliateWindow which has now been credited back into my bank, I started linking to merchants. Let’s go back a step to stage one for a minute: Affiliate Marketing is, in essence, using other websites (affiliates) to send traffic (customers) to eCommerce websites (merchants). If you do this and it results in a sale, you get a commission of the sale (usually about 2% – 10%). The customers can often get special discounts too. Everyone’s a winner!

There are other methods of doing Affiliate Marketing (using banners, discount codes etc) but I think this is the most popular method. It means JohnAlexanderRowley.com is officially classed as a ‘content website’ aka A website that reviews and discussed items that it is affiliated with.

Anyway, I’m already affiliated with PC World, Laptop Direct, Play, Maplin and LoveFilm – and there is more to come! Check out some of my articles which make use of this handy money making tip!

The problem was a missing base SDK, the file required to debug and run the application. To fix this was relatively simple. Go to Project > Edit project settings > Build > Base SDK and change that value to iPhone Device 4.0. Next, go to the dropdown box in the top left corner in the main window and select ‘simulator’ below device. Also make sure that ‘Debug’ is selected over ‘Release’.

This should allow the project to run in the iPhone simulator, simulating iOS 4.0. Don’t forget however, that if you want full functionality for your app, it’s worth debugging on an older version of the OS too (I’m going back to 3.2 which is what Xcode recommends) in order to make sure it works across all platforms! It’s worth also mentioning that this issue should only occur with projects created before upgrading Xcode, as the new Xcode will point to the new SDK’s by default, where as older projects will still be looking for the old (now non-existant 3.1.3). Now all I have to do is build this killer app!

Barcodes have been around for a while, and technology is certainly moving on. Using QR codes (2 dimensional matrix barcodes) allows for a lot more information to be stored such as website addresses, phone numbers, digital signatures and other information compared to the simple number sequences of old.

To generate a QR code is simple. Just Google it. A good website is Kaywa which will let you enter a variety of information before generating a specific size QR code. There is lots of readers out there for tons of different smart phones, but my personal favorite is QuickMark which reads a variety of codes (Code 39 included!). It also has a generate option (under the ‘share’ tab) which allows you to select text, contact info and other data to be displayed on the device, ready to be scanned by another phone!

As these QR Codes start to become more and more popular we will start seeing them everywhere! I saw one just last night on ‘Big Brother’s Little Brother’, and another on an advert for some sort of beer! It’s almost like the transition from vinyl to CD (digitalization) all over again! Anyone will say they are shutting down analogue radio stations next. Oh wait…

My 52nd (final) week will be commencing next week, and it’s been invaluable to be able to put previously existing skills into practise, expanding on them to reach new levels. My Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Coding and many other techniques have been greatly built upon, not to mention the professional skill-sets I have picked up along the way. It’s hard to take on board the enthusiasm of lecturers and peers alike when they talk about a year in the industry, but it has been so SO worth it!

Apart from all the brilliant new skills I have acquired, I have also gained a group of amazing friends! Ones who I hope to keep in touch with over the years. Neil, Eve, Lee, Emma, Bek and all the others at Fisher, you have made my year at Fisher educational, enjoyable and most of all fun! Thank you. Thats what is so great about a placement – It’s the whole package!

If your indecisive about a placement, please take my advice and apply! It could be one of the best things you have ever done. I know it will be one of my life long memories!

*Wipes away a fake tear, just like Neil would*

After a while, searching for the solution on my iPhone, I decided to flush the IP using CMD. To do this, I opened CMD with administrator privileges, and entered the following:

> ipconfig /all
> [results returned]
> ipconfig /release
> [action completed]
> ipconfig /renew
> [action completed]

However, this didn’t work. After that, and a few other tests (changed the PPPoA to Dynamic/Static, changed subnet masks and updated firmware etc) I decided to restore the router to factory settings. SAME PROBLEM! The flashing orange icon continued to annoyingly wink at me.

This led me to believe that it was an issue before the router/modem, and an issue with the ISP. I rang them (excellent support team – Virgin Media!) and told them the issue. Although they couldn’t tell me why it had occurred in the first place, they did inform me that restoring the ADSL modem would require me to re-enter the PPPoA username and password, which he gave me.

Hay presto! It worked!

The orange blinking internet light was because the connection to the exchange servers were active, but not connected. This could be told as the ADSL light was a solid blue (showing a connection) but not logged in (orange blinking internet light!)

Either way, Apple have responded by claiming there was a glitch in the original software regarding the signal bars, and that an update to come soon will make the signal bars more accurate and representative of the actual signal strength. To be honest it all seems a little suspect!

But all the blame can’t be put on Apple, as mobile reception can easily be boosted by carriers. For example, back when Chris Moyles was climbing kilimanjaro back in 2008 he reportedly called O2 to moan about his signal to his iPhone. O2 responded by ‘Boosting’ the signal, allowing him to have a flawless conversation with the BBC radio 1 team! Now, obviously O2 and other carriers can’t be expected to do this for every customer, but surely something should be said to the carriers as well as Apple? Scratch that, it seems AT&T are being sued too!

They are working on a business version which would solve the ongoing strain on local servers, and make pen drives and data DVD’s obsolete. The software even has an iPhone and iPad application, so you can upload photos and videos strait to the folder, magically appearing on your computer within seconds! You can also view some of the file types using additional applications like good-viewer, which are compatible with dropbox.

Files can be shared between multiple users for advanced use, and there is also an invitation scheme where you get additional space (although 2.0GB is provided as standard to free customers!) to a maximum of 8.0GB.

It’s definately worth a look! There are PC, Mac and Linux versions all available from the website.

Finally, check out the latest developments being worked on to make DropBox even better HERE.

It started the night before, with an early night sleep followed by an early (5.00am) start. After a quick shower I jumped in the car and drove into my local town to stand outside the O2 shop in anticipation. I went prepared, with headphones and the complete ‘Inbetweeners’ box set downloaded from the night before. I got there at about 5.25am, to be greeted by a group of 7 people (6 male, 1 female) who had been there from as early as 4.00am!

As we stood and chatted for a while about the new phone, Apple/O2 marketing tactics and other things I felt part of a specialist (if not a little geeky) community – The elite and dedicated! A queue soon started to form, and by 6.00am there were about two dozen people behind me (I was 8th in line). Here’s a breakdown of the stats for my particular O2 shop;

people @4.00am – 1 (first arrival)
people @5.30am – 8
people @6.00am – 30ish
people @7.00am – 100ish
people @8.02am – 182 (official figure)

So, after making my way past the private security and into the O2 shop I looked at the handset for a few minutes and was then seated to go through the process. I soon got away and exited the O2 shop to be applauded by the ever-growing line of people (a lot of which I guess would be disappointed). One of the O2 guru’s said they had approximately 50 handsets in stock, which was a lot more than the anticipated 5 x 32GB and 10 x 16GB which they expected. Never the less over 2/3 of the line would go away empty handed.

I guess that’s it; pretty simple really. Yes, it was a major geeky thing to do, but I now get to enjoy another brilliant product from Apple as one of only a select few in my area and indeed the UK – now just got to find someone to try ‘FaceTime’ out with.

The UK prices are without any data-plans and so a pay as you go micro-Sim could be used. We will have to wait and see what prices O2, Vodafone and Orange put out when they make their upgrade/pre-order pages live (hopefully soon!)

Update 1: It seems there are a lot of complaints about the US pre-order page timing out when customers get to the ‘AT&T’ tariff selection page due to high volume of traffic to the page. So far, it would seem, only a handful of US iPhone poachers have managed to secure their iPhone 4!

Update 2: Vodafone have had their prices leaked for the iPhone 4: Read the Guardian article for more details, but it looks like the handset will cost between £90 and £280 on an 18 month contract, depending on the tariff you choose (£40 per month [600 mins / unlimited texts] makes the handset £180). Click the thumbnail to the right to see the 24 and 18 month tariffs from Vodafone for the Black 32GB device (Presumably the white 32GB costs will be identical).

Update 3: Orange has just announced their iPhone 4 tariffs! Unlimited texts on any 24 month contract, but £570 for the pay as you go handsets, which is £70 more than apple are offering directly! Take a look at the contracts HERE

Update 4: O2 have also updated their prices, including the handset price. With a similar tariff price (£40) on an 18 month contract you get 600 minutes (300 less than Orange) but unlimited texts! The handset cost for this tariff is £209. Check out all the tariffs HERE

But what’s it all about? Job’s has claimed there are over 100 new features, but pointed out just a couple during the Keynote.

Beautiful new looks: The iPhone is 24% slimmer than the 3GS, at just 9.5mm! It’s got a front facing camera and a glass screen with stainless steel surroundings! It also has an LED flash on the back as well as UMTS and GMS!

Retina Display: Over 4x the amount of pixels in the same 3.5″ 960×640 screen as the 3GS! It’s PPI (Pixels per inch) is a whoping 326, which is beyonhd the maximum that a human eye can handle! Wow. That means super clarity through the new glass front. Movies, photos and text will never be the same! Once you see it for real there is no turning back, according to Jobs! It has set the standard for the next 7 years.

A4 Chip: This is a bit of a geeky one, but basically it’s an [apple] in-house processor which is currently in the iPad. It’s quicker, less power hungry and a lot smaller (hence the thinner design). Job’s claimed up to 300 hours of standby time and 40 hours of music! The 4th generation phone also houses 802.11n connectivity and quad-band HSDPA/HSUPA. Basically it mean’s better signal and talk quality.

Gyroscope: This allows 6 axis motion sensing just like the Sony PS3 controllers, but more precise. It also has new locational API’s for even more precise location monitoring. From the reaction of the crowd it’s hard to imagine how fluid and smooth the rotation of objects are. There is also a proximity and Ambient light sensor now added to the existing accelerometer and compas.

New Camera System: With a 5 megapixel camera on the back, 5x digital zoom and backlit LED flash the iPhone is finally a camera to be proud of. Jobs said he was more concerned with picture quality than megapixel stats, and that was shown in the quality photos! It also takes HD Videos, at 720p and 30fps! iMovie for the iPhone is the new software developed specifically, which incorperates titles, transitions and many other features recognised from the ‘Final Cut Pro’ software.

iPhone OS 4 is now IOS4: The iPhone OS is now titled iOS4, which incorporates multi-tasking and over 100 new user features including folders and a unified inbox for email. There are tons of new features on iOS4 which will further enhance the operation of the phone’s user interface. iBooks is just one of these features, as seen previously on the iPad! Another is iAds (coming July 1st) which are like Google ads built into applications. Developers can get 60% of the revenue back into their accounts resulting in cheaper apps to be developed. IOS4 will be available from June 21st 2010.

Finally, video calling is available via the front facing camera and is “no longer a dream” according to Jobs. The final trick up his sleeve is called ‘FaceTime’. It only works over WiFi in 2010 as work needs to be done with providers.

So, that’s it! Comes in black and white, and early indications seem to point towards a cheaper overall handset ($299 for a 2 year contract with 32Gb model). AT&T are also offering up to 6 months early upgrading, which will hopefully be echoed into the UK’s market!

They go on sale on 24th June, 2010 in the ‘initial batch of launch countries’ (including USA and UK!). I guess now we wait for O2 and Orange to start disclosing some sale details over the next few days!

Another successful Keynote, well done Apple!

To keep track of what’s going on during the hour long keynote be sure to hit some of these links;

MacRumoursLive.com, Engadget, Live Gizmodo, iPhonealley.com and theAppleBlog.
Of cause if you use twitter you can also keep up to date by following ‘@macrumors’ or ‘@arsWWDC’, and I’m sure there will be some #WWDC based hashtags too!

So, the keynote kicks off at 9.00am hawaii time on June 7th 2010, but what about for those of us not sitting under a palm tree sipping on a coconut? (Can you tell I’m jelous?).

• 10:00AM – Pacific
• 11:00AM – Mountain
• 12:00PM – Central
• 01:00PM – Eastern
• 06:00PM – London
• 07:00PM – Paris
• 10.30 PM – Mumbai

All I need now is to get home from work, turn the heating up, sit back in nothing but my pants and enjoy all the marketing keywords that Job’s can throw at me! Oh and note to self – buy some coconut juice!

Now, stay with me here, as I spent ages looking at blogs thinking that the Facebook RSS pages have been blocked, but they haven’t. To access your Facebook RSS feed navigate to Facebook and click on your notifications (“See all Notifications”). On the right hand side is a “Subscribe to Notifications” section, and under that is a “Via RSS”. Uncheck all the tick boxes and click on this link. From there, simply change part of the URL from “notifications.php” to “status.php”. This should produce the RSS feed required.

Now, on TwitterFeed.com sign up and add your copied URL for Facebook RSS feed. Authenticate Twitter and set (in the advanced options) your prefixes, postfixes and update schedule.

And that’s it! Facebook will now generate the RSS of your status’, TwitterFeed will pull them in (checking every 30 mins or whatever) and post them to your Twitter for you! If your really clever you could set up an RSS from your website too, and get that to post to Twitter/Facebook whenever you add a new article!

One new website which takes advantage of this scheme is 1DailyDeal, a simple website designed to give customers a single deal for each day of the week! The strap-line (“1 page, 1 day, 1 Deal”) pretty much sums it up, with a strong emphasis on simplicity and social media interaction. There is even a JTouch script to enable an app style page for iPhone users!

Check it out today, because as they say, tomorrow’s another deal!

Next, create 7 more layers, rotating each one by 45 degrees more than the previous. Hide all the layers apart from the one on the bottom, which should still be the origional layer.

Go to ‘window’ > ‘animations’ and open that up. Create a new frame in the animation pane and display the second layer. Repeat this process until you have 8 frames, each showing one more layer. The last frame should display the top layer, which is the frame before the first layer repeats again.

Save for web and devices as a ‘.gif’ image with animation, and your complete!

The problem is that the JavaScript (JS) for both the FCG and Lightbox conflict with each other, resulting in the FCG displaying a black background with loading bar but not actually loading. To resolve this we must stop the conflict between the two scripts. The method – multiple headers, PHP IF statements and a brilliant plug-in called slimbox. Don’t worry though, it’s not as complicated as it first sounds.

The first step is to get FCG working within any Lightbox plug-ins activated (LightBox 2 in particular causes a conflict). Set up the FCG options page (video here) and add a couple (at least 2) posts with images. This was my first hurdle – Make sure the images are the correct size (specified in the options page) as if they aren’t the FCG won’t load.

When you have the FCG working create multiple headers. To do this, duplicate the ‘header.php’ (rename it to something like ‘header_home.php’). Now in the home page (home.php) of your wordpress theme add the following code:

if (is_page('home')){

}
else {

}
?>

Download and install Slimbox 2, a clone of LightBox 2 which does the same thing as lightbox but uses a slightly different script. Install and activate this and you should be about there. The lightbox effect should now work on all but the home page, and the featured content gallery only on the home page.

If it’s still not working look for a js.conflict(); piece of code by doing a find in the theme / plug-ins folder – Uncomment this if you find it.

And that should be it! You should now have a working FCG and Lightbox effect all in one page!

I got 6 ‘John Alexander Rowley Designs’ male designer T-shirts printed via SpreadShirt with my logo on (green and white text on a black background) and similar on the back (silhouette and website). They arrived a week later and looked awesome! My only criticism would be that they are a little tight and required stretching a tad, but this was due to they being packed after printing and hadn’t been washed yet.

Walking around town that day I could see people glancing over due to the eye catching branding. One lady even commented on how nice it looked and engaged in conversation about my designs and what I do. The T-Shirts, coupled with identically branded business cards gives a great portrayal and reminds me of ‘Apple Esk’ with casual jeans and branded tee.

If your interested in tee design, and want a quote or to see the work I’ve done, head over to the recent work page and take a look for yourself!

I was reading through my blogs the other day, as well as some of the pages, and it all seemed a little dry. Change with the times. So, that night, after a can of red-bull, I started re-typing the content to a lot of my pages, particularly the personal profile pages, as this is where readers should go to get to know the person behind the silhouette.

Hopefully now the site not only reads better, but is also more engaging to the customers?! After all, you’ve read to the end of this blog, haven’t you?!