26/05/2010
A fresh new look...again!

It's been a while since I've written anything for here and so I decided I would share the thought process and reasoning behind the new site layout and design since it is not long since the last re–design.

Although I was happy with the previous design, it was very challenging in a technical manner to execute and although the overall effect of having a seperate colour scheme running through each individual page was very good, it was a little laboured and slowed the load time if the visitor didn't have a quick enough connection speed.

And so to this new layout and design. The biggest requirement was to include all of the content within an average sized screen. (typically most PC's have shipped with a 17" or bigger monitor for some years now, and the increased popularity of Laptops as desktop replacements has followed this trend – albeit in widescreen format) This means that for most visitors the need to scroll on their browser is no longer required – which makes the site much easier to browse, and consequently much more accessible.

This of course as the designer brings with it some hefty decisions, because in order to fit all of the required content inside such regulated perameters a lot of elements needed to be re–designed or even removed entirely. On the whole I took the decision to remove a lot in order to provide a sleeker look and feel which would also complement the new layout in an effective and eye–catching manner.

I retained the colours in the navigation menu and links within the main content, and the introduction of the coloured bars top and bottom act not only as the site boudaries but also reflect the set of colours used within the site. I also removed all of the co–ordinated backgrounds used in the old design in favour of a subtle two tone effect that complements the layout.

I have retained the Twitter live feed, but have removed the Facebook one in favour of a specially designed button and introduction alongside. I have also retained the Quote in the top right, but it is no longer a flash animated element – although I am toying with making it one with an auto original/translated switch.

Reducing the height of the main content section was not without issues – especially for the contact page and the pages with slideshows, so I am using the sidebar on the right of the content for the introduction text on those pages, and I am utilizing it as a news feed on the other pages. I have also retained the internal scrollbars on the pages (like this one) that need them.

Overall, the result is a much cleaner and sleeker feel that is more accessible to users and I am very pleased with the result. I have had some very positive feedback on it so far and if you would like to add yours – simply visit the Contact page.

21/02/2010
Adobe - Motivated by Greed?

Adobe have, through development themselves and through the purchase of other software firms got themselves into the position of owning the vast majority of ‘industry standard’ software titles for the Photographic, Design, and Web industries – effectively the creative sector.

This, you might assume is fine – afterall there are lots of companies out there that have close to a monopoly on their particular markets, but this is not the problem, the issue here is cost – Adobe price their products at an eye-watering level that almost beggars belief – especially for the UK market.

You might be thinking that it’s probably only a bit more expensive than their competitors, but because it is the ‘industry standard’ then that would be fine – well you’d be wrong – the prices far exceed what could be rationally accepted as fine. For example, I regularly use four titles, the current versions, along with their prices are:

• |Fireworks CS4 – UK £279 USA $299 (£193 at current exchange rate)
• |Photoshop CS4 – UK £627 USA $699 (£451 at current exchange rate)
• |Flash CS4 – UK £633 USA $699 (£451 at current exchange rate)
• |Acrobat 9 Pro – UK £521 USA $449 (£290 at current exchange rate)

It is immediately clear that there is a big disparity between the UK and USA pricing that equates to an additional cost of £675 to a UK user – this has no reason for being – the prices are for a digital download of the products and as there is no physical product there is no shipping or handling fees to be included, and even if a physical copy of the software was imported, it is not subject to customs excise duty.

There is a cheaper alternative to buying these titles seperately, and that is to purchase a ‘Suite’ which includes these titles (and a few more besides) however this is still subject to the same disparity. The UK price is £1,545 saving £515 on the individual prices, however the price in the USA for the Suite is $1699 which is £447 cheaper still.

So why do they insist on ripping-off their customers? The only conclusion that can be reached is this – they know they have a market that has become reliant on this software, so it is simply greed (along with a seemingly evident contempt for the UK) that motivates them. And should you think “I can get it much cheaper than that as I am a student” then yes you would be right – typically it is around 70% cheaper for students (upon completion of an extensive fulfilment of proving entitlement) – however be warned, once you have completed your studies Adobe insist that you must re-purchase your software at full prices in order to continue using it – they will disable software suspected of no longer being used with a valid license type.

NB, prices quoted are from the Adobe UK/US websites and based on direct purchase – shopping around online can find further savings, although they still reflect the different pricing structure.

17/02/2010
Rage Against the Machine - It started so well...

So..in the run upto Christmas 2009 a grass roots campaign was started to show the cynical Simon Cowell and his cronies that the Christmas Number 1 single was not in fact part of the prize for winning the X factor.

The campaign, which was started by a couple in facebook, frustrated by the UK Christmas Number 1 spot being hi-jacked by the X facter for the previous 5 years, was soon spread into other networks like Twitter and very soon snowballed into a media frenzy. Millions of users joined and pledged their support for it, and also that they would buy the chosen RATM single at the appropriate time. Needless to say, Simon Cowell was not impressed and initially said it was a pathetic attempt to attack the X Factor - completely missing the point of the campaign.

The upshot of the saga is that RATM did indeed get the UK Christmas Number 1, Simon Cowell graciously admitted defeat and he the band said they were very impressed with how the whole campaign was run. The band has donated all the proceeds of the single sales to charity, and as a reward to the fans, they promised to give a free concert this summer for all those that made it possible.

All good so far...but now it has had the shine taken off the whole experience. the reason? the ticketing company instructed to distibute the tickets for the organised concert in the summer. In a convoluted and and arbitrary manner they have failed in the task to fairly distribute the tickets - clearly a free concert is going to attract an awful lot of interest, but the way it has been handled is at best hap-hazzard and at worst, in a very cynical and careless manner.

So what did they do? well to start they had issued a two day window in which you could register your interest in having a ticket, the registration involved submitting all your details and uploading a 'passport' style photo of yourself (presumeably in an attempt to defeat the touts) all fine so far, except the acceptance of the photo is somewhat random, my first submission was rejected and so I had to re-submit all info and a new photo - out of curiosity I submitted a lesser quality image - which was accepted, I have heard that actual passport photo's were also rejected - thus establishing that the acceptance was conducted in an pretty arbitrary and random manner.

OK, so registration complete, what next? what follows is the complete failure to realise the scale of the appeal. It was announced to the successful applicants that they would need to effectively re-apply to get themselves entered into a ballot for the tickets and that they should do this from a set time on a set day. The consequences of this are clear - every single person tried to enter the site to do this at the specified time, and the site completely failed to cope and crashed. This was not only unnecessary, but also demonstrated a clear lack of foresight. The end result of this is that the tickets simply went to the ones who were lucky enough to get through to the website before it failed, they were not chosen out of a ballot of all registrants as was originally intended.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is common sense that the second ticket 'application' was completely unnecessary and would inevitably result in an unfair outcome. They already had the details of everyone interested, so they could have simply balloted that to find the required number of tickets for the concert.

15/02/2010
A resurrection of the blog...

Some time ago I started a blog in Wordpress (indeed it was before this sites inception) but alas as is all too common for these things it fell into neglect - especially when this site and the likes of Twitter emerged to take up all available free time. Anyway, prompted by the recent re-styling of this site, I have decided to resurrect it and start afresh - so it has now had a new theme installed (staying relatively close to this sites styling), along with the updated logo placed up top. The pages have been updated and now there are three categories/topics up for discussion which have been populated with the majority of the posts in here (some of which actually originated from within there!).

It is in many ways a mirror of this page's content, not because I like the sound of my own voice or put a higher than earned value on my opinion, but merely to enable a bigger demographic to see what I have to say and pass comment/opinion.

There will be some variations on a theme between the two as that is only natural and there may well be things discussed in there that are simply not relevant outside the 'blogosphere' and so not included in this page.

As is always the case, comment/opinion is welcomed and you can visit the blog here www.thenumber27.wordpress.com - plus, if you are already a Wordpress user - feel free to say hello in there and introduce yourself.

10/02/2010
New Site design and Layout for The Number 27

Here we are in a new decade, and as with a lot of people I decided a fresh start was in order, so a complete overhaul of the site layout and design has been undertaken to freshen the look and feel, and also to generally simplify the whole experience for the visitor.

The first thing you will notice is the complete departure from the dark backgrounds of old, I have also fixed the height of the site so instead of the whole site potentially going on for miles - I have installed internal scrollbars to the content on the pages that need it (this page for eg.). The other differences are that I have simplified the layout and reduced the amount of content sections. The introduction of several colours to the site has allowed me to afford a unique 'identity' to each page - which although was particularly complicated to implement, has worked out very nicely and I am very pleased with the result.

My favourite Quote (positioned in the top right of the site), has now been implemented into a flash movie that automatically rolls through the different site colours. The Portfolio has also had a make-over and is now implemented into another flash movie, and the gallery page now features just one slideshow, but that has been organised into several albums of different subjects that can be selected to view individually.

A consequence of this new layout and design is that it has highlighted the foibles of versions 6 & 7 of Microsoft Internet Explorer and, somewhat surprisingly Apple's Safari. The browsers have forced alterations to the CSS (including adding a non W3C compliant 'hack' to fix IE issues) to enable the site to behave and look the same accross all browsers commonly used today. (although on a personal note - how anyone can still want to use IE is beyond me!).

As always, feedback is welcomed, so feel free to get in touch via any of the methods highlighted on the Contact page.

30/01/2010
iPad - has it got a purpose?

So, Apple have launched their new piece of technology – but is it anything more than a toy? Stephen Fry certainly thinks so if his blog is anything to go by, I am not so sure however. Lets see what it can do – well it can play all of your media very well, whether its music, video or displaying your favourite pics, and it can browse the web well enough with the wifi or 3g (if you pay extra) but frustratingly Apple hasn't learn't from the iPhone, so it still doesn't support flash media or multi-task.

What else can it do? Well it has an e-reader application and an accompanying bookstore on iTunes that works nicely, and the size of the screen is condusive to a pleasant experience. It also automatically supports the billions of apps that are buzzing around for the iPhone – so it will do anything that will do, but do you actually need something this big to do what the iPhone already does? and for the e-reader alone it would prove excessively expensive compared to other e-readers on the market.

So if it's not really worth it for that, what about work? Well they've shoe-horned the iWork suite into it (at a fee of $10 per application) but using iWork has always been viewed as a bit of a chore, and to be honest it's too small for any realistic work to be completed on it.

OK, if it's too small for work, and too big to replace the iPhone what is its purpose? The only conclusion I can come to is that it is merely a 'coffee table media toy' for the faithful sheep to buy and rave over at dinner parties. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking Apple for the sake of it – but the cynic in me says that this is merely something in which to extract more money from the faithful with no other purpose – especially as they are going to drip-feed the additional technology over stages (like the iPhone) in order to maximise the chances of people buying it again next year and so on...

It is without question a beautiful thing to look at, and indeed I'm reliably informed that it is just as beautiful to use – but unfortunately these reasons alone are not enough to justify its existence in my, and a great many others, technology collection.

17/01/2010
Internet Explorer – are it's days truly numbered?

Microsoft has not had a lot of luck with its (currently) market leading browser lately. Last year it was confirmed that they could no longer ship their Operating Systems without first offering a choice for users to install an alternative browser instead of having IE exclusively installed automatically. A decision that is not exactly rooted in fairness – it must be noted that their main competitor Apple, do not have the same requirements with their O/S and it's pre-installed browser, Safari. And so the European courts exercise their muscles in not exactly a fair and impartial manner once more.

Anyway, back to point, It appears that Google, after a determined and mildly successful effort to hack into their systems in China, have decided to not only cease filtering search content in China, but are actually pulling out of the region altogether. This will be no great loss to Google – they have always stated that they never made a noteworthy profit from the region – however the implications for the region are far reaching, now that the only major search engine accessible by the general population is the state controlled one, and you can easily imagine the level of censorship that is routinely employed.

You might well be asking what this has to do with Microsoft's IE, well the catalyst for all this is a flaw in the browser that allowed the hackers into Google's system. Microsoft has admitted as such and are working on a patch to fix it – but that will take time to ensure it works and that it is stable, and in the mean-time the details of how to take advantage of the flaw have been posted online for anyone to try their luck with. You may think that this happens all the time, well to a certain degree it does, but this time it is seen as much more serious – The German Government, closely followed by the French Government, have taken the un-precedented steps of advising all their citizens to actually stop using IE completely and switch to another browser.

On a personal note I have always favoured the main alternative, Mozilla's Firefox as my browser of choice as it is generally more stable, secure, and on the most part, a faster smoother experience online. As a web designer I am also aware that Firefox adhere's to the accepted web standards whereas all prior releases to version 8 of IE have not conformed and have consequently required additional work in order to maintain the designed appearance of the site in question.

You can download the latest release of Mozilla's Firefox for free here: www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox

20/11/2009
Facebook – having trouble keeping it up?

Is Facebook straining under the weight of its own rushed-out ‘improvements’ forced by the rapid expansion of Twitter?
It would certainly seem so if the current number of complaints is anything to go by.

There have been a number of minor bugs and glitches in the system recently but now for large swathes of humble users, it seems the problem has gotten considerably worse. Thousands of users are complaining about not being able to log-in for hours – even days – at a time. In some cases this has lasted for over a month with some customers still unable to access their site.

It’s not even a case of affected profiles being down or missing either – friends who can still log-in will tell you that the apparently affected profiles are, in fact, fine and without issue. One of the biggest complaints at the moment relating to these Facebook issues is that some kind of customer services department – or indeed accurate help information – is simply not available. There are numerous help pages but they are filled with speculative suggestions from other users, not factual resolutions from Facebook themselves.

Of course the biggest problem with the woeful help system that Facebook employs is that you have to be logged in to utilise the only form of actually contacting them! Now, I would love to be able to add here a comprehensive document of helpful information and guidelines regarding these problems, so that if you get caught out – you know what Facebook is doing to correct your issues and what the likely time frame and outcome will be.

But unfortunately, I can’t currently log-in either! So alas, as your humble servant I too can’t access customer services to ask Facebook for a suitable solution or response to the problems we are facing -or inform them about their growing amount of dissatisfied users.

*Note to Facebook – You must try harder to keep your users happy, they are your very reason for existence.

*Note to budding social networking site developers – when you up-scale your system to cope with a larger user-base and new developments, make sure you up-scale your customer services to match it!

this article is published on Tech reviews site www.geeks.co.uk.

12/11/2009
Kaspersky internet Security 2010

In this increasing age of cybercrime the PC user has never been under more danger of losing valuable data or having personal/financial information gleaned from their system.

There are a vast number of companies providing software to try to shield us from these threats – but do they actually work? Well the answer for most of them is quite simply No – most of them do not. There is the old adage that you get what you pay for – and so the glut of free ones out there offer little protection as they simply don't have the technology and resources to stay ahead of the criminals. This doesn't mean you need to spend an exorbitant amount of money on protection either, which brings me to Kaspersky.

Kaspersky Labs have been producing Firewalls, Anti-Virus programmes, Full Internet Security suites, and Mobile device protection software for a number of years now. Because Mac users are now being targeted by the criminals, they produce security software for the Mac user too.

They have been consistently winning awards from the many comparative tests carried out by independent testing centres and IT publications all over the world. More than 250 million users around the globe are already enjoying the benefits of their protection along with the very low impact this companies software has on the performance of their PC.

So, to the latest version of their flagship product – Internet Security 2010 - the impressive list of threats this suite will protect you from is as follows:

• |Viruses, Trojans, worms and other malware, spyware and adware.
• |Rootkits, bootkits and other complex threats.
• |Identity theft keyloggers, screen capture malware or phishing scams
• |Botnets and various illegal methods of taking control of your PC
• |Zero-day attacks, new fast and unknown threats.
• |Drive-by download infections, network attacks and intrusions
• |Unwanted, offensive web content and spam

There are also a number of improvements and new features over the previous edition which includes:

• |Keeps your money and identity safe - Improved!
• |Protects against bank account fraud
• |Safeguards against online shopping threats
• |Allows questionable applications and websites to be run in 'Safe Run Mode' - New!
• |Cybercriminals won’t hi-jack your PC
• |Family protection from on-line predators
• |Your files won’t be ruined by hackers - Improved!
• |Keeps your PC running smoothly
• |Safer Wi-Fi connections
• |Two way personal firewall
• |Security Application Monitor to give you full picture on programs installed on your PC - Improved!
• |Identity Information Controller to give valuable data an extra layer of protection - Improved!
• |Kaspersky Toolbar for Internet browsers to warn you about infected or unsafe websites - New!
• |Advanced identity theft protection, including improved secure Virtual Keyboard - Improved!
• |Urgent Detection System to stop fast emerging threats - Improved!
• |Next generation proactive protection from zero-day attacks and unknown threats - Improved!
• |Special Game Mode to suspend alerts, updates and scans while you play - New!

The user interface has also been improved making it easier to understand what it is doing, and also to navigate through the settings and different features, and it also continues with the simple 'traffic light' status system so you instantly know that you are fully protected. A fairly rare selling point with Kaspersky Labs is that if as your license is valid you can freely upgrade to the newest version of the product you have, instead of having to wait till your license is up for renewal.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 is available to buy and download directly from their website - www.kaspersky.co.uk for around £40.00 for a one year single user license, and there are also various multi-user and longer cover licenses available to choose from.

Those wishing to shop around can also find it in all these options in various retailers on the high street and online.

This suite is also Windows 7 compatible.

this article is published on Tech reviews site www.geeks.co.uk.

15/10/2009
PowerTraveller Emergency Charger

Having been left off the ‘grid’ by my phone’s battery power deserting me mid-evening yet again I decided I needed to invest in a portable emergency charger.
The parcel duly arrived two days later (on free delivery too!) and it has to be said that when I opened the padded envelope I was left cold – the dreaded plain thin cardboard box that so often portends cheap unfinished materials used for the product within, greeted me. Thankfully, this feeling was very short-lived as on opening the box I was faced with a thing of beauty. A clear, very solid perspex box with a curved top (rather reminiscent of a treasure chest) with the main unit placed on display on a perspex mount in the top.

Upon removal of the lid and lifting out the main unit, you then reveal the rest of the contents of the box, this comprises of:

• |1 x universal mains charger inc. interchangeable heads for UK, Europe, Australia and USA
• |1 x travel pouch.
• Tips included:
• |Nokia & Mini Nokia.
• |Micro USB.
• |Samsung G600.
• |LG Chocolate.
• |Sony-Ericsson wide connector.
• |Mini USB.
• |Female USB charging tip.
• |iPod/iPhone tip.
• |DC 4.0 for Sony PSP.
• |USB retractable cable.

All these attachments are standard issue, however on their website there are other tips available quite reasonably priced should you require something different.

The Charger itself is a comfortable shape and is solidly built with a good hard wearing shiny finish which is available in a range of colours. The charger weighs in at 70g and measuring at 88 x 39 x 37mm so it would not be too hefty a lump in your pocket, and would happily reside in a coat or bag without you always being reminded of it's presence.

Once fully charged it claims to be able to fully re-charge a phone upto three times and will store it's power for upto 6 months. This has yet to be tested by myself, so will let you know the results – I do think that this will be determined by the demand of your particular devices battery and charging circuit, but they are stating on their website that the maximum reserve power for these devices is:

• |All iPods - 40 hours
• |Mobile phones - 96 hours
• |Digital Cameras - 1600 pictures
• |Two-way radios - 24 hours
• |Sony PSPs - 5 hours
• |MP3 / MP4s - 6 hours
• |PDAs - 48 hours

Time will tell if this performs as well as it says it can, however if first impressions are anything to go by (and by the fact that my particularly fussy phone likes it) – then I would say that you could probably not do better than this without having to spend a lot more.

As for cost – this charger is available direct from their website www.powertraveller.com for the very reasonable price of £35.00 with free UK P&P.

Power Traveller also actively supports The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. More information on this is available on their website.

this article is published on Tech reviews site www.geeks.co.uk.

14/10/2009
The Number 27 gets an upgrade!

After a year of the site being 'static' and having a relative amount of restriction in operational use, the hosting came up for renewal, and it was decided to change hosts and upgrade the package. This has had a number of benefits, most notably the addition of 'PHP' and 'MySQL' Database funtionality, which has enabled the installation of a particularly good open source 'Content Management System' called MODx. This 'CMS' has a great number of back-end features and tools built within it to enable a much greater level of not only site construction, but also front-end features, notably a very solid Contact form system. Plus it also allows for much greater freedom with template variation, it also helps with targeted styling without overloading the 'CSS' or the site as a whole.

The addition of 'MySQL' databases has also allowed for a feature rich image slideshow management system to be installed into the back end system as well. This system is now providing the slideshows for the Gallery page and they operate very well with a clean transition and navigational system. This management system also provides a fully featured user interface that provides full image management that also reacts 'live' to your adjustments, for eg; a new image uploaded and assigned to an album will appear instantly in the slideshow that the album has been placed in, no further editing required.

11/02/2009
Social Networking Sites.

You will notice from browsing this site that I use various social networking sites extensively, but is it all worth it? Are they anything more than just another way to spend your time in front of your computer and not get any work done?

Well, Yes and No - is I think the honest answer because there are clear advantages, but also disadvantages with all of them. Myspace has the biggest user base and is one of the forerunners so I will start with that one.

The biggest advantages are the actual nature of the site - that it is open, easily accessed and as a consequence has a massive audience, this is particularly good if you are a musician for example, as it allows you to freely reach out to this massive audience and promote/sell your music, and also detail the forthcoming gigs you have lined up – most famously highlighted by the Arctic Monkey's who gained a number one single and a record contract purely from self promotion on the site.

The scope for personalising it and making it very much your own space with your own style, or as a mirror to your website styling are virtually limitless, so it's clearly a powerful tool. However it is not flawless, a number of record companies and musicians are very concerned, and many are in a permanent state of litigation because of the ability to download copyrighted material from the site. Some also argue that it is too open and allows for the manipulation and bullying of more vulnerable users - although it has to be noted that the privacy settings are very extensive and the potential dangers widely publicised, so it cannot really be argued that users don't know what they are getting into.

Ok, next is Facebook, this site started as a network purely for American college students and was closed to the wider public, after successfully widening it's users to include university students from around the world, it was finally opened up fully to public use in 2006, this has led to an explosion of user numbers looking for something different from Myspace (and the glut of small copycat sites like Bebo etc).

This huge influx has not been without problems though as the site could not keep up and so it suffered failures regularly, and in a bid to combat this the site was re-designed, much to the chagrin of a great number of users who felt that it was heading towards Myspace, and that was what they were trying to avoid. Is it any use though? Well if you want an online tool to share any aspect of your life with your friends regardless of how far apart you live, and yet still keep it private from anyone you don't know, then it's just about perfect.

However, it is the polar opposite of Myspace, so it is ruthlessly private by default which can make it difficult to connect with people you want to, and it is also a completely controlled environment – there is very little option to put your own stamp on what is effectively your space – there are lots of things you can add, but you have little or no say as to where you put them.

Finally, there is the new kid on the block – Twitter, this is a whole different ball game, it is technically still a social networking site, but not like any of the others.
Twitter's primary and main focus is as a Blog (web-log) of your daily life, designed to allow you to post regular and short updates about quite literally what you have just done, or are about to do. It doesn't work in the same nature with friends either, with Twitter you are following the Blog, generally not as a friend, but as a complete stranger, this is a little disconcerting, and is strange to get used to, but a number of users do have massive followings so it is clearly not something that bothers many, Stephen Fry for example has literally millions of followers on the site.

It is not without it's flaws either though, as it's very difficult to actually find someone (sorry, a Blog) that you either know of, or think you might be interested in, and because the focus is on the Blog, there is only very basic options to personalise your space (sorry, Blog).

You can, if you visit the Links page, visit Me and my friends Doll's House in Myspace and Facebook, and now also our new excursions into Twitter.

27/01/2009
S.E.O - A Dark Art?

Search Engine Optimisation - what's it all about, do you need to use it, and do you need to sell your soul to the devil for good results?

Well, you need to think about it if you want your site to be discovered in Google – which is so much more popular than the other engines (Yahoo, Ask, etc..) that it is widely used as the generic name for searching on the internet.

So how do you compete with the millions of websites out there? Well, basically you need to have what your target visitors are likely to type into Google, in amongst your keywords, description, and site content. keywords are tags, and the description is a basic summary, and these are within the HTML of the site that the engine looks at – but, crucially it also checks to see if those same keywords and descriptions are included amongst the main site content - and woe betide any sites that blatantly dis-regard this parity between them, as Google take a very dim view, and routinely demotes sites down to the depths of obscurity for this practice. However just plonking it all in any old how won't cut the mustard either as they must also remain in the context of the wider content.

So what is needed to be done? firstly, you need to establish what your target visitor is likely to type into Google, this will include specific services or products you may provide, and also, especially if you provide a localised service you need include a degree of location context. Then you need to make sure that all of this is not only included in your site content, but is clear and within the context, and most importantly it has to read well for the visitor – all this work getting visitors to your site will be wasted if they are then confronted with a load of incoherent gibberish!

Yikes! Sounds like it's very involved and my site will need re-writing – well maybe, but probably not, there are some simple steps to follow that will get you on your way – there are methods to speed up the process too, by paying for Sponsored links, and also tools like Adwords that charge on a pay-per-click basis for example, both of these are designed to increase traffic, which because there is a nature of a popularity factor in Google's indexing, will help to push you up the rankings, but primarily it is all about getting your content in tune with your visitor – And beware of those companies that promise top of first page listings in a matter of weeks – Rubbish – not possible – there is don't forget, probably thousands of sites competing for the same positions!. You can though, after careful, long term monitoring, and subtle alterations get very good search results based on what your target visitors are looking for – which in turn will self-sustain with the popularity factor of the engine.

So what else can I do? Well, Google likes links! It likes transparency within your site, so clear links navigating around and within are always welcome. It also likes links pointing at your site from exterior sources – this suggests popularity so will help too. It is however, abundantly clear that there is no 'quick fix' when it comes to getting good results, it just needs time and patience. Or you could of course see what a pound of flesh is worth these days......what was his number again?

19/01/2009
Noise Limiters.

It has been brought to my attention that new noise legislation is about to be introduced that is likely to virtually Destroy live music in the UK. The government wish to consider it a legal Requirement in the new tax year to introduce laws insisting anyone applying or re-applying for an entertainment licence Must have a noise control device fitted to the venue. This will be the final nail in the coffin for pretty much ALL entertainment in the UK as the level at which these devices cut the power off is ridiculously low. In the experience of most musicians, any venue that has one in use cannot have any electric music as the power is constantly being cut mid-song - and even loud applause at the end of a song can cut it. Venues are Suffering enough as it is without being forced to go to the expense of fitting one of these damned things. Noise limiters are a Menace to live music, and it is suspected that this is the bright idea of some unelected suit in Brussels that's never been to a gig in their life.

If you enjoy live Music you cannot ignore this. Go straight to the Number 10 website and Sign the Petition to help put an end to this Stupidity.

19/02/2009 - The Governments Response:
"We are pleased to tell you that there is no truth in claims that the Government is planning to introduce a requirement for entertainment venues to fit noise control devices.
Each Local Authority Licensing Authority considers every live music application on its merits, and decisions are made entirely by them. However, the Licensing Act 2003 does not allow mandatory conditions for live music to be imposed across the board. It would not be possible to impose such a condition without a change in the law and such a change is not, and never has been, on the Government’s agenda.
There is also no legal requirement under health and safety legislation for entertainment venues to have noise control devices fitted, nor is there any proposal.
The Government is acutely aware of the contribution that music makes to our culture and we remain committed to a vibrant and flourishing creative sector, of which live music plays an essential part."

16/12/2008
Liberty - an Affront to it,
The 696 form.

The 696 form Compels licensees who wish to hold live music events in 21 London Boroughs to report to the police the names, addresses, aliases and telephone numbers of performers, and most worryingly, the likely ethnicity of their audience. Failure to comply could result in Fines or Imprisonment. This places unnecessary and frankly Orwellian powers in the hands of the Metropolitan Police, an institution which does not have the best record of racial fairness. The 696 form can only serve to Deter the staging of live musical events - a positive form of activity in London and all cities - stifle free expression and quite possibly penalise certain genres of music and ethnic audiences. It is an Intrusion too far.

You can visit and/or join a group on Facebook to hear more about this. Or, you can go straight to the Number 10 website and Sign the Petition to help put an end to this Affront to our Liberty.

17/11/2008
Site Design.

Feelings are pretty mixed on this, should a website reflect whats already out there? or should it strive to be different?. There is a school of thought that says people like familiarity and anything that is too different from the norm is viewed with uncertainty, and sometimes even Contempt.

I, however (as you may have gathered from this site) belong to the camp that thinks sites should strive to be different and break the mould, push the envelope, and other such analogies suggesting that it is beyond convention. Beyond Convention is a great term, it suggests that the mass produced clone-like form that we are fed on a daily basis is not good enough, even Unacceptable. I like this as it promotes forward thinking and development, which can only serve as a good thing for the wider audience and user.

09/11/2008
Pc vs. Mac.

Being a PC owner and user, working in an Apple Mac dominated environment, I find myself continually having to defend the virtues of the Windows platform, and point out that, although undeniably brilliant in some fields, Apple Mac is by no means perfect either (and not just because of the mortgage inducing cost!).

So it is with utter dismay that I keep finding people and companies who are still using IE6. This is very frustrating as upgrading to IE7 or even the beta test of IE8 is not only free, but very quick and painless to do!. Firefox as an alternative, is also free and easy to install and use, which makes this persistance of sticking to a very inferior browser like IE6 utter madness, which as a result, also does nothing to stop the tide of windows abuse! Grrrr.

If you have any thoughts on anything mentioned above, Or on anything else in this site, you will find a number of ways to reach me on my Contact page.