http://charlesmarshall.co.uk

Advertising Accuracy.. or Lack of..

2009-01-03 11:51:00

Now I don't mind a bit of artistic license when it comes to advertising, but I have my limits. Recently more TV adverts have glaringly inaccurate parts to them and are still broadcast as if they are truths. The big offenders to get my goat so far this year are the PC World sale advert and the Change4Life campaign about healthy eating.Don't get me wrong, I think raising awareness about eating properly, exercise etc is needed. Apparently 10% of parents thought jaffa cakes counted towards your daily recommended amount of fruit, how scary is that! Lack of knowledge, apathy, social groups and non stop junk food advertising probably contributed to this sorry state of affairs, but thats for another time. What annoys me in this advert is the fact they show humans killing a dinosaur! Two species separated by over 60 million years!Somehow this managed to go unnoticed and has been airing regularly since the beginning of the year. Apparently ASA have no issue reenforcing a popular misconception.If that isn't bad enough the current PC World sale advertising fails at basic math; printer for half price, really? I could of sworn half of 129.98 was 64.99, however the advert tells me it's 59.99. The wording says half price, not less than half price. Again, shouldn't ASA be pointing these things out and getting them corrected?You might say that it's only an advert, but how many people are watching that advert? What if your child / nephew / niece etc gave that answer on a math test? Would you say then it doesn't matter then?In the current social climate most children spend almost as much time in front of the tv as they spend at school, so surely the prime time viewing should at least be accurate?

jQuery Diagonal Accordion

2008-12-15 12:29:00

Looks like anything can be done with a bit of math & javascript.. Take a look at this page for an example of sliding at angles.

jQuery Resizer

2008-11-11 09:29:00

Inside our current cms we utilise a jQuery resize tool for stretching out our content entry area. However, it is a bit clunky and and the large size (9k) doesnt help matters. Time to make a new one; and here it is.Example pageMinimised jsIf you've happy with it or having issues drop me a message on either the jQuery project page or via the One Black Bear site.

jQuery Zoom

2008-11-11 00:00:00

Working on a recent project I needed to be able to make a 'zoom' style effect. The easiest way I could think of to do this was a simple + and - zoom bar (just like google maps) over a background image.This piece of jQuery inserts a nicely styled compliant ul with li's into the container specified (if it's not there already) and sets some trigger events for the a tags.Now when you click on the plus or minus the background image is switched out for a larger version (passed in to the declaration).The more images you pass in the more bars appear in the zoom control.To make it work you need to set up some css and pass in the 'target_div' parameter in to the js with an array on image paths; and thats it, everything else is worked out for you.Take a look at the demo page hereGet hold of the minimised js hereOr grab the zip of everything including demos hereYou can also find this project over at One Black Bear and the main jQuery plugins website.

jQuery Draggable

2008-11-11 00:00:00

One of more interactive projects of late required an image to be moved around as if the user was dragging it. There was also a good chance that it would need to be combined with some other effects such as a zoom feature an image switcher. Currently, most draggable image plugins use an inline image with absolute positioning and a surrounding clipping area, which in most cases is fine, but in this case it would be a real issue as the zoom plugin uses an absolute positioned container. To get around this I decided to convert the image inside the container to the background image.For all those people who don't have javascript turned on you just see a clipped image, but those with javascript can move the background image around as if they are dragging it.Quick and simple demo page is hereMinimised js is hereA more fancy mash-up of this and the zoom plugin can be found here.As ever all of these jQuery gubbins can be found over at One Black Bear and the jQuery plugin site.

jQuery Modal

2008-11-10 09:41:00

With recent projects I needed a flexible modal box. Most of the ones out there are either horribly bloated or only work for images, which really sucks when you want a form inside one. I decided the best route would be to write a quick one myself.The example page is hereThe minimised js is hereThe big daddy zip with images is hereHave a look and see what you think. You can leave feed back etc via the jQuery doc page (which is here).

Free to Freelance

2008-10-26 17:51:28

A site designed to show case the work and be as mininal as possible. Clean and simple with just black text and a white background in order to keep the focus on the work being shown. Large images (800 x 600) dominate the website with a cool little jquery image switcher. Based on PHP-WAX and Wildfire CMS its smart & simple to use.

Is Bigger Better?

2008-10-26 17:35:36

In the words of Jeremy Clarkson “POWER!”.. To celebrate the release of the new S-Series range of Imprezas we made a flash microsite showing them off a bit. More torque, more grip, more speed.. All stats and pretty picutres you want can be found at imprezas.com

Flash - aha - Saviour of the Internet?

2008-10-20 08:53:00

Flash has its place; it's great for adverts, playing movies and anything that really, really needs smooth animation, but whole websites? I think not.I've always had an issue with Flash being used in such a fashion. Yes, google can now index some of it, but only if it's been coded properly and in a search engine friendly way. During a recent project (for the Impreza S microsite) we had several discussions about how best to present the creative we had for this site.In the end flash won, but with lots of consideration towards how google et al. Firstly, not all of the site is in Flash (yey!) the navigation is HTML and interacts with the flash. A few other things like sitemaps help the site to be friendly. The reason for our decission to go with Flash is mainly due to the colour changer. Regardless of how good the ajax libraries are (jQuery in particular) they currently dont handle image switching quite so smoothly. The final reason was the page transistion; I still find it somewhat unusal and a bit disorenting, but a good effect.On the whole I feel the site is nicely done (good job Sheldon!) and considering the timeline for it, it is a sterling example of how flash sites should be handled. On the other hand, some flash sites worry me. Certain so called 'creative' agencies who decide that just because they're creative they need their site to be 'creative' - which to them means Flash. In most of these cases you will find that the reason for the entire site being flash is something stupid like 'we want our logo to be animated and interesting' There are many such sites out there, you just have to look for them. When you find them ask this question: 'Is that silly little logo / animated character / smooth page transition / custom font worth the issues with accessiblity, maintance, readability etc'

Lisa Shepherd

2008-10-18 18:39:00

A new website for the Lisa Shepherd chain of salons.

Squeaky Clean

2008-10-15 17:55:00

Just launched a brand spanking new site for all your industrial cleaning needs. An advanced site with some clever jiggery pokery in reagrds to multi level categories and product tagging. Again, run on PHP-WAX and Wildfire CMS so even if the backend is complex the front is kept nice and simple.A really nice jQuery switcher on the home page to flick between featured articles and a jQuery based estimation enquiry form ensures this site stands out from its rivals while offering improved usability.

EIC

2008-09-16 17:26:00

We just launched EICs new website, just in time for the big Energy Event over at the Motorcycle Museum. At the even they also showed off the new branding created by unsuitable (you can see details on this here).

The Shave Doctor

2008-09-06 09:24:00

One Black Bear have created a new site aimed at wannabe sweeney todds everywhere.The Shave Doctor (aka Mark Sproston) is a site offering courses via his shave school and also a host of associated shaving products.Interested shaving experts in waiting can check availability of course dates and learn the silky smooth skills that have made The Shave Doctor the renowned expert he is today. More and more men are opting for a traditional, cut-throat shave with the warm towels and super close finish you only get with a proper barber shop shave.Make a sharp beeline for shavedoctor.co.uk and learn the art of a traditional shave.

Mensgroom

2008-08-13 09:19:00

Having trouble with spots? Dry, flaky skin and an aversion to sunlight? You're in luck! We've just let loose a top notch ecommerce site for all your male grooming needs! Not only does it stock hundreds of products but it offers a great advice section & video guides.We decided to try out something new with Mensgroom's payment system. In our experience most checkout process tend to become clunky and arkward when it comes to address details; adding several new steps and more pages for you to wade though, not very friendly at all!

MADE Schools

2008-07-30 09:57:00

MADE is the new name for NAMDS and is a group of 9 schools within the UK that stand for excellence in music and dance (in fact thats what MADE stands for - Music And Dance Excellence). They commissioned One Black Bear to build them a new site, and that's what we did! One of the nicest designs I've worked on recently, take a look at made-schools.org and see what you think.

So many OS', not enough machines..

2008-06-25 16:45:00

If like me you have to test your work for the mass market (that means windows) and cater for the majority (yes, that means IE6 & 7) but you are of more discerning tastes and don't enjoy viruses, malware and endless updates (in other words, you don't use windows) then you probably use a Mac (yes I do!).So how do you get around the problem? Simple answer, virtualisation. Basically this means that you can install a piece of software of your machine that lets you emulate another operating system. Most of the established solutions cost money, not much (around £40), but still more than nothing.After trying both VMware and parallels found them to be very very useful, but at the same time memory and processor hungry. For example, say I have the infamous double margin IE display bug and I'm trying to find the right container to add the display attribute to. I Have textmate open, photoshop (as I'm still working on the design), firefox, safari and VMware; switching to and from applications becomes sluggish.. There is a better way..VirtualBox, developed by Sun, is faster and smoother than the others I have used and has an OpenSource version! Goodbye VMware!The only draw back is that the free download doesn't have support for wireless cards on macs, but otherwise it's brilliant. Supports lots of operating systems (almost every flavour of linux I can think of) and is very fast. Great example of this, full reboot of plain windows xp (with service pack 2) in under 1 minute... Further news on this as I use it more.

Firefox 3 and it's fatal flaw

2008-06-23 11:05:00

Yes it's new, yes it's pretty; but as a developer it has one very annoying 'feature'. It is determination to use a cached version of the page your on regardless of the number of times you hit apple+r, the refresh button or ctrl+r (for you windows people). It seems that they have decided to abandon the lovely built in command that has saved many a developer trying to convince a client the page they are seeing is and old version. That great convenience of knowing that one command will work regardless of the browser they're using and can only super seeded by the tyranny of the network admin is no more.This one little annoyence wasted a good 20 minutes of time this morning! Personally when I do a command that's known as a force refresh I don't expect or want it to look at the cache; isn't that the point of it? You know, to ignore the cache and pull everything fresh from the site.In their wisdom they have changed their caching method so now when I'm testing a web page I'm building I have to click on a link to it, or re enter the address manually.. Yes it sounds petty, but that fact no bugger published this fundamental change means many of us developers will be wasting time figuring this out! Please someone make a firebug for safari and my troubles will be over..

Firefox Day!

2008-06-16 16:29:00

Firefox, the developers best friend, is due to get a big update tomorrow... A shiny new version will be let lose on the world. Yes I do know about the release candidates, betas and alphas but they don't really count; when was the last time your mother downloaded something like that?Anyway, to mark the release they are planning to break the world record for most downloads of a single piece of software in one day. Good luck, I for one will be downloading it, lets just hope their servers can cope!Take a look at Spread Firefox website for more details.

Microformats..

2008-06-03 16:29:00

As most of us standards based web desingers will tell you the semantic web is coming, slowly but surely. Microformats started all this giving meaning to blocks of divs and the like; so that chunk of HTML that is the companies web address / contact details are structured and tagged in a certain way. This makes it easier for search engines and the like to find the relative data on your website and is very very useful!When it comes to testing to make sure your hCard etc works take a look at left logic for a great little tool!Dont't forget to head over to microformats to read up on the does, dont's and how to's..

Simple Photography

2008-05-20 18:18:00

A simple site to show off all of Lucs North's photography with a simple contact form. The individual galleries utilise a jQuery plugin to allow smooth image transistions and thumbnailing.

Geek in the Park 2008!

2008-05-20 09:09:00

The time is almost here for the Multipacks semi regular (hopefully will be regular, this will be the 2nd time) summer time extravaganza; Geek in the Park!As previously the event is aimed at geeks and their familys with the day being split in to two; the afternoon picnic and the evening talk.The afternoon picnic last time was a resounding success with lots of people from all over the country coming down to point and laugh at us trying to play football... The only downside being a lost frisbie and an almost lost ball (this time we'll try not to play by the river, honest!). Thanks again to the rowers for rescuing the ball.This years evening talk is aimed at being a bit more interactive and we should have some great speakers (once its all confirmed). So keep an eye on the website and come on over for some geek fun in the sun (hopefully!).

Developing Locally in Leopard

2008-05-11 22:37:00

Your mac is set up and ready to go, but how exactly do you go about setting Apache up in OS X Leopard these days? Well it's it a bit more like linux now with the demise of Network Manager (I think thats what it was called, been a while since I used tiger), but its not too hard, honest!Firstly decide what suffix your going to use for your local machine, be sensible and use something meaningful like .local or .dev. Dig out your apache vhost file (httpd-vhosts.conf) and set up the file.You will need a line such as “NameVirtualHost *:80” to make sure any web connections are picked up. Now create you first virtual host a bit like this: DocumentRoot /Users/username/Sites/sitename/docroot ServerName mysite.local AllowOverride All Options All Once you have saved this file (root/admin privilleges are required) you will need to restart Apache so it reloads you config files. You can do this by starting up terminal and typing “sudo apachectl graceful” and entering the root/admin password.Now type mysite.local in to your browser of choice and see what happens.... Nothing is the answer. At this point Apache knows it should be looking for a request a site called mysite.local but your machine has no idea what .local means.To fix this you have to edit you /etc/hosts file (again root/admin needed) and tell it what mysite.local means. Crack open the file and add this line:127.0.0.1 mysite.localSave the file and refresh your browser. Bingo, its working (asuming the directory your pointing at exists of course). If your like me and your containing folder is called the same thing as the server name and you have lots and lots of sites you can save yourself some effort and make use of Apache's VirtualDocumentRoot (bearing in mind you will have to ensure mod_vhost_alias is enabled) and set your config file to have something like this: VirtualDocumentRoot /Users/username/Sites/%0/docroot ServerName %0.local AllowOverride All Options All

We! Love! Google!

2008-04-10 13:27:00

in a futher bid to avoid getting bought by the MicroSoft monster Yahoo! have announced a short experiment where both companies will share advertising space.Google will be able to place ads alongside 3% of search results on Yahoo's website. This new, if short, alliance will hopefuly stave off further take over bids from MS. Recently MS have been linked with News Corp regarding a joint venture to buy out Yahoo; which is in direct conflict with a previous rumour linking News Corp with Yahoo! to stop MS buying them.The rumour mill keeps on grinding as The Wall Street Journal reports Yahoo looking towards AOL for a life line deal!Yahoo! is a great service to the open source community and we well know MS attitude towards words such as 'free' I hope MicroSoft and Steve Ballmer will get the idea and stop the buyout attempt.

BBC iPlayer vs UK ISPs - Network Contention

2008-04-09 09:34:00

This story really wound me up. ISPs attitude to its responsibilites has been a sore point for some time with me; ever since my online gaming days of Earth & Beyond, CS and the like network contention has been a sticky issue.First lets go over what an ISP should do. When it sells you a 4mb line, you get a 4mb connection to the internet almost all the time; I can accept network outages and local hub upgrades etc. Their advertising should reflect the realitly of the situation, so when it says £20 per month gets you a 4mb line then thats what you should get. This is not what happens...When selling you a 4mb line, you dont get a 4mb line. What you actually get is a 4mb limited connection to a bigger line, say 100mb. When this line is quiet thats fine, you get 4mb. However, when you sell 100 4mb connections all connecting to that same 100mb pipe then you will get issues. Lets say that out of those 100 people a quarter of them start to download large files; linux distros and albumns off iTunes for example, this creates a huge demand on the main 100mb line. Lets say those 25 people max out their limited connections, 25 x 4 = 100... What are the other 75 people meant to do for network connections? Those other 75 people are just trying to surf the net, so using say (75 x 0.5mb) 37.5mb, so far that 137.5mb on a 100mb line, whops! Can someone say over selling?? As 137.5mb doesn't fit in to a 100mb pipe, everyone gets slowed down; so that 4mb limit on your line just dropped to about 3mb. This is what is called network contention and it sucks!Recently certain ISPs have decided that because they have oversold their main pipes in that fashion that the service causing this spike should pay towards the ISP upgrading their network to cope! What a joke! My favourite so far is Simon Gunter from Tiscali who claims the BBC should pay Tiscali money because they can't cope with demand on their network!Lets get this straight, the ISPs oversold their main lines, all those people heard about the iPlayer, started using it, created more then 100% traffic peaks becuse of the overselling. Then the ISP tells the BBC to cough up so it can upgrade that main line to actually be able to cope with the demand? Does that seem right to you? Sounds like an idiot to me..Why can't we just get what we pay for.. If you plan on selling 100 4mb connections, lay a 400mb main line in the first place! When I go to a supermarket and buy 4 oranges, I get 4 oranges. If I didn't the supermarket would be in trouble. Yet these ISPs get away with it because of that fine print in the contract that mentions network contention. I hope now with the BBC on the side of the gamers and geeks we can finally get rid of that network contention open ended clause and replacing with something closer to an SLA; where the company has to promise a certain percentage of that 4% will be available at all times. That way we can all make a more informed choice. I would much rather have a gaurented 99% of 3mb than 70% of 4mb...Until this is sorted I would highly recommend everyone downloading every possible show via the iPlayer, just to ram this home to the stupid ISPs!!For more a details, and less ranting, about the issue between ISPs and the BBC take a look at the full article here.

April fools!

2008-04-01 09:20:00

Ok, play time for all the web geeks.. Best of the best so far..BBCs Flying Penguins!YouTube rick rolling everyoneGoogle goes to outer space, and Tux makes a new friendWoWs new hero class - The BardGmail's time travelling emailsNew WoW expansion pack - Molton CoreSearch the future with Google Austrialia

How To: Setup OS X Leopard for a LAMP Development

2008-03-28 10:50:00

Before we start, LAMP = Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP and yes I know Macs aren't Linux based, but FreeBSD is a flavour of Unix so it's close enough! Having recently recieved my lovely new work Macbook Pro and have been setting it up for some serious PHP & MySQL development. Some of these stages were seriously difficult to find and it took myself and Sheldon Els (also on his shiny new Macbook Pro) a while to figure out; so we thought we would share..As both of us work with a php framework (php-wax) we have to create custom installs of php, mysql and apache; mainly because the installed version of php does not support PDO or PEAR. Of course soon as you recompile php it generates a Darwin version of the shared object that Apache uses meaning Apache has to be re compiled also.Firstly, wipe and reinstall your version of Leopard and remove all of those extra printer drivers and languages to save yourself over 5gb.Do all of the software updates so any changes you do to the default locations are not over written by a security update.I recommend creating a src folder within your user in to keep all of your source files.Get your hands on the latest version of xcode and install it. This is needed by everything, as it has all the gcc utils required for compiling anything!While xcode is downloading from the Apple Dev Center install all your standard applications (Quicksilver, Adium, Textmate etc).As mentioned above some security updates will over write files in default system locations; meaning your custom setup will be lost. This guide will try to avoid such things and install to custom locations.Anyway, time to get to work so crack open a terminal window and lets begin.MySQLDownload the latest stable release for your machine (please make sure you download the right version!)Unpackage and change in to the new MySQL directory./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql_dev --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-sharedmakesudo make installcd /usr/local/mysql_devsudo ./bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr/local/mysql_dev (make a note of the password commands needed to set a root user)sudo chown -R mysql ./varsudo /usr/local/mysql_dev/bin/mysqld_safe & (this starts the mysql daemon)use the commands from above to set your root passwordThat is MySQL setup and running, but to get it to start on boot you will need to copy the text below and save it to /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist KeepAlive Label com.mysql.mysqld Program /usr/local/mysql_dev/bin/mysqld_safe RunAtLoad Now run these commands to get MySQL to start at boot:sudo chown root /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plistsudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plistAlso add the below line to you ~/.profile export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/mysql_dev/bin:$PATH"That is it! MySQL is sorted... NEXT!PHPDownload the latest stable release in to your source folderUnpackage and change in to the new php directory./configure --prefix=/usr --without-iconv --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql_dev --with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql_dev --with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs --with-curl=/opt/local/bin/curl --with-zlib --with-bz2makesudo make installFrom your source unpacked directory copy the shared object: sudo cp ./libs/libphp5.so /usr/libexec/apache2/libphp5_dev.soCheck in /usr/bin for your php binary and rename it properly:ls /usr/bin/php*sudo mv /usr/bin/php.dSYM /usr/bin/phpFix your pear install directorycd /usr/lib/phpsudo pear config-set php_dir /usr/lib/phpPHP done and dusted... Almost finished..ApacheDownload the latest stable version into your source folderUnpackage it and guess what, change into the httpd directory./configure -enable-layout=Darwin -enable-mods-shared=allmakesudo make installcomment out the old php library load and add a new one in your /etc/apache2/httpd.confLoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5_dev#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.soenable vhosts in your /etc/apache2/httpd.conf (Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf)fix up your /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf with appropriate vhosts.add a line in your /etc/hosts for each virtual hostThat is everything up and running, not so hard when you know how!

Retro Gaming...

2008-03-28 09:01:00

Inside every geek/nerd lies the heart of a gamer; whether its a fast paced FPS or an all encompassing RPG sprites and polygons make our strained eyes twinkle. Harking back to the good old days is becoming more popular as the simplicity is appealing. While indulging a bit of nostalgia I came across a great site which has converted the legendary Arkanoid to a web game made from javascript! Have a play here.

Tesla Starts Production!

2008-03-18 14:20:00

At long last the Tesla all electric sports car went in to production today! Huge news for all those petrolheads with a green heart. The Roadster is based on a Lotus Elise chassis so should be a dream to drive and if the published statistics are accurate very fast, hitting 60mph in just under 4 seconds.The other plus point of the Tesla is the equilevant fuel economy of 135mpg! The 2008 batch have already been sold and I'm looking forward to reading the first road test. For now take a look at the pistonheads page or the companies own website.

Silverstone!

2008-03-16 00:00:00

Friday just gone I had the pleasure of going to a track at Silverstone, and on the full GP circut!! As im busy watching the first grand prix of the season I'll leave it at that.

Life of a Bear.. One Week on

2008-03-10 00:00:00

Wow, what a change... Work is coming in left, right and centre! With the recent article in The Drum show casing our big subaru win we are getting even more attention, including an article in The Birmingham Post. The Bears have landed and are here to stay!My first week is over and I'm just about to start on the second; 3 websites on board with a couple due out for approval this week and more on the calander. The outlook is rosey and I'm enjoying the work.The company is lots of fun and has a nice relaxed attitude with everyone getting on. Laughter, work, drinking, gaming and nights out, yay :D

Becoming a Bear!

2008-03-03 00:00:00

Last year two good friends of mine (Ross Riley and Gareth Brown) left the company I currently work for (WAA) to start their own web company called One Black Bear. With plently of blood, sweat and probably a few tears they started to win work all over the place which recently cumulated with being appointed by Subaru UK to handle all of their 'digital' work! Congratulations to them for such an amazing win!With this huge win the lads needed some more staff and advertised on the multipacks forum. I replied, and to cut a long story short I am now a bear!! Today is my first day, wish me good luck!

Site Visulisation

2008-02-29 00:00:00

A couple of years and many domain names ago I came across a cool java applet that took the web page you specified and turned it into a visual representation of how that page is structured and colour codes each node. For the most part there is very little use to it, other than looking cool and geeky, hehe.Spurred on by a drink fueled conversation regarding a foolish topic along the lines of 'can you draw a diagram of the internet?' I decided to dig this out as an example of how it could possibly be displayed using this applet. I've now spent far too long trying out lots of different sites and found reddit and bbc news to be very cool.These days there is even a flickr tag for it!

Netscape No More

2008-02-29 00:00:00

As of the 1st of March 2008 Netscape is offically dead and buried. That date is the last day parent company AOL will support the browser. Netscpape was one of the first modern generation browsers with, at it's peak, over 90% of people using it (in the days of 4.7!) but has recently slumped to a miniscule 0.6%. This huge swing in fortune was the decisve factor and the end of Navigator was set ast year by the various boards and mangement at AOL.Netscape Navigator was a very important piece of software laying down the ground rules for almost every other browser including the IE series and will go do in history. In spirit it will on in the form of Firefox, Flock and various other Mozilla based browsers. The Mozillia foundation was created by former Netscape staff who were made redundant in 2003; since then they have once again had large scale success with Firefox now corning over 20% of the worlds browsers.

Beaten at Last...

2008-02-02 00:00:00

Wales finally beat us at home... after 20 years... we lost. The first half went according to the book with England dominating and Wales floundering, but we struggled to finish them off. To many moves ended without scoring and most didn't really get going as we generally lacked momentum.Then the second half came. We pretty much stopped playing and seemed to catch the general malaise thats normally associated with our football team. From that point on Wales were in the ascendancy and grabbed the game with boths hands taking every oppotunity to score. After gifting the Welsh 2 soft tries it wasnt a shock that we lost, what was a shock was that the Welsh deserved to win. Not a good start to this years 6 nations, lets just hope we improve!

Real Programmers

2008-02-02 00:00:00

xkcd.com with another cracking piece of nerd comedy!

IE 6 Bug - Repeating Characters

2008-02-01 00:00:00

After coming across this really annoying bug many times I thought it was about time I made a note of it somewhere. When you starting mixing floated containers with non floated containers the IE 6 only parameter hasLayout triggers to -1 causing all sorts of chaos in your layout; most notabley tail characters repeating themselves. This is a big pain in the ass and is a little devil to fix.To get your layout working again you have to get hasLayout back to 1. This can be done in several ways but the most successful seems to be by adding display:inline into the containers (and sometimes the items inside) style declartions and crossing as many body parts as you can (for luck).Other methods for fixing this is to set margin-right:-3px or to change which parts are floated (if your layout allows).

Loading...

2008-01-31 00:00:00

Like many web developers I find myself creating more interactive pages with ajax elements and lots of imagery. When these images come from things such as flickr pools or rss feeds the load time can be dramaticaly increased leaving big blank sections on your page. The best way to still load all your remote content in and inform the user of what is going is to use a loading image. I can never find a a decent one when I need it most, so this site I came across is great! You can select a suitable style, background colour and foreground colour and the site creates a gif for you!Try it out yourself here.

Pirate Bay Charged!

2008-01-31 00:00:00

After defeating numerious attempts at closing them down the pirate bay team have been charged by Swedish police! Is this the begining of the end? Read the whole story here.

IE8 Stupidity

2008-01-24 00:00:00

Maybe I spoke to soon when I congratulated the IE8 development team on creating a browser capable of passing Acid2 as it now looks as though they have thrown away all their hard work be being stupid.With the switch between older versions of IE they implemented a malformed doc type detector to enable what was commonly known as 'quirks mode' so the site would render using the previous engine. At first look you've got to think that this was bad as you could end up with thousands of broken sites which relied on the old, faulty engine. And thats the point.The only way to get old sites which only worked with faulty / flawed rendering engines is to make sure that when the users of the site install a new browser the site breaks. After all these users start complaining making the site work correctly suddenly appeals alot more.This is NOT what has happened with IE 8.Instead MS and their development team decided to flout previous acceptable methods and create a meta tag to signify the site should use then newly complient engine. So why exactly would anyone spend time and money turning their old site? As far as they are concerned the site works, who cares if its standard complient.Yes its tough being the browser that most people use and with such a bad record of adhering to standards a big switch to a complient engine and site that was made for your old engine wont work and your stuck answering thousands of email complaints. Is this a goog enough reason... I don't think so; grow some balls and break the sites are meant to be broken!If you want to see opinions of world renowned web experts on this stupid decision, take a look at opera watch.

KDE For Windows and OS X

2008-01-23 00:00:00

Long standing linux desktop environment KDE has now released versions for both windows and os x! Released as part of the KDE 4.0 event this is the start of many other KDE based applications including Amarok and KOffice should follow suit.

MacBook Air

2008-01-22 00:00:00

Last week Apple finally released the long awaited sub-notebook that has been rumored for sooo long. However, it was not the tablet style that has been favoured of late in the rumors. Instead it was the ultra thin lightweight laptop. On first look its pretty, sleek, looks the business and has some nice built in features. However, on closer inspection there are some issues with it. Lets start with the my main bug bear; the hard drive. By default it comes with a PATA drive only running at 4200 rpm making slow and already a generation behind normal laptop drives. To get the 64GB solid state drive adds almost £1K onto the asking price!!! I know its the largest of its kind and therefore going to be pricey but that option now puts it in the same region as a top MacBook Pro!The Air comes with 2GB of RAM, which you cant upgrade. So I've just spent £1200 on something that will need replacing in a year or so when the next version of PS and the like requires 3GB to do anything useful.No built in ethernet port. Yeah its got wireless, but for gaming or any kind of en masse file exchange then you cant beat a good old cat5 cable. No optical drive. For me thats not a particular problem as I bearly use my drive as it is, but for your standard user this is how they get programs onto their machines. As a solution you can buy a seperate drive at an additional cost of course.Overall I would rather save some money and buy a nicely kitted out MacBook of portability or if I was a bit flush a 15 inch MacBook Pro.

Dont Look Down!

2008-01-18 00:00:00

While scanning though some reddit and digg feeds I stumbled across some photos of very dangerous roads! (seem to have lost the photos, whoops!)

IE 8 Passes Acid2 Test - WTF!?!

2008-01-15 00:00:00

We all know that IE 7 made strides to actually becoming a decent standards complient browser. Although some bugs still remain it is alot nicer and more predictable to work with than IE 6, however microsofts reputation for flouting industry standards and creating their own means that this is still a big shock.As of the recent Beta release of IE 8 the default rendering mode actually passes the Acid2 standards test! This is a a giant leap forward for IE development team as it places them in the same league as Opera and it's main rival FireFox (whose version 3 Beta also passed).Looks like the future of web development might just have a smily face on it!

Spence Insurance

2008-01-06 00:00:00

Another insurance broker that we started way back when (approx. April 2007). This site has been though at least 3 re-designs with each one being signed off, approved, built and then client changing their minds at the last stage! I only seem to have the original and current designs at hand; not sure where the second version went to but it is some what similar to the current iteration, minus the top navigation bar. As this was built and populated ages ago this is running an older version of the Wildfire CMS but is a relatively straight forward site, nothing to complicated. Go have a look at their live site.(This site was also worked on by Ross Riley, John Walker and Sheldon Els)

Style Birmingham

2007-12-06 00:00:00

A recent project for work was a total redesign and rebuild of the Style Birmingham website. The main goal of the style is to show case Birmingham as a stylish venue on par with London and other major cities.Along with an extensive list of shops inside the Birmingham city centre the site also has a large news section journaling relevant events and blog like features. The blog section (called Style Guru) contains posts from local style icons about the latest trends in the fashion world.The Shops section breaks down all of the shops into primary categories such as Menswear, Womenswear, etc. From this section you can then view a list of shops.When viewing the actual shop you get a decent level of information including a google map of where the shop is, some basic copy about the shop, details like phone numbers, websites and opening hours are also included along with what Brands the shop stocks.Alternativly you can use The Brands section to find the brand your looking for and then view the shops that stock that brand.The site has a competitions section on the front end and within the CMS. The CMS module allows the admin to create a new competition, specifiying questions, start date, end dates and introduction text. As an extra feature the admin can hide the competition feed from the front page and view all enterants.The gallery section (now renamed events) uses the same slideshow technology as the latest articles on the home page to display the most recent 9 photos. This initial page also shows some descriptive text which is controlled via the CMS. The main gallery page shows all images, paginated with an on click jqmodal box.The site uses modern web standards together with cutting edge AJAX technics to keep the site smooth and simple.

Telford Shopping centre - No Longer With WAA

2007-11-23 00:00:00

One of the larger sites I made for work was a new version of the Telford Shopping Centre website. It contains many usefull tools such as a store directory and an interactive map. The site contains several AJAX enabled sections to improve the website flow and ease of use. For the most part the site uses the Moo Tools library with certain aspects such as the gallery (now disabled) using the YUI library instead.The site also has multiple skins which are currently pink for spring, orange for autumn and blue for winter.As always the site has a google sitemap, dynamic meta tags (utilising some constent values along with chunks of the page copy) and is valid xhtml strict (unless some of the dynamic content breaks it!).UPDATE: My previous employer (WAA) recently lost the account for Telford Shopping Centre and the site has been completly redeigned - I'm not impressed; compare it to our version and see what you think.

MPH 2007

2007-11-22 00:00:00

A year has flown by and once again I head over to the NEC for some car realted fun and frolics by messers Clarkson, May and Hammond. Thats right, MPH 2007! As part of the MPH experience you also get access to a car show with all sorts of exotic cars past, present and even one future. As England are currently losing I'm not going to spend long on this topic other than to say that the Veyron is a beast and the Bentley VIP wasn't very VIP.The show was a great evening with some cool stunts. Highlights for me were the 3D Gatso Dragon verus the Stig and Jeremey's jet power mini car (designed to look like him lying down, complete with jacket and boots). The obligatory car football was played with swifts and for a change captain slow won! England get a penalty! 2-1, come on lads!Back on topic.. The show stopping end piece was amazing! The Cage of Death is always scary and only attempted by the most insane motor bikers and even then it's normally only one or two riders... MPH went further... 4 French men on bikes in a small cage at the same time, scarey stuff but stunning to watch.Right, I'm going to watch the game..

The Way of The Wii

2007-11-22 00:00:00

Good old fashioned playabilty finaly strikes back. After many years of graphical improvements, interface development and soaring price tags Nintendo decided enough was enough. Instead of playing the next generation game they took a step back and realised something... Gaming should be fun.Where SONY and Microsoft went about created bigger, meaner machines with high end graphic cards and enough technology to carry such weighty tags as 'home entertainment console' and 'THE home theatre solution' Nintendo went a different way.Using the existing Gamecube platform Nintendo went about doing what they do best; they changed the way we played games. Instead of using clunky controllers they came up with a small tv remote style controller and then came the killer feature....Your motions controller aspects of the games! The days of button bashing are over, now to beat some jumped up kid on the Wii you need some muscle in places other then your fingers. After playing 4 player Wii tennis i woke up the next day with sore arm muscles! Forget the real life graphics, fun and game play wins every time.

Flickr-tastic

2007-11-18 00:00:00

Several months ago the amazingly popular website Flickr opened up its service and functionalitly to the general public by means of an impressive API. Of course a large proportion of the internet users don't know what an API is never mind feel the need to use one.However, as part of the php-wax framework development I created a very basic plugin to use the Flickr API. You can see an example of its use on the front page of this website. Once the framework has been released and out of beta I will write a proper article about its uses with code examples.

A Search Engine to Call my Own

2007-11-17 00:00:00

Recently I had an unusal but intriguing question posed by a work collegue. Could I create some sort of bot to scan sites relevant to some keywords and market area specified by a client so the client could keep an eye on current events in their field. On first look I almost dismissed it, then i thought about it for a while...How about a facility inside their CMS which would let them list these keywords and then some how from these keywords pull back a list of appropriate websites. Then from this list (and of course allowing users to add some more of their own) search for pages containing another set of keywords and then using some statics track the rise and fall of these keywords over a set duration.Not a bad idea i thought, so i looked into implementing it and came across another great utlity provided by yahoo. Yes it's another api, but this one is usefull. The web search REST service allows anyone to query yahoo's search engine, specifying all sorts of parameters and retrieve the results in multiple formats including serialised php and xml.Great! Now all I need is the client to agree to it and I'll be making a meta search engine.

XKCD - 1337

2007-11-10 00:00:00

One of my regular online reads along with the long standing Dilbert is a web comic called xkcd. It's very geeky, but lots of fun. Recently they have just produced some of the funniest issues ever in the shape of a 5 part monster about the way of the hacker.Anyway, the links are:Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5

iPhone UK Launch

2007-10-29 00:00:00

The time is here, the iPhone is now available in the UK! Now I might be a burgeoning Mac fan boy but even I wont pay the best part of £300 for a phone regardless of how cool it is.When it gets to a sensible price level (ie free or very cheap on contract like most phones) and has 3G facilities instead of EDGE with a larger hard drive then I will definitly have one!

It Lives!

2007-10-16 00:00:00

After many months of putting it off and getting distracted (dam WoW!) I have finaly put some time in and got my new site sorted... Well, mostly.Lets start at the begining; I am one of the devlopers working on a new php framework called php-wax. I won't get into details in this post (please see another post - when i write it!) but basically it does what rails did for ruby. Once the framework got to a certain point we started to develop a CMS system to go with it to allow simple updating of content and make everyday minor updates simple. This new site is an example of how flexible these can be and lots nicer then messing around trying to hack wordpress to do something new. Two big changes to the standard combination are the custom comments module and an alteration to how the content is found, allowing categories to be used in a similar fashion to the sections list.On a side note the home page also uses some cool javascript and php-wax's flickr api (something I wrote a while back, ok for the basics not tried anything too daring with it yet) to create a slide show of my most recent photos. If this is well recieved I will probably use it and jmodal boxes on actuall content pages.Anyway, where was I... The comments module is a custom module inserted into the CMS, hopefully I will get round to tidying it up and convert it into a plugin to make future use nice and easy. That is one of the great features of php-wax, the fact you can run one simple command and do lots of great things. This ranges from installing plugins to deploying the website onto a live server. Anyway, thats enough talk about the technology of the site and time to move onto its purpose.As with every web developer I'm only as good as my last site, so I'll be adding a portfolio section to showcase what I've been working on along with the usual sport and hobbies.

Anthony Collins Extranet

2007-10-13 00:00:00

For Anthony Collins we created a fully functional extranet to allow them to create a completly unique website for each client. The site is a fairly simple affiar with a javascript tree based on a ul with some nice touches like an accordion to show pages with in the section and so on.In order to make the site customised for each client the entire site content is filtered by which client is logged in. In order to speed up making client ares I developed a templating system with creates a basic set of pages and documents on client creation. When making the client simply select what type of client it is (local goverment, housing associations etc) from the template list and the appropriate set of web pages are created for the new client.

Greenhill Dobbin

2007-09-28 00:00:00

Another insurance broker website based on one of the more recent iterations on the Wildfire CMS. Fairly standard with the a contact us form and google map.

Walsall Children's Services Directory

2007-09-02 00:00:00

A very unique website custom built for Walsall Council. One of the largest sites I've worked on from a content point of view (with over 900 services online at the moment and more coming) with users being able to submit new services to the administration team for approval.When you also factor in the number of outbound links and themed sections then you can imagine just how big this site is. In order for the client to keep all of this under control the entire site is ran via an early version of the Wildfire CMS.

Clarke Dove

2007-08-19 00:00:00

Another Willis Commerical Network broker. A straight forward CMS site with a contact us page (including a google map).

Powell Insurance Brokers

2007-07-19 00:00:00

Another broker from the Willis Commerical Network. Fairly standard Wildfire CMS site with a few extras. In this case the quotes shown on the right hand side of the website are randomised and they now have a special events module within the CMS.On an event page the person can submit their details to confirm that they are coming. All people that have submitted their details are viewable within the CMS and can be exported in the form of a csv.

Google Maps - Draggable Routes!

2007-06-27 00:00:00

In another stride towards world domination Google have updated their route planner with another funky feature. On your average mapping software avoiding a road or taking a detour is at best clumsy and at worst a waste of time.Not any more. Google has made it simple & intuitive. Now you simply click on the route and drag it with your mouse and hey presto its done. Check it out here.

House of Fraser Club

2007-06-23 00:00:00

The new membership site for House of Fraser was mostly made by my colleague John Walker, I helped with the original layout and css.

F1 - USA 2007 (Second win for Lewis!)

2007-06-17 00:00:00

Lewis Hamilton scored a second North American win in as many weeks after repelling McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso's advances during a tense race-long duel at Indianapolis.It was another consummate performance from the 22-year-old British rookie, who soaked up enormous pressure from the double world champion as the McLaren duo waged their most intense and uninhibited battle yet.Halfway through the race, the team-mates came just inches away from contact as they raced side-by-side down the long pit straight.But they gave each other just enough room, Hamilton retained the lead, and the die was cast for the rest of the afternoon.Unlike last year, there was no wholesale carnage in turn one on the first lap - but it did get scrappy as Ralf Schumacher locked up his Toyota's front wheels and slid into an innocent Rubens Barrichello (Honda) and David Coulthard (Red Bull), sidelining all three cars.Simultaneously, BMW's F1 debutant Sebastian Vettel, perhaps getting distracted by the commotion to his right, took to the grass and lost several places.Meanwhile Hamilton had successfully used a defensive line to convert pole into the lead into turn one, and then staved off the marauding Alonso around the rest of the opening lap.Having kept Fernando at bay, Lewis set about controlling the race from the front, gradually eking out his lead to 2.2s by lap 10.Felipe Massa held third off the start but Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen lost two places, to Nick Heidfeld's BMW and Heikki Kovalainen's Renault.Giancarlo Fisichella moved up two places to eighth but threw it all away when he touched the grass under braking for turn four on the second lap, throwing his R27 into a spin.The Italian's mistake seemed to fire him up and he began the kind of feisty recovery drive we saw at Monaco in 2006.The highlights included a side-by-side tussle with Jenson Button that went on for three corners, and a muscular move inside Alex Wurz at one of the infield hairpins.At the front of the field Hamilton was still looking strong, extending his lead to more than three seconds before initiating the pit stops on lap 21.Alonso pitted one lap later but was unable to capitalise on a shorter stationary time due to slower in- and out-laps, leaving Hamilton's lead virtually unchanged.Massa was still running third, but Heidfeld had lost fourth immediately before his stop when he spun into the escape road under braking for turn one, allowing Kovalainen to nip past.The Renault driver had been fuelled for a long first stint and now enjoyed his first spell in the lead of a grand prix.Apart from affording him that privilege, the strategy didn't really pay off and after taking on service on lap 27 Kovalainen rejoined behind both Raikkonen and Heidfeld.Meanwhile the battle for the lead was really hotting up.Three slow laps for Hamilton while the Briton was stuck in traffic gave Alonso the opportunity to whittle away his lead, and by lap 34 there was just 0.7s between them.As they closed on the long line of cars led by 11th-placed Vitantonio Liuzzi, Alonso's car grew ever larger in Hamilton's mirrors.By the time they emerged onto the main straight on lap 38, the team-mates were absolutely nose to tail, with Alonso pulling out of the slipstream to challenge for the lead.What followed was a riveting few seconds of wheel-to-wheel action (with echoes of the Mansell-Senna dice at Barcelona in 1991), as Lewis defended the inside and Fernando braked as late as he dared on the racing line.Hamilton held his nerve, won the corner - and Alonso's best chance was gone.The Spaniard probably knew as much, showing his displeasure by veering towards the pit wall next time by in what seemed a rather futile gesture to his McLaren mechanics.Several laps later, when he was still within close range, he lost a second with a ragged moment at turn eight, giving Hamilton vital extra breathing space.The reason for Alonso's frustration became evident on lap 50, when he was the first of the McLaren drivers to make his second pit visit.Barring any unforeseen late hiccups, Hamilton now had the race in his pocket - and so it proved.The margin between the two silver cars fluctuated around the 2s mark through most of the final stint, Hamilton eventually taking the chequered flag 1.5s in front.Massa had to fight a rearguard action in the closing stages to fend off a charging Raikkonen, who had recovered well from his poor start and looked much more like the Kimi of old.Unlike the other front-runners, the Finn had started the race on the harder of the two tyre compounds and had soft rubber for the last stint.Massa's defence was impeccable and the Brazilian held on for third place - but Raikkonen set the fastest lap of the race, which will have given Ferrari some cause for encouragement in the face of another McLaren 1-2.A week after dodging the Montreal carnage for fourth place, Kovalainen came home fifth on merit after a morale-boosting US Grand Prix weekend in which he generally outpaced team-mate Fisichella.Heidfeld might have had something for him, but the German fell by the wayside on lap 56 with a hydraulic problem.Sixth place should have gone to Nico Rosberg, who drove a strong race on a one-stop strategy - but the Williams succumbed to an oil leak and he pulled off in a cloud of smoke with just four laps remaining.His demise elevated the battling trio of Jarno Trulli, Mark Webber and Vettel to the final points-paying positions.Trulli and Webber enjoyed a spirited dice that was decided in the Italian's favour after the Australian's lunge down the inside of turn one ended in a trip across the infield grass.It was a banner day for 19-year-old Vettel, who drove a mature race after his first-lap excursion to become the youngest points-scorer in F1 history.For once, someone other than Lewis Hamilton was rewriting the record books.But that won't have bothered F1's star rookie as he completed a dream North American double.Race ResultsHamiltonAlonsoMassaRaikkonenKovalainenTrulliWebberVettelFisichellaWurzDavidsonButtonSpeedSutilAlbersRosbergLiuzziFastest lap: Raikkonen 1m 13.117s* Being lazy, this was borrowed from itv and then edited

F1 - Canada 2007 (Hamilton\'s First Win!)

2007-06-10 00:00:00

Rookie star Lewis Hamilton realised the dreams of a lifetime in Montreal on Sunday, storming to his first Formula 1 victory after dishing out a lesson in composure to his more experienced rivals in the most trying of conditions.The British sensation withstood everything that the afternoon's action could throw at him to take a fantastic maiden victory in just his sixth F1 race on Canada's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.There were four safety cars periods, the difficulties of driving on an increasingly treacherous track and constant order changes behind him to deal with - but Lewis kept his head throughout to take a flawless win.The wild race, which featured a horrifying accident for BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica, made fellow championship Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen look like the rookies.But while the established stars faltered, Hamilton added the most important chapter in his F1 story so far and now leads the championship ahead of Alonso by eight points.Indeed the contrasting fortunes of the two McLaren drivers were settled at the start.Hamilton was slower away off the line than his team-mate and Alonso looked set to sweep around the outside of the sister MP4-22 going in to turn one.But in a mistake reminiscent of his one at last month's Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso outbraked himself and was forced to cut across the grass at the turn two hairpin.Crucially the mistake dropped the double world champion behind the BMW of Nick Heidfeld, allowing Hamilton the opportunity he needed to dictate the race from the front.And that's where he would stay, despite all that one of the most chaotic races in recent years served up.By the end of lap one, the Briton was 1.5 ahead of Heidfeld, with Alonso stuck behind the German.However rather than climbing all over the back of the BMW, the Spaniard was consistently around two seconds behind it for the opening 10 laps while his team-mate was waltzing away at the front.No doubt frustrated by his predicament, on lap 15 Alonso made his second mistake at turn one, running across the grass and losing a further two seconds to his team-mate.The world champion though would surely ensure he wouldn't make the same mistake for a third time though, right?Well, amazingly, it wasn't as just three laps later he slid across the turn one grass again, but this time the mistake was even more costly as it allowed Massa to nip inside the McLaren and nab third place.But in the next few laps the whole complextion of the race changed.Hamilton pitted on lap 22 and looked set to continue on his way until his old F3 Euroseries team-mate and friend Adrian Sutil threw a spanner in the works - or rather threw his Spyker hard in to the turn four wall.The incident brought out the safety car just seconds after Hamilton had rejoined, eroding his comfortable lead.While Nick Heidfeld remained a threat, he soon didn't have to worry about Alonso, who along with Nico Rosberg, made his first pit stop when their respective teams wrongly thought the pit lane was still open.The pair were immediately placed under investigation by race control and were soon handed a 10s stop-go penalty - which they would serve later.More drama befell Massa and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella when the pit lane was reopened.As they made to rejoin the circuit, they jumped a red light at the exit of the pit lane - an infraction that would later see both black-flagged from the race with just 19 laps to go.The next man along, Kubica, did obey the lights, but the Pole was soon the unfortunate passenger in a terrifying accident.On lap 27, when the race went green, the BMW driver had enormous crash after touching the right-rear wheel of Jarno Trulli's Toyota while heading towards the hairpin flat-out at 180mph.The impact launched Kubica's F1.07 into a massive impact with the concrete wall, before it slewed back across the track, rolled, and finally came to rest against the guardrail on the outside of the hairpin.The safety car was immediately dispatched once again to allow medics to attend to the Pole and marshals the chance to clear the huge amounts of debris littering the circuit.The accident cast a menacing cloud over the afternoon, but miraculously Kubica was awake and alert when he was taken to the circuit medical centre.He was airlifted to hospital and the team later confirmed that he was uninjured.When the race resumed on lap 33, leader Hamilton immediately picked up from where he had left off and left Nick Heidfeld standing when the safety car pulled in to build an immediate three-second advantage.But the safety car was to make two more appearances still, just to make Lewis' life a bit more difficult.The first came on lap 50 after Christijan Albers became the second driver to spread orange carbon fibre debris following an off-track moment.Then just six laps later Tonio Liuzzi, on course for a healthy haul of points for Toro Rosso, added his name alongside the likes of Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve by ploughing into the infamous wall at the final turn.But while Liuzzi may not be a champion yet, one man who looks set to be, maybe even this season, is Lewis Hamilton - who after what must have seemed the longest afternoon of his life crossed the line to take a magnificent first F1 victory.Heidfeld, who had been the McLaren drivers' closest challenger all afternoon, picked up BMW's best result since it bought the Sauber team at the end of 2005, with a superb second place.Undoubtedly the biggest winner from the madness was Alex Wurz who from 19th on the grid kept his head above the confusion to come home a remarkable third.The result ended Williams' two-year podium drought and was the prefect way for the likeable Austrian to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of his F1 debut.It was also a landmark day for Renault's Heikki Kovalainen, who despite all the trails and tribulations of his weekend up until Sunday, came through from the back of the field to claim fourth place, his own F1 high so far.Raikkonen was perhaps lucky to end up fifth after a scrappy performance in which he never lived up to his 'Iceman' nickname.The Finn, whose championship challenge is slipping away by the race, touched the back of team-mate Massa at the first turn and then survived queuing behind the Brazilian while pitting under the safety car and several other misadventures.Raikkonen's four points were all Ferrari had to show from a weekend in which it once again was unable to challenge the now dominant McLarens.Then to cap a quite extraordinary afternoon, Takuma Sato pulled off something that you thought you would never witness - a Super Aguri passing a McLaren on merit.The McLaren was the double world champion of Fernando Alonso, no less, whose nightmare afternoon ended with a demotion to seventh place after the feisty Japanese ace outbraked the Spaniard into the final chicane.The final point went to Toyota's Ralf Schumacher, who himself was a late victim of the Sato charge.But the day belonged to super Lewis after what will surely be the first win of many.Race ResultsHamiltonHeidfeldWurzKovalainenRaikkonenSatoAlonsoSchumacherWebberRosbergDavidsonBarrichelloFastest lap: Alonso 1m16.367s* Laziness has caught hold once agin, this is an edited report taken from itv

F1 - Monte Carlo 2007

2007-05-27 00:00:00

Fernando Alonso regained the lead of the world championship beating Lewis Hamilton in a 1-2 for the McLaren team.The silver cars were in a class of their own throughout, routinely lapping a second faster than the opposition and leaving Ferrari's Felipe Massa trailing home nearly a whole lap behind in third place.Despite some acrobatic and at times heart-stopping driving with an oversteering car, Lewis was unable to get past Alonso.The fact that he looked downbeat after his fifth podium finish in as many F1 starts was a measure of just what an astoundingly good job he has done so far, and how high expectations have been raised.Alonso and Hamilton both got away well from the front row, the Briton crossing over to the right-hand side to cover any challenge from Massa and slotting in behind his team-mate before the first corner.A set of super-soft tyres propelled Nick Heidfeld off the line and the German put a muscular move on Nico Rosberg to grab fifth behind Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault.All 22 cars made it round the first lap but Vitantonio Liuzzi got out of shape at Massenet at the start of lap two and buried his Toro Rosso in the barrier.His MP4-22 had not been handling quite to his liking and a tyre pressure adjustment at the pit stop had not cured the problem.By the time Alonso stopped for the second time on lap 51, he had 11 seconds in hand.It was too much for Hamilton to overcome, particularly since it transpired that he was pitting just two laps later �%u20AC%u201C although a leisurely out-lap from Alonso made it a lot closer than it might have otherwise been.In fact, over the next few laps Alonso allowed his lead to dwindle to as little as 0.7s.Did he have a problem? Or �%u20AC%u201C having made his statement when he needed to �%u20AC%u201C was he simply moderating his pace to ensure no mishaps on the way to the chequered flag?Alonso relaxed his pace a little and the silver cars held station until the finish.After initially keeping the McLarens in sight, Massa had a lonely afternoon holding down an ever more distant third place.The Brazilian crossed the line one minute and nine seconds behind Alonso.Fisichella also ploughed his own furrow in fourth, but this result �%u20AC%u201C beating both BMW Saubers on merit �%u20AC%u201C was a morale-booster for the Renault squad, suggesting that the world champion team is gradually regaining lost competitiveness.Robert Kubica parlayed a 45-lap opening stint and a single pit stop into fifth place, leapfrogging his team-mate Heidfeld who ran a less conventional one-stop strategy with a short first stint on super-soft tyres followed by a long run to the flag.Alex Wurz took seventh for Williams, his first points-scoring finish since his return to grand prix racing this year.The Austrian fought a successful rearguard action to keep Kimi Raikkonen at bay throughout the closing stages.Starting from a lowly 16th after his qualifying mishap, Raikkonen made a good start to move up four places but thereafter couldn't break free of the midfield traffic.Scott Speed took a worthy ninth place for Toro Rosso, capitalising on an excellent getaway and solid pace thereafter.The two Hondas both fell back a place from their grid berths to finish 10th (Rubens Barrichello) and 11th (Jenson Button) after the Japanese team chose an unorthodox two-stop strategy with a short final stint on super-soft tyres.Rosberg's fine qualifying performance came to nothing as Williams' strategy backfired and he spent much of the race stuck behind slower cars, ultimately finishing down in 12th.Race ResultsAlonsoHamiltonMassaFisichellaKubicaHeidfeldWurzRaikkonenSpeedBarrichelloButtonRosbergKovalainenCoulthardTrulliSchumacherSatoDavidsonFastest lap: Alonso 1m15.284s* As I missed this race the report is based on itv's version.

F1 - Spain 2007

2007-05-13 00:00:00

Felipe Massa denied the Barcelona crowd the result it was looking for by dominating the Spanish Grand Prix from lights to flag for his second consecutive victory - as Lewis Hamilton became Formula 1's youngest ever championship leader.Massa never looked back after emerging on top from a first-corner skirmish with McLaren's Fernando Alonso, which sent the home hero scampering across the gravel and down to fourth place - an incident he never recovered from.And while the world champion endured a race-long struggle, his team-mate Hamilton upstaged him for the second race running by scoring another superb second place finish.The result gives the 22-year-old rookie sole possession of the world championship lead after just four grands prix �%u20AC%u201C another extraordinary milestone.Polesitter Massa set the tone for his dominant display at the start by coming out on top after going wheel-to-wheel with Alonso going in to the first turn.Both had got away well from the front row, but it was the world champion, no doubt spurred on by his passionate fans, who looked set to take the lead as he tried to brave it round the outside of the Ferrari through turn one.However Massa held firm on the inside of the corner and the pair touched, forcing Alonso across the gravel and nearly into the path of his team-mate Hamilton and Raikkonen as he hurriedly rejoined the track.Alonso's first corner move was a gamble that totally backfired, leaving him with a damaged car and a mountain to climb.He tried to pass Raikkonen on the outside at turn 10 on the next lap, but was forced to settle into fourth place.The first lap action had not all been at the front, as there was further chaos in the midfield.As Giancarlo Fisichella, Anthony Davidson and Ralf Schumacher battled at turn 10, the following Alex Wurz was unsighted and smashed his Williams into the back of Schumacher's Toyota �%u20AC%u201C shattering his FW29's front suspension and forcing him in to retirement.The incident also forced the Toyota driver in for an unscheduled stop �%u20AC%u201C a double blow for the Japanese squad after Jarno Trulli's car had developed a fuel pump problem at the end of the formation lap.At the front, Massa rapidly pulled away from Hamilton - who had outdragged Raikkonen at the start - with a succession of fastest laps.He was six seconds clear by the end of lap 10.But his team-mate Raikkonen �%u20AC%u201C who had been hovering around a second behind Hamilton for the first nine laps �%u20AC%u201C suddenly struck electrical problems and slowed.The Finn limped back to the Ferrari garage and into his first retirement of the season �%u20AC%u201C a huge blow to his world championship aspirations.Raikkonen's demise came amid a series of retirements in the opening 10 laps.Red Bull's Mark Webber (hydraulics) and Trulli had already pulled in to the garage before the right rear tyre on Scott Speed's Toro Rosso spectacularly blew out on Catalunya's main straight.Meanwhile up front Massa had pulled out a 9.5s advantage by the time of his first pit stop on lap 19.But for a few nervous moments all that effort looked as though it might have been in vain as an overfill on the fuel caused a flash fire on his Ferrari.Luckily for the Brazilian, however, the conflagration did little damage and he was able to get back on the pace at the start of his second stint.Massa was followed into the pits by the man who started alongside him on the front row, Alonso, but the Spaniard was now already out of the reckoning for a home victory.But he then gambled for a second time by opting to take on the harder compound tyres for the second stint in a bid to claw back lost ground �%u20AC%u201C a decision that would see him fall further back from the top two and in to the clutches of the chasing pack behind.Within a few laps, the Spaniard was only a couple of seconds ahead of BMW's Robert Kubica, enjoying by far his best weekend of the season, with Red Bull's David Coulthard running close behind in fifth.Lewis, as he hinted to ITV Sport following qualifying, did indeed have more fuel on board than both his team-mate and Massa, pulling in for service three laps later than they had.This allowed him to close to within eight seconds of his Ferrari rival, but it proved to be a false dawn as despite the fire, Massa increased his lead further in the race's second stint.By the time of the final round of stops, Massa - who again was the first of the leading runners to pit - had a virtually insurmountable 19.3s advantage in his pocket.Hamilton ran longer on the fuel, by four laps, and although he used the extra laps on the softer compound to claw back some ground, he still emerged from his second stop 11s adrift.From here Massa managed the gap to the young Briton in the final 20 laps, eventually crossing the line 6.7s ahead of F1's youngest-ever world championship leader.Alonso's lacklustre afternoon ended with a distant third, with Kubica picking up a solid five points for fourth after an impressive weekend.He would have had a close race with his BMW team-mate Nick Heidfeld had the German not been waved out of his first pit stop before his right front wheel was properly attached.Heidfeld had to tip-toe back around to the pits for the wheel to be secured, and later retired with gearbox failure.Another driver to star was Coulthard who scored his best result since his podium in last year's Monaco GP, although the Scot had a nervy final five laps after his RB3 lost a gear.This allowed Nico Rosberg a shot at trying to steal fifth place for Williams, but he ran out of laps and had to settle for sixth.Heikki Kovalainen underlined his growing confidence with seventh and at times was even the fastest driver on the track, but his race was marred by a fuel rig problem that forced both Renaults to make additional stops.Probably the happiest team in the whole paddock was Super Aguri, who at the 22nd attempt finally scored its first F1 point thanks to Takuma Sato.Sato took advantage of a late splash-and-dash fuel stop from Fisichella to take eighth place and no doubt sent his massed ranks of Japanese supporters wild back home.But in contrast to the 140,000 Spaniards in the Barcelona grandstands, their own home hero had not quite delivered the result they had been looking for.Race ResultsMassaHamiltonAlonsoKubicaCoulthardRosbergKovalainenSatoFisichellaBarrichelloDavidsonButtonSutilAlbersFastest lap: Massa 1m22.680s* Dam it, life got in the way again so another report based on itv

Google Maps - My Maps

2007-05-12 00:00:00

Google have recently added a cracking new feature to their maps section, called 'My Maps'. This allows you to create and personalise your own maps and make them publicly available. It doesnt sound much, but theres so many uses from providing your mates with directions to plotting out your pub crawl (with photos!).To start with, head over to google maps and click on the 'My Maps' tab. Make yourself a new map, give it a suitable name and description and take a look at what you can do. You can make a place mark, put it anywhere you fancy and fill in some information about it; this can range from just the name and address to inserting HTML (and therefore pictures). As with all placemarks you can get directions and search nearby.Another feature you will see in the new option bar is an option to draw lines. So from that placemark you just made you could draw a line to another, making a route / path.The last option available is the shape button. Strangley enough, this lets you draw shapes on the map. These shapes can take any form you want, from a simple triangle to a multi point indescribable thingy.So combine these features and you can mark out a race course with start, end and many points in between; then when the race is done you can add images of the race or links to flickr photo pools onto your placemarks. You could even put a link in the 'finish' placemark to a google spreadsheet with the full results in.What if your planning something a bit more adventurous, like a paintball event, and you want to mark out the teams territories / base, non combat zones and the like. You can simply use the 'shape' tool, give each one title and you've got yourself a course marked out.You can make your maps publicly available, so if your planning an event you can email all parties involved the link to it.

Cherry Picked Insurance

2007-05-06 00:00:00

The new flagship website for the Willis Commercial Network for the UK. This site has news, services and a comprehensive list of all of its members.In the development of this website the first postcode search for the PHP-WAX framework was created and used so people can simply enter in their postcode and be shown the six nearest brokers. This functionality was converted into a plug-in for future use.This site was also the first site to use a member subscription system for notifications and has the prototype models for this which since then has been generalised and integrated into the Wildfire CMS.I worked on the inital design and phase one with my colleagues Ross Riley and Joe Turner where phase two (the intergration of a quoting engine api) is being worked on by John Walker.

F1 - Bahrain 2007

2007-04-15 00:00:00

Felipe Massa finally kick-started his 2007 title challenge with victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, while Lewis Hamilton continued the dream start to his Formula 1 career with another accomplished runner-up finish.Massa atoned for his schoolboy error in Malaysia with a perfectly judged performance, but he was harried for much of the afternoon by the astounding Hamilton, who edged tantalisingly closer to a maiden win.The 22-year-old Briton etched his name in the F1 record books by becoming the first driver to finish on the podium in each of his first three grands prix.Into the bargain, he moved into a three-way tie with Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen for the lead of the world championship.Although he regained the points lead, Raikkonen was less than satisfied after finishing more than 10 seconds adrift of his winning team-mate in third place.BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld broke McLaren and Ferrari's stranglehold on the top quartet of places with another impressive drive to fourth, the highlight of which was a skilful passing manoeuvre on Alonso.That left the double world champion, who was outperformed by his rookie team-mate all weekend, to settle for fifth.Massa got away well from pole position, while from the dirty side of the track Hamilton found enough traction to hold second place into the first corner.From the second row, Alonso outdragged Raikkonen and the Ferrari only just kept the McLaren at bay at turn one.Alonso carried more momentum through the tight complex and muscled ahead on the approach to turn four to snatch third place.Moments later the safety car was deployed following a melee at turn four which eliminated Jenson Button's Honda and the Toro Rosso of Scott Speed.At the restart Raikkonen was caught napping, crossing the line a long way behind the top three, who were in nose-to-tail formation.Hamilton feinted to the inside of Massa approaching turn one but thought better of any outlandish move and tucked back into line.These two immediately established a cushion over Alonso, who soon had the fast-closing Raikkonen filling his mirrors.The die was cast for the opening stint, with an increasingly large margin opening up between the Massa/Hamilton and Alonso/Raikkonen battles.Alonso was visibly struggling with the handling of his MP4-22, locking wheels and missing apexes with uncharacteristic frequency â%u20AC" but Raikkonen was never quite able to pounce.As a result, Kimi found himself being chased by Heidfeld's BMW Sauber, which had remained within surprisingly close range early on and was now closing in on the battle for third.Massa and Hamilton continued to trade fastest laps all the way up to the first pit stops, the Ferrari driver edging away on one lap only for the McLaren man to reel him in again the next.It was an absorbing duel, and such was Hamilton's relentless focus that it was easy to forget it was but his third F1 start.Lewis was the first of the front-runners to pit and McLaren put both him and Alonso (who took on service three laps later) onto a long middle stint in a bid to turn the tables on Ferrari.The tactic didn't pay off, as Massa turned up the wick on his scrubbed set of soft-compound tyres while both McLarens struggled for balance.Moreover, Raikkonen leapfrogged Alonso by pitting one lap later than him, which released him to hunt down second-placed Hamilton.With a front wing adjustment at his pit stop having cured his car's understeer, Massa stretched his lead to 8.3s lap by lap 30, while Hamilton's focus switched to fending off the other Ferrari of Raikkonen.Meanwhile Alonso's race had really started to unravel.The Spaniard had his work cut out keeping the flying Heidfeld behind him and finally ceded the place when the BMW driver pulled off an audacious outside pass at turn four on lap 32.A little farther up the road, Raikkonen slowly but steadily whittled away the 5s gap to Hamilton until the pair were tied together by lap 40.But having handicapped him earlier, the long middle stint now worked in Lewis' favour as he was able to stay out for three more laps on a light fuel load â%u20AC" thus continuing his remarkable record of leading each grand prix he has started.Coupled with a shorter final stop, it was enough to ensure that he retained second place, emerging from the pit lane comfortably in front of Raikkonen.Just as Massa's lead seemed secure, there was another twist in this constantly fascinating race as it drew towards its climax.Hamilton found his McLaren was handling much better on the harder â%u20AC�%u0153prime' tyres he had taken on at his final pit stop, now free of the understeer that had bothered him in the middle stages.The Briton began to take substantial chunks out of Massa's lead with each new lap, cutting it to 6.7s on lap 47 and 4.6s by lap 51.His progress was thwarted a little when Anthony Davidson's Super Aguri expired in front of him and he had to navigate his way through the murky trail of oil â%u20AC" but even on that lap, he trimmed the deficit by 0.2s.Ultimately, he ran out of laps, and Massa held on to take the chequered flag 2.3s ahead of his now regular sparring partner.When Hamilton put on his late spurt Raikkonen was unable to stay with him, finishing more than 8s in arrears.Alonso's pace improved in the final stint and he closed back onto Heidfeld's gearbox, but the German is one of F1's coolest customers and was never likely to give his pursuer an opening.Robert Kubica could not match team-mate Heidfeld's pace and â%u20AC" almost alone of the 22 drivers, it seemed â%u20AC" had a lonely time en route to sixth place and his first points of 2007.By rights, seventh place should have gone to David Coulthard, who drove his best race since scoring Red Bull's first podium finish in Monaco last year.The Scot's feisty charge from 21st on the grid was sadly halted by a broken driveshaft shortly after his second pit stop.Team-mate Mark Webber stepped into the breach, but his RB3 fell by the wayside five laps later.The demise of the Red Bulls promoted Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella to the final points-paying positions.The Toyota driver had his hands full in the closing laps staving off his fellow Italian, who despite Renault boss Flavio Briatore's animated exhortations over the radio was unable to find a way past.Race ResultsMassaHamiltonRaikkonenHeidfeldAlonsoKubicaTrulliFisichellaKovalainenRosbergWurzSchumacherBarrichelloAlbersSutilFastest Lap: Massa - 1m 34.067s

Pulse RSS - Rainbow Powered?

2007-04-14 00:00:00

As a regular (ish, need to write more frequently!) blogger its always nice to have some statistics at hand either for some serious site seo / ad campaign tracking or just to see how people are finding your site. At the moment this means loading in some code from google analytics.Yes, google analytics is a webmasters wet dream, recording everything and anything about the person viewing your site. However the average joe has to spend 20 minutes deciphering what everything means and will normally get lost in the endless number of pages and tools when all they wanted was the basics.As with every other stats package (that i know of) you have to log in to their admin area, with the normal issue of remembering the web address, username you used etc. You'd think there'd be an easier way...There is, its pulse rssA user-friendly, statistical web-service. Please note the 'service' part as this is its big advantage.Once signed up you can add as many sites as you like and view them all in a simple AJAX'd interface which is simple and attractive (good designer & programmer).Now here's the killer feature, once you've added the code to your site and set up your account, you can view all of your sites data from almost anywhere as the information is also available in RSS, XML, Netvibes, Google and Yahoo formatted feeds. All you have to do is add the relevant url to your 'feed reader' of choice, personally I'll be adding mine to my google home page.Just to seal the deal, its also completely free!For all those people that need ad tracking and in-depth detail about every single visitor then keep your analytics. For anyone else, give this a try!

F1 - Malaysia 2007

2007-04-08 00:00:00

Sepang was the first of the new generation of Hermann Tilke-designed racetracks, and it made a big impression when it joined the Formula 1 calendar in 1999.With its wide expanses, sweeping corners and state-of-the-art facilities, the state-funded Malaysian circuit on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur provided a blueprint for the many new grand prix tracks that would spring up in ever more diverse corners of the world over the next decade.It also gave an insight into the difficulties of establishing an F1 venue in a country with little motorsport heritage.But the organisers do not complain about the lack of a large and passionate crowd, instead seeing the grand prix as an excellent way to advertise Malaysia as an international tourist destination.Sepang's first ever F1 race in '99 was its most memorable, as Michael Schumacher made a remarkable comeback after three months on the sidelines with a broken leg.He took pole position and dominated until handing victory to his title-chasing team-mate Eddie Irvine.Highlights of subsequent years included Kimi Raikkonen's maiden win in 2003 and Jenson Buttonâ%u20AC�%u201E�s long-awaited first podium the following season.The circuitâ%u20AC�%u201E�s wide straights leading into tight corners have always prompted lively wheel-to-wheel racing - and inevitably some controversial collisions as well.Race Results Fernando AlonsoLewis HamiltonKimi RaikkonenNick HeidfeldFelipe MassaGiancarlo FisichellaJarno TrulliHeikki KovalainenSecond place for Lewis! Great result for the rookie! Just a dam shame Alonso pipped him to the win, but what a start to his first season; fresh hope for a Bristish champion? After a great performance in Oz the Ferraris seemed to be slightly lacking and only managed 3rd and 5th.

Foster Leighton

2007-04-05 00:00:00

As part of the Willis Commerical Network we have created many broker websites and this is another one. The site is a simple Wildfire CMS website with a contact form and google map. On the index page the section marked as Cherry Picked News is a parsed RSS feed from the main Cherry Picked Site.

MS vi?

2007-03-20 00:00:00

See how things might have been if Microsoft had done vi! See here.

F1 - Australia 2007

2007-03-19 00:00:00

Start of a new season and Ferrari have got off to a cracking start. Not the best day for Massa (dropping to 20th after a gearbox change) but he did manage to get all the way up to 6th place and score some points. With a win for R�%u0192�ikk�%u0192�nen the season looks good for the Ferrari faithful.Youngster Lewis Hamilton put in a sterling performance to get on the podium on his first outing into F1 and spent most of the race showing Alonso exactly why Ron Dennis has so much faith in him.Hopefully the points will keep coming for Lewis as with Button stuck in an under performing Honda he is the main British interest this season. Unfortunatley that does come with all that pressure and hassle from the media; lets just hope they will leave him in peace to do this thing on the track. Other notable points:The MacLaren is still the most beautiful car on the track and this season seems to have some speed and substance to back up its looks.Wurz was almost decapitated by the under-tray of Coultards Red Bull in a daring (if slightly foolish) over taking attempt.

Old Mars Rovers Learn New Tricks to Kick Off Year Four

2007-03-08 00:00:00

NASA's twin Mars rovers, nearing the third anniversary of their landings, are getting smarter as they get older. The unexpected longevity of Spirit and Opportunity is giving the space agency a chance to field-test on Mars some new capabilities useful both to these missions and future rovers.Read more about this here.

Coolest fish ever is the hottest - fish that skips through lava!

2007-02-27 00:00:00

Scientists have witnessed the extreme lifestyle of tonguefish that like to skip across pools of molten sulphur. The animals - a type of flatfish - were filmed on three expeditions to undersea volcanoes in the western Pacific. Huge numbers were seen to congregate around the sulphur ponds which well up from beneath the seafloor.Take a look at this strange fish here.

Stunning Fully Functional 1:3 Scale Ferrari

2007-02-05 00:00:00

There are few if any models in the world to rival the Ferrari 312PB built by Pierre Scerri. This 1:3 scale masterpiece is the real thing in every sense, from its operating 100cc 12-cylinder engine to the exact scale operating Ferrari gauges which are calibrated precisely to indicate rpm, oil pressure, water temperature and oil temperature.Take a look at the youTube video here.

New Robot Adapts to Injuries

2007-01-24 00:00:00

A newly designed robot can sense and recover from unexpected damages, an ability that is sure to prove handy in dangerous terrain, researchers announced today.Take a look at the full story here.

Linus Torvalds officially a Hero

2007-01-16 00:00:00

According to TIME magazine, Linus Torvalds is one of the the greatest heroes of the last 60 years.And about time to! Take a look at the full story here.

Flickr's Desktop Wallpaper Pool

2007-01-14 00:00:00

Thousands of Flickr users have posted their favorite wallpaper photos. Some great ones on there that I use on my own machines!Take a look here.

Most accurate ip-tracing.. amazing

2007-01-10 00:00:00

I knew for ages you could trace an ip back to its country and ISP, but this site locates your town and shows it on google map.. Pretty cool.Take a look here.

The Race

2006-12-20 00:00:00

A TV show pitting so called celebrities against each other in a battle of the sexes to find out whcih gender makes the best drivers. Or at least thats what the marketing spiel claimed.In reality shows of this nature rely heavily on the 'stars' ability to entertain and not seem like complete morons. Of course a good host is also a necessity. Hmm,they might be in trouble then.With Denise Van Outen at the helm and some very wooden showings from the casted celebs, it didnt start off to well. Its saving grace was the actual content, with some good ideas and innovative challenges the show was watchable.The racing was quite good, not up to a professional standard but with plenty of spins, a few crashes and a smattering of overtaking it was enjoyable.With the week moving on and points stacking up in favour of the lads (being captained by Eddie Irvin) the girls (tutored by David Coulthard) were looking to use the final as a stage to launch a last ditch attempt to win.As the final (which I got see :) ) had an all male podium; couple this with the unfortunate accident that befell Ms Dynamite the day didnt end well at all for the girls.It was a good day out, hopefully next time it will run in the summer so it's not so cold on the stands!

Spirit Health Clubs

2006-12-20 00:00:00

After a rush to get it all sorted the new Spirit Health Club website went live. This is running on a higly customised early version of the Wildfire CMS and PHP-WAX framework. The majority of the customisation relates to each club having seperate admin logins with the ability to create unique pages, offers and news for their club.

Bulldog Broadband

2006-12-12 00:00:00

Having endured many months of problems getting things connected and accounts activated (take a look at my earlier rant about utilities) I had become accustomed to pathetic customer services. However, Bulldog beat them all.Somewhere along the line the 'big wigs' at Bulldog would of had to formulate a strategy for resolving customer queries. It looks like this meeting was a very short one. Their answer to everything; outsource to India! Yes, thats right, another company jumping on that band wagon.Due to restrictions imposed upon me by my landlord (no cable allowed :( ) I was left with very few choices for an ADSL provider. I opted for the best of a bad bunch, Bulldog. That is when things started to go wrong.The connection took 6 weeks to be sorted, instead of the maximum of 4 stated on the website and on the letter. Strike 1!Fitting day came, credit where credit is due, the engineer was early and switched on the socket nice and quickly. Now according to the letters, emails and the assurances of the fitter, the line should be active within 4 hours.Five hours later, nothing. Time to call the helpline.Strike 2! Useless in the extreme. With great lines like “if you want to complain about your lack of internet connection you will need to send an email to...” and “have you checked your connection status online?” it is difficult for me to comprehend how these people survive.At this point I was getting somewhat annoyed, clearly those 'big wigs' who made these procedures lack some common sense. How exactly do you send an email or look at a website when they haven't got round to pulling their collective finger out and switching on my line!I called back later on in the evening before the so called “support” line closed. Strike 3 and in a big way! This time the bouffon on the other end claims “if it is not on now sir, it probably wont be until monday”. Time to get the supervisor!After a brief vent of some more choice points that I wanted them to fully understand in no uncertain terms (mostly arguments about them lying in their correspondence and delaying of services equating to breaches of contract) I calmed down slightly.In hindsight the most worrying and down right rude part of this escapade was that not a single member of the support staff ever apologised or even showed the slightest form of remorse. Yes, I was at times slightly abrupt and even bras, but only because I was getting no where!Maybe in the future those same 'big wigs' will sit down and decide that if their customer service was better and actually helpful they might shrug off the bad image, get more customers and make money that way instead of cutting corners by giving everything to the lowest bidder.At the moment, my internet connection is running well and I have no complaints about that thankfully, as I really do not relish having to speak to “support” again!Rant over and out .. for now..

My Mac and I

2006-12-03 00:00:00

Until recently I'd barely even looked at a Mac. I used to be under the common miss-conception that they were only any good for design and looking pretty.Plying my trade using mostly Linux, Windows and the odd Unix system I was always a fan of the stability and security of the 'Nix way. On the other side the compatibility and of course the plethora of games available on Windows is a draw.With OS X being based on FreeBSD there is a happy third alternative. I know this is a bit behind the times, but I've never quite got round to writing this before but this time I was spurred into writing this by my recent purchase. A Mac Mini!I couldn't help it, its small, perfectly formed and more powerful then my tower PC! With top class software, great compatibility and some amazing games I cant think of a reason not to own a Mac any more. Especially now you can have two buttons on your mouse!The fact is I've now completely converted, even to the extent where I use an iMac at work and an old PowerBook for a laptop.Since owning my Mac I've really been enjoying using text mate. A truly wonderful piece of editing software, it comes with syntax highlighting and help files for virtually every single commonly used programming language. It even includes utilities for svn!I know there are some down sides to using a Mac, but they are getting fewer all the time. I am now officially a Mac Fan!Now where did I put my ipod.... ;)

F1 Season Review: 2006

2006-11-27 00:00:00

The many twists and turns of the 2006 F1 championship lead to an intriguing end. With the retirement of undoubtedly the greatest driver of the modern age (regardless of his misdemeanours) it would have been poetic justice if heâ%u20AC�%u201E�d gone out in style by winning an 8th title.However, this was not the case. With only a few races remaining it was a very close call between Schumi and Alonso; unfortunately a rare engine failure gifted it to Alonso.If you look back though the season then maybe you could point out some mistakes (by Ferrari and Michael) that cost points and possibly even the championship. But this would take away from the astounding performances and pure driving genius that he graced us with this year and during his illustrious career.On several occasions â%u20AC�%u0153the masterâ%u20AC�%u201E� shocked us with brilliant over taking, amazing grit and determination along with stunning race performances. In some cases coming from the tail end of the grid to get his car in the points!Unfortunately there were some lows. One in particular might cast a shadow of disapproval over his last season, maybe even his entire career. The incident at Monte Carlo. Tactical, yes, sportsman-like, no. If it had worked, it would have been great for Ferrari. But it didnâ%u20AC�%u201E�t.Incidents like this occurred though out his career. That is the flaw of the champion. The desire to win at all costs, regardless of others. Should we persecute him for this? No, after all he is only human and we all make mistakes. Thankfully for most of us 10 million plus people arenâ%u20AC�%u201E�t watching us when we make them.Whether you love him or loath him, the sport wont be the same without him. No offence to Alonso, but he just doesnâ%u20AC�%u201E�t have the same level of notoriety or skill as Michael. Without the 7-time champion the sport no longer has that exciting figurehead that inspires the fans.With the rumour mill working over time, talk is already circulating about Michael going back to Renault for one last season, maybe even creating his own team with Ross Braun (the architect of many Shumi wins). Who knows what will happen (Bernie?), but I doubt weâ%u20AC�%u201E�ve seen the last of Michael Schumacer.This season wasnâ%u20AC�%u201E�t just about the title race. With new winners and sterling performances from young drivers there is hope for next season.Button winning his first race has to be one of the best moments this year for British motor sport. Massa out-qualifying his team mate on more then one occasion. Kimi moving to Ferrari. Alonso going to McClaren. 2007 should be an interesting year.Go Ferrari!

Public Transport: The Future?

2006-11-21 00:00:00

Living in my new flat I'm in the precarious position of being near to many forms of public transport. With bus stops as far as the eye can see and just beyond that is the train station.During my university days I used public transport almost exclusively to get back and forth. Most of the time it was the train, which meant using New Street.With thousands of trains coming and going day in day out there are bound to be the odd delay, which is acceptable. However, when these delays are caused by miss-management and poor control systems something needs to be done.For many years there has been talk about giving New Street an overhaul. In the latest bout of proposals New Street gets another set of platforms, a lofty makeover and a sparkly lick of paint.While this is great for the artisans amongst us the practical side of me wonders if these improvements will be more then skin deep. Will they finally dump the cash-sucking Windows and jump onto the Open Source bandwagon?Although Iâ%u20AC�%u201E�m not a regular â%u20AC�%u0153userâ%u20AC�%u201E�, I must admit the bus service by me is annoying regular (all those buses driving by really messes with my tv reception!). With some nice new touches, such as location of where the next bus is and its eta, maybe buses are the way forward?Or maybe not. Even if there were massive improvements to public transport, the chances are Iâ%u20AC�%u201E�d still take the car!

Powered by Useless Utilities

2006-11-16 00:00:00

You'd think that in this modern age of computers, the internet, inter-connectivity and nationalised databases that finding information about a property would be merely a few mouse clicks away.How wrong could I have been!After providing them with the complete address (not just a guessed one mind you, but the official full address straight from Royal Mail) surely finding the property would be easy.Postcode, no luck there; full address; still can't find it. What more do they want, the longitude and latitude? Eventually after hounding the letting agent I finally got hold of the previous account number and hey presto, they found it.This problem was repeated at almost every one of the utility providers I contacted. Maybe it was something I was doing, but then how did other companies find my flat straight away?After a little bit of investigation I found the crux of the problem. Approximately 18 months ago the building that is now my block of flats was a field.It seems that these large, national companies simply weren't updating their information. Why is this? Budget cuts? Poor practices? Laziness? Ignorance?With an ever increasing demanding for new housing (practically modern flats) this seems a worrying trend. Does this mean that every new house or block of flats wont appear on the books of basic utility provides for over a year?Maybe it was just my flat; maybe I moved in in-between them updating their databases; maybe I'm just unlucky. If not, they really need to re-evaluate their business practices and update! Well, that is my rant over for this week!

LP Creative Crafts

2006-09-10 00:00:00

My first venture into the world of e-commerce with RoR. An on going project that regulary changes designs and offers with all of the products and sections controlled via a bespoke admin area.