Neils Web Development Blog

Inspirational websites: Coke Zero Game

2008-07-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Something that I always find strange is when large corporates spend an unbelievable amount of money on something that surely won't have any effect at all.

Now, I've never tried Coke Zero, but while having a little stumble the other day I came across the site http://www.cokezerogame.com/ Which didn't just impress me, but literally blew my Primark 33p a pair socks off!

You play the part of an unlucky bloke who's not managed to get tickets to the footy and therefore been abandoned by his mates.

He's only unlucky though until he comes across a coke zero machine in the street and treats himself to a guzzle of the low fat black stuff for men.

That's when 3 birdos pull up in a couple of mean looking sports cars and start the challenges.
You have 4 challenges to complete which are all impressive full motion video games.
The Jump of death - a car game where you have to make it over the bridge; The power challenge which sees you booting a football through a wall; Fire Juggling that tests your keep-e-upy skills and finally Extreme megaball which is a pinball simulator.

All the games are pretty good and all have video of the gorgeous coke girls to encourage you further... especially when you get the chance to enter the cheerleaders dressing room (yep... no getting totally away from the amercianisms! At least the main strap-line is Football as it should be, not soccer as it should be!).

Check out the coke zero game by going to http://www.cokezerogame.com/
It takes a while to load even on a good connection, but it's well worth it.

As for my first point. I played this game about 3 weeks ago... and still haven't tried a coke zero!

Website: Neil Smith Designs blog... i.e. This one!

2008-07-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, "I've been away from blogging for a while"... I wonder how many times that sentence has been written... (313 results for that exact phrase in google - at time of going to blog!).

So what's my excuse?

Let's have a look at the possibilities... Was I...

a) Spending my well deserved lottery win?

b) Enjoying an around the world trip?

c) Entertaining 15 girlfriends at once?

...nope, unfortunately none of the above!

To be honest, although I don't consider myself a dull person (those who know me... shut up!), I've not had that much to say in a blog that was to cover views, news and booze...

I made a few fundamental errors when starting out blogging. I didn't think hard enough about what I wanted to blog about. What others would find interesting. And finally what I knew enough about to make it more than a one-blog-wonder!

Ok, so my first blog outing lasted about as long as Paris Hiltons pop career... but this second bite of the cherry is gonna be sweet!

I intend to apply my knowledge to this blog. I work in web development every day.
So all the best web tools, concepts and inspirational sites I come across in my work... I'm going to blog about. Hopefully you'll like it!

Views: Using StumbleUpon to keep up with the latest on the web

2008-04-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

For such a long time I used the web in pretty much the same way each day. I would log on to my favourite sites, normally in the same order, carry out my everyday tasks, usually in the same way, then close the browser, usually with the same red cross in the top right hand corner. Ok, so the red cross bit of it's not going to change, but the way in which I now browse the web has... and that's thanks to StumbleUpon.

I've been a web developer for several years now and have often looked at ways in which I can keep up-to-date with the latest new websites out there. Not easy, due to the fact a new website wouldn't fit into my pattern of web usage! The only new websites I used to come across were factual ones when searching for information or code and they were hardly the most inspiring.

Since starting this website, I've tried to look into every avenue of online marketing (for no budget) to try and encourage visits to the site. My primary focus was obviously SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and generating content through this blog. But as any web developer knows, it takes time to make an impact.

That's when I looked into user-generated sites such as Digg, reddit, delicious and finally StumbleUpon. So, initially I looked to these online resources to promote my site, but after installing the StumbleUpon toolbar, I started to view a handful of new sites a day just to see what else is out there.

The good news is, I've come across some really useful sites and some that have inspired me. I've finally found that way of keeping up-to-date with some of the most impressive content on the web. I've quite literally stumbled upon a gem of a site. If you haven't already, I suggest you also give it a go...

Views: Alan Partridge and Gene Hunt Quotes TV Soundbox

2008-03-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

After the success of my fonejacker TV Soundbox on Facebook, I decided to try out the same with
two of my favourite characters.

Alan Partridge is a legend... pure and simple. Also, running through his tv shows - The Day Today, Knowing me Knowing you and I'm Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan has blessed our screens with a character that delivers some of the best comedy quotes ever!
Perfect for an Alan Partridge TV Soundbox...

The next character is Gene Hunt from the shows Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Both show's have proved to be the best thing to come out of the BBC drama vault in years and Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt doesn't only deliver a cracking performance in each episode, he also delivers a plethora of quality quotes.
So again... Gene Hunt lends himself perfectly to a TV Soundbox application.

As I have used Widgetbox to make these applications, you can install them on any social networking profile or add them too your own website.

Check them out here...

Gene Hunt
http://www.neilsmithdesigns.co.uk/genehunt.html
Alan Partridge
http://www.neilsmithdesigns.co.uk/alanpartridge.html

Fonejacker
http://www.neilsmithdesigns.co.uk/fonejacker.html

Views: Still in my twenties!

2008-03-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

Come Friday I'll be out on the town "celebrating" my birthday.
A couple of weeks ago when I looked at the calendar to see what day my birthday landed on, I was well chuffed it was a Friday, It meant a birth-weekend rather than day!

Double checking, sure enough as is the norm, Saturday would definitely be the day after and therefore another chance to don those dancing shoes and fire into town.

However, as my last few weeks of being a twenty-eight year old descended, I realised I am heading full force into the final year of my twenties... final year!

I'm now concerned.

I'm concerned because I still make funny noises at work. I still use slang language, still wear trainers with my jeans and still get disappointed when the lights come on at 3am on a Sunday morning and I have to make my way home.
I'm concerned because I still put product in my hair, I still watch Hollyoaks and I still call The Arctic Monkeys "The Arctic Monkeys"... not Arcade Monkeys or Arctic Fire!

To make things worse at my place of work we take on Placement students from universities. This week I was looking through the CVs and what caught my eye was the birth-date. As I was entering the last year of my twenties... The new student would be entering the last year of their teens! They were, all but a year... born in the 90s! That makes them a totally different generation.

They can't remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off or the importance of when defending yourself knowing the technique of "wax on, wax off"!
They couldn't sing the theme tune to fraggle rock, know the lyrics to Ice Ice Baby or dance "Hammer style".
They wouldn't have a clue what you would drink in the Congo, who you would write too to "fix it" or what you would do with a "cassette"!

Problem is, I still feel young (and immature!)... I still feel 21. So I just know, if not this weekend, then soon, I will be uttering the words "It's not how old you are, it's how old you feel". When I do utter them words, I'm hanging up my dancing shoes, buying slippers and no longer watching Hollyoaks, I'm watching Emmerdale. Done!

Views: Big Brother 9 - 2008 - All over before its started?

2008-02-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

Apparently Big Brother 2008 (Big Brother 9) which should start around 23rd - 3oth may (as these are both Fridays) is going to be scheduled in a "graveyard" slot much later than it's in-the-past-popular prime time slot of 9-10pm. This has to be an indication that C4 bosses have lost faith in one of their flag-ship shows.

Personally I think it's a bit of a shame. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a massive Big Brother fan, in-fact over the last few summers I've probably only watched a handful of the shows.

The reason I think it's a shame though is because it was an original concept and when it all began way back in 2000 it was compulsive viewing.

Endemol had an absolute monster on their hands and although you could quite easily criticise the voyeuristic nature of the show, it was a brave new program that would obviously lead to not only copy-cat shows, but a whole splurge of reality shows for virtually every channel on the box.

It's almost too easy to mock Big Brother and the wanna-be celebrities that audition for the show. The fact is though, this show can so easily turn the whole negative public perception around by inviting "normal" people into the house.

It's not hard to see that the show started to fail when it became a circus freak show. Viewers found themselves laughing at a transvestite that was quite clearly unstable or turning against a chav-like-lady that was 2 sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic! After laughter though came the harsh realisation that you now feel uncomfortable so you inevitably switch off.

The first series was quite clearly the best. The house mates didn't have any idea what they were letting themselves in for and therefore had no game plan. This meant from a sociological perspective it was fascinating to see how people act when confined to such claustrophobic surroundings with total strangers; body language of the various housemates gave away so much.

Big Brother was not only pioneering from a tv perspective. It also brought in other forms of media such as the Internet where viewers could watch a continuous 24-hour feed from multiple cameras on the web. Not to mention mobile phone updates - which must have made them a fortune!

No doubt come the summer there will be a wealth of people jumping on the "Big-Brothers-dumbing-down-our-nation-we-hate-wannabe-calebraties" bandwagon. Then those same people will scoff, then pick up the latest edition of heat magazine.
You see, we're all obsessed by celebrities and deep down everybody wants at least 15mins of fame to see what its like.

That said, apparently only one hundred people turned up to audition for the Channel 4 TV show in Newcastle... Perhaps it's not only Big Brother that's dying, but the whole "being a celebrity for absolutely no reason" syndrome that has somehow exploded over the last few years.

So this year I'm going to tune into the first episode of Big Brother and give it a chance. Because, if by some miracle they have let a few normal people in to the very abnormal surroundings of the BB house, you never know... we could be in for a treat!

Views: Widget box - fonejacker tv-soundbox

2008-02-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

After my initial blogs about Widgetbox and creating a facebook app (Pitch to the Dragons). I thought I'd investigate what sort of fun widget I could create using flash and Widgetbox.

I love fonejacker - It's one quality program with some excellent characters. It's also a tv show that lends itself to a little application that lets you here from all the best characters on the show. So I set about creating a flash app that lets the user select a character and then play a series of sound clips from the show.

Once complete I set this up as a facebook widget through using Widgetbox. Once again the process was very easy and within minutes (although the flash app took me several hours!) the widget was up and running.

So... five stars again for Widgetbox.

If you have facebook you can add the fonejacker tv-soundbox to your profile.

It contains all the best characters such as Terry Tibbs, Brian Betonde, The mouse, George Agdgdgwngo, Mr Doovde and the Chinese lad who likes to pirate dvds! I only added this to facebook and promoted it in a few fonejacker groups a couple of days ago and it has already surpassed the dragons app I did weeks ago.

If you haven't got facebook, you can take a look and play around with it here.

I've also included some code on the page incase you would like to embed it in your own website.

Views: Use Widgetbox to promote your blog

2008-02-18T11:08:00.000-08:00

I came across Widgetbox when I was looking into developing a Facebook widget I had an idea for. As with most bloggers I want as many people as possible reading my posts, so I look into every avenue of marketing my website. The social network boom has made this an obvious place to look, with every person having so many friends viral marketing has never been able to spread so fast.

For my Facebook application I delved into FBML and already had knowledge of php so was able to develop my widget in about a week. However when I came across Widgetbox it looked on the surface like I could have saved time simply registering and going through their wizard.

That wasn't quite the case although the features it does support are still quite impressive.
With php and mysql you can obviously create a far superior application than what is basically possible on Widgetbox. But it does let you interface with Flash and Javascript so there is scope to make a decent application.
As it interacts with Flash there are already loads of games that have been made into Widgets.

However the quickest and easiest way of creating a widget is by first creating a Blidget. This is a Widget of your Blog.
Widgetbox guides you through the process seamlessly, even loading Facebook within a frame to enable you to set up the necessary parameters.
You can then promote your new widget through Facebook, through a blidget promo badge you post on your website or on other social networking sites such as MySpace or Bebo.

You see, even though I've banged on about facebook, Widgetbox supports the OpenSocial container as well. Although Facebook is not developed on the OpenSocial platform and is at the moment the most used platform, OpenSocial is Googles attempt at standardising social networking... and I wouldn't bet against Google winning in the long run, would you?

So all in all Widgetbox is a great tool for developing a widget to promote your blog really easily.
Infact you can install my Widget to have a look at what it's like by clicking on the "Get My Widget for your site" on the left hand side of this page.

It looks like this...

I've only touched the surface of what Widgetbox can offer, but I can see that it will help loads of people out there spread their hard work to a far reaching audience.

Booze: Money saving tip, save £1.50 guaranteed

2008-02-17T07:58:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one but I couldn't resist passing on this new found bit of knowledge that guarantees you save a whole £1.50 every weekend (Well almost!)...

Friday/Saturday arrives and you're ready to go out.
Before you leave the house to hop in the taxi - stop and remove your coat. No matter how cold it is outside, you will soon warm up with a few sherbets inside you.

You may be frozen... or even, worse case scenario catch a serious cold. You're friends may be laughing at you while your turning into a smurf; but stick with it.

You enter the club and whose laughing now... while your friends are cueing to put their coats in and part with £1.50 you can stand there smiling away safe in the knowledge you have your one and half quid tucked away in the pocket.
As all of your friends are in the queue you might be a bit bored, so if your feeling frivolous you could even have a go on the bandit - you may even cash in on that £1.50!

Now for the trip home, an hour wait in the taxi queue at 3am... and its -5 ... sh!t...

Reviews: Nescafé Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine KP200640

2008-02-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine

First things first – I like my coffee and appreciate a good full mug of the brown stuff!
On a recent(ish) trip to Rome, I couldn’t resist popping in to virtually every other coffee shop (and there are a lot of them) and firing an espresso down at the counter.
Every coffee lover knows you just cannot beat the aroma, taste and caffeine hit you get with a steaming hot coffee… beautiful.

However, there’s COFFEE and there’s coffee. Some I’ve tried in the past have either been nothing short of treacle or getting close to dishwater. Seriously, you know what you can do with your Maxwell house and Red Mountain!
So what do I do when I’m not in the city and able to hop into a nearby Starbucks or Café Nero? Well, now I can fire up my Red Nescafé Dolce-Gusto Coffee machine and it’s all systems go!

The Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine is a little beauty and my find of 2008 (ok, we’re in February – but hey).
Not only does this little red gem look damn fantastic on my worktop but it does something that my previous Morphey Richards silver lump didn’t do… it makes superb coffee.
You can choose between several drinks, which you buy in Pods. I believe other machines use this method as well, but looking at some of the Pods or Cartridges for other machines they look like they would struggle to fill a cup never mind a mug!

So, how does it work?

You need to insert a milk Pod (depending on drink) and your chosen coffee pod – choose between Latte Macchiato, Frothy Cappuccino, a Shot of Espresso, a Caffè Lungo, Cappuccino Ice, Mocha or… Hot Chocolate? - Choose how strong you like it (come on wimp!), adjust the drip tray to the height of your mug/glass - then fire the little belter up.
In a few mins it quickly serves up a warm coffee for you to enjoy… That’s it my friend! It’s also really easy to clean.

Seriously though – this does make a really nice coffee. The Espresso gives the required hit and the Frothy Cappuccino really is a tasty drink that does pour with a good Frothy head. The Café Lungo is pretty much your standard coffee but it is a very nice everyday coffee (cant shoot them espressos down all day!).
Haven’t yet tried the Latte, Mocha or Hot Chocolate – but certainly will soon.

Like I’ve previously touched on, this also looks really stylish. It fits in to any modern kitchen and comes in a variety of colours so you can match it with your toaster and kettle.

I really can’t think of many downsides to the Nescafé Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine. It is maybe a little pricey – I paid £90 and the Pods are approx £3 for 16 capsules. But remember with some of the drinks, like the Cappuccino you only get 8 drinks out of that (8 milk, 8 Coffee).That said – you can pay £3 for one drink in Starbucks so you can’t really complain!

Anyway, all this tapping away writing this review is making me tired… what’s going to perk me up???

Views: Gourmet Burger Kitchen - Earls Court London

2008-02-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

This week I've been to the good old capital of England to visit the tfm (Technology for Marketing & Advertising) exhibition held at Earls Court. It was a worthwhile visit at a quality venue. Not least because of the Google university seminar and a talk on Facebook from Blake Chandlee who is Commercial Director, UK, at Facebook.
So you would think as I have now recovered from the trip, settled back in at home and answered my 200 emails at work because I was out of the office for 2 days without a Blackberry; I would probably sit down to write a blog about the highlights of the exhibition... that's what you would think.

That however, is not the case.

Instead I will tell you about the absolute outstanding highlight of the 2 days. The one thing that really stuck with me and made me look forward to my next London visit.

Let me paint the picture. Day one, up around 8.00am to catch the bus in to Leicester then train to London St.Pancras... not St.Pancreus (which is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates) like one of my colleagues kept saying!. Then straight to the exhibition as we want to make sure we don't miss the Google University, which by the way was good - not excellent, as it did feel just a tad like it was a sales pitch for Ad-Words, but still good.

After the seminar I take a look at the time-piece and realise it's way past dinner time... Food is beckoning.

We head down to Earls Court road and into the first pub we see (sorry can't recall the name).
Upon inspection of the menu there is one thing that is taking everyone's fancy... a burger.
As I'm just about to go to the bar to order, we take a glance out of the window and see GBK which stands for - Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Surely if we are to have a burger, we should go to a place that specialises in it... and boy do the specialise!!! oh yes... to the max!

After a quality large milkshake which was creamy, thick and perfectly flavoured, I look up to see a ginourmous Thai chicken burger floating down onto the table in-front of me. Looking around the table at my dining companions I look for a reaction to my mammoth plate of snap.
Unbelievably though, there is no reaction. The reason being they were too busy, mouths wide open, looking with disbelief at the size of their own belly busting burgers.

Sometimes however, you do get quantity and not quality. Not the case here my friend. Here the taste was every bit as good as it looked.

A smile has also been put on my face due to some further research that has uncovered GBK is a chain with over 40 restaurants dotted around the UK! Bring it on!

So, to sum up my highlight of my recent trip to London, three letters... GBK.

Bagpuss Vs My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

2008-02-10T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is my mash-up of Bagpuss Vs My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade.
An unlikely pairing.. but you just listen to the start of pagpuss and you will see where the insperation comes from!

There's only a couple of mixes as I love this song and video and didn't want to ruin it with over mixing. That said, I think where I do drop in a bit of Bagpuss - it works a treat!

Reviews: LG Viewty KU990 - a mobile phone and more

2008-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

I had my Sony w810i mobile phone for a good 18 months and to be honest when I realised my contract was up and therefore entitled to a new phone I wasn't in that much of a rush to ditch it.

You see it had a decent camera with light that enabled me to take photos in clubs etc. and a very good music player with excellent software, which in combination with my expandable 2gb memory stick pro duo worked like a treat.
But time had moved on and pretty much like the sad phone in the Carphone Warehouse ads, I needed to lay the little black beauty to rest and upgrade my downgradings.
So after a bit of research I lay my faith and next 18-month contact in the LG Viewty KU990.

Now right from the outset I'll admit... it's the poor mans iphone. I just wasn't prepared to pay such a hefty price for a phone plus massive monthly contract.
Also, I have to state I can't stand how you can only get the iphone on o2 and either direct from them or Carphone Warehouse. Do us a favour!

Ok, so after ringing Orange customer services to find out their best deal - then obviously being put through to disconnections so they can upgrade me for free, I wait a couple of days and there it is on my doorstep. A classy looking matt finish black box with flip up lid that pops out a piccy of your new LG Viewty... Good start LG, first impressions count and this had me intrigued from the outset.

I give the phone the obligatory full charge and and fire it up to be greeted by a nice little animation and some funny lucky fella laying around a cup of tea on my wallpaper.

First of all the screen is excellent. Bright, clear and an excellent size. In-fact the screen weighs in at a more than respectable 240 x 400 (3") - wowsers!

So with that size screen, a 5 mega-pixel camera (yep 5 mega-pixel!), flash and a sneaky little camera for video calls, you would expect it to be a bit of a monster. No siree, it is in-fact only 14.8mm thick, 103mm in height and 54.4mm width. Admittedly at first when I held it, it did feel a little wide. But I have decent sized hands (not great big flapping goalkeeper size hands, but decent sized) and I could easily hold the phone in one hand and use my thumb to touch the necessary options.

But what's it's major feature. Well I have touched on it... touched... get it?
It's the whole touch thing, which is the feature of 2008. You just watch how many phones come out with touch screens now! Ok, it's not the first phone to have this feature, infact it's not even the first LG phone as the Prada also had a touch screen.
Infact the LG Viewty really is an upgraded Prada. It took a little while to get used to, but once I did there literally was no stopping me!
Not having keys to text with felt weird for a start, but with the buttons on a screen this large they are obviously big old buttons, so after a few mins I was texting as fast as I could with my Sony.
All in all then... I'm a fan of the whole touch thing... let's move on.

The operating system is slick and everything happens fast enough. However I did enable the vibration on touch so that I knew instantly I had touched and selected the option I wanted.
All the options you expect are here, messaging, address book, calls and more further menus are all quickly accessible from the main screen. But with a quick tap on the screen you can access a plethora of options including camera, video recorder, calculator, organiser, internet, downloads, music store... pretty much everything you could ever want.
I won't go into the standard features such as calendaring, alarms etc. but I will say they all work intuativly with no problems at all.

What this phone's really all about is multimedia.
If you go to the LG Viewty website, you could quite easily be forgiven for thinking you are looking at a camera not a phone at all.
The phone can play .swf (flash) files as well as divx files - the software that comes with the phone has a divx converter which is a nice touch. It can also play WMV and your standard file types for a phone such as 3gp and mpg4.

As I've mentioned the camera is a quality 5mega-pixel with flash. It also has a smorgasbord of options, such as night mode, auto and manual focus, image stabilizer and even face tracking. LG have even given something a little extra with the video recorder, enabling it to record at 120fps for a matrix style slow motion effect.
So with all these multimedia options it's a good job the Viewty lets you expand its 100mb memory by 2gb by using a micro sd card.
Although personally I reckon this could have done with being more.

The music player is also a winner, offering the ability to generate play lists or play tracks by album, artist, genre or just shuffle'em all up.
Although everything’s here, I think the software for the interface to the music player could have been better.
I always loved the interface on the w810i and was perhaps spoilt to have such a good music player on a phone... but I think with the touch screen LG could have pulled something a bit more special out of the bag (ahem iphone ahem).

So to sum it up.

What's hot...
> Touch screen
> Styling
> Camera (both still and video)
> Operating system
> Vast array of formats supported (I didn't even go into the fact it can open pdfs, Word docs, Excel and Powerpoint)
> Intuitive interface

What's not...
> Battery life (although this was slightly expected due to the screen)
> Music player software
...and I'll hold out on how robust it is...

Overall - I'm thinking this is a quality alternative to the iphone.

What is it with LG?

To be honest I don't think I'd touch most of their other equipment, LCD tv's, music players, video recorders etc... but phones - they can make phones... and apparently they've sold more than 310,000 of them across europe already!

Views: Classic kids tv shows, which ones the best?

2008-02-06T13:55:00.000-08:00

I had a smile and a half listening to Chris Moyles on the journey into work today as I was singing along to one of my favourite tunes of my childhood... Ducktails!!!

Yep, that's right, as Moylesy quite rightly pointed out, one of the current hits in the radio one playlist (cant recall its name) sounds like, but not as good as Ducktails! And I was overjoyed when he played the full version of this classic Disney tune.

So after humming the theme for the majority of the morning, I cast my mind back to those heady childhood days sitting in front of citv and cbbc (no cbeebies back then).
My time of childhood tv was in the mid 80s and looking back, boy was I fortunate to have it at such a peak time for kids tv.

Thundercats, Bananaman, Superted, Fraggle Rock, Inspector Gadget, Scooby Doo & Trap Door all amongst my prime tv pics.
It wasn't all cartoons though, Knightrider, Streethawk and the legendry A-Team all stay etched into my happy childhood memories.

One thing that does stand out when you look at all of the above is what made me think about this in the first place... the intro music. All of them have excellent music! If a compilation cd with those little beauties came out tomorrow - I would be straight into the nearest music shop (or at least itunes).

But what if I had to pick just one favourite? Now that wouldn't be easy!

After wracking my brain with this tough teasing thought for approx. 5hrs I decided it came down to two classics, one a cartoon, one a unique adventure game show.

1.

2.

That's right Dangermouse - that majestic mouse with his bespectacled little friend Penfold battling against Barron Greenback.
Or, Nightmare - that classic show with the dungeon master hosting a team of kids who have to help their mate through a computer generated world without the understanding of the difference between left and right.

If I had to pick just one... Knightmare! Done.

Booze: All I want is decent food after some beers!

2008-02-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

"I said maybe , You're gonna be the one who saves me ? And after all, You're my wonderwall!!!" - Excellent, you've just sang your lungs out to the last song on the dance floor at the nightclub, had a damn good night out and you're ready for an easy taxi ride home and a good kip.

But hang on, it's 3am in the morning, you've had a few beers and Something’s holding you back. Something’s stopping you getting that taxi... that something is hunger! For some reason even though you had a good tea, nice dinner and even a sneaky sandwich before leaving for your night out, you still need something to eat.

My problem is, where do you go? I can really only write about my experience in Leicester, as this is the place I've tried out the most eateries. But I'll take a damn good guess it's the same in most cities!

The choice here is McDonalds - you know what you get, but surely you can do better.
TJs - Lets face it, nothing special here - it's quick but probably luke warm and pretty greasy.
USA chicken - one of my personal faves as it has a good 6 spicy chicken wings and chips for £2.50... but does it make me content... no!

So last Friday armed with this knowledge I am easily persuaded to try out a kebab shop I'd not tried before... Alivels.
Upon entry I'm not over impressed by the florescent tube strip lighting that makes no food look any good. But obviously things can still be rescued, there are a few people milling about, it's actually quite busy, surely all these people cant be wrong?

It took a little while to get served but nothing too bad. I order cheesy chips and a burger, which lets face it... can't really go that wrong, can it?
3 mins later a decent enough looking burger and chips land infront of me. You read correctly. Burger and chips - minus the cheese.
A fair enough honest mistake... it's busy, the majority of my meal is correct, it's just missing that final element of the cheese.
Obviously this is easily remedied. A quick sprinkle of grated cheese on top... done. Even better they could possibly exceed my expectations and melt the cheese slightly on my chips.
So did this happen? Oh no. This is what happened!!!

That's right... a slice of processed cheese slapped on top of those chips. Unbelievable

The search continues. Alivels... do one!

Views: Attract more visitors by developing a facebook application

2008-02-02T07:07:00.000-08:00

Why are you here?
What, out of the millions of web pages on this ever growing beast that is the internet made you click on a link or type in an address to arrive at this page? It may be coincidence and you were searching for something totally different, in which case you are unlikely to have made it to this point in the post.
Hopefully this is not the case. Hopefully you are here because you want to read about why I have developed a facebook application, how I went about doing so and what lessons I learnt that I can pass on to you.

>> So why did I develop a facebook app?

For the very point I was making at the start of this post. To attract more visitors to this site. To gain more exposure and in turn encourage more users to sign up to this blog. In my view there is no point blogging to an audience of 1.

There are over 35.3 million Weblogs on the internet, so to make yours the one that a visitor reads means you have to do more that just post your articles and think the magic of the internet will do the rest.
Facebook is the web app of the moment. It comes and goes in phases, first it was Myspace then Bebo now Facebook. Surfers are fickle creatures that will set up a new profile on the next big social networking site at the drop of a hat, leaving their existing profiles frozen at a perticular point in their lives... sad, but true.

But facebook is where it is at the moment and one of the main reasons behind this is because they have given the power of evolving this network socialising tool to the community that use it.
They've done this by allowing developers to build "widgets" that can be installed in users profiles and these "widgets" can be anything the developer can dream up.

It obviously hasn't taken long for developers to realise that through these widgets they can reach a massive audience faster than ever before possible. Word of mouth is the most powerful viral marketing tool available and this platform gives a perfect way of starting that marketing. So this is the reason I set about developing a facebook app, I wanted more visitors to this website and hopefully, as you are reading this... that's already started to work!

>> How did I build the facebook app?

First of all I needed an idea for a facebook widget. If you're a user of the site, I'm sure you will have noticed there is an absolute deluge of widgets that let you see how you compare to your friends, how popular you are or even what object such as car, vegetable or animal you are like. These are all good fun and have their place.
But I wanted to create something that users could get involved with and hopefully get a little more out of using.

I looked at my interests and the fact that I was trying to come up with an idea to engage more people with my website. One of my favourite shows on the box is Dragons Den, so I wondered if I could develop an app based around this show. "Pitch to the Dragons" is what I came up with. Where facebook users can pitch their idea to their friends for them to comment on and rate.

Fortunatly I have a background in php, which is one of the primary languages you can use to develop these widgets. The other language you need to become familiar with is FBML (Facebook Markup Language). This is where I really have to take my hat off to the developers of facebook. They have created an evolved subset of HTML which allows you to hook into the users profiles, mini feeds etc... and display elements in a facebook style in-keeping with the site.

I'm not going to go through the coding of my application, but I will say that with a sound knowledge of php it took me approx 18hrs to develop. Obviously this wasn't continuous I was doing it in my spare time.
That said, I am now familiar with FBML and the anatomy of a facebook app, so the next application should be a lot quicker (depending on complexity!).

>> What did I learn that I can pass on to you?

First of all that you need to download the PHP (4 and 5) Client Library. This includes many facebook functions that you will need to develop you app. One lesson here was to make sure you know the version of php your using and therefore use the correct library.

Once you've uploaded the correct library, you may come across this error when trying to access it...
Fatal error: Failed opening required 'IsterXmlExpatNonValid.php', this is because you also need an XML library that can be found here Make sure you reference it correctly and the error should disappear.

The second lesson I learnt was using the Default FBML which is in your applications "Edit Settings" page.
I was trying for ages to get the actions I wanted in the users profile into this box. Unfortunately its rather restricted and you can better configure what the user sees in their box through the set up when they install your app.

You really need to setFBML for the users profile. To do this in php build what you want the user to see in their profile into a variable then call your facebook api client profile_setFBML function, e.g. $facebook->api_client->profile_setFBML($markup); //where $markup is what the user will see in their profile.

Aside from these two issues, everything really did run smoothly. My only other suggestion would be to use the FBML code as much as possible to make your app look like a facebook app.

So, has it worked? Only time will tell. I will post a follow up to let you know the difference it has made... At the moment I'm just hoping the next killer social networking application isn't going to spring up tomorrow!

Reviews: The Pigeon Detectives - Wait For Me

2008-01-13T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've recently purchased "Wait for Me" and also saw The Pigeon Detectives first of all at Pucklepop in Belgium, then supporting the Kaiser Chiefs at Nottingham Areana. So I feel I'm in a decent enough position to pen a quick review on their new album.

For my reviews so far I’ve bigged up the WACS7000 music system from Philips and fully lavished praise on the Racing Frogs website. So you might be thinking this review is quite likely going to be more controversial, maybe a little scathing in its opinion, well let’s see.

This debut album “Wait for me”, the reason it doesn’t hit the mark is…. Well, the reason I didn’t like it is… I thought it was second rate because… No, sorry, cant do it, this album is absolutely fantastic!

This pop/rock/indie style band of youths brought out a few excellent singles, first of all “Romantic type” then “I found out” and so it was time for an album to prove their worth.
I can safely say they have done just that with an album that is packed with sing-along, or even chant-along, songs that can be enjoyed in the car, down the pub with your mates or even just at home to brighten things up on a rainy sunday.

There seems to be quite a few bands in this same style at the moment and I have to admit I’m into most of them so it’s not really that surprising I like this album. The Twang, The Kooks, The View, The Cribs, they all have that “sing about life – things that people can relate too” style that has really caught on ever since The Kaiser Chiefs brought this idea into the mainstream (No surprise therefore they are supporting the chiefs on tour!). Some however do it better than others, the Pigeons being one of them.

I loved the lyrics in the singles and the rest of the album doesn’t disappoint.
The foot-tapping “Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye” brilliantly reassures you that the first two singles (track 1 & 2) weren’t just lucky.
The next fave in my opinion is “I’m not Sorry” which I defy anyone not to be singing along to before the end of the first listen. “Stop or go” is very similar which only leaves you with a few tracks before getting to the brilliant “Take Her Back” - “What would her dad say if he knew? She’s on her knees, he’s twenty-two”, which I don’t think I’m ever going to get bored of listening too. Then there’s still the title track “Wait for me” to enjoy… Sorry I just couldn’t do it… this album is great!

Views: Standard Leicester Night Out

2008-01-13T07:25:00.000-08:00

Out on the town last night and it was very much a game of two halves! As with the majority of places, Leicester has its good spots and its down right bad spots.

We like to have a bit of variety when in town so we try and mix it up. Having a few in the less classy bars can prove quite entertaining.

We started off in Lloydes, which is your standard cheap drinks gordy décor style bar. No need to re-mortgage the house to pay for a round in here. As this is probably one of the less impressive pubs in Leicester, you would think we might struggle to find a worse one… step forward The Goose!

After being quite amused by the January sale on Stella! We proceeded to inform the bar staff they are working in a pretty bad bar. Ok, you probably don’t need that from customers but the response was a classic…”Well F**k off then!".
Now I'm no expert in customer service, but I'm sure that kind of response would not figure in ""Five Star Service, One Star Budget: How to Create Magic Moments for Your Customers That Get You Noticed, Remembered and Referred", don't get me worng, it was a magic moment and it will get them remembered... but probably not referred!. That said, we did take her advice and we did F**k off, to Varsity.

Again not a classic pub, but cheap (seems to be a theme here!). After watching a bit of ultimate fighting on the big screen, which is a cracking choice for a pub selling 2-4-1s on Smirnoff, it was decided we needed a good half time talking too and a change in venue type.

We proceeded to go to Fat Cats, which is a damn fine choice playing decent music and providing a quality atmosphere. Then Hush, which although does feel like your in some chaps flat, is actually alright. Finally came Manilla for a bit of boogying (yes for those that know me, I said Manilla not Liquid!), which again provided good music and fine atmosphere.

So, if your out’n’about in Leicester, I suggest… mix it up… it’s all good fun!

Views: Unwanted kids mountain bike

2008-01-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

Right what’s going on? For the last couple of weeks I have had a mystery phantom bike rider leaving his mountain bike outside my house.

Ok, lets get things into perspective… if it was a phantom riding this bike, he probably wouldn’t be that scary, as he would be around 3ft tall at most. You see the “mountain bike” is approx 2ft big, the breaks are knackered and the tires flat.

I have tried to get rid of the bloody thing, but like the proverbial boomerang the thing keeps coming back. I wouldn’t mind, but when it’s hammering down I have to keep getting out of my car to move the little piece of sh!t, as the phantoms favourite place to leave it is in front of my drive!

So, I’ll try a few more times to get rid… if that doesn’t work I’m placing an ad in the paper and on the local co-op notice board!

Booze: Fruli, what? Strawberry Beer?

2008-01-12T08:10:00.000-08:00

It’s a wheat beer, like hoegarden… but with strawberries! I talk not of a strange new gimmicky drink that has just been released onto the masses of alchopop drinking youth, but of a drink that has been around for nearly five years and created a cult following. I talk of Fruli.

Fruli is 70% wheat beer, 30% strawberry juice and is a refreshing sweet alternative to your standard larger. I’ll be up-front and honest. I designed and developed the two main Fruli sites on the web, the unofficial fan site, www.frulibeer.com and the official Fruli site www.fruli.com. So you could say I am a little biased in my opinions.

That said I would admit that you can’t (and probably shouldn’t www.drinkaware.co.uk) drink more than 2 maybe 3 pints of the red stuff.

I think the difference with Fruli compared to other fruit drinks, is that its immediately tasty and very sweet. It won’t be everybody’s taste, but it is well worth trying to see if it is yours.

The strawberry taste is immediately recognisable, which isn’t the case with many fruit drinks such as Belle-Vue or Samuel Smiths Cherry Fruit Beer where the fruit is far more subtle. On the flipside though, Fruli is slightly gassier than its other fruit beer counterparts.

As with most drinks like this that are a bit more unique, it really is down to personal taste. This, like marmite… is a love it or hate it relationship!

For this reason, let everyone know how you feel about Fruli by posting your comments here.

Reviews: Racing Frogs - Website Game

2008-01-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

For nearly 5 years now I (a fully grown adult!) have been the parent of a virtual frog. Yep, I have been logging onto the website Racing Frogs so I can feed, train, buy items, talk too and build dragon fly traps for my pixelated little pal.

So why has this web site captivated me so much that my commitment to "Ribbit Redford", "Julia Ribbits" and "Bruce Leap" (too name but a few) has lasted longer than some of my relationships?... That's worrying now I've put it down in words!

I think its the same reason why the facebook/MySpace/Bebo phenomenon has happened. It has made me feel I'm part of something. Something that I can visit to do the necessary then put to the side. Safe in the knowledge, that I can do the same thing tomorrow. Although we might moan about "the same old routine", I think we all need a degree of familiarity in life.

That of course is not the only reason. It’s also a very well designed web site and one that’s intuitive and fun to use.

Your frog starts off in grade 1, so it’s racing other grade 1 frogs each night. You can choose its food to improve its energy, items in the hypermarket to improve commitment and most importantly train the little fella so your fitness is at its peak.

You race each night winning money so that you can do the same again the next day.
For a small fee you can also enter a "VIP" zone. In here you can feed your virtual hopper some dragonflies, buy more items and even set up your own league so you can race-ya-mates.
As your frog improves it moves up the grades and wins more money, although the races are harder. You also win medals to increase motivation.

All this is for one ultimate goal, to become... A Superfrog!

Don't get too emotionally involved though as when your frog reaches 240 days of age (3 frog days to every 1 human day), the little bloke retires. But stay committed, start another frog with the same account and you can start to buy items from the retirement fund to be a real contender.

This site it a little gem, and with competitions through the year, you will find yourself getting very competitive!
There's also a great community around this site, so the forum is well worth joining.

Go on... give it a go, before you know it you will be hankering after the prestigious title of Superfrog!

Anyway, why cant adults have a bit of simple virtual fun!

Reviews: Loving my Philips WACS7000

2008-01-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

As with a lot of people, music plays an important part of my life. When I get home I fire up the music no matter what I'm doing. Cleaning the house, getting changed ready to go out, or whatever... there's music on.

Up until recently I've had a Panasonic 5 disc changer, which did a job. Being able to load 5 discs and stick it on a full random meant I wasn't bored for a while. I was content with that, even happy, but when I thought about it, 5 discs, 50(ish) tracks... come on, I can fit more than that on my phone!
So time had obviously come to upgrade my downgradings and look for a better music solution.

Having an mp3 player I could have simply brought a docking station with some nifty speakers and blasted that out whenever the mood took. But one thing that has always annoyed me is when I leave the room, only to go back in 5mins time to catch the last snippet of my favourite tune. I needed a system, which enabled me to broadcast my music around the house. Step forward the Philips Streamium WACS7000.

With this system you get a main station and a sub station that wirelessly connect. No need for a computer or even a wireless home network. These little babies can see each other quite happily and at a decent range, mine are over 10 meters apart, although I am using a wireless router, which can apparently double the range.

The Philips WACS 7000 - 80GB Wireless Music Center & Station comes with a 80gb hard drive, which is more than enough for me at the moment and certainly an improvement on my 5 disc system!
The two-way remote control is also a little belter as it reads out the menu off your system on a handy 2.5" screen, so no need to keep jumping up to see what your selecting.

As for the operating system and the software, I would say its very easy to get up and running and its an intuitive interface. All the expected features are there, such as a search function, play songs from the same artist, genre etc... etc...

The sound is also very good, although this did take a little tweaking to get the bass just right. I did go through a stage of building a separates system, spending over £2000 on all the components and gold plated banana plugs etc... The sound isn't as good as that, but I didn't expect it to be!

So what puts this system head and shoulders above others. Well, it’s the main feature. The Broadcast function and Music Follows me function. No longer do I have to miss my favourite track, and no longer do you have to have a party in only one room of your house. By pressing a single button you can either broadcast to all your substations from your centre or you can set off the music follows me to keep the same track playing in the room your going to... I'm in music heaven!

Its also very scalable. You can obtain a free ipod dock that plugs into the system or simply plug in a usb storage device containing mp3s to expand the music offerings. It also supports UPNP which is now available on some mobile phones such as the Nokia N80 or N95 and PC media servers (Tversity is worth a look).

So do I work for Philips... No. Therefore I will say there could have been some improvements. For £540 I feel there could have been a slightly larger hard-drive. Also the substations sound quality is a little second rate and the software doesn't seem to function quite as well. More than once when scrolling through tracks or turning the volume up or down it doesn't stop (sorry neighbours!). Although hopefully a firmware upgrade will solve this problem.
Transferring tracks onto the system from your computer or ripping them from a CD you can put into the unit can also take a while... but hey, you've only got to do it once and its on there.

Overall I love this system, it looks very stylish, it sounds great and it has that all-important wireless functionality, I know I won't be changing it for a while. In-fact the only thing I'll be doing is adding more substations.

Views: New Years Eve

2007-12-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

OK, right from the outset lets get one thing clear, I like to go out. For me there is nothing quite like the atmosphere you get in towns and cities at night. Having a few drinks at home with friends has its time and place, enjoying a good meal with some mates is all good, but there is nothing quite like having a laugh in a few pubs followed by a bit of freestyle-esq moves on the dance floor.

So why when it comes to what should be one of the highlights of any social calendar is it so hard to, number one make any sort of arrangements and number two actually end up having a good night. I talk, quite obviously of New Years Eve.

The problem lies quite simply with the venue and making the arrangements with all your friends to ensure you all see in the New Year together.

If you have someone taking charge and having a house party, you’re in luck, as this clearly has to be the best option. If however, you try and venture into town or to a local you have a problem. Is the place you’ve been drinking in for years going to charge you for the pleasure? Once you’ve paid is there anyone else actually in there? Once you’re in, choice made and money parted with, you’re committed. You’ll obviously feel robbed if you’ve paid £10 for the pleasure of one drink in an empty pub! Then to top it all off you have to pay double for the taxi ride home… loving it!

So what’s the answer? I reckon… I think… I… I have no idea! Roll on next weekend!

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