Blog
I like to post up my random thoughts and ideas, as well as the odd article or tutorial. There’s bound to be something interesting in all these posts, so dive in!
Olive
Olive is a recently launched web app from Sarah Parmenter of You Know Who. If you’ve ever wanted an easy way to manage client project maintanence task and fees, Olive was built just for that.
In Olive you set up client profiles which can have users and jobs attached. When you add a new client you can set them up with an initial user, so they can view and interact with the jobs. Within jobs you can post updates and share files related to the job, then set it to “Completed” when the job comes to an end. Of course, you’re a business/professional, so what about making money? Credits.
Each job can be assigned a number of credits, of your choosing. Each credit relates to an amount in whichever currency you work with, the amount is set by you system-wide. For example, if you charge per hour you could set the credit value to the hourly fee and assign each job the number of hours it took/will take to complete. Clients can either have unlimited credits at their disposal or be limited to a subscription plan, though at this time I cannot work out how to set up the subscriptions.
You can also brand the app with your logo and colours. The page title is also the name of your company.
Pricing plans for the actual app come in a 4 flavors:
- Grande (£35/month) - Unlimited clients/users, SSL encryption and 10GB file storage
- Medio (£12/month) - 50 clients, unlimited users, SSL encryption and 5GB file storage
- Pequeno (£6/month) - 15 clients, 1 user and 1GB file storage
- Gratis (Free) - 2 clients, 1 user and 50MB file storage
This is a very handy web app if you have trouble keeping maintenance work in order and need a central location to store the job details, with the option of limiting clients who go a bit mad. Go sign up for Olive to increase your monthly income!
The Dark Knight
On Thursday (24th) last week I went to see The Dark Knight, the latest in the Batman series. I have yet to see Batman Begins so this was my first look at the revival of Batman movies, and with the high acclaim it has I was very excited. I’ll just say it: This is an excellent movie!
SPOILER ALERT: While I won’t go particularly deep into the story, I will refer to parts of the movie which may or may not take away some of the enjoyment. Bookmark this post, go see the movie, then come back and read this post. It will still be here when you get back! Of course, if you don’t care about spoilers, read on!
We (Sash’s family and I) went for a 10pm showing in the hope that there would be less people. We didn’t take any chances, arriving a the cinema and securing our seats just after 9pm. By 9:40pm the room was almost full, although it lacked kids which improved the experience. When watching Indiana Jones a bunch of kids in the row in front of us wouldn’t shut up until someone came over and threatened to throw them out. Fun times.
Anyway, The Dark Knight. Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and The Joker (Heath Ledger) go head to head in this dark comic book movie. While being long I felt the pace of the movie was very comfortable for me. However, it has a few moments where I was left thinking “Ok, this must be the end of the movie…” when it really wasn’t! For example, I was expecting Two-Face/Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to be the villain of the next movie so I wasn’t expecting the final confrontation.
Gotham is headed to a point where it seems crime is a thing of the past, criminals in complete fear of Batman and the “White Knight” District Attorney Harvey Dent. The Joker decides to stir things up, convincing the mob to go along with him in his plan to bring corruption right to the heart of those who defend it.
Of course, the story is nothing without the characters, and this movie has some great ones. I loved the performances by all the actors, the characters were played very well and I can’t think of any particularly weak dialogue off the top of my head. Heath Ledger was excellent as the Joker, completely mad but also very reserved at the same time. It is a real shame that he has passed on, I would have loved to see him play the part again.
To conclude, I highly recommend this movie and I will definitely be buying it on DVD. What did you think of it?
Author note: As you can tell by my very brief conclusion, I wrote this post last week and today realized that I didn’t finish it. Oops!
Greenbelt 08
On the 22nd of August, Sash and I will be traveling to Cheltenham for Greenbelt 2008! The festival lasts until the 25th and has a wide range of talks, performances, activities and stalls, with something there for all the family.
I have been once before to this faith/justice/music/arts festival and really enjoyed it. While initially a Christian festival, Greenbelt welcomes any visitor and doesn’t force the religious side into your stay. I am not religious and found plenty to do! Sash and I won’t actually be camping but we’ll be meeting up with my family for the first time in a year. I’m looking forward to seeing them again!
I’m looking forward to checking out the music acts, sitting in the “Under and Over the Sea” Podules and the comedy acts in the evening. The Sigur Ros tour film will be an interesting watch and, if I can drag Sash away from the art events, I can’t wait to see what cool things there will be on the stalls. There is a huge lineup of things to do, so check out the website for full details. If you can even go for a day it will be worth it.
I’ll post photos and stories after the event. If anyone happens to be going this year be sure to let me know in the comments! You can see this trip on my Dopplr and Upcoming accounts and, as usual, I’ll be updating on Twitter.
A List Apart - The Survey 2008
It is time for the second annual Survey for People Who Make Websites. It’s not long, only took a few minutes to fill out and doesn’t try to identify you as an individual. If you’re in a web profession, freelance or part of a company, go fill it in.
.me is mine (or not)
Yesterday, GoDaddy started sales on .me domains. I watched the timer as it ticked down and as soon as it hit 0 I hit go on my two prepared searches for mike.me and mikerobinson.me. They were both available! Or so I was led to believe…
The sheer amount of buyers, squatters and personal alike, trying to grab their domains and get through the checkout brought everything to a slow shuffle. Like many others, I believed that I had secured my domains and just needed to wait for the checkout pages to load. Constantly checking on other sites to see if it was available, I finally made it through the checkout. Cash out my credit card, done deal.
But it wasn’t a done deal. When I got home from work later that day I had several emails in my inbox, all related to the domains. I successfully registered mikerobinson.me (301 redirects here)! However, several other emails claimed I had failed to obtain mike.me as it was already taken. Now, I had checked right up until the last second to see if it was free, and it was. So what the hell happened?
Some people have said that GoDaddy put domains in popular demand to auction, which I can understand. Though, if I have been told it is available and my credit card has been charged for that domain then I expect to own it. I’ve paid for something that was never going to be mine! What’s worse is I am not getting my card refunded, I am getting GoDaddy credit. GoDaddy isn’t even my normal domain registrar, the awesome Namecheap is as I have never had a problem with them. That credit is completely useless as I don’t have any other domains I wish to buy right now, I guess It will just sit there until I do think of something, and when I do I will be quickly transferring it off to Namecheap. That was my first and certainly last personal use of GoDaddy.
So did anyone else manage to snap up a nice domain? Were you led on to believe you had an awesome domain until you received the fail email? Let me know in the comments!
Form Mark-Up: Lists Are NOT Appropriate
Following on from my “Form Mark-Up: Are Lists Appropriate?” article last month, I’ve become more educated on the matter and changed my opinion. Don’t use lists in your form mark-up!
Thanks to Mark Aplet and his excellent rebuttal, I have realized that I fell into the old trap that used to come with tables: Adding mark-up for presentation alone. We shouldn’t be doing that as it is not semantically correct, the basic elements we use should be enough to style our pages effectively (see Mark’s example).
If there are not enough hooks to style your form you may want to stop and ask the questions: Are you approaching it the right way? Are you over complicating it unnecessarily? Is there a problem with the UI design? Is it an IA problem that needs to be addressed?
Rather than just repeating everything Mark has already said, I urge you read his response and give it some thought.
WooThemes - Premium Wordpress Themes
Recently launched, WooThemes offers Premium Wordpress Themes that are truly high quality. You can purchase these themes individually or join the themes club that states it is here to stay!
WooThemes is a collaboration of “Wordpress Rockstar” Adii, Magnus Jepson, Mark Forrester and Elliot Jay Stocks. They take pride in their work and strive to provide unique theme solutions, with kick ass support to help make the WooThemes community thrive. This community of passionate theme users will influence future theme releases to give the people what they want.
They already have 10 themes released, of which my favourites are Proudfolio, Live Wire Edition and Fresh News Theme. If you sign up for the club you will have total access to their past themes plus a minimum of 1 theme added every month! You’ll also gain entry into the club community for discussions, tips & tricks and suggestions for future themes.
I’ve followed Adii’s and Elliot Jay Stocks’ work for a while now and I can safely say they are amazing at what they do, and what I know of Mark and Magnus they are certainly an awesome team.
So what are you waiting for? If you need Premium Wordpress Themes then WooThemes is your best option. A 3-month subscription will only cost you $150 (£75.60) if you’re an individual, and $255 for 3-months if you’re a developer. If you’re starting out your first professional blog, or want to have a base to build on for your next clients site, WooThemes is an affordable and high-quality choice. Sign up today.
ChannelFlip Relaunch
It’s be a while since I originally wrote about ChannelFlip. They recently relaunched with a new website and show setup so I thought I would revisit this awesome UK video magazine to provide my thoughts. Also, they have the guys of Finite Comedy producing some of the content, so are they any good?
ChannelFlip still runs 3 different shows covering gaming, tech and film. However, each show has been renamed. Play:Digital is now ChannelFlip Games, with Katharine Fletcher reviewing games. Discus is now ChannelFlip Film, with Justin Gayner taking the week’s DVD releases and giving them a good watch. Before ChannelFlip’s period of silence they launched a show titled “Killing Time” (see below), which has now merged with Unwired to create ChannelFlip Tech. The tech show is a mix of Wil Harris and Finite Comedy (Iyaz Akhtar and Robert Borgesi (aka Bob)), with tech reviews from Wil and boredom busting tech ideas from Iyaz and Bob.
Apart from Iyaz and Bob’s ChannelFlip Tech segments, the shows are pretty much the same. Wil still uses his intelligent affinity with gadgets and technology to advise on the best toys money can buy. Katherine shows that gaming isn’t just a guys world, geeking out over the latest games and giving her educated opinion. Justin analyzes films and gives a well spoken, often comical report then reviews sweets, crisps and other snacks for DVD night munchies.
The Finite Comedy episodes are a great introduction to the line-up, proving to be quite funny and informative. They are an excellent addition to ChannelFlip. Finite Comedy also have several other shows including “Killing Time” which as originally an entertainment review show before they pitched to ChannelFlip. As the ChannelFlip Killing Time has become part of ChannelFlip Tech, Killing Time has gone back to its roots by reviewing Marvel Movies (audio).
ChannelFlip is still, without a doubt, a great source for your weekly review needs. I would still like to see some more shows but I understand how difficult it must be to run already! Serving up this excellent content is no small task, and I would like to thank the ChannelFlip team for providing this awesome content!
Give them your undivided attention, you won’t be disappointed! Don’t forget to subscribe for the latest episodes.
UPDATE: ChannelFlip is also running a viewer survey, with some goodies up for grabs, so remember to fill it in: ChannelFlip Viewer Survey
Cats Are Awesome
A few weeks ago Bartek Gniado posted about his two adorable cats, Dapper and Blinky. I couldn’t resist joining in! Meet Pen, Inky and Jess with photos and antics galore!
Firstly, I’d like to say that Inky and Pen are technically not my cats, they are Sasha’s. Since I live with her and look after, play with and care for them I think that is enough to post about them as my own. It should also be noted that Jess is my cat but currently lives with my parents, since we can’t have three cats terrorising us here!
Pen
Pen is Inky’s mother and a big softie. She’ll be up and on your lap before your bum has even touched the seat, looking up at you with two twinkling eyes in her big fluffy head. My most fond memory of Pen happened recently when she decided to follow me to work. I let her out the house as I was leaving for the bus and she followed me down the drive and along the row of houses. I tried to walk her back and shoo her the other way but she wasn’t having it. She dived into the neighbours garden and sneaked round to meet me in the street. As she continued to follow me I stopped at the main road near the bus stop. I can’t let her cross this road, so I walked back to the house as she trotted alongside me, stopping once to hide in a bush while some kids passed (Not me, Pen. I cannot stress that enough!) then she bounced along the path to catch up with me. I had to lead her into the house and put some extra food in her dish before she stopped following me!
Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have many other decent photos of Pen, and she’s out right now!
Inky
Inky is the small one, the cute one, and the greedy one. If there’s food to be eaten, she’ll know about it. Apart from eating, Inky is known for sleeping in one of her two baskets, trying to climb through windows that are not quite open enough for her at 4am and chasing random objects. Recently, Inky decided to sleep on my chest all night then woke me up by sneezing in my face.
Jess
Jess was added to my family just when she was a kitten. She’s been with me through most of the significant moments in my life since then, and I wish she was with me now in this stage of my life. She is now a house cat but gets plenty of exercise by running through the eaves! I will have her with me again. Until then, she is being looked after very well by my brother, Matt. I miss her, and regularly look at photos of her.
So there you have it, three adorable nubs! Be sure to post up about your own cats, or other pets, as well. Don’t forget to let me know with a comment or link back!
Oxford Geek Night 07
Last night I went with Matt Carey to the Jericho Tavern in Oxford for Oxford Geek Night 7! OGN is a regular (every 2 months) meet-up of geeks, in a pub, talking about all things tech.
This was my first time going to OGN, however Matt went to number 6 back in April and assured me I would have a good time. He wasn’t wrong!
The night is made up of several talks with two keynotes taking up 15mins each, followed by several, 5min microslots with breaks every couple of talks. All the talks were great, despite technical difficulties during some. Specifically dodgy networking and malfunctioning Wiimotes (steady!). However, we were one keynote short since the speaker went missing, which is a shame as the title “Web 20-20: Architecture for the New Internet” sounded quite interesting.
This OGN’s talks were:
- Keynote: Delighting with Data: gluing things together for beautiful pointlessness, by Tom Taylor
- Killing Servers With Music Graphing, by Andrew Godwin
- The Clangers’ Guide to Microformats, by Drew McLellan
- Advanced Dragon-Slaying with Comet, by Matthew Westcott
- Hands-on with App Engine, by Tom Dyson
- Rewriting the OSX Address Book: no previous coding experience necessary, by Simon Whitaker
- PlanningAlerts, by Duncan Parkes
I really enjoyed Drew McLellan’s and Tom Taylor’s talks, though they were all pretty good. Each was a good laugh, particularly Simon Whitaker’s “My Pimp Address Book” and Matthew Westcott’s comparison of “polling” to “kids in a long car journey”. There was also a business card, book raffle, which was amusing when no one picked the books on Adobe Flex and AIR until they had no other options.
The night was also an opportunity to meet Rails developer, Alan Bradburn (though, you’re probably better going to his twitter which is actually updated ;) ). It was nice to meet him and we all had a good chat about twitter, rails, last.fm and mobile platforms. Plus he can take a short walk to see us at the studio, provided he brings biscuits!
It was a great night and I am looking forward to the next one, which is scheduled for August 27th. I’ll probably make a post about it nearer the time. If any readers happen to live in the Oxfordshire/Berkshire area and will be at the next one, get in touch in the comments or via Twitter. I’d be more than happy to arrange to meet-up there!
