3 alternatives to GeocitiesDecember 11th, 2009

Anyone who has ever used Geocities can’t have helped but have noticed that Yahoo closed down the service a couple of months ago, to the dismay of many web developers. It’s been a starting block for many developers and designers and continued to fulfill this role until its last weeks.

Many beginners and people who were after a free site relied on the service, and they are now at a loss for what to use. Of course it pays to have a website created by a professional developer, but there’s several solutions out there for those who don’t want to pay for this for whatever reason.

Here I outlined just three potential solutions. I’ve deliberately stayed away from just listing sites that do similar things to Geocities, as there is always a different way of doing things.

Google Sites

Google Sites

Google’s website creation offering is perhaps the most accessible choice, being completely web based that requires only a Google account, and very easy for a beginner to use.

You can choose from dozens of templates, ranging from a site for a classroom to a restaurant site containing pages for reviews, menus, and advertising events. The templates aren’t ugly either, they’re very well written and are of a professional quality. The only problem you might find with using the templates is that they’re far from unique, and the chances that another business uses the same design is quite high. But for free, you really can’t complain. They also make it really easy to add Google elements, such as Google Maps, AdSense and Google Documents.

The biggest downside to Google Sites is their branding is on every page which can’t be removed, and you can’t attach the root of a domain to your site, which means you need to use at least www.example.com rather than example.com.

Overall, a nice service with a large choice of good looking templates. It’s easy to use for an absolute beginner, and it’s all completely free. You don’t even need to buy a domain name, as the service provides a google.com/sites address.

iWeb

Google Sites

iWeb is Apple’s website editor and publisher, where you can create a site and upload it to either Apple’s web servers or your own.

The major difference between iWeb and Google Sites is not only that iWeb is a real application rather than a web based service, but it also has the major advantage of not being tied to a particular hosting service.

It’s extremely easy to use, with inline editing (as with Google Sites) and drag and drop widgets. These widgets aren’t as comprehensive as Google Sites, but there’s certainly enough to make a basic website with video, Google Maps and photos. There’s also a choice of templates to get you started; again the choice isn’t as wide as Google Sites, but they’re much easier to edit.

The biggest disadvantage with iWeb stems from it being an application: you need to run Mac OS. It also isn’t free and is part of iLife which costs £69, but if you buy a Mac it’s bundled with Mac OS for free.

Use social networks

Sometimes you don’t even need a website, the tools out there on the Internet can quite easily be good enough for your needs. Of course you need a website if you’re running a large business, but if you’re an unsigned band or running a club night you might want to consider using social networks. It might just be your target audience are using the networks anyway.

If you are a band, then you almost certainly need to be on MySpace. For no cost at all you have a potential audience of millions of music fans, a blogging platform, and a way to upload your latest release. OK, it’s not perfect when it comes to customising your page and it contains adverts, but the site is still very much active and many popular artists use the site including Mika, Fake Blood and Little Boots.

Facebook allows you to have a fanpage where you can communicate with your fans, fans can communicate with you, and fans can communicate with each other. Facebook also lets you organise events and invite fans, which is a big plus when it comes to advertising your next club night to an audience who have already shown interest in your brand. It’s very basic and shouldn’t be used on its own, but it’s an addition that costs nothing at all.

And to top it all off, you should get yourself a Google Profile to link them all together. Google Profiles is a quick and easy way to make a page containing a biography, contact details, location details, and links to all your social network accounts.

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Twitter with AspergersOctober 24th, 2009

This week’s article is a guest post by Sarah, a web designer, blogger, Twitter fan and Girl Guide troop leader from Hampshire who has Aspergers Syndrome

Disabilities can hinder progress people make in the world and it is crucial that they are not misunderstood when they communicate.

Some disabilities really can not be made considerably better because they may have some physical problem. However ones that can sometimes be un-noticed can appear as sheer rudeness. I am talking about Aspergers Syndrome.

Aspergers Syndrome is about people who appear normal, but don’t always understand the world around them.

My main idea of this post is to find out if having access to social networks, like Twitter can help conversation. Or is Twitter one network to avoid.

I have gathered some ideas since joining Twitter a year ago in 2008. This is based on my own experiences as I have AS myself.

Problems faced by being on these networks:

Thousands of people are able to see what you write on Twitter so write facts and make sure you can explain your reasons.
Write what you know. You will get more respect if you broadcast truth and fact.

Don’t be rude.
When making a comment about someone or something refrain from swearing or judging them because you think they are wrong. Many people with AS often say the wrong things but don’t mean it like they said it. If you wouldn’t say it to their face don’t say it at all!

Don’t boast about how many followers that you have.
One bad thing is boasting and it is not good on social networks. You may lose followers or people just wont talk to you anymore. You can tell them it is great to have friends but not to boast that you have more than someone else or more followers than the amount of people you follow.

Don’t put out private information. (e-mail, House name/number, mobile number, land-line number, personal finances details etc)
As nice as it is to have lots of friends and contacts. Don’t put all that info in your Tweets because you may end up regretting it and getting phone calls and e-mails that you don’t want. A throw-away email address is great if you get hassle.

Great rules for a positive Aspie to follow:

If you like people to know that you have a disability then great.
The idea of letting people know that you have AS or a different disability is by explaining that you have it and then people will usually understand if you put out a quirky message. I personally enjoy telling people I have AS because I like to talk about it and help others. Promote awareness for us!!

Try and interact if you can and make friends.
It may help you to have a better conversation. The main reason to join social sites is to have fun.

If you want to have interaction outside of Twitter with someone DM them when you know they are genuine people.
If you get on with someone really well there is no problems sending a DM to them so they can contact you in other forms of social media. STILL be careful of who they are though! And you could even make a false email address to make sure they are genuine. Then you have no worries if they turn out to be strange. (check with the e-mail provider that you can have throw-away addresses)

Express your talent if you have one.
You may be interested in photography or website making for example so Tweet about that and you may find some people who also share your hobby.

Go follow people that have your interests.
Gain knowledge and experience from professionals and other people who may be interested in the same subjects as you. If you like photography, go put the keyword in the search box and see what happens.

Closing remarks

To be on a social network you have to be very careful and maybe check with a friend/relative before you join so they can look out for you and help you. There are many positive things about the social networks but don’t get fooled by it. There will still be bad people out there who want to take advantage.

If Twitter/Facebook/Myspace etc is used sensibly you should have no problem and get a really good experience out of it. I sure have had a great experience since joining and I hope to see you on soon talking to me at @GoldChoiceUK. I’m a (female) web designer and I have Aspergers so come and ask me some questions about anything you have seen on this post.

I think that the positive things are far better than the problems of being on a social network such as Twitter.

This concludes the blog post about Twittering with Aspergers!

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Review: Palm PreOctober 23rd, 2009

Palm Pre

Palm Pre
Photo by O2 UK, used under CC licence

Finally available in the UK, the Palm Pre is touted as the iPhone killer by many. And for good reason. This smartphone looks good, feels good, and works really well.

First, the physical design. The Pre looks very cute, and fits smugly in your hand. This is a phone you’ll want to hold, and it’s a phone you’ll want to use. The menu button is a joy to use, the keyboard nice and smug, and the touchscreen is one of few that actually works properly.

However, I found that the actual usability of the keyboard lets it down, but I’ve never been a fan of physical qwerty keyboards on phones so it’s a very personal taste thing. I did, however, realise very quickly when having to type out ‘.com’ that soft keyboards have their advantage when it comes to being able to quickly enter url shortcuts.

The new webOS is a very nicely made and thought out operating system. It takes ideas from the iPhone OS, but it isn’t afraid to improve and go one step further. The ability to quickly flick between open applications with your finger is lovely, and the quick access to the network options by simply pressing on the top of the screen makes me wish the iPhone had this. Having to quit the running application to mess around with my wifi settings is perhaps the single most infuriating problem when using my iPhone.

The phone does have its faults, of course. It’s noticeably slow and it takes a while to work out how to do things, but it certainly deserves its reputation of being on-par with Apple’s iPhone. If it wasn’t for Apple’s massive App Store, the Palm Pre would certainly be a worthy alternative.

Pros:
Good looking phone that’s pleasant to hold
Well thought out operating system
Very responsive touchscreen

Cons:
Keyboard takes a bit of getting used to
Can be a bit sluggish
You can’t help but wonder where the instructions are

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phpnw09: a quick overviewOctober 16th, 2009

Last weekend I attended phpnw09, which was my first phpnw conference having missed the first one last year. And I was glad I went, having met lots of friendly people and learned things I didn’t know and more importantly what I didn’t know. Needless to say, I’ve come back with a head full of things to research and learn.

Sadly I missed most of the first talk, so the first one I attended was Passing The Joel Test in the PHP world. I found it one of the most useful talks of the weekend, as there’s always something that every developer can do better whether it’s making automated build scripts or having a chair and keyboard that you find comfortable. I learnt lots from this, and it’s spurred me on to improve my own practices.

I also attended Getting a website out of the door by Rob Allen, a talk that puts project management into practice, so one to make lots of notes in, and one which everybody who does project management should watch.

API documentation with phpDocumentor, Making your life easier: Xdebug and Introduction to Yii were all well presented talks which were about things I knew nothing about before the weekend, and now I’m aware of them (and how they work), they’re things I’ve noted down to look into in the future.

Getting Involved with the PHP Project was a nice final talk before the free bar, something which isn’t too heavy on the brain, and it’s always nice to learn how the php project works and hear from a few members (as heckles, of course).

Sunday was a nice informal day with lots of hangovers, coffee, and tiredness, with some interesting talks with an introduction to UTF-8, OOP, the latest version of php, and jquery. These were more informal sessions which were less heavy on the brain, perhaps for the best after the free bar the night before. This extra date made a great addition to the weekend, and also gave opportunity to hang around afterwards to meet some others.

Thanks to the organisers, all the speakers, and the sponsors for making the event happen. Here’s looking forward to phpnw10!

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Touch accessibilityOctober 9th, 2009

Ever since Apple released the iPhone, it seems that everything has suddenly gone touchscreen, with copycat mobile phones all including touchscreen interfaces. These better quality devices mean you can get the “real web” on your mobile (unlike the time of WAP and a numeric keyboard to navigate around the page). It’s worth pointing out that this brings us a new usability consideration for the web that we’ve never had before.

Some sites have content and features which appear only after you hover over them. This isn’t a new technique, many years ago web designers would make use of the fact that Internet Explorer would show an image’s alt attribute in a tooltip when you hover over it to show more content, and this feature is still here if you use the title attribute of links. Javascript gives you even more choice; some drop down menu solutions work by hovering over menu items, and yours truly has been guilty of using jquery to display tooltips containing extra bits of information.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that this is a great thing. It allows the designer to keep the page clutter free and in some cases is a very helpful interface interaction. But we need to remember that you can’t hover on a touch screen interface.

By including content that can only be displayed on a mouse hover, we are ignoring a growing market of users that browse the web on mobile devices while out and about. But is this information important? Can they get to it by other means?

Am I saying to not make use of hover techniques? Far from it, hover is a useful gesture whose uses are limitless. But we need to be mindful of touch screen devices, and consider making an alternative stylesheet or using other javascript methods for these users if the information is important and isn’t available elsewhere.

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Review: Nokia 5800 XpressMusicOctober 2nd, 2009

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
Photo by nechbi, used under CC licence

The Nokia 5800: Nokia’s answer to the iPhone. If the question is “how do we make money out of touchscreen, quickly?”, that is.

The phone seems like they’ve taken the operating system and placed a touchscreen on top of it. The look and feel is very similar to those Nokias that aren’t touchscreen, with a menu driven system and screens that scroll down. If you’re used to the Nokia way of doing things, you’ll be feeling very much at home here.

There’s many small niggles with the operating system, and it doesn’t seem as polished as a specifically designed touch operating system such as the iPhone OS. But the on-screen keyboard is the biggest let down: It’s very ill thought out, resulting in tiny targets for your fingers which caused me to keep missing the key I wanted, and the screen is forced into landscape mode. Having to turn my phone sideways to write a text message is a big hassle for someone for me, as I prefer to use my phone in portrait mode.

But really, these are all minor problems when it comes to the biggest downfall: the hardware itself. It seems like the operating system is constantly playing catchup with the phone; there’s a noticeable wait when you do things like go to read text messages, and surfing the web is almost impossible. Maybe it was a bad connection, but I found myself waiting for ages to load up even the Google homepage.

I also wasn’t very keen on the touchscreen. I have boyish short nails and whenever I use a touchscreen I use the front of my finger. However, for this phone I had to use the tip of my nail, as using something as fat as my finger meant either the wrong button was pressed or nothing was pressed at all.

As with most other Nokia phones, the camera is also of questionable quality. The resolution isn’t very high at all which results in relatively small photographs, and the image looks very grainy. It’s not bad as a point and shoot camera, but I wouldn’t use it as my main camera.

The Nokia 5800 tries hard, but it’s let down mostly by the hardware. There are better products out there if you’re after a touchscreen music player (namely the iPod touch), and there are much better cameraphones out there. The price might make this a tempting phone, but personally I wouldn’t go for it.

External links

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Review: iPod nano (5th generation)September 25th, 2009

iPod nano 5th gen

5th gen iPod nano
Photo by mightykenny, used under CC licence

When I first saw Apple’s new iPod nanos, the first thing that came to mind was shiny. Literally. The new finish of the iPod is very shiny, and the colours are very sharp. Year on year the colours get better, and year on year the products are looking even more impressive.

Other than the slightly taller screen, there isn’t much more difference to the overall look of the nano. It seems that Apple have finally settled on a design for this range of iPod, as once more the nano is long and thin, with most of the front containing the screen.

A video camera is the biggest new addition, which appears to be of high quality. Although probably due to the difficulty of fitting a camera behind a screen on such a thin device, it is located at the bottom of the iPod, right where you’d place your fingers when shooting video. As great as it is to have a camera in your iPod, the location is a very bad decision. If you want to use the camera you need to hold the iPod quite awkwardly ensuring your hand covers neither the screen or the lens, and considering the thinness of the thing it’s not an easy thing to do.

I’ve never been a fan of the iPod scroll wheels, and this new nano is no different. I’ve always found them awkward to use and would much rather use a click wheel or touch screen. But this is me, and I’m certain that most other people have no issues at all.

I like the fact that the 5th generation design is similar to the 4th generation design, it works well and provides a nice big screen in relation to the iPod size. I love the new colours but as a whole it’s not for me simply because of the scrollwheel. As a camera, even though it’s good quality again I’m not a fan, the lens position makes for very awkward handling which might make for shaky videos.

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Marketing yourself online as a performer (part 2)June 19th, 2009

The last in a two part series discussing modern online marketing techniques for performers

In my previous post I spoke about how getting a web presence, and not just a website, was important if you are a performer, and looked into getting a website, a blog, and getting on Facebook. This time I’ll be looking at Twitter, Youtube, and getting a long term relationship with your developer.

Get on twitter

Twitter is the hot new social network, with the likes of Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross, Paul Daniels and even Keith Chegwin waving the twitter flag. It’s a bit like the status bits of Facebook, allowing you to answer the question “What are you doing?”. But it’s a lot more than that, with people being able to follow you and talk to you, and allowing you to talk back. Twitter allows you to be more out there and converse with your fans, and of course tell them what you’re doing. Trust me, when you’re world famous like Stephen Fry, the papers will just *love* the news that you’re stuck in a lift!

Get on Youtube

Youtube isn’t just about people posting illegal copies of TV shows, there’s also a growing amount of legal content published by the performers themselves. Monty Python took the step of doing this, and by publishing clips of their old TV shows their DVD sales have gone through the roof

A significant number of performers are also creating content especially for youtube, with Penn (of Penn and Teller) releasing short Penn Says rants regularly, Teller making & Teller, and David Mitchell also releasing short films. A local children’s magician in Manchester has jumped on Youtube intelligently, creating short “how to” videos for children to learn simple tricks to impress their friends

Get a web developer

A web developer doesn’t just sit there putting text and graphics together in Photoshop and Dreamweaver; a large part of their job is to find the best solution to your problem. The industry is growing at an incredible pace, with more and more exciting things being done with websites and on the web in general. Performers are finding themselves using twitter, having fans on facebook, and even selling t-shirts and dvds online; and a web developer can help with that.

If you stick with your web developer and keep a long term relationship with them, then they can help you along this path. Keep in touch with your web developer, keep up to date with what they’re up to (chances are they’ll have a blog to publish news of their latest work or any exciting stuff they’ve found), and don’t forget them at Christmas!

Your relationship with your web developer shouldn’t end once your site is online — work with him or her to keep the content fresh and always be on the lookout for new things you can do. When the next big thing comes out, jump on it, and ask your developer to help you out

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Marketing yourself online as a performer (part 1)June 5th, 2009

The first in a two part series discussing modern online marketing techniques for performers

Nowadays it’s increasingly important if you provide a service — especially as a performer — to get yourself online, not just a website but on the increasingly growing networks available on the internet. When it comes to being online it’s no longer a case of “if you build it they’ll come”, you have to go to them. It’s not as hard as it first seems, but in my biased opinion it’s important

Get a website

First things first, get a website. If you know how to create your own and if you don’t have much of a budget, then by all means go ahead and create your own. But if your sole income is through magic, you should seriously consider getting the services of a professional web developer. They’ll be able to find the best solution to suit you and will help out with the tricky and mundane stuff such as hosting and getting high on google rankings without using dodgy techniques.

Get an easy to remember address such as yourname.com (I personally recommend 123reg, they don’t cost the earth and won’t hold it to ransom later down the line) and put it on your business card

Get a blog

If you have a gig next month, or if you’ve won an award or competition, tell the world! Set yourself up a blog and link it to your website. WordPress is by far the best blogging platform out there and will have you publishing within minutes. If you’re comfortable with all things tech you can download the software and set it up on your own server using its famous five minute install, and if you’re a technophobe WordPress have a free hosted solution which will do it all for you — and it’s so easy it takes about five seconds to set up.

Get on Facebook

Facebook is one of the world’s biggest online social networks, with over 200 million active users. And these users like to join groups and share their lives with each other; you can take advantage of this by setting up a fan page. An average user has 120 friends, so when they become a fan of you they’ll be telling 120 people how great you are.

The fan page will also let you set up events to tell everybody about your upcoming gig, let fans talk to each other and discuss how great you really are, and more importantly let you talk to your fans!

Next time

Next time I look at youtube and twitter

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Say what?May 15th, 2009

A few weeks ago I was sat in a waiting room when I heard the receptionist say “I’ll delete that”. Being bored out of my mind, I started thinking about those three words. Or more specifically, the verb in the middle.

Of course, the word ‘delete’ isn’t exactly new: it’s been with us since the late 15th century with little (if any) change to the usage. But what really got me thinking was how commonplace words related to technology has become: the receptionist used the term ‘delete’ was used because it’s the word that appears in Microsoft Windows.

Had the good old system of pen-and-paper been used, then perhaps the phrase would’ve been “I’ll rub that out” or “I’ll get rid of that”. But instead, the programmer’s default phrasing was used instead. (Whether or not this is good phrasing on the programmer’s side is an article for another week…)

A number of new words have also been coined in a massively short period of time, the most common being podcast and blog; and a lot of words have been given new meanings. Words such as desktop, tweet, network and port would sound alien to somebody from the past.

It’s always interesting to see how language usage changes over the years. Which new words are being introduced, which buzzwords from last year aren’t being used as much, how the words are formed. It’s our own little lexicon, with the added joy of terms being added and removed all the time.

No wonder those who don’t follow technology changes closely are easily confused!

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