Two years with Vidahost

May 19th, 2012 No Comments »

Vidahost 10% off hosting: OLI10

I’ve just renewed my web hosting for another two years with Vidahost and I have to be totally honest, they are the best web host I’ve ever used! Not only are their prices very reasonable, but their customer service is unrivalled – and I have used their support facilities a number of times. I’m not in any way insinuating that they are unreliable, but it would be naive to think that any provider could be trouble free and perfect all the time so it’s important that customer service is a priority. My requirements are quite often a little more complex than the average customer, and sometimes I just over-think situations and need their help to be put back on the right track. Usually Seb and Dom respond personally, and usually within 24 hours. In any case my sites have never experienced any downtime or slow performance issues, and the online cPanel management solution works perfectly for my needs.

Since moving my hosting to Vidahost, I’ve added extra domains to the package and added an SSL certificate to one of the domains (which Vidahost installed completely for me seamlessly). I’m almost completely migrated over to Vidahost for my domain and hosting needs – there’s one straggling .com yet to move and that is just because I’m waiting for it to near the end of its registration period with the old host (123-reg). I know, all my eggs in one basket, but after 2 years of reliability and excellent service, I’m considering the basket to be armour plated.

If I’m to point out my one gripe with Vidahost, it’s with their standalone domain management. I’ve mentioned this before, but to recap – if you have a hosting package you can add a number of domains on to that hosting package, control their DNS and other facilities through your hosting package’s cPanel. If you just want a standalone domain then you don’t get cPanel. Vidahost offer email redirection and custom DNS management for standalone domains which is excellent, but they do not yet offer web forwarding as part of that. It’s been sitting on the to-do list for a long time now (as you can see on the feature tracker page under Standalone URL Forwarding). To me it seems like such a simple thing to implement but increases the value of their standalone domain hosting several fold. But, as I said, it’s the only possible fault I can find!

In more recent months, Vidahost have turned their attentions to a product they have branded ‘The Cloud’. Slightly confusing and bandwagon-jumping branding aside, this should really be thought of as the ultimate in flexible hosting. With the regular hosting packages, you choose package x, y or z and get the features specified with that package, be that the number of databases you require, bandwidth allocation, storage space, etc… you need to choose the right package which covers your needs best, or at least the closest. Well, abandon that idea completely – the new concept should start with ‘well, what would like actually like to pay for?’. You adjust the sliders representing how much storage space, monthly transfer bandwidth, and hosted web sites you require, and out pops a competitive monthly hosting cost. You pay for only what you require and you end up with a fully customised hosting package. Need more bandwidth this month? Just adjust your package slightly… It’s a great idea and should my hosting needs ever expand to the extent that I need to leave the low-end hosting packages and jump in to something more mid-range, it’ll be the first solution I investigate.


Olimometer 2.00

May 12th, 2012 No Comments »

Olimometer 2.03Well, technically it’s 2.03, but that’s only because I slightly messed up the upgrade code for existing Olimometer users! So, what’s this new version all about? There are now over 3000 users of the Olimometer world-wide and I’ve had plenty of feedback. To prove that I’m listening to you, I’ve been working hard to implement as many of the requested features as possible.

What’s new then? The biggest change is the ability to host multiple thermometers on your web site. Each thermometer can have its own design, target value, progress value, and even a link to a different PayPal account. At the time of writing, you should be able to see my main Olimometer in the widget in the right-hand column of this blog, and a separate ‘demo’ Olimometer top-left of this article. This may sound like a trivial request, but it required a complete re-write of the plugin. The old plugin used WordPress’s built in ‘options’ storage in order to save the values of the Olimometer. This is fine when there is only one thermometer on a site, where the value named olimometer_progress will always contain the progress value for that thermometer. If you introduce more than one thermometer though, where are the values going to be stored for this unknown quantity of thermometers? The answer was a re-work of the code in to an object-oriented style. Each Olimometer is represented by an Olimometer object within the code. Each object has properties such as the values, currency, skin, size, etc. Objects are stored in the WordPress database as a row in a specially created table. I’m still using WordPress storage, but I’m using it my way now.

In a bid to make it more useful world-wide, I’ve added some more currency options (Yen, Cent, Pence, Lira, Pesetas) as well as the degree symbol for those wishing to use it for temperature purposes (a thermometer, for temperatures??). I’ve reached the limit of the Liberation Sans font with regards to the currencies I can include, but will keep looking for other ways to increase this if possible.

One of the biggest annoyances with the old version of the plugin was the manual setting of the image width… you’d have to guess how wide you might want the image to be hoping that the text would not get cut off. No more do you need to worry about this – I’ve made the calculation automatic.

You can now preview your Olimometers on the settings page too meaning you no longer need to switch back and forth between your blog and the settings to see the changes you’ve made. This is also handy for setting up your thermometer before publishing it live.

And I’ve also added three more skins, named ’Our Progress’ in blue, red and green. This skin is based on the thermometer in the Our Progress plugin – another WordPress fundraising thermometer plugin.

There are other changes too, and I plan to add more too in the future including font selection, custom prefix and suffix, and maybe even a skin editor, but for now this’ll do and I hope you enjoy it.

You can download the Olimometer either directly through your WordPress plugin search, or from the official web page where you can also see the screenshots and FAQ.

 

Folding Picnic Table and Chairs

May 5th, 2012 No Comments »


Despite the very wet weather recently, you will notice the theme of camping running across a number of posts in the coming weeks. It started with the Freeloader of course, and today continues with a picnic table. Firstly, I am going to justify why this qualifies as a gizmo: It folds up suitcase sized! As a family, we’ve never been camping before despite purchasing a tent years ago. This year, we’re definitely going and therefore need a few more items to make this possible. One of those items is a table to eat off. I’d been looking online at camping tables and had seen a folding table which comes complete with 4 chairs for around £30… but a trip to Tesco one evening led to the discovery of that very same product, branded by Tesco, for about £21 – bargain!

Now, it comfortably sits two adults and two children – I can’t comment on whether it is suitable for fat people though and I’d suggest not! It can be assembled / unfolded within a minute easily, and all you need to do is make sure that the locking bolts are in place before you sit on it. It is made mostly of plastic, with an aluminium frame for strength, but don’t put anything too hot on the surface or you will melt it…. not suitable as a cooking table! The other major issue is the lack of levelling – you’ll have to make sure it’s on a flat surface, or bring along some wooden blocks to keep it level – but for just over £20 you can’t be too fussy.

The whole table folds in to a small suitcase-sized carry case – the case itself being the table-top with the chairs folding up inside it making it very convenient for fitting in your boot on a camping trip. I wouldn’t recommend it for a hiking trip though as it’s far too heavy for that despite the photos of ramblers on the box. We haven’t actually tested it in earnest yet, so I’ll post an update once we get back from the trip.

My First Mac

April 24th, 2012 5 Comments »

I know, I know. I’m a PC. But I’m also a born-again developer and as one of the most popular development platforms is currently iOS for the iPhone, I’ve had to delve in to the murky world of Apple. This started with just a virtual Mac OSX installation because in order to develop for the iPhone, you need a Mac. But I’ve tired of the unreliability and frequent unpredictable crashes and decided to buy the cheapest suitable Mac possible. In order to run the latest version of Apple’s OSX operating system, 10.7 “Lion”, you need at least a Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM. The cheapest machine with those specifications is the Mac Mini from mid-2007, specifically the Macmini2,1 or MB138 if you prefer. I hit eBay and managed to win an auction for one at what I consider a very reasonable price, but with only 1GB of RAM. A quick Google around advised me that I should be able to upgrade it, and a video on YouTube explained how.

I’ve been led to believe, by Mac enthusiasts, that Apple’s products “Just Work”. I’m a little disappointed, but not unsurprised, that this turned out to not be the case. Once it arrived, I plugged it in and connected it to my monitor via the DVI port. I turned it on, and the screen filled with console output until a dreaded ‘no signal’ message was displayed by the monitor before briefly dropping in to standby mode. Hmm, well that was wasted money I thought. Several reboots later and the same result – until I discovered a DVI->VGA adapter in the box. So I plugged the Mac in to my monitor using a VGA cable and the adapter, and hey presto there’s the GUI. Why would a Mac not auto detect a change in monitor type?? The only way I could get the display to work via DVI was by resetting the NVRAM, which involved a convoluted combination of key presses during boot.

Finally, all booted up and with Snow Leopard (10.6) installed (remember, 10.7 requires 2GB RAM and I don’t have that much yet), I installed xcode, the development environment. All was going well until I tried to take screenshots in the iPhone Simulator. In my virtual environments, the screenshots have been dumped to the desktop, but on this physical box with a fresh install of the OS, the screenshots are nowhere to be found. I resorted to copying and pasting in to Preview.

With the moan out the way, I do have to say that the Mac Mini was surprisingly fast and responsive for a 5-year old low specced machine. I don’t have a requirement for loads of storage so the 80GB hard drive will be more than sufficient, and the combo drive lacking DVD writing shouldn’t be too much of a show stopper either. The unit is also really compact and easily fits on top of my PC’s chassis under my desk as if it were just a portable hard drive. Adding on an official (if second hand) wireless Apple Mighty Mouse and a less official wireless keyboard means that the impact of the Mac Mini in my study is minimal. I have resorted to using a wired network connection as I’m constantly copying file to and from my server – wireless is just too slow for that.

The official Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse, from about the same era as the Mac Mini I purchased, I have to say is an excellent bit of kit. I splashed out just over £11 on eBay for it so was dubious as to the condition it may arrive in. After a quick clean with baby wipes, it was in perfect condition. The mouse is weighty and balanced, and the roller ball instead of scroll wheel is a stroke of genius for navigating. My one criticism of the device, which is a real shame because it is a very good mouse, is that you can’t right-click without first lifting your left finger off the mouse – it detects where your fingers are.

Now, for the keyboard I went proper budget. £12.88 on Amazon will buy you a bluetooth keyboard in the style of Apple. It takes a bit of effort to connect, and the ‘delete’ button operates as a forward delete and not backspace, but it is a quarter of the price of the official one. I’ll see how I go with it… it does look pretty smart and I have managed to work around the delete button issue by installing a bit of software to remap keys.

And finally… along came the 4GB of RAM. I practically chiseled open the case (thanks to this video on YouTube – it’s not quite the same model, but close enough) slightly damaging the underside of the case in the process, but once open I pulled it apart and swapped the chips out. It would have been straight forward had I reconnected the fan controller cable BEFORE closing it all up, but a second attempt and a bit more damage sorted that out. Hopefully I’ll never have to go in there again as I’m not sure it will survive another opening. With the extra memory, came the installation of OSX 10.7 (Lion). This took a long time but runs fine now that it is on there – just as nippy as Snow Leopard.

There you go, my new Mac setup all ready to roll. It’s far more convenient to use than the VMware installation and much more reliable. I’d even go as far to say I quite like my new Mac. Sorry Bill.

Gadget Show Live 2012

April 21st, 2012 No Comments »

Back again and larger than ever, the Gadget Show Live stormed the NEC again this year and of course I had to attend. Turning up at the NEC just before opening time and standing just apart from the crowd allowed me to witness presenter Jason Bradbury (or at least someone who looked exactly like him), being ushered through behind the crowd by the show’s crew. He kept his head down and his headphones on, and managed to stay completely under the radar… and was too quick for my camera sadly. Anyway, once inside it was the usual deal – big stalls all touting their wares, giving away carrier bags of leaflets but very few freebies. Technology-wise, there weren’t many big new ideas: 3D TVs were everywhere, but I couldn’t find any glasses-free models as pushed by LG last year which was sadly disappointing. As for laptops, there were a number on offer of the ‘ultrabook’ variety, tablets galore, and of course a myriad of iPhone and iPad accessories to perform pretty much any function you can imagine.

The main attraction though was the Super Theatre. This year, the theatre had been arranged as a 360-degree stage with seats all around the stage in the centre. It obviously means the presenters have to adapt to cope with addressing all angles, but the audience is more engaged.

Apart from Jason and Ortis comparing wedding rings, highlights of the show included dancing gadget girls, Laser Man performing a modern trick of seemingly manipulating light with his hands, and a professional stunt model helicopter display – followed by less professional attempts by the public. The show was much improved on last year and definitely worth the visit.

I didn’t visit the ‘Hub’ theatre – the decent shows conflicted with my Super Theatre visit, but I could catch parts of it through the entrance – Aled Haydn Jones from Radio 1 explaining technology as only he can. For children, the event had even more – test drive bikes, scooters and toys; ride a zip line; high wire activity course. For grown ups you could test drive electric vehicles (and even test out the assisted braking by driving in to a ‘wall’). If it’s on next year, I’ll be back – hopefully there’ll be some new fancy technology taking the world by storm to breath life back in to the exhibits by then.

Oh, and I never did work out why there were two Doctors to one Amy Pond wandering the halls with friendly Daleks. And I think the blonde was Rose Tyler:

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