I have to admit, as far as new technology goes I’m usually trailing behind quite slowly. But saying that one thing which has interested me is this new Surface computer from Microsoft. Now obviously touch screen isn’t a brand new (according to Microsoft’s web site neither is the Surface idea) technology however this Surface computer claims to offer a new way in which we interact with data and media. Ive spent the last twenty minutes or so reading over Microsoft’s Surface web site trying to get a better idea as to what it is exactly and what it can do.

As taken from the Surface web site its key features are:

• Direct interaction - Users can actually “grab” digital information with their hands and interact with content by touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.
• Multi-touch contact - Surface computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger, as with a typical touch screen, but up to dozens and dozens of items at once.
• Multi-user experience - The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
• Object recognition - Users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.

Continue reading »

Ok so I know it’s not PHP’s fault but for the past 2 hours I’ve been working on a script and I’m getting nowhere. I’ve been working on this project for about 2 weeks now and this is the first real problem I’ve come across. I just can’t seem to get it right. Let me explain…

I have two tables - ‘modules’ and ‘user_modules’.

The ‘modules’ table basically consist of an ‘ID’ and ‘filename’ column. The ‘user_modules’ table consists of ‘ID’, ‘userID’, ‘moduleID’, ‘order’ and ‘location’.

The basic idea behind the script is to allow the user to select which modules he/she wants to display on a page and in what order. There are 3 possible locations for the modules which I am identifying with numbers 1, 2 and 3 in the ‘location’ column.

On my page I first have a query to the database which is pulling every row from the ‘user_modules’ table as well as those from the ‘modules’ table where ‘user_modules.moduleID’ equals ‘modules.ID’. I have then built this into an array with this structure. Continue reading »

I have been developing web sites for a number of years now and although I still have a lot to learn I feel that I know enough to get along quite smoothly in the web design industry. After realizing this a couple of years ago I decided to give commercial web development a go and therefore devoted more of my time to working on client projects. Because of this transition from being a freelancer to doing everything through my company I have picked up a few tips along the way. Hopefully this post will inspire those of you who may be interested in starting up a company in web site development or perhaps even for those who simply wish to improve on their skills and tactics as a freelancer.

Here, I have compiled a short list of some of the things which I think are vital to being successful when it comes to being a web site designer especially if you want to do it for a living. These are in no particular order and if you have anything to add to any of my points don’t hesitate to let me know. Continue reading »

Im a little confused right now - about 20 minutes prior to me writing this I wrote another entry on my blog. A few minutes later I decided to do a few search on Google to see what came up for the query “pythonsblog”. To my surprise the content of the entry I had just posted only a few minutes earlier was displaying beneath the title of my site in Google’s results.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure Google used to take a fair bit longer than that to spider a site and update their servers (at least a few days) - obviously not! So is Google updating it’s spidered content immediately?

Does anyone else know anything about this? Is Google updating as soon as their spiders see new content on a site?

I’ve been trying to get my self on track with regards to all my web design work over the past few weeks. In the past I have to say that I’ve been quite unorganized as far as my projects go and I’m doing my best to change it. What I mainly mean by this is the number of projects I take on but have never finished. I currently own 22 domain names yet I only have a couple of sites online. Then theres all the half-finished web sites just sitting there on my computer.

Well the time has come for me to really put in the effort and since its been a while since I launched a large site (largest site I owned was WebmasterPost (formerly Dev Dreams)) I really need to get my butt into gear. To keep you up to date with what I’m doing - Right now I’m working on a shopping based site for a client which should be going live within a week or two. I am also investing a lot of my time (the few hours I have left after my ‘real’ job and sending time with the girlfriend) into projects of my own, one of which is this blog. I also need to spend a bit of time on a new version of my companies site Python Designs - basically I don’t like it anymore Continue reading »

Its not a secret - open source software is spreading fast as thousands of people embrace it on a daily basis. Given the choice would you rather spend hundreds of pounds/dollars to Microsoft or spend 30 minutes of your time downloading a similar open source program?

I have to be honest and say that as far as open source programs go I’m not a regular user myself. My OS is Windows XP, I use Photoshop for my graphic work and MS Office for the majority of my document-related work. I could however have saved myself a good chunk of money by replacing these all with open source solutions and that is exactly what thousands of people worldwide are doing.

In the past it was mainly just large companies and well funded organizations that were developing high end applications - now however, its a completely different story. From students to professional programmers, more and more open source programs are being developed and released to the public for no charge. Continue reading »

The term ‘web 2.0′ has become one of the most spoken yet least understood phrases on the modern internet. It was originally thought up within O’Reilly Media and was used as the basis for a number of conferences in 2004. The term was used to state that the internet had reached a milestone in its lifetime and that it was starting to go through a drastic change. At one of the ‘Web 2.0 conferences’ many web sites were put side by side, compared against each other to see the differences between web 1.0 and web 2.0.

One of the key comparisons was between advertising companies DoubleClick and Google Adsense. With DoubleClick you would pick which categories or topic of advertisements you wish to display on your web site whereas with Adsense it picks them for you based on your pages content. This was deemed to be web 2.0 because it provided a deeper level of customization, not necessarily on the users side but with regards to the service itself. Continue reading »

Pownce, the latest project by Kevin (founder of Digg.com) - I just managed to get in with an account after about ten minutes trying to find a postcode which will work. Unfortunately the current sign-up form doesn’t accept UK post codes so I had to use a US one. That was quite annoying actually but anyway, on to what I was saying.

Ive been playing around on Pownce now for a good 20 minutes and heres what I think of it.

Initial page

Personally I think its a bit too cluttered. Yes it does have structure (3 column layout) but to me each section isn’t clearly defined from the other which means someone who is completely new to this sort of thing may be easily confused. Take a look:

One thing that I do like about it however is that it gets straight to the point and lets you post a message right away. This is a great way of getting people involved with Continue reading »