The public beta of coldfusion version 8 (codenamed scorpio) has just popped up on adobe labs today.
I could spend a while writing about it's new features but adobe does a far better job of that!
4 comments - Posted by mark at 11:06 AM - Categories: Coldfusion
Sunday...day of rest and all that...not for me! I needed to get some shiny new aqua panel up on my bathroom wall which required the removal and re-fitting of a radiator...yes you all know what's coming next...why I'm even still writing this post is more to do with certain readers of my blog who think my life has become boring recently...you know who you are Paul, so sit tight and enjoy my misfortune!
Armed with a cheapo shifting spanner, a basin, some towels and the old "if you can do flash you can do anything" resolve passed down to me by Mr Jack Keenan, I climbed the stairs of my house to scope out the job in hand, this was going to be easy (ahem)... So, back downstairs for for a cup of tea because that's what the experts do isn't it? (I was really getting into this now!) next up was the mighty switching off of the water and draining of the hot water system, so I informed Kat that she'd need to fill the kettle (nothing was happening without a lot of tea today) and a couple of pans with water in case this took longer than expected. "right, waters off", time to venture back upstairs.
First things first, I had no idea what I was doing, so I just tried loosening things in a random order until it worked (I thought this was sensible at the time...sigh..) hmmm, so the big connection turned out to be a no-goer, I turned my attention to the two smaller pipes coming up through the floor...uh oh...the water started pissing out all over the floor...nooooooooooooooooo!! but never the less, "there cant be that much water" so I carried on. At this stage my knees had just become soaked and I'd taken skin off of my knuckles on a couple of occasions, but "nobody likes a quitter" so on I went. I now had the radiator disconnected and proceeded to take it off its wall brackets inadvertently tipping it up on its end so all the rest of the water could get out....doh!
Now I had my radiator propped up against the wall, the water had stopped gushing out and I was feeling pretty triumphant...until I went downstairs (for more tea) and to my horror was met with a rather unimpressed girlfriend, mother and future mother in law (funny how they're all always there to see you fail!)
"MARK...THERE'S WATER COMING THROUGH THE ROOF" was the start of the helpful solutions I didn't particularly want to hear as I stood, cheapo shifter in hand, being dripped on, looking stupid.
Anyway..."there cant be that much water, I'll just let it drip" I thought...finally turning out to be right when an hour later the dripping stopped and nobody had slipped at the bottom of the stairs injuring themselves.
Turns out that its far easier to reconnect the thing, about 15 minutes on my knees trying to line pipes up without breaking anything and I was done...until Kat tried to close the bathroom door and I realised that my earlier fannying about with "the big connection" had left it squint..."pass me my cheapo shifter, I'll have this fixed in no time".
So, the moral of the story? just because you have a house, it doesn't mean you know how to fix it...get a plumber!
3 comments - Posted by mark at 3:13 PM - Categories: Ranting
my additions are in strong italics
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25/05/2007 From ******** ***** at ******* * ******** ***
Mark, You are receiving this email as an e-subscriber of mine
There is a blue unsubscribe link at the base of this email. Many thanks.
=====================================================================
**POINT 1 - I have never subscribed to this, nor asked for my details to be used in this...or any other way by this company, I used the afore mentioned unsubscribe link so hopefully that's the end of it...if not, I'll name and shame!
HiMark
So... what's the secret of best websites?
I know you're busy so we will make this a 4 part course so you can take in small chunks at a time.
1. Your web site has to have content, content, content
Like Location in real estate when it comes to websites it's all about content. The main thing people are looking for on the Internet is information. Not a great looking site. Not pretty pictures. Not games. But information. And plenty of it. Quickly.
Every survey I've ever read (and I've read plenty) comes to the same conclusion: People are mostly online to find: INFORMATION So that's what your site has to have.We've had customers come to us to re-vamp their old sites and after we improve their content (and site navigation) they always report more traffic and interest which converts to actual sales and progress. We train them to keep their websites fresh and updated which gives the web site visitors what they want. Over and over again. If you give your web site visitors what they want, they will return again and again. And recommend your web site to others... which is what you really want
** right, I would agree that information is king, but I would also argue that the quality of information is paramount. It's one thing to deliver "information" but its quite another to deliver USEFULL information in a well structured, interesting and relevant way.
2. Your web site has to load very quickly
By this I mean the web site has to come onto the web site visitor's computer screen quickly.
How quickly ********?
We'll I'm glad you asked! The answer is simple. As quickly as possible. We generally aim for less than 5 seconds on a 56k modem for our web sites. You do need to find the balance between looking okay and loading fast. But if it's a choice between a slow, great looking site and a fast, ugly site it's been our experience that web visitors will take the ugly site every single time. Online visitors are very impatient!
** i have to disagree if we're going along the route of your research which states people are mostly after information, if that's the case, they will visit the site with the most relevant and targeted information to their requirement...pretty or ugly has nothing to do with it. As for users being impatient, this is the case for selective searching of information, perhaps people aren't just looking for a few paragraphs of text online, perhaps they are trying to find images, or a video clip, or a cool game they were told about...in which case the sites they are after will load slower and hence more people use broadband to counter this. anyone know what the current percentage of broadband users is? i bet its lots.
Let's take a look at Google.com the world's most popular search engine. The guys at Google know what their visitors want. They want great quality search engine results as quickly as possible. No hanging around waiting for a huge 'Flash' movie to show, no music in the background, no large graphics to download. Just the information as quickly as possible. So that's what the guys at Google give them. The Google" Home Page comes onto a computer with a 56k modem (much much faster with broadband!) in 2.3 seconds. Our www.******************.co.uk Home Page takes 2.49 seconds to download.
** this is a bit of a cheap shot, google is delivering search results in the form of a link and a basic description from a search form which queries probably one of the biggest cluster of servers in the world...of course its fast. Add to this fact that google is primarilly only a search form, sure its got some cool tools to play with but the vast majority of people using google are there for one purpose, to search for something...the real test comes when the user clicks that link to open a site they are interested in and at this stage I would like to jump back to the "information" debate.
so lets have a look at every other method of delivering information...newspapers, television, radio etc..do these mediums purely concentrate on the basic information?...no...because if they did, they would quickly bore their audience and a bored audience is one that aint coming back in a hurry. Information has to be delivered in new and innovative ways or if it is to be delivered "straight up", it needs to be enhanced with images, graphics and other visual aids..."a picture is worth a thousand words" and all that. Also, people are very used to having information delivered to them in video and audio formats so we shouldn't be looking to deny them this. look at the bbc website for instance, plain text, images, video, audio, games, interactive learning...and its not like the bbc site is losing visitors, far from it.
I also noticed the obligatory "flash bashing" comment in there too, although thats a debate for another day.
And how can you check how long your web page takes to load?
Easy. Just go to this web page and try the free sample of their excellent 'HTML Toolbox'.
http://www.netmechanic.com/toolbox/html-code.htm
Thats all for today Mark Until next time...
Yours Online
******** *****
conclusion
well, a very vague and sweeping email when it turned up, I've added my initial opinions on this and if anyone else wants to have a say, post it below, if we could collectively generate a new more focussed and targeted version of this, I am game to send our edited version back to this guy, but then again, maybe I should have just pressed delete in the first place as its only because I had half an hour to kill that I gave it any attention, you lot will probably just dismiss it as I probably should have...still, its good to rant!
3 comments - Posted by mark at 2:06 PM - Categories: Ranting
for the web 2.0 inclined, I have just been sent a link to a super duper web 2.0 reference utilising the flash player in a rather funky way.
I think you'll find everything you need here so without any further ado, check it out here: www.go2web20.net/
3 comments - Posted by mark at 9:49 AM - Categories: Resources
Just launched www.festivalflyers.com a new print site specifically aimed at U.K festivals
0 comments - Posted by mark at 5:59 PM - Categories: Launches
Continuing our series of useful resource sites is www.internationalpapersizes.com, which provides a quick and easy overview of paper sizes for print...hope you find it usefull.
This continues the series started by our first resource site www.freeflyertemplates.co.uk where we have tried to give free, useful information and tools related to the printing industry
0 comments - Posted by mark at 9:28 AM - Categories: Launches
So, on Saturday 5th May 2007, I got down on one knee, proposed to Kathryn and she said yes! this means that at some point soon, I'll be getting married.
Of course both sets of parents are delighted and all the relatives want to wear nice hats etc etc....the scary bit for me is my friends...
If you've ever met my friends, and you understand the concept of a stag do, you'll understand that i'm just the teensiest bit apprehensive about the whole thing.
I have created a specific page for all stag do related nonsense, if you have a threat, email me and i'll add it (no need to add my email address as if you're a mate, you already know it)
I must point out that some...nah...probably lots of the content that will appear on this page over the coming months will not exactly be family safe so if you're not a raging maniac, dont click here!, just continue reading my more savoury content on this blog...you have been warned!
4 comments - Posted by mark at 10:04 AM - Categories: Next Gen McAulay
