This month sees publication of an article I have written for Computer Buyer magazine. It’s a feature discussing using a computer alongside a mobile phone to text, share contacts etc. It’s a piece aimed at beginners to intermediate users and it’s in the shops now.
I’ve just finished re-designing www.healthyretreat.co.uk, the website of ‘The Retreat’ health and beauty Spa in North Staffordshire. The project was a little complex due to the sheer volume of treatments they offer and therefore ordering them into some (hopefully) logical order that was easy to navigate was a challenge. Hopefully, for the viewing customer, it’s easy enough to use.
To help get across to visitors the vast array of things The Retreat can offer, I implemented a ‘random image and link’ generator on the front page. In plain English this means each time people view the front page, they will see a new main image, linking to a different section of the site.
I also managed to integrate their site with a new online booking system they have had installed (provided through Phorest), which enables people to choose their treatment and book an appointment there and then. Very cool.
Besides that I also added a gallery, viewable from the front page. Their premises are BIG and they have loads of kit and treatment rooms so I wanted to feature some way of showing that off without making the treatment listings any longer.
Besides that I’ve given them the obligatory Google Map (fully interactive, obviously) and a quick contact form to save customers having to open their email to send an enquiry.
The final part of the revamp was including the search facility. The wealth of content meant this was essential so whilst the search technology is a ‘free’ facility, the custom template means results stay within the site and look like they are part of it.
Hope they and their visitors enjoy the new look…
Like many motorists, I spend a great deal of time stuck behind other vehicles or simply slowing down for speed cameras and different speed zones. All the while the TV bombards us with messages: ‘Kill your speed, not a child’, ‘Think - stop!’ etc. Meanwhile congestion continues to grow and we all get frustrated as more and more of us sit in traffic for hours at a time.
Why this fascination with slowing us all down? Is it too crude to suggest that if speed limits were much higher we would all (excluding O.A.P.’s that pull out 10 yards in front and remain at 25mph for the remainder of your journey) be able to get to our destinations much faster? The net result being more people actually at their destinations, rather than travelling slowly to them and therefore easing congestion.
Let’s think further along those lines: instead of fining those driving too fast, we could fine those that are too slow or not travelling at the new minimum speed limit. I dare venture the majority of dangerous overtakes are perhaps currently due to frustrated drivers stuck behind someone driving too slow (boy racers will always be idiots, we’ll have to suffer them regardless).
Then what about safety? How about this; instead of lecturing drivers about driving too fast on roads (which is where I personally expect to find cars driving fast), why not educate children not to run into the road in the first place? I mean, what happened to the ‘Green Cross Code’ man? ‘Look both ways’? ‘Don’t cross between parked cars’ etc?
This isn’t meant to make light of people’s own tragedies. After all, most people know someone who has lost their life on the roads. However sometimes accidents are simply that, no? Whilst this may seem an inflammatory entry, such a response is not my intention. Merely to question whether the current obsession with road safety, at the expense of traffic expediency is really making a positive difference to our lives?
If you have Orange as an ISP you will already know what an absolutely obscene amount of spam you get delivered to your inbox. I’ve moaned about it before here
Well, a report mentioned here reveals that “…of the emails received by consumers who use Orange as their ISP, some 96 percent was spam”
Orange users now have proof, rather than just the suspicion, that standards have slipped horribly at Orange…
I stumbled across another thorn in the man made global warming theory today when I read this short piece in the Telegraph newspaper. Good old Nelson (a big hero of mine) and other seafarers of his day kept detailed meteorological logs including pressure, wind speed, air and sea temperature etc. The men in white coats, having examined the aforementioned data have primarily come to the following conclusion: it would seem Britain (and one could logically assume therefore the rest of the World) enjoyed similar climate variations back then as we are seeing today.
If we assume the data is accurate and is being analysed correctly it must lead to two possible scenarios: 1. Historical records have been completely fabricated and all ships of the day ran on premium 4 star/aviation fuel and created masses of CO2 causing an earlier period of man made global warming. Or, 2. global warming is a natural phenomenon, controlled in the main by forces beyond man’s control.
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