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Technology

Will an Iphone 4 change my life?

By TechnologyOne Comment

Well we are about to find out! I’ve upgraded my Blackberry Storm to an Iphone 4. I’m so excited! I’ve wanted one for soo long, in preparation for it’s arrival I’ve been on iTunes and downloaded some apps, here’s what I’ve downloaded:

Blogging – WordPress App
The essential tool for blogging from my phone, so now I’ll be able to blog from anywhere!

News – BBC News, Metro, The Guardian, MEN News Apps
I couldn’t decide on one news app, so I’ve downloaded four.

Pagan – Star Walk & Pagan Gods Apps
Star walk apparently enables you to look at constellations, moon phases, etc. so should be a good app. Pagan gods is an app with apparent beautiful artwork images of popular gods/goddesses and gives a bit of information about them. So both should be handy.

Entertainment – Movies by Flixster, Civilization Revolutions, TVGuide.co.uk Apps
Now I’ll be able to check out the latest movies on my iphone, play civilization (one of my all time favourite game series) and always know what’s on TV.

Living Frugally – Ace Budget Lite & Jumpsoft Money Apps
I’ve downloaded both of these to try. The idea is that I can set my budgets and manage them on my iphone, rather than on scraps of paper. Will make a massive difference to my spending.

Shopping – Amazon Mobile UK App
I’ll be able to shop and track my orders on Amazon, on my iphone.

Productivity – Documents to go, Google Mobile App, Dictionary.com Apps
Will be able to view, edit, etc, microsoft office documents with documents to go, which will come in useful. Google will enable me to search the web and Dictionary.com will ensure I can spell.

Health, Stop Smoking – iQuit & Easy Stop Smoking Apps
Downloaded both and will try both in my first serious attempt in sometime to quit smoking.

Health, Diabetes – Diabetes Log & Glucose Buddy Apps
Downloaded both and will try both to help me better take and record my blood sugar readings.

Others – Facebook, Free Translator, Navfree, Met Office Weather Apps
Facebook – essential for life. Free translator just-in-case I ever need to write an email in another language or somet, Navfree apparently like Tom Tom but on the Iphone and Met Office Weather so I’ll know what to wear.

Ok so maybe I’m exaggerating (as I have a tendency to do) the effect it will have on my life. But if it will help me to make some positive changes in my life, it’s worth it right?

Write soon,

Antony

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Tuesday 2 November 2010

Geeky Post: Website Development

By Technology, The Web3 Comments

This is a Geeky post and in it I’m going to show you how my website has developed over the years.

Version 1
My first version was created in HTML and looked like this:

It had sections to it: Personal, Carrer and Occult. It had Quick Links News on the home page.

The Navigation was simplistic as was the site as a whole. This first version of the site was online when I was 16 years old and at that time I didn’t have the domain antonysimpson.com.

Version 2

Version 2 was designed with sidebar Navigation in order to allow me to populate the site with much more content. It again was designed in HTML using tables. It contained much more photos than Version 1 including a photo’s section.


New features included a News page that had paragraphs of my news including Site Updates to let the visitors know what had been developed and updated. The Occult section of Version 1 became religion as I accepted Paganism as part of my religion. This version of the site was online around the time when I was 18 years old.

Version 3

Most significantly in Version 3 was the new blue design. I kept the sidebar navigation as I liked that it allowed me to populate the rest of the site with more content. The site used a combination of HTML and PHP, using Iframes. Removed the Site Updates but added on a Last Updated sentence on the home page so that people know when it was last updated.


The news section (above) had a page per news entry and an archive like a blog.

Version 4

Kept the same blue colours design. Kept the last updated sentence on the home page. Moved the Navigation to the top of the page. The main feature of this site was a wordpress blog which unfortunately I deleted being unable to pull off the posts and saving them. This was probably the shortest version of the site ever online, really I only focused on the blog.

Version 5

Again I kept the blue design (look above). It was the most advanced coding I had done so far. I liked the photos and had more of them to use as technology developed. I kept the Last Updated sentence and added a hit counter.


I created a windows-style little windows for the content. For the first time I had a guestbook.

Version 6

The major change in this design was the colours, using oranges and reds. The site design was the same, but I uploaded much more content.

Version 7

Easier on the eye colours were used. Advanced PHP coding used. Meta tags added so that I would appear in search results. For the first time I used an RSS feed. This was probably one of the longest sites online.

Navigation returned the sidebar with little yellow star bullet points! I discovered photoshop and used it to make my own banners. Put news on the home page. Kept expanding the site adding new sections and pages.

Also added Coming Soon – so that visitors would know what new content was to be added and Site Updates makes a return so visitors know what’s been recently updated.

Version 8

My friend Sye designed this site for me. I asked him to design it after seeing his cartoon artwork (see Funny cartoons from a friend and More funny cartoons from a friend). The idea was to create a noticeboard with a piece of paper pinned on to it. The Navigation was cartoon images that changed on mouse over at the top of the page.

The site was designed in dreamweaver using tables in a blog style. I also had a cartoon logo designed by Sye. I decided to have a wordpress blog for the home page and made some minor changes to the design to accommodate this to the version you see today:

So that’s how my sites developed over the years. Do you think I should make some changes to the current version or create a new version? Post a comment.

Antony

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Saturday 20 February 2010

Technology Review: My Book Home Network Storage

By Reviews, TechnologyNo Comments

Like most homes today mine has more than one computer. I have infact two, a laptop for surfing the net and a desktop in the office / guest room. But I was becoming increasingly fustrated with having my music, pictures and documents split across the two. I’d log on to my desktop to find a document or file and then realise that it’s on the laptop. So I decided to buy My Book World Edition 1TB Home Network Storage.

What I love about it:

  • Having all my files in one place and being able to access them on any computer
  • Storage Size – A massive 1TB
  • Easy to Install – Maps the drive for you and even creates a desktop
  • Fast transfer time – Didn’t to take that long to transfer my data, considering the size
  • Security – It has good security features to protect my data including different users with levels of privilages and work groups
  • System Status – gives you information on space used and how the box is functioning.

    • What I struggled with:

  • Limited information on security – I had to fiddle with the security settings in order to work out how it works, at one point I was sharing my music and pictures with everyone. Granted I did put them in the public folder, but I thought it was just public for registered users. There was also limited information on the web when I was looking for support with it. Worked it out in the end though.

    • What I’ve not used (and therefore can’t review):

  • Backup software – It comes with 5 free licences but I will be backing up the Network Storage box on a seperate box and haven’t used their software. I’m going to use my own.
  • Accessing your files from the web – I’ve disabled this feature for added security, plus I have no need to access my files over the internet

    • Hope my review was useful. Blog technological soon,

    Antony

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    Sunday 18 October 2009

    Wireless again thanks to BT

    By Technology, The WebNo Comments

    I had been having some problems with connecting wirelessly to my BT Home Hub. I ended up plugging it in by the wire to the hub and even then it was slow. I emailed BT expecting never to get a response or waiting weeks to get it sorted (which was driving me mad, because I couldn’t write blog posts at my leisure).

    BT called me back the following day (I had wrote the email late at night before bed). I missed some of their calls to my mobile as I was at work. And then as soon as I got home my home phone went off. I answered some of the secruity questions and the guy on the phone from BT took control of my computer via the Internet and sorted out my problem in just 10 mins. In the past BT’s customer service hasn’t been good and my past blog posts have reflected this.

    So BT:
    I’m most impressed. Thanks again for enabling me to blog from my softa.

    Antony x

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    Wednesday 23 September 2009
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