• Manage your project from concept to delivery
• Support at any stage of your project
• Rescue Projects
• Help you implement recognised Project Management techniques and methodologies for future projects
• Implement quality checks across the project, making sure you’re getting the best value for money.

to all of their clients.

The requirements for the project was to create a website to promote the project management side of the business and to open up another side of the business involving events that are organised for schools to participate.

Elevate Solutions

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The website is completed and is awaiting content and images that the client is having done.

No1 Muscle Fitness

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I know people that run companies that have their week planned day by day and hour by hour, this works very well for them and they even include time for issues that might arise like a client being late, equipment failure. I find planning that much can hinder my work in web development. As much as people see creating websites as being a IT science, i see it more as an art form you are taking a visual image and turning code into something that renders the same as the image. I find sometimes due to the nature and the high amount of variables that can affect a website across the many browsers and computers that sometimes the most simple of tasks can turn into hours of work.

I try to schedule my projects in weekly slots and try and spend a whole day on one project rather than jump from one to the other as this can cause confustion and takes time to get back into the web zone when you jump from project to project.  The biggest issue when running a business are the little jobs that need to be done either weekly or monthly, accounts, paperwork and invoicing. Strange as it might sound a lot of this takes a lot of time and sometimes most business put it off when they are busy to make more time for clients. This process sounds good until a job that take 2hrs one day  every few weeks has now turned into a day worth of paper pushing once a month.

Emails are the most time consuming process i have, I tend to get a few 100 emails at least a day. I used to feel the need to read them as they came in, but now i find it is more of a distraction from the work i am doing so now i tend to set an hour a day split in two to sort through the emails and reply.

Tips

• Always make time for the little jobs that you keep putting off as they will mount up and become a massive job
• Schedule emails so you read them only at a set time through out the day to avoid distractions from your work
• Plan projects around what works best for you and remember to allocate extra time just incase something happens and delays the project

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WordPress 2.0 Iphone/ Android App

The orignal app that WordPress released was quited limited although it functioned quite well on a mobile it was not optismised for a tablet at all. The whole interface was scretched and sometime response to the touch screen caused the app to crash and there was no enlargement of buttons or clickable areas.

WordPress released 2.0 version and at last they have made a step closer to almost being perfect for usage by the often blogger. The interface is very friendly now for both phones and tablets the quick navigation allows you to jump from pages to posts easly adding content to a post or making a new one is very simple indeed. You can even geo tag locations as well as add new media straight from the tablet or phone, the layout once in the all pages or post section is a clickable list on the left with the newest post or page open on the right. The only let down i can see is i use the custom fields to add images like thumbnails and other features onto the posts and pages.

Overall the look is a lot better epecially on the tablet and for the basic user it is perfect or to make adjustments to current posts and pages.

WordPress 3.3 Update

The new release of the latest wordpress software hosts a new admin which has also been ehanced for the mobile user making all the features available to touch screen devices where as before a lot of functionaility was not available. The menu’s have been combined and now are accessible by tablets and touch screen devices as well as an improved media uploader which has a file type regonistion feature built in so only one media button for all types of files, PDF, video and images.

For the developers out there the biggest noteable changes are the following :

• -Use the postname permalink structure without a performance penalty
• -Improved Editor API
• -is_main_query() function and WP_Query method
• -Remove a number of funky characters from post slugs
• -jQuery 1.7.1 and jQuery UI 1.8.16
• -A new Screen API for adding help documentation and adapting to screen contexts
• -Improved metadata API

The full list for all the improvements are noted on the official WordPress Codex

When i first saw the updates i was a bit sceptical due to the compression of the menus, but on using it awhile seems a lot neater and because it works with tablets also makes it even better. Also the menu across the top of the page now allows you to have links to add new pages, post and more which somes took quite a few mouse clicks to achieve. I think for me is the new feature of being able to customise the post editor and the TinyMCE buttons and even add additional editors, which could come in handy for layout purposes depending on the impact of speed of the site.

Overall

WordPress are finally thinking into the future of mobile technology being a big part of traffic and usage of WordPress blogs and website. These updates are great and i look forward to using them all and experimenting with the new development features that have been added to the API.

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Personally i think real books are nice and i find them easier to read and make notes but, i think that books are a huge resource on paper. Paper books are causing a lot of paper to be produced and trees to be cut down. Ebooks are made once then converted into the many different formats and then can be duplicated as many times as is required. The waste from ebooks is very small in comparism to the waste from making millions of each book then to have most not self and get thrown away.

Amazon released the biggest and cheapest ebooks in the last couple of years which has helped to boost the ebook market and make people want to read again. The readers are light with a battery that lasts for weeks and can also hold 1000′s of books, also they have a range of covers. Like hard backs the ebook readers like the Kindle use’s Kindle covers, the Kindle cover is like the hard card board binding of a hard back book and is used to protect the reader as well as try and mimic a real book.

I think ebooks are the future they will not waste paper and as soon as people see the advantages over normal books the better, I know as a business the more paper based books and records you keep the bigger your storage space has to be. Also ebooks and ebook readers are very portible with very little weight and you can carry 1000′s at a time rather than one or two..I only hope in the future that the cost of an ebook comes down as Amazon ebooks are about £1 cheaper most of the time. This is ridiculous considering the amount of money being saved by not printing the product.

What do you prefer ? ebooks or real books….

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What slows down your website?

When someone puts in your website address they request a document which contains the content of your page, at the same time as this page it will then fetch the content from a database if you have one, JavaScript files, images and CSS. Once all these requests have been made then the page will be displayed as it was developed and designed. These technology’s are one of the main reasons for slow loading websites. Depending on the developer too many of these technologies put together in the wrong way can and will increase loading time even if a developer adds the technology correctly a large amount of these technology can still slow down loading time.

Why should we care about loading time of our websites ?

70% of users are not access website through mobile devices on mobile networks which means the speed of the internet tends to be lower in most cases than normal broadband. How long would you wait for a website to load before getting bored and going else where, many technologies like CSS and JavaScript have been rewritten to speed up the loading issues of the website.

What can you do to help with speed ?

Well depending if you are Web Developer or not really here is a list of a few pointers to follow:

-Use compression where possible either GZIP or Cach plugins which are available with most CMS systems.

-Reduce the amount of plugins and delete old unwanted plugins

-Reduce the amount of links to CSS and JavaScript files

-Use variables in place of database requests

-Optimise all images using lossless software or online applications

-Host JavaScript and images on an external media websites site

There are a few ways to test the loading time of your website:

Yslow – Run by Yahoo and is an add-on to most modern browsers

Firefox Web Developer Tool – Mozilla have this built into the add on

Google Speed Tester- Googles very own speed of loading website

There a few things that can be done with the .htaccess file like caching of images that do not change and JavaScript here are a few links

WordPress .htaccess tricks

there are loads of resources on google surrounding this area.

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I was looking through the Gearzap website through the Asus Eee Pad Transformer cover section of the website and decided as a Veggie I would try a case that looks and acts like leather, but isn’t made from leather. The case I chose was the Tuff-Luv Veggie Leather Asus EEE Transformer Case which seem to meet my requirements.

The case came a few days after ordering it and at first look i could not tell it was not leather, when you open the case there is a nice place for the tablet screen to slot into and on the other side of the case is a place to keep business cards and also SanDisks, which for the Asus Transformer is very important as these are the main methods of saving data and files. The case also has a slip section to keep documents in and cut outs for the camera and microphone of the tablet. The case is held shut by a concealed magnet in the top right hand corner and there is a stand that is held flat against the rear of the case with press studs.

The overall look and feel of the case is similar to a business filofax, but a lot thinner. Overall a very good purchase..

Negative Points:

-   There is a small velcro tab that secures the tablet into the case, this makes this part of the case look cheap and could of been done better with either a press stud or a magnetic button

All I have to do now is to get myself a Asus Eee Pad Transformer screen protector  as the last thing you want to do is get the screen marked or scratched.

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First Thoughts:

ASUS were very smart when they designed the keyboard dock and thought a lot about how the user would use this add on piece of hardware. The battery in the keyboard dock is charged together with the tablet when it is connected, but when the tablet and keyboard are used away from the mains the keyboard always uses its battery power to keep the tablet fully charged, so once the tablet is removed it has always got a 100% charge.
The tablet booted up really quick and setup took less than a minute for it to sync with the google android market. The tablet reaction to swiping and pressing on the screen is quick reactive and i was very impressed with the general response and speed of the device. The battery took about 5hrs to fully charge both the keyboard dock and the tablet. I started trying to look for some good app’s that would compliment my new tablet, this proved most difficult. The android market place doesn’t seem to allow you to search for just tablet based app’s which isn’t very good and might cause and be the main reason that people would be put off using an android tablet.

Screen:

The screen size of the tablet is a 10.1 inch screen with a IPS 1280 X 800 HD with a 5MP rear camera and a front facing 1.3MP. I have tested the screen using videos and images and the colour and detail are amazing. The rotation of the screen was quick and fluid and the accelerator reacts very well to movement.

Spec:

Android 3.2 Honeycomb Android 3.0 Honeycomb Android 3.2 Honeycomb
NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 Nvidia® Tegra™ 2 NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2

Display

10.1” LED Backlit screen with IPS (1280 x 800) 10 point multi-touch input

Memory
1GB RAM
16GB /32GB eMMC + Unlimited ASUS Webstroage

802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
1.2MP (front), 5MP Auto focus (rear)
2-in-1 Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in)
1x mini HDMI 1.3a port
1 x Micro SD Card Reader
1 x Iternal Microphone
1 x Stereo Speaker

G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, GPS

ASUS launcher, MyLibrary, MyNet, MyCloud, File manager, Kindle, Zinio Magazine, PressReader, Polaris Office, ASUS sync

Battery
9.5 hours; 24.4Wh Li-polymer Battery(4) 16 hours with Eee Station

General Opinion

The tablet is a very good product and the apps that are made for it can be very useful , however it is a shame like the Ipad a lot of big branded companies like Facebook haven’t really brought out app’s that take advantage of the tablet size. The tablet is able to replace a laptop that can be used for light usage while out and about like for Web Development and general files and emailing. Before the end of the year the tablet will be accessible to such apps as Photoshop and illustrator as the tablet already supports such apps as Adobe Air, which these programs will be constructed using. These adobe apps will be realised for around £10 each which will allow even more functionaility to users of the tablet. The built in app’s allow for file sharing with unlimited space for free for one year, streaming media to DHLC devices as well as linking to your home computer.

Conclusion

The tablet is a very good competitor for the Ipad and with the extended peripheral of a keyboard makes it even more useful as a net book which gives it advantages over the Ipad. This device has become a part of my everyday business and with the ever expanding market of apps I hope to be able to expand its uses into other areas of my business.

The post ASUS Transformer Tablet Review appeared first on Phoenix Web Solutions.

I was searching the site for either a  Kindle Cover or a Kindle Case and came across one that i believed would suit my needs and came across the Tuff-Luv Apocalypse Leather Case. My requirements was simple a nice looking case that would give me access to all the controls on the Kindle and still keep it well protected.

First Impression

The case is made of leather and has a nice Japanese style engraving on the front of the case, the case folds upwards and is held shut using a magnetic press stud. The reverse of the case contains a small stand that folds out after being released from the magnetic studs to allow the kindle to be stood upright so you can place the kindle on the table for easy reference.

Kindle Fit

The Kindle is a good fit into the case tight enough to hold the device in, but not to tight that you are scared to break the device. The case allows open access to all the controls as well as the ports for the device, there are ‘L’ shape cut outs on the back of the case, which are covered with a metal mesh to allow the speakers to broadcast sound.

Pros:

• -Great fit and sturdy
• -Stand to allow the device to be stood up
• -Case kept shut with a press stud and is very durable
• -Controls all accessible

Cons:

• -Sometimes it is not fluent to line up the press stud to close the cover
• -The stand at the back makes the holding feel a bit less like holding a book
• -Flipping of the front cover to the reverse cover might seem unatural to a device trying to mimic a book

Overall

The cover is great for the purpose and although there are some cons it is generally down to personal preference. The cover also has a good guarantee to ensure long lasting quality.

Related articles

• GeekDad Review: Tuff-Luv iPad Case (wired.com)
• Review: Tuff-Luv Saddleback leather case for MacBook Air (zdnet.com)
• Gear Zap – Tuff Luv Case sellers (gearzap.com)

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