I've been writing some short stories recently and decided to make a site to publish them online; it's just for fun, not a money-making venture. I'm still editing the site but I've published it now so the search engines can start indexing it. the site includes a blog, a newsletter and some writing tools.

Read online short stories at www.ficticity.com.

This bit of code will let you change the opacity of an image using JavaScript; unlike most scripts it works on Safari and Opera as well as IE and Firefox. Simple send the id of the image and a value between 0 and 100 to change the opacity (0 being invisible and 100 fully visible).

function changeopacity( imageobject, opacity ) {

    
var object = imageobject.style;
    object.opacity = ( opacity / 100 );
    object.MozOpacity = ( opacity / 100 );
    object.KhtmlOpacity = ( opacity / 100 );
    object.filter = "alpha(opacity=" + opacity + ")";

}

I've launched a new site through my web design company called A Site A Day; the site does exactly that! It gives web designers a nice-looking website every single day of the year. It should help cure the dreaded designer's block.

Web Design Inspiration - asiteaday.org

Stay up-to-date by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Enjoy!

Most RSS readers for Mac will cost you; there's a free RSS reader in Thunderbird but I use Apple's Mail so I'd rather run an application that's just for RSS.

I managed to find (it was suprisingly hard) a free RSS reader for OS X. It's called Vienna and you can download it from here:

Download Vienna

It's a great little application. It has a simple interface, Atom support and folder groups and smart folders make it easy to manage all your feeds.

I always think the best web page development environment is one that strikes a medium between being a basic text editor and a fully functional IDE. A text editor is too basic for me whereas a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver is just overpriced and irritating. What I want is a text editor with syntax highlighting, the ability to edit files via FTP and some good search functionailty.

Enter Bluefish.

Bluefish is a free text editor for Linux that does just that. You can download it from here: http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Software/56950/BlueFish.htm or you can get it through the package manager on Debian-based Linux distros:

sudo apt-get install bluefish

On my various websites I get hundreds of Spam messages every day; it gets very annoying! I've tried several methods and in this post I will outline three. Soemtimes they works, sometimes they don't. Some are more effective than others.

1. Captchas. Captchas are a random strings of text and numbers that a user must enter to be classed as non-spam. The letters and numbers are displayed as an image and usually over a pattern and are distorted to prevent bots from easily reading them.

Pros: Skewed text against noisy background can be hard for Spam bots to read
Cons: Can be difficult for humans to read, spam bots are getting better at recognising them

2. Hidden text fields. Create a text field in your form and hide it via your CSS (using display: none). When processing the form if the field has been filled out it is Spam.

Pros: Filters out around 75% of spam bots
Cons: Some bots check your CSS, those with CSS disabled still see the text field

3. Ask a question. Ask a question that doesn't have the answer in the question. A popular one could be a maths question (e.g. what is 1 + 5). Even more effective would be What colour is the sky?

Pros: Filters out 99% of spam
Cons: Some foriegn users or those who struggle with spelling may get the answer wrong

There are lots of fixes and hacks out there to stop the famous IE three pixel padding bug; what happens is when you have a floated div IE adds extra padding to the div next to it. It's very annoying when you're trying to get a layout spot on.

I've tried many fixes ranging from setting the float div to display: inline; (which didn't work) and trying to browser sniff to serving a different style sheet to IE browser (which I resent doing).

I found this trick that worked perfectly however. If you use a child selector you can serve a style that IE will use and another all the others will use. Let say you have divs, left and right, and the right div should have a 500px left margin; your CSS might look like this:

    div#right {

        margin-left: 497px;
        width: 475px;

    }

    div#container > div#right {

        margin-left: 500px;

    }

Here the width is set at 3 pixels less then overriden to the correct value via the child selector. It all renders correctly though as IE ignores the child selector.

If you want to brain storm ideas on your Mac then mind-maps are a great idea.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map. I use them to put ideas for stories together; like with many things nowadays it's better to do it on a computer. I found this free piece of software that let's you create mind maps on your Mac.

Download FreeMind for free here

If you're running Kubuntu and decide you want to change to Ubuntu (i.e. use the Gnome desktop rather than KDE (which is better in my opinion)) all you need to do is to go to the shell and enter:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

You will now have to wait some time for all the Gnome apps to download and them some time for Kubuntu to get everything set up. Once that's done though all you need to do is log out and then log in and choose Gnome as the session type.

You'll now have Gnome and KDE installed which means you'll have two lots of applications for many areas (e.g. you'll have two text editors, Kate and gEdit). This is fine and won't cause you any problems. However, you may wish to remove some of these applications through the package manager if you don't want them.

If you want to get rid of KDE enter the following in the shell:

sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-desktop

If you do remove kubuntu-desktop and then find you have trouble using themes in Gnome go to the shell and enter:

switch2

Then choose your style from the dropdown; gneom-theme-manager should work fine from thereon.

If you want to write novels and short stories on your Mac I suggest you purchase a copy of CopyWrite for OS X.

I'd always been frustrated at how poorly designed these writing tools typically are; CopyWrite is different though.

CopyWrite doesn't bother offering you loads of useless formatting tools. Rather, it gives you what you need to manage a writing project properly. It's so easy-to-use and well designed that after a new minutes you feel like you know the software inside out. All saving is done automatically: simply fire up one of your current projects and carry on writing!

CopyWrite really helps a writer's work flow by giving you a file browser that can contain as many text documents as you like - easily allowing you to manage your research, character profiles, plot outlines, etc.

In my opinion CopyWrite is a must for any writer using OS X and you can have it for the bargain price of $24.99.

What are you waiting for? Download your free trial now!

Even if you tweak the font settings in Ubuntu some text still looks a little jaggy compared to OS X. You can make your fonts smoother though like this:

Go to your home directory and open up the file .fonts.conf (it's a hidden file; if you can't see it choose View < Show Hidden Files in Nautilus). Replace the current contents with:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>

Save the file; the fonts will change once you restart the X server, log out and back in again or restart.

Have you ever wanted to run Verdana, Trebuchet MS, etc on Linux - you can and it's very easy to do. Simple enter the following into a shell window:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Log out and back in again or restart and the fonts will be installed.

The following fonts are installed:

• Andale Mono
• Arial Black
• Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Comic Sans MS (Bold)
• Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Impact
• Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
• Webdings

Synergy is a program that lets you share your mouse and keyboard over a network. So, if you have two or more monitors and more than one computer you only need one mouse and keyboard. Here's how I got Synergy running with Ubuntu and OS X.

Note: Synergy is also available for Windows - this how to does not cover Windows although Synergy works pretty much the same (in fact, it's easier on Windows as there is a GUI to it)

Firstly, download Synergy for Linux - you can do this with the command sudo apt-get install synergy in the shell. For Mac download Synergy 1.3.1 for OS X here.

You need one machine to run as a server and then you can have a number of clients. In this example I will make OS X the server and Linux a client.

First off, find out the hostname of your Ubuntu machine by typing hostname in the shell. We'll assume it's called myclient in this example. Do the same in OS X and we'll assume the Mac is called myserver.local.

The next thing we need to do is to set a configuration file for the server - this tells Synergy what to do with each machine when it connects.

Extract your downloaded Synergy folder in OS X and create a file in the folder called mysynergy.conf.

Enter this into your file and save:

section: screens
    myserver.local:
    myclient:
end

section: links
    myserver.local:
        right = myclient

    myclient:
        left = myserver.local
end

Note: your OS X hostname will end in .local - include this in the .conf file.

All you're doing here is defining your host and your clients and how they relate to each other.

Your server is ready to roll. Open up the shell in OS X and navigate to where your .conf file is stored; execute this command ./synergys -f --config mysynergy.conf

Open up a new shell and type ifconfig and make a note of the IP address that appears after inet - it will most likely start with 192.168. - let's say it's 192.168.0.5

Now open up your shell in Ubuntu and execute /usr/bin/./synergyc -f 192.168.0.5 (use your Mac's IP address though).

All being well your Ubuntu machine should connect to your Mac and you can use your Mac's mouse and keyboard on your Linux machine.

One limitation is that the Mac Synergy server will only accept an IP address rather than a host name so it's a pain if your Mac's IP address keeps changing.

Add a new host record on OS X is not quote a straight forward as it is on Windows and Linux (though it is still very easy). You need to do this:

• Open up Finder
• Click on Applications
• Go to Utilities
• Open the Netinfo Manager application
• Choose Machines
• Click localhost (or any other host record)
• Click the padlock and enter your admin password
• Click duplicate and click the Duplicate button
• Double click the IP address in the right column and enter your new host IP
• Double click the name in the right column and enter your new host name
• If there is a serves row there make both columns blank
• Click the lock to save the changes and close the application down
• If you are prompted to save any changes do so

Have you ever used the Save for Web option in Photoshop and found your image looks much lighter on the export than on the canvas? It happened to me when I switched from CS on XP to CS 2 on OS X.

The problem is that your canvas is using one colour profile (sRGB is best for web by the way) and exporting using another. If you're working on web here's how you fix it:

Choose File > Save for Web and then click the arrow located to the top right of the canvas. Choose Use Document Color Profile - this will ensure the canvas and the exported image match.

I recently launched a site that had a crazy amount of URL rewriting. It involved a huge database and a huge amount of filter options. I was in my hoster's control panel (which hosts around ten sites) and I noticed by bandwidth had gone through the roof! So much so that at its current rate I was due to run out very soon. I checked my Analytics stats and there was nothing untoward. I then checked Webalizer and the in question was using gig upon gig a day (Since Analytics requires JavaScript it would suggest the bandwidth hogger was a bot or a user with JS disabled)! I did a site: query in Google and found my problem - Google was indexing over 150,000 pages a day!

I've since used robots.txt to control Google's thirst for information but let it be a lesson to you if you try to get clever with ModRewrite.

This is all not to mention the duplicate content penalty Google may be putting on the site!

It's a funny little irony that I used URL rewrites in the first places to help my SERPs.

 

If you need a free (S)FTP browser for Mac look no further than Cyberduck.

Cyberduck is free and hails from China and offers "easy to use interface, integration with external editors and support for many Mac OS X system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, the Keychain and AppleScript".

Cyberduck is well-designed and very easy to use. You can bookmark all your often-used FTP accounts for quick connection and providing you're in the right directory uploading is a simple drag and drop procedure (there's a dashboard widget too!)

It's also available in a variety of languages!

Cyberduck Website

I love Safari - I think it's the best browser to use if you have a Mac . . . unless you're a web developer. It's light, clean and performs well but there is a BIG problem with it if you're trying to use it to test a website.

Whether you're using a proxy server or not Safari has a nasty habit of caching web pages (unless you use the appropriate headers which is not always what you want to do). All browsers do this but with browsers such as IE and Firefox you can do a force-refresh - a refresh that tells the browsers and the proxy server to reload the page. As silly as it sounds Safari currently does not have this feature. So, if you're updating a site live on the server you will see the old version.

So, if you're developing sites on a Mac use Camino or Firefox . . . you can force a refresh on them. Let's hope Apple see fit to add this feature to the next release of Safari.

My friend and I went to see the Borat film last night and it is hilarious! There are too many hilarious moments to mention but suffice to say I was not disappointed and it was well worth seeing.

The cinema was full and the audience were laughing from start to finish. There is no shortage of cringowrthy moments either; where does Cohan get the gaul to do what he does?

The jibes at Kazakstan being backward are very over-the-top; you'd have to be a moron to believe them - I don't know what all the fuss was about.

With Hollywood still churning out the usual Jack Black / Ben Stiller / Adam Sandler comedy tripe it's refreshing to see a genuinely clever and funny comedy.

9 / 10

Read more about the Borat film here.

The new site Pink Toffee offers free listings for multimedia companies; this onehas a difference though - it uses a quirky cooking theme so you add your company, or recipe, to their database so potential clients can search you out. The details you provide are ingredients; it's a nice original approch to an otherwise unoriginal concept. Let's hope this unique angle proves successful for the Pink Toffee team.

I've added Texelate - add yours now!

I found this link that details the steps a Photoshop artist would typically go through to retouch a model photo so it looks good enough to go on a magazine cover. The difference is staggering and it's all the more impressive so if you're a Photoshop artist.

To see the before and after follow this link and then click on the image (which launches a Flash movie).

It's a fairly high-level description but it's interesting all the same.

I found this website via Google that let's you create GIFs that are useful to display while loading data through AJAX. It's a great free service that let's you specify the colour you want and the animation type you want and then let's you download the image - there are plenty of indicators to choose from ranging from Wheels to Flowers.

The site is call Ajaxload and can be found here.

Thanks to the webmasters at Ajaxload!

Police Squad is out on DVD on Monday 6 November 2006; this cult classic has been a long time coming to DVD but it's going to be worth the wait. No comedy crams in more gags than Police Sqaud - the comedy that features Leslie Nielsen and Alan North playing a detective and his captain battling criminals in a fictional city. By the makers of and akin to Airplane! and Top Secret this DVD is well worth the asking price. The DVD features all six episodes:

1. A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise)
2. Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment)
3. Butler Did It, the (A Bird in the Hand)
4. Revenge and Remorse (The Guilty Alibi)
5. Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood)
6. Testimony of Evil (Dead Men Don't Laugh)

Order now from Play!

There are still some people that don't know about this fantastic free tool that will convert any printable document to PDF. The program, PrimoPDF, works as a printer driver and uses the data sent to the printer to create a PDF. This means the PDF generation is application-independent.

Download PrimoPDF for free here.

I can't believe I've missed this and I don't know how long ago it was annouced but Ricky Gervais and company are releasing three more special podcasts entitled Parts I, II and III of the Podfather. The shows will be available on the following dates from The Guardian website: 31 October, 23 November, 25 December. Theses details were announced on Ricky's offical website. He doesn't give much away save for the fact they will be availble for free from The Guardian's site.

If you don't have access to a Mac but want to know what your web page looks like on the Apple Safari browser look no further than this fantastic free online tool, BrowsrCamp.

Simply specify a webpage URL and page width and Browsr Camp will generate an image that shows you how your page would render in Safari. It's as simple as that.

Browsr Camp also offer a paid service entitled Mac OS X Livetest that "gives you the possibility to test your websites by taking full control of a Mac OS X system. You only need to have a VNC client and a fast connection".

Learn more about the Mac OS X Livetest here.

Well, it's been a long time coming but my portfolio site is finally launched.

The Leeds Web / Multimedia Design Studio is called Texelate (the name is based on the computer graphics term, texel) and features details of the services I offer and a selection of my recent work. I decided that it was too confusing to incorporate the commissions work on the Dr Quincy site so I've taken most of the Dr Quincy commissions text and consolidated it into this new site. I'll be changing the Dr Quincy commissions section soon and will set up some redirects to Texelate.

Version 2 of Dr Quincy will be solely my personal site and resource site - I'll change the layout to reflect this.

Enjoy.

Sunday 29 October sees a one-off return of the classic BBC sitcom, The Royle Family. The sitcom, which features working-class Manchester family the Royles, was well-known for its method acting and realism rather the standard sitcom format.

The episode, entitled Queen of Sheba, is an hour long, starts at 9.00PM and sees Jim Royle toying with the idea of purchasing a Plasma HDTV.

I decided it was a good idea to create a portfolio site that is seperate from the main Dr Quincy site. The portfolio (should be live by tomorrow night) was fun to make and I learnt a few things along the way. On reflection there are a few tips I thought I could share with anyone in the same boat.

You can read the article, Online Portfolio Tips, here.

The article suggests six ways in which you can make your online portfolio better.

Have you ever exported a Flash movie only to find the text doesn't appear in Opera (although it works fine in Firefox and IE). Although I'm not sure what the cause is I do know of a fix: export your Flash movie to an earlier version of Flash.

Go to File > Publish Settings and choose an earlier version from the Version dropdown.

Can sounds in Flash loop forever?

No.

It's as simple as that; you just have to enter the highest loop quantity the Loop input box from the Sound panel will take, which is 65535.

It may not satisfy the purists out there but it's unlikely anyone will sit through 65535 loops of your music!

Here's a quick tip if you're doing some music loops in Flash and you find that there is a slight delay before the sound clip restarts. The problem is this for some reason MP3s don't loop very well in Flash whereas WAVs do. You may not want to use a WAV file due to the file size but the good news is you can have your cake and eat it.

Import a WAV version of the sound loop into your library and right-click it and choose Properties and change the compression to MP3. Then alter the Bitrate and Quality settings according to your quality / compression ratio preferences. Your sound will now loop properly - for some reason MP3 don't work unless you let Flash encode it.

There was a fantastic Radio 4 series called Fear on Four that ran in the late 80s / early 90s; despite the fact all the shows were spooky thrillers they all had completely different settings ranging from the Napoleonic War to futuristic sci-fi. Although I didn't listen to the show when it was originally aired I became a fan when they were rerun on BBC7 on Sundays. I was so impressed with it I contacted the BBC to ask if there were any plans to release the show on CD - they replied saying no.

Yesterday I found a site that has all 48 episodes available for free download; such radio recordings are considered Old Time Radio (or OTR), which means they are considered so old that they are no longer protected by copyright. The quality of the recordings are generally very good and the webmasters have kindly supplied the episode titles and original air dates.

Download the shows here.

Thanks to the webmasters at Vic and Sade for making these available!

Update: you can now get them here - the old link doesn't work. Fear on Four

Update 2: Okay, so they're still under copyright. I contacted the BBC and they have no plans to release them. The link above has nothing to do with me - use it at your own risk!

As an aspiring novelist I've read a lot of books regarding novel-writing and memoirs on the craft of writing. It struck me the other day that bloggers could learn a lot from novelists despite being greatly different types of writing (in general). I've composed a list of five questions that a blogger should ask his or her self prior to publishing a blog entry. These points are all based on the advice many successful writers have recommended to me as a novel writer (through thier books).

1. Have you chosen the right title? There are no laws in place to stop two novelists giving their novel the same title - it's a bad idea to do so though. If I named my novel Crime and Punishment, for example, I could never hope it would be known as the Crime and Punishment as it would be competing with Dostoyevsky's masterpiece. Similarly, although two bloggers can have posts with identical titles it is not a good idea.

2. Would I have written this blog even if I knew no one else would read it? Any good writer will tell you they write not for the money or the admiration (in fact many good writers get neither) but they write because they have a desire to do so, a thirst that cannot be quenched. As a blogger, do you blog because you want to make a six-figure annual sum through Google AdSense? Or do you blog simply because you have to? Ironically, it's the bloggers who never intended to make the money who earn a good living from it.

3. Can the blog entry be summed up in a single sentence? In his book Writing a Novel and getting Published by Nigel Watts, Nigel says that the thesis (or main theme) of a novel should be "what the author is saying about the thread summed up in a single sentence". In other words, if you can't describe a work of writing in one sentence the message you are putting across may be too garbled or perplexing to the reader. If a novel can be summed up in once sentence then is it not reasonable to expect you can do the same for your blogs?

4. Can I make the blog any simpler / shorter? A painful part of writing is when the novelist's agent asks them to cut large chunks out of their novel (it's not uncommon for a writer to remove a third of his / her book at their agent's request). The agent (usually) knows best, however, because if a piece of writing can be expressed in less words it can have more of an impact. Can you make your blog entry any shorter without altering the message?

5. Have I written sufficent drafts of my blog entry? A novelist will usually write a minimum of two to three drafts before passing it onto their agent. In the first draft the writer will write loosly and without creative limits; the second draft will rework the first draft into a more level and consistant piece of work; the third draft will polish it so it is suitable to pass on to the agent. Try this approach on your blogs for a more professional finish.

If you've downloaded the Combustion 4 Trial from Autodesk you may be struggling to learn the application properly. The user guide that comes with the download acts more as a reference and the tutorials on the Autodesk site are short videos. So, there are no structured step-by-step tutorials that come with accompanying footage are there?

Actually, there are.

Autodesk have relased a book entitled Combustion 4 Fundamentals Courseware that contains exactly what you're looking for to learn the application: a structured step-by-step tutorials that come with accompanying footage. I purchased the book recently and it is in my opinion an essential purchase for the new Combustion user (probably not so useful for advanced users). It covers every facet of Combustion and includes 42 tutorials spread over ten sections.

Get the book from Amazon - for around £20 it's a small price to pay.

It was like giving up a ten year long addiction - I finally set my default browser to Firefox. Since the first time I ran it I've never doubted Firefox was superior to Internet Explorer. It's just that since 1996 when I first got the Internet I started using IE out of lack of choice. It's shameful for any web developer to use IE but I just couldn't get out of the IE habit. Today, however, I finally did it!

If you're still using IE get Firefox now!

If you haven't noticed already the PageRank readings in the Google toolbar are updating. Who cares? I know from the updates that are happening to the Dr Quincy site that it really doesn't make a blind bit of difference. Here's why:

Despite all the backlinking I've done over the past few months my home page is staying at PR3 (the most important page of the site according to Google) yet other pages that have next-to-no backlinks (like my terms and privacy pages) are showing PR4. Furthermore, a couple of pages that have NO backlinks are now showing a PR5!

If you want to know why PageRank means NOTHING read my article, When is the Next PageRank Update?

I thought I'd share this bit of information as it could to useful to tutorial writers. Obviously, you want as many organic hits to your tutorials as possible. With Google being the most popular search engine that's a good place to start.

Just through a bit of tutorial writing experience it's really easy to write a tutorial that gets to the top of Google in just a few days. Here's what you do:

Firstly, you need to make sure the tutorial you write is original. If you Google search some tutorials and there are hundreds of similar ones you need to rethink the subject matter of your tutorial. If this is the case you should think about an alternative subject even if you have your heart set on writing this one. If you do a search and deem your idea is original then you are already over the biggest hurdle.

At this point you need to write the actual tutorial. Let's say you've written it; you're only one step way from getting to the top of Google.

Next you need to get Google to find the tutorial by getting some good-quality links to it. It's all about quality and not quantity here so two or three links from high ranking sites are much better than fifty links from low ranking sites. I recommend you submit your tutorials to Pixel2Life and Tutorialized (and if the tutorial is Photoshop based Good-Tutorials.). Here is the important part: make sure the name you give the tutorial (in the title tag and h1 tag) and the name you use to submit the tutorial to other sites all match the keywords you originally entered into Google when you were doing your originality search. Now let's assume your tutorial has been accepted by a couple of these sites; Google loves sites like these and once your tutorial is accepted and linked to it will begin indexing your tutorial. Wait a few days (it may be up to a week) and then enter your keywords into Google and if everything has worked in your favour you will see your tutorial in the top spot. It will periodically fluctuate but that's the nature of the Google beast.

Of course for this process to work your tutorial must be of a good quality else it won't get accepted by the high profile websites. The trick is to find some keywords that a) people will search for and b) someone else hasn't used to write a tutorial yet.

dougie0047, a member at CGTalk has very kindly put together a huge, free library of textures for CG artists to use in their projects, commercial or otherwise. The library contains over 1000 images at a resolution of 3200 * 2400 and is available as a torrent. As for the type of textures dougie0047 says he "spent a few days walking around Berlin shooting here and there".

Read details about the torrent here.

Thanks dougie0047!

I've submitted a lot of tutorials over the last three months - they're the primary way I get traffic to my website. I thought I'd share my views on the differences between what I regard as the three biggest players: Pixel2Life, Tutorialized, Good Tutorials.

Pixel2Life - Of the three sites Pixel2Life has the most comprehensive categories; as well as listing tutorials of the more popular programs and languages such as PHP and Photoshop it lists some lesser-known categories such as Fruity Loops and Autodesk Combustion. The more you submit to Pixel2Life the more you realise how professionally it is run. You can submit tutorials via a user account and view which of your tutorials are awaiting review. You can also elect to be notified by email if a tutorial is approved or denied. Furthermore, you are given a reason albeit a general one (e.g. too basic). Pixel2Life add tutorials on a half-hourly basis which means any of your tutorials that are approved will stay on the home page for a reasonable amount of time. The Pixel2Life team also take the time to review the title you've given your tutorial; they often change it by adding a few words here and there. Don't be put off by this - they always add more detail to your tutorial and it shows they've really taken the time to look it through. Pixel2Life is run by a team (although I don't know how many) of people who seem to do a great job at filtering out all the bad tutorials. The amount of traffic you get from Pixel2Life varies greatly on the subject matter; Photoshop will always bring in more than anything else.

Tutorialized - Tutorlalized was founded and is run by Kurt Schell. Kurt has put together a popular, all-round tutorial database that can generate good traffic for your website. The categories are not quite as exhaustive as Pixel2Life but they should serve the needs of most tutorial writers. Tutorials are submitted via a user account; although you can see the status of your tutorials whenever you log in there is currently no email notification system. Tutorials will show up as Pending until they are either Approved or Denied. I've got one that shows up as Broken, as in broken link, I've emailed Kurt to say the link is live but I've heard nothing back. Traffic-wise, Tutorialized is similar to Pixel2Life in that the amount of traffic you get depends on the category. Tutorialized is updated slightly less regularly than Pixel2Life - sometimes days will go before more tutorials are added. This makes Tutorialized somewhat a gamble - if you happen to get a tutorial on the front page prior to a period of inactivity you can find your tutorial on the home page for a few days. Conversely, if your tutorial gets added with lots of other it may not make it onto the home page at all.

Good Tutorials - Despite the generic name, Good Tutorials is Photoshop-only. Good Tutorials, or GT as it is affectionately known, will drive more traffic to your website on a per-tutorial basis than either of the other two. Like Tutorialized, GT is run by a single person, in this case Zach Holman. Zach has built up the largest Photoshop tutorial database available; considering it's a one-man show the site always has fresh content. I've yet to have a tutorial declined from Good Tutorials but I know of others that have. I get the impression Zach screens for quality rather than originality - although most of the content is original some searches yield large numbers of very similar tutorials. If you want some serious traffic GT is the one to submit to - when you make it to the GT front page you know about it! Such is the popularity of GT (it ranks number 1 for "tutorials" with Google at the time of writing) that once your tutorial leaves the home page you will still get a steady flow of traffic. You have to keep checking the site to see if your tutorial is listed - GT does notify you of tutorial approval or rejection.

Here are the links to the sites:

Pixel2Life
Tutorialized
Good-Tutorials

I'm currently trying to hone my Combustion / Premiere skills and needed some footage to work with. I thought I'd try my hand at editing / restoring some home movies that had been recently burnt to DVD. Despite the fact that DVDs are basically MPEG-2, the DVD makers have made it as hard as possible for us to edit them.

If you look at the files on a DVD you will notice one (or more) VOB files; these are the files that contain the audio and video but the bad news is most applications won't let you open them.

After much Googling I found a free application that does the job nicely. This site has an application called Auto Gordian Knot that will decode a VOB file and output it as an AVI. It's very simple to do and the program and very easy to use. The decoding takes some time but it's well worth it.

Please note that most commercial DVDs prohibit this kind of reverse engineering.

Every web or graphic designer has at some point (most likely at too many points) stared at the screen waiting for the ideas and inspiration that will get their next project moving.

One of the easiest ways to cure or treat designer's block is to look at other people's work for inspiration. I've been in this situation recently and there were five sites in particualar that helped me back into the creative frame of mind. They are all collections of nice-looking websites; browse through them and quash your designer's block!

http://www.csstux.com
http://www.webcreme.com
http://www.csselite.com
http://www.css-galleries.com
http://www.cssremix.com

Enjoy!

Okay, so no one wants to make a rubbish website. Sometimes, though, lessons are best learnt on what not to do rather than on what to do - so please take it in the tonuge-in-cheek manner it was intended. The funniest thing about this is, I'm guilty of some of them myself.

Here it is from start to finish, How to Make a Rubbish Website in ten easy steps.

1. Choose a free hoster. Your route to a bad website begins with the hoster. Free hosters are a good way to start as they will offer you limited features and flood your site with adverts that are out of context (more on this in point 5). Furthermore, your site will be slow to load and will run out of bandwidth very quickly. Don't worry about the fact you don't have your own domain name - that helps highlight the lack of credibility your site has.

2. Write one draft of your site content and one draft only.. Bad spelling and grammar give off an unprofessional image so once you've done a first draft of the site content launch it as it is. This saves you having to rewrite your content so that the most important information is at the top.

3. Use a WYSIWYG editor to code your site rather than learning to hard code. Now get down to the coding. Don't fancy learning how to code HTML, CSS and JavaScript properly? No? Good, you don't need to. Simply get hold of a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver and let that write / right the code for you. This helps the rubbishness of your site. You'll end up with loads of inline CSS and JavaScript that you don't understand. Your code will contain lots of extraneous information and won't validate properly.

4. Make the layout as inconsistant as possible. Schneiderman's Golden Rules of usability state that you should strive for consistancy. What does Schneiderman know about rubbish websites? Nothing. Make sure the fonts, menus and colours scheme vary from page to page.

5. Make sure your site name comes first in every title tag on the site. Okay, so the site is designed, the content is there. So far, so rubbish. All rubbish websites have title tags that start with the site name; this makes it difficult for search engines to attribute keywords to your web pages and also frustrates any users that are trying to bookmark your pages.

6. Make your ads as instrusive as possible, ideally make sure they're out of context. Now it's time to start thinking about how to make money from your rubbish site. Sign up for as many advertising programmes as you can. You will want to use popups and popunders as these are the most rubbish. Avoid contextual advertising schemes as these can be unobstrusive if used properly.

7. Make entire sections of your website in Flash. Now's time to develop some Flash-only content. These sections may look pretty but they are, in fact, rubbish. Make your users sit around and wait through lots of convoluted transitions only to find the information they wanted wasn't there in the first place.

8. Test your website on one browser only. As long as your website renders correctly in the browser you usually use then that's fine. There are loads of browsers out there but forget about them. Cross-browser incompatability is essential for any rubbish website.

9. Add a splash screen. Okay, your site is nearly done. Add one final layer of rubbishness: a splash screen. This will turn away visitors and help you get a lower search engine ranking.

10. Launch your site (it doesn't matter if it's finished - include as many "Under Construction" pages as you like). That moment has come - you're going to make your site live! Is the content finished? Don't worry if it isn't. All rubbish websites have an "Under Construction" page or ten in them.

This blog was written as part of the ProBlogger Group Writing Project.

Japan have already demonstrated the next generation of HDTV with the advent of UHDV, or Ultra High Definition video. UHDV boasts 16 times more detail than 1080p HDTV with a screen size of 7680 x 4320. This resolution is so high it makes a mockery of the 2k and 4k resolutions commonly rendered to in cinema. UHDV doesn't just boats a good picture - it also sports a whopping 22.2 sound channels!

Don't get too excited though, it's going to be years before this even makes it past being a prototype. If it ever did make it to our homes the line between TV and reality would be a whole lot finer.

Read more about UHDV on Wikipedia.

The cigar and dirty raincoat are trademarks of one of the world's most well-known fictional detectives, Lt. Columbo. The Columbo programme is renouned for its unique approach to crime. The identity of the murderer is disclosed to the viewer who then watches how Columbo, played by Peter Falk, goes about solving the crime. It's more about howheworksoutheydunnit rather than whodunnit.

Season 4 of this awarding-winning programme comes to Region 2 DVD this month; the DVD is due for release on Monday 18 September 2006 and features the episodes:

1. An Exercise In Fatality
2. Negative Reaction
3. By Dawn's Early Light
4. Troubled Waters (excellent episode starring Robert Vaughn set on a cruise ship)
5. Playback
6. A Deadly State Of Mind

Order your copy now.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant return to BBC2 on Thursday 14 September at 9.00PM with a second series of their hit sitcom, Extras. Extras see Gervais play the character of Andy Millman, an actor who works an a TV and film extra in the hope it will be pave his way to a successful career in acting. Despite the fact he works closely with (real-life) stars he never seems to land the parts he really wants. Maybe it's the down to his incompetent agent (played by Merchant) or maybe it wouldn't be a comedy if he did.

Although not as ground-breaking as The Office, Extras is an original and funny sitcom. The formula works well and is funny in its own way. Although the character of Millman is different to that of David Brent some of the mannerisms of Brent are evident.

Series 1 guest starred Ben Stiller, Ross Kemp, Vinnie Jones, Kate Winslet, Les Dennis, Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Stewart. Series 2 promises more stars: David Bowie, Chris Martin, Orlando Bloom, Daniel Radcliffe, Sir Ian McKellen, Germaine Greer, Diana Rigg, Moira Stewart, Richard Briers, Ronnie Corbett, Robert Lindsay, Keith Chegwin and Stephen Fry

Visit the offical Extras home page here.

It occured to me recently that I'd developed an application addiction. Throughout the day I was checking emails, RSS feeds, Google AdSense, Google Analytics . . . the list goes on. There must be lots of users out there with a similar addiction; I figured the best way to stop the cravings is to switch these applications off during the working day.

It worked!

If you pin point what's contributing to your time wasting you can get more done in a day. I've documented my findings in a new aricle.

Read the article Programs to Switch Off While Working here.

About three months ago I started using the Alexa toolbar as I found it interesting to see how various websites ranked in terms of traffic. I knew how it worked: Alexa tracks traffic via anyone that has the toolbar installed and then produces stats on them. While I knew the statistics would be tainted due to the demographic that would use the Alexa toolbar (mostly webmasters) I thought it would be a reasonable way to track the popularity of my site.

One month, after writing lots of new content and getting lots of new backlinks I went up 2 million places! I was delighted with this progress. Another month passed and I added some more content and I went up another 400,000 places. As I looked over my monthly stats, I started to get suspicious. A 10% rise in traffic equated to a 400,000 rise in the Alexa charts (and the higher you get the more competative it gets). Either all the competing sites were doing really badly or there was more to this than meets the eye.

I twigged what had happened: I'd installed the Alexa toolbar on the browser I was using for testing my own website. The penny dropped. I'd been visiting my own website and getting it up the Alexa chart.

My point was later proved when working on a new webiste for a client. I reigstered the domain and spent a weekend developing the site. Hey presto, next Alexa update a site that only I knew about and visited had made it into the top 600,000! This proves not only how few people use the toolbar but the tracking isn't savvy enough to distinguish visits from hits.

The lesson is to take a huge amount of salt with your Alexa traffic rank. It's sad that some advertising programmes still use Alexa traffic rank as a factor for pricing advertising space. It's a shame, the idea of having a global popularity chart is great but for now it's just a pipe dream.

I've just listened to the third episode of Season Three of The Ricky Gervais Show and here are my thoughts . . .

The setup is pretty much the same: Ricky, Steve and Karl chatting for half an hour. So far, there's been no input from the listeners: no emails have been read out and there has been no sign of Monkey News or Rockbusters. The only feature that is still there is Karl's Diary, exceprts of which are read from by Steve. In addition to that, Series 3 brings something akin to Karl's diary, his poetry. Yes, Karl has started to write poetry.

So far the series is certainly very funny but for me it doesn't quite have the same hilarity as the previous two series. I was always a huge fan of Monkey News and I think the show definitely suffers in its absense. Karl's poetry is funny but I can't imagine it having as long a shelf life as his diary which is still as funny as it always was. The chit-chat is like it always has been. The usual topics of how Karl's week has been and what he thinks of animals and various scientific theories still make me laugh. The banter between the Ricky and Steve is still there, as strong as ever, and Steve's contribution is . . . not much really. He doesn't hamper the show really, I just don't think he contributes much to the hilarity. If you took Ricky or Karl out the show wouldn't be worth listening to - I think it would be almost as funny if Steve wasn't there. I'm saying I dislike Steve (The Office and Extras are great sitcoms) I just think he makes a better script writing than he does broadcaster.

Overall, I don't think series three is quite as good as series one and two. Maybe, it's wearing thin, maybe I haven't listened them enough times yet or maybe you can have too much of a good thing (if you add up the XFM archive and all the podcasts there must be over fifty hours to listen to). Given the feedback on the Pilkipedia Forums I'm in the minority.

Flash websites are everywhere. I'll admit it now - I hate Flash-only websites. I reckon I close down over 90% of Flash-only website before the preloader has finished.

Paradoxically, I love Flash - I think it's a great way to bring extra life and interaction to a web page. So, what am I saying? Do I love Flash or hate it?

As with all great things Flash has a use and an abuse. I (and millions of others) believe Flash-only websites are an abuse. I've written an article, Should you make your website in Flash to help those of you designing a new website to decide whether or not a Flash-only website is the answer.

Read the article Should you make your website in Flash here.

I've added some more sites to my Where to Submit your Photoshop tutorials article. There are now over fifty websites to keep you busy.

If you need help writing your tutorials read my article entitled Tutorial Writing Guide: writing the right tutorials.

Remember what a superb way Photoshop tutorials are to get traffic to your website!

Happy Photoshopping!

It's what us fans have been waiting months for - Seasons 3 of the Ricky Gervais podcast. I'm downloading the episode from Audible as we speak. There is going to be a new episode every Tuesday until 26 September (so six episodes in the series).

I'm so excited about this - will there be more Monkey News?

You can get season 3 for £3.75 and series one to three for £6.99. Believe me - this is some of the funniest comedy EVER!

I'll blog my review later on. Right now I've got half an hour of comedy genius to listen to . . .

At one side of the Corran Ferry crossing by Loch Linnhe resides a white Inn by the name of Inn at Ardgour. Places to eat in the Scottish Highlands are few and far between. So, when you stumble across a place that looks reasonable from the outside you really hope the food and drink is going to be nice on the inside. On my recent holiday this particular Inn was one of the few places within an acceptable driving distance from our cabin. And given its close proximity to the ferry (which we used several times) it was definitely one of the most convenient places to eat.

We went there twice and we were disappointed both times.

The Inn looks quaint from the outside - it's nothing special from the on but it seemed pleasant enough.

The first time we were told we would have to wait 45 minutes before entering the restaurant (even though there were hardly any other customers there). Presumably, that's to get up to buy drinks; we were going to drink there anyway so if that was the reason it was pretty pointless. We were made to order from a standard menu in the empty bar area and were later marched into the half-empty restaurant exactly 45 minutes later. At that point it felt more like an army training camp than an enjoyable meal out but we'd yet to taste the food. The restaurant itself was fairly attractive and well-maintained. The real disappointment came when the food arrived. Between us we'd ordered a good variety of meals. Other than the mediocre haggis the rest of it was sub-standard. The venison burgers were dry and overcooked, the pie was stodgy and tasteless and the scampi was clearly deep-fried from a supermarket frozen packet. What was truly pathetic was the fact the small portions were served on such big plates. It was laughable that this restaurant tried to give off the image it was of Michelin Star stock yet it served up third-rate pub grub.

One of the barman then regaled us with a story of how he’d taken a couple to court for not paying for a meal. This isn’t the kind of thing I want to talk about when having a meal in the Scottish Highlands. I want to talk about the beautiful rolling glens and the vast array of Scotch whiskeys. I wondered, was I eating in Guantanamo Bay or an Highland Inn?

You might ask – why did we go there a second time?

As mentioned earlier, places to eat are few and far between; most places seem to stop serving at half past eight. We’d been for an excursion to the Isle of Mull and had left it dangerously close to the half eight mark before going out for food. Our favourite place was fully booked so we had to return to the Inn at Ardgour. This was better than not eating (only just).

The second time was even worse than the first time. They would not seat us in the restaurant as they were too busy. What ever happened to hospitality? Failing that what ever happened to running a good business? Why turn down customers? The patronising waitress told us we could feast on nuts and crisps instead. Having traveled so far we stayed for a couple of drinks and went home unfed.

I had a Pot Noodle when I got in – it was a lot better than the scampi I’d had at the Inn at Ardgour – you know you’re doing something wrong when you’re beaten by a plastic cup full of flavourings and MSG!

My advice is if you’re in the area go elsewhere. I have nothing but utter contempt for this place at their low quality of food and service. Hopefully, when this gets to the top of Google (above the Inn at Ardgour official site) the owners will read this.

When you do take this cooking tip from me: revenge is a dish best served cold.

To blog or to article write? That is the question.

My site contains a blog and an articles section. What's the difference? Should you write blogs or articles? Are they the same thing?

To a certain extent it's a matter of opinion and there is certainly some crossover between the term blog and the term article. Both generic terms themselves, blogs can be articles and articles can be blogs.

In my opinion, for the ethos of my website and for the scope of this blog entry I class blogs as personal and opinionated whereas articles are closer towards neutral and are very much formally written. Put simply, I try to get my viewpoints made clear in blogs and the facts made clear in articles. Even this doesn't serve as a hard-and-fast rule - I often spend time wondering whether a blog should be written as an article and vice versa.

Here are four questions I ask myself before deciding whether or not I'm writing a blog or an article:

What's the longevity? How well does the entry age? A lot of us blog about the ever-changing world of technology. Let’s face it – some things start going out of date the moment we publish them. Since blog entries have a date and time attached to them such transient subject matter lends itself to blogging more so than articles.

First person or third person? My days at university told me that first person (I said this, I said that) is not appropriate for credible articles. Rather, the third person (It is this, it is that) should be used. I always write blogs in the first person viewpoint and articles in the third.

Personal or professional? What kind of image do I want to project? I find a blog is more about me and my personal experiences; an article is much more neutral and unbiased. If you want sympathy and feeling from the reader you’re far more likely to achieve that with a blog than an article. Conversely, if you’re going for academic credibility a researcher will never cite a blog entry whereas they may do a well-written article.

How much of it is your viewpoint? If there’s anything more than a slight tinge of my personal opinion then I make it a blog rather than an article. Any points made in a blog should be on your own outlook – an article should be based on cited facts.

You may think, so what? As long as I write something on the subject it doesn’t really matter. In some cases that may be so but is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Can you use blogging and article writing to your benefit?

Yes, you can. Read on.

Generally, I favour the use of "Blarticles" - this is a word (that I made up for this blog entry and) I use for writing an article and then blogging about it on its release. When I say Blarticles, I mean a blog AND an article, not a blog and an article mixed together.

My approach to Blarticles is this: research and write quality articles in the third person view point; base it on factual information and cite facts. Then, blog about it. Blog about your own article! You write a blog about your neutral, unbiased article and give your own opinion on it. There are several benefits:

The ability to perform resurrections. Sometimes your blogs may be dismissed by readers who stumble across them at a later date as being too old. That’s a problem with blogs – they’re time-centric – they appear to date even though the ideas in them may be as fresh as the day they were written. Articles aren’t like this. You can use your blog to resurrect articles; let’s say you write a timeless article one month and blog about it. A week, a month, a year or ten years later (as often as you see fit) you can blog about it again from a fresh angle. You can re-drive people to your content in a way that is harder to do through standard blogging.

Good for search engines. If you choose your keywords carefully writing a Blarticle means twice as much content for the search engines to index. For each new idea you have a blog entry and an article for the search engines to pick up on. It doesn’t matter that they’re on the same subject. Remember, one is factual and the other is opinionated so as far as the search engines are concerned it’s twice as much new content.

Make the right impression to the right people. Academics can read your article and bloggers and friends can read your blog. It’s so simple - you can be a friend and a professional at the same time.

Of course, some bloggers may not have much of a choice. Whatever they write will look like a blog entry due to the nature of their website (i.e. it uses commercial blogging software on a site that is primarily or exclusively blogging). I'm lucky, this blog is just a facet of my own hand-coded site so I can integrate non-blog elements as little or as much as I like.

If you can start "Blarticling" then to blog or to article write will never be the question!

Looking over my web stats I get over 80% of my traffic from Photoshop tutorials. I thought I would take the oppurtunity to plug my Where to Submit your Photoshop Tutorials article.

At the time of writing there are over 40 sites to submit to (and it gets updated all the time)! So, if you want a lot of extra traffic and some quality, relevant backlinks start writing your tutorials now and get submitting! My hot picks for some seriously high traffic are Pixel2Life, Good-Tutorials and Tutorialized.

If you need some pointers on how to write a tutorial read my guide on tutorial writing.

There are so many sites to submit to now the problem is not finding the time to write tutorials - the problem is finding time to submit them!

No one can ever spend their time perfectly - that's a fact! Each day you're given 24 hours and it's up to you to use them the best you can. Time is fixed - when we say we "save time" that's not at all true; in fact, that's impossible. Time will pass at the same rate come rain, wind or shine thus all we can do is make better use of it. We all fool ourselves that productivity equates to the amount of hours spent in the workplace. We reason: the more time spent in our place of work the higher the productivity. To get more done we need to get out of this mindset and rather than strive to spend more time working we should aim to improve the quality of the time we spend working. The six tips below can help you to do just that. I'm no expert on the matter, these are just things I've tried and tested myself and have helped me get more out fo the day. Not how each point contains the word little. I'm stressing that you only need to make small changes to get really big improvements.

1. Go to bed a little earlier. Your mind is sharper and more productive first thing in the morning; it is much more alert and is a better frame to concentrate. This won't cost you any time and it's so simple; all you're doing is trading some lower quality time for some higher quality time. Even half an hour can make all the difference. Don't worry if you're not a morning person - your body is quick to adapt. A shower, hot drink and light breakfast are the perfect way to get the physical and mental juices flow.

2. Exercise a little more. Never exercising is like never servicing a car. True, none of us NEVER exercise - even walking up the stairs to your bedroom is exercise albeit not a lot. Along with eating (see point 4), drinking (see point 3) and sleeping (see point 1) these are the main factors that determine your productivity potential. When people think of exercise they think of signing up to an expensive gym and spending two hours a day lifting weights and using running machines. This isn't true - people unnecessarily spend pots of money each month for gym membership. Some people will get in their car, drive it to the gym and spend £100 per month so they can use the gym's running machine (okay - I admit there's more to gyms than running machines, I'm just making a point) when they could have saved a lot of time and money going for a run in their own neighborhood. The best way to exercise is to go for brisk walks - this is good for your all-round health, especially your heart, and it's free and enjoyable. You can be super efficient and combine exercise with taking breaks (see point 3).

3. Drink a little less caffeine, drink a little more water. Caffeine will seriously affect your ability to concentrate, especially if your body is relying on it to maintain alertness. Ironically, if you rely too heavily on caffeine as a stimulant it will slow you down. If you're really tired rather than battling on, rest or take an early night - remember, you're swapping poor quality time for good quality time (see point 1). Swap all (or as many as you're comfortable with) your drinks from tea or coffee to water. There are many benefits to drinking water (too numerous to mention) but suffice to say it is utilised by your entire body. Your brain is 90% water and water consumption has been linked to improved concentration. Don't believe the energy drink blurb of improving concentration by n% - these drinks contain drugs - for every high, there is a low. Furthermore, fatigue is a symptom of dehydration. If you find yourself feeling tired take a break (see point 5) and drink a large glass of water. If you are deterred by the blandness of water (I personally find it refreshing) add some fresh juice and ice to it (lemon and / or lime taste the best) for a nice cold drink or try one of the many varieties of caffeine-free fruit teas available at any good supermarket.

4. Eat a little more balanced. People erroneously eat "brain food" such as fish to improve their productivity and concentration. Whether or not fish is actually good for the brain remains to be adequately proved and what food actually improves concentration is a much-debated topic (although proteins generally seem to be used by the brain). Rather than succumbing to the fads of high-protein diets and detoxes always eat a balanced meal three times a day at regular intervals - this will ensure good all-round nourishment for your body.

5. Relax a little more. Break the working day with small periods of relaxation. Work for periods of between one and one and a half hours at a time. Then take a small break of ten to fifteen minutes. In that time do something completely detached from your work. If you work at a computer all day don't spend your breaks on the Internet. Have a drink and read a chapter of a book, listen to some music or go for a short walk. If work-related thoughts creep into your mind in this time quickly think of something non-work related. This gives your mind a break and means that when you go back to your work it will be firing on all cylinders. As a computer programmer I can testify to the effectiveness of this. On many occasions I have agonised over a programming problem for hours and hours without taking a break. Frustrated and disappointed I have left my computer and gone for a drink or played some computer games and the solution to my problem has just come to me in a flash. Your brain is very clever and can solve problems while your conscious mind is thinking of other things. However, this will only happen if you give your brain the relaxation it deserves.

6. Waste a little less time. Don't think you're a time waster? Even the most efficient of us waste time - it's easy to prove. Tomorrow make sure you carry a pen and a piece of paper around with you from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed. Each time you do something, however trivial, jot it down and make a note of time time. When you have documented an entire day's activity take a look down it and put a star against anything that wasn't productive or indirectly productive (breaks are indirectly productive). Now using the times you've jotted down add up everything that has a star next to it. You'll be frightened at how unproductive you've been. Don't despair though this is human nature. Look to improve you productivity a little each day. No one can or even will work a 100% productive day but if you can go from 10% productivity to 20% you'll be getting twice as much done in a day as you used to. You may think you work a busy day but it is possible to be busy doing nothing! You can save time by shaving ten minutes here and ten minutes there of various daily activities such as making lunch, taking a bath, surfing forums, et cetera.

This blog entry was created for the Lists Group Writing Project.

I was on my way home the other day after enjoying a couple of beers and instinctively went into my local takeaway to get a doner kebab. I eat them fairly regularly and they are my all-time favourite takeaway. Someone had told me earlier in the week that if I knew what was in them I wouldn't eat them. Considering some of the things I've eaten in the past, I thought, that wouldn't bother me.

It did however get me curious as to what exactly goes into doner meat. The next day I Googled for about half an hour but couldn't find anything. This got me even more intrigued - is there a takeaway doner meat conspiracy going on in the UK?

That evening I rang up to get another kebab delivered but this time I asked one of the chefs if he could give me a rundown of the ingredients for a "project" I was working on. He said they bought them in frozen on a skewer and all it said on the plastic packet it came in was "Lamb". That wasn't exactly helpful. I wondered though in today's health conscious society - is there a legal obligation on the takeaways' part to disclose the ingredients?

That night I emailed the Food Standard's Agency who basically said, no, there is no obligation since they are caterers and not in food retails.

Now I was even more curious - even the chefs don't know what they're cooking! I went back to my good friend the Internet and changed my search strategy. This time I searched for the manufacturers rather than the takeaways. I got a handful of emails and sent them all the same request (asking for a recipe). I did get one reply though it was very unspecific. With hindsight I should have expected such a reply. After all, I could have been competition trying to steal their secret recipe. Given that, the company that did reply were kind to do so.

So, the Doner Kebab Meat Mystery continues. If you should unearth more than I do, please get in touch.

I've documented my experience in a new article entitled, What are the Ingredients of Takeaway Doner Meat?

You can read the article here.

Anyway, I think I'll celebrate my limited success with a doner kebab. Enjoy . . .

I rarely watch TV (I mostly watch DVDs) but I happened to view quite a bit of it last night. The 1957 classic 12 Angry Men starring Henry Fonda was on early evening so I decided to watch it. I've been told by people of various generations that this is a classic film; I can't believed I've not watched it before since it stars the Quincy legend Jack Klugman (I think this film launched his acting career so without it there would be no Quincy ME!).

The entire film takes place in a jury room - the jurors discuss what seems to be an open-and-shut case of First Degree Murder. However, protagonist Mr Davis (Fonda) votes not guilty, preventing the jury from coming to a quick and unanimous verdict. As time goes on the jurors question whether they can judge the accused guilty "beyond reasonable doubt" and thus send him to the electric chair.

This is one of the most entertaining films I've seen for a long time. The acting and the screenplay are first class - it just goes to show how much scope there is for 12 actors sat around a table (other than a few minutes at the start and at the end it's all set in one room). As well as this it is a clever expose of the democratic legal system.

I'm not the kind of person that will automatically praise a classic just because everyone else does but this really does deserve to be flagged as a classic . . . and best of all it features Jack Klugman!

Although this was my first time watching it the story was very familiar as I've seen the Hancock's Half Hour episode, 12 Angry Men, lots of times. If you've seen both you will realise how good a pardoy Galton and Simpson created. The Hancock version is one of my all-time favourite episodes of sitcom and I'm pleased to say the original is now one of my all-time favourite bits if cinema.

12 Angry men = 1 happy man!

Learn more about the film here.

The div tags on my site always wrapped when the browser was too thin (around less than 800 pixels wide). It was not too much of a problem as according to my web stats there are hardly any users that would view the site at such a resolution. The problem came, however, when software such as that used by snap.com and Alexa would take an image snapshot of the site; it would break up most of the top menu.

I searched Google for a solution but didn't find anything. However, I found out how to fix it and it's very easy.

Simply create another div around the wrapping div (make sure it doesn't contain anything else other than wrapping div) and in your CSS specify the width absolutely. I'm not sure how this works for relatively sized sites but for absolute sized sites like mine it works great.

I tested it with Firefox, IE and Opera and it renders correctly.

I recently came across a forum post where the original poster was recommending that webmasters add as many external links to Wikipedia as possible to get quality backlinks and better search engine rankings. I've also seen posts of webmasters who have seen a sudden dip in page ranking for particular pages only to find it's down to the fact that a link to their site has been removed from Wikipedia.

Clearly there is some erroneous information out there and some confusion as to whether or not you should use Wikipedia for backlinking. The answer is yes and no.

Yes, Wikipedia can provide quality backlinks but no, you shouldn't just add as many as you like.

I took the liberty of writing an article entitled, Can you use Wikipedia to Build Backlinks?

The article invites you to think carefully before adding external links to Wikipedia and details eight points for webmasters to consider.

Read the article here.

I recently came across this . . .

Open up the shell in your operating system (Start > Run > cmd for Windows users) and enter this into the command line and press return:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

If everything works okay (if it doesn't it probably means your firewall is blocking the port 23) you will seen Star Wars the movie in ASCII (text) delivered through Telnet (a remote shell access protocol).

Being a very busy person and not much of a Star Wars fan I only watched a minutes ot two so I don't know how long it goes on for. It's hard to decide whther I should be impressed or feel pity at this. It's impressive that someone has taken the time to put this together (it must have taken hours upon hours) but at the same time I can't help feeling pity that whoever has put it together has wasted their time.

Is this the geekiest thing ever?

DISCLAIMER: This is my review of the company 4UHosting. It is based purely on my own experience with the company over the last four months. This is an independent review: I am in no way affiliated with 4UHosting nor was I asked / paid / told to write this review.

I wouldn't normally plug a hosting company like this but . . . I switched over to 4UHosting earlier in the year after a bad experience with another company. I had found 4UHosting through Google or a web ad (I can't remember which). The price was very low considering the huge amounts of features (more on this later); under the Advanced Plan I could host a handful of my client's websites all under one control panel.

The reason for the blog is because I came across some reviews on reviewcentre.com that really slated 4UHosting. So, I thought it was worth me sharing my experiences as it might redress the balance a little.

Features. Features-wise 4U offer everything you would expect (PHP, MySQL, plenty of webspace and bandwidth, complete domain and email management and so on) all accessed through an easy-to-use Control Panel. I've found some hosters let themselves down on their choice of Control Panel. For me one of the greatest feature was unlimited parked domains. Take a more detailed look at the features here.

Support. I've made several requests for support via email and have had, at latest, a same-day reply although usually I didn't have to wait longer than two to three hours and my queries / problems were solved to satisfaction each time.

Downtime. I've only noted one bit of downtime in four months which is pretty good and it wasn't down for too long - their stats speak for themselves.

To my knowledge 4UHosting don't do virtual server hosting or dedicated hosting so if you're after that then obviously look else where. However, if you want great features, outstanding value and reliable service for shared hosting then I recommend 4UHosting.

Visit the 4UHosting website here.

Compare the 4UHosting Plans here.

And that's my view on it all .