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The new Amazon Kindle Fire announced

28th September 2011 Kindle, News , , , , by

I’ve just watched the new Amazon Kindle Fire advert and – I want one! It’s only available in the US right now – and it’s for the bargain price of $199.

I hope they don’t do what Barnes and Noble did with their Nook Color and leave it for the US only.

It looks very much like a Blackberry Playbook, but uses a new type of browser that splits the load between the local hardware and the Amazon Cloud Compute services, so it’s supposed to be very fast. Dual core too, it has a gorilla glass screen, integration with the Amazon apps store, a heavily customised Android system, full colour screen… but at a fraction of the cost of the ipad.

Watch the video HERE

I’m DEFINITELY going to be buy one when it comes to the UK, but unfortunately I don’t think it’ll be a straight currency transfer to the UK. $199 is about £149 right now… so it’ll more likely do what other US providers do and charge the same amount in sterling. The question is, when will it be available? From everything I’ve read, IF it’s coming to the UK, it’ll likely be available before Christmas – but it’s more likely to cost £199.

Cheap UK web hosting

21st September 2011 Hosting , , , by
Cheap UK web hosting

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Fix for RSS Error: WP HTTP Error: name lookup timed out

3rd September 2011 Wordpress , , , by

wordpressI’ve just had a minor hassle trying to sort out the RSS Error on a different site that I maintain, but after searching for a solution online and not finding one, I had to figure out something myself – so I’ve posted my solution here. It’s actually really simple too… so that’s a bonus.

If you use sub-domains with the latest version of WordPress v3.x – and try to use RSS feeds to cross populate them, for some reason, all of a sudden you may start getting this WP HTTP Error. I followed all of the advice online, from consulting with my host, deactivating and re-activating plugins, and re-installing WordPress. Nothing worked.

So, the simple solution is pass to the feeds through an external feed generator/management provider, such as Feedburner. You can still use exactly the same feeds, but as they’re now routed through an external service, WordPress doesn’t seem to have a fit about the redirects any more… and, hey presto, you’re back up and running again.

Agree a date

31st August 2011 Web & PC stuff , by

I’ve been told about this web site – Agree a Date (http://www.agreeadate.com/) which sounds ideal for trying to coordinate friends and colleagues for various activities. I’m going to add it to my bookmarks and next time I need to organise an event, I’ll be giving it a go!

The difference between sub domains, parked domains and add-on domains

22nd August 2011 Web & PC stuff , , by

I still get confused about the differences between sub domains, parked domains and add-on domains… so here’s a handy reference definition: 

Sub domain 

  • Lets say your domain is mysite.co.uk
  • You install a Discusssion Forum and put in in a directory called mysite.co.uk/forum/
  • You can turn the forum into a sub-domain by adding it as a sub-domain from your Control Panel
  • Now you can access your forum as either mysite.co.uk/forum OR forum.mysite.co.uk
  • This generally costs you nothing and is free.

Parked Domain

  • You have two domains mysite.co.uk and my-other-site.co.uk
  • mysite.co.uk is the domain of your website and you want to add my-other-site.co.uk
  • You want them both to go to the same place. In other words, when someone types either www.mysite.co.uk or www.my-other-site.co.uk they will go to the same page(s) on your website.
  • In order to have additional parked domains you need to purchase them from a registry.

Add-On Domains

  • You have two domains mysite.co.uk and my-other-site.co.uk
  • You want the two domains to be totally separate/independent websites
  • In order to have additional add-on domains you need to purchase them from a registry.

 

Apologies about the site problems

17th August 2011 News by

Apologies if you’ve been trying to access content on my web site for the last 24 hours… I’ve been having one or two problems with the migration to a new server. It should be mostly finished now, although the nameservers now need to fully resolve before the site will be back up 100% of the time. Equally, for some reason, the theme has broken too – so that’s task number 2 on the list!

Disable directory browsing

11th August 2011 Web & PC stuff , , by

If, like me, you like to play around with your web site – occasionally you’ll accidentally break it, as I have. This latest time, I disabled the directory browsing on my site to increase security, but the way that I tried to do it through the cpanel index manager, left my whole site inaccessible.

So that I remember next time I do this… I’ve written the instructions down here.

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Fantastic Chinese acrobats

6th August 2011 YouTube , , by

Here’s another YouTube video that I’ve been sent recently… the skill of these guys is absolutely amazing!

Personality tests

1st August 2011 Careers, General , , by

the brainPersonality tests are frequently used in business and university life to help gain a greater understanding of one’s self and of others around you. I’ve had the good fortune to go through a number of the tests myself and it’s often surprising just how accurate they can be. Myers Briggs, Belbin, Jung, Freud, etc. – they all provide different insights into the human psyche. But the reason for this post, is that I was emailed a link to a really handy site that provides a whole host of free, online tests – and it’s definitely worth a visit: http://similarminds.com/

There are also companies that offer psychological or psychometric testing – and it’s often used in the recruitment process – which is why there’s some listed on the Recruiter Network, here: http://www.recruiternetwork.co.uk/category/recruitment-suppliers/testing/

Great idea – home made paper plant pots!

28th July 2011 Green, YouTube , , by

I came across this video today and thought it was a great idea to be green, save money and recycle unwanted paper – make your own plant pots!

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