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July 20 A tale of Satellite vs BroadbandNever have heard this before..
Normal broadband speed was around 2.5Mb which at the distance from the Exchange was considered quite good. And then one day the Satellite distribution box decided to develop a fault (although we did not know that at the time since the satellite TV was still working fine). Suddenly our broadband failed completely. ISP suggested that our modem was faulty - so a new one was purchased. Result was no better but a very old modem allowed us a connection....
A telephone engineer changed our wiring because it was suggested that the fault existed internally... but the broadband got worse...
Then we heard that our neighbours had problems... and nobody could solve it.. days passed...
Finally we had a BT engineer test our internal circuit and modified the wiring again.... at the same time another engineer has found that there was an incredibly strong RF signal that was causing interference on the telephone lines - and it was our satellite distribution box! It was switched off - and suddenly I had the best broadband signal that I have ever had - at 7Mb!
An emergency call to a satellite engineer has give us back the satellite tv and so every one is happy.... except our neighbours because they still can't achieve 7Mb! May 13 CMS GrowsThe number of sites using the new CMS grows! Added to St Marys Ferndown and New Directions Training and Fran Robinson's Alexander site are Julie Vivienne's new site for performance and worship events, Trevor Newlin's website site Newlin Design and soon to be fully operational will be Mouthpeace Dental Practice.
There will be some new sites and some old ones converted to use the CMS system soon.
The CMS is relatively easy to use (!) - since we are dealing with a backend system more than the front end. However some simple PHP statements will populate the pages without any difficulty so the whole thing is now much faster to develop new sites. There is still more to do - since there is always something that can be done better - or new facilities can be added to make it more useful.
I am sure we can handle Flash better, and the gallery could be better... and the menus are a pain to get the CSS right - but it perhaps there are yet ways even these can be improved...
I guess it is still a "watch this space!"
Waiting for the next episode. March 17 Changes in DirectionI once thought life could be simple. Get up in the morning, go to work, leave work, enjoy company in the evening, sleep.
How rarely this turns out though.
Having had to become a consultant developer for Churchill Retirement Living I eventually found work (part time) for radikls. Work = money = life I thought. But no, the type of work was not for me - do not misunderstand - I love the internet, I love developing websites, I love finding solutions to difficult problems (preferably IT ones) - but working on too many websites at once was not for me. I prefer one at a time (or perhaps two or three!) so that I can be sure of what I am going to be doing for the next few hours - I can plan for that and feel comfortable in that - even though there may be very difficult challenges to overcome.
I've recently been converted to the ideas of CMS. For so many years I have thought only of bespoke html development - nothing else was pure... but developing a content management system that works and provides flexibility such that I can reuse the code again and again... I can see real advantages.
Having recently developed a very complex CMS for Dorset Fire (http://www.dorsetfire.co.uk/new) I felt that it would be worth developing a much simpler CMS that I could use to enhance a number of websites and make developing new websites very much easier. The first live websites using the CMS are now active:
Watch out for a number of new ones shortly!
I'm convinced. A lot of my own sites will become CMS based!
Blessings to you all!
Paul Newlin
September 06 A long time - no talkI've been thinkingBad thing to do at the best of time! Sitting in front of computers looking at my websites and those I have designed - is it time to get rid of some? I have one site that I am beginning to think would be brilliant for emails. http://bespecial.org is one of my domains that has not been fully utilised. But I wonder how many people would like to have an address such as john@bespecial.org ? Anyway - perhaps that is for another day. I own enough domains to keep me very happy without buying any more - but sometimes I can't think what to do with some of them. Apart from http://newlins.org and http://newlins.net and http://newlins.com I bought newlintech and newlinsnet variations. Some I use, some I don't. The long running saga of http://www.millstreammanagement.co.uk looks as though it is coming to an end. http://millstream-estates.co.uk was set up purely as a container until the other site could be properly managed - and finally looks as though we can get them all to point to the same place. http://millstream-property.co.uk was set up as a subsite to all sales - but we really could not promote it until the main site was properly under control. Interesting that the number of hits on the Churchill Retirement site has not improved with an adwords campaign. Well not appreciably any way. But we capped the campaign at £500 per month so perhaps it is worth it just to improve the site's exposure in the search engines. We will see what will happen over the coming months - perhaps I might even develop this site more...
May 29 I cant trust this worldThe Credit Crunch is biting.It seems as though it could go on forever--- but at least I've been able to get some interesting websites off the ground! I've been developing websites for Churchill Retirement Living - Churchill Retirement Living and also Millstream Estates/Millstream Management and Millstream Property. The church website goes on - St Marys Ferndown and many changes have been made to my own sites at NewlinsNet - but there always seems to be more to do. Watch out for the new St Marys website! So - if anyone would like to comment on my sites - please do! I am learning more each day.
Paul |
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