Andy’s Web Blog

Apple iPhone 3G HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) version will be great but will it make me leave my Blackberry 8820?

Apple’s new iPhone with 3G networking is going to be a winner. It will enable broadband like speeds over the mobile phone network which previously struggled to reach dial up speeds. It will make mobile internet, true internet fast and accessible.

I am a proud owner of a Blackberry 8820 on Orange. I use the internet a lot but the speed and somewhat limited browser can cause issues sometime.

Although unlike, the iPhone, the Blackberry 8820 has a full QWERTY keyboard which after an initial learning curve you can get a decent words per minute ratio. The iPhone text entry method, all be it innovative is not as good as having tactile keys to press.

I think I shall wait for the new Blackberry, the Blackberry Bold! Or at least until I can justify to my wife that I need a Blackberry and an iPhone.

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Three mobile broadband is a great idea, in theory, as you can plug in the toggle and away you go. ADSL like broadband on the go and access wherever you want. So you can take all your online life with you. But how is it in practice.

Installing the Three mobile dongle, a Huawei E220 seemed to be an easy thing. Looking at the three website they had a Mac specific instruction manual and a driver to down load as the dongle does not contain Mac drivers as it does contain windows drivers. A minor set back I thought. So I download the driver and get the set up guide ready. Installing the driver goes well, but then the guide suggests that I change the APN number with the driver application… but where is it. It is not on the three website ad there is no mention of it in the questions and answers. Has Three made a mess up? Well only a small one, but thankfully where there is a technical problem there is a geek who has posted a solution in a forum. You need to download this file, it is not hosted in any official capacity, so please feel free to down load it from here to get your Mac working with three mobile broadband. (lhuaweidatacardapp) You then add the APN, three.co.uk and away you go.

Once connected I went to Speedtest.net, I manage to get a download of 1mb and upload of 100k. Not bd in my view for being in a built up area in London. The ping as high but in everyday usage it works. Pages are not as quick as appearing as on my home broadband connection, but that is 24mb from Bethere (see my review.)

So, it works while in London in my flat, but what about a road test. I am currently on a train speeding through the wonderful countryside of the west country in the UK. As soon as I got on the train at Paddington, I got the laptop out and fired up the device. It connected first time, registering 3.6mb, surfed a few pages, facebook being one (my profile is LINK if you want to add me.) and it worked well. It is a wonderful technology that allows my Mac to connect to the Internet from a high-speed train. Although, once we hit open country where I could hear the white noise of people saying, ‘hello, hello can you hear me?’ I realised my magical mystery tour of mobile broadband was about to turn into a wet British summer. The connection ground to a halt. I do not blame three for this, covering mile after mile of field is not a priority as cows and sheep simply don’t do mobiles. But I would like to see a greater commitment to developing a technology that provided a mobile service to long haul train routes. So I am writing this blog into a word file at the moment but do plan on posting it via three mobile broadband shortly.

The data plan is also very good, I have opted for a pay as you go option. For £15 I get 3gb of data to use over 30 days. I think this is very reasonable when there is no contract; the other options are 1gb for £10 and 7GB for £25.

One of the other reasons I brought three mobile broadband is you can use it abroad on three mobile networks for no extra cost. You can also look on that particular countries website and see if it they have signal in your area, even down to if they have signal in the accommodation you are planning to stay in. That is simply brilliant!

I am very happy with three mobile broadband, and once you have gotten around the comparative minor technical hitch at setting up it is a really useful and dependable service.

I have also contacted three and asked them to put the setup program on their website along with the driver for the Huawei E220.

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Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, not only applies to regular websites but to Blogs as well. Here are 10 top tips that I have learnt from my Blog and my Website design business, Andy’s Web

Getting your Blog on Googles first page is brilliant. My Doctor Who Blog, has been consistently on Google’s first page when searching ‘doctor who blog’. Here are 10 top tips that will help improve the SEO to your Blog.

1, Write original and interesting content in your Blog, it may seem obvious but the better the content the more relevant readers and search engines will think of it. Keep up-to-date on your area and don’t be afraid to experiment with styles and ideas.

2, Use a content management system such as Wordpress, this is easy to update and creates RSS (live bookmark) feeds which can be used by readers to subscribe to your content.

3, Choose the Blogs title and description well, use key phrases where possible but keep it readable.

4, Categories are your friend and everyone else’s, use them sparingly, keep them to a minimum and only one to be used with each post.

5, Tags, they make the Blog easy to find for everyone. These are composed of the main keywords/phrases of your blog. A tag cloud is a very good tool, (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/hs-tag-cloud/)

6, Encourage comments, and watch out for Spam. Comments allow the read to interact with your blog. They may also attract further attention for search engines. It is advisable to screen comments as irrelevant content could put off your readers.

7, Promote your blog with a complimentary Facebook group, this really works as it increases your expose across the globe and gives yet another avenue for people to monitor and discuss the issues you raise.

8, Submit your blog to relevant directories and websites. Don’t flood every site but be selective.

9, Trace your blogs performance with Google Analytics using one of the many plug-ins, see what posts do well and write more like them.

10, Use Google webmaster tools, and other search engine web master tools to submit a sitemap generated by the plugin Google XML sitemaps. .

And two bonus SEO Blog tips!

11, Sign up to Google adsense to benefit for a little extra cash.

12, Write a tips list, like ‘10 Top SEO tips for blogs’ which means it will be easily found by search engines and generates a lot of hits by giving something for free..

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Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, yes I know it is not geeky in the strictest sense but I wanted to write a review of this film for several geeky reasons and also it is a great film.

The film is a compliment to the previous films, but as a friend of mine said, it is a great film if you forget how good the other films are. This is in fact true, this film has a faster pace than the other films. May be they thought the audience would not be able to coup with long plot related dialogue or development of the characters. But at the end of the day, you have your hero, with hat and whip, your baddies and big stunts!

All of the stunts are believable, well, in the realms of Indiana Jones, except using a fridge to survive a Nuclear blast.. hummm..

If I could suggest some additions to the film, as a fan, I would suggest a random German castle, a trip to Egypt and, of course, Sallah played by John Rhys-Davies.

The film is brilliant and I would recommend to anyone!

Be There Be* Unlimited ADSL2+ has arrived in my humble home office and what a true joy it is to ‘finally’ have instant internet! For a long time I was (foolishly) with Virginmedia ADSL which was poor at the best of times. Days would go by with ‘worse than dial up’ internet connections and no help from there department of jokers - Customer service they called it. But, I then found out that the ‘Be There Be* Unlimited stalk’ had left a little bundle of joy at our local BT exchange – yes a local loop bundle (Sorry bad pun!) had been installed and we could get Be There Be* Unlimited 24meg broadband!

Be There Be* Unlimited do have smaller, more modest, options but at £22 per month I went for the Be Pro package. This includes up to 24 meg download, up to 2.5 meg upload and £3 cheaper than what I was paying with Virginmedia!

Not only does this service actually work, but it flys. I am getting 18.5 meg downstream when Virginmedia would struggle to get 200k! Websites magically appear; at times I think my browser is psychic.

I have to mention their customer support: unlike many other ISP’s that have some and they are brilliant! I am web designer (Andy’s Web) and I need constant uninterrupted internet access. I am also an experienced IT consultant and I provide Broadband set up and troubleshooting to many of my customers. So when I was installing my Netgear DG834N and asked Be There Be* Unlimited for the IP, MAC etc settings, even though it is not the router they supply, a technician took the time to find me the correct settings instead of saying they cannot help as Virginmedia often did.

So I recommend Be* unlimited Broadband to anyone who likes a fast Broadband service that actually works and a customer service team that want to help you!

Link: http://www.bethere.co.uk/

Wordpress is a community designed and supported blogging content management system.

I have been aware of it for sometime but only recently have I actually started to use it for my clients and myself for Blogs that I manage.

The system is driven by a SQL database, now before you go running and hiding away, that is probably that last time you will hear that if you’re a regular user.

The installation is simple. As such, it is nice and easy to get a blog started. The absolute brilliance of the system is the effective and clear way you write and manage the blogs. The entire interface is user friendly and for anyone used to using Microsoft’s Word, it will be easy to pick up.

The best thing about an open-sourced platform such as this is the large number and wide diversity of plugins available for it. For example, you can add you Adsence details to it to display ads from Google.

The most notable customisation is the themes that are readily available and with some css knowledge you can create your own.

Wordpress is a blogging dream, it is easy customisable and free! Give it a try and start and blog, let me know how you do?

I have been using Mozilla Firefox since it was first officially released in (date). I never liked Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. For many technical reasons and for some quirky personal reasons.

Internet Explorer (7) feels chunky, like a truck. It is hard to get going and steering is heavy. When Firefox, is, a fast nippy runner which twists and turns to my every whim!

Also, the entire philosophy of Firefox is that this is your browser. The sheer number of plug-ins and enhancements are amazing. Some of the best include an in built dictionary and an eBay plug-in.

If you have never used it I truly recommend you give it a try.

To try it out click the link below.

It all began, well became popular with the Mac. Someone thought that that large tower was just too much and though let’s put it inside the monitor.

Well, Dell have now release the XPS one. A single form factor dell with all the trimmings. It looks good and performance is high. Value is also up there are well.

(Dell XPS One web page)

But, what interests me is the upgrade ability of the system. How easy is it to put another hard drive in there? Add some more ram to the mix? Such issues need to be taken into consideration.

All in all the single unit format looks good and performs well. They also save space, although would I swap my tower for one? That yet remains to be seen….

I like to build my pc every time I want an upgrade. Now, more than ever one factor that I take into consideration is noise level. Go back 5-6 years, a PC sounded like a vacuum cleaner, the fans causing a vortex that could rival a jet, a hard drive sounding like a racing car and heat exhaust that eliminated the need for central heating! (Pentium 4 anyone).

But today is a nicer time, where components are free range, able to grow up naturally and quietly. They require less power, reduce the fuel bills and also the noise levels.

This is why every time I upgrade a component in my pc I consider the noise levels, the fanless graphics card, the 12cm fans spinning slllooowwwy and the whisper quiet hard drives. (Full pc spec coming in subsequent post)

I also upgrade my components when a new one pops its little head up. Yes, I upgraded my E6750 to an E8400 and benefited from increased performance and quieter operation.

Some people like, for very good reasons, a system that can equal a super computer and as a result is noisy. But each to their own, to me, silence is golden, do you agree?

The king is dead, long live the king, yes Netscape is dead, the browser (wiki link) has been booted out of existence by Internet explorer and torn to shreds’ by Microsoft. It has officially been shelved.

But I will remember you, Netscape, the friendly browser. I remember being at university in 1998 and all the PCs had Netscape and not ie. I remember using ‘composer’ to create my first web page. Now things have moved on for us web designers, Dreamweaver, Ajax, flash etc.

Using Netscape to search in search engines, long before Google really took off, when the results for anything where generally limited to 10 or 20 returns. No web 2.0, I would not even say it was web 1.0.

We miss you Netscape.. But would I trade my Firefox in for you…. Hummm.. May be not… Would you?