Archive for February, 2010



Favourite… iPhone Apps

February 26th, 2010

Posted by Ali

Hello again world! Although we usually focus our blog posts on features of our great products like our reseller hosting or dedicated server packages, this month I’m going to blog about my favourite iPhone apps. I don’t own an iPhone myself (one day…) but quite a few people I know do meaning I can ‘steal’ theirs and have a play while they’re not looking. So onto the apps.

Flight Control

Flight control is an app developed by FireMint.

In the game you become an air traffic controller and the aim is to land as many aircraft as possible by drawing on their landing path with your finger. There are three types of aircraft to land – jumbo jets which land on the red runway, helicopters which land on the blue helipad and small planes which land on the yellow runway.

Things usually start off quite well with just a few aircraft arriving with relatively simple landing paths that don’t cross.

But after a while more and more aircraft arrive and it can get quite busy with not enough room for everything so eventually the inevitable happens… something crashes! This ends the game and the more aircraft you’ve landed the higher your score.

Warning – this is a highly addictive game. You can get it from the app store for a barginous 69p.

Doodle Jump

Doodle Jump is an app developed by Lima Sky.

The aim of the game is to guide the creature called the Doodler up the platforms without falling off. You can move from side to side across the screen by tilting the iPhone and there are various boosts such as jet packs and springs you can get to move up quicker.

You can also shoot at enemies by tapping the screen but I always find this difficult to coordinate (yes I know I should be able to multi-task being a woman but it’s hard!). If you fall off the game is over and you have the option to publish your high score to Facebook or Twitter. My highest score so far is 18,359 – this does need improvement!

Doodle jump is just as addictive as Flight Control and you can get it from the app store for 69p.

Rock Band

Rock Band iPhone 04 is an app developed by EA.

True to the original version of Rock Band, you hit the notes as they pass along the fret. There’s the option to play as guitar, bass, drums or vocals just as on the original version and you can even create your own mobile band with multi-player games. The song list is pretty similar to the original game with 34SP office favourites Foo Fighters – Everlong and Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye being amongst the songs offered.

I somehow doubt we’ll all migrate from bashing out the tunes on the real drums / guitar / bass in the games room to sitting round playing this on iPhones but it’s a fantastic little game which is a great mobile alternative.

You can get a demo of Rock Band for free with the full version costing £5.99 from the app store

iPint

iPint is an app developed by Carling.

Viral marketing at it’s best, iPint lets you drink a virtual pint of Carling using it’s accelerometer, be careful not to spill it though! It’s free from the app store.

London Tube

London Tube is an app developed by Presselite.

I found this app very useful when I went for a weekend in London last November. Although we didn’t use it to its full potential (we used it mainly to find our nearest tube station) it has a bunch of great features:

  • You can be notified of disruptions on any lines you select. I can imagine this is great for people who take the tube the same route every day.
  • You can find your nearest Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. based on your current location – great for when you’ve been lost for a couple of hours and are starving!
  • You can work out the quickest route to take to get to a destination using the best route planner – this saves looking like a tourist staring for ages at the huge tube map at the station.

Those are my top 5 iPhone apps at present. I hope one day I’ll be able to get my own iPhone and discover even more. Add your favorite app to the comments below.

Twitter Prank Grows Small Business

February 9th, 2010

Posted by admin

Manchester, UK (February 9, 2010) – In the age old tradition of marriage, there stands an even older tradition: the prank pulled off by the best man on the bride and groom. While the practice is ancient, it has taken on a new twist in the viral microblogging world of Twitter.

Enter the online magazine, Staggered (www.iamstaggered.com), which was designed to answer men’s pre-nuptial questions and assist grooms with their weddings, stag-dos and honeymoons. In December the online magazine was alerted by a reader to a Twitter account named Newlywedsontjob set up by a ”Anon Bestman”.

Staggered’s editor Andrew Shanahan explained, ”The account was set up by an anonymous best man who was made to promise before the wedding that he wouldn’t pull any pranks on the groom. However, while housesitting when the newlyweds were away on honeymoon he finally got the chance to play his joke. He rigged up the bed using a pressure pad so that it tweets every time the newlyweds started some amorous activity. The pressure pad logs weight, duration and even the frenzy! It’s an amazing prank and it made the Staggered team laugh a lot. Scores of other people seemed to think so too and before long this guy had over 22,000 followers on Twitter.”

”We nagged the best man with direct messages to try and get an interview,” said Mr. Shanahan. ”At first he didn’t want to do an interview so we asked about sponsoring the account, which he eventually agreed to. So everytime the newlyweds are on the job we pay a fee. As a condition we also made him promise to give us an interview when he was going to reveal the joke to the newlywed couple, which he did. When the interview went live, the best man tweeted it and traffic on the site suddenly spiked.”

Leveraging the viral nature of the prank was a coup for Staggered, which was launched in August 2009 and has grown organically to the point where its readership is in the tens of thousands. The deluge of traffic, however, created an unforeseen issue – the traffic load was too extreme for the company’s web server.

Mr. Shanahan continues, ”The Twitter link to the interview was incredibly popular and over 7,000 people tried to access it simultaneously. As you can guess the server wasn’t prepared for it and the site was quickly pulled to stop any damage to the server. Obviously, that meant that we were potentially without a site and missing a great opportunity. Within 10 minutes our web hosting company 34SP.com had moved us to our own virtual server and had us back online. It was a masterstroke of customer service, after all if we can’t provide a constant service for our readers then they’ll get annoyed and might not come back. That means we have to trust 34SP.com with a lot, and we do.”

So for now, the Staggered website continues to reap the benefits of the anonymous Twitter prank and has used it to introduce new readers to their brand. The lesson for other small businesses? A viral Twitter campaign can rapidly grow your awareness with customers. As for the bride and groom, Anon Bestman says in his exclusive interview that he’ll most likely reveal the prank to the newlyweds on the groom’s birthday which is February 26. Stay tuned.

To view the exclusive interview with Anon Bestman please visit:http://www.iamstaggered.com/featured/the-newlywedsontjob-interview-anonbestman-speaks-exclusive.

To learn more about web hosting products from 34SP.com, please visit: http://www.34sp.com/hosting.

 

About Staggered

Staggered is the ”UK’s number one wedding magazine” (BrideTide Top 100) that deals with weddings from the bloke’s point of view. We look at every aspect of getting married, whether it’s choosing the ring and proposing, enjoying the big day and the honeymoon or surviving married life. The magazine is written by journalists from many of national magazines and newspapers and
edited by award-winning freelance writer Andrew Shanahan.

About 34SP.com

34SP.com offers professional website hosting services for cost conscious web developers, designers and small businesses. The 34SP.com team of technical experts offers industry leading support and service coupled with a money back guarantee to ensure client satisfaction. Website hosting services offered include: UK domains, reseller hosting and dedicated servers. The company is headquartered in central Manchester, England.

Building a Website Using Nvu

February 5th, 2010

Posted by fazz

Hi and welcome to my first blog post. I’m Lee the latest member of the 34SP.com team. If you’d like to know a bit more about me feel free to check http://www.34sp.com/aboutus where I will soon be added.

Whether you are running a WordPress hosting site, a business hosting plan or a reseller hosting account – we all want our sites to look great. Recently I have noticed quite a few customers asking how to edit already existing pages on their website after it has been for them by a web designer, or even how to go about making their own new website. Many customers are happy to know we do provide automatic script installers for a few Content Management Systems such as Joomla, WordPress, e107, ExponentCMS and Website Baker. The scripts are available here: http://scripts.34sp.com. 34SP.com also offers a complete web design service for those clients who need it.

However, if you are like myself and prefer to have a more hands on approach and do things for yourself there is an alternative to web design applications such as Microsoft Front Page or Adobe Dreamweaver. After some searching I came up with what I consider to be a very good free alternative, called Nvu.

Now to some of you more experienced designers this application may seem too simple and light on features, but to me I find it brilliant for beginners. To me one of the most useful beginner guides can be found at the following address: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp.

In the basic section of this guide it talks of how to add paragraphics and headings and how to set these up in different styles and formatting, how to add tables, images, links, forms and lists. All of these are easy to add to your own site content within Nvu simply by using the buttons in the application. In the advanced section of the guide there is information on how to edit fonts, create layouts use scripts, create and use CSS and use your meta data. All of these are feasible within Nvu using built in features such as the view source code panel, where you can add your scripts and edit your meta data and the built in CSS Editor.

Once you have finished creating and are happy with your page, this handy program also has the ability to automatically publish your files at the click of a single button, automatically creating links between files and uploading them via FTP for general viewing on the Internet.

In summary I have found that Nvu is a great beginners solution for those willing to get into website programming and design who don’t want to use traditional Content Management Systems. While Nvu isn’t as good in some ways as its counterparts, the fact that this application is free and it is available on all platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) it gives you a great sense of what you are looking to get into where later you can choose to upgrade to a pay for client if you feel that you have grown past this programmes capabilities.As mentioned, you can download Nvu for free at: http://net2.com/Nvu. If you are looking to build things using Nvu you may also want to have a look into an extremely insiteful guide located here: http://www.charlescooke.me.uk/web/kz-ug-home.htm.

Good luck in getting your website built using Nvu.