Skylight Studios

I am after a new development laptop since visual studio 2010 chugs on my old laptop. To be honest my laptop is 7 years old and can not run the latest applications like it used too. So like any normal sucka I decided to pop to my local PC World. I had what I wanted spec wise. I really needed windows 7 pro as my OS platform because it offers the latest IIS.

Cut a short story even shorter, the sales person could not offer me any laptop with win 7 pro, probably due to an agreement with licensing. I would have to purchase an upgrade pro or full version and pay them to install it. The sales guy could not offer me any alternative.

I know this sounds a bit of a rant but I was quite shocked about un-helpful a PC World was because it suppose to specialise in this area.

Not much of an update but I come across a really funny website called clients from hell.

It is a list of all developers/ designers/ IT support have come across in their day to day lives when dealing with clients. Check this site out and see if you come across any scenarios which seem familiar to you.

http://clientsfromhell.net

The BBC have posted an interesting article about the problems on spam reviews that are a cause for concern not just for the consumer but for the manufactures. When it comes to buying products over the Internet we all tend to view the reviews from people who have brought the product.

The problem is now that many reviews now are fake reviews either paid by the competitor or caused by people spamming a certain product based in popularity / ehnical status. Apple anyone?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/8826258.stm

The web designers’ worst nightmare…

An  little funny comic strip based on the web designer and the client.

This is taken from the oatmeal and expresses the frustration all developers/ designers sometimes have with the client.

learning ASP.net the asp.net way

As mentioned before in my previous post that I am learning ASP.net. While I come from a PHP background (procedural coding), moving from one to another is a task I thought I was not looking forward too.

ASP.net?

As you know, there is the open source world and there’s Microsoft world. Microsoft upgraded ASP, to compete with PHP and Java. While ASP is a Microsoft technology it now can be used on Linux based systems as well. While people might bad-mouth ASP.net the framework is rather good at completing hard tasks which alone could take days to complete using standard style coding to just a matter of hours in ASP.net.

ASP.net is not a language, it is a building structure aka a framework which allows simplicity of creating dynamic websites more efficiently. ASP.net can use many languages such as visual basic, c++, c# and open source projects allowing PHP to be included. As these are compiled at run-time, they will all do the same thing and perform the same as long as they are coded similar.

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Adobe shows off the new flash

Not been much of an update lately. I have been busy diving my head in the world of ASP.NET, but more on that in another post. Over the last few weeks,  Steve Jobs (Apple) has become pretty much a dictator. With the issue of anyone who makes fun of the Apple ipod /Iphone interface on American TV  to ram-shacking the home  Mr lam of gizmodo because of possession of the Apple Iphone 4g prototype.

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Hi all. I am writing this from my iPod touch. Hopefully soon I Will be reviewing some apps to help fellow web designers create more mobile websites.

On the bbc news website there is a clever interactive graphic which shows how much of the web is taken up with some of the biggest sites on the net. It can also be split into different categories ranging from search engines to social networks. Thus giving you an idea with how many people are using the sites and just see how popular it really is.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8562801.stm

As many of you know that about Microsoft legal agreement by the EU commissions, Microsoft now has to give the user a choice of what browser they want to use instead of tying them down to Internet Explorer.

Now they are soon to be rolling out the update for XP and above which I guess is good for the developers as its leading users to choose between better browsers and with Google pimping chrome everywhere within the mainstream community it definitely has a chance to improve on the market share.

With FireFox leading the way of the most popular browser besides Internet Explorer it will be a tough match. Hopefully a couple of years from now I can compare how much this update will change the browser stats.

Read more information on the update at sitepoint.

As a UK developer I find it important for me to network within the local community. One of my best friends is a ASP.NET Developer, My cousin who is a C# architect, his website can be found here. Lately I have been reading a blog from another UK developer known as James Padolsey who focuses on client side programming with jQuery.

After spotting his article on Sitepoint on improving your jQuery knowledge I could tell how much he has contributed with his work.

So if you get 5 minutes please check out his Blog for useful information on front end development.