A project, which came about purely due to a chance meeting on Google + has evolved into my latest online ecommerce website!

StickyBottles, as I decided to name it, is a brilliant yet really affordable way to make a unique and personalised gift for someone, simply by creating bottle labels that stick over the original label.

Personalised Bottle Labels

Visit StickyBottles.com to create your own personalised bottle label , simply choose a design that you like, add your own text and personalise it with your own message, once purchased, the labels are printed and posted quickly to you and you can stick them over the original bottle label.

Lots of designs to choose from and suitable for all types of bottle, including wine, beer, vodka etc.

Visit StickyBottles.com now and make a boring bottle a Sticky Bottle!

I’ve almost completed my latest website, once again I’m using Wordpress and the excellent Headway Theme, which in my opinion is the best combination when creating custom designed sites as it means I can get a site up and running really quickly which saves my clients money.

So if you’re looking for an electrician in Cleveleys give Bren Powers a call, for more information on B P Electrical visit his Cleveleys Electrician website.

I’ve been wanting to try out the Thesis Theme for Wordpress for some time now, so when one of my projects required a new site I decided to give it a whirl!

As with all websites, the more focused the content the more chance there is of getting good natural search listings, as I already have another side project in the same niche market I thought it would be a good experiment to test how good the Thesis Theme really is.

I am using a custom skin, as the stock Thesis Theme is very minimal, and due to time constraints and the fact I haven’t used the Thesis Theme before I decided to purchase a great looking Theme from Thesify.com.

The website is http://templates4prestashop.com , it’s focus is on PrestaShop Templates, I’m hoping to get ranked highly for keywords and phrases such as, PrestaShop Templates, Templates for PrestaShop and PrestaShop Premium Templates.

Initial results are quite promising the site is appearing on pages 2 or 3 of Googles search results, now I’m not entirely sure if this is due to the fact that I was trialling the SquareSpace service for a few days before switching to a Wordpress and Thesis site.

I was considering using the SquareSpace service as I had heard that there sites get excellent ranking and wanted to test it out, however for myself, their service is slightly limiting and also much more expensive than creating and hosting a Website myself, even when I factored in the cost of the Thesis Theme and the skin.

I’ll be watching with interest to see how well the site performs and will update this blog when I get some results!

One request that can strike fear in a Web Developer is the online shop, I’ve used several over the past few years and some of them seem so complex that I’m amazed they ever became popular.

Luckily things are improving all the time and there are now several ways of taking your business online that aren’t too expensive or difficult, my current favourite, and one that I’ve been involved with for a couple of years is PrestaShop.

Unlike many of it’s competitors PrestaShop is not only open source and free to use, but it’s also remarkably easy to install and setup, it really is an amazing shopping cart solution, in fact to me it’s the Wordpress of shopping carts!

My latest project is involved in creating an online shop selling car aerial masts, I decided to use a freely available theme as it was perfect for the project.

You can see my creation here: CarAerialShop.co.uk , and if you ever need a car aerial for your car you know where to go!

Oh, and if you need PrestaShop Templates visit PrestaThemes.com!

Will this be better than than using the built in Wordpress editor? or should I consider purchasing ‘Blogo’?Tags: qumana, blog, editor, free, mac, livewriter

Only very rarely does my PS3 lock up or become unresponsive, possibly once or twice a year, compared to my HTPC that’s brilliant, it’s also simple to use considering what it does, my wife can now navigate the menu system of the PlayTV software without guidance!

To be honest it almost perfect, the only drawback is the noise the PS3 makes after being on for a few hours with PlayTV running, I replaced my original 60GB launch model with a later 80GB model last year in the search for less noise, ironically all I got was a cheaply made stripped down version which was just as noisy!

I finally decided to bite the bullet rip it apart and see if I could ‘tweak’ my PS3, hoping it would still work when I reassembled it and that, hopefully, it might be less noisy.

Now this modification isn’t for the faint hearted, it requires the full disassembly of the PS3, the fan and cooling system are positioned at the very bottom of the case.

After I had opened her up, I noticed how the cooling system had been radically changed compared to my original 60GB model ( which I also had taken apart for ‘research’ purposes ), the heatsink looked like it was very poor quality, the jointing surfaces were far from smooth and compared to some high quality PC heatsinks I’ve used before it all looked very cheap.

After studying the parts of the cooling system and trying to establish the airflow paths around the cooling system, I decided what my PS3 needed was more ventilation, this, in essence meant ’sculpting’ an extra intake on the lower front part of the case, and adding extra vent holes at the hottest part of the case, which is directly below the heatsink.

It’s difficult to describe, so I’ve added a couple of images, ok so I know it doesn’t look very good and the vast majority of PS3 owners would be horrified at what I’ve done, but you will just have to trust me that it has at least worked!

The fan noise is now perfectly acceptable, even on a really warm day, there is still some fan noise, but I estimate that the fan speed is one or two steps lower than before, which means using PlayTV to watch a film, even one with quiet scenes, is now much more enjoyable!

As well as making my life easier, it also reduces the final cost to the client as it is so flexible and easy to use.

If you fancy a bit of Headway fun then remember that dekoded are offering a great value web package, which includes a years professional web hosting, wordpress installed and initially configured and the Headway Theme for just £49+vat!, for more info go here: dekoded web package

I’ve heard rumours that Apples Mobileme service may be offered for free soon, if this is the case then I think the ability to register and sync the ipad via a wireless or data connection to a ‘cloud’ version of iTunes would be a major step towards negating the need for the user to own another computer.

There’s already a wireless syncing app for jailbroken devices, so we know it can be done, however a cloud version of iTunes would be the next obvious step, being able to store and manage your iTunes library in the cloud would really set the ipad free!

Firstly, Steve Jobs never said that it could!, and many people don’t seem to realise that the iPad is basically a big iPod touch rather than a mini MacBook.

Having said that, the iPad is gaining extra features and abilities on an almost daily basis thanks to the App store.

After reading this article which I actually consider a fair review, I would like to point out that at least some of the lacking features have already been added to the iPad, downloading files and PDF documents is possible by using Goodreader and as for accessing files from a remote location, then the Filebrowser App allows access to ALL your files on your Mac or PC, you view, download them to the iPad and email them all from within the App.

Location:Ingleway Ave,Blackpool,United Kingdom

Simply go to the wifi settings and click on DNS, then type the following:

208.67.222.222

Save and exit, you may need to turn off wifi and then turn it back on again, Tada! Fast YouTube!

( ps I’m writing this on my iPad using the Wordpress app for iPad, that’s another blog post though! )

UPDATE

As many people have visited my blog for info on this, I’ve decided to add some images to show the settings that need to be changed on your iPad.

Step 1

Enter the settings menu on your iPad, the silver gears/cogs icon and select the ‘General’ tab and then select ‘Network’

Step 2

Then select ‘WiFi”

Step 3

Then select the WiFi network that you use, in my case it’s my O2 Broadband wireless network, tap on the blue arrow to the right.

Step 4

You then need to type in your new DNS settings into the space provided, if you have DNS setting you would like to keep a record of then you can simply press the Home/Power buttons at the same time to take a screenshot that will be saved in your Photo library.

That’s it, it may not be a solution for everyone, however it’s worth a try as it’s free and only takes a minute.

Whilst I’m on the subject of DNS, If you want to protect younger members of your family from accessing questionable websites, then you can use the same technique, except you need to change the DNS setting of your router, you just need to login to your router using your web browser by typing the IP address of your router into the address bar, you can then sign up for a free ‘FamilyShield’ account at OpenDNS here OpenDNS.

For detailed instructions consult the owners manual of your particular router or visit the Manufacturers website.