HTML emails are notoriously difficult beasts to tame thanks to patchy/non-existant  support for web standards in most of the main email clients.  One of the worst offenders and the most widely used of these is Microsoft Outlook and for those of us who try to spend as little time as possible in a Windows environment, it can be tricky to test.  In this article I will give an outline of how I test HTML emails using my mac with both local applications and online test suites.

Testing locally

Online ’screen-grab’ systems are great for testing html emails in the full range of email clients but there is something re-assuring about seeing your handy work natively in the actual email client.  Whilst some of the major clients are easy to test on a mac (apple mail, thunderbird, gmail etc..), outlook is a little trickier and requires a copy of windows running under bootcamp or a virtual machine.

Outlook 2008

Probably the most important client to have tested thoroughly on I found that it was possible to install the trial version of Microsoft Office 2008 then keep on receiving email long after the trial had expired.  Whilst it does prompt you each time you launch to register the application this doesn’t pose an issue and this method has proved a quick, reliable and simple way to test emails in Outlook 2008.

Outlook 2003

This was a bit trickier to track down as there are no longer trial versions available to download but I eventually  came across a portable version of Outlook 2003 available from less official sources (do a search for Outlook 2003 portable torrent).  Whilst this method might not be strictly ‘by the book’ it is a great way to test on this still widely used browser.  Just download the folder to your Windows installation, launch the application file and set up your email account – no installation necessary.  Outlook 2003 can also be tested for free on Email on Acid and Litmus online services (see below).

Online test suites

One really convenient way to test in a multitude of email clients all at once is to use an online test suite which takes your html email and renders it in a variety of the main email clients.  The three I have used are Litmus, Email on acid and Campaign monitor.

Email on acid

Pros: Whilst it is no longer free to use it is still one of the more affordable paid for services with a couple of email clients still available to preview without charge.  As well as the screen renders they also offer a useful code conflict tool which highlights any possible conflicts with individual browsers.  With both pay as you go and monthly tariffs are available and you can perform tests from as little as $3 ($1 if you are willing to buy 300 credits at once).  I found Email on Acid to be the fastest of the three to produce the finished renders and with a user friendly and fun interface.

Cons: I have had a couple of results with text formatting that turned out to be slightly inconsistent with results from the actual applications but this was whilst the product was still in Beta so may well have been remedied by now.

Above: Email on Acid’s main render screen with code conflicts displayed below.

Campaign monitor

Pros: Convenient to use if you are already using their product for distributing your email campaigns as your account will already be set up with the emails uploaded and ready to test.  I have found the results to be consistently accurate and the spam filter test that is included with the service is useful.

Cons: I found Campaign Monitor to be slower than Email on Acid to produce all the renders and it was also a couple of dollars more expensive for a single test.

Above: Campaign Monitor showing thumbnails of all the available renders.

Litmus

Pros: Whilst Litmus is a paid for service it can be used free of charge with the Pure 360 distribution system or to view a couple of clients via their main portal.  I have found the results to be reliably accurate and inline with real world results.

Cons: I have on occasion struggled to get renders to appear for all the different email clients and sometimes I have only managed a couple  but this may be a restriction placed on the free service bundled with Pure 360.  It can also be a little slow to produce results and there doesn’t seem to be a pay as you go option, only subscriptions.

Above: Litmus displaying render results via Pure36o.

Summary

I tend to use a combination of methods to test my html emails.  I would usually start by testing locally until I am pretty sure everything is rendering correctly in Outlook, Apple Mail etc… then move to a test suite for the final check and for backup to show the client if things go wrong once the email is out of my hands.  If the client is using Pure 360 I tend to use the Litmus testing service as it is free, otherwise I would use Email on Acid.

WWW, Cotton stitch, acrylics and ink on canvas, 140cm x 90cm

It took 2 months of stitching, painting, drawing and plastering bleeding fingers to complete and is probably my most ambitious painting to date but it is also one that often gets overlooked as it’s hard to decipher  from a small image on the web.  The title, WWW (world wide web), is quite a good starting point in explaining this painting which is composed of a interconnected web of cotton threads which weave together to create a sort of global vista from Romania and Switzerland at it’s flanks, to San Francisco at its pinnacle.

Please pan and zoom the image using the plus, minus and arrow buttons

Originally this painting was intended to be a drawing entirely composed of cotton thread stitched on to canvas but having completed this stage of the creation I knew that I could continue to work with this as a base to evolve still further.  Using a combination of paint and ink I started to work in to the drawing with tonal variations and thousands of tiny directional marks, the effect of this was to create a 3 dimensional illusion which, coupled with the actual 3rd dimension of the cotton standing slightly proud of the surface, offered a really intriguing visual experience.

From a conceptual point of view the painting looks at the interconnectedness of world societies and the relationship between places separated by geography and culture but intrinsically linked by threads of communication.  I liked the idea of trying to condense this global network onto a canvas and using San Francisco, the centre of the online world,  as a sort of hub from which these threads flow.

Having visited Silicon Valley and having also stayed in remote villages in Uganda and Romania, the idea that these places share a common communications network, which, give or take a few mbps, are to all intents and purposes equal, made me think.  Where historically commodities such as clean water and electricity have been grossly unbalanced in their global availability and access, the future information based commodities might finally bring some level of equality and opportunities  that has so far been illusive in many parts of the world.  This web between nations acts not only as a means to communicate but also as a symbol of hope.

To view more of my paintings including a full zoomify gallery and to find out more about my artwork please visit www.msibley.com.

In a hurry? Read the 30 second version »

Here are 10 Joomla extensions and hacks that I’ve found useful.  Some of them are a bit obscure but I have found them all invaluable at different times for making Joomla the flexible content management system I need it to be.  I generally wouldn’t use all of these hacks in one website but just knowing what is possible by changing a few lines of code or by installing a free plugin can broaden your scope when designing for Joomla or help you when deciding if Joomla is suitable for a specific project.

1. Remove Mootools 1.1

Included in the core Joomla install and feeling its age a bit is Mootools 1.1.  It can come in handy depending on the extensions you are using with your website but more and more I am either finding I don’t need it or worse it is deterring me from using other more powerful Javascript libraries for fear of conflicts.

There are two easy options for removing Mootools 1.1 from the front-end without affecting it’s uses by the admin panel, either through a few lines of PHP in your template file or using a simple Joomla extension.

Option 1

This tip uses a snippet of PHP at the start of the template’s index.php file and came from Highub – web tips.  It only removes the Mootools 1.1  library from the front end but they also provide instructions for removing caption.js if you want to go all the way in streamlining your site.

<?php</pre>
// Remove auto generated mootool from header
$headerstuff = $this->getHeadData();
reset($headerstuff['scripts']);
$moo = key($headerstuff['scripts']);
unset($headerstuff['scripts'][$moo]);
$this->setHeadData($headerstuff);
?><jdoc:include type="head">
<pre>

Option 2: ‘Mootools control’ plugin

This may be a more user friendly method if you are more familiar with the Joomla admin panel than the template files and requires nothing more than a simple plugin to select when and where Mootools 1.1 is implemented.  This extension also enables you to change the Mootools file itself if needs be.

Mootools control is a free download from Kinesphere and is the method I have found myself using on a regular basis thanks to its ease of use.

2.  Add classes to your menu items

I have needed this hack on a couple of occasions where I have been handed a design to be built in Joomla with a menu system that could only be achieved either by targeting each individual list item with a class selector or at the very least by styling the first and last menu items.

The solution came from Cecil Gupta’s blog in the form of a small adjustment to the mod_mainmenu/default.php overide file .  Cecil’s solution only applies the class names to the first and last menu items but I modified it slightly to apply a class name to each specific menu item in order. This is the adapted version and instructions on usage can be found on Cecil’s blog.

</pre>
//NEW CODE STARTS HERE

 $children_count = count($node->children());
 $children_index = 0;

 foreach ($node->children() as $child) {

 $child->addAttribute('class', 'nav'.$children_index);

 if ($children_index == 0) {
 $child->addAttribute('class', 'first nav'.$children_index);
 }

 if ($children_index == $children_count - 1) {
 $child->addAttribute('class', 'last nav'.$children_index);
 }

 $children_index++;
 }
 //ENDS HERE

3. All Videos Reloaded (AVR)

One of the reasons I often find myself turning to Joomla is when the client needs to be able to easily add video to their site.  The extension All Videos Reloaded is a fork of the popular All Videos project and offers a flexible and powerful solution to adding video to your Joomla website.

4. Readmore Link

This is another case of being handed a design which isn’t possible to achieve with a standard Joomla installation. I had one particular case where the intro text needed to be nothing more than a large image and as such the whole thing needed to be a clickable ‘read more’ link.

The Alternative Readmore Link plugin turns any text or image into the readmore link by simply wrapping it in a pair of tags.

5. Superfish

This is by far my favorite drop down menu script which is now available as a plugin for Joomla 1.5.  Superfish uses Jquery  1.2.6 and whilst it does come with an option to run Jquery in Mootools compatibility mode, if possible I would suggest removing Mootools (see tip 1) to avoid clashes and bloated pages.

6. Featured Items module

This may seem a bit of a strange choice seeing as there is a free Featured Articles module that performs a similar task but at only £5 I really liked this commercial version for the added flexibility and hackability which enables it to be used for a far broader variety of uses than the basic Featured Articles module.

The module offers the option to display a short excerpt from articles in a selected category, with link and optional thumbnail image.  You can choose the number of characters displayed, the section, category and ID to be displayed, and whether to display a thumbnail image using the module parameters.

7. JoomlaFCK Editor

I install this alternative editor plugin at the beginning of every Joomla site I work on due to it’s rich set of features and easy to use interface.  One really useful function that isn’t available in some other popular editors (uh hum… TinyMCE) is the ability to upload images straight from the editor interface rather than having to upload to the media library first.  It doesn’t stop there though with bags of customisation options and a snappy, responsive feel.  Best of all, it’s free.

8. Pop-up login box

More and more websites seem to be utilising modal windows to display additional information to users and whilst this can pose usability issues one common use of this type of  functionality is to display login forms and this handy little hack on the Art of Joomla website enables you to do just that with a small adaptation to default_login.php override file.  It uses the built in Mootools 1.1 Javascript library to do most of the work and just needs a few lines of extra code to get it working.  If like me you are inclined to remove Mootools altogether to make way for a different library then I found this hack gave me all the clues I needed to achieve a similar effect using Jquery fancybox.

9. Joomla pack

A regular feature of best Joomla extension lists and for good reason, this component for Joomla 1 and 1.5 provides a really easy and powerful way to both backup and restore not only your Joomla databases but the entire install!  Having toiled with Mysql dumps and automated database backups in the past discovering JoomlaPack was something of a revolution and an essential part of every Joomla install.

10. Confirm new users

Whilst this hack tampers with core Joomla files which can cause issues when it comes to upgrading your install it can also provide the solution to a problem which in my opinion should have been addressed by Joomla 1.5 from the outset and that is to allow new users to be vetted by the site administrator before becoming active.

This post over at Katipo Developers Blog provides instructions to change the sign up process to send both a acknowledgment email to the new users whilst sending the activation email to the site administrator to either grant or deny membership.  It does take a a few steps to achieve this functionality but could be a life saver if required by the client.

It was an article in smashing magazine entitled  45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires that started me thinking about this.  Whilst I think it is a great idea to keep website contact forms as simple as possible for users, I also wanted to offer the ability for potential clients to provide more in-depth information about themselves and the projects they represent.

I had noticed an effect on other websites where contact forms or additional information slide out from discreet tabs to reveal hidden content and whilst I am generally not a big fan of hiding content that the majority of users will want to see, I decided that this might be an occasion where it’s use was warranted.

[View with PicLens]

For the most part the contact form remains pretty basic but users are given the option of clicking a ‘Reveal extended form’ link to reveal a short questionnaire that should not only help me to get a better idea of what they require but also help them to consider their needs more thoroughly from the outset.  The added benefit I have found from having this type of contact form is that it is easy to identify the people who are really serious about the possibility of working with me as they are the ones who take a bit of extra time to fill in the answers.

The code is really simple and basically just uses jQuery slideUp and slideDown to slide the div holding the contact form in and out of view whilst using hide and show to make sure that the correct link is showing.

$(document).ready(function() {

//make the extended form link visible and clickable
 $("#extend_form_link").show(); $("#extend_form_link").click(function() {

//when extended form link is clicked, hide 'Reveal extended form' link & show the 'Hide extended form' link
 $("#extend_form_link").hide(); $("#retract_form_link").show();

//use the slidedown effect to reveal the div with id 'extended form'
 if ($("#extended_form").is(":hidden")) {
 $("#extended_form").slideDown("slow"); }
 }

//use the slideup effect to hide extended form
 ); $("#retract_form_link").click(function() {
 $("#retract_form_link").hide(); $("#extend_form_link").show(); $("#extended_form").slideUp("slow"); }
 ); }
);

In a hurry? Read the 30 second version »

Whenever I mention to anyone that I am an artist the reply that I expect to hear is always ‘that’s nice, and do you actually earn a living from that?’  There’s not many jobs where it would be acceptable to question someones earning ability as the first port of call but to be honest, it’s a fair question because it is notoriously difficult to generate a decent wage from selling your artwork.

I have been a professional artist for nearly 6 years and in that time I have started to appreciate a few of the things that really make a difference when it comes to actually making some sales.  I won’t pretend I have found any magic solutions for getting a good price for your artwork and the money that I can demand for my paintings is still painfully low when compared to most skilled professions but it is fair to say that there are things you can do to help make being an artist a viable profession.

1. Get your artwork into galleries.

It seems obvious and is the one thing most artists are desperate to do but it is notoriously difficult to achieve. My approach has been twofold.  The pro-active approach of introducing myself to galleries that appear suited to my work and the low key approach of positioning my work where galleries can discover it for themselves.

To select your target galleries start by visiting as many of their websites as possible,  marking down any that are suitably located and lean towards the kind of work you create.  You can find quite a comprehensive listing of galleries on the British Arts website or on art fair websites such as the Affordable Art Fair.  Try to select galleries that present themselves online in an efficient and professional way as there attitude towards exhibiting on the net is likely reflect their real world approach towards representing their artists.  Once you have a good list of galleries, go back through and whittle down the list to about 5 that really fit the bill.

The next step is to prepare your portfolios.  It is worth investing some considerable time and effort in producing something that is both professional and informative.  In the past I have produced small booklets showcasing a variety of my favorite paintings with a short supporting statement and biography.  I spent a couple of days on the design and format of the booklet before getting them professionally printed and bound.  They ended up costing a fair amount to produce but I was really proud with the result and had the feeling that even if a gallery was not keen to exhibit my work, at the very least they would remember it and hold on to my portfolio.

Once you have your portfolios ready, package them up with a covering note and see what happens. You may want to follow them up with a phone call or email a couple of weeks down the line just to make sure your efforts haven’t been overlooked.  The galleries that did get back to me often turned out to be really beneficial to my exposure and earnings so despite the initial outlay and the high percentage of non-responders, it was definitely a worthwhile venture.

In order for galleries to start coming to you you need to make yourself visible and that’s where the next two points come in.

2.  Take part in art fairs.

Art fairs can attract literally thousands of buyers and galleries from around the country and have been key to my life as a professional artist.  There are several art fairs running around the country falling in to two main categories, those that cater to representing galleries and those that also provide stands for individual artists.  The gallery only type include the Affordable Art Fair and London Art Fair and to exhibit at these you would need to find an attending gallery to represent you.

Self representing fairs include the Brighton Art Fair and the Battersea Contemporary Art Fair and offer the opportunity to purchase a stand for the weekend for you to represent yourself. One of my first exhibition experiences was at the Brighton Art Fair and I was amazed at how many people attended with every intention of buying some artwork before they left.  As well of the sales potential these fairs offer they also give you the chance to emerge from you studio and talk to the public about your work whilst at the same time making you highly visible to gallery owners who may be out scouting for new talent.  I picked up two really valuable gallery contacts at my first Brighton fair which continue to be beneficial to this day.

3. Get yourself online.

Now you might say I have a vested interest in this item as I am both an artist and a web designer, but I really do feel this has been a vital part of my life as an artist.  Having a decent website is your chance to start exhibiting in every country in the world overnight.  As well as broadening your reach to new clients it also works to make you appear more established in the eyes of past and potential buyers.

It is important that if you decide to get a website that it maintains the quality that your buyers expect from your work.  If you can’t afford to hire a good web designer to build your site for you and you have no technical skills in this area you can still use packages such as iweb on the mac to create a basic but smart looking website around a pre-designed template or an online service such as Square Space which allows you to insert your content into professionally developed templates using it’s online interface.

As well as hosting your own website there are endless other ways to get your work seen on the net ranging from free portfolio sites such as Saatchi Online and social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace but be aware that once you start putting your name out their you may get some unwanted attention.  I wrote an article a few weeks back about a scam I encountered after having shown my work on the net which had the potential to cost me several thousand pounds and I get regular emails from online galleries and artist promoters trying to sell me their services.  Assume they are all false unless you have strong reason to believe they are not and you shouldn’t run into too many problems.

4. Presentation is key.

I’m often amazed at how badly artists prepare their work for exhibition but at the same time I’m not really surprised.  The reason artists are artists is because they want to produce artwork and the whole process of designing a business card or getting your framing just right often seems a laborious sideline rather than an important part of your artistic career.  In order for potential buyers to have confidence in your work and be reassured that you are serious about what you do, it is worth investing time and money in the presentation of  your work and of yourself as a professional artist.

I hated having to get work framed and spent ages trying to cut my own mounts and struggling to make poor quality frames presentable but in the end I decided to bite the bullet and find a framer I could trust to produce a professional frames to my requirements.  Although it can get really expensive I am a strong believer that the value it has added to my work is greater than the extra outlay and the reductions of stress levels are more than compensation.  Also consider hiring a graphic designer to produce business cards and promotional literature that will set you apart from the casual hobbyist.

5. Put up your prices.

I’ve left my most bizarre sounding suggestion till last but don’t underestimate how important this can be.  Having started by representing myself at art fairs and group shows for my first year or so as an artist it was a bit of a shock to learn that most galleries take 50% commission on sales.  Knowing that I barely broke even as it was, I decided that the only option I had was to double my prices overnight.  I assumed this would be commercial suicide but as it turned out, the opposite was true and I soon realised that low prices can be as off putting as prices that are too high.

By charging realistic sums of money for your work it not only shows the the value you place in your own abilities but it also suggests that your work is a sought after commodity not accessible to everyone.  As well as collecting artwork just because they love it, buyers will often want to know that your work is likely to be a good investment and your confidence in your work and the prices it commands are a good measure of your future potential.

Don’t go overboard straight away but over time as you sell more work and build a body of past and  potential buyers it is a good idea to periodically review the value of your work and assess the impact on sales an increase might have.

In a hurry? Read the 30 second version »

In the course of my work as a freelance web designer I have been forced to use a multitude of different web hosts and have come to realise that all web hosts are not equal.  Here is a list of 5 web hosts that I have used with a brief review of my experiences with them.  I have had more experience with some than others so this is by no means a conclusive study but I hope it will help you if you are looking for a web host and don’t know where to begin.

Before I start I’d like to make clear my perspective.  I am a web designer working mainly in HTML, CSS and a bit of PHP with experience of various CMS platforms including Wordpress, CMSMS and Joomla.  I am not a web app developer or database ninja or anything else that sounds complicated so my views do not really take into account the requirements that someone working in these areas might have.

5. Easily – Rating: ★★★★

Bottom of the pack and for good reason is Easily, the 9th largest web host in the UK with a 2% market share.  Their name gives me a chuckle every time I read it  just for the pure irony.  My initial impressions of Easily were just how ugly and cryptic their control panel was, links to the various functions were denoted by a single letter logo, the key to which was below the viewing threshold of my screen.  Once I had located the various departments I was still left wondering how to do simple things like set up a mysql database or change your version of php without phoning customer support.  You just don’t seem to be able to manage much stuff on your own from the control panel and if you can, I couldn’t work out how which is just as bad if not worse.  As well as the short comings of the control panel there is also no way of manually adjusting file permissions which was in the course of time to present me with more problems.

Click hear to continue reading my easily rant ...

[View with PicLens]

4: Namesco – Rating: ★★★★★★

Names co. is the 5th largest web host in the UK with about 3% of the market share and I have only used them for 1 site.  My overall impression isn’t bad really.  Their control panel is fairly straight forward and easy to use and doesn’t look too bad aesthetically speaking.  You can manage things like your mysql databases, quotas and email accounts and the file permissions can be set from your ftp program without problems.  My only issue came when I wanted to upgrade my PHP version and had to contact the support line to do so, not a big issue but it took them 24hrs and a couple of emails to get it done so not ideal.

[View with PicLens]

3: Nethost – Rating: ★★★★★★★

I have only recently used nethost for a site and at first I was a little skeptical.  Their control panel is pretty ugly (It looked like it was based on cPanel) and a bit confusing with hundreds of icons and options to filter through but in the end I actually found them to offer a pretty powerful hosting package with a good level of user control.  Things like adding databases and changing php settings are really easy to do and they include some nice usability features like actually showing you your database passwords from the management panel rather than blanking them out which is handy when you are setting up a cms and have forgotten your mysql details.  I also like the prices which were the lowest of all those I have reviewed, offering a fair amount of functionality for relatively little money.

On the down side their customer support seems pretty lame.  They don’t have a phone number to call and when I emailed them (twice) I didn’t receive a response.  I also found that the site was sand boxed from public view during development which was great until I was ready to go live, at which point I couldn’t find any way of activating it.  It took a couple of emails from the account holder before the problem was resolved.  If it wasn’t for these issues I may have given them an 8 stars or more so if you are confident you wouldn’t need much help and have a tight budget they might be a good bet.

[View with PicLens]

3: Easyspace – Rating: ★★★★★★★★

Update (20/02/2010): Since writing this post it has been brought to my attention from a couple of different sources that some Easyspace customers are having issues with the reliability of their email service (see comment below).  I probably wouldn’t mention it if it were just one case, but I have now heard of three separate instances and felt it was worth drawing attention to.

Easyspace was the first ever web host I used and I’ve used them for a couple of sites since.  This host has a more ‘corporate feel’ than most of the others I am reviewing here, with an overseas support desk and a slightly pushier sales technique which could either be taken as annoying or reassuringly ‘big business’ depending on what sort of person you are.

Their control panel is probably the prettiest of the five hosts I’m reviewing here but I have always felt it needed some more user testing as many simple tasks can be confusing and unintuitive to achieve. I’ve often had to run people through simple tasks like setting up autoresponders on the phone over and over again. I did recently receive an email notifying me of a new beta version of their control panel (picture included below) which looks promising but it is still not fully featured at the time of writing this article.  They claim to have based the new UI on extensive user consultation and testing so it could be a big step forward.

I am also quite impressed with a new service of theirs that notifies you via email of any security holes they have spotted on your site, giving you the opportunity to sort them out before your site is compromised.  Their general standard of telephone and email support, whilst not perfect, seems fairly prompt and efficient at dealing with issues.  They also offer free domain names with a lot of their hosting packages which is something to bear in mind when reviewing the prices.

If I were to say anything negative about Easyspace it would be that I have found their email accounts to be a little temperamental with the odd outages and rogue spam filters but I guess no host’s email servers are perfect.

[View with PicLens]

1: Virtual names – Rating: ★★★★★★★★

Update (20/02/2010): Since writing this review, Virtual Names have been subject to a serious hack attack in which the passwords to all hosting accounts held with them were compromised.  As you can imagine this raises some major concerns regarding security and whilst I felt their response to the situation was transparent and fast, it has still dented my opinion of what is otherwise a really reliable host.

Virtual names was the second host that I ever used after it was recommended to me by an agency I was working for.  Initial impressions might be a bit poor due to the basic looking homepage with it’s pink background and the rather functional design of the control panel but what they lack in slick interface has definitely been made up for in ease of use and flexibility.  Just about every adjustment I have ever needed to make to my hosting I have been able to make quickly and easily via the control panel without needing to contact customer support.   Another strong point in their favor is the speed at which they deal with support requests on the rare occasions that they are necessary.  I have always received an answer to my email within minutes of sending it and the problem has been sorted.

My only negative issue with Virtual Names has got to be the value of their professional packages.  In comparison to some of my less preferred hosts such as Easily, their storage and bandwidth offering is pretty paltry with a 1GB upload limit compared to Easily’s which is unlimited and a 60 GB bandwidth cap which is once again unlimited with Easily and all at nearly double the price.  Having contacted Virtual Names to ask them about this they did say that they do not penalise users who exceed their bandwidth limitations and that they are looking to increase storage limits in the near future.

As a result of this I would say that unless money is no object, I would only recommended Virtual names for smaller websites where ease of use and reliable support are more important than unlimited storage.  For large scale sites I would wait until they have become a little more competitive and maybe take a look elsewhere for the time being.

[View with PicLens]

Conclusion

The various web hosts I am reviewing here vary greatly and the right one for you depends on the requirements for your site. None of these hosts are disastrous choices (although Easily has had me close to tears at times).  My personal recommendations would be Virtual names for smaller sites where you would benefit from a simple-to-use yet powerful control panel and great customer support and Easyspace for a larger business sites where the price, whilst certainly not the cheapest, is more acceptable and comes coupled with an efficient support system and a more corporate feel.

Here’s a breakdown of the different hosting provider’s basic and professional hosting packages.  I have excluded any packages that don’t include php and mysql support as I regard these as essential for modern web development.

In a hurry? Read the 30 second version »

My decision to try and make our chickens and ducks fully automated came just before we headed off for a three week holiday.  We decided that rather than paying someone to come each day we would invest the money in fully automating them with automatic doors, an on-demand feeder, fresh water and a diy swiveling web-cam to keep an eye on it all .  Since taking the plunge, the system has operated flawlessly for over a year without even needing the batteries changed so I thought it was worth sharing how I transported our birds to Chicken house Nirvana. Read on to find out how I tackled it.

Please note: The webcam will only display full size when being viewed with Windows Internet Explorer due to hardware restrictions. Internet Explorer users may need to activate an active-x control by clicking the information bar at the top of the page.

During daylight hours there’s not much going on so below is a recording of the Chickens coming in to roost as it starts to get dark.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Building the Chicken House

I have been building our chicken house in my spare time since 2007, using a combination things I find in skips and and leftovers donated by our neighbor who is carpenter.  By the time I started the automation process in July 2008 the chicken house consisted of an upstairs with a perch for our 7 chickens and two rooms downstairs, one for our two ducks and another which had been converted into a fully sound proof box for our cockeral, Biddy.   Following a tragic incident in which Biddy decided to follow the ducks into the pond, his box had become vacant so out came the brick lining, bubble wrap and insulated cladding and in went a plastic liner and several sacks of Chicken food.  Biddy’s pad was now the feeder.  Leaving a small gap at the bottom, I attached a closure plate to the front of the chamber to allow just a small amount of food to drop down as required by the birds.

My first move in the automation process was to order the doors and closing mechanism.  There isn’t much choice when it comes to automatic poultry door mechanisms so I settled on the VSB system which I purchased from Wiltshire Chickens online shop.  I decided to get one VSBb mechanism, three VSB sliding doors and a VSB 24hr timer.  This door mechanism is light activated by default, which is great for chickens but our ducks love to stay out late so a timer was essential to give full control. In order to link up more than one door I needed to employ a couple of pulleys which can be ordered online but I decided to fashion my own from standard pulleys.

In order to give full access to the different sections of the chicken house for mucking out etc.. I mounted the sliding doors on a large removable plywood panel that bolted in place over the entire face of the chicken house.  Having cut three rectangular holes in the panel, the metal doors slotted into runners mounted either side of each entrance and the mechanism box was secured at the top.  Pulleys were attached to either side of the upper main chicken house door which guided lengths of plastic coated framing wire from the bottom corners of the upper door to the two lower doors causing them all to rise and fall in unison.  Once the doors were all in place and wired up all that was left to do was attach the main upper door to the automatic mechanism which was in turn connected to the timer module mounted on the inside of the panel.

The result was three fully automatic sliding doors, one at the top with a platform for the birds to fly up on to, one at the bottom for the ducks and one next door to protect the feeder from vermin at night.  I set the timer to close an hour or so after dark and to open just after sunrise.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The watering system came courtesy of a Hozelock AC1+ automatic watering  module which topped up both the duck’s pond and the chicken’s drinker.  I set it to turn on the hose for 2 minutes twice a day which was enough to keep the duck’s water from becoming too stagnant and provide ample water for the chickens.

Finally I needed to be able to monitor the setup over the internet to make sure it was all working smoothly.  For this I turned to a Y-cam infra red wireless webcam mounted on a small platform inside the main chicken house.  Because I wanted to be able to view them both outside during the day and inside at night, I developed a swiveling platform which looked down on the perch at night using it’s infra red night-sight, monitor whether the door had closed correctly, then swung round during the day to peer through a glass window looking out over the garden.  The platform itself was entirely comprised of bit’s and pieces I found lying around and could be set to swivel at set intervals.  The full design for this is probably a bit too much for this article so maybe I’ll cover it in a separate post in the future, let me know if this would be useful.

UPDATE: The webcam is now live at the top of the page but the swiveling base has been removed for privacy reasons.

I hope this has inspired you to automate you chickens if you have them or to consider getting some if you don’t.  We live in a built up area surrounded by other houses and we have found them to be excellent pets that require little in the way of daily maintenance and offer eggs and animation for the garden in return.  Apart from filling their food every couple of months and changing their straw now and again all that’s left to do is eat the eggs.  If you have any innovative chicken house adaptations that might inspire me I’d love to hear about them but in the mean time you can have a look through some more of my pictures.

[View with PicLens]

In a hurry? Read the 30 second version »

I was subjected to this scam a while ago now but when I heard about a similar case recently I thought it might be something worth highlighting. Although on this occasion the scam was centred around the sale of paintings, it could easily be applied to anyone selling products or services of high value on the web.

My first encounter with Romanze Edwardo (yeah I know, the name should have set alarm bells ringing!) was an email claiming he had seen my paintings at an art fair and wanted to buy a selection of them for his fiance.  It is not unusual for me to receive enquiries via email,  most don’t result in a sale and some are obviously scams or spam but he claimed he was interested in purchasing several pieces and it made sense for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Dear Michael,

I am a construction Engineer based in Copenhagen, Denmark and I would like to purchase a lovely art piece with a budget of  £500-£1000.  My Fiancee, Catherine Ingliby gave me your contact details after having spoken to you at Brighton Art fair.

I would appreciate it if you could  send me pictures of the kinds of paintings I would be able to purchase from your collection. I would patiently await your response and hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,

Romanze Edwardo

So with a hint of skepticism but probably more optimism than I should have had I sent off my catalogue and awaited his response.

Dear Michael,

Thank you for the swift response,  I was planning on coming over to the UK to attend a seminar in Manchester and I was hoping to come over to your studio or gallery to see the artwork myself and also purchase  some for my personal collection but unfortunately I will not be able to because I have been assigned to France for a seminar of structural engineers.  I have a residence in Denmark to which the artwork will be shipped. I would like to purchase the following artwork below:

{ list of paintings }

I will pay for the pieces with a UK bank cheque and the money will be withdrawn from my UK swift  account.  I will be sending £5380 to cover the cost of the artwork and shipping of the artwork.  I have some materials to be shipped in the UK shortly so I will let the shippers know that they will need to  come over to your area and pick-up the pieces to be delivered to me.  I will need your contact address and phone number to make out the payment for the artwork to you.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards

Romanze

It still sounded just about plausible but the figure of £5380 was over £1000 more than the paintings were valued at which made me feel a little confused.  The confusion was quickly dispelled upon doing a bit of detective work and speaking to someone else who had been at the art fair who banked the cheque only to be informed it was stolen a few days later.

The way the scam works is that the interested buyer contacts the seller asking them to purchase some high value goods.  “No problem” you say, safe in the knowledge that nothing will be sent until payment has cleared.  The cheque arrives and it turns out to be far higher than expected.  “My mistake” says the buyer,  “pay it in to your account and just refund me the difference once the cheque has cleared”.  So in goes the cheque, a couple of days later it clears and you transfer the difference.  The goods are collected and everyone is happy… until that is, you get a call from the bank.  The cheque had been stolen and despite the fact it had apparently cleared, you are still required to repay the money immediately meaning  you have not only lost the goods which have been collected already but also the difference in cash that you have paid back.

I was lucky that Romanze seemed a bit suspicious from the outset but he wouldn’t have needed to be much more convincing for me to have been duped so be careful and if in doubt ask the bank to specifically run a check on the cheque before banking on it.

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This article covers how I managed to go from no signal at all to a full strength signal in my studio at the end of my garden with an 802.11g wireless router.  In between my router and the studio were two brick walls and about 30 metres of garden but I needed to get a signal in order to work so these are a few of the factors that worked for me.

Update 31/01/2010 – I recently read a really promising review for a new product for mac users called the “Bear Extender N3″ which promises to boost the range of your airport by 200%.  A good review can be read on TUAW by following this link or you can visit the product site directly .  If you’ve had any experience with the Bear extender please let me know how you got on.

Method 1 - Positioning

Ok, this may seem obvious but it is definitely the first port of call and was the first change I made in order to get any signal at all.  I managed to take one of the walls out of the equation by threading the power cord under the floorboards to the router’s new location under the bathroom.  I saw an immediate, if slight improvement in signal strength but not yet to a usable level.

Method 2 - Build a parabolic reflector

I was skeptical about this one at first, but I needn’t have been.  The basic principle of this is to build  a foil covered curved reflector to focus the signal from you router in a specific direction. I followed the DLTV video below and used the template they suggested at www.freeantenas.com, making an individual reflector for each antenna of the router.  The results were quite surprising with an immediate increase in strength by a couple of bars but after a few hours of trying to work with it I realised that transfer speeds were low and it still wasn’t stable enough for a working environment with frequent dropouts continuing to be an issue. However, this may be a good budget option to try before investing in more expensive solutions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Method 3 – Buy a booster antenna

My next attempt was slightly less home-made and involved purchasing a 9dbi SMA antenna from eBay.  It was pretty cheap at just under £10 and promised to boost my signal by up to 4x.  Having unscrewed the small antenna that was supplied with my router and screwed on the giant replacement I just about managed to squeeze it back under the bath and switch it all back on.

Once again, initial tests seemed promising with a 3-4 bar signal being received down at my studio and the added bonus that this was omni-directional, extending the reach of my network in every direction unlike the reflector which was just directed towards my studio.  The first problems started to emerge after trying to use the router for any length of time with a return to the drop-outs and fluctuations I had encountered with the reflector.  This was a bit disappointing but I thought that maybe if  I tried using the reflector in conjunction with the new antenna the combined benefits might be what I needed.  Unfortunately I think the reflector was too small to have any meaningful impact on such a large antenna and there wasn’t room under the bath for a giant parabolic reflector.

After a few days of getting by, the death nail of my latest attempt was courtesy of my neighbour.  He uses a TV signal sender that he had been using happily for many months without a problem and which had mysteriously become unusable all of a sudden with broken images and interference.  I commiserated him on this unexplained technical fault and quietly headed back up stairs to dismantle my bath.

Method 4 - Upgrade your router

I was starting to get a bit desperate by this point and in need of a definitive solution so I decided it was time to throw some money at the problem.  I was still operating on an 802.11g network and this suited me fine as much of my equipment (an old imac, web-cam and airport express) all operated on g but my Macbook Pro was my main workhorse and he needed wi-fi fast so I invested in a Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n router.

I was hoping to be able to utilise the 5GHz spectrum and have a dual 5GHz and 2.4GHz setup using both routers but I quickly discovered that whilst using 5GHz does offer better transfer rates it also suffers from reduced range and in my case this meant a range even worse than my g router. With this in mind I switched off the g router and went wholly over to 2.4GHz 802.11n and was finally able to do a full days work without losing my signal.  This also meant I could no longer use my Airport Express and web-cam on the same wireless network, but work comes first and I decided I would have to make do.

This was all fine until I decided to build a greenhouse in between the house and my studio, not thinking about the wi-fi implications.  Back to my studio Monday morning and low and behold, no signal!  It was at this point my wife suggested I demolish the greenhouse but this wasn’t an option as my melons had already germinated.  A solution needed to be found.

Method 5 - Install a range extender / repeater

I was running out of ideas and needed to think of something fast.  After browsing the web for solutions I decided to try a wifi extender, an option I had up till now hoped to avoid as I didn’t want to waste energy on a third router.  After a lot of research I realised that none of these devices were perfect and each had their detractors so I let price decided and went for the Belkin Universal Range Extender from a company called ‘Bargain Stock’ (they deal mainly in B-grade stuff) for £17.  I have also recently read a glowing review for a similar device on Engadget which might also be worth a look, you can read it here.

Initially there were no life signs from the unit and I eventually deducted that the company had included a non OEM power adapter with the unit which didn’t actually work.  This might sound like a bad start but it actually turned out in my favour because as a result I realised that the unit could be powered from a spare USB adapter I had lying around.  This meant I could plug it into the USB hub of my monitor and the unit would only be powered up when I was in my studio at work negating some of my worries about power usage.

It wasn’t 100% straightforward to set up on the mac and I was glad of my XP / Parallels install for inputting the security settings and a couple of reviewers on amazon gave some useful tips which got me through the install procedure. After an hour or so the unit was connecting to my secure wireless network at full strength and without drop outs.  The improvement was dramatic with streaming video now a real possibility for the first time.  The belkin only functions on 802.11g networks and I couldn’t find any affordable solution for n networks but again this turned out to be a benefit as I could now dedicate my airport extreme to the higher speed  5GHz n spectrum and the g network for all my older devices.  The laptop automatically switches to the 5GHz network when I am in range and back to the 2.4GHz network when I am in my studio.  The two networks are linked at the routers so I can now access all my devices all the time.

It took me a lot of hard work and time to get there but I think I have finally found the perfect solution.  I hope this might help save some time for others out there with similar problems and do let me know if you have any ideas or methods you found to extend your wireless range.

In a hurry? Read the 30 second version »

The areas of web design and fine art may initially seem worlds apart but for me the line dividing the two is grey.  I have always been interested in art and technology but over the last few years I have tried to devote equal time to both and to allow them to develop in unison.  Whilst the end products are quite different, the different working practices and the creative processes involved with each  discipline have broadened my skill set for the other and changed the way I work for the better.

The modular nature of web work with it’s logical processes and re-useable components weaving together into a final product (usually a website) has undoubtedly fed into into my painting process.  I have found myself developing artistic techniques in the same way I might develop a plug in or snippet of code on the web to be re-assigned and redeveloped into the next generation of paintings.

Likewise, when it comes to painting, the creativity involved with making something from nothing and the confidence that the unexpected might be more productive than the obvious has given me the confidence to take risks with my web design and the resolve to stick with things that don’t work from the word go.  Painting requires a certain level of spontaneity and experimentation to be anything other than generic and applying this approach to web design has definitely been an advantage.

So my call is for you artists out there to down your brushes for the day, fire up your computers and try getting a bit techie.  Maybe learn the basics of a simple programming language like html and try making yourself a simple portfolio site.  You may be surprised at how simple and satisfying it is and how you can take what you learn back to your painting practice.

And for you techies out there, rather than flipping open your laptops first thing tomorrow morning, why not get out the paints and make a mess.  Treat it like research or training then you don’t even need to feel guilty about taking time off.