There are several things brilliant about this advert:

• The excellent tag line added to the description: “We’re not saying this body wash will make your man smell into a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it.”
• If you’re a woman, you’ll now look at your boyfriend and think “why are you not more manly you woman scented body washer?”
• He has a boat, but he was just in the shower a moment ago
• He has tickets to your favourite thing you want to go see
• They turn to diamonds
• He’s on a horse

As an added benefit, they also have Men focused advertisements which encourage Men to switch things up with their deodorants. Here’s “Different Scents for Different Gents” which covers this very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekn36qfsi74

Like the adverts? Watch the full set on YouTube or on their official site’s video section.

Edit: Seems Old Spice have gone ahead and done it again with their B.O. Blocker range of ads. Here’s a sample from those (also found on their YouTube channel) below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q2OlqsknXI

Tags: advertising, video

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Here’s the straight forward and simple reply i’ve put together which was used in this situation (and will be used in similar future situations):

Thanks for getting in touch. I’m afraid I don’t work in equity situations that value the idea more than the person putting it into execution. Thanks for getting in touch, but i’m not interested in this case.

Good luck with the idea, I hope you guys make it a great success :) Feel free to send me an e-mail rubbing it in if that’s the case further down the line.

There are several reasons for the language in this e-mail:

• bold statement to declare i’m not interested because it is undervaluing me
• making sure it ends friendly and opens up for witty banter
• making sure there’s an opportunity for myself to be ridiculed if the idea becomes a success later down the line

If you’ve responded to similar requests or have an e-mail that you yourself use in this situation I’d be happy to hear from you and discuss your experiences in the comments below.

Tags: advice, business

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That’s right! Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide is in the top left, hanging on the Magento HQ book wall! Also hanging there in the bottom left is Magento: Beginner’s Guide which I previously wrote a review on. Expect a review on Magento 1.3: Theme Guide to come in the near future.

Tags: books, magento, magento developers guide

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Packt is pleased to announce Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide, a new book that helps PHP developers build applications that interface with the customer, product, and order data using Magento’s Core API. Written by Jamie Huskisson, this book is packed with examples for effective Magento development.

Magento is an Open Source, e-commerce web application that was created by Varien, and built on components of the Zend Framework. Magento is the hottest and most powerful e-commerce software and has gained popularity in a short period of time. Users can control the look, content and functionality of their e-commerce web site with the help of Magento’s powerful theming engine.

Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide will help developers extend and customize the Magento e-commerce system using PHP code. They will get familiar with the architecture and internal structure of Magento and learn about the best modules available. Developers can then build a shipping module for their Magento store to give users options for receiving their items once they have paid for them.

Through this book, developers can build a basic brand-management module for Magento, in order to manage brands and display their details. They can also, create, update, delete, and retrieve customer data from within Magento by implementing the customer API. Additionally, developers can also import/export files to retrieve and store information from and to external sources using Excel Spreadsheet or CSV data.

PHP developers who want to understand the architecture of Magento and learn how to extend the system with PHP code, as well as add new features will find this book a beneficial and interesting read. This book is out now and available from Packt. For more information, visit: – http://www.packtpub.com/magento-1-3-php-developers-guide/book

Tags: books, magento developers guide, press release

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I’ve been a heavy user of Magento ever since it was in the very early releases and have launched every e-commerce site I’ve done since it was made available in the software. Magento has, in my opinion, set the standard for open source e-commerce on the web since its very first release.

The book is packed full of development focused chapters that will lead you through core aspects of Magento development, each of which you’ll use when working with Magento at one time or another. Head on over to the book’s website to learn more.

Here’s just a highlight of the topics covered in the book:

• Install and upgrade Magento to get ready for development
• Get familiar with the architecture and internal structure of Magento
• Learn about the best modules available and what they can do for you out of the box
• Build a Shipping module for your Magento store to give users options for receiving their items once they have paid for them
• Create a payment method for Magento and the various aspects that go together to complete the payment process
• Speed up your module creation process using the Module Creator script
• Build a basic brand-management module for Magento to manage brands and display their details
• Integrate your favourite CMS into Magento including a walkthrough of integrating WordPress into Magento
• Create, update, delete, and retrieve customer data from within Magento by implementing the customer API
• Integrate Magento data into an existing external web application or script using the Magento Core API
• Import/export files to retrieve and store information from and to external sources using Excel Spreadsheet or CSV data

What to learn more? Head on over to the Magento 1.3: PHP Developer’s Guide official website, the book is available to ship from today.

The book’s website will be updated with new distributor’s once they become available. Please follow me on Twitter for future updates.

Tags: book, magento developers guide

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2010 for me will be a mix of some (hopefully all) of the following:

Bringing back the personal projects

It’s time I started spending some time putting some ideas into practice instead of just talking about them all the time. Personal projects I have in the pipeline so far include gaming, Magento and an iPhone app.

Working for the dream client(s)

There are a few of those “dream clients” I’ve always dreamt of doing sites for ever since I first encountered their brand or using their products. This year I’m hoping to work with at least one of these dream clients.

Doing more outside of work/Nottingham

It’d be nice to spend some more time away from Nottingham, even if only for a day to a week at client offices or visiting just to get a feel of other places and other approaches to working. As I didn’t previously spend all that much time away from working before freelance, I’m looking to enjoy my time after work and on the weekends more instead of repeating old patterns.

Here’s to 2010

Here’s to 2010: The Year Of The Freelance and all that comes with it. It’s going to be a great year.

Tags: freelance, new year

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What is breast cancer awareness month? The website says it best:

The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) organization is a partnership of national public service organizations, professional medical associations, and government agencies working together to promote breast cancer awareness, share information on the disease, and provide greater access to screening services.

In 2009, NBCAM celebrates its 25th anniversary. Since its inception a quarter century ago, NBCAM has been at the forefront of promoting awareness of breast cancer issues and has evolved along with the national dialogue on breast cancer. Today, NBCAM recognizes that although many great strides have been made in breast cancer awareness and treatment, there remains much to be accomplished. As we celebrate our 25th anniversary, we remain dedicated to educating and empowering women to take charge of their own breast health by practicing regular self-breast exams to identify any changes, scheduling regular visits and annual mammograms with their healthcare provider, adhering to prescribed treatment, and knowing the facts about recurrence.

Tags: breast cancer awareness, layout updates

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For the months of June/July and early August I’ve been working late hours after work and weekends on a social media campaign for one of my favourite clients Pants to Poverty. The campaign involved several things:

• Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr presences for Pants to Poverty
• A slimmed down version of the site, with focus on quality and ease of use over quantity
• Giving core advice on placement of Pants to Poverty around the web and bettering the website wherever possible
• A collaboration with the excellent Leo Burnett agency on the Panteater viral campaign. (see also: Die Suckers and My Friend Martha)
• The Bad Pants Amnesty, focusing on getting Bayer Crop Sciences to stop the production and distributing of the endosulfan pesticide
• Sell more fabulous, fair trade, Pants to Poverty Pants

I’m a passionate fan of Pants to Poverty pants and have been ever since they were a client of Rolled Limited, of which I was formally Managing Director. Their pants are great (and comfortable), the message is brilliant and the campaigns and activities they are constantly pushing are always inspiring looking from the outside inwards.

Allow me to take a minute to explain the Bad Pants Amnesty campaign. Pants to Poverty are seeking to get Bayer Crop Sciences to stop producing and distributing the pesticide endosulfan. This is a banned in Europe and 62 countries, yet Bayer Crop Sciences (a major European brand) are still producing it. To learn more about the effects this pesticide has had on others, please read the Bad Pants Amnesty page on Pants to Poverty or watch the video here for visuals on the effects it has had on others.

A couple of weeks ago I was informed by Ben Ramsden, Pants to Poverty CEO, that only one week into the campaign launching a huge victory had taken place. Bayer Crop Sciences have announced they are to stop producing and distributing the pesticide endosulfan!

This is excellent news and I am eager to see who Pants to Poverty switch their sights to next in their Bad Pants Amnesty campaign.

Tags: clients, fair trade, pants to poverty, work

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To purchase there are multiple options: Publisher (Physical book + eBook available), Amazon UK, Amazon US.

What does it actually contain?

Magento: Beginner’s Guide by William Rice covers the entire back-end Magento system from a store owner’s point of view and teaches them a variety of aspects about managing their store. The fantastically written chapters include:

• Installation of Magento – covering how to get Magento installed on your server and leading you through the install process.
• Categories, Products and Attributes – covering the basics of all three and showing you how to set-up and manage both categories and attributes. (Click here to download this as a sample chapter)
• Taxes – this chapter alone saving hours of time in explanation covers how to set-up and manage the different varieties of tax rules in the system.
• Adding Simple Products – guiding you through how to set-up a simple product in Magento and what each of the fields does/means.
• Minimum Customisation of Your Store’s Appearance – leads you through the elements of Magento you have control over in your administrative back-end.
• Beyond Simple Products – guiding you through the ever important grouped and configurable products and their practical uses for your store.
• Customer Relationships – how to manage customers, newsletters and your contact form for your Magento store. Setting up and managing what features users have available to them.
• Accepting Payment – guiding through what Magento makes available to you in the form of accepting payment on your website and the configurable options that are presented.
• Configuring Shipping – taking a similar approach to the Accepting Payment chapter except guiding you through the shipping side of set-up and configuration.
• Fulfilling an order – the most important task for any Magento store owner in actually processing the order once it has come through guiding you through the process from start to finish.
• An appendix of broken down short step-by-step instructions – useful for quickly referring back to doing key tasks quickly without all the padded long explanations in between that you may not need second or third time around.

But is it any good? How does it come across?

Simply put Magento: Beginner’s Guide covers it all. It takes a personal one-on-one tutoring approach to take you through all key and important aspects of Magento. It comes across as friendly and helpful, making you feel like you don’t have to be an idiot not to know how to work with a certain feature or part of Magento. This guide is great for the completely uninitiated going into Magento and it’s great for the experienced that really just want to grasp the full power of Magento’s administrative back-end.

Can I train my staff with this book?

Before reviewing it myself I passed Magento: Beginner’s Guide onto a couple developers in the office. One of which who had worked with Magento before and one who had never looked at it. Both read the book back to front and came out with a proper understanding to the back-end of Magento, saving me from days of staff training on the topic.

Who should buy Magento: Beginner’s Guide?

People who should buy Magento: Beginner’s Guide include:

• People who like to be walked through things one-on-one
• Anyone who is getting into Magento as either a store owner or a developer for the first time
• Anyone who wants to train others in Magento
• Any store owners, who want a great reference when they’re stuck or can’t quite remember how to do something (and don’t want to pay for support from a developer/agency)

To purchase there are multiple options: Publisher (Physical book + eBook available), Amazon UK, Amazon US.

Tags: book reviews, magento, magento development

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We’re in the position where by the majority of the time a client will come to us asking us to provide them with what they want. It’s not often someone comes to you with a brief marking out 100% of what they want, feature for feature. When in this position we’re in a position of trust to advise them exactly what’s best and to provide them with the best we possibly can.

“Because it’s what the client wants” is an unfortunate consequence of not enough dialogue and an unwillingness to provide better alternatives to a proposed solution which is lesser than you’d normally want to provide.

For web users everywhere, please, stop using this excuse.

Tags: clients, dialogue, discussion, poor excuses

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Developers when young in their career are keen to impress. The words “I’ll get on it straight away” are often used and the client ends up being impressed as a result. This works very well and everyone ends up happy when the workload is kept low.

The problem occurs when growth accelerates and the developer has to learn to say “it’ll be two weeks” to a client who wants it within two days. When “I’ll get on it straight away” means that you’ll likely reach the job in a few hours rather than a few minutes.

There are several ways to deal with this to ensure you aren’t bogged down whilst working on current projects by past clients and side jobs alike.

Support contracts

Sell x hours a month to your clients to ensure they’re paying for the time you spend maintaining and updating their sites when they come back to you. It benefits both sides as it means you have a reason to get to the job sooner and it means the client is happy to place requests in a certain format and manner as set out in the contract. Want to give a two week lead time? Make it clear in the contract.

Make sure free support time is limited.

Ensure you have a 30, 60 or 90 day cap on free support for bug fixes and issues with a website. This isn’t to say that you will launch bug-filled websites, but it’s to say that there’s a point where by the final payment for the project has left your bank account and that it’s no longer fine to work any further on the project.

Schedule projects in, and turn projects down.

Probably the most important of the three in my opinion. The ability to schedule work and changes properly is only ever going to benefit your work life and happiness overall working on projects. If a change comes in that will be billed as a day then you need to book that in for a certain date so that the client knows when to contact you regarding that change.

Setting time aside for this each week is also a great idea for handling large or regular loads of work of this nature. If you can set aside time for this it’s certainly a great idea. If you don’t have lots of changes to do one week then you have time off and it works well in the opposite direction too.

Tags: advice, development, development-advice

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New developers to Magento can find it a puzzling system in terms of system architecture. In this article I hope to shed some light on some of the key directories in Magento and what they do so any Magento developers out there aren’t quite as confused when unzipping their first set of Magento install files.

Here’s seven key things you need to know the location of at some point when developing with Magento and the directories that they are stored in.

1. The templates file

   /app/design/ is the core storage folder for template files. With it breaking down into adminhtml/ for administration templates, frontend/ for frontend templates and install/ for installation templates.

   Within these you’ll find your default template set aptly named default. In your template set folder are your individual theme folders that come with Magento.

   layout, locale and template are the core directories that contain the files that make up your themes.

2. The skin files (resources, components, resources)

   In /skin/ you’ll find your CSS, images, Flash, JavaScript and any other resource files that relate specifically to templates in the system. You will also find the adminhtml, frontend and install directories distinction here.

3. Language files and e-mail templates

   /app/locale/ is your core directory. With sub-directories for each language set installed for the store. You will find .csv files for each of the modules installed on the system relating to their translations. You’ll find the Magento e-mail templates in /template/email/ within your language directory in /app/locale/.

4. Core configuration

   /app/etc/ contains all configuration files for Magento. From the local.xml file which contains your database configuration, amongst other things. To your modules/ folder which contains the declaration of modules in the system.

5. Local, core and community modules

   All modules for functionality are stored in /app/code/ and are broken down into the following folders:

   • community – for modules installed via Magento Connect.
   • core – for modules that come with Magento by default.
   • local – usually for locally developed modules

6. Media files

   All images uploaded to the system as well as the images resized dynamically by the system are stored in media/.

   When importing media files via system profiles (Magento’s name for batch processing), /media/import/ will be your folder to place the images for the products.

7. The var directory

   The var directory is used for several functions in the system:

   • Backups are exported to backups/ by the built in system backup tool.
   • The system cache is stored in both cache/ and session/ folders.
   • Data import for default system data import profiles is set to import/.
   • Data export for default system data export profiles is set to export/.

Hopefully this has given you a good indication as to the important directories in Magento’s file structure. I hope you can now go away and navigate around Magento’s default folders with ease.

Tags: articles, magento

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• he was two months into a big project
• the project involved one sole contact of the client
• the project involved one developer, who also does design
• all management and communication is through Basecamp
• he is almost near the end of the project and the developer (who also does design) asks “hey, mind uploading the PSD? I want to try a few things…”

There’s two clear paths to take here in my opinion:

The worst: go crazy, get paranoid

State very clearly you want to control the design, it’s yours, hands off. Do it on Basecamp and in front of the client. Make sure you well and truly make the client regret hiring you.

The best: think it through

Approach the client 1-on-1 and tell him you’d rather not adhere to the developer’s request. You think you’re close on the design concept and want to follow through with what you’ve done. Then, once you have worked something out directly with the client post a positive reply essentially saying “I’ve discussed this with the client and think it would be best for me to remain 100% in control of the design, I should have something up shortly”.

Tags: advice, freelancing

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This article is a few of the steps I use to make sure meetings aren’t the hell they could be when a client comes over for a chat.

Allot a set amount of time

First off, make sure there’s a time limit. “Let’s meet at 10″ is an open-ended invitation to stay for the day, “let’s meet at 10 for an hour meeting” sets the deadline straight away and ensures it’s known from the get go.

Put together a manifesto of what to go through

Make sure there’s a reason for the meeting. What needs to be covered? What needs to be said? Ensure you go into the meeting knowing what’s going to happen instead of letting it simply roll off your tongue. As soon as you do this the meeting tends to drift off into a long conversation rather than covering the points that the client came to have taken care of.

Make notes and make them often

There’s no need to stop meetings to give direction or discuss whether a development is possible. Make sure the client knows you’re going to discuss and get back to them and they will be happy. Make a list of everything that needs taking care of and what you need to look into. Then after the meeting you can go back and place everything onto your project management software appropriately.

Involve the relevant people

Often it occurs that the wrong people at sat at the interview. Did the designer need to be there to discuss design? Did the developer need to be there to cover development responses? Prepare this before you go into the meeting and ensure you’re prepared with the right staff or contractors sat beside you.

Have you taken control of your meetings?

Let me know if you’ve got any other ways you have taken control of your meetings. Either through leaving a comment on this post or by posting an article up on your own blog or website and pointing it to this post so other users can find it easily.

Tags: business, freelancing, meetings

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I’m the first to admit I’m a self-confessed workaholic but I’m also the first to admit that being workaholic to the point of work being the only thing in your life is a boring when you look back at it. Work is great and it sometimes leads to fantastic rewards but it shouldn’t never become the basis of your life.

The things in this article are all things that led to me becoming a significantly better programmer and lead developer. They also made me become a significantly better freelance developer whilst I was freelancing.

Nine-to-Five

Start out by actually forcing yourself to work between 9am and 5pm. Get all early morning browsing in between 8:30am and 9am and make sure you’re ready to immediately start. When you’re forced to work within a time period that “isn’t enough time” you’ll find ingenious ways of cutting time out of your day and solving regular issues so you can do more in less time.

You will be able to reflect on parts of your work life during this time that you’ve never thought about. Are you charging enough? Do you need help to get the work done? Are people taking advantage of your time?

Know when to apply the breaks

Set out when and for how long for your breaks are going to be. Your lunch needs to be at a regular time and two other 15-20 minute breaks can be scheduled either side of your lunch. This breaks things up and allows you to remove yourself from problems that can be fixed with a few minutes of simply thinking about it.

The same applies here for time that isn’t spent working. Don’t go out on a three hour break because you’re not in an office and work from home “because you can”, it just doesn’t get you anywhere.

Inbox nirvana

Cut out all of your e-mails as soon as they’re coming in. Make sure you reply to the e-mails that are asking you questions and for help within a suitable amount of time. Either set a certain time period aside for this or break it down into 10-15 minute periods throughout the day so you can spend the rest of your time focusing on the job at hand.

I find Gmail’s built in labelling feature is great for this, I can simply scan an e-mail and mark is as “quote to do” or “reply needed” and make sure those labels are completely cleared out by the end of each time slot so that everyone receives their responses.

Trim the fat, throw out what isn’t working

Simply enough you need to trim out all those activities that take minutes here and there but add up to an hour, maybe more, over the period of your work day (outside of the standard breaks) that stop you getting what you need to get done. Rescue Time is perfect for this as it allows you to see exactly what is distracting you from working properly and shows you how you can be more efficient.

Determined enough to get work done, you may even consider installing parental controls to stop yourself accessing these applications during your scheduled work hours. It sounds funny now, but if you’re a World of Warcraft addict or love your RSS Feeds, you know how much that will cut from your day.

Make some plans, don’t expect them to just happen

Arrange weekly events you would have look like a complete idiot to pull out of, plan things a few days or week(s) in advance so that it’s definite that it will happen. Make sure to get out and experience something else other than the computer once and a while.

Thought of something else?

If there’s anything else you’d like to suggest to others facing this problem or you would like to share how you’ve got over the same issue then feel free to leave a comment or post it up on your own blog with a link to this post so that others can find your suggestion.

Tags: articles, freelancing, work

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Well, in OSX 10.4 and onwards you can change the default screen shot format.

Start by opening Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Type in:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format
killall SystemUIServer

Replace image_format with your selected format that you wish to change the default setting to. The second line reloads the default so that you don’t need to log out and back in again for the change to take effect. The next time you take a screen shot after executing both of these commands, it will be saved in the new format you have chosen.

Below is a list of several popular image types and their commands in full should you wish to paste them.

BMP

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type bmp
killall SystemUIServer

GIF

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type gif
killall SystemUIServer

JPG

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
killall SystemUIServer

PDF

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
killall SystemUIServer

PNG

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png
killall SystemUIServer

TIFF

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type tiff
killall SystemUIServer

Tags: code tidbits, mac osx

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A quick tip for Magento developer’s here, in how to add an unsubscribe link into a newsletter template so that the person can unsubscribe from the newsletter if they chose to do so.

Simply add {{var subscriber.getUnsubscriptionLink()}} into your template in order to output the link for the user to unsubscribe. This even works for people who aren’t registered customers of the Magento installation but that you’ve imported into your system as subscribing to the newsletter.

Full example of a link in your template to unsubscribe:

<a href=”{{var subscriber.getUnsubscriptionLink()}}” title=”Click here to unsubscribe from this newsletter”>Unsubscribe</a>

Tags: code tidbits, magento development

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Ever wanted to give your readers, or your client’s readers a chance to share the post quickly on Twitter?

The code is straight forward:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading ” title=”Click to share this post on Twitter”>Share on Twitter</a>

If you’re using WordPress and want to automate this, simply use the following to insert the link to the current post in the loop into your link:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading <?php the_permalink(); ?>” title=”Click to share this post on Twitter”>Share on Twitter</a>

Tags: code tidbits, twitter

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After seeing Rescue Time I had to give it a go and see what came out of it. The web app allows you to track your time spent across various applications and sites etc. and gives you your productivity and efficiency scores based on that activity.

You set productivity on a scale of +2 to -2 in terms of points for each website and application you’re using. You can also group activity by tags and groups under groups that are pre-set or that you create yourself. Textmate for example is automatically under ‘Dev Tools’, as is Transmit. As I’m a developer I marked Dev Tools as +2, and Adium (instant messaging) as -2. Campfire would be -1, NewsFire -2 etc. until you have a good overview of everything.

It doesn’t require this kind of extensive set-up, but it only makes it a better tool spending this much time with it. The personal account is free, though your data isn’t kept forever like the paid packages and they have both Mac and PC applications to support its use.

I found overall that Rescue Time helped me enormously with monitoring, and subsequently increasing my efficiency and productivity. I’d recommend it to anyone who wanted to find out just how effective they are in their work without much of set-up.

If you have any results of your own you would like to share feel free to talk about them in the comments. I’d be delighted to see how others are doing with any trials they’re running with Rescue Time.

Tags: efficiency, rescue time, web apps, work

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1. Nobody pays attention to their fonts. A CV is potentially 100% text in its standard format, yet hardly anyone strays from the standard set of 5-6 fonts.
2. It’s obvious when you use a template. Some may think it’s not, but it is.
3. Ever thought of laying it out? Why not use a two or three column table for that list of skills you’re outlining? How about removing some of the babble and spacing it out a little?
4. Personality is a dying art. Despite me declaring I wanted to see some personality from applications when they sent in their e-mail I saw very little.
5. Nobody catered their CV to the role. Everyone sent in a standard CV. Nobody put in some text about why they’d want the role, or why they would be a good fit for it.

Learn from their mistakes and adapt to them next time you send in a CV for a job you want to apply to. Make it interesting for the person on the other end.

Have any opinions on the subject? Or advice for others? Bad mistakes you’ve made with your own CV? Feel free to leave a comment below, I’d love to hear them.

Tags: cv, job applications, work

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Here’s a few tips as to things you can do to get this experience to enhance the theory behind your degree in the real world:

1. Do your own projects, set your own goals. This is a basic one but something that a lot of students don’t do. You need to set out what you want to learn by the end of the year and break it down into deadlines for when you’re going to learn it. Follow that plan as a base before any of the other things in the post and stick to it.
2. Approach local companies involved in your area of desired service. It’s something that most students are afraid to do but it’s potentially a big opportunity to learn a lot about the role you want to work within later on. Observing the way people communicate, joining in on office banter and simply becoming comfortable in an office environment lends a big help towards how easy it will be to hire you. Most importantly here: work for free. Company’s don’t want to pay, but they will throw you the odd project if you work for free to gain you extremely valuable experience. If there’s an extra desk in the corner, why the heck not let you sit there and learn?
3. Search out online teams There are plenty of online teams for areas like 3D, illustration, Flash and others that are dedicated to learning as a group and growing as a talent. I find myself lucky to have found myself within a team like Pixel2life early on and it gave me an extremely good base of talents to move on forwards from after I left.
4. Approach local charities/business. Focus on people that wouldn’t be able to afford the services you provide if they wanted to. (But of course would find it of benefit to have those services in the first place). You offering to give them your services for free in aid of some experience and a reference may just get you another project in your portfolio/CV come interview day.
5. Read a lot of blogs. It sounds basic, but you need to get yourself an RSS feed reader and add an RSS feed from every site you can find of reasonable quality into it. Read the articles that come through and study the latest trends and issues in your field. It makes you a more valuable candidate and cements your role within the team should you get a job.

What’s most important here is for you not to sit and take your college or university course as gospel. Yes there are people who get jobs straight out of their course with little help and there are courses that obviously don’t need this post. But you only increase your chance by getting up and doing something outside of your usual routine. It doesn’t have to be a full-time 40 hour workweek for free, do it a couple nights a week. Even a few hours a week is going to improve upon what you’re doing already.

If you’re a student yourself and have any comments about how you’ve prepared yourself for the outside world upon leaving your course or if you have any more advice for the students out there, feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear it.

Tags: college, freelancing, work

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Virgin, please read the following and adapt your advertising appropriately:

• You don’t own the box: Virgin don’t sell you a box, they let you rent it. Which means free repairs, free replacements and no extra £10-15 a month for a support plan just to get someone out to your house when your Sky box is dead. Virgin also offer remote support on the box where by they can fix some problems over the phone. Sky doesn’t offer this, unless you’re paying extra. Another benefit to this for Virgin’s customers is that your box also gets upgraded for free too.
• Record two, watch one: With Virgin this literally means watch one program whilst recording two others. With Sky, this means record two programs and one watch of them. This is annoying as you more often than not end up watching parts of one of the programs you’ve got set to record. Another annoyance attached to this is that Sky disables all other features when two programs are recording, no information, no guide, nothing unless you cancel a recording.
• Television, that isn’t on: anywhere. Sky has ‘catch up TV’ where by you have a selection of 15-20 great programs over the past week to watch through. The problem is, you require a subscription to the channels to watch them. With Virgin there’s this and a massive back catalogue including the BBC iPlayer, Channel 4′s 4-on-Demand and hundreds of other series for you to watch through. A massive, massive plus on Virgin’s side.

Feel free to share your annoyances with Sky or Virgin Media in the comments below. I’d love to hear your opinions.

Tags: little things, sky, sky vs virgin, virgin

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Here’s a sample structure of a re-direct line:

Redirect 301 /about.php

/about.php here is the local URL relative to the core domain you’re redirecting from. If you’re redirecting from then this will be /directory/about.php and if you are redirecting from then it is simply /about.php.

The second part of this statement is the complete URL you are forwarding to.

The beauty of a 301 redirect with .htaccess is that if you have one big set of URL’s that have changed from one place to another with the filename/end URL staying the same it is still the same statement. For example:

Redirect 301 /test/

This redirects /test/about.php to – anything after /test/ will be redirected to and placed at the end of the URL. The same applies for all query URLs (i.e. about.php?variable=1&this=that).

Tip: Always priority order your redirects. The redirects you want done first should go up top. But you should also be careful not to place inherent statements above specific ones.

This won’t work:

Redirect 301 /test/
Redirect 301 /test/about.php

This will result in the first statement being processed and the second statement meaning nothing. The correct order is:

Redirect 301 /test/about.php
Redirect 301 /test/

This means the specific statement is applied first, and then the inherent statement is ran afterwards.

Here’s a sample of extensive re-directs for Twod.co.uk to JHuskisson.com:

Redirect 301 /general-posts/ http://www.jhuskisson.com/general-news/
Redirect 301 /wp-content/uploads/11/ http://www.jhuskisson.com/wp-content/uploads/

Here is what they do:

• Moves all posts in the /general-posts/ slugged category to show at /general-news/ on the new site. For example /general-posts/testing-post is now /general-news/testing-post on the new site as we changed the category.
• All uploads from /wp-content/uploads/11/ are now linked to in /wp-content/uploads/. For examples /wp-content/uploads/11/test.jpg is now /wp-content/uploads/test.jpg on the new server.

All of these lines can be applied to 302 (temporary) redirects too. Just switch the number 301 with 302 to achieve the result you need. 302 redirects should be used where the file is only moving there for a short while but will be put back eventually and 301 redirects are used to transfer the URL to the new URL permanently and work great for a site move or a URL restructuring.

I used these to transfer Twod.co.uk to JHuskisson.com and several other transfers and they have all retained by page rank and search engine strength from domain to domain with ease.

Have any other htaccess redirect tips or things to discuss? Feel free to leave a comment using the form below.

Tags: .htaccess, code tidbits

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1. Posting the wrong job application text up in the first place/wanting something you can’t get
   Most people just post up a big long list of what they want and accept nothing else. To get the right result post up the bare minimum that you’re looking for and add ‘traits that would be ideal, but not required are:’ to the bottom.
2. Grabbing the first person that comes along.
   Sometimes it’s genius but the majority of time it’s just lack of patience. The first person in your inbox isn’t always the best. If you can’t find anyone and are desperate, then you need to start thinking about how you’re posting and where you’re posting.
3. Posting in the wrong places
   Do your research first and take a look around at the other job listings being posted up in the same place you’re putting yours. If you find jobs that aren’t similar in the majority, then it’s the wrong place. If the others look completely different to yours (less detailed, much more detailed, including images, not including images) then adapt your posting.
4. Trying to fit the wrong person into the wrong position
   Don’t hire an Expression Engine developer to be a WordPress developer if they don’t already have experience. Don’t hire someone who specialises in non-framework based development to work on a Code Igniter powered site. Get someone who already has the experience otherwise you either get: a) more expense for nothing, or b) a completely poor result. Sometimes it’s both.
5. Make sure you know their hours
   When, in their timezone, are they online? It should be one of the first questions you ask and you should know when each of your outsourced team will be online or offline.
6. Know how to get in touch
   Do they want to Skype? Do they want to be contacted by phone? By AIM? MSN? GTalk/Jabber? ICQ? Know that they fit what you want and don’t have their own standards. I once worked with a developer who decided to let me know that he only wanted to be contacted when he decided to come online, on MSN. No phone calls, no Skype, nothing. When he was called, he pulled out of the project. Clearly a bad choice.

I will follow this in a series of other articles about outsourcing. If you have any other mistakes or experiences to share, feel free to leave a comment on this article as it would be fascinating to read.

Tags: business, contractors, mistakes, outsourcing

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We work with Linux, Apache, PHP 5 and mySQL 5 technologies; deploying WordPress, Expression Engine, Magento or Code Igniter applications where necessary to meet our client’s needs and we’re looking for someone to join our team as a developer. Note: you don’t have to know all of these to apply, so don’t be shy.

Qualities we’re looking for:

• Good sense of humour
• Good English, at the very least
• Good work ethic
• Ability to handle multiple jobs at the same time
• Able to work to tight deadlines, and deliver on those they themselves set out
• Ability to work within a development structure that is set out for each type of job

Requirements of the positions(s):

• Take part in our daily banter in our staff campfire
• Ability to use Basecamp, for project management
• Specialist experience with Magento, Expression Engine, WordPress or Code Igniter
• Available part-time, or full-time

If you’re interested send an e-mail with your rates (hourly, or monthly), location, availability, why you want to work for us and experience to <removed>. Make sure the subject contains the words ‘Job opening’ in it somewhere in there.

Tags: job openings, juno media, rolled

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