Not Just AJAX

Windows Server 2012 IIS 401 Error

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Mon, 26 May 2014 00:33:00 +0100

Well thats my server upgraded to Windows 2012 IIS 8.

So I thought anyway, all was working fine, website migrated over and working fine. All clients happy,

But

I went onto one of my own websites and started getting a 401 access denied due to credential error. So I thought I know what is causing this and set about doing the normal things, checking the user my website was using in IIS for the anonymous user under the IIS authentication tab, and this was set to be using a specific user.

"Thats it" I thought, so I made sure the user had the right access to the directory for my website. Yet it was still giving me a Windows Security popup box, mainly for sub folders, the root of the website was perfectly fine.

Weird I thought!!

I checked the providers and made sure that NTLM was at the top of the list so this was not the problem.

So what was the problem?

How to fix it

In my case the problem was that the site is a Wordpress site running PHP, everytime you do something additional in IIS it creates a web.config file to store this information. So if you delete this file from your website, just find all occurrences and delete them. It resets everything and hay presto it works.

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Android Cannot Resolve R Symbol Problem

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 16:35:00 GMT

If you are writing an Android app and have come across the Android Cannot resolve R Symbol problem here are a few things to fix it.

Try Rebuilding your project, sometimes the Java environment gets a bit confused, especially if you are using Android Studio.
If cleaning and rebuilding your project doesn't work check your XML files, normally in places like your layout folders, values folders, menu folders plus in your root of your project normally in the form of your manifest for your project.
If all the above did not fix you problem, check the names you have used in your project files, such as any drawables in your project. Make sure you are not using numbers as file names such as a drawable called 1.jpg or any other file in your project. If you have used numbers in your file names change them to either none numeric or alphanumeric names.

Doing one of the above should solve your problem, if it doesn't please let me know and I am happy to lend a hand to get your code working.

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Sean J Connolly - FaceBook Me

RIM / Blackberry Rolls out Messenger to IPhone / iOS, Android and other devices

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 17:16:00 +0100

As a quick follow up to my last post, you can see that one of the main reasons why anyone bought a Blackberry device was the unique messaging services and how they were delivered, such as push email, Blackberry Messenger (BBM).

Blackberry / RIM rolls out Blackberry Messenger (BBM) to other devices

As of basically today you can now run the blackberry messenger BBM application on other devices and other smartphones, including Android and iOS devices. This means that you can now communicate using BBM with people that have Blackberry devices, by using your existing android or iPhone.

What Does This Mean?

Well in short this is the final nail in the coffin for the Blackberry, its sad to say but he once might device has now diluted away its competitive edge, by allowing anyone to use BBM.

Although the exact process as to the roll out and cost will be seen as RIM sees how it is taken by the general public, whether they employ a monthly cost, per message cost is still open for debate.

However

What this does mean is that RIM in releasing Blackberry Messenger (BBM) to other devices have done 2 things.

They have removed the need for anyone to buy a Blackberry Handset, and given that both Android and iOS devices have a lot more to offer and are cheaper than a Blackberry handset, means that they will lose even more market share in the handset arena.
By launching BBM as a software solution to other devices, RIM are moving away from where they started, they are now moving to be more of a software messenger service than a handset provider.

In Closing - the Future of RIM and Blackberry

Well its a shame to say it but I think the future of RIM is even more bleak than it was, this latest move is the nail in the coffin they did not need, the main reasons are simple.

By allowing anyone to use BBM on their device, removes the need to buy a blackberry handset at all.
Blackberry Messenger / BBM will now be seen as a direct competitor to other messaging formats such as text messaging / SMS / MMS this means that in order to make money from the BBM roll out they need to compete with users already existing tariffs, which as I mentioned in my previous post all usually come with a huge amount of text messages at no extra cost, so why would people pay additionally to send a message to someone when they can send them a text. Not sure they will :(
RIM have forgotten that most phone tariffs are used for data use, and as such people now have access to social networking sites, such as twitter, FaceBook, G+, LinkedIn and not forgetting services such as Skype. My point is by opening up the BBM market and making it some what public, they have created additional competition they never had before.

So I am sad to say it but I think this latest decision by RIM is the end of RIM as we know it, they will, if they stay afloat, move into the messaging market for software. Which may not be such as bad idea as I think its about Skype had some competition. (and RIM if you are reading this, please give me credit for that idea)

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Sean J Connolly
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Blackberry OS 10 and RIM's Future

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Wed, 2 Oct 2013 23:01:00 +0100

So if you have not heard the news that the company behind the famous Blackberry is in trouble and has just been acquired by a VC firm for almost a tenth of the value a couple of years back. So why is this happening to a once global player?

The answer is simple. Blackberry has forgotten its roots, the success of RIM came as corporate people, like myself, use the device as a means of communication in terms of emailing, although there is some BBMing as well. The main reason I like so many others use the Blackberry is for email. The unique secure nature of Push email, knowing that my email lives securely on RIM servers no matter who my provider is made the Blackberry a unique device.

So Whats Changed

More phones

Within less than 10 years there are not only a huge range of phones out there that compete with Blackberry, mostly running either Android or iOS. Which in itself is not a bad thing as these phones now not only do everything that made the Blackberry unique, but they are a lot more fun, more applications, more networks, which all means you can use your phone for work as well as play.

More Emails Less Blackberry Email

There are also lots more choices for email now than ever before, as 10 years ago you had to either run your own server or you had limited choices in terms of email, and namely push email. However most providers, even free ones like GMail, Yahoo, Live all do some form of push email now. Although none of the free services are as secure as Blackberry is, but they are free.

However, there is a catch to this Blackberry as of OS10 and with all new accounts as ceasing to run a hosted email service via your mobile phone provider, so if you have a dedicated Blackberry email with your provider, within a couple of years this will no longer work.

No Longer need a Blackberry Bundle

Plus the above as of OS10 you no longer need a dedicated Blackberry data plan to use the Blackberry services, this includes email, BBM, internet, etc

RIM are rolling out BBM for other devices such as Android, iOS

In a short while RIM will be releasing a new version of their popular messenger system BBM, this time it will be available on other devices and not just Blackberry's. This will mean that people without a Blackberry will now be able to message people with BBM by using their existing phone, they no longer need to have a Blackberry.

What Does This All Mean?

As you can see Blackberry is trying to move away from their roots as a corporate provider, they are realising that the growing sector of their market is people that just want to use the messenger service BBM and are not bothered about email.

What They are Forgetting!

By moving away from where they started Blackberry / RIM are hoping to capture more of the market that is not interested in mobile email but more interested in texting, messaging, facebook, twitter, etc. RIM are also trying to make their handsets a bit more fun, with the new OS10 you can get more apps and do more fun stuff, sort of. Also as of OS10 you now don't need a Blackberry data plan to use your Blackberry services, this may sound like a good idea, but in reality by doing away with the need for a Blackberry service plan in an attempt to attract new customers and removing the RIM hosted emails services, means that in order to use email on your Blackberry you now need to use one of the many free accounts out their or your own personal email account.

One thing RIM are forgetting is that by diluting their offering, in terms of making software available on other operating systems, such as BBM means people are moving away from the need to have a Blackberry device. What they need to remember is that BBM is one of the reasons why people buy their Blackberry in the first place, so by making it available on other devices they are removing the need to even by a Blackberry in the first place.

So what we have learnt is that now as of OS10 all your Blackberry is, is a mobile messaging device, that is still no way as much fun as other handsets out there, plus if your a corporate user (and I don't mean a Blackberry Corporate account holder) but someone would likes have a professional looking mobile email, your out of luck. No more Blackberry hosted email, just a phone you can use to message people also known as texting ;)

The Future

So as we can now see as all you can really do on a Blackberry now is use the BBM service, which in itself is restricted to only sending messages to other BBM users, although this is changing shortly, unlike text /SMS where you can send it to any mobile phone, means that the future is bleak for RIM / Blackberry. After all there are loads of tariffs available now with unlimited text messages and loads of data, what that means is that anyone can now get a more fun handset such as an Android or iOS handset and still have the same features that once made Blackberry unique, this includes email as you no longer get a RIM hosted email with your Blackberry device, and the free email services do PUSH email now, so you would be daft to get a Blackberry.

The Solution

My advice to RIM is simple, GO BACK TO YOUR ROOTS, remember that Blackberry was once the communication device of choice for people that want to communicate, not chat! So give all Blackberry users a dedicated email address, and I love the idea of not needing a separate Blackberry plan. But one should not come at the expense of the other.

In short continue to make your handset more fun, but also aim them at the original market, people that want to communicate and not simple by BBM.

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Google - Not Paying Enough UK Corporation Tax - So What!!

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 23:20:00 +0100

So you may have heard that recently it has been reported that several large corporations including Google, Starbucks, FaceBook and Amazon have reportedly not been paying the correct amount of UK corporation tax, by working from Ireland and closing sales there, as it has a lower tax bracket and saves them paying UK Corporation tax.

So What Do I Think About This?

I think that whilst paying UK corporation tax is a legality and none of these large corporations are doing anything wrong, I think this whole thing being brought by the UK government is a lame excuse for the UK government to try to get extra revenue in, when they are doing so badly at fixing the broken economy.

I think that speaking from experience I have paid into the UK tax pot hundreds of thousands of pounds and what have I got back in return from the UK government. NOTHING. The government continue to screw over honest UK tax payers and waste billions of pounds every year on helping countries that dont need help, such as the £1bn every year sent to India. Now I am all for helping out countries and people that need it, but the UK government need to start helping more people at home and stop wasting money overseas, not to mention the millions spent every year on asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, such as Abu Qatada and his family (£1500 per month spent on rent for his council owned home)

Workers Coming Into the UK

OK and here is the main reason, well apart from the fact that I have paid in lots of money to the UK for very little return, that I think the UK government should leave Google alone and that is the continued fascination with countries such as India & Pakistan by the UK government. They continue to insist that people from India should come and work in the UK, this is leading to the UK population being out-bred by Indias. Not only do they come to the UK, but they always insist on pushing their religion on the UK population, if you dont like the Christian UK, dont come here. Not to mention that many people from India may work for less than their UK counterparts, but they are far less skilled. In many cases Indias / Pakistanis who live in the UK have dual citizenship which means they dont pay UK tax as they are non-domicile for tax purposes yet continue to use UK services such as the NHS, schools, etc. To prove my point if you take a walk down a UK high street you will see many Indians and Pakistanis with children, and you will also notice they always wear designer clothes and drive luxury cars, this is not because they are in high paid jobs, but because they are playing the system.

Ask youself this, how many Indias do you know that can afford to travel back to India several times per year, yet if you put the shoe on the other foot, the people who have moved to Spain for example, cant afford to travel back to the UK several times per year.

Allowing Work to Go Overseas

The other reason I think the UK government should leave Google alone is that I have personally been on the receiving end of not having a contract renewed because they outsourced the work to India, this along with hundreds of call centre staff. This continues to happen all being allowed by the UK government.

So after all this is said I think the UK government are just trying to fiund a quick fix to the economy they continue to wreck, and targeting the large corporations not only looks like a good way to get quick cash, but it also looks good in the media, as put it into context Google may have made something like £11bn or so in the last decade from the UK, yet only paid about £100k in corporation tax, even if Google pay full UK corporation tax it would only amount to around £2bn, now this may sound like a lot, but it is small in comparison to the £10bn+ that the UK government has spent funding India, not to mention the loss of hundreds of thousands of UK tax payers by continuing to allow outsourcing by UK companies.

Google Gives Alot to the UK and the World So Leave Them Alone

One other thing that the UK government need to look at is what Google gives to the UK not to mention the rest of the world, all for people to use for nothing. These are things such as

Google Search - which everyone online uses at least once a day
Yahoo - you can watch, store and share videos for no charge, not to mention TV programs, films, etc
Google Drive - You can share your files or store them on Google servers, again for free.
Google Maps - Now who hasnt looked at their house on Google Maps, plus it gives us directions not to mention the thousands of UK jobs created by third party companies specialising in Google mapping technology.
Google Mail aka GMail - You can check your email for free, again this is used in the UK by millions of people daily and in some cases as the main and only email account.

As you can see this is only the start of the Google list, and if we take into account the costs of running something as simple as an email account, which is around £20 per year per account, given that most of the UK population will have a Gmail account, that would be a cost of around £420,000,000 that people in the UK are not having to pay, just think of direct boost to the UK from this amount alone. Other areas such as companies working with Google technologies and the costs just go up and up.

So in short I think that before the UK government starts pointing the finger at Google and its tax affairs, it needs to start sorting the UK out first, such as the multi millionaire farmers, builders, plumbers, after all Google did not break the UK economy, nor did the banks, people did!!

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Sean J Connolly
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BurstNet - Useless Unreliable Service and Rude!!!

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:31:00 GMT

Well if you read my last post you will notice that I was in the process of looking for a new host for my websites, and after my experience with Webhosting.uk.com I moved to a called BurstNet.

If you have not heard of Burstnet they are a US based firm operating out of Scranton, yes the same place the Office is based on "maybe that should have given me some warning".

This time I signed up for a VPS to give me greater control over my websites.

They Lied to Me - Not in the UK, No UK call centre EVER

I decided to use Burstnet as although they are in the US they told me that they have servers hosted in the UK in Manchester and are opening a call centre for UK clients shortly they also said they are available for support using AOL AIM, they also told me they use Hyper-V for the virtualisation and as I knew this to be a good setup I thought that they are working giving a go.

As their price was competitive I thought I would sign up. I thought I would give it a month to see what it was like so signed up for monthly billing.

Hyper-V No Way Man!!

When the VPS was setup it was in fact not Hyper-V at all but Solus, this gave me a slight worry but I thought as it was running ok, this was a problem I could live with.

The first month everything seemed to be working fine. Although I was unable to find then using AOL chat at all. But as the server seemed to be working OK I thought I would alter my billing to annual.

Burstnet VPS constantly offline and unable to reboot

Now this is where the problems arose, after a couple of months my VPS was offline and I was unable to reboot it using VNC or the control panel and had to raise a ticket, I actually had to call the technical support number (which is in the US, I am in the UK) and spoke to someone who said he would sort this immediately. Which he did and the server was back up and running.

This became a constant thing, just about every other month the server was offline and needed to be rebooted. Each time I raised a ticket and had to get it rebooted. On one phone call I asked if they are overselling the VPS offering and the guy on the phone said, that basically they put as many VPS's on each node as possible. This explained the poor performance and lack of up time.

How many Times can a VPS be Offline?

This continued for several months, and as the service was paid for I thought I would continue until the end and move away then.

Now not only was I getting poor and unreliable service, but in the time I was hosting with BurstNet they never once setup a UK call centre, and even at the time of writing this they still done have a UK call centre at all. So each time I had to call the US to try to get a solution, then on one occassion I rang up only to be told that with the VPS solution it is unmanaged so I dont get phone support, I said I am not asking for support i am asking them to reboot my server as its urgent.

Can you guess what they said?

Nothing they actually hung the phone up on me. A man called Jeremiah put the phone down on me, so I called back and as soon as I said who I was he hung up again, this happened on times until I was finally put through to someone else, who still did not resolve my problem. The problem this time was a bit more worrying than a simple reboot.

So what was the problem this time - well other than the server being offline?

I could not login to my server using my RDC connection as it was not accepting my password, I could not login using the VNC software either, and all my websites and email were down. So this was urgent, when I called I hoped a simple reboot would be all that was needed, but as I had managed to use the control panel to reboot I worried something else was wrong.

When I spoke to Burstnet they said the server must have been compromised and the only way to restore it was a complete rebuild, I said as my password is secure, this is total rubbish. Well after several days of no server and Burstnet refusing to help restore the server, I bit the bullet and rebuilt the server. On doing this I then ran a test on the physical drive space the VPS was using only to find that part of the drive had been corrupted and part of the windows user files had been deleted by chkdsk. On raising this with Burstnet they again refused to accept any responsibility for this failure.

They said the SLA only cover the network and not the hardware, meaning that even if the server hardware fails they are not liable for anything. Talk about a crap SLA.

So I decided after all this hassle and unrealiable service to move away from Burstnet.

The Truth about Burstnet

Burstnet are not UK based (and never will be)

Burstnet operate in the US as burstnet.com and in the UK and europe as Burstnet.eu, they dont not have any offices in the UK at all. The registered office for domains in the UK is actually a unit just outside Manchester Science Park. When I spoke to the security guy at this address, he said he has never seen anyone from Burstnet.

Burstnet.eu is registrant is NOT DISCLOSED and the registrar is actual Tucows, even though they claim to have a Tag for domains. Strange I think ;)

The VPS is actually hosted in the US not in the UK, the IP is registered in the UK with RIPE but redirects to the US, and when I took the VPS the time zone had to be left as US in order to activated the copy of windows server 2008.

Up until writing this email burstnet do not have any UK based call centres at all only US.

Burstnet Staff are RUDE and hang up on you

The staff are not only very rude, like I said before they hang up on you!!, but they are very inexperienced regarding hosting.

Burstnet services are oversold, over capacity and setup badly

The VPS offerings by Burstnet are not only over capacity, but in my experience are actually a tier 2 virtualisation, that is a virtualisation inside a virtualisation in order to maximise revenue.

It should also be noted that they actually have a clause in their Terms that states they can cancel services and request you to remove negative comments about them you may write anywhere online. Why on earth would a good decent company need such a clause if they werent providing a good service.

So in short STAY AWAY FROM BURST NET WHAT EVER YOU DO!

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly
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Webhosting.UK.Com - They are really that dishonest!!

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:26:00 GMT

It all began when I was hunting the internet for a new hosting provider and in particular a VPS provider.

My first mistake was to move my websites to Webhosting UK, although I was looking for a VPS they said their shared hosting environment outperformed most VPS offering out there. So I took the gamble and signed up for a web hosting account.

Webhosting.uk.com cant get it right from the start

From the very start the service was bad, firstly I wanted to use the shared SSL area for my websites, so after my shared hosting area was provisioned I went about settting up all my files, websites, emails and thought at this point I would be able to access the shared SSL area via the Dot Net Panel control panel. This was not the case and on raising this issue I was told that the shared SSL area was only available if I was using the Plesk control panel and in order to use the Plesk panel I would have to be given a whole new account with the Plesk panel.

So after about a week my new hosting account was setup this time using plesk, and after a lot of chatting online with Web Hosting UK they finally agree to migrate my data over for free, as this was their fault. However I still needed to setup my email accounts again. Which was a pain.

Webhosting.uk.com alter service provision without notice

So there I was with my websites up and running, or so I thought. After about 6 months of hosting with Web Hosting UK I noticed one of my applications that had been running fine was not working, after a lot of error checking I noticed that this was due to the server having the FSO or File System Object disabled. I contacted Web Hosting UK and was told that they had disabled the FSO for security reason on the shared hosting and in order to use the FSO I would need to sign up for a VPS, as they have disabled the FSO on the shared hosting.

Webhosting.uk.com service is unreliable and not live most of the time

After all this I thought it would be plain sailing, but no such luck, the speed and reliability of the server meant that it was down more than it was up and my clients were constantly on the phone complaining they cant access any websites or emails. The server was not live most of the time.

Another problem was that not only was my website not live most of the time, but I had a problem with server rights when publishing an SQL DB and on one occassion this was fixed by contacting them via the web chat, however when this problem arose again I was told I would need to email in as it cant be sorted via web chat. This was a pain, as I had to wait a few days for this to be resolved.

Webhosting.uk.com dont honour their own SLA - refuse to give refunds

So after all the poor service and lack of uptime on my server I contacted them to see about getting some kind of credit as per their SLA agreement, As I was on annual billing, they refused to offer any kind of refund at all, as they said I needed to contact them within 40 days of the incident, which I did. I had lengthy conversations via email with a woman posing as a customer service agent, a woman called Jenna Strong, where as she is in fact the company secretary.

Wehosting.uk.com Jenna Strong is not a customer service agent she is the company secretary

So after all this I finally decided to move hosts, and tried to get a pro rata refund for my time left on my account, again this was refused, even though I had a month left on my account at the time of moving away.

So my advice to anyone looking for hosting is not STAY AWAY from Webhosting.uk.com they also operate as bodhosts and eukhost so dont not touch them with a barge pole if you want your website working and a company who is honest and reliable and stand by their own SLA.

The Truth about Webhosting.uk.com

Company Director & Secretary

Firstly the director of the company is John Strong and the company secretary is Jenna Strong (yes they are related) dont be fooled when she calls herself a customer service agent.

Domain Registered Address

Although the company is registered in the UK, the actual domain is registered to an office in Albany House in London which is a virtual office / mailing office address. They do not have an office in London.

Registered Office

The registered office address is Leeds is also a virtual office and is also the contact address for the other companies including eUKHost and BodHost.

Also on the website it stats they have been in business since 2001 yet the company has only been registered since 2008

So as you can see with all this smoke and mirrors Webhosting.uk.com are a company not to deal with, they are nothing more than a Micky Mouse operation with poor customer service and dishonesty at all times.

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly
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Google Glasses - Is It the Future?

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Sun, 1 Jul 2012 23:43:00 +0100

You may or may not have heard of the Google Glass project.

If you have not heard about it check out the Google+ page about it https://plus.google.com/111626127367496192147#111626127367496192147/posts

But in short its a set of Augmented Reality glasses that you wear and this allows Google to provide information realvant to what you are doing, which is then shown on the eye piece, such information can be place location information, emails, or even recording what you see and stream it live. I guess it is probably like the Apple iPad and going to be shipped without instructions

Will It Work

Ok the idea is sound, having something we can use to provide real-time information to us directly without the need to get out a phone or look at a map. So in theory Yes the project has real potential, as bridging the gap between the internet information we want and where we are is great, this in essence is what Augemented Reality is all about.

The application of the Glass project and design are the key to its success. I personally see that major benefits of the project as being the real world stuff that will make a difference, I dont think that being able to read emails in a tiny window will really work, think Google the current trend is tablets, and why is that because they are bigger than a smartphone by not as heavy as a iPad, laptop, people will not read email on a set of Google Glasses.

I think my thoughts on Google Glass split into the following.

Pros

Live streaming and recording, ideal for emergency services, military to keep in touch with base and improve communication between members. Now soldiers can actually see where their colleagues are, making tactics, not to mention rescue a whole lot easier. this would also be ideal for training scenarios. I love the idea of being able to record my mountain bike trips and watch them back later.
On the spot information, such as information about things you see right in front of you, such as "how is this statue by" or "what is that movie about". But more to the point stuff like car sales could really benefit, as when you are viewing a car you could see what you need to look for, as well as realtime pricing or insurance information.
In general any information that changes realtime will be useful via Google glass, train information, bus information, flight information, traffic news, etc.
In short, think terminator, I want to be able to get information about what I can see now. This one factor is the success story of the Glass Project.
Google Glasses would be a perfect replacement to my GPS device I use for walking.

You get the idea the Glass project is perfect for getting up to date information to you when you need it, or recording what you see as you see it from your point of view.

Cons

Although the idea is a good one, I think its just that a good idea and like any good idea it will win or lose in the application and design, this in my view is where Google need to think hard. Mainly due to the follow.

The chosen design is wrong, no one will wear a pair of glasses that only has one lens, well being honest a select view people will but a very small minority.
Coverage, and this will be the make or break of the whole project, as already people are having problems with mobile phone coverage and mobile internet, and although Google can set up a cool test in ideal conditions "big blimp giving signal", what about someone in a poor coverage area, or more to the point a solider in a war zone with signal being blocked? If the glasses dont get coverage they wont work.
Without a targeted niche the whole project will fail, so rather than sell the project to everyone, Google need to target a few areas as an overal augmented reality pair of glasses just will not be popular enough or different enough from current smartphones to make people buy them.
Lack of true location information using GPS and supported mapping.
Screen (or lack or) size, in short the thought that anyone is going to read emails on their Google Glasses is one that should be thrown out the window, they are too small for that application.

Solutions and Some Ideas

I have a few ideas that should happen to make the Google Glass project more of a success, these include

Google Glasses need to be made to either look more like a pair of normal glasses or sunglasses / shades or be able to clip in to existing glasses as a kind of add on. Almost like giving your regular glasses super powers, after all if you already wear glasses, why not have super ones, the key here is that the design need to be incorporated and not a clearly visible thing attached to your Glasses, as is the case for the initial design of Google Glass for prescription glasses wearers.
Google Glasses need to be able to work even without signal. So I should be able to upload information to my Glasses for information that I want in real time, but in reality is not realtime information, such as maps, directions, movie info, car info or anything else I may want that is not really real time information.
Battery Life. In short there should be none, Google Glasses should be self sufficient in terms of power or at the very least have the internal battery backed up by solar power, so I never need to worry about losing power, especially due to the applications they can be used for.
Syncing with my computer and the internet, just like my Google Docs account I have a folder on my PC and everything I put in there automatically syncs to my online Google Docs account. This is how Glasses should work, I should be able to connect them to my computer and they automatically sync stored information onto my computer, such as videos I have recorded, photos I have taken or any other information, this can then be synced to my online Google Glasses account so I can share photos, videos and anything else with people online, just like I do with Google Docs
I would love the idea that true location information is shown and recorded, meaning that a huge potential market of anyone who users a GPS or map will be able to use Glasses for exploration. I do a lot of walking and would love to be able to see my location live on a map. The beauty of this is that if I could upload a digital map to my Glasses I would not even need mobile coverage for this to work, as GPS work pretty much everywhere. With tracklog data being recorded and video when I want it to be, meaning when I get back I can review my trip just like I do now using my current GPS device and camera.
A better form of input, such as projected keyboard would make the glasses a true go anywhere laptop, tablet replacement.

Ok so these are just a few of my ideas for Google Glass, and I hope that this project is a success as I love the idea of being able to record stuff I do and see live information about things around me. But I still think the project has a way to go to be a viable sales option.

But I wish Google every success in the Google Glass project and I look forward to wearing them in the future.

Thanks
Sean J Connolly
@SeanJC

RIM posts first loss in 7 years, considers splitting firm

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:35:00 +0100

So I have been and continue to be a very avid Blackberry user, and have happily used a BlackBerry for almost 5 years now. So when I saw the latest news that RIM have posted a loss and are on the brink of splitting their company I thought, that is so not the right thing to do. That brings us to this blog post.

OK so RIM are taking a battering from other handsets, particularly Apple and Android handsets with profits falling to the brink of staff cuts, almost 5000 at the time of writing.

What I find funny and quite annoying is that RIM hired JP Morgan to come up wth strategy to save the company, and what did they come up with, yes you guessed it staff cuts and possbly splitting the firm in two. One for the handsets and one for messaging. This advice is so far from what RIM need to do its laughable.

Remember RIM you need to spend money to make money, making your company smaller is not the way to go to increase profits.

Now here is what is wrong and what should be done, well kinda.

Firstly the problem is that RIM have failed to keep up to date with the continued move into applications, and that has left the Blackberry OS too far behind the competition. So people like myself who use a blackberry are in a position where we can not get the same amount applications for our handsets. Answer open up the development of applications for the Blackberry OS, but dont go too far as to make it opensource.
On the apps front, dont just port old apps to your new operating sytem, develop new applications to keep up with the times, porting is good but you need new innovations.
Now it appears to me that RIM are totally missing the spot when it comes to keeping up to date with their market, the mobile phone market has changed since they first came around and although messaging has moved on, RIM and the Blackberry handsets have not, and are still targeting older users with enterprise solutions, however alot of handset sold are to young people, and in some cases mid to late teens if not younger. This is the market that RIM is missing out on, although alot of people use BBM their overal handset use is limited to this and this alone, and as this is where the RIM story began they need to focus more on how this can be utilised.
Email, simple really RIM are not fully pushing the fact that their handsets are still the best for Email as they operate true push email, no other handset offer this type of email with the service and experience that RIM does. So as the world is continuing to move towards mobile workers, I dont see how they can be making such huge losses. This market would allow RIM to kinda burn the candle at both ends, by targeting people who want to use mobile email.

Splitting the Company. Dont Do It!!

Ok word of warning to RIM, don't split your company into two, as you cannot have Blackberry Messaging and Email without the handset, so in splitting the company and lets say selling the handset side will only lead to problems, due to the loss of control of the one thing that makes RIM and Blackberry unique the "Blackberry" handset. This will also lead to increased costs in the future as who ever did buy the handset side, will either expect payment for RIM to use Blackberry services on their handset, or and this is more likely they will pay a license fee for the use of Blackberry service, this fee will be less that the current income RIM makes from handset and messagin licensing to service providers.

So in short RIM dont split up your company, as you cannot have Blackberry messaging without the handsets.

In Closing

OK so I have loads of ideas that could save RIM, and before you go saying "what do I know" I have worked with some of the largest companies on the planet, Orange, Microsoft, Google to name but a few and have always been able and continue to spot opportunities and bring saving and improvement to companies, and not by cutting staff.

In a nutshell RIM needs to give up the idea of splitting the company, and look to add a better offering of applications to its arsenal, and finally broaden the target market, push the likes of BBM and its benefits, mainly cost compared to SMS, to the younger generation and push the benefits of a true push email experience to the slightly olders users, also make people aware that in order to use Blackberry email you dont need to have enterprise architecture to support it.

So Thorsten Heins if your reading this and want to save RIM, you know where I am and only have to ask. I dont even charge anywhere near as much as JP Morgan, but always get results.

Thanks
Sean J Connolly

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Follow Me @potissimus

FaceBook Develops Inbuilt SPAM System aka Gives Users Personal Email Addresses

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 23:25:00 +0100

You may or may not have seen that FaceBook recently issued all users with their own FaceBook email address.

What does this mean?

What in essence it means is that you now have an email address you can use with the FaceBook messaging system, the email takes the form of {username}@facebook.com and any email sent to that email will appear in your FaceBook messages, just like direct messages sent via FaceBook.

This does means that now your FaceBook account is freely open to receive SPAM from people who are not your facebook friends, so get ready for the marketing material.

Why?

This email is an attempt by FaceBook to further get people to use the website and become more relient on FaceBook, by bringing use of the website into your main stream life. So no longer will you ust use FaceBook to keep up to date with your friends, but you will now use it for direct communications with people that may not be your FaceBook friends.

It is a direct attempt by FaceBook to increase the user numbers and use of the website, as they continue to face an uphill struggle to define exactly what FaceBook is and where it fits into peoples lives. This now takes a direct attack on GMail and other email systems, but just on a different style and a direct attempt to increase user engagement on FaceBook.

Its not so bad though as it does mean that you can use FaceBook as your messaging system and not get stuff you dont want to your main account.

What if I dont like this?

First off you have the email address no matter what, and as its free so I would just leave it at that and either use it or not, its your choice.

The only thing I would say is that your FaceBook email will now be shown on your profile as your default email, so if you dont want to use it you need to change this back to your original email address, which is straight forward, just do the following.

Go to your profile page on FaceBook i.e facebook.com/you, either go to your private facebook url directly or just click your name on the right of the facebook screen.
Click on the about section, the bit with your work, education, location, etc on the left handside under your name and profile pic.
Scroll down to to the Contact info section, just on the right below your basic info, click on Edit.
You should now see a popup with all your emails listed at the top.
Next to the FaceBook email click next to the circle and change the option in the drop down to hidden from timeline, then if you want an email shown on your timeline, next to the one you want click next to the circle with a line through it and select shown on timeline.
Then just scroll down and click save.

Thats it you are now showing your original email rather than your FaceBook one.

SPAM

Now here is my prediction for the FaceBook email future, in one word SPAM. by using peoples usernames means that anyone can create a huge email list of facebook users, and anyone with any development skill at all and using the FaceBook Open Graph API can now harvest a vast amount of email addresses, to which they can send spam, in fact just by spending sometime on FaceBook can turn up usernames and thus email addresses.

What this means is that unlike normal email systems with inbuilt SPAM filters the email system is an open door to crap, and the most you get is a small yellow triangle warning you of the inability to authenticate the sender. But you still get the SPAM. You dont have to be friends with people to send them FaceBook email, so lets open the FaceBook SPAM floodgates.

Thanks
Sean J Connolly
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Twitter, Celebrities and Not Following

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 23:43:00 +0100

I love twitter and have been using it for years. I find it better to use than other social media sites, it my short sharp shock of update for the people I am interested in.

If you want to follow me please do http://twitter.com/SeanJC

First off I am going to talk about what I think is wrong with Twitter.

My Thoughts for Twitter Followers and Following Rules

You may or may not know that Twitter has rules about how many people you are allowed to follow based on the amount of people that follow you, the ratio is basically 200% you can follow twice as many people that follow you. For example if you have 10 followers you can follow 20 people.

Now in my view this is just wrong, I think you should be able to follow as many people as you like, after all Twitter is all about keeping up to date with people that you are interested in, just like a bit of mini news if you like, and you should be able to follow 1 million people is you wish.

I think these rules need to change and what I think should happen is that, as Twitter is about following and followers, I think that you should only be able to have people follow you if you follow people. Now I am not saying that you should be forced to follow everyone back, but I think that in order to allow new followers you should be first following a percentage of your followers.

Lets say in order to get new followers you need to be following at least 10% of the amount of people that follow you. For example if you have 100 people following you, you should not be able to get any more new followers until you follow 10 people or 10% of your followers.

I also think that in order to keep your Twitter account active you must be made to Tweet often, say every 30 days. After all Twitter is about a live interaction and social news feed and if your feed gets of out date it becomes a bit pointless, or if your feed is empty that is also a bit useless. This could be slightly modified to say you have to at least tweeted once and then maybe just log in to your account ever month.

Now after using twitter for quite a while I have noticed that there are a few things that I dont understand, these are

1. Celebrities

Now love em or hate em they are part of our life and they use twitter, well most of them do. The thing I dont like or understand for that matter is that why do some celebrities only follow fellow celebs, and all their tweets are directed at fellow celebs. Whats the point in that? I mean do they really think that their fellow celeb is going to buy their album? probably not. This excludes everyone else as Twitter is the ideal platform to get your message out, so just make sure you get it to all you followers and don't annoy most of them by excluding them in your tweets.

Another think I hate is Z listers, you know the type the TV personalities who think they are actually A list celebrities, if you ever tweet them they ignore you and again only follow other celebs, and all tweets are between them and other celebs. Twitter is not your personal little communication tool, I mean if they really knew other celebs personally they would be able to SMS them or even call them on the phone.

Seems the only time you see celebrities talking to non celebrities is when someone throws some abuse at them and they will respond, but if you send a message of well done or something similar it gets ignored. Reminds me of Rolf Harris, he was part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in the UK, and I sent him a tweet saying well done, did I get a reply, no, but someone who throw some abuse at him got into a full conversation on Twitter with him.

So my advise to celebrities on twitter is simple, first off use Twitter yourselves, dont farm it out to your PR person and secondly respond to your followers, even if you get a million @'s a day these people are your bread and butter so don't annoy them.

I have to say a big thank you to @SuziPerry (Gadget Show Presenter) she takes the time to respond to her followers and is a lesson to other celebrities, it only takes a few seconds to say thanks.

2. Constant Promotion

Now celebrities are not the only ones guilty of this, I find on Twitter there is nothing worse than people that only tweet stuff about themselves, by this I mean such as links to their website, or shouting about their latest album coming out. Twitter is a great way for everyone no matter where you are in life to connect, so I wish people would stop using it as an advertising tool and nothing else.

Dont get me wrong, people follow you for a reason, and they will be interested in your latest blog post, website, album or whatever, but this must be mixed with other tweets, stuff in general about what you are doing and alike.

3. Not following Anyone

Now this is where the whole world of Twitter really goes bad, the people on Twitter who don't follow anyone or only follow a few people. This totally defeats the point in Twitter, the idea of Twitter is to keep up to date with other people and share your world, if you are not following anyone that only means you are only interested in yourself and self promotion.

In my experience celebrities are the biggest people to do this, off the top of my head Stephen Colbert @StephenAtHome (who presents the Colbert Report) is following no one, another one of the top of my head is JK Rowling @JK_Rowling (the Harry Potter Author) she is only following one other Twitter user, her Harry Potter account. I think you get the picture these people need to wake up and stop being so arrogant, if they are not interested in others people will stop being interested in them.

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly
FaceBook Me

BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

GM pulls out of FaceBook Advertising - Is this the End before the IPO?

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:51:00 +0100

Well if you have not heard, GM or General Motors has cut it's $10million spend on FaceBook advertising claiming poor results. and although the revenue of FaceBook is in the Billions and no doubt FaceBook execs will pay no attention to this. The fact that a global company the size of GM has pulled out is only the beginning.

After all had they gotten better results the advertising revenue would no doubt have been raised, but FaceBook results have prompted a swift depart from this, and what is the reason?

Well I know the main factors that have caused this and will continue to cause this mass departure.

1. The FaceBook founder Mark Zuckerberg continues to see FaceBook as a bit of a social project with no idea of social media and how to profit from it, there has never been a real business model behind facebook. The pure success of FaceBook has been almost due to luck and being in the right place at the right time, as Mark started FaceBook whilst still at Harvard, and although he failed to complete his studies he gained so much more, as he had a ready platform of fellow students willing to try his new toy. this lead to huge online traffic and users. Had he started FaceBook and not been at Harvard (or uni in general) the success would be no where near as big.

2. The FaceBook team continue to lack some basic understanding of business fundamentals, and unlike their Google counter parts they dont really know how marketing and business work together or even who they are targeting, and it is for this reason that the advertising model of FaceBook doesn't work. There is no real integration between FaceBook advertising and the users, and as such putting all your revenue on this will be the downfall of FaceBook unless something is done about it

3. Advertising and Socialising just dont mix. FaceBook must remember that it's main goal in the world is a social network, and although advertising can play its part in this mix, it must be done to not have adverse effect on the overal goals. For example the recent addition of adverts into peoples timelines is more invasive than useful, plus there is no real connection behind the adverts. Even if they were linked to the sorts of things I like that would be a good start, instead I have been greeted with adverts for all sorts of things I just dont care about and in a place I dont notice. Remember FaceBook people using FaceBook are in a different mindset to those who are searching on Google. Simple Social vs Purpose.

So it is in my not so humble opinion that unless FaceBook pay attention to the fact they have lost a large advertiser in GM, then I see this FaceBook bubble about to burst. I think in short the solution lies in a few simple things.

FaceBook adverts need to integrate more into the social experience and be more relevant to my interests, likes, etc
FaceBook needs to remain social as its core function, as unlike google people use FaceBook for socialising and this is the key to revenue and success.
The business model needs to be taken seriously and although having huge sums of IPO money thrown at it doesn't make it work.
I feel the adverts need to give advertisers better value for money, for example why not integrate adverts into the way people use FaceBook, such as maybe an advert between processes, such as before I view a picture, a page or similar, something like a full page advert would be a better integration without being invasive and be much better value and make use of the huge screen real estate FaceBook has. This could even be done in the form of the FaceBook Dialog boxes with adverts in them.

If these steps and others are not taken I can see the following happening

Other large advertisers will pull out of FaceBook Advertising, leading to an increase in Google advertising revenue.
FaceBook will need to go back to its roots to regain market share and find an identity.
I expect FaceBook's IPO to get a bit of a lack luster start, and by the end of trading the share price may even be lower than at the start.
It is also my prediction that the actual value of FaceBook will fall to nearer the $50 billion mark and the share price will fall and stay at under $30 in the mid $20s, actually round about the original price before the increase in the IPO offering, leaving hundreds of traders out of pocket.

Now these little thoughts are only a few things I know will happen if FaceBook does not sit up and pay attention, "although I will keep my exact thoughts private on this one, well that is unless FaceBook wish to pay me to help them", so FaceBook needs to release huge online traffic is not the key to their success.

But in all honesty as I use FaceBook and think the work Mark and his team has done in such a short period of time I take my hat off to him. But just sending this little warning, as its like the old saying goes "if you look after the pennies the pounds will take care of themselves".

Thanks Sean J Connolly
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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

classic asp / asp.net error 800a0e7a Provider cannot be found. It may not be properly installed.

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:02:00 GMT

OK so you have just bought yourself a new machine and this one has a 64 bit processor and the 64 bit operating system to match, such as Windows Server 2008 R2 64 or Windows 7 64. Now you cant wait to start playing with your new toy and setup all your websites on this new piece of kit so you start setting up all your website and projects and your new machine.

WHEN

you try to run one of your websites and you get a dreaded "800a0e7a Provider cannot be found. It may not be properly installed" error. So you check and double check your code, the configuration of your new hardware, all to no avail. So what could be causing this problem, maybe a registry problem, virus or someone else.

Simple

The most common cause of the 800a0e7a error is a data source such as a database and the fact that the new system cannot find the driver to use it, normally due to the fact that the object you are using to access your database is a 32 bit object not 64 bit, such as the MICROSOFT.JET.OLEDB.4.0 so if you are using a connection string something like

"PROVIDER=MICROSOFT.JET.OLEDB.4.0;DATA SOURCE="

Then this is most likely your problem, but STOP dont make any changes to your code or software READ ON The Solution to 800a8e7a is Simple

All you need to do is to make your Application Pool in IIS support 32bit applications as well as 64 bit applications, and here's how.

1. Open IIS
2. Select the website on the left you are having problems with
3. On the far right click basic settings
4. Make a note of the Application Pool the website is using

1- Select Website 2- Basic Settings 3 - App Pool

5. Click on the Application Pools Option on the left
6. Select the Application Pool you website is running on, (the one you noted down in 4 above)
7. Click on Advanced Setting on the far right.

1 - ClickApp Pool 2 - Select App Pool 3 - Click Advanced Settings

8. In the settings windows that pops up, in the General Settings change the "Enable 32-Bit Applications" option from false to TRUE and click OK

Change Enable 32-Bit Applications to TRUE

And thats it.

Simple exit out of IIS and your website will now work as it did before in your 32 bit environment.

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly
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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Apples $46.33 Billion Quarter Earnings

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:52:00 GMT

It is a nice think to here that in the current climate of doom and gloom, there is a light in the tunnel. Not at the end yet but at least its there.

You may or may not have heard but Apple has just reported a massive $46.33 billion revenue for the last quarter of 2011, thank mainly to the huge sales of the iPhone 4S not to mention the sales of the iPad.

As you can guess all of these are way beyond anyones estimations, and I have to say this is great news especially with the recent passing of Steve Jobs, I think he would be very proud of the company.

So whats wrong with this?
Now I ask you a question, if Apple has made a huge $13.06 billion profit for this period from the $46.33 billion sales, you have to ask where has all this money come from. I mean every news article you read or see is about people losing their jobs, companies going bust. So in these "so called" hard times where is this money coming from.

After all most of the people who have bought the new iPhone 4S probably already had the old iPhone, and if you look at the typical user they tend to be people who see their phone as a toy, and in some if not most cases are your typical single mum or benefit scrounger.

So I ask you, can the world not see that people have more money than they are making out, and lets use this Apple success as the true judge of the economies of the world and start getting things back on track.

For more info on Apples great news go to http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/01/24Apple-Reports-First-Quarter-Results.html

Thanks Sean J Connolly FaceBook Me - Visit AJAX Web Development Store BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

BlackoutSOPA - Web Support against SOPA

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:18:00 GMT

With the current support for SOPA being testing and as more and more online giants put their weight behind the opposition of SOPA, I think that its time people said where do they fit in the whole SOPA arguement.

What is SOPA

Firstly if you dont know what SOPA is its the Stop Online Piracy Act that US congress are planning to turn into legislation, and in essence it makes sharing information online a bit more difficult, as under SOPA any websites showing copyrighted content without the owners permission will be liable for the infringement. However apart from that bit of the act the rest of it makes sense.

We need more protection from online pirates, especially in todays society where the majority of people who work in IT, particulary as web developer, designers etc carry out a lot of copyright theft, taking code from sites passing it off as their own, stealing designs. Basically in the last 10 years there has been an influx of companies claiming they can do something when they cant, they get awarded work they shouldn't and simply use the internet to find the coding they need, then pass it off as their own work. THIS MUST STOP.

Where Do I Stand

I am in support of the essence of SOPA in we need better controls to protect our hard work, yet at the same time we do not want sites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and others to be blamed for hosting copyrighted materials. This in my view is the key, we need to all work together and if a site hosts copyrighted material, they should take it down as soon as they are made aware of it, and be willing to pass details of the people on to authorities, after all civil protection doesn't give you the right to break the law.

So will I be bringing my websites down on Wednesday, No. But I do support this action in part at least.

If you have not heard of SOPA or want to know more about it, check out my other blog article on SOPA http://notjustajax.blogspot.com/2011/11/stop-online-piracy-act-sopa.html

Thanks
Sean J Connolly
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Crimes Does Pay

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:42:00 GMT

Ok I am going to start this blog with a bit of a quiz. Look at the picture below and try to guess who you think is in the photo and where you think it is taken.

people working in an office?

Ok times up. Some of the people in the photo are infact inmates being held at HMP Wolds, which is a prison just south of York.

WTF. you may be crying and you would be right. this is exactly what I thought when I heard about this whole thing, to give you the whole story I am going to start from the beginning.

Where it all Began.

So there I was just going about my business when I got a call from a recruitment agency about some business analyst contract work in Yorkshire, so I said yeah that sounds like something I would do, so they emailed over the details.

Now normally at this point I get some job specs and information on who the job is for, and on this occasion there was nothing out of the normal I got the email containing the job specs and the name and web address of the company in question. So I did what I normally do and took a look online at the company's website.

On my arrival at the company's website I was shocked to find that the company specialises in everything from affiliate marketing to online consulting and has done this for some of our major household brands, including Argos, TopShop and 3.

So What You Might be Saying.

Well, and this will shock you. This company actually uses convicted criminals to do this work, granted only a small portion of the 100+ staff are actually convicted criminals, but the fact that any of the staff are convicts is absolutely appalling.

The name of this company is Summit Media - www.summit.co.uk

So How Does This Firm Work

The way the firm operates is that it takes convicted criminals, normally ones who have been given long sentences, which normally means they have committed serious crimes in the first place, and gets these people to work for the company as part of a so called rehabiliation program. The work they do can be anything from working directly with clients, developing internet marketing strategies to anything else you can think of that happens in a typical new media marketing firm.

There is a list as long as your arm for inmates wanting to work there, as unlike other inmates who have to do manual labour as part of their punishment, these people actually get to work for an IT firm gaining free education and in reality rather than spend say 10 years in prison are actually spending 10 years gaining experience working in an IT firm, so on release they can claim to having 10 years experience rather than simply saying they have been in prision for 10 years.

Now to me this is so messed up, as we have graduates who are leaving universities and colleges with qualifications and unable to find a job, and you would think that this firm is using people who already have some form of IT experience or qulaifications and you would be wrong, as stated by Managing Director - Hedley Aylott

"We’re looking for people with the right attitude, for those who really put themselves out and are highly motivated. We don’t necessarily choose people for how much they know.”

So they are not only using convicted criminals, but convicted criminals who do not have any skills or experience in either IT or the internet.

More insults

Now to add insult to what is already a whole load of crap, the company actually has an office in Prague, while you may be thinking so what. Well this division was set up by Tomas Honz, who back in 1996 was convicted of heroin smuggling and convicted to 26 years in prison, and yes he did not serve 26 years. During his time in prison he worked with this firm, gained an Open University Degree and after being released early he was deported back to Prague where he setup the company's Prague office. He is now one of the senior members of the company working as its Technical Director. No wonder on the company's website he states he has been to every European country as he worked as a coach driver when he was convicted of drug smuggling.

For the full story on this pillar of society go to http://www.independent.co.uk/news/turkish-gang-jailed-for-heroin-smuggling-1307866.html

The company is doing so well that it has moved its head office out of the prison to a farm just up the road, and again it still employs convicts at this location. So each day these convicted criminals go to work at the head office and travel back to the prison in the evening, its almost like they are just being given somewhere to live for free by the government, although the place they have been given to stay in comes with additional facilities such as gyms, pool tables, fitness equipment, games consoles, etc.

So What Would I Do

I have read loads of articles online about this company, and the main emphasis seems to be on the lines of the firm getting cheap labour and it being unfair on the prisoners, this to me is way off the mark and infact just total crap.

Firstly you should not get anything for being in prison, but you should be made to work to repay your debt to society, infact inmates get paid between £10-35 per week for working whilst in prison.

The solution is simple STOP REWARDING PEOPLE FOR BAD BEHAVIOUR if someone commits a crime and is given a custodial sentence they should be punished, so they dont want to do crime again and end up back in prison. I do not believe in giving inmates training, skills, education as a means to stop reoffending, as due to the current easy life convicts get they are happy to reoffend, in order to get back to having a TV, Playstation etc all of which you need to earn in the outside world.

I strongly believe that if we went back to the Victorian style of prison cell, people would not be so quick to reoffend.

Courtesy of http://blog.travelpod.com/

I simply think that the solution is actually in giving shorter sentences, but with much harsher prisons, so rather than giving people free stuff for being in prison, they should be punished and dont want to go back.

In Closing

So with the economy in the toilet and the government putting up university fees, people are finding it harder and harder to get a start in life, and where as in the outside world if you want to get employed your have to find the job yourself, or pay for your own education. The convicted criminals in our prisons rather than being punished are rewarded, and not only by having shorter sentences, but when they are convicted and given a custodial sentence they get education, including being offered Open University degrees that would cost £5000 per year in the outside world, the chance to work in an IT and sleep in cells.

Sleeping in cells sounds bad until you realise that in prison you even get provided with items such as games consoles, TV's, etc again all of which if you want in the outside world you have to work for and buy yourself, especially given that in order to have a TV you need a license for it.

UK prisoner Playing on Playstation in Cell

The above image is taken from http://www.switched.com/2008/08/07/u-k-tax-payers-buying-playstations-for-prisoners/ another great article about how messed up the UK prison system is.

I just think that in order to fix this broken economy we need to start helping the people who want to help themselves, not make honest hard working people bust a gut in order to get any help at all, such as Cait Reilly who the government is forcing to do unpaid work for two weeks in order to keep her Job Seekers Allowance - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4055197/Graduate-Cait-Reilly-legal-action-against-Government-over-allegedly-being-made-to-stack-shelves-in-Poundland.html

Thanks for reading my blog about the stupid practices of the british government, we need to fix this broken economy and we need to do it fast.

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly
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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

FaceBook Timeline

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:10:00 GMT

OK so if you have not already seen it or heard of it FaceBook has just launched the new addition to its social networking site known as timeline. The first stab FaceBook took at this was a few month back when it basically copied Google+ in the layout of your news feed, by showing everything from your friends in a timeline, with new stories or updates showing at the top.

Now FaceBook has taken this a step further and now your profile is a Timeline, but this time of your life. The idea is simple really FaceBook wants you to share your whole life, including things that happened before FaceBook even existed, everything from your birth right up to the modern day including your other online presence such as websites, blogs, etc. The idea is that your friends can now see more about you and in doing so get a better understanding of who you are.

If you have not yet seen this or had your profile updated take a look at http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline where you can update your profile if you so wish, but in essence the timeline looks like this.

my profile on FaceBook

As you can see it now shows everything you do on FaceBook right on your profile, this takes the side bar updates that step further, so anyone can see what you have liked, posted, commented on or anything else simply by looking at your profile.

As for the layout it makes me think of another popular social networking site MyYearBook in the look and feel, it is even a bit of a retro look of MySpace in it. Looks to me like FaceBook is trawling the web and taking what they think is the best of it and adding their own flair to it.

Like or DisLike the New FaceBook Timeline?

Well I kinda like the look and feel of it, although it will take a bit of getting used to, and sharing stuff I feel is the whole point of social media, after all if you went into a bar you would interactive with other people outside your social circle, which is socialising and the web should be no different, and no matter what your chosen theme its all the same thing.

Yet as for showing all your activities I think this is a step too far, I mean yes share who I am and what I am doing or have done, but everything I do on FaceBook now thats a bit much. However, you can hide anything you wish to be hidden from your profile by simply editing it on your profile page, so if you dont want everyone to know that you liked something, said something or posted something just hide it.

Remember what Social Means

Ok so whilst sharing all your activities is not a good thing, we need to remember that sharing is what social networking is all about. Having the option to hide some stuff is great but dont go over board, try to keep it social. After all if you wish to increase your FaceBook friend count or Page likes you need to be social, for a great reference to how to use FaceBook more effectively take a look at this reference book here

Thanks Sean J Connolly FaceBook Me - Visit AJAX Web Development Store BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

The Importance of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solution

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:43:00 GMT

Ok so you have your website and business up and running, and you are able to see how many people are visiting your website and you have started making a few sales, but how do you know who your customers really are, what have they bought, how did they find you, could they be intertested in something else you offer. The answer to this is you need some form of Customer Relationship Management / Lead Management Software to allow you to effectively track your customers and sales in order to help make your process more efficient and in turn sell more and make more.

The Basis of a CRM and Lead Management Software

OK so what are CRM or Customer Relationship Management and Lead Management Software, simple these are software or systems that allows you effectively track both new and existing customers. These solutions can either be fully offline traditional solution or fully managed online solutions. Whilst most CRM solutions only give you a very basic view of your customers such as contact details, purchases etc they are a growing breed of online solutions that take this a step further and provide you with full Lead Management everything from that inital contact right through to closing the sales or increasing your closure rate.

Whilst the fully offline solution is probably better is you have your own IT department and the resources to managed it. Opting for an online solution not only for your day to day customer information, but for also your full sales cycle is a cost effective way to help you not only manage your sales lead more effective and help convert more leads into actual sales, but it can also help increase the time you have running your business, although you need customers to use your business you also need to provide your business to these customers, kinda catch 22.

So you may be think, you have a CRM system and this is normally in the form of your email software and address book software, but these forms of software fall into the category of communication software and not into the category of Software for Lead Management or Customer Relationship Management Software, email programs work great for communication but fall way short of the mark in helping you make sense of the vast array of customers and analytics you will build up for your business.

From Analytics to Sales Leads to Closure

So we all know that like in anything there is a life cycle and in business that is no different, first off people find you, then they contact you and finally they buy from you. (yes this is simplified but is the basis of the sales cycle). The big question is how do you manage this process effectively and this is where your CRM and Lead Management Software come into play.

By making effective use of the vast amounts of customer data you have coming into your business, normally captured by website analytics software such as Google Analytics, website newsletter subscriptions, mail shot, etc and making sense of it you can not only increase your turn over but decrease your overheads, which in turn leads to increased profit.

So in closing, like the saying goes "knowledge is power" and the more applied knowledge you have about your business and customers, means the more sales will be closed and the more profit your will make, and this is why you need a Customer Realtionship Management / Lead Management solution.

Thanks
Sean J Connolly

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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Twitter for Blackberry

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Thu, 8 Dec 2011 23:11:00 GMT

Following on from my last post I would like to throw a recommendation out there for anyone using a BlackBerry or other SmartPhone. When you are out and about remember to keep on tweeting, and I think the best way to do this is to use the Twitter mobile app, I use the Twitter for Blackberry application and have done so some time. Its so easy to tweet and add photos, making my mobile tweeting so much easier.

AND NOW

There has just been a new update to the Twitter mobile application and you can now send tweets from more than more account, meaning if your like me and have several twitter accounts you can now Tweet from them all using the same phone and Twitter application.

Well done Blackberry (RIM) and well done Twitter.

If you use a Blackberry you can download the latest Twitter for Blackberry from the app store more info is available HERE

Thanks Sean J Connolly
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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Why You Should Continue to Use Twitter

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:08:00 GMT

OK I use Twitter, infact you can follow me at my main account which is http://twitter.com/SeanJC I do have other twitter accounts http://twitter.com/potissimus and http://twitter.com/buzzproperties so please feel free to follow me and stay in touch.

Why do I use Twitter?

I continue to use Twitter as unlike the typical social networking sites on Twitter you can say what you want and people will see it, and as you are not looking for a direct interaction I find it a good place to update people who are actually interested in what you do, with why you are doing.

As people who follow you on twitter have chosen to be kept up to date with your world. Unlike typical social media where people are looking for direct interaction, I use Twitter as its more like shouting out your news, after all you watch the evening news without any interaction back you just absorb what they tell you.

I find Twitter is the same as I only follow people I find interesting, so when I read my Twitter timeline its full of interesting things, which I can absorb and if I find something really interesting I can retweet, direct message or mention someone in my own tweet. So for every tweet I do I am not looking for anyone to confirm they have read it, such as we do with Likes on FaceBook and +1' on Google+, this way you can remove the stress of trying to be popular with the benefit of simply getting your message across to people that want to hear it.

The Future of Twitter

I think that Twitter will be around for a long time to come, as it takes the best element of social media and breaks it down, as everyday you may update your status on your chosen social media site, but you can't get a list of interesting stuff that you want to know about. So unlike social media Twitter is centred more on interests than people, and this I think will mean people like myself will use it for a long time to come.

I do think that there may be a time where we see more advertising directly on twitter, sponsored or otherwise, but in short I think the idea of Twitter is here to stay.

Please follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/SeanJC

Thanks
Sean J Connolly

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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Google Checkout Becomes Part of Google Wallet

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:02:00 GMT

OK so today I attended the Google Wallet webinar about the intended changes to Google Checkout and its intended integration with the new Google Wallet system, so here are my thoughts on both systems and what the future holds.

Google Checkout

The first thing I will be is explain just what Google Checkout is incase you have never used it or heard of it.

Google Checkout is an online payment service provided by Google, and much like the other services available such as World Pay, Paypal, etc it simply allows you to buy good and services online by paying using a registered payment card. Just like the other services available with Google checkout not only can you buy goods and service but you can also sell goods and service via you own website.

To find out more about buying goods and services using Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com/

To find out more about selling goods and services using Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com/sell

Note - if you have a merchant account to sell your stuff you will most likely be redirected on logging in to Google Checkout to that account, to access your purchases just click the Purchase History link at the top

For more information about Google Checkout visit http://checkout.google.com

Google Wallet

Google Wallet is a new idea from Google to connect your cards that you hold in your wallet with both offline and online purchases, how this works is simple. After you create your Google Wallet account and have registered your credit cards to your account, you can then use your Google Wallet to make purchases, which them in turn are billed directly to your registered cards.

This means that when shopping online, where you see the Google Wallet logo (currently the showing as Google Checkout) you can use Google Wallet to make your purchase. The added benefit of Google Wallet over other providers currently is that you can also use Google Wallet to make real purchases on the high street, so anywhere you see the Google Wallet sign you can just take out your mobile phone with the Google Wallet application installed and make the purchase directly from Google Wallet. Thus allowing you in theory to leave your actual wallet at home.

So in short online Google Wallet will work just like any other online payment provider, however offline Google Wallet will work just like your real wallet, only via your mobile phone and the installed application / website.

For more information about Google Wallet visit http://wallet.google.com

Google Checkout Becomes Google Wallet

So Google has had Google Checkout around for a few years now and have decided to bring out Google Wallet, now they are taking this one step further and incorporating Google Checkout into Google Wallet, this will give you a single place online to manage your sales, purchases and any active cards you wish to use. A very well thought through idea.

What does the Google Checkout and Google Wallet Integration mean for you?

The only major change following the incorporating of Google Wallet and Google Checkout will be that you will have a single point of management for both your Google Checkout and Google Wallet accounts, in this new screen you will be able to see all purchase you have made, all sales you have made and edit or amend your chosen payment cards.

I already use Google Checkout on my website what changes will I need to make to my website?

Now if you currently use Google Checkout on your website, these changes in the short term don't really mean that much, all integration code, login urls will all continue to work as normal.

So as normal to login to your checkout merchant account go to http://checkout.google.com/sell and you will be able to continue to manage all your transcations there. However over time your will need to go to http://wallet.google.com to manage both your sales and purchases.

The only other changes you will need to make to your website will be to change the wording mentioning Google Checkout to mention Google Wallet instead, the exact wording will be issued by Google to your register email address in due course. You will not need to make any coding changes, including existing buttons provided by Google as these will be updated automatically by Google as they need to.

I have made purchases using Google Checkout what do I do now?

Now if you have made purchases using Google checkout again nothing in the short term will change, you can still go to http://checkout.google.com to check any purchases you have made, but you can now in addition go to http://wallet.google.com and you will see any purchases you have made using Google Checkout shown in your transactions screen. As you can now use the Google Wallet website to manage your credit cards and purchases, I recommend using the Google Wallet URL http://wallet.google.com from now on rather than the Google Checkout url http://checkout.google.com

The Future of Google Wallet

I have to be honest and say I think that Google Wallet is definately a step in the right direction by Google, as not only can you make online purchases but you can make offline purchases too, now whilst this may seem stupid to get out your mobile phone to make a payment on a card that is in your wallet. I think the major of this will be that if you use Google Wallet online for your website, shop or whatever and are building up funds in your online account, these funds are no longer simply for use with purchasing online, you can now make real offline purchases form this account. This puts Google at a huge advantage over other online payment providers as with Google Wallet what you make from sales online can now be used in the real world offline.

I see the offline and online link being a major selling point of Google Wallet, especially when you consider other online payment providers have payment cards you not only have to purchase in order to be able to use funds held in your online account in the offline world, but these provider have also stopped issuing these cards outside the US.

Google Wallet bank account integration

At the time of writing this you can not link Google Wallet with a bank account in order to fund your account, this is due to the speed at which Google wanted to roll out the new Wallet system and using existing card networks is faster and more secure than trying to incorporate all banking systems.

You can however still add your bank account to your wallet account in order to transfer funds out of your Google Wallet account into your real world bank account. I think that over time the ability to add funds via a bank account will be added, but for now you cant use your bank account to fund your Google Wallet account its credit cards only at least for now.

So in short good call Google, lets just hope that Google Wallet has a better uptake than Google Checkout ever did.

Thanks for Reading
Sean J Connolly

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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Stop Online Piracy Act - SOPA

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:18:00 GMT

OK so you may have heard all the hype recently about the Stop Online Privacy Act or SOPA being discussed. First off the main thing to remember is that this act will only be in force in the USA, although the idea of it is good to protect peoples online IP and privacy, it is also solely aimed at protecting American online privacy, nowhere else.

The basis of the act is simply is will give additional powers to the US attorney to combat privacy from websites that are hosted outside the USA, this means that anysite hosting or offering information on how to infringe copyright will be a target, such sites includes torrent sites (hosting illegal movies, games, software, etc) and sites giving away source code for copyrighted materials.

Now I fully agree with the idea of protecting peoples IP and what this means for the world, I am not fully on the side of the Web giants on this one. It appears to me that the have not fully read and understood the new act, namely the fact that the act is not seeking to be a censorship of content, but simply to protect what people have created.

If we take youtube as a prime example, there a literally millions of videos on there, and not all of them are on there legally. Now whilst Google owns and hosts this site, it is Google that takes the wrap for this, yet under this new act Google will have additional powers to not only take the normal steps to remove the content, but can now take additional action outside the US on the people who uploaded the content and the ones who actually broke the IP.

So what I am saying is thay in my view this act is not intended to be a censorship act, more a protect the US act from foreigners. Now this is where I see the problem, we have a major organisation for keeping world peace, known as the UN or United Nations, it is in my view that there should be a higher act in place to protect everyone from IP theft, not just the US. Whilst I do understand that the US congress can only enforce US law, we all need to work to stop privacy and need to realise that there are lots of things online that are stolen, such as

movies
games
software
software code
documents

and many many more items, all of which need protecting. So I do not see why the major web giants are so oppossed to this act, as the act itself specifically states that it is not censoring the internet, and does not require the social media sites to constantly monitor its users or censor content. It is also only an addition to existing US IP law.

What I think needs to happen is that the major web giants, Google, FaceBook, AOL, etc need to work together with all countries in order to come up with a more global act to protect their and everyone elses IP. After all its unfair to blame Google, FaceBook, AOL or anyone else for one of their users posting links to illegal content.

So in short the act is a step in the right direction, but we need a more universal solution that covers all countries and not just the US, after all the internet and more specifically the World Wide Web is global (and a british invention).

Find out more about the act Stop Online Piracy ACT - SOPA

Thanks
Sean J Connolly

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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Google Pages have Arrived

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Tue, 8 Nov 2011 00:39:00 GMT

After a long wait and what has seemed that a million changes of mind. Google + has finally launched pages. In short its Googles answer to FaceBook and LinkedIn meaning the worlds of business and pleasure are finally connecting on Google.

The way that the new Pages will work is that you can connect your existing Google Place entry to your page and use the existing information on your Google Places page to create your new Google+ Business Page.

The added bonus of Google Pages is that you can now use Google+ as your page, make comments and alike as your page not you, just like FaceBook pages. The good thing is this only took Google a matter of months to do, unlike FaceBook taking years to get it right.

PLUS

You can even create a hangout and chat live to your customers right on Google+, that is pretty cool and has to be a shot in the arm of FaceBook who are yet to release the video service promised.

Good job Google on this, lets hope Google+ continues to grow and add new and exciting features.

So get over to Google and create a page for your business NOW - https://plus.google.com/pages/create

UPDATE

Just so you know after you create your Google+ page for your business, in order to edit it select the page from the little drop down list to the left, and once on your page click on your page icon on the left hand side of the page name, this takes you to the edit page.

Thanks Sean J Connolly
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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Google Wallet Launched

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Sun, 6 Nov 2011 22:38:00 GMT

Google today announced the official launch of Google Wallet, along with some exciting news. Although the cards at launch will be limited it has agreed with other card provider thats they can use they NFC specifications.

In reality this means that although a limited launch is happening, it should not be too long before Google Wallet is open to more cards.

Watch this space, and Good Luck Google.

For more info on this, check out the Google Blog

Thanks Sean J Connolly FaceBook Me - Visit AJAX Web Development Store BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting

Google + Goes Live to Public

sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk (Sean J Connolly) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:07:00 +0100

Well after months of invites, BETA testing and alike the new kid on the clock has finally arrived. Google + is now live to the public. So what does this mean for you, me and FaceBook, LinkedIn.

In reality it means that with this launch there are now two big social networking sites to use for your social side of life, LinkedIn is still the only truely business social networking site.

But what about Twitter you ask, well in reality nothing will change for Twitter as it is and always has been a social media micro blog or stream, simply put its like a hit of espresso to keep you up to date with stuff that interests you, unlike the more cappuccino like take a seat you may be here a while approach of FaceBook and Google +.

In my view the launch of Google + going public will pretty much leave twitter untouched, but as for FaceBook there will be some people who more over to the new player, and others who stay put. I still think at present FaceBook is a bit more interesting than Google +.

I am going to stick my neck on the line and say FaceBook will continue to dominate this area for a while at least.

But what about the New FaceBook Changes?

As you may have noticed FaceBook's response to this go live of Google + has been to add new features to its platform, side news feed, larger photos, sharing etc. This is aimed at retaining FaceBook users, however I dont really see the benefit of copying Google +, after all that is just like admitting "yes it is better than FaceBook". I think FaceBook does know some users will leave to go to Google +, but I think overtime FaceBook will continue to have a larger continuous userbase than Google +.

So although Facebook feel it necessary to fight and copy the new platform, it seems daft to copy. Why not keep FaceBook as FaceBook and come up with new original ideas, not copied ones.

The Future

This is pretty simple really I think that the following will become reality for the platforms.

FaceBook - Continue to have the largest base of users on a regular basis, and introduce new features like video chat, etc.

Google+ - Will have the largest overall registered users, but a lower daily user rate.

Twitter - Will continue to be the daily aggregator of everything social, news and media. Users levels will continue to grow as people want and need instant updates without all the bells and whistles.

LinkedIn - Continue to have a large following with people keeping this platform solely for business and business connections. In most cases having totally different social circles than Google+ or FaceBook.

What About Me

Well at present I still use FaceBook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. My most used platform has to be Twitter (its the only one I use on my mobile), it gives me the quick hit of info I need on the go. I keep social side of my world to FaceBook and Google+ and my business side solely to LinkedIn.

Feel free to connect with me on which every platform you choose.

Follow Me on Twitter
Add me on FaceBook
Connect on Google +
Add me on LinkedIn

So as it what the future holds for social networking, only time will tell, but in the mean time please feel free to connect.

Thanks For Reading
Sean J Connolly

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BuzzProperties.co.uk - Online Property Sales and Letting