The website was old fashioned, badly laid out, had slow loading images, didn’t portray the quality of the club and its massive success, and the business owner was not enjoying adding updates or promoting it. So we had a meeting and started planning the improvements.

As you would expect, the revamped site’s function is to quickly give details of forthcoming shows but we also wanted to include everything that people would want to know – how to get tickets, directions, who’s played there before, what the club is like, etc.

The main objective was to truly represent the club’s popularity and success with a high quality website, the way it was before did not do the club justice at all – you would never have believed the shows are always packed out.

We designed the new website to help ensure the shows are always sold out and to help the Stroke Club progress to putting on more than one show a month.

We focused on the design from a function view point rather than a certain look – it had to be fast loading, easy to use and navigate, but also simple to update and have a system for managing show dates and supplying them as RSS feeds to subscriber’s emails.

We optimised the site code and content for search engines and added buttons for people to add it to favourites, Facebook,  Twitter, etc, and designed a crisp new logo with a showbiz feel.

Ken Jenkins the club manager is now proud to talk about and promote his website unlike before the revamp, and the task of convincing some of the best London-based comedians to take the long road to Lichfield is easier now, with greater confidence that it’s both a professionally managed club and it will be packed out.

We also manage the site’s content on an ongoing basis – updating the show details and photos – so life is a lot easier for Ken now – he just books the acts and we update the website.

“Roxbourne were very helpful and imaginative in designing the perfect website to meet my needs. Their knowledge and advice was invaluable and they also provide excellent support. I have no hesitation in recommending them.”
- Ken Jenkins – The Stroke Comedy Club, Lichfield

What we could do for your website…

In other words – Wake Up Your Website will get your site more attention, enquiries and sales – we’ll turn it into a modern, hard working 24/7 marketing machine for your business.

Find out more about our website overhaul and promotion service “Wake Up Your Website“

Before:

After:

In my written instructions for each application, boxes you need to click for each step are in italics.

1. General Internet Speed: You can tweak your windows registry using TCP Optimizer.

a) SpeedGuide.net TCP Optimizer *Doesnt need Installing.
Direct DL Link: http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe
Website: http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Once it’s open, click Modify All Network Adapters then click the bubble next to optimal settings. Then Slide the connection speed to your match your approximate broadband speed. If you don’t know your broadband speed go to www.speedtest.net. Once done, click apply and reset your computer. (A quick note to remember, all these settings are applied to your specific broadband connection.)

b) Turn off QoS Packet Scheduler

Go to control panel and then network connections. Right click the connection you’re using for your internet. (It will be “local area connection” if you’re using a cable and “wireless area connection” if you’re using wireless.)  Then click properties. Untick “QoS Packet Scheduler” and click ok.

—

2. Torrent Downloading: The best torrent client by far is uTorrent.

a) Download uTorrent 2.0.3
Direct DL Link: http://www.filehippo.com (Download the latest version)
Website: http://www.utorrent.com/

Run the Set-up guide. (Press Ctrl+G to bring it up) Set the test location (I used London, UK) and click Run Tests at the bottom. You should then get your results:

Make sure your upload limit is set at 80% of what your connection can handle. Utorrent should do this for you.
As you can see my result was 108.7kB/s but it set my upload limit to 90.0kB/s. These settings are all fine.

b) Advanced uTorrent Settings

Get into Preferences (Ctrl + P)  and then go to these sections and make sure the following are ticked:

1. Connection
- Enable UPnP port mapping
- Enable NAT-PMP port mapping
- Add Windows Firewall exception

2. Bittorrent
- Enable DHT Network
- Enable DHT for new torrents
- Enable local Peer Discovery
- Enable bandwidth management
- Enable peer exchange
- Ask tracker for scrape information
- Protocol Encryption set to Outgoing: Enabled
- Allow incoming legacy connections

3. Advanced
- net.max_halfopen – set it to 60 from 8 and click set.
- peer.disconnect_inactive_interval – set it to 600 from 300 and click set.

—

3. Internet Browsing: Stop using Internet Explorer, and get used to a much better, much faster browser. That being Google Chrome.

Google Chrome 6 Beta
Direct DL Link: http://www.filehippo.com
Website: http://www.google.com/chrome

Note*: Alternatively you could try out Firefox, however it is a little slower to run on older computers. On the plus side, it’s very customisable when it comes to add-ons etc.

Firefox 3.6.8
Direct DL Link: http://www.filehippo.com
Website: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html

Thanks to the work of hundreds of contributors to WordPress, plug-ins can address a lot of these drawbacks.

So here is a top ten list of some of the ones we use. No doubt we’ll do a part two to this post if it’s useful to anyone!

1. Customising The “Read More” Tag.

A small problem I faced was when someone clicked “More” or “Read More…” to read the rest of a blog post, It would scroll the article down to where the more tag is. This plug-in prevents this and starts the post properly from the beginning.

Search “More To the Top” when adding a plugin.

2. Adding Custom External Hyper-links to your Navigational Menu

Normally WordPress only allows internal pages to be added to your navigational menu.

With the plugin below all you have to do is: create a new page, give it a title, and right at the bottom you’ll see the “Page Links To” box. Next to “Point to this URL” type in your link url.

Search “Page Links To” when adding a plugin.

3. Re-arrange your Posts (For Bands and Clubs etc.)

If for example your posts are “events” for a band, or a club, you may want to have posts show up that are a date in the future.
Normally when you set the date of a post to the future, it won’t show it until that date, however once the plugin is installed and active you can set the date of your post to the date of your event. It’ll show the events in date order.

Search “No Future Posts” when adding a plugin.

4. Re-arranging your Pages (For Sidebar Vertical Menus)

If you don’t want your pages to arrange themselves in date order, having to go through each one and giving them an Order number can be a pain.
With the help of this plugin it becomes as easy as “drag and drop”.

Search “My Page Order” when adding a plugin.

5. How to Duplicate Posts Easily

Once installed, the plug-in will add a “duplicate” option next to edit, quick edit etc.

Search “Duplicate Post” when adding a plugin.

6. Check Blog Visitor Stats within WordPress

The visitor stats will appear in your dashboard, and in the dropdown menu for “dashboard”.

Search “WordPress.com Stats” when adding a plugin.

7. A Better Meta Widget

Once installed you’ll get an extra widget named “Enhanced Meta”. It allows you to have a whole list of links in your sidebar for example, a login box, or new post etc. Pretty useful.

Search “Enhanced Meta Widget“ when adding a plugin.

8. Maintenance Mode

This plug-in allows you to put a temporary maintenance page up, whilst you work on new major updates for your website. Useful for websites under construction.

Search for “Maintenance Mode” when adding a plugin.

9. Change WordPress Navigation to Horizontal

This is one of my favourite plugins. It moves all the navigation for wordpress to the top of the screen, saving ALOT of screen space for editing posts etc.

Search “Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu”when adding a plugin.

10. Enhanced WordPress Code Editor

This is a favourite too, it completely changes the code editor to give you numbered lines, and colour coding for tags, properties and comments etc.

Search “WordPress Code Editor” when adding a plugin.

Well that wraps it up, I hope i’ve shown you some gems that some of you may not have known about. I know without these plugins the wordpress experience wouldn’t be quite so appealing

Peace.

• Out of date.
• Encourage you to purchase unneeded software.
• Tend to be very basic, and don’t cover everything.

So we thought we’d take a stab at it here at Roxbourne, and provide you with 10 tips that cover all basics to speed up your computer.

I will recommend you download some software within my tips; however there’s no need to worry – they are all absolutely FREE.

I will also be referring you to other articles which I think explain some of my recommendations better than I can. If it’s already out there, there’s little point re-writing it!

1. Cleaning out temporary files (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

First of all, download yourself ‘CCleaner Slim’ from CCleaner.com. If you’re running low on disk space, this is a sure fire application to free some up! As an example, I was working on a friends laptop recently that was running very slowly, I noticed it only had 0.5GB free…I ran CCleaner and freed up 5GB. So a big help there, and a noticeable speed increase was achieved straight away.

Conclusion: I recommend keeping at least 10% of your Hard drive space free for the computer. Running CCleaner around once a week will help you achieve this.

2a. Increasing hard drive performance (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

First of all, make sure the ‘indexing service’ is turned off. You can do this by going into ‘My Computer’ via your start menu, or desktop icon. Right click your main hard drive and click properties.
At the bottom of the dialogue box untick ‘Allow indexing service to index the disk for fast file searching’. It will then apply this to all your files and you will soon receive a warning that it cannot be applied to a file, just click ignore all.

2b. Are your IDE Channels running in ‘PIO Mode’? (Applies to IDE Devices, NOT SATA)

This causes your hard drives to run at a fraction of their potential speed. Your IDE Channels should be running in ‘Ultra DMA Mode’. To check this, right click ‘My Computer’, go to Properties > Hardware > Device Manager. Double click ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers’ to expand. Then double click ‘Primary IDE Channel’ and click the ‘Advanced Settings’ tab. If for ‘Device 0′ in the Current Transfer Mode box it says ‘PIO Mode’ then you need to set ‘Transfer mode’ to ‘DMA if available’, and click okay, and then right click Primary IDE Channel and click ‘Uninstall’ and then ‘OK’. Repeat the process for the ‘Secondary IDE Channel’ too. Then reset your computer. This should fix your problem, and you’ll notice a HUGE speed increase.

2c. Defrag your hard drives (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Download a program called ‘Smart Defrag‘ by Iobit from download.com. Once installed I advise you to change a few things within the options on the left hand side. For a desktop, I have everything UNTICKED. Now go to ‘Auto Defrag’ and un-tick ‘enable Auto Defrag’. It’s much better to set your computer to defrag when you’re not doing anything with it, than have it constantly running in the background slowing things down.

Now go to ‘Defrag Now’, select your main hard drive and click ‘Analyse’. It will then work its magic, and you’ll get a dialogue box appear, with a suggestion on the bottom. I was given ‘Fast Optimise’. Click close and next to the ‘Start’ button click the drop down box and pick the suggestion that you were given. Then click ‘Start’, and go and make yourself a cup of tea, it WILL take a while if you’ve never defragged before.

3. Clean your computer of all Spyware/Adware etc. (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Download ‘Spybot Search and Destroy‘ from download.com. During installation when you get to ‘Select Components’ click the dropdown box and click ‘Compact Installation’. Keep going, once you get to ‘Select Additional Tasks’ untick everything.

Once you’ve installed, fire it up, and go straight to ‘Immunize’ on the left, wait a second while it scans and then click ‘Immunize’ at the top left. This prevents spyware getting onto your computer in the first place.
Now that you’ve done that go to ‘Search & Destroy’ on the left and click ‘Check for Problems’. Again, this process may take a while, anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes.

Unfortunately spybot isn’t good enough on its own. I recommend downloading ‘SUPERantispyware‘ from download.com. Once installed, make sure you ‘Check for updates…’. Then click ‘Scan Your Computer’. Depending on how much time you have perform either a ‘Quick Scan’ or a ‘Complete Scan’.

4. Controlling how many running processes you have (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Depending on how much Memory your system has you should be limiting your background processes or “tasks”. Unfortunately some software and drivers can add unnecessary processes to your boot-up. You should never really need more than 40 background tasks, if you’re using over 50 and you only have 1GB of ram, the system will start to struggle. You should seriously think about disabling some of those processes to free up some RAM and speed up your boot up time.

To try and distinguish which of your processes are unnecessary PC Pitstop’s “Quick Program Scan” can help. You will need to use Internet Explorer and click the ‘Scan Now’ button. Pay attention to the colour codes.

Now that you’ve installed CCleaner from step 1, open it up and click ‘tools’ then click the ‘start-up’ button. This will show you everything that’s set to start at boot-up. Click the processes that aren’t necessary and click disable.

Here’s a list of some common tasks that might give you an idea: PC Pitstop Top 100 Unwanted Processes.

5. Disable unnecessary services (XP Only)

If any part of this step scares you, just skip it and move onto the next one.

Okay lets get started, type “services.msc” in the Run… box in your start menu. Then visit this page over at ‘Black Viper‘. Scroll down to the table of services. Pay attention to the ‘Safe’ column and and go through making sure they match with your list of services.

6. Defrag your pagefile (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Its easier to refer you to this Article over at HowToGeek.com.

7. Defrag & compact your registry (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Registry compacting optimises your registry by removing gaps and wasted space, this improves the whole system performance.

Download Free Registry Defrag from registry-clean.net. It’s straight forward to use, just click the ‘Anaylze Registry’ button, it’ll take a few minutes and advise you on what to do next. You will need to restart your computer once its done.

8. Tune & Optimise your Internet Connection in Windows (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Download TCP Optimiser (Direct Link) from speedguide.net. You don’t need to install anything, it runs straight from the .exe.
First of all, select your connection speed with the slider. Most people in the UK should have either 2,000kbps (2mb) or up to 8,000kbps (8mb). Then select the correct network adapter that you’re using for your internet. Then click the ‘Optimal Settings’ button and click ‘Apply changes’. It’ll let you know what changes it’s making click OK and then restart your computer.

9. Tweak your registry (XP/Vista/Windows 7)

Its time to download another program! It’s free, don’t worry! It’s called ‘Tweak Now! WinSecret Professional‘.  That’s a direct download link to it, install it and run it. Click ‘Windows Core‘, Click the ‘Windows Time Out’ tab and click the ‘Recommended’ button. Now go to the ‘Cache‘ tab. Tick ‘Improve Core System Performance’ if you have at least 1.00GB of ram. Then click ‘Try to detect your processor’s L2 cache size’ and click ok. Now click the ‘miscellaneous tab‘ and tick ‘Disable NTFS Last access time’ and ‘Automatically restart explorer (Windows Desktop)’. Make sure everything else is UNTICKED on that tab.

Now click save on the top left of the dialogue box. It’ll tell you, you need to reset. Go ahead and do so.

10. Disable some useless Windows Visual Effects (Screenshots apply to XP, however works on Vista/Windows 7)

First of all, make sure your Control Panel is displaying in classic mode. It’s a lot easier for future use as well.

Go to Start Menu > Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Performance (Settings) > Visual Effects Tab.
Untick everything apart from:

• Show smooth edges of screen fonts
• Use Common tasks in folders
• Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop
• Use visual styles on windows and buttons

Then click apply and OK. You should notice a pretty decent increase in response as you go around Windows.

That’s it, I hope you enjoyed my tips! Leave your comments if you had any trouble with all the above instructions.
Peace.

Sean Bullivant - Roxbourne Ltd – Web Design, Marketing and SEO Consultants – Lichfield Staffordshire Birmingham Midlands

Some common symptoms of Spyware are:

• Website Redirections: Upon visiting a website it sometimes re-directs to a different advert filled website.
• Slower Computer: Your computer takes a long time to boot up and load programs.
• Regular Blue Screens: Often during boot up.

This guide will not only teach you how to remove Spyware, but every other kind of nasty “threat” you may find. These include:- Adware, Malware, Trojans, Keyloggers, Dialers, Hi-jackers and worms.

You don’t need to get too caught up in what all these things are, all you need to know is you don’t want them on your computer!

Unfortunately there isn’t one piece of software out there that can catch it all. Therefore I will recommend various different applications that you will need to cleanse your computer of the above filth.

SUPERAntiSpyware – Free Version

Direct Download: SuperAntiSpyware Official Website

SUPERAntiSpyware picks up the nasty things that Spybot does not, to put it plain and simple.

First of all you’ll want to go into “Preferences” and make sure it looks like this:

This will avoid the program bugging you in future.

Now, you are able to…

1. Search your computer for problems

Step 1:- Scan Your Computer

Step 2:- I'd recommend a "Complete Scan" the first time around.

Step 3:- This was my result after the scan.

Step 4:- Make sure everything is ticked, and click next.

Step 5:- It should of worked its magic and removed all the infections.

Spybot – Search & Destroy – Free

Direct Download: Filehippo.com

Spybot is not only very good for removing Spyware it’s also good at preventing you from ever picking it up in future.

Using screenshots I’ll show you how to:

1. Update Spybot to keep up with the latest threats

Step 1: Click either of these options

Step 2:- Some of these servers don't work, choose the one I picked.

Step 3:- Make sure everything is ticked, and click continue.

Step 4:- Everything will download, and apply. Click Exit when its done.

2. Immunise your system from picking up problems in the future

Step 1:- Click Immunize

Step 2:-

3. Search your computer for problems

Step 1:- Clicking "Check for Problems" will start the search immediately.

Step 2:- Instructions in screenshot

Some Problems you may be experiencing:

• Constant slowdowns during peak times
• Regular disconnections (More than say three times a day)
• Slow downloads

Step 1: Check Your Internet Speed

You can test the internet speed you’re getting by going to speedtest.net.

Make sure you have nothing running in the background that may be using the internet. Then put your mouse over the yellow star, and click the nearest city to you.

If you find you’re getting an extremely terrible result, something like less than 1.00 MB/s or even 2.00MB/s, I advise you put in a complaint with your ISP (Internet Service Provider), there is likely something wrong with your telephone line, or something going on at their end.

Step 2: Complain to your ISP (Internet Service Provider)

Give them a call and explain you’ve done a speed test, let them know what the result was, and explain that you’re very unhappy with your broadband performance. They should then run a “line test” and see if theres anything wrong.

If your problem is constant disconnections, obviously explain this problem too.

Here are some ISP Broadband helplines and their respective Broadband Web pages:
BT Broadband: 0800 111 4567 – Weblink
Orange Broadband: 0844 873 8586 – Weblink
AOL Broadband: 0844 499 5555 – Weblink
Virgin Broadband: 0845 454 1111 – Weblink
Sky Broadband – 08442 410 515 – Weblink

Step 3: If Your ISP don’t seem to be Helping

If your ISP insists on being useless and fails to improve your speed or reliability, explain to them that you’re extremely unhappy with their service and you’d like a MAC code. You are within your rights to ask for this whether you’re in a contract or not, since they’re not delivering a satisfactory service.
A MAC code is needed to change broadband providers.

Step 4: Change ISPs (My Recommendation is Be Broadband)

I used to use BT Broadband and we were with them for over four years, to our detriment. They provided a god awful service, constant slowdowns during peak times (below 0.5mb/s) and frequent disconnections. We’d had enough, rang up BT and asked to cancel our broadband, and wanted a MAC Code. They begged us to stay and offered a discount per month. We refused and since then we’ve used various other ISPs.

We’re now using Be Broadband, who are by far the best ISP we’ve experienced. The price is reasonable for “up to 24MB” and there’s pretty much no download limit. I have downloaded ALOT and have yet to recieve a warning. Click the animated Link above to check out their website.

Step 4a: Alternatively Try O2 Broadband

Be is owned by O2 broadband, and therefore provide a very similar service. I advise you give them a try.
Link: http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/index.jsp

One of our favourite websites for assistance with Search Engine Optimisation is, you guessed it. SEOBook.com.

In particular they provide FREE tools as add-ons for Firefox.

We’ve been using:

A few features of Rank Checker worth mentioning:

• It enables you to check all your keyword rankings within the SERPS of Google, Yahoo and Live Search (MSN).
• You can specify which Google to check. We’ve been using the .co.uk version of Google.
• It performs quicker than a lot of other tools we’ve tried out. (Web CEO for one…painfully slow)
• The top 200 results are checked for a rank, if you aren’t found you’ll see a dash.
• After using it for a month or so we’ve found it to be not always accurate, but its usually within 10 places or so.

A few features of SEO for Firefox worth mentioning:

• Customises your Google results page. Adding useful…& some not so useful information to each result.
• Adds some links underneath the search box, such as the interesting ‘Google Trends‘, and ‘Google Insights‘. CSV is also a useful tool, it enables you to export all data on the page into a spreadsheet.
• The most useful things it adds are ‘PageRank’ for each result, Alexarank, and Age of Website (Domain).

Go check them out.

SEO Book: Link

Roxbourne Search Engine Optimisation Services

You’ll need to sign up, and then login with a username and password. This allows you to be able to access your account on anyone elses spotify and use your saved playlists.

Heres a quick rundown of its features and downsides:

Spotify’s features include:-

• Newly released albums are added to Spotify, impressively quickly.
• You can share songs you like with your friends who also have Spotify, and they can be listening to it right away.
• You can also share entire playlists with your friends in the same way.
• It doesn’t lag, songs play immediately as you click play.

The Downsides:-

• Music can’t be put onto your MP3 player…but did you really expect that feature for free!
• You have to put up with usually quite annoying, thankfully short adverts every 6-8 songs.
• Spotify doesn’t have EVERYTHING in its catalogue. It depends on if the artist’s label has agreed for the music to be made available via Spotify. Artists such as AC/DC and Metallica aren’t on there.

Useful Link: http://www.sharemyplaylists.com/
This website allows you to download other people’s playlists into Spotify, they’re sorted in genre, great to discover new music in your favourite genre’s.

Let’s use the analogy of custom building a desirable house……

If you wanted an impressive and desirable custom designed home – you’d hire an Architect to design and manage the project.

• You would need to set out a realistic financial budget capable of producing the desired results
• You would have to decide on and provide an extensive project brief and get involved in ongoing discussions.
• Realise that there’s plenty to do – crucial research, comparison, compromises and decisions over cost, quality, practicality, efficiency and improvements.
• Understand that some things cannot be controlled by either you or the Architect/Manager e.g. the weather, 3rd party contractor reliability, availability, etc – so you should be prepared for delays and re-adjusted costs, consider and deal with amendments and corrections.

So if you have high expectations for your website -

1. Hire a capable dynamic web designer/manager
2. Provide detailed, effective and ongoing briefing
3. And have a realistic budget

Alexander Bullivant

Roxbourne Online Marketing Services – Web Design, Search Engine Optimisation SEO, Web Site Graphics, Web Videos and Internet Promotion

www.roxbourne.com 01543-415423

Being a Great leader requires a combination of skills, character traits, experience, mental strength, intelligence and principles.

If you are a leader and you lack any one of the following YOU WILL ultimately get found out and crash and burn:

• Can articulate a compelling vision of the future that’s clear and focused
• A good communicator with a simple message
• A charismatic and enthusiastic character
• Able to mobilise people and hold their company/team together
• Can inspire confidence and empower others
• Can bring out the best in others
• Is credible, courageous and proactive
• Has admirable principles which guide decisions
• Makes decisions intelligently, quickly and with commitment
• Has high expectations in self and others
• Can establish a success formula and achieve tasks efficiently
• Searches for new opportunities for their company to consider
• Is flexible and can refocus in light of new opportunities or threats
• Predicts future demand and trends and plans for them
• Embraces technology
• Puts health and family before work (within reason)
• Can take advice and knows the right people to get it from
• Can manage change effectively

Alexander Bullivant
Roxbourne Marketing Consultants