I run a big Awards event every year – it’s this big time party with over 50 artists performing over 9 hours, so we print up set times on A3 posters around the venue. But 5 minutes after the doors have opened, they have all been ripped down and are in the back pocket of uncaring punters.

When we did the event in 2009, we custom printed up 2500 A7 flyers with the set times on, but this is the 21st Century, print is dead yeah? And whats with spending money! S’all about digital apparently…

So this is where QR codes came in. For the event this year, I developed a mobile-friendly webpage with all the artist set times on, ran the page through bit.ly so I could track it, generated a QR code, then promoted the QR code hard around the venue.

Of the 1,200 punters in the venue that night, we had just over 40 users of the code on the night – so not an instant success, about a 4% take-up. Unfortunately the club had pretty bad mobile phone reception in places, but it’s a start.

Other clubs could easily have codes properly printed and stuck around the venue, and using a link redirection tool could update the information for every event, so they would never have to print another set times poster again. Combine this with some social sharing, customer info sourcing, maybe photos too, and you have a pretty cool way to interact with todays clubber generation.

If any clubs out there feel like road testing this, get in touch with me and I will be happy to implement it for you as a beta test.

# Redirect non-www to www (from http://www.thetwopercent.co.uk
Options +FollowSymLinks
# turn mod_rewrite on
RewriteEngine On
# If http send to http://www.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^YOURDOMAIN.COM$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.YOURDOMAIN.COM/$1 [R=301,L]

Replace out YOURDOMAIN.COM with, funnily enough, your domain name in lower case.

Stick this .htaccess in your root directory and you are good to go.

But, I have a half excuse, as in the middle of December, I took a tumble off a Boris Bike, and broke my leg in two places as well as my ankle! So I am writing this from bed where I have been since the accident… Erm, so yes, I could of spent that time writing blog posts, but my day job has been a bit mental recently, so, yadda yadda excuses excuses.

I think I am going to change the raison d’etre of this blog, as I want to blog, I just find it so hard to put quality business, marketing and startup articles together – I read so many quality blog articles per day, my mind keeps telling me that I should just read them instead of writing my own. If something comes, great, but I think I’m going to change this blog in to more of a geek blog, covering new tech, interesting articles on development, UX, marketing, social and more, giving me the ability to blog more often.

This post in itself hasn’t got much meaning, but I’m determined to start posting on here again, so I thought this post would break my 7 month itch and get me motivated again.

Over the last few days I’ve been updating the sites portfolio, full of web design and development projects, consultancy bits, a few events we’ve been involved with, and more.

I’ve got to add a shed load more stuff to it, but for now, it’s a good start.  I’ve been mega busy recently, hence lack of updates, with new website projects coming in thick and fast, plus I’ve been trying to get my head around developing an iPhone app (I have finally joined the party, only 3 years late and got an iPhone  4 – hence my sudden interest).

This one is for me more than you, but hey, there is a lack of info on the internet, and its up to me to set it straight…

Everytime I install WordPress, the .htaccess file for permalinks is never created, so I have to hunt around for it… sometimes you don’t want a fancy all-singing all dancing htaccess file, just the original… so here it is :

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Copy, paste, upload, permalink.

Create a php text file (i.e directory.php), then copy the following in to it :

<?php
echo dirname(__FILE__);
?>

This will then output the full directory structure of the files location.  Simple and easy, and can save you hours of trial and error!

There are 3 relatively quick and easy ways to do this :

1) WordPress Maintenance Plugin

This plugin adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.  Useful for very quick messages, but not really great for completely custom frontpages.

More Info : http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/maintenance-mode/

2) Quick and Simple htaccess to a Holding Page (no images or included files)

Stick this in your .htaccess file in the root of your WordPress :

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/holding.html$
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^111\.111\.111\.111
RewriteRule $ /holding.html [R=302,L]

Replace 111.111.111.111 with your own IP address (whats my IP) to allow you access.

Replace the holding.html with the name of your holding page.

This method is a spit and sawdust way and doesn’t allow for images or scripts to be called (as everything is blocked apart from the html)

3) Advanced htaccess and Holding Page directory (images and scripts OK)

Create a directory in your document root directory named “maintenance”.  Upload your splash page and all linked files (images, css etc) in to it,  and then add the following to your htaccess file in the root of your WordPress :

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !99\.99\.99\.99 [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !88\.88\.88\.88 [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !77\.77\.77\.77
RewriteRule !^maintenance/ http://www.mydomain.com/maintenance/ [R=302,L]

Replace the 99.99.99.99 etc with your own IP address (whats my IP) to allow you access, and add more for the different locations you connect from.

At first glance, I thought it was yet another translation service, but no, in fact its something I’ve never seen before – an instant online copy checking service.

Paste in your text or upload a document, and Wordy will instantly tell you 1) how much they will charge you and 2) how quickly they can turn it around.

Whats more – the checking service isn’t done by computers or bots, but real life professionals – and you can even let them know if your text is specific to a particular style.  Need an expert in Academia to look over your thesis? No probs -  they claim to have at least 8 specialists at any one time available to edit your work.

They even have a WordPress Plugin so even lazy bloggers can have stuff checked easily without having to visit the website.

A second pair of eyes over your documents is invaluable to most businesses, and at this cost and speed, this is a great service.  And the video integration on the frontpage is really well done, I love it!

4) Add bookmarks
Bookmarks act as a table of contents in a PDF file, allowing users to quickly navigate a PDF. Who has time to scroll through 36 pages in a PDF file to find chapter 3? For PDF files larger than two pages, add bookmarks to the file.If you followed step 2 (save/export document as tagged PDF) bookmarks will automatically be created from the source document. If the Word source document contained a table of contents, the table of contents will display in the Bookmarks pane.

To create bookmarks, open the Bookmark Panel (View > Navigation Panels > Bookmarks or select the Bookmark icon in the navigation pane). Use one of the following methods:

1. Add bookmarks based on document structure – the easiest method!
   1. If the PDF file is tagged, you’re in luck! Use the structure to create the bookmarks automatically
   2. In the Bookmark pane, select the Options menu
   3. Choose New Bookmarks from Structure
   4. The Structure Element dialog box displays – select the elements you want to convert
   5. Select OK
2. Create bookmarks from selected text in the PDF file
   1. Use the Select tool from the Select and Zoom toolbar
   2. Select text you want for the bookmark
   3. Select the New Bookmark icon on the Bookmarks pane toolbar or in the Options menu, select New Bookmark to add the text
3. Add blank bookmarks and fill them in manually – most time consuming
   1. In the existing bookmarks, click the location above where you want to add a new bookmark
   2. Select the New Bookmark icon on the Bookmarks pane toolbar or in the Options menu, select New Bookmark
   3. The bookmark will be created with the default text “Untitled”
   4. Enter the text for the bookmark

Heres the full article to the top ten hints about making great PDFs, check it out, well worth a read and a bookmark

http://refresh-detroit.org/2008/12/02/ten-tips-for-creating-usable-and-accessible-pdfs/

Well, what to do?

Believe it or not, I reckon the best time to start your own business is right now.

How better to spend your evenings than researching new ideas, putting plans together or working for free to get those essential first few jobs. It’s certainly cheaper than going out and spending money you can’t afford.

And others are in the same boat – so expand, network and collaborate – as you can be sure there are hundreds of people out there feeling the same as you.

Unemployment is high, cutbacks are common, this is as bad as its likely gonna get. But imagine coming through it with the security of having a half established business too? As the economy picks up, and people have money to spend, you’ll be setup, ready and waiting to take their orders and capitalise on a strong economy.