December 2009 Entries
Every year we have a big clean up when our network is relatively quiet so between now and 2nd January 2010 we will be:
Killing off old or unprofitable sites and services
Installing new versions of some of our components
Removing old log files and service databases
Changing copyrights on all the sites
Tightening up links between related services and updating content
None of the the changes will break anything or result in any downtime but (as always) if you think something has been affected by...
We will be open as follows:
Christmas Eve - 9am - 4pm
Christmas Day / Boxing Day / New Years Day - CLOSED
All other times per our normal opening hours.
A new swinging club is opening in Newcastle in January and we were awarded the contract for a marketing microsite - the sole aim of this simple site is to collect the email addresses of people who are interested in attending a Swingers Party once a month in the North East.
It's backed by a Google Adwords Campaign and a full site is planned for the middle of 2010.
If you are interested in this please visit their web site at www.newcastleswinging.co.uk.
The web site for Douglas Vaults in South Shields is now live on our network and will be having a major rebuild in the New Year. For now, if you are looking for a bar with top class live entertainment and excellent accommodation in South Shields please visit their web site at www.douglasvaults.com.
The domain name has now been transferred and Ocean Guest House (a bed and breakfast in South Shields) now have a shiny new web site on our network. If you need a hotel / guest house or holiday accommodation in South Shields please visit www.oceanguesthouse.co.uk.
One thing really annoys me. A customer decides they don't want to host their site with us anymore (usually because a friend of a friend is a "web developer"). Rather than be honest with us and explain that they are getting something for nothing they don't let us know and we renew their domain name - and then we issue the hosting invoice they tell us they are either "not renewing" or "don't want a web site anymore". We then notice a couple of weeks later that they have a new site somewhere else and we have been saddled with...
I found this good article about email scams to look out for. Interesting reading and quite relevant given that several of these scams are used to infect PCs with virus infections such as the fake "security centre" :
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1227&tag=nl.e101
This site rebuild has now been completed and is available at www.ronaldgrahamgroup.co.uk. I will be making some minor code changes in the next few days to give it standards compliancy but a fast build was needed as the address on the old site was incorrect. This customer only required development and hosting from us and we don't manage the DNS or email aspects of their service provision.
Whilst rebuilding one of our Lanzarote sites today I needed to pick two random images from the database and display them inside a Master Page wrapped in a Light Box and access the database through LINQ-to-SQL.
I found some useful stuff which other people might find equally useful (not sure where it came from but I've modified it heavily and converted it to VB.NET).
First of all create a view and a function in SQL:
CREATE VIEW [dbo].[RandomView]
AS
SELECT NEWID() As ID
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[GetNewId]()
RETURNS uniqueidentifier
AS
BEGIN
RETURN (SELECT ID FROM RandomView)
END
GO
These are the page controls:
<div class="adleft">
<asp:HyperLink ID="hyperlinkLeft" runat="server" title="Scots and Wry Costa Teguise" rel='lightbox[gallery]'>
<asp:Image...
The new version of British Garage Lanzarote is now live at www.britishgaragelanzarote.com and incorporates a clean new look and feel whilst retaining the ease of use of the previous build. We've added AJAX and robust error handling to the enquiry forms and it uses .NET 3.5 and CSS templates for standards compliance. It's been a rush getting it together so we'll be checking it for full compliance in the next few days - the customer needs it up NOW !