Blog

Archive for March, 2010

4 steps to make a custom 404 error page

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Welcome to my first tutorial!

In this post, I’ll be showing you how to make your very own custom 404 error page!

Time needed: 30 mins + any time spent designing the page itself
Necessary resources: Notepad, Site FTP access, coffee
Optional programs: Photoshop/Illustrator (for design of the page), FTP Client (for easier uploading)

TLD 404 Page

A custom 404 page is not only a way to expand accessibility on your website, but it also shows that you (or your company) has attention to detail, and can be a way to inject some humour into a website!
(more…)

Communicate by Community – embracing new ways of being connected!!

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

A selection of social media communities and other fascinating Web 2.0 examples – people seem more and more inclined to let the world know what they are up to!

(with thanks to Betti Moser for her help on this post!)

Foursquare

foursquare.com
You can make lists of your favourite things to do and share them with friends. Foursquare will keep track of the things you’ve done, help you create To-Do lists and even suggest new experiences to seek out…. As you check in around the city, you’ll start finding tips that other users have left behind. After checking-in at a restaurant, you may unlock a tip suggesting the best thing on the menu. Checking-in at a bar will often offer advice on what your next stop should be. Every tip you create is discoverable by other users just by checking-in.

A bit like a mixture of Twitter updates, GPS search to locate people you know and ‘Dungeons & Dragons’.

Foursquare

Plancast

plancast.com
A service for sharing your upcoming plans with friends – a social calendar of sorts. Just submit the things you’re thinking about doing in the future, and your friends will be able to hear about them – and maybe join you, too!

TechCrunch calls it “a ‘Foursquare for the future’. The main idea is that while many people use Foursquare and similar location-based services like Gowalla and Loopt to share where they are, Plancast is about sharing where they will be.”

It looks very similar to a Twitter timeline, but the focus is on what you’re planning today, tomorrow, next week, next month etc. This is how it works in action: plancast.com/mark

Blippy

blippy.com
“Blippy allows you to automatically share your credit card transactions as you make them. This includes the place you made the purchase, the amount, and in some cases, the item. This is all placed in a social stream where other Blippy users can comment on and ‘like’ the various items.”

This is still very new. It looks similar to a Twitter stream, but the updates are automatic via a link from your credit card to Blippy. (Hmmmm…)

Last fm

www.last.fm
“a music service powered entirely by its community of listeners.”

Completely interactive music-based community. Plugs into all other social media platforms. Listeners automatically stream the tracks they’re listening to onto Last.fm, thereby creating their online profile.

Spotify

www.spotify.com/en
“peer-to-peer music streaming service that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, with virtually no buffering delay.”

A monthly subscription gives access to millions of songs to download. Spotify also has profiles on Twitter and Facebook.

Listverse

listverse.com
“a website dedicated to lists of trivia from a variety of categories – the most popular of which are lists of misconceptions and human oddities.” Full of curious stories, all presented as a “Top 10 most…” list.

Hunch

hunch.com
This is a pretty cool site. It uses artificial intelligence concepts to help people with everyday (and not so everyday) decisions! Try it out and let us know what you find!

Petrol Prices.com

www.petrolprices.com
“Find the lowest UK petrol price in your area! 9,537 petrol stations and 8,000 daily updates.”

Just enter your post code and find the cheapest petrol station near you. Compares prices in real time. Also available as iPhone app.

3 useful Web 2.0/Social Media resource blogs to keep you on the ball

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

We wanted to highlight a selection of blogs and websites that keep you up to date on all the latest news in social media, web technology, plug-ins, gadgets and tools. (Thanks to Betti Moser on her help on this article)

Mashable

mashable.com
We love this site – it’s the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news as well as handy how to guides. Also a must follow on twitter (@mashable)

Mashable

Techcrunch

www.techcrunch.com
One of the leading blogs which profiles and reviews the latest internet products, companies, software and gadgets. This site also gives you constant blog updates on the latest web applications and social media plug-ins – if you are so inclined! It’s worth checking out!

Social Media Today

www.socialmediatoday.com
This is “a moderated business community for marketers, bloggers, PR, and media professionals” Great site for news updates, views and blogs on everything to do with social media and marketing (and it also has a version in French!).

Gabby’s blog post – Social Media Gurus, Ninjas, Jedi’s or Consultants – a “reblog”

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I have to post this as I want to draw atttention to the blog article written by my cousin Gabriella Sholk – it is hilariously funny but you have to make sure you read it in ALL seriousness anyway as it’s great advice!

Check out the post here:

Gabby’s blog post – Social Media Gurus, Ninjas, Jedi’s or Consultants – a “reblog”