More than 10 years after the Internet first really invaded British homes, many businesses in the UK are either completely ignoring it or failing to fully utilise it.
At first I was amazed to read that just over 1/3rd of UK businesses have absolutely no web presence whatsoever (according to figures from the UK Federation of Small Businesses). Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Then I sat down and thought about all the business owners that I have spoken to over the last 12 months and remembered that a large proportion of them admitted (with some uncomfortable shuffling of feet and gazing at the floor) that they didn’t have a website. Now, when you ask them if they use the internet themselves to find or buy stuff, almost 100% say yes, either buying from eBay, booking their next holiday, buying car insurance and so on. Yet they let their own business stumble along, a decade behind the times, getting all uncomfortable when asked if they have a website.
Of those that do have an online presence, only 18% actively sell things online according to the FSB.
NOTE: The figures in this blog post are updated live. Anyone linking to this article should probably avoid quoting the actual numbers in their own article.
A few weeks ago I posted a link to a web based application that we wrote to test the download speeds on the 3G iPhone. So far < ?php
$con = mysql_connect('p50mysql197.secureserver.net', 'iphonebandwidth', 'H0wF@5t');
if (!$con) {
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
mysql_select_db("iphonebandwidth", $con);
$sql="SELECT count(*) FROM testresults";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die("Select Failed!");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
echo $row['0'];
}
mysql_close($con);
?> tests have been performed by users from all over the world.
The average 3G connection speed (ie filtering out the results from 2G or Wi-Fi tests) for each country, in order of fastest to slowest, is as follows:
Sorry we’ve been a bit quiet the past 10 days or so, but we’ve been very busy with some new e-commerce software!
This is a new open source system and the day it launched we grabbed it and got to grips with it, peeking under the hood and figuring out (there is no documentation yet for developers such as ourselves) how to modify it to look and work exactly as our clients would want. We’ve added a load of eye candy so your stores will really stand out against your competition..
As soon as our first live project is completed (which should be a little over a week from now) we’ll post a link to it but until then, here’s a sneak peek of the work in progress: (more…)
Cars are one of the most popular subjects for photographers, they’re designed to look stylish and evoke an emotional response. Most men would probably love to photograph cars for a living but few people are lucky enough to make a living doing that. No, most of us will have to be satisfied with doing it as a hobby but that’s ok, it’s still a lot of fun!
I have decided to break this tutorial down into several parts as it’s too much information to digest in one go.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I managed to break off a key on my MacBook Pro keyboard. If you can find a replacement keyboard online they tend to run in the £70 – £80 range and of course you have to fit it yourself. I dread to think what Apple might want to do the repair…
Luckily you can sometimes buy individual keys from Ebay or other online sites (expect to pay around £4-£5 inc delivery). If you do so, it’s important to note that an individual key consists of two parts, the key cap itself (the silver bit you see) and a white plastic scissor mechanism that holds the key to the keyboard base. If you have only damaged the silver cap portion, then you can reuse the scissor mechanism, but to be safe make sure any replacement you get includes both parts.
He’s full of curiosity about new things and is willing to learn so we know he’ll fit right in (although he can be distracting for other team members as he’s a pretty funny guy!):
We’re trying to do some research into the typical browsing speeds on our beloved iPhones so we’ve knocked up a simple web app for the iPhone that runs a speed test. The results are logged by connection type (eg 2G, 3G etc). We feel this information will be valuable to developers such as ourselves as iPhone connection speeds to web apps are something of an unknown quantity.
Please point your iPhone to:
Apple are quick to mention the internal sensors fitted to the iPhone, the info is right there on the website:
Sensors
Accelerometer
Proximity sensor
Ambient light sensor
What they don’t mention is the secret 4th sensor. A water sensor. You can see it if you shine a torch into the headphone socket of your iPhone (or iPod Touch). It’s a round disc at the very bottom of the hole. If that sensor comes into contact with water it changes colour, permanently.
