Summer Shenanigans

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Its about time I did another blog post, my few followers will be missing me xD.

This one is about what I have been doing since I left uni for the summer in May.

It is a long period and I have tried to make the most of it by keeping busy :D .
Been playing around with new designs and coding for my activities week booking system and more importantly improving and standardising the features so I can sell it as stand alone project.

Have plans to develop a suite of educational web-based tools, along with Ben Forte.

Also been helping a local charity YES out with their web design needs and I have been continuing my volunteering there as well as doing some paid work which has aided them through their expansion period, its always great to help out and I love the feeling I get when I contribute to things that are greater.

Also had some great days and night outs with people in brixham :) love you guys!

I’ll leave you with something I found surprising (and slightly worrying) recently!

http://gizmodo.com/5825909/ora​nge-juice-is-artificially-flav​ored-to-taste-like-oranges

Very Busy!

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Its a very busy time of year, with lots of assignments and exams very close, and I think the train journey tommorow up to london for MandarinMaster will be a welcome distraction, get to see more of the city I love :) I’ve always been fascinated by london and the underground in particular, history everywhere you look. The presentation will be In front of a top judging panel from experts in the uk as well bit nervous to say the least lol!

Recent Happenings

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Lots going on at the moment, Im currently reading through a book on web usability, most of it seems common sense to me lol, but we designers often don’t see it from the users perspective. I’m hoping I can get some references into my 3000 words usability report :D . Also working on some tough c# algorithms (well not that tough) & updating MandarinMaster. If I have some spare time I might start writing a CV so I can get a job in the summer and I need one to get a placement next year anyways. In other news I am now officially working at MandarinMaster, we recently incorporated. And actisoft is installed & ready for booking at CFGS. Things are moving on smoothly….

Past Goings On & The Holidays!

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A whole term has passed at uni and I’ve found myself too busy to do any more web based stuff.

Work will start again on mandarinmaster.co.uk over the holiday as well as ActiSoft, my all in one activities week web based solution.

Keep an eye out for MandarinMaster, scheduled for launch in August 2011, i’m hoping it will be popular :D we have a great team on board now.

In my spare time in amongst going out and writing long reports I have bought an old dell computer to use as a linux webserver and have installed ubuntu 10.04 server on it, another thing for me to play with when I get back :D

I have been impressing my friends with my Linux command knowledge that I have put into effect on their computer ;)

Helping out in my local area for the Christmas grotto has been enjoyable once again, and a welcome rest from the computer.

Merry Christmas Everyone :D

Downloadable PHP Contact Form

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Haven’t updated this blog for ages but here is a new post about forms :)

Contact forms make it easier for the users of your website to get support as inexperienced users may not understand how to email or they may not even have an email account they can use or access may be inpractical at the time they need to get support. They also let you as the business owner keep your email private and protected against spammers.

Contact forms are hard and time consuming to write correctly and to make fully hacker proof and inexperienced programmers may mess this up. Also they need to correctly inform the user of where they have gone wrong with their data entry so they dont face any problems when getting support.

I have presented a simple contact form for you to use on your site which allows a degree of customization.

Implementation Instructions

  • Extract the downloaded zip file and upload the files to the root of your web server
  • Edit includes/config.php with your settings
//config for comments form
$comment_field_labels = array(“Name:”, “Email Address:”, “Message:” ); //The number of fields and fields descriptions$comment_required_field_array = array(0,1,2); //the fields that are required 1 = 0 in this case all are required

$comment_field_maxlength = array(50,50,256); //maximum characters that can be entered into each field

$email_to = “support@domain.com”; //the address to email to (your address)

$site_title_text = “Your Site”; //name of the site

  • Customize ‘contact.php’ with your company header and footer
  • You are done!

Enjoy the time you have saved. Download the form files below:

Download Form Files

Custom External Hard Drive Backup System

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I made an external hard drive with a difference by taking apart an existing external hard drive and removing the active chip and connecting this via IDE to a internal IDE rack. This allows you to insert and remove the backup hard drives easily. Since I use a laptop for all my work this was a neat solution! :)