Welcome to Simon Philp's Blog

Update

It's been over 2 weeks since I last posed on my blog and the reasons are simple, holiday and real life.  Holiday to Majorca was fantastic,  unfortunately the weather wasn't that great but with old and new friends much fun was had.  Yes, being British, chucking it down with rain and we're all the in the pool playing volleyball.  I am not sure if it was holiday spirit or the vodka slushes but everyone was having a laugh.  I will be uploading all the holiday pictures to Flickr over the next couple of days.  If you'd like to see more of Alcudia and alot of people out enjoying themselves then keep an eye on my Flickr Gallery menu on the right or my main Flickr page.

Alcudia can be found North of the island of Majorca and has alot to offer. Transfer from the airport was about 50 minutes and if you're lucky enough to get a transfer during the day then alot of scenery to see on route.  We stayed at a massive complex called the Bellevue. The complex consisted of over 1400 apartments, several pools, bars, shops, a harbour and an entertainment venue.  Being all inclusive the variety of food each night was impressive and tasty.  The breakfast, well for something that tastes normal(bacon, sausages) then I would recommend going out of the complex.  If you're a group of friends, a couple, or a family I would thoroughly recommend the Bellevue.  People are friendly, regularly patrolled by the local authorities and you get a feeling of being safe.  Outside the complex and further into town is a different matter.  Unfortunately 2 of my friends had an encounter with a group of guys getting out of a car trying to mug them.  They weren't successful but things like this do happen everywhere.  Probably not a good idea to walk home a little drunk and taking a de-tour off the main road. Safety in numbers. For more about the resort of Alcudia check out the Alcudia Guide.

What's this white stuff falling?

Yeap, it's already that time of year when we put the boards into Summits for a service. This year will see my p1's being sold on Ebay as I am looking into Flow bindings as I am getting feed up of my mate Sammy being half way down the mountain by the time I all hooked in.  If you'd like to make a sensible offer before I put them on ebay get in touch.  Most resorts are showing to have a little snow, not enough for any riding yet but we can only hope that the season will kick off early this year.

• First Autumn snows at Cairngorm Mountain
• Nevis Range
• Glencoe

As usual keep an eye on visit Scotland for all the usual updates.  I believe the last road trip we had last season took Baz and I up to Nevis to find they weren't opening due to high winds.  This resulted in going to Glencoe where we had one of the best days boarding in a Scottish resort, more on our Nevis and Glencoe adventure.

Further Update

I will be carrying on my blog skinning articles soon as everything has got back to normal.  I have also been working on an inline post editing feature for my blog which is nearly complete. It's just been busy busy busy. I am also looking for advertisers for another project of mine www.podcastkicks.com if you'd like to put an ad on the site then please get in touch.  A big drive for the site will be happening over the next couple of weeks.  If you're a podcaster or a fan of several podcasts that you'd like to share with the world with a possibility of earning some money check it out.

Well my 1st summer holiday in about 3 years is coming up in a couple of weeks. Me and a couple of friends from north and south are hitting Majorca as a last minute thing. Over the last week I have been previewing albums, listening to old podcasts and well I now have over 16gb of tunes, I expect this to grow still. Think I have been fortunate aswell as 2 of my favourite podcasters have launched new mixes, One Phat Dj aka Si Jobling's ColourFul Crescendo, and Dj Cruze aka Marc Littlemore Music Talking.  I have loads of tracks that have been purchased from Dj Download some making it to the podcast, lots not.  My taste in music varies depending on the mood I am in, could be trance, r'n'b or even jazz. If you're like me I backup everything especially my media, do you?

I haven't done a recent update on my iTunes subscriptions but here are my previous posts:

• Podcast Subscription update April 2008
• Podcast Subscription update November 2007

Not many updates, ok maybe a couple, a few I picked up from PodcastKicks.com. I'll post updates to my subscription list at another time right now I want to focus on holiday tunes.  Podcast 10 part 1 was published a couple weeks back, this weekend I hope to publish podcast 10 part 2. It saddens me that podcast 10 part 2 will be my last podcast for a while.  Reasons behind this is that I have alot going on in real life and that financially it's not feasible just now with new podcasting laws now in place.

My ipod is full of a variety of music, including the killers, oasis, and my funky house tracks. Two albums I just bought last week which I have been listening to at the gym and is on my holiday playlist are:

Hed Kandi The Mix : Summer 2008

This album is broken down into 3 flavours in the mix. Mix one is "Twisted Disco", mix two "Disco Kandi" and finally mix three "Disco Heaven".

Ministry of Sound : Ibiza Annual 2008

Another triple compilation in the mix. Mix one and two are house mixes bringing in some of the best summer tunes. Mix three is made up from the biggest trance tacks out there.

Other albums I am currently listening to are: Verve - Forth and Zutons - You Can Do Anything.

I am still on the lookout for new albums, tracks for holiday so if you can recommend any please comment.

A while ago I wrote about purchasing a windows VPS server from easyspace.  Well today I received an email from them saying that they're currently offering 15% off annual purchases.  This would bring the basic server down to around £10 a month*.

If you're looking for a windows or a linux VPS without wanting to burn a hole in your pocket then click here or click the banner below and enter the code 15VPS.  I have nothing but good things to say about easyspace as I have had no problems with my VPS. Remember with the virtual server you get 99.9% uptime and unlimited bandwidth*

Even if you're not looking for a VPS solution why not check out there cheap hosting.

*see easyspace terms and conditions.

I wrote about my hunt for a css framework previously.

This post is going to be about building my design in html using the YAML css framework before putting it to use in a subtext skin.  I have published a couple of posts related to subtext skins and other features you can quickly implement:

• 2 subtext skins ready to rock
• Free Online backup storage - alternatives to BT Digital Vault
• fSpring skin for subtext
• Subtext Galleries, using jQuery for funk
• Sharing the love
• Printer friendly your site
• More posts related to subext

Before building something I have to come up with some sort of idea of what I want the design to look like.  How I want it to entice users to hang about read more, click on a link, banner or even a category.  Now I am no designer but there are alot of sites out there that can give you influence.  There are quite a few css gallery sites which show some of the best on the web.  A comprehensive list can be found over on Martin Lucas's Blog.

If you find a design that you transform into a blog skin/template please give credit to the designer.  These guys work hard and if you don't acknowledge them then really it's stealing.  Am sure the designer would appreciate the link back and if you're really lucky the designer might even help you should you run into problems doing the conversion. I recently discovered a site using one of the skins I converted to subtext and the owner had removed all credits from the footer. Bad karma.....

I'd like to do something completely different from the norm.  There are some limitations that subtext imposes when it comes to rendering some of the components. I'll go into more detail about these limitations later.

What am I looking for?

Right now take a time out, make a list of what you'd like to implement in your build.  If you struggle for ideas, try a little brainstorming session, have a look through some css gallery's to give you some inspiration.  Make a list of things you like, things you dislike for example colours used.

My brainstorming session

3 columns. Wow factor. Bright. Easy navigation. Formatted form elements(contact,comment). Blockquote, xfn, vcard, vcalendar, list formatting. External and internal link differentiation. Orange, blue, red, lime. Flickr Gallery. Twitter. About page. Nicer Error Page. Round but not too round.

I am fortunate that I am running subtext as a single blog so I can change some of the core pages as it won't affect anyone else.  If you're running on a multiple blog installation then some of the above won't be possible unless you and your users have a good understanding. 

Layout and Colour Scheme

Layout

YAML comes with a nice builder : YAML Builder v1.0. The builder allows you to pick from a variety layouts.

I am going for a 3 column with teaser layout. The right column will be thinner though as you'll see in the next post.

Colours

If your struggling for a colour palette I would recommend Color Combinations.  The site shows a variety of colour schemes that can be viewed by colour, and can be viewed in a test area. Another useful feature is that you can enter the URL and retrieve the colour scheme for that site.

Another good site is ColorSchemer

Right now I am still not sure what colours I am going to use. For the next post I am going to implement the base then play about with different schemes from the above sites.

Also be sure to check out - Free Online backup storage - alternatives to BT Digital Vault

Previously in my looking at CSS frameworks post I outlined numerous

1. Yahoo! UI Library: Grids CSS
2. Blueprint
3. YAML ( yet another multicolumn layout )
4. Logicss
5. Elements
6. ESWAT
7. Typogridphy

In order to grasp what each framework has to offer I have come up with a small checklist so that they can be evaluated. Once I have gone through each framework I plan on going through the process of putting together a subtext skin for podcastkicks blog.

My quick checklist consisted of the following:

1. Development activity
2. Cross browser compatibility
3. Documentation and examples - Project page
4. File size (layout only not full framework unless stated)

The reason that I am not overly concerned about the file size is that I will only be using what I need. Development activity I feel is very important for 2 reasons:

1. Should a new version of a browser be released I'd like to know that the framework I am using will be updated to reflect any changes.
2. Show's progression and advancement.

The following picture shows the results of each framework being put through my simple checklist.

As you can see from above the majority of frameworks vary in file size, this comes down to whether or not you're using it all or just parts of it.  During the process of investigating I really narrowed it down to 2, Yahoo and YAML.  Further exploration of both frameworks made me realise that YAML was going to be my selection for this project. One of the reasons is that there is a cool builder http://builder.yaml.de/. Also YAML can deal with grids an example of this can be found http://www.highresolution.info/webdesign/sandbox/yaml_grids.html.

In the next couple of posts I am going to go through the process of creating a skin with this framework.  I think the builder will save me time but getting to know all the available classes for the little things could throw a spanner in the works.  I am hoping that the available documentation will lead the way to success.

If you've not heard already I am pleased to announce a new community driven site  Podcast Kicks.

What happens is podcast episode url's are submitted into the system.  The author ( who can submit ) can then put a widget on their site that displays the amount of "kicks"/"tuned ins".  I will be running a monthly contest whereby the podcast with the most kicks will be the "featured podcast" across the site for a duration.

Please be sure to check it out.

Just posted a new funky house podcast. 
Already on Episode 9, where has all the time gone?

When doing the voiceovers had a little bit of a cold so I apologise for sounding dull :P

As stated on the site and the podcast itself podcast number 10 will be coming in 2 parts.  It's going to be a good one.

 Enjoy the mix.  Now onto my 5 consistent posts. 

Last 3 posts:

1. Intechnology Golf day 2008
2. alternatives to BT Vault - Mozy backup
3. Looking at CSS frameworks

It's that time of year again whereby Andy and I had the opportunity to attend Intechnologies golf day. This being our second time down we had an idea of what the day was to consist of.

Like last year we signed up to the beginners section whereby a golf pro would show us how to hit the ball may it be with a driver, number 7 or a putter. This year there was certainly alot more people which meant that there were 3 beginner groups all rotating to the 3 various areas of the course.

I'd like to say that I remembered alot from last years "coaching" but it was down to learning it all again.  Out of the competition between the 3 groups, it was Andy and I's team that won. Nice trophy for the office and a bottle of champers.

The whole event was well organised and it was good seeing people we met last year.  The rest of the pictures from the golf day can be found on my flickr page.

Last 3 posts:

1. Alternatives to BT Vault - Mozy backup.
2. Looking at CSS frameworks.
3. 5 post consistency, thoughts.