Getting the whole picture
The only issue I have with these services is that potentially spammers and hackers could abuse these tools. My concern is that when you see one of these shortened URLs you have no way of deciding whether or not the link will take you to a safe website or not. For all you know the link could direct you to a web site that runs some dangerous script when you navigate to it.
It’s not all bad news, I was visiting the tinyurl.com site today and noticed they offer a ‘preview’ version of their URLS. Basically by appending preview to the beginning of the URL, instead of going direct to the destination you are take to the tinyurl.com site and notified the actual full URL so that you can decided to proceed to the site or not. The screen shot below shows the output from appending preview to the tinyurl example shown earlier, http://preview.tinyurl.com/pv9tge.
As you can see from above
http://tinyurl.com/pv9tge is
actually safe and simply takes you to one of my
previous blog postings. But at least by using this
feature for any tinyurl.com urls you get you
have the opportunity to decide for yourself.
iPhone Aware
Read More...
New year, New look
I took this picture in September when on our holidays in Cornwall. It was taken in the new Costa Coffee store in Newquay during a much earned break ;). Anyways I was tidying up some photo folders on my iMac and came across this picture the other day and thought that's just what I need to finish off my new website's look. I've been working on the new site for sometime now and well here it is.
Read More...
You can find me on iTunes
Yes I'm now listed in the Podcast Section on iTunes. Click here to Launch iTunes and take a look at my page. Please post me some reviews! Oh and if you haven't already subscribed then you can do so from within iTunes. All my videos are will play on your Video iPod.
In with the new
As I discussed back in
October I was, in addition to the name change,
planning changes to the look and feel of the site.
I've finally made time to do this and as you can
see have now updated the look and feel. Now the
cosmetic changes are in place my next commitment
will be to increase both quality and quantity of
content.
Comments
I'm hoping and wanting you to comment more on the new
site so that I can understand what you like and don't
like. Use your name or post anonymously I don't mind
I just need your feedback. Please leave comments.
Enough is Enough
California: Road Trip
During December last year, it seems so long ago now, we spent 15 days on a road trip visiting the states of California, Nevada & Phoenix in the U.S.A. In all we travelled over 2000 miles from a few feet below sea level to elevations around 8000-9000 feet. Our trip started by driving from our home down to London where we boarded our flight to Los Angeles. We picked up our vehicle at LAX and drove a short distance to our first hotel in Newport beach. It doesn't look much like what you watch on the TV show 'The O.C.'
Read More...Let us have some order
From today you will start and see a number of categories appear above the monthly archive links on the side bar. Going forward all posts will now be categorised, I've also gone back through all my previous posts and added them to one of the following categories. Read More...
In the pipeline
As I mentioned in my last
post you should start to see some changes around
here. Yesterday my web design site was decommissioned
and I've decided to keep the domains registered and
use them for this site. Don't worry I still intend to
use the current domains, it just means that over the
next 24-48 hours you will be able to visit this site
using any of the following:
challengelogic.net
challengelogic.co.uk
brentvardy.com
brentvardy.co.uk
I do however have plans to update the site's look and
feel and totally re-brand it as Challenge Logic. This
won't happen over night, but expect to visit sometime
in the future, only to find a totally new and
hopefully better site. Not only will the site be
re-branded but also expect to see enhancements, new
sections and much more content.
One year on ...
As I said lots of stuff has been going on since my last post and here's a quick update.
1 - Spent time developing a number of large web sites.
2 - Attended multiple training courses in London and Leeds.
3 - Visited Cornwall.
4 - Visited Monaco.
5 - Spent hours writing a Linux Training course.
Finally I've made some changes too which have taken a lot of my time sorting. The first was the decision to close my part time web business, and the second was to accept a new, more demanding and hopefully more rewarding job role hoping it will change my quality of life and enable me to spend more time with Rachel. I also now plan to spend more time doing the activities and work I enjoy rather than, as I have for the last few years, spending all my time outside of work doing more work (web design). The intention is that these changes will enable me to get more video and photography taken, edited and published. I'm also hoping to fit in more personal web design and other personal programming projects.
Intel Mac
Apple announced the intel path last year and now it's reality. Apple have just announced the new MacBook Pro. Up to 4 times quicker than the current G4 PowerBooks the new Apple laptop is powered by an Intel dual-core processor. Like the latest iMacs the MacBook Pro also comes complete with built in iSight. Costing from £1429 inc VAT here in the UK, it starts shipping in February providing you place your order now. Looks like I need to start saving.