Posts Tagged ‘Web’

We are scheduling a maintenance period which may affect all customers using the Vibrant Pulse website hosting service.

Maintenance Begin: Tuesday 24th August 2010 – 22:00 BST
Maintenance End: Tuesday 24th August 2010 – 23:00 BST

Reason for maintenance:

We are performing routine maintenance of networking equipment used to connect our 2 datacenter facilities.

Service interruption:

There may be a brief interruption of service lasting between 5-10 minutes which will only affect customers utilising this intersite link.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause and we do stress, this is a important and plannedworks to be carried out by our datacenter where our servers are situated. Distruption will be kept to a minimum and is nothing to worry about.

Thank you

The Exe Trail is a Cycle Path and Walkway that travels twists it’s way hugging alongside the beautiful Exe Estuary. Vibrant Pulse has been running the unofficial Exe Trail website for 3 years now with a great amount of interest. We have seen the popularity of the trail explode along with the growing popularity of the website which dominates the search engines.

We have been working hard over the last few months to ensure that the content of the Exe Trail website is up-to-date and accurate ready for the summer season, updating the previous website before we launched the new version. Today, see’s the launch of the new website which has been worked on by our Trainee website designer, Simon from Exmouth.

The new site contains a new map system which allows users to explore the trail itself and find out all the information on each stop along the way.

We are selling advertising on the site to business owners along the route. Businesses owners who would like online advertising on the Exe Trail website should contact Vibrant Pulse.

This version of the trail itself is only the first stage of the redesign which will continue to have improvements made to features and pages over the coming weeks.

Please have your say via the onsite form. This is a community site with YOU able to have your say in what it says.

Vibrant Pulse run a range of different  community websites under the name of East Devon Online. The aim of which is to help keep the local community up-to-date with the latest goings on and also to advertise the local area to people further away.

Further our commitment to these sites and the local community, we are now undergoing website improvements works on our Exe Trail website which helps promote the Exmouth Cycle Path that will eventually run to Dawlish.

The first stages of the works our now being carried out updating the content on the site, the second stage to the look and feel of the site will start very soon where advertising will be available for local business owners alongside the route.

Yesterday, our hosting service was running on a slower basis. All servers were affected to some degree. Our datacentre has told us this message:

“A power outage in a 3rd party London datacentre affected several UK ISPs. This caused an indirect network impact to some Memset customers where their traffic was previously being routed through these providers. The resulting increased traffic through functioning providers caused saturation on some links leading to packet loss and poor network performance. Power appears to have been restored in the affected suite in Telehouse North and our routers are seeing the majority of peers back online. Traffic is now flowing normally.”

This was not a issue with our hosting service but was caused from outside the area of our control and that of our datacentre, it also only affected some users of websites on some Internet Service Providers. No downtime was reported on our servers and functionality has remain unaffected.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

I asked myself this question today, what are the UK’s 10 most popular websites? Actually finding out the answer was very simple and with the results calculated from visitor numbers and page views, the results were not that suprising to be honest. Lets see what you think…

1. Google UK
2. Facebook
3. Google.com
4. YouTube
5. BBC Online
6. Yahoo
7. eBay UK
8. Windows Live
9. Wikipedia
10. Twitter
11. Amazon UK
12. Blogger
13. Microsoft Network (MSN)
14. LinkedIn
15. Wordpress
16. The Guardian
17. PayPal
18. Flickr
19. The Daily Mail
20. Apple Inc

Data Source: Alexa

From a recommendation to Vibrant Pulse Web Design, Robin from Littleham Osteopathic Clinic approached us for a new website to work with the branding design already carried out for them for the new site Ottery Osteopathy.

Treating Back and Neck Pains, Sports Injuries, Joint and Muscle Pain, Foot Pain, Biomechanical Assesments and Othotics, Robin wanted a new website to promote his work in Ottery St Mary.

The brief was for a new website to which worked with the new branding, simple to use and was updateable whilst easy to find in the search engines for the correct terms.

The resulting website has now been created for him, simple, clean, working with the branding by Greenland Studios and updateable by Robin as and when needed. We will now be working closely with Robin to make sure it appears in the correct places in the Search Engines.

If you would like any further information on Robin, please click the picture or any information on the Exmouth based, Web Design Services, please click here.

All I seem to do nowadays on this blog of mine is write about the latest things Google. I find this kind of annoying so have been trying to stop but the news I found out today, I just have to share!

You have heard of Apple TV, Sky+, freeview+ and now, oh yes, there is Google TV!

Some TV’s will have it preinstalled, you can also have a box to plug into your exisiting TV (specs not yet here) and I am sure it will eventually be placed onto the Android Phone system to between you and me.

What is Google TV? Is it good? Well,t he concept is great. A single source that allows you to stream video from the internet, from your LIVE TV and from recorded content just like Sky+.

It is a blend of YouTube and Vimeo with Freeview or Cable and your Sky+. It allows you to play music, view your favourite websites, watch recorded TV, personalise your TV screen, shop the Android market Place, catch up with emails (is a feature I expect to be pushed) and all you social networking sites. No longer do you have to squint to view the YouTube video on your small laptop screen, now you can site and relax in comfort as you watch it on your TV.

Great, Google TV is brilliant, never been done before… or has it?

Anyone heard of a Media Centre PC? Yes, that will allow you to do ALL the things Google TV allows you to do, I myeself have a PC connected into my TV and I can do all the things Google TV allows if I so choose so why use Google TV?

I think this is another attempt of Google trying to take over the world BUT the hard thing I am trying to understand is is it a good thing?

In the first corner, we have Microsoft, a heavy weight in computer software with a world reputation and brand behind them.

In the second corner, we have Google, starting from a modest search engine to becoming one of the most powerful companies this planet has ever seen!

Who will win? You decide…

Seeing the story of Google vs Microsoft is something like that from a heavy weight boxing match, insults flying, names being called and public battles being fought away from the products themselves. What is causing it?

Google is a traditional name in the World Wide Web and is the worlds largest search engine. Microsoft, thanks to a deal with IBM, became the worlds largest software developer over that of the lightweight contender Apple (or are they?).

Now Google has dreams, so does Microsoft. Now I am not 100% sure (perhaps readers can help me out here) in how all this started,  who struck the first blow. Google is threatened in part by Microsoft trying to muscle in on the searches Google command and more importantly, the revenue to which this brings in, maybe in response or before MSN and Bing, Google launched open source Cloud software that includes Google Docs to compete with the office programs that run with Windows (and now OS on Apple).

Google have now released a Android phone system and is now smashing Microsoft’s Mobile Windows by almost double in some reports and this is set to become one of the largest smart phone operating systems by 2012 competing with the Apple IPhone. I myself have the HTC Desire which runs Android and I say watch your back Apple. I have also compared the offerings to the Mobile Windows and the differences are huge in favor of Android but what about the other products?

Google Docs and Office? I personally do not use either to shake things up but if it were a choice, I think I have used Google Docs more than office thanks to the ease of loading from any computer. Microsoft however has been slating the Cloud offering by saying “it does not cut it”. I personally use something called Open Office, I prefer it to the layout of the Office 2003 suit but for a far better price of free! There are limitations however on all systems and I say test them all to see what suits you best…

The battle however, between the 2 GIANTS is hotting right up with a recent report in the Financial Times saying “Google is dropping Windows OS as a operating system due to security concerns!” is there any truth behind this? In some respects, yes, in others, it is a clever bit of PR getting the public ready for the latest product offering from Google, Chrome OS to compete with Windows. The new OS (operating system has been long awaited and utilizes the web for many of the features. It is said to be faster and smarter than Windows but till this is released, we can not possible comment from experience. So what off Microsoft’s response to this?

“Irresponsible” is a word thrown out there and the usual positive spin from these large Giants giving the positives rather than the negatives. What off it though? Do you need to be worried about the security of your Windows PC? Yes we say, take care not to pass out login details, have your anti virus and perform regular checks but is it a major risk? No worse than ever before and is the usual things you should do anyway to be extra safe and considering the alternatives like Apple, Linux and the new Chrome OS, would I change? Not in a rush but who knows, a different system MAY be more suitable to your needs and that is a big MAY.

So what off this battle? Will it end? I very much doubt it, the 2 Giants will continue to battle it out both publicly and privately, things will be leaked, new products will be launched, services improved and this can only be good for us by keeping the costs down and the quality up due to healthy competition. What do you think?

The 5th of May could see your internet connection DIE! You may find your little green light is showing on your router but no-one is home due to a new DNS protocol being launched. The DNSSEC is a new protocol for a more secure and safer internet browsing experience by digitally signing the DNS returns to your computer. The problem is with the ISP’s and older firewall equipment like routers. If with a bad ISP, we use BEthere.co.uk, the way they deal with a DNS lookup is processed by the ISP first before being returned to you. Countries like China use this system to filter the internet and other local UK ISP’s use this system to return advert and cash rich websites for dead incorrect URL’s you enter or bad links you click.

So what is DNS? Why is this important?

DNS stands for Domain Name Lookup. Each website is stored on servers which is accessed by your computer when you type in the domian name, do a search etc etc. Becuase the way that the internet works is with IP addresses, a set of numbers, the DNS converts the domain name you click into a IP address, they are like signs at a roundabout telling you where you can find the website in very simple terms. DNS is very important and without it, you would not be able to browse the internet and load websites.

So what do I do to see if my internet will die?

OK, I may have baffled you about DNS, IP’s, DNSSEC, Servers, URL etc etc. This is the important bit you need to check out. You need to phone your internet provider and get through to customer service and ask them, if the internet will be affectted by the DNSSEC swithover on the 5th May. You also need to make sure that any firewall you have in any equipment can deal with it. Perhaps the best way is to click here to do a Java controlled test.  Check to see if the DNSSEC section say yes! If it is a no, then you need help. The majority of us should be OK.

Google, the search engine giant, is now using site speed (how quickly a site responds to web requests,) as part of the criteria for ranking YOUR WEBSITE in it’s earch results BUT what does this mean for you?

In simple terms, if you have a slow website, your site will not perform as it should in the search engines but what can you do?

Website Hosting – Making sure you have a decent website hosting package is now even more important. If you host with us, you are doing well as we optimise our hosting for speed and reliabilty so well done you! If not a customer with us, we will gladly give you a breakdown of how good your host is.

Optimised Website - Having a website that performs well is a key to our optimisation package. A slow loading website willput people off from browsing and discovering your products or services. It is now more important than ever to have a website that loads fast with this latest news and to find out how you are doing and what you can do to help it.

Is it really that important? - Well, not for everybody. If you do not use your website to attract new customers then you may not need to worry about it. If however, you use your site as a main part of your advertising strategy,  you should pay attention to this.

Here at Vibrant Pulse, we have been taking website loading speed into account for a long time. We aim for a website to load fully within 3 seconds and this is just one factor our customers get great results from the websites we design and build for them. Click the linky in this paragraph to explore more about what we do!