utopia 365 Blog

3 Years old

2011-05-04T21:09:00.001+01:00

It's been far too long since the last Blog post but things have just been so busy.

However, last month marked an important date which we can't let slip past and that is we're now 3 years old!

It has been an amazing journey and we're still here having worked our way through some of the most economically challenging times the UK (and indeed the world) has seen.

iOS development requests continue to explode, and rails application development is also increasing.

We're solidly booked and working with some excellent clients. If you are interested in working with us then please feel free to get in contact.

We'll hopefully update the website with some of our latest work in the future as there has been a lot happening.

impatex - a work in progress

2011-01-24T22:00:00.001Z

Hot off the press a re-vamp of the impatex.com website.

Powered by associateMe and other ruby on rails goodies...

More to come and further site-advances as time goes on...

Cupcakes By Jane

2011-01-10T22:01:00.001Z

Here's a quick plug for a mini site we put together for some friends last year:

www.cupcakesbyjane.com

Providing really cute, really cool cupcakes (and other cakes) for folks in and around Southampton, if you need something special - you know where to go.

Weekly Planner

2011-01-04T22:39:00.001Z

Here's an older community project that's moved along and now in use.

This is a ruby on rails based weekly planner.

With simplicity in mind, weekly planner lets you create labels (be that people, objects, events - whatever works for you). Once created you can assign those labels to blocks of time spread over.... a week. This is great for rotas, groups etc. and removes much of the bloat from a fully-fledged calendar app.

Printing, email reminders and uber drag-and-drop coming very soon.

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-24T14:23:00.001Z

Flash

2010-12-14T14:24:00.001Z

Enough said....

utopian work update

2010-11-12T13:32:00.001Z

Here's a few things that have been keeping us busy...

Finalised Boomeco website:

3D Timeline animation for Polypool:

Simple 1 page 'catch-all' website:

Updates to 4itGirls, including animated flash header graphics, sale features and super-zoom:

With another couple of website previews coming very soon, a rails based intranet App and 2 iOS applications.... we'll get some screenshots done real soon!

Update iPhone to iOS 4.2 installation Error

2010-09-16T18:51:00.001+01:00

If you are having some fun and games getting iOS 4.2 onto your iPhone then the following may help.

It seems the quick'n easy way to get the new OS onto your device for testing your Apps will no longer work. You'll find that downloading the updated OS and then restoring the phone in iTunes will partially complete, but right at the end you'll receive an error (often error 10) which leaves your iPhone in a state that needs fixing (restoring back to iOS 4.1 in iTunes).

Here's what you need to do:

- BACKUP your device.

- Ensure you have downloaded and installed the latest beta XCODE.

- Run XCode and connect your iPhone.

- Click 'USE FOR DEVELOPMENT'

- You may need to authorise with Apple using your DEV account.

- Once you are done, you'll get the option to restore the iPhone in XCODE. Ensuring the right OS is selected in the drop-down (other > select OS 4.2 that your downloaded from Apple), click restore.

- Once restored, fire-up iTunes and restore your backup. You 'may' have to try this a couple of times as sometimes the first time fails (don't panic!).

- Test away.....

Personally I think what we have to do now makes sense, it was too easy previously for anyone to hack-about and play with the new OS (non-devs just to get the latest features). Bringing it into XCode somehow makes me feel happier.

NOTE: no guarantees, do at your own risk!

Why the App Store rules are good (mostly)

2010-07-29T10:01:00.001+01:00

To some, they are a complete pain - 'big brother', 'just let us do what we want' and 'you are stopping our creativity,freedom & choice'.

I disagree.

There are bad people out there, that like to do bad things. As proved with Windows when it's on millions of desktops, that's a heck of a lot of data that someone can capture, use and profit from.

We now have millions of iPhones - which is a real possible boon for the savvy hacker to exploit so they can steal your data. At-least they would if the App store was an open system like Android. It's not perfect (take for instance the flash-light app that made it through the gates with a little 'easter-egg' which allowed you to use your phone as a proxy server), but the vetting process does do a good job and protects its users.

Some feel they do not need protecting - I say go buy another phone.

To prove my point, Android the 'open' system has a lovely wallpaper app out there (Jackeey Wallpaper), downloaded by millions of users. Lovely stuff - until you find out that whilst you have been enjoying the wonderful imagery it has been sending your data off to some servers in China (browsing history, text messages, phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and your voicemail password). This is just screaming 'windows spyware'!

Enjoy your freedom.

Jumping on the iPhone bandwagon

2010-07-13T20:11:00.001+01:00

There is a right hoo-ha going on right now in the blogosphere... It revolves around the iPhone 4 and it's serious problem with reception (cough).

Yes people, we have a problem - if you are into holding your phone in a really awkward way, if you are into being awkward then this is truly a massive problem.

I'm ambidextrous (great for drumming or doing a 'Ronnie' on the snooker table), so without thinking use my phone in either left or right hand mode. Guess what, I don't get any problems. However, I can recreate the reception issue if I hold my phone at a certain angle, in a certain way... and do you know what my thoughts are?..... it's really not a problem at all.

If you want to make it a problem then buy a bumper.

Logo Size

2010-07-13T12:34:00.001+01:00

Source credit to Smashing Magazine

A nice blog post

2010-07-07T21:00:00.001+01:00

I just thought I would quickly post a link to a great blog post that I read a couple of days ago:

Why Design By Committee Should Die

It's got some great points in it which we come across very often.

It's apt for us, and it's also apt for clients when they think about setting up an internal focus group to decide on how their site/app should progress. In most cases - don't.

Enjoy.

DIY Swimming Pools by Polypool

2010-05-27T17:20:00.002+01:00

Following on from the recent release of the utopia 365 designed and developed Polypool website, comes the newly launched DIY Swimming Pools website.

As you can see below, it shares a common(ish) look to the main Polypool company website, but with a few twists, additions and things (that’s a technical term that is).

We’re sharing common content between the two sites as part of our "Polypool Shared” project, within both associateMe and Rails directly.

Here it is.... almost as lovely as the main Polypool site from last month!

utopian concept

2010-05-22T22:39:00.002+01:00

There's always lots going on in utopia, but as so many development firms know it's vital to maintain free flowing creativity. Once in a while we like to sit back and write something ‘fun’.

We have been developing our Ruby on Rails CMS system (associateMe) recently, with the addition of some fantastic gallery modules which are so simple to implement and manage.

There is a lovely system for uploading large images, and then producing various sized versions for use within the webpage (in what we call media blocks). These media blocks can be various sizes so we simply centre on the image to get the best fit. This works most of the time, but if an image is uploaded where we want the top area viewed we run into a problem as the image used is centred.

eg. We upload this image:

But we're using a letterbox view area on our webpage so we end up with this:

The normal solution is to edit the image offline by cropping the area we want to be viewed, then uploading and using in our media blocks....but, that's not smart enough for us...

Recently Andy has been working on a concept to allow us to control what areas of an image are viewed on a webpage.

This means we can end up with this:

If implemented into associateMe, will not only prove very useful for our general associateMe users, but hugely useful for our soon to be released eCommerce module for associateMe.

Enough words and pictures though, video demos are always much nicer!

Image Manipulation in Browser from utopia 365 on Vimeo.

Polypool website

2010-04-26T14:16:00.005+01:00

Big concepts. Cute designs. Clean looks. That's the new Polypool website, just about launched at www.polypool.co.uk today.

We're still working together on some content so expect a few changes over the coming days/weeks.

We'll be working with Polypool on more future developments and designs than you can shake a stick at over the coming months! Big thanks especially to Ryan and Karen at Polypool - we're glad you're loving it all as much as we are.

Below is a massive preview of how it all looks. Nice isn't it! :o)

Gorgeous Galleries

Polypool.co.uk makes extensive use of our gorgeous galleries, through our own 'Media Block' system (dubbed UTMediaBlock, for our use only) - built directly into associateMe. We can also utilise UTMediaBlock independently of associateMe in other Rails websites we develop. As well as images, it can also handle: Video, Flash Video, Flash Movies, Silverlight, YouTube and audio (such as MP3).

Our famed in-line contact forms

We use these a lot - our famed in-line contact forms, and Polypool has one! Click the main 'contact us' link and it drops down from the top of the page ready to fill out... nice, smooth, functional and pretty much universally adored by our customers.

Beautiful Case Studies

Another advantage of UTMediaBlock is that we can utilise it as a method of navigation. That's just what we do for Polypool with their Case Studies, Completed Projects and Live/Current Projects. A large UTMediaBlock shows a pretty picture for each entry and you select between them using the Next and Previous buttons. UTMediaBlock then loads in the correct content for each entry as you work your way through. It looks and works beautifully.

associateMe

Polypool.co.uk is the first website to be built from the ground-up with associateMe and with associateMe in mind. We've used associateMe with a fair few earlier developments, but it has often been a case of trying to hack concepts and ideas into existing developments - never ideal. Now? We can start building our sites from day one with associateMe - and instantly gain access to much of the power it offers.

2 years on

2010-04-01T15:10:00.001+01:00

It is with great pleasure that we wish ourselves “Happy Birthday” today. utopia 365 LLP are 2 years old!

These past 2 years have flown by and we have gone from strength to strength. It’s been an extremely exciting time, especially taking into account we have effectively started up during one of the worst recessions in history - we’re still here, and we’re still busy!

Being careful, selective and Andy doing some crazy hard work has ensured we have been able to progress rather than regress.

We look forward to what the future holds knowing some of the exciting things we are working on.

A big thanks to all our customers.

Cheers,

Chris

New website - Tyme4u

2010-03-11T09:13:00.001Z

We've just put together a website for a local beauty therapy studio called Tyme4u.

This particular site uses Word Press (WP) for its back-end which enabled us to put the site together quickly and competitively.

Whilst WP does not have the flexibility, power and control of associateMe, it was able to fit the needs of this particular clients requirements and budget. To find out more, contact us.

Playing with iPad

2010-03-01T20:12:00.003Z

Unfortunately we don't have an iPad yet (Apple, Mr Steve! can we have one please???) but, what we do have is the beta of the new SDK for iPad development. And.... it's beautiful.

We are of course under an NDA regarding new features so I cannot say much. However, I do think I am able to share the following with you.

The iPad is of course (at its most simplistic) a giant iPhone device, although the larger screen and improvements/additional features Apple are providing allow for much richer software experiences and usability for a lot of applications that could never function properly on an iPhone. This is mainly down to the physical size and the resolution of the screen you have to work with. That sounds obvious, and it is. 'Serious work' on a display the size of the iPhone's is difficult. The iPad make it not only feasible, but also useable, and in many cases, probably pretty enjoyable. That is massively important.

One thing that I'm sure you can understand Apple are likely to encourage with the iPad is the way applications adapt themselves to the physical handling of the device by its users. Many iPhone apps only run in a portrait mode because it is more useable for viewing lists of information or data entry and more often than not offers a better user experience for non-media content than landscape views do. This is mostly negated with the iPad because of the high resolution. In practice, for the first time with an iPhone OS device, you can have landscape views that are more useful than their portrait cousins for all kinds of applications. Showing more information and alternative information in a useful manor. I'd suggest that all iPad applications (except maybe games) should work in whatever orientation the user is holding the device in, and give the power back to the user.

Porting an existing iPhone app to the iPad can be either a relatively simple task, or a more complicated task - depending upon what the app is and what resources it contains and needs to work with (especially image resources e.t.c. which must be provided in much higher resolutions). This is mostly obvious because of the massive difference in the physical resolutions of the displays. The iPad does allow you to run existing iPhone apps natively at either their original size (smaller rectangle in the middle of the iPad screen), or zoomed in to fill the iPad's screen. This does not automatically gain you any advantage in terms of the actual screen space you have to work with because you are ultimately just looking at exactly the same as you would be on an iPhone.

iPhone apps which consist mainly of table views and lists of information (which so many do) are far easier and more efficient to port to the iPad. Other apps will likely require much tweaking, additional resource provision/creation and even more thought because you now have an iPhone OS device which is close to the screen size offered by your laptop. That's much more than a phone and you need a different mindset when thinking of the possibilities.

With some of our current 'play time', I have ported most of one of our client's apps to the iPad (I won't tell you what app it is because they don't know yet and now isn't the time!). As it's largely a data entry app, the process was more trivial than most ports are likely to be, but there is still much to do in terms of images used and the original assumption of an iPhone's 320x480 pixel display when designing, preparing and developing the app.

Whilst I have a few personal doubts about whether many people will feel an absolute need to own a product that fits neatly between their iPhone and MacBook/PC laptop, there is no doubt that the iPad is a lovely thing - and I'm sure anybody with an income that allows them to purchase a lot of new shiny things will be snapping one up. We're looking forward to getting our hands on a real iPad ASAP (whether Apple or Mr Jobs send us a freebie or not remains to be seen - come on Steve, go on..... you know it makes sense).

Polypool swimming pools

2010-03-01T19:45:00.004Z

This is a nice one, a really, really nice one!

We are very proud to let you know that we are currently working on a website re-design for Polypool. They are the pros who basically give you a stunning pool (well, I say give - but I'm sure you understand you'll need to have a few quid burning a hole in your pocket to get one of these babies installed!).

The results are awesome, Polypool's products are awesome, the pictures we have to work with are awesome and the website we're building is awesome. It's going to be clean and cute and associateMe^™ powered. Enough said.

Polypool is the leading manufacturer and supplier of insulated swimming pools in the UK and have been at the forefront of swimming pool design for over ten years, working with domestic and commercial clients.

The new website will replace the existing website over at www.polypool.co.uk and will hopefully be launching within the next few weeks. We'd like to be able to give you a few picture previews of the site here, on the utopia 365 Blog, before the new site launches - so watch this space.

Staring at a desktop...all day

2010-02-19T13:22:00.001Z

Often we'll spend more time looking at a computer screen than anything else during the day - in some ways a sad fact, but in other ways it's because we have lots of work to get on with and we enjoy what we do.

Having a nice calming desktop picture is always a nice addition to motivate; not too busy, not to bright - my preferred styles are plain and simple, so I thought I would share a lovely little site that often dresses my screen wallpaper:

http://simpledesktops.com/

There are thousands of wallpaper sites out there, but I really enjoy the simplicity of this site along with the great artwork. Resolutions offered 2560x1600.

Tim Collins Interviewed

2010-02-18T15:52:00.001Z

We've been working with Tim for several months now, seeing Second Shootr evolve from an idea to a successful and popular iPhone App for professional photographers.

We caught up with Tim to ask him some questions:

Q) What do you do for a living?

I'm a wedding photographer who dabbles occasionally in software testing to supplement my income.

Q) What made you want to create an iPhone App?

I've had an iPhone since they were first released in the UK. Since then, I've wanted an application to help improve my photographic workflow. In essence, I wanted to create the application for purely selfish reasons.

Q) Is this your first venture into something like this?

I do have experience of the software development cycle, but I've never commissioned work like this before.

Q) What made you choose utopia 365?

Three main reasons:

They are based in the UK. I prefer to meet with people face-to-face... build up a strong relationship and to get clarity on exactly what I want.

They use Agile methodologies. Whilst I appreciate that the majority of people won't know/care about Agile, I am very much an Agile convert and it works well for this type of development.

Their skill is in iPhone app development. The iPhone is a unique device with a unique user interface - you NEED someone who knows exactly how the iPhone works in order to build an application that works well on the device. If your application doesn't work well, you're left with an application that nobody wants.

Q) How did you find working with them?

The guys are great. I left them with some VERY specific requirements, but they went above and beyond what I asked for.

Q) Are you pleased with Second Shootr?

Very much so. It's far better than I imagined.

Q) What are your plans for Second Shootr?

Honestly? I have no plans. Second Shootr fulfilled all my business needs in version 1.0. What I've been doing from here is listening to user feedback and asking the utopia 365 guys to implement the most requested features (if I can afford it). It sounds like a pretty rubbish business model on the face of it, but if you give your users what they want, then they'll use your app!

Q) How have you found the marketing / App store process?

I'd describe myself as very computer-savvy person, but the app store is a strange little place! Setting up your seller account can be challenging (lots of tax forms and stuff), but the guys at utopia 365 talked me through everything. I still don't know anything about code signing or uploading updates to the app store... I just leave it all up to them.

Marketing an iPhone application is hard. Especially a niche application like mine. If I was going to offer advice to anyone it would be to have a good marketing budget. If you can afford it... split the cost of development and marketing 50/50... otherwise your app won't be seen by your target consumer and you won't make money!

Q) Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?

Yeah... I'd do it again. At times its been hard (testing an application over and over again isn't exactly fun, but its important), but its been very rewarding to see an idea be released out into the big, wide world.

Second Shootr v1.1

2010-02-17T22:04:00.008Z

The updated version (v1.1) of Second Shootr has now been approved by Apple and is available on the iPhone App Store, either for a new purchase or as a free upgrade from v1.0 for those that have already bought it.

Second Shootr was developed by utopia 365 for Plinkk Photography. Many new features have been added in v1.1, which are best described by Tim from Plinkk directly:

Second Shootr is a revolutionary digital photography assistant for professional photographers. Use Second Shootr to help you plan every aspect of your photography beforehand, leaving you free on the day to get on with what you do best....taking awesome photos!

Whether you're a portrait, wedding or event photographer (to name but a few!), Second Shootr will help you be on top of your game for every shoot.

Features of Second Shootr:

- Store detailed information about your clients, ranging from their names and addresses to detailed information about the event.

- Contact your clients from within the application by phone and email, or check their location using the in-built map.

- Store everything you need to know about the people involved in your photographic event. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, Second Shootr could prompt you with the name of the Best Man, or store the Vicar's contact details for later reference.

- Plan your session's shots. Second Shootr will help you to remember the must-have shots you'll need to take. Once you've taken the picture, you can mark it as complete, leaving Second Shootr to tell you exactly which shots you have left to shoot.

- Know the upcoming key events. Second Shootr is there to give you a gentle reminder to let you know where you need to be, and at what time.

- Ensure you have all your kit with you. Just cross off the items as you pack them into your bags in the morning, and check them back in again when you're packing up from the shoot ready to go home.

"

- Keep on top of your day-to-day photography tasks both before and after the photo session.

iPad App Development

2010-01-27T23:54:00.001Z

Unless you have been incommunicado for the past few days then you'll know that Apple have released the iPad.

A new device that sits nicely between the iPhone and Mac range, we are anticipating a new range of customers utilising this smart device (along with existing Apple users enjoying it).

Based upon the iPhone OS most Apps can be natively run out of the box on the iPad. However, to make use of the new screen-size updates can be made to give a nicer user experience. The iPad also introduces some new features which will only function on the iPad (you can either build explicitly for the iPad or universally for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch).

We're looking forward to porting and creating new Apps for this marvellous little device. If you want an App for the iPad then contact us to find out more.

p.s. Just in-case you have missed it watch the promo Apple iPad video.

Promo Apps on 3GS launch

2010-01-18T19:21:00.005Z

It's always nice to work with people who enjoy what they do, and appreciate what we do.

We have worked on several applications for EquinoxApps and it was nice to be notified that their local telecoms provider was running a promo for the iPhone 3GS, featuring several of the Applications we have worked on together. (Andy Edit: Which are of course; MyBabyTree, Gold's Gym, TransJakarta and KidsCards - all iTunes App Store links).

Telkomsel are the Indonesian equivalent of our UK based O2 or Vodafone.

Where are we?

2010-01-14T00:28:00.001Z

It's been a while since I posted anything so I just thought I would state we are very much alive and kicking...just heads down and cracking on.

We're really busy with work at the moment and working on some very exciting projects.

We're also awaiting news on the potential Apple Tablet so we can hopefully add to our list of devices we develop for.

Also just added is iTunes LP development as a service offering, but more news on that and our exciting partnership with Twisted Records will be made known in the 'not so distant future'.

Look out for Second Shootr 1.1 which has many additional features implemented and opens the App up to many more customers. Tim from Plinkk has worked very hard ensuring his 'number 1' wedding photography App becomes one of the top (if not the top) photography management Apps.

Lastly, we are happy to announce our newest customer 'PolyPool' - watch this space.

The utopia 365 Premier League Team of the Noughties

2009-12-31T13:23:00.005Z

Every man and his dog (by which we mean man, woman, sports writer, fan, etc) seems to have had a say on this over the last couple of weeks - so here, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the utopia 365 definitive statement of the best players (mostly) to stake a claim to being in our Premier League Team of the Noughties.

(And I am so glad that it's 2010 tomorrow - the phrase "Noughties" is horrid, isn't it!?!? - what now, the 10's? Much better!)

This is not a contest of the best out and out players to have played at anytime in the 00's. The rules are:

1. Must be (or have been) a Premier League player
2. Must have played a substantial amount of their career in the 00’s
3. Must have been consistent and influential over more than one or two individual seasons
4. Should ideally polarise opinion, causing hysterical and un-rational debate and slanging matches whenever two or more people get together!

Excluded players:

There are three main reasons for a player not appearing who might have been expected to:

1. They were really more 90's than 00's, i.e. Shearer, Stam, Keane, e.t.c.
2. We (or rather I) don't like them. i.e. Terry (Ashley Cole just about has to be made a sub for pure ability, even if he does make my blood cold)
3. They are good enough but considered to have been too injury prone too often - i.e. King, Woodgate and Kewell

Here is the team (managed by Arsene Wenger)...

Team:

1. Given (GK)

2. G. Neville (RB)
3. Riise (LB)
5. R. Ferdinand (CB)
6. Hypia (CB)

4. Gerrard (CM)
7. Beckham (RM)
8. Viera (CM)
11. Giggs (LM)

9. Henry (FW)
10. Bergkamp (FW)

Subs:

12. Jaaskelainen (GK)
13. Campbell (CB)
14. A. Cole (LB)
15. Scholes (CM)
16. Pires (LW/RW)
17. Ronaldo (FW)
18. Rooney (FW)
19. Van Nistelrooy (FW)

Manager:

Arsene Wenger

Amusing Apple icon choices

2009-12-26T19:41:00.001Z

I don't know if Apple choose these icons, or if they are automated, but I did found this quite amusing when browsing the App store.

I won't spell it out - see if you can spot the obvious.

Personally I am amazed this happened. However, once you see the App you can understand it... I'm still not sure about using it as a main App icon though in the store knowing the viewing audiences though.

utopia 365 LLP
worldwide iPhone development

Northview Computing rebrands as Pure IT

2009-12-22T18:38:00.006Z

Southampton-based IT company Northview Computing have re-branded themselves (with a little utopian helping hand or two) as Pure IT.

The new website is now available at www.pureitgroup.co.uk

Pure IT offer complete IT solutions for businesses, schools and charities throughout Hampshire. You can even get a free 30 min IT session with them.

Gold's Gym iPhone App

2009-12-21T17:06:00.002Z

We're pleased to announce that the Gold's Gym iPhone App has been released into the App store.

Commissioned by Equinox Apps, utopia 365 provided the coding for the App (and a few other bits and bobs).

The App features our own in-app updating engine (newly updated), an RSS reader/Blog parse, image libraries, GPS Gym lookups / find my nearest Gym and Gym class scheduling via external sources... basically there are some clever technologies being used under the hood.

The not-so subtle advice from the utopia 365 public services and sanity commission regarding the usage of Internet Explorer as a viable browser

2009-12-20T15:14:00.005Z

Subtle enough advice do you think?

[Click pic for full-sized version]

PS. Yes, I know the screenshot shows it running in Safari and not IE - but that is simply to demonstrate without having to go through the hassle of getting Parallels booted up on my MacBook - thank you!

MyChristmas makes tiny appearance on Apple iPhone Advert

2009-12-17T22:07:00.001Z

We know there are lots and lots of Apps in the iTunes store, and there are many, many Christmas/Holiday Apps (just search for Christmas in the iTunes Store) so it's hard to get recognised or even noticed.

Well Apple have just released their lovely 12 Apps of Christmas advert and whilst MyChristmas is not directly featured it's been spotted that we at least are in the advert - even if it is an old icon. We like that. Thanks :0)

Watch the video:

utopia 365 Christmas 2009 Working Hours (updated)

2009-12-12T17:00:00.001Z

A very Happy Christmas to all of our Customers and Friends.

We may or may not be around at certain times over Christmas, and we may or may not be able to respond to you as quickly as we normally like to - so don't expect an instance response to your emails. By all means feel free to continue to chuck anything our way over Christmas and we will of course be back with you ASAP in the new year, at the very latest.

The official statement of when we won't be available is:

- Tuesday 22nd December 2009
- Wednesday 23rd December 2009
- Thursday 24th December 2009
- Friday 25th December 2009
- Saturday 26th December 2009
- Sunday 27th December 2009
- Monday 28th December 2009
- Thursday 31st December 2009
- Friday 1st January 2010
- Saturday 2nd January 2010
- Sunday 3rd January 2010
- Monday 4th January 2010

It's been a long year. It's been a good year, and 2010 is looking even better and we're keen to take a little time-out and refresh the old batteries.

We'd appreciate it if you can please respect these dates wherever possible (short of some kind of total catastrophe - and by that we mean 'literally' a catastrophe, not a minor hiccup!) and allow us to enjoy our Christmas, as we're sure you are hoping to do yourselves - then we'll all be back raring to go!

Have a good one!

iChoose v3

2009-12-12T14:46:00.006Z

The (somewhat) radical update to iChoose is coming soon. iChoose 3 will be available shortly on the iPhone App Store for free to new & existing iChoose lovers.

You'll notice an improved design and the introduction of music and speech - it's classic iChoose as you know it, but with some "attitude"! You'll either LOVE it or hate it... iChoose 3 will now act as our base for future updates - we plan on adding some additional decision makers, such as to-do lists (done the iChoose way) in the new year. Anything else you want added then let us know and we'll give it a think through....

Great Mac software at a great price!

2009-12-10T18:32:00.001Z

It certainly is Christmas when you can get a deal like this for such a silly amount of money.

Hurry though as this is time-limited, and you can find out why by reading their FAQs. For anyone that knows about these deals then you know it's for real. For a newcomer then rest-assured you are getting top-quality, legit Mac software at a knock-down price.

Check them all out and grab the deal for yourself.

It's nearly Christmas... [UPDATED]

2009-12-03T21:58:00.001Z

Ho Ho Ho!

Well as Andy posted a few days ago our little MyChristmas App was updated and submitted to Apple for review.

The latest version is a free upgrade to existing users so if you want to jump in and grab [MyChristmas 1.1 now then feel free] UPDATE - it's now live!

We're loving version 2 and finding ourselves getting all festive.

To get a feel for the new features in version 2 then take a look at the video.

What's in version 2 I hear you say.... well...

- Multiple Sleeps to Christmas which also allow you to take/use a picture of a loved one on the countdown.

- A Christmas Carol eBook (themed)

- Carols for singing (inc. Wiki lookups on the history etc.)

- Various Christmas music tracks (updated)

- Games which include Solitaire and a couple of Christmas themed match games (updated)

- A Christmas Candle (great for carolling)

- A Christmas fireplace (New and great to keep toys warm)

- A Snow Globe

- Christmas Sounds (updated)

- Mistletoe

- Musical Christmas bells which can be touched or rang using accelerometer.

- New Years Fireworks (updated), Song and words

- The ability to send and receive traditional Christmas Greetings Cards on the iPhone (New)

More will be added on the Talee Talee website soon.
Enjoy.

Worth watching for entertainment

2009-11-26T23:47:00.001Z

If you are in need of a little light entertainment then I suggest you watch this short video.

You can view it here

Essentially it's lots of people looking a little silly trying to pick up an iPhone (dummy) glued to the floor.

Enjoy.

MyChristmas for 2009

2009-11-19T21:14:00.004Z

The long-awaited 2009 update to MyChristmas is complete and has been submitted to Apple for approval for submission on the App Store.

Expect it to (hopefully) appear in the next week or 10 days or so... more on the new features and changes to come soon.

Where have we been?

2009-11-19T15:16:00.001Z

It has been a very busy and hectic couple of months for utopia 365.

We've seen a couple of websites launch which include some pretty clever back-end admin, a couple of iPhone Apps which include the lovely Second Shootr, email templates for our usherto service, a few bespoke RoR jobs on behalf of some design agencies we partner with, and some bespoke development for a great client of ours.

On top of all of the above we were dedicated to a project for a few weeks, but it's one of those we're not allowed to talk about. Shame.

We're now diving head first into a 'top secret' project (Shhhh - but hopefully we'll be able to tell you about it soon) and also getting a new version of MyChristmas with some great new features over to Apple.

We can say in the last 10 weeks or so we have learnt more about running a business than we did in the 1st year we operated, and it's great on reflection.

The blog may have been quiet but we're still around and working hard. We'll try and keep it a bit more updated in the run up to Christmas.

Second Shootr launches

2009-11-06T17:23:00.003Z

Today sees the official launch of Second Shootr - the wedding photographers App for iPhone and iPod touch.

utopia 365 were commissioned by Plinkk Photography to produce the iPhone App and the Website - providing many development and design services along the way.

Free 2010 Year Planner

2009-10-05T11:52:00.001+01:00

Being in the software/tech/development industry everything tends to get done digitally (naturally!).

Generally we use Omnifocus to manage our projects and time. We can create contexts to suite how we want to work without being forced into a particular set of scenarios. We like that. What's better is the lovely syncing to the Omnifocus iPhone App which works flawlessly. We can drag in files, code and emails and attach them to a project keeping everything nicely organised and available anywhere with the joys of mobileMe.

However, there are those times when you just want to be able to scribble down to visualise what's happening (and we have a lot of things happening). It's easy then to rub-out or doodle on before committing a plan into our digital diaries.

We use a simple year planner to achieve this and we thought we'd let you have a copy too. Simply download, print and scribble away!

2009 Year Planner

2010 Year Planner

Second Shootr

2009-10-02T17:06:00.004+01:00

Currently in development by utopia 365 on behalf of Plinkk Photography is Second Shootr.

Over to Tim from Plinkk for a brief intro:

"Second Shootr is a revolutionary digital photography assistant for professional wedding photographers. Use Second Shootr to help you plan every aspect of the big day before it happens, leaving you free to get on with what you do best....taking awesome wedding photos."

So, for all you iPhone & iPod touch owning wedding photographers out there, keep an eye-out for Second Shootr - coming soon. You can sign-up for email notifications at www.secondshootr.com and also follow Second Shootr on Twitter or find them on Facebook.

MyBabyTree goes live

2009-09-09T09:03:00.001+01:00

The App that let's you buy a tree

After a little wait and anticipation we're pleased to see that MyBabyTree has now gone live in the App store!

Working on behalf of EquinoxApps and in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (Indonesia), this lovely little App allows you to get green and plant a tree in the Indonesian rain forest. Carbon credits? Bah, just buy this App and you'll be doing a whole world of good.

The fact is, we all like to make donations to worthwhile causes, and most (if not all) of us want to be environmentally friendly. It's good to give, but MyBabyTree gives something back in the form of a nice little App that allows you to keep track on the good deed you have done.

Here's the detail

"MyBabyTree is a hands-on application that allows you to buy and plant your very own baby tree in Rinjani National Park in Lombok, Indonesia. Your purchase of the app for £5.49 will pay for the seed, land, nursery, maintenance, protection and planting."

Go on, go and buy MyBabyTree and feel smug.

Photoshop Amusement

2009-09-08T21:30:00.001+01:00

Here is a short post highlighting a site I came across that caused me to literally laugh out loud.

Now, I'm no photoshop expert (ask Andy), but some of the images on this site are just so obviously wrong you have to wonder how on earth they made it to print/web.

If you need a laugh then take 5 minutes out to look through some of these gems!

View them all over at Photoshop Disasters

But here are a couple that I could not resist sharing (some as classic as the recent MS hash) - if you can't spot what's wrong with these then you get the job! :-

utopia solitaire update

2009-09-05T14:42:00.006+01:00

Due to huge demand for our development and design services this year, our happy clients have monopolised pretty much all of our time. This has meant we simply haven't had the chance to get utopia solitaire finalised for launch. In some ways that's maybe been a good thing - we've re-visited it a little now, improved the UI and are (finally!) close to releasing it.

As you can see from the screenshots below, it's looking nice - and the utopia theme is optional! :-) You can choose from 100's of different combinations of card and table designs to create your own favourite look.

All things being equal (and assuming Apple's acceptance) utopia solitaire for iPhone and iPod touch will be available on the iPhone App Store this month! We're hoping to get it to Apple for review by 12th September.

utopia solitaire will run on 1st gen iPhones and iPod touches and above (unless things change over the next week). We don't want to limit it to later models only. You will require iPhone OS 3.0 though.

Romsey Town Football Club website

2009-08-09T14:09:00.006+01:00

The utopia 365 designed, developed and hosted brand new official Romsey Town Football Club website is here. Best of luck for the new season guys!

Here's what it has...

- Tons of CMS and goodies

- Sponsors and Google banners + other methods of distributing advertising

- Fully updateable Latest News

- Create and Manage teams within the club at will (e.g. First Team, Reserves, Under 18's, Women's, etc..)

- Create and Manage competitions for individual teams (e.g. league, FA Cup, etc...)

- Create and Manage profiles for club staff (e.g. Chairman, First Team Manager, etc...)

- Create and Manage profiles for players, for any team already created within the club

- Add and Manage fixtures and results, for any team within the club, in real-time.

Set the competition

Set the opponent

Set (or update) the kick-off time

Set (or update) the match status (Pending, Result, Abandoned, Postponed, etc)

Choose the club lineup, including substitutes, from the clubs players list

Set the opponents team lineup

Create and Manage match reports (including: goals scored, red and yellow cards, substitutions, etc)

Match reports automatically added in to results and latest news

And so very much more...

We aim to expand upon this in the future and launch a great service for other football (or rugby, cricket, etc) clubs. More details when we have them, but as a basis, we're going to have a fabulous service to offer to football clubs up and down the country, both amateur and professional alike.

Please feel free to contact us if you'd like to know more.

AppReview review iChoose

2009-08-07T09:11:00.004+01:00

The people over at AppReview have awarded iChoose their "Best" rating.

Nate from AppReview told us, "There are an extremely small number of apps that have received this rating, numbering barely more than 300."

Considering the number of iPhone Apps out there, we're kind of pleased with that.

Palm pre webOS - go get your Mojo on - but, is it an iPhone Killer?

2009-07-21T13:34:00.008+01:00

The Palm pre (US) (UK link here) has caused a minor stir and lead to inevitable comparisons with the iPhone. Just Google Palm pre vs iPhone.

So, is the pre an iPhone killer? No, of cause it isn't. Is it a rival? Well, maybe. Or, probably more likely, maybe not.

When you think about it, Apple created a new market with the iPhone. They haven't really taken over or dominated the 'smartphone' market per se. They haven't really impacted on the the Nokia masses and haven't really impacted on the Blackberry crew - 'smartphones' are very niche.

The iPhone isn't just a phone, it's a super phone with cool bits and bobs for the iPod generation. It wasn't made as a smartphone, it wasn't made to compete with Nokia, it was Apple engineered to appeal to exactly the same people that buy iPods and Mac's. Clever, and only Apple have the brand to do it - copy Apple and you loose. Microsoft and many others have continually failed when trying to do the same thing.

It is my belief that the reason the iPhone took of so was purely because Apple made it and iPod owners and the 'cool' people bought it, and more importantly craved it, lusted over it and actually used it. The success of the iPod should never be underestimated when looking to the success of the iPhone. Everybody that tells you they don't want Apple kit is either lying or in self-denial. Mac vs PC = Mac everytime, iPod vs Zune = iPod every time and sadly for Palm, iPhone vs pre = iPhone every time.

Although, credit where it is due. Palm appear to have a lovely phone on their hands with the pre. I've only 'seen' it in the developers simulator, but it has a nice looking and snappy feeling UI that I'm sure will appeal to a lot of people, and developers. Of course as things stand, developers are limited to coding web apps for the pre, but that's no bad thing for a new platform. Palm provide the Mojo SDK which allows developers to produce apps using web standards such as HTML 5, JavaScript (heavily Prototype although you can use other frameworks such as jQuery as well, which is a huge plus) and CSS. They give you widgets for most of the controls you'd want to implement and CSS styles and what not for implementing a proper pre UI with your app - I am actually really impressed, honestly. It's a platform that many web developers should be able to get into with a bit of tuition and practice - although, as ever, the pro's will always get the most out of it.

One big plus point for Palm is that they appear to be far more open and approachable than Apple are from a developers point of view. Working with Apple is often not a nice experience, and very often a hugely frustrating one. But in practice, developers troubles will have little impact upon consumers so it matters very little in the grand scale of things. We can't dictate what to develop for if nobody buys the said hardware.

We will certainly be keeping an eye on the pre and look forward to working with our customers on apps for it, but as an iPhone rival we feel it's unlikely that Palm can re-create the success of the iPhone and in particular the App Store - nobody else has.

I'm sure you'll be hearing much more from us about the pre and any pre developments we get into in the future, so please feel free to come back and visit us, or drop us a line if you want some work done.

IE6 be gone...

2009-07-15T00:19:00.001+01:00

It's no secret we want to see IE6 support dropped by everyone, but this little article gives us hope that the message is getting out (and we can hear the cheers around the world from other developers).

Have a read - surely you must agree?

http://u2w3.com/1b9db

Supercharge your SEO with 1 Tip!

2009-07-09T23:21:00.001+01:00

SEO, no matter what people tell you and how much they charge is a dark-art! There are no guarantees as to how and when you will get listed in the major search engines.

Sucker?

Many of our customers frequently get 'spammed' by various organisations offering 'instant search engine results','get your site listed now' services if they part with their money. They obviously work (the requests) as these guys keep doing it, but thankfully the majority of people are able to spot something that seems too good to be true (with many replying to these guys saying "well how did you find me if I'm not in the search engines?").

Prove you're worth it

On research there really are a wide variety of rates being charged for SEO. Some are justified but my advice would be that if you take on SEO services then agree a reduced fee for 3 to 6 months. If they are confident in their results then in most cases they will oblige. After the trial you can pay regular fees - which can then justify £200+ per month charges.

1 Tip that works

There is 1 simple thing you can do though to enhance your SEO. Blog - but not just any Blog. We really push the use of Blogger (which is where this blog is hosted). Why? Because it's part of google and in most cases you can write an article and within a few hours it's listed in Google! SEO is all about getting your content listed to be found, so using Blogger is a win-win solution. Generally the search results from Blogger tend to be quite high in ranking. You can brand up the Blog to match your site and all the hard work of management and hosting is taken care of for you. You then get another avenue of links and traffic pointing to your site, all of which generally appears quickly in Google.

As mentioned it's no magic pill, but it helps and other than paying for any design branding the cost is free. Free SEO that works.

Weekly Planner

2009-07-03T17:09:00.004+01:00

As part of our local community work (that's just us trying to be good guys when we can) we're working on a nice little Weekly Planner / rota for a volunteer Community Responders group (hard working folk who give up their free time to provide essential medical response). You can view their website here.

It's taken us a little while to get round to it with work commitments and what not (sorry Sue if you're reading), but the result will be Weekly Planner by utopia 365 - and we think it's looking pretty good right now.

A lot of our work tends to be fairly bespoke, but we obviously use great development community products such as Ruby on Rails and jQuery all the time. Our plan is to give a bit back and release this into the development community at some point, probably under a Creative Commons licence, but we'll announce more about that soon.

Click image for larger version

Renaming an Xcode project

2009-07-03T14:13:00.003+01:00

If you're anything like me, you always start off your lovely new iPhone project in Xcode by giving it a cool name with a space in it somewhere - quite why I don't know, but I always do.

That's fine for when you're working in your development environment, but before you submit your App to Apple you have to ensure there is no space in the executable name. One way of doing this (that I've used many times in the past) is to create a new project and then drag all your code and resources back in.

This got a bit tiresome, so I thought I'd write a little script to automate it - but before doing so had a quick Google.... and Monte Ohrt has the ideal solution, a bash shell script to rename Xcode projects.


usage:
renameXcodeProject.sh <OldProjectName> <NewProjectName>

You can find it here. Perfect.

What's going on with Twitter and is it good for business?

2009-06-23T10:47:00.001+01:00

A little history on Twitter

Twitter seems to be exponentially growing at the moment. From what started as a 'what am I doing' type messaging service, Twitter has crept into some really diverse areas.

Incase you have been hiding under a rock, let me explain a little bit about Twitter:

"Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others' updates, known as Tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to other users - known as followers - who have subscribed to them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive Tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications." - source wikipedia

Essentially, think of Twitter as an SMS message but over the internet.

Twitter started life around 2006, but popularity really took off in 2007 - yes it has been around for some time (in internet time scales), and yet it's only in the last year that it appears to have been pushed by all.

If you use any social sites like Digg, Stumbleupon or del.icio.us then you will be aware that during any given day several posts seem to be Twitter related.

We're now seeing (in the UK), our local government business advisors (business link) running courses showing people all about Twitter and how it is the 'thing to get into' with various expos around the country running Twitter keynotes.

I can sit down with Sky News on and throughout the day they will refer to their 'Twitter correspondent' - a Twitter corespondent! Now that's a new job title. Little did the Twitter creators know just where their simple message service would infiltrate.

For my business?

With Twitter reaching so many then it makes sense to explore its usage for your business. However, like all good things Twitter gets spoilt by SPAM. Getting the balance for your business is key to it being useful, but one important must do step is to at least sign-up and protect your brand. If you are called utopia 365 then you want to try and get utopia365 as your user name on Twitter (no spaces allowed). To explain, Twitter accounts have a simple webpage on the Twitter.com website which displays your Tweets (Statuses). This page is called whatever your account name is, so if I sign-up to Twitter as utopia365 then my Twitter page would be found by going to http://www.Twitter.com/utopia365.

I now have the choice to Tweet (and view Tweets) on my webpage, or I can use a Twitter client on my PC,Mac or mobile. A Twitter client is just a piece of software to view and post updates to my Twitter page.

When you sign-up to Twitter you can (and should) fill in your profile. Here you can tell people a little bit about yourself (which is useful for people searching for you or your services/products).

You can also customise your Twitter page by changing your background, font and colours to reflect your brand and identity.

If we look at http://www.utopia365.com and http://www.Twitter.com/utopia365 we know we are talking about the same company.

Contact us if you need help with this.

So with our Twitter account we can now post messages and hopefully people will be interested.

What to write?

This really depends on what your business is. To some just letting people know what you are up to (perhaps what project you are working on or if you are at an expo) will do. An online shopping site might want to let you know about special offers etc. that you may have. This was bordering on the SPAM lines several months ago but it is generally accepted now that if people are following you it's because they want to know whether you have a good deal or not. It's nice to offer vouchers or discount codes to your followers.

Others who offer a service such as IT Support might want to talk about recent IT related news, quick fixes for common problems or perhaps some performance tips. This tells people you know what you are talking about and are willing to help/approachable. Whilst it might not directly result in a sale, it will enhance your reputation and that's something worth achieving.

Perhaps you have job vacancies in your business? Tweet it and you will find a cheap, but popular way to recruit.

There is a great article in the New York Times talking about how Twitter may start allowing easy purchasing, shopping reviews and more.

Is it working?

If you are going to 'Tweet' then you'll want to measure if it's helping. There are a couple of ways to help achieve this:

1) When posting links, here use a URL shortening service which logs clicks such as U2W3.

2) Ensure your analytics can track and filter traffic sources (i.e. your Twitter page).

Applying the above when I post a link on Twitter, before shorten it using a service like U2W3. Lets say I want to post about "http://utopia365.blogspot.com/2009/06/internet-in-your-pocket.html" - using U2W3 I generate a URL which points to the above but gives me a shorter URL "http://www.u2w3.com/182b5".

That's not the most useful part though. When someone clicks this link it gets logged, tracked and I can see people are actually looking at what I have posted:

Looking in Google I can see that Twitter is also one of my traffic sources, so my Twitter account is indeed drawing new visitors.

Steps

1) Sign up to Twitter and configure/customise your account

2) Signup to a URL shortening service such as U2W3

3) Ensure you have some analytics such as Google

4) Ideally use a Twitter client such as TweetDeck, Nambu or Twitteriffic. There are lots of advantages to using these but that's another article

5) Tweet (ensuring links are produced from a service like U2W3)

6) Monitor your followers and follow others with relevance.

7) Use a service like http://monitter.com/ or http://Twittermass.com to help with step 6.

A miracle answer?

Don't believe the hype. It's very rare to have an overnight success using Twitter. Building a solid marketing campaign through Twitter with useful information and worthy followers will take time. Stick with it, nurture it and watch it develop. You will make mistakes. We're first to admit that our own Twittering needs to be cleaned up and brought back on track.

Need help?

Contact us

The new utopia 365 website is live!

2009-06-22T18:53:00.002+01:00

It's taken a while! We've been ever so busy with the paint, the magic wand and the odd sprinkling of clever dust.

And, finally - today we are very happy to cry out to the world with a single, and very simple statement...

"The new utopia 365 website is live!"

You can see it at www.utopia365.com, but in the meantime, here are a couple of tasters for you.....

Going with a very utopian design (naturally), the site is packed full of lovely content, jQuery effects, AJAX and other goodies - but fully W3C compliant (and friendly on the iPhone).

We went with a fixed background (something we would normally avoid) because it works really well for the design and content. We must admit a little inspiration comes from the look and feel of Twitter.

We've had a couple of designs and several 'holding/information pages' over the last year, but this is here to stay and it's a keeper.

Take a look through, find out what we do and let us know what you think.

'The internet in your pocket'?

2009-06-20T11:34:00.001+01:00

Taking the web by storm

There is no doubt that the iPhone has decimated the mobile internet with around 80% of web traffic on mobile devices coming from the iPhone. That is an impressive feat to achieve in such short time.

How did this happen? Well, the iphone has an amazing interface which when added to their wonderful safari browser finally made browsing websites on an phone a joy rather than a headache. Being able to render a page quickly, pan around, zoom in etc. on a normal page "just worked".

When you read Apples own website we see that they state:

"And like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and a desktop-class web browser. iPhone 3G. It redefines what a mobile phone can do — again."

That is some statement to make for a mobile, but mostly I agree with it - having been a user of nokia, samsung and sony smart-phones I can safely say the iPhone finally made browsing the internet easy, and more to the point I could see what I would see on my desktop or laptop. The internet was in my pocket.

Telling us how to browse (we're trying to be helpful)

When the stats started rolling in on the iPhone web usage people suddenly took it seriously. Wow they said "we're getting loads of traffic from a new device"! It was then that they (the people who know best) decided to 'help' our browsing by the introduction of 'iphone mobile optimized web-pages'.

Surely this is a good move though? We get the content all formatted in a nice way that suits our device. Mostly I will agree, but I have some issues with it.

Lets look at the BBC website on my mobile:

That looks ok, I don't mind it and I get access to the information I want. However, there might be times that I want the 'proper' website, after all I am using a mobile browser with a desktop-class web browser. When I visit the bbc on my phone they automatically take me to the mobile-optimized site. Thankfully if I scroll to the bottom of the mobile site I see I can have a choice by clicking on the desktop site.

There is still a slight issue; with the ease of implementation surely would it not be wise for the site to store which version I want as my default instead of forcing me to the mobile version? I know they are trying to help, but give me the choice.

So what do CNN do?

Well we get the same auto-detect telling me that I want to see their content in an optimized fashion, but from what I can see they do not give me the choice to access their content other than the 'mobile optimized' version.

To me, this is poor design - here I am on my desktop-class web browser and they are forcing me to view their site in what I consider a poorly designed layout. At-least the BBC gave me the option.

What are we asking for? Choice, simply the choice. It's sometimes very appropriate, and very nice to 'auto-detect' the browser being used and set the content appropriately, but please let there be a way to get to the standard desktop content (and ideally let me store my choice with a cookie).

On my experimenting I came across a site that I really did not think would block me on my iPhone....MobileMe.

Right, so I am on Apples iPhone which they claim is a 'desktop-class web browser', using a service that is aimed at mobility and they auto-detect and block access to me! Surely this cannot be right? According to the web-page I can access all of the features on my iPhone or iPod Touch? Firstly that's incorrect and secondly so what? Let me access the content from my web-browser! I cannot access 'my account' on the iPhone unless Apple have secretly rolled out a 'my account' iPhone App? Did I miss that? I can't use 'locate my phone'? Ok, so you might say if you are on your phone why would you want to locate it? Well, if you have a couple of phones under the same mobileme account then it shows them all, handy.

Perhaps it's because mobileme is put together in Flash? Nope, it's solidly built web/javascript and CSS wizardry. It should and would work on my iPhone. I am not given the choice though and I for one think that's a poor show Apple.

Views?

U2W3 | A URL shortening and redirection service

2009-06-11T10:06:00.006+01:00

Hot on the heals of usherto, we announce U2W3 (beta) - a URL shortening and redirection service.

U2W3 is available at http://u2w3.com

* Create public/shared U2W3 URL redirections
* Sign-up and create your own U2W3 URL redirections
* View the number of hits (redirection requests) your URL's receive, the top referral HREF's and the top user agents (browsers) used to acces your URL's
* Manage your U2W3 URL's and hide or remove them when required

Announcing usherto

2009-06-04T09:23:00.003+01:00

Today we announce the release of usherto - email marketing minus the muddle.

* Create and send your own email campaigns
* Manage subscriptions, un-subscriptions and email bounces automatically
* View reports and stats on just about every aspect of your campaign
* Only pay when you send
* Just a flat delivery fee of £5, plus 3 pence for each recipient

Visit usherto.com for further information and to request a free sign-up.

iChart2000 Released

2009-05-29T10:51:00.001+01:00

We're happy to announce that iChart2000, an iPhone App we undertook on behalf of Thomson Software Solutions has finally been released.

Submitted a couple of weeks ago it's now been approved and available for download in the App Store.

iChart2000 is a new software application designed to run on the iPhone or iPod Touch. The superb graphics capabilities and user interface of the iPhone make it ideal for near vision testing. iChart 2000 includes a huge range of near vision tests (acuity, reading, fixation disparity, stereopsis, Amsler etc.), a range of charts scaled for 3 metres for domiciliary visits and a toolbox for those tricky optics-related calculations.

Media Training 101

2009-05-13T09:54:00.001+01:00

We're pleased to announce the launch of Media Training 101

for jackAnaCommunications.

We were commissioned by them to produce an iPhone App which would be effective at delivering their content.

Media Training 101 provides the user with invaluable information when dealing with the Media. This can be TV, radio, newspapers etc. In-fact, we think it provides great information for anyone that does any speaking - be that public or presentations.

Powered by UTBookReader the App has the ability to deliver interactive content whilst allowing the user to choose their own reading styles and themes. The addition of multiple bookmarks and notes allow you to study and assimilate the information.

Moving on from IE6 (forcing the issue)

2009-04-24T17:09:00.001+01:00

I'm not a developer (Andy does all the clever stuff), I dable.

What strikes me though when developing sites and apps for the internet is the amount of 'voice' regarding how horrible developing for IE6 is.

You spend all this time putting together a nice site or app which sits nicely in Firefox, Safari and Chrome - then load it in IE and despair....sigh, you then move through the site hacking it to play nicely with IE6. This can be a tremendous amount of work depending on what features you implement into a site.

We then despair that things are not moving on and we have to keep doing this extra work for our clients.

We've recently introduced a simple policy - if you want IE6 support then you have to pay extra.

And any personal work (for instance my own site), I have simply dropped support for anything below IE7.

What strikes me is unless the web-developers stop supporting IE 6 then the problem will never go-away. We're the guys that drive it, so if we make the point that the site wont work in IE6 then people will have to move on and upgrade their browsers.

People don't like change, so if a site sits pretty and functional in IE6 then why should they upgrade?

Naturally there is a slim possibility you might loose some work by not actively supporting IE6, but if most clients understand that for the web to evolve they need to help evolve it by NOT supporting a dated engine, then I think you'll find many will support it (and for those that don't they simply pay extra).

There are many ways to let users know they really should be moving on. I use a very simple method (which is probably not the most efficient):


<!--[if IE 6]>
		< meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=ie6.html" />
		< script type="text/javascript">
		/* <![CDATA[ */
		window.top.location = './ie6.html';
		/* ]]> */
		</script>
<![endif]-->

I then display a simple page telling the user to go upgrade, and give them some links to the latest browsers. One day I will make a pretty version of this, but for now it gets the point across.

If enough developers make the stand then in the long-run the web will be a happier place....

Announcing Masterspares update

2009-04-05T22:55:00.002+01:00

Almost one year on and Mastersparesonline.com has had a slight update.

We've introduced an advert/promo column to the site along with popular 'tags' and extra information into the home-page.

You may have noticed that Masterspares also switched to using Google Checkout several months ago which has been very successful.

However, like many on-line traders, Masterspares is considering moving to a direct-bank merchant system due to the controversial new charging system that Google is implementing, which starts in May.

For those that are unaware, Google are increasing their fees bringing them in-line with other online payment systems like paypal. Many have complained at this sudden price hike (where google actually become more expensive if you accept payments from overseas customers). The real 'sting in the tale' though is that they will no longer offer a credit in fees for traders using their popular Adwords system. This had made Google Checkout an exceptionally tempting option for traders.

Thankfully our checkout design means switching would be painless, but we are waiting to see if Google back-tracks on the Adwords credit removal. Time will tell....

Masterspares supply domestic appliance spares, accessories and sales for hundreds of manufacturers. They are celebrating trading for 10 years and have become one of the south-coasts premier suppliers for Dualit, Miele, Kenwood and Sebo amongst other makes.

Announcing Osmotech.co.uk

2009-04-03T13:40:00.002+01:00

We're thrilled to announce the new Osmotech.co.uk website which is now live.

Osmotech.co.uk uses a fluid design and ruby on rails for 'behind the scenes' goodness.

We opted for a different approach to the landing-page, giving broad, useful information to the incoming user. However, the main area being the header, navigation and 3 content boxes are all within 1st 'screen' viewing.

The design-goal was to bring a clean look, but allow the visitor to understand what Osmotech.co.uk do before they have to click through second levels.

The site features a custom blog tool for 'Our Work' along with various JQuery effects.

Osmotech, based in Hamble, are one of Europe's leading marine care centres specialising in GRP repair, osmosis treatment and providing expert installation of all yacht systems from bowthrusters to climate control.

Happy Birthday!

2009-04-01T11:24:00.001+01:00

Well, it's April 1st 2009 and we are happy to announce that we celebrate our first birthday as utopia 365 LLP.

What a year, it has flown past and in the midst of todays economics we could not be more happy with how things have gone.

A BIG thanks to all our customers and supporters out there, watch this space...lot's more exciting things are around the corner from utopia365.

The great Hamble beach cleanup

2009-03-31T20:29:00.008+01:00

I quoth:

The late Bill Hicks (I assume that's the correct Bill?), didn't much care for the beach: "The beach. The beach! The beach! What the f**k's the deal with the beach? I don't get it," he said. "It's where dirt meets water..."

"Where dirt meets water" is a true and inspired observation. It is what it is - and it's an important part of many people's lives, especially those who live upon the various coastlines of our green (and sometimes pleasant) land.

In the general absence of any kind of 'real' local government (or heaven forbid, national government!) interest in the preservation and general up-keep of our most treasured landscapes and icons, it increasingly falls upon the public to do things for themselves, form groups, and get out there and do something.

Well, that is happening this weekend. If you live on the hampshire coast, if you know where Hamble is and if you have a problem* then please consider an hour or 3 in supporting the great Hamble beach cleanup of April 2009.

For more information, visit www.ilovemybeach.org

* Sorry, that sounded way to A-Team, although I am reliably informed that if you want to turn up in a black and red van then it won't be held against you.

www.ilovemybeach.org launched (new site)

2009-03-22T18:18:00.001Z

We're pleased to announce the launch of ilovemybeach.

ilovemybeach is the brain-child of Tim & Lucy, and we hope to see good things happening with their great idea.

If you're into being green, like doing good and fed up with rubbish, then head on over and join them on their quest to make our beaches a safer, cleaner and nicer place to be.

They have some great names getting behind them such as Surfers Against Sewage, and we're pleased to be involved. Look out for lots of additions to the website as they grow, along with other media outlets.

Go on.....support them.

Us Brits love our sport!

2009-03-21T14:39:00.004Z

If there's one thing us Brits love (sometimes more than our own families) it's our sport! Football is without doubt the nations favourite, and our love/hate relationship with the England team continues to delight, despair, frustrate and annoy, but the success of Lewis Hamilton has catapulted Formula 1 back into the limelight - "Fantastic!!!" as our very own Murray Walker would no doubt proclaim (and indeed did, I am led to believe).

With Formula 1 returning to it's natural habitat of the BBC this year and a World Cup coming up next summer, we are delighted to be working with a client on a project to benefit both of these sports and your ability to affordably attend the events (even with the credit crunch).

More will follow at a later date...

utopia 365 and Internet Explorer 6

2009-03-21T13:24:00.008Z

In a decision that I personally would have made a long time ago, we have finally made the call, and are announcing that we are no longer supporting IE 6 for any websites or projects.

Of course, our customers can still request that their website is compatible with IE 6, although we will be advising of it's pitfalls and charging for the additional time required to support a dead browser that breaks all the rules and benefits neither us, our customers or internet users at large.

The reasons should be self evident to most, but if you are unaware of why IE 6 support has to be dropped, Google is your friend and will help you find all you need to know.

We urge all IE 6 users (or users of other old web browsers) to upgrade to a more modern web browser immediately. In order of preference, we suggest:

1. Safari DOWNLOAD (Mac OS X and Windows - some Windows users may prefer the 'look' of Firefox to Safari)
2. Firefox DOWNLOAD (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and others)
3. Opera DOWNLOAD (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and others)

4. Google Chrome DOWNLOAD (Windows - Mac OS X and Linux/other versions are likely to follow at some point)
5. Internet Explorer 7 or above DOWNLOAD (Windows)

* We don't mention version numbers for Safari, Firefox or Opera because we know that users of these browsers make it their responsibility to have the latest version installed.

Please remember to keep your web browser up to date! Mac OS X and Windows will attempt to ensure that you always have the latest version of Safari or Internet Explorer installed, but you can always manage things yourself by visiting the download links above periodically and ensuring that you have the latest version installed.

Thank you for your time!
The good men and women of utopia 365

PS. Or you could tell us to get stuffed and join the IE 6 Supporter's Club (video below)... looks like a fun meet! :-)

SDK 3.0

2009-03-18T22:06:00.001Z

We're really happy with the new iPhone 3.0 SDK and have already begun experimenting with some of the new features being opened up to us developers.

Sure, we 'could' get access to some undocumented areas of the iPhone, but this was not really a great area to explore.

Now, we have access to a few more api calls which will allow us bring more great features to our Apps and our customer Apps.

As an iPhone user I am also looking forward to seeing some of the Apps I use get updated to make use of the new features...

Apps like Omnifocus, RunKeeper, fringe or AIM. I'm also really pleased to see copy & paste which will allow me to operate in a more natural and intuitive way.

Thanks Apple - it's looking good.

Want an iPhone App?

2009-03-10T14:44:00.005Z

Do you want an iPhone App?

No, it's not an offer of a free iPhone App download or anything (for a free download you need to look to iChoose).

"Want an iPhone App?" is our offer to all of you companies out there that are looking to out-source iPhone development for your wonderful products and ideas.

Maybe you don't have the time to develop iPhone versions of your existing products? Or, maybe you're primarily a design/advertising company/agency that doesn't have the in-house skills required? Or, perhaps you're a great ideas person that needs a hand?

Whatever your situation, get in touch and ask about our iPhone Development Services.

utopia 365 and EquinoxApps

2009-03-10T11:30:00.009Z

We've recently been working on a number of iPhone projects (some that we can't talk about just yet) - including working with EquinoxApps on some of their iPhone Apps.

For Aphrodite, TransJakarta and Vibrazor, we have been putting the projects together in Xcode, building the framework and writing the actual code, working with specs and designs from EquinoxApps. It's been a positive agreement for both companies (with a few late nights thrown in!) and we look forward to working on more projects together.

An example of how we can work with you to get your iPhone App ideas and projects developed.

iPhone Development - Changing direction (being agile)

2009-03-03T18:35:00.001Z

Here in utopia we are finding a steady increase of customers asking for iPhone Apps.

It's a great arena to be in, and one that we're thoroughly enjoying.

Beginning

Starting out, it was very much about producing and launching our own iPhone Apps. In all honesty our thoughts were:

Write some Apps for the iPhone
Release
Get rich
Repeat

However, we like so many others found it does not work that way (it can, and has - but it's the rarity not the norm).

That's when we had to take a long hard think about what we should do. Give-up and just concentrate on the other side of our business (Web Apps, RoR, Design and Development) - or, persevere.

Changing Direction

After some research and a little browsing we soon found that there were people out there with lots of great ideas for the iPhone, but no way of getting those ideas developed.....that's when we realised we could help.

Roll on several months and we are in the thick of developing iPhone Apps for our clients. We've produced several that we can say about, and several that we can't. Some people like our Apps to appear as if they have developed it themselves rather than out-sourced (Agencies etc). We can accommodate that.

What we are proud of is repeat work and being told our code is of a higher standard than others they (the agencies) have used. If we're developing it then we certainly do not want our Apps full of bugs or under-performing.

It's our name, and we're proud of it.

p.s. We're still developing our own Apps in the background. In-fact, we're working on something that could change everything....

Exploring Safari 4

2009-02-24T18:43:00.002Z

Always looking to the future we've decided to give Safari 4 a whirl to see what's around the corner.

The first thing that sticks out is the new 'Top Sites'. This is very much an overview page showing your most browsed sites. That might not be a good thing for some - but for us, we liked it.

This can be edited by clicking the 'edit' button at the bottom of the window.

This in turn reveals some controls for manipulating the results.

Personally I would like to see the ability to explicitly decide which pages I want (not necessarily my 'top sites').

Looking through your bookmarks now gives you to use the ability to search in cover-flow mode. It's useful for certain situations and annoying for others. It takes a little time to update all the thumbnails.

Search is improved and seems rapid from testing so far:

From early testing browser rendering actually seems very similar, more time will be required to determine if we see noticeable speed increases.

Verdict: Thumbs up!

Get on Tracks

2009-02-23T22:13:00.001Z

Over the last couple of weeks we have been evaluating the excellent GTD web-app 'Tracks'.

Having a nice, centralised solution that enables us to keep track of the ever-increasing amount of work coming in is turning out to be a joy.

What attracted us to Tracks was it's simple design and that it is built using RoR. We were at a stage where we had considered developing our own, but time (well, workload) meant we needed to find a 3rd party solution.

Tracks has it's roots in good old England, but has an ever growing list of contributors.

There are a couple issues, and additions that we would like to see - but they are 'minor' and we can easily work around them. Time allowing, we could add them ourselves.

What we do end up with though is great looking, powerful, functional way of tracking things we need to do, get reporting, a mobile interface and the ability to email our To-Do's ala Basecamp style.

Did we mention it's Free?

Last Freeware Version

2009-02-19T16:53:00.001Z

Sometimes you need a little utility for one-offs or really in-frequent usage...you find a nice little piece of software and best of all it's free.

A few months later (or even a year or so) you need to run it again and find out that it's moved on from free....

LastFreewareVersion is a nice little site that shows lots of utilities and apps with the LAST version they were free.

It's a great idea and quite handy. Of course, if you use something frequently or it's a real life-saver then there is no harm in moving up-to the next level and paying because more-often than not it is only a few pounds.

Looking good...

2009-02-12T15:55:00.002Z

It's hard to run your own company. The grass may always look greener, but the real world isn't always the nicest of places to be in. The security of that pay cheque every month from your employer is difficult to ignore. But, and I'm really happy to say this, utopia 365 is looking good!

A big thanks to Chris for all the effort he has put in towards securing the work to give utopia 365 the future it deserves, and a big thanks to all of our clients, who all know full-well that they don't have to doubt delivery of our promises.

We are nicely sorted for more work than you can shake a stick at for the next two/three months and we've been able to build up several very good (and we believe long-term) associations with many people, including; Impatex, Osmotech/Thaicats, Equinox Apps, Thomson Software Solutions and Camping F1 (more to follow on Camping F1 and spin-off projects later).

We believe that our work speaks for itself in terms of quality, effort, timing, support and communication. The fact that our clients (who in many cases become our friends) return to us with new projects and developments backs that up.

In many (if not most) cases, we initially start our relationship with a new client on our work with their website, although we are finding that we start that relationship with iPhone development more and more frequently. The iPhone is a wonderful platform for both developers and consumers. We see a future of promotional applications and brochures that target the unique features of the iPhone, and provide customers/guests of establishments (bars, clubs, hotels etc) with a much needed boost of technology, interest, practicality and fun.

Osmotech website preview

2009-02-12T14:42:00.000Z

A quick little sneaky peek at the new Osmotech website we're working on. It's got the most wonderful footer!

Banners ahoy!

2009-02-08T22:53:00.001Z

We've created some animated banners (flash) for our client Thaicats recently. These will be going on a few relevant sites.

They can be a great way to get brand awareness for your company or product when targeted to the correct audience. For instance, with the release of one advert Thaicats saw their traffic increase 450%!! That's a big difference with the stats showing people browsing around their site looking at relevant content.

They don't work for all situations, but they are worth exploring. To find out more feel free to get in contact with us.

Working hard to work for you

2009-02-05T18:46:00.001Z

It's been a busy few weeks in utopia. Business is increasing which is bucking the trend in todays current economics.

We're also receiving thanks from our customers who are seeing significant increases in their web hits and sales!

The key? Keeping our overheads low, our work standard high and being on the end of the phone whenever they need us.

There has been a massive boom in web and software development. With that came much anticipation, and so small companies quickly became big companies with big budgets and big over-heads. Now, with costs being cut and every expenditure being questioned some of these companies are having to work out where they are going and how they are going to get there.

Our path is simple.

A good deal

2009-01-27T17:16:00.001Z

For anyone after good UK Rails hosting then Brightbox are currently running a 50% promo offer on their hosting. That's a hot offer!

Sage Connect Reseller

2009-01-24T21:52:00.001Z

We're please to announce that we are now a Sage Connect approved reseller.

What does this mean? It means for a business that wants their website to talk to their sage system we can assist.

If you are interested in streamlining your business processes and removing errors then feel free to contact us.

Happy to help.

PPC and SEO

2009-01-23T12:12:00.001Z

Don't you just love Buzz words!

Well, our new PPC (pay per click) and SEO (search engine optimisation) service is now coming along nicely.

We're offering a range of solutions to help get your business noticed.

However, we're not promising overnight miracles. They DON'T happen - anyone that says they will get you listed in a top position overnight (well even in a few weeks!) is generally lying (unless they own Google).

It takes time, patience, trial and error mixed in with research, statistics and yes, reporting.

We've got success stories, just contact us if you want to know more.

Romsey Town FC

2009-01-23T08:31:00.003Z

We're delighted to announce that we are working on a website for our local football club - Romsey Town FC.

The offical club website will be available at: http://www.romseyfc.co.uk

Another Day...another page

2009-01-22T20:13:00.001Z

Some may have noticed that we have a new holding page. We keep promising to release our new website, but we keep getting really busy! That's a good thing though.

Anyway, we thought we ought to at-least put some updated information on the site, so we have.

We're pushing the iPhone work for external customers currently which is very successful.

Writing for the iPhone started in one direction (emphasising on our own Apps), but ending up allowing us to develop for others - and the Apps we wrote highlight that we know what we are talking about.

We will continue to develop our own iPhone Apps, but for now others are enjoying our expertise.

The trouble with CMS

2009-01-19T16:44:00.004Z

We've been playing with CMSystems lately.

CMS (content management system) are nothing new. In-fact they have been around in varying levels of complexity for several years. 'Back in the day' when people were just learning about the 'web' and 'google' are very own Andy had already developed a fairly powerful CMS system for a large marketing company he worked for.

Today, there are blogging systems (Wordpress, TypePad) and website management systems (Drupal, Joomla etc.). The issue I have with these systems is that they have quite a high overhead in the 'learning department'. That is, they don't make it really easy for the average Joe to edit content without a good sit-down, plenty of coffee and some patience. Now, that can be great for us as it means clients will often ask us to theme, train and help with such systems.

However, the CMS should just work with the site - and not have a site that has to work around the CMS.

Soon, we will release associateMe. This is a rather nice little CMS system that I could give to my 5 year old daughter and let her publish a 'How many dolls can I collect' website. It also will be powerful enough and feature filled with modern technologies for a large site to utilise.

It will work with the site, flow with the site and basically just be yummy.

Watch this space.

Announcing EzKeyz

2009-01-06T10:29:00.004Z

Launching later this month is EzKeyz, our latest clients' website. EzKeyz offer high-visibility cursive keyboard stickers to aid very young children with ICT.

EzKeyz also offer musical (piano) key stickers to aid children (and adults) with learning how to read and play musical scores.

The new website will be available shortly at www.ezkeyz.com.

Welcome 2009

2009-01-05T20:12:00.002Z

We've been a bit quiet lately on the Blog but that's mainly because we have been enjoying Christmas!

Anyway, role on 2009!

We are working on some cool projects that should see release soon.

We're also busy working on some bespoke apps for customers. If you are after an iPhone App then drop us a line and we'll see what we can do.

MyChristmas Will Fill You With Holiday Cheer

2008-12-20T12:07:00.002Z

Rated: 8/10

"Whether you are already riding a holiday high or still looking for something to get you in the spirit MyChristmas has everything you need to celebrate the season." - Allison Glennon, from App Craver.

"MyChristmas is an all in one holiday app by Talee Talee and it has everything that you need to make your holiday bright. This app is jam packed with whatever you are going to need to take you through Christmas right into the New Year.

When you open MyChristmas and go to the main menu it becomes clear that you are in for a pretty thorough holiday experience. The full list includes: a Christmas Countdown, “A Christmas Carol” eBook, Christmas Carols, Music, Games, Entertainment, New Years, and iChoose Choice".

MyChristmas Review from iPhone App Reviews.net

2008-12-16T13:49:00.004Z

A review of MyChristmas from Michael over at iPhone App Reviews.net:

I don’t know the people at Talee Talee, but after poking around MyChristmas for a while it’s pretty clear that they took a good look at the mess of Christmas apps hitting iTunes and they came to the conclusion that it’s all just soooooo unnecessary. And they’re right! Seasonal apps are usually very lightweight and have a pretty short shelf life so why not roll them all up into one download?

And thus was born “The Christmas Compendium” that is MyChristmas. This kitchen sink app includes all of the following:

- Two Christmas Countdowns
- “A Christmas Carol” eBook
- 18 Christmas carol lyrics
- 7 instrumental Christmas songs
- 2 pretty good Christmas games (Solitaire and Match)
- Ding-’em-yourself Christmas Bells, pretty cool
- A flickering Christmas candle
- Mistletoe with smooching sounds
- 2 Christmas sounds (Santa and Rudolph)
- New Year’s Eve Countdown
- Auld Lang Syne lyrics
- A fireworks display

Whoa! That’s a lotta holiday crap crammed into one application.

By themselves none of these apps-within-an-app will blow you away, but as a collection it’s pretty impressive. You’ve got your countdown, the eBook, the music, the lyrics… it’s Christmas overload! But it’s way more efficient than installing 10 different apps that you’ll be deleting come January.

The best parts of MyChristmas are probably the music, the Solitaire and Match games, and the Christmas Bells. The mistletoe could also come in handy if you’re “that guy”, the one who’s always ramming your tongue down a girl’s throat when she thinks she’s leaning in for an innocent holiday peck.

An interesting thing that Talee Talee built into MyChristmas is its ability to “talk” to iChoose when you can’t decide what part of the Compendium you want to play with. On any menu screen you just tap on “iChoose Choice” and the app will temporarily switch to iChoose (which you have to have installed already), make a selection for you, and then kick you back to the selected MyChristmas section.

It’s true that a lot of the apps included in MyChristmas can be had for free and some of them, like the Snow Scene, are pretty underwhelming, but you could do a lot worse for a buck. If searching the iTunes App Store for various Christmas apps sounds like a pain in the ass that you just don’t want to deal with, spend $.99 on MyChristmas and be done with it. Even despite a little lameness here and there, MyChristmas comes with plenty of value to make it worth buying.

Top Christmas iPhone app lists

2008-12-14T13:11:00.002Z

A quick round-up of 3 top lists of iPhone Christmas apps from the interweb:

File Cluster - Top 5 iPhone apps for Christmas

"This last application is actually a compilation of Christmas games, bells, holiday music and a New Year countdown. The developers are also offering MyChristmas free until 14 December, so you better hurry and install it on your iPhone."

OnSoftware - 10 iPhone Christmas apps

"Compendium of classic yuletide games and festive fun"

Sleek iPhone - Top Free Christmas Apps for Your iPhone this Holiday

MyChristmas is available now from Talee Talee.

My Christmas climbs

2008-12-13T14:39:00.004Z

MyChristmas has been spotted at number 32 of the most popular free entertainment Apps.

Let's see if this helps in anyway when the free-promo ends and it returns as a paid app.

SPOTY

2008-12-11T16:36:00.004Z

It is the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award this sunday. SPOTY has a hard time this year. The prime award is offered to the best British sports star in the last 12 months. With this being an Olympic year (in which we did so well) that it is a hard task, and an often biased task, to decide who should win the award.

The main award is a public vote. It will be decided by the public phoning voting system, the BBC may have a slightly tarnished recent history on public phone votes, but all will be good and decided by the voters. That's good democracy.

There are only two winners. I say only, because there are far more candidates that deserve a chance. We have fabulous Cyclers, amazing Rowers, but there are only two winners for the public to decide upon for this award. They are Lewis Hamilton and Rebecca Adlington.

My sports are Football and Motor Racing. Lewis is exceptional. Perhaps he should show a little more humility at times, but he is destined to be one of the best drivers of all time. Certainly the best British driver. I grew up watching F1 with Mansell and later Damon Hill. I watched (teary eyed) when Damon won his title in '96. I do not mind admitting that I shed tears, it meant so much to me and the man who was never the best, but worked his socks off to get his job done. Lewis is different to Damon, he has the natural talent and ability, he came into F1 at a young age and in one of the best cars. I admire Lewis, I respect Lewis but I cannot vote for Lewis this year.

The F1 decider this year was a fascinating race. McLaren were far too cautious. Lewis was out of it, although I know they say they knew that Glock would falter at the line - I cannot believe you would let it go that close!

Lewis deserves his title. He would have deserved last years' title even more, but, and I stop my personal preferences now, Becky Adlington has one chance every 4 years for stardom. We did not have a lot of belief in our athletes going into the games this year, and we certainly did not expect such a performance from a British woman in the pool. We knew we would do well in the cycling, we knew we would do well in the rowing, the pool? No. That was such an amazing performance, in one race she was thought not to even enter.

Becky Adlington, we the nation, announce you BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Well done girl! Amazing to watch and my sporting moment of the year (even though I did have to get up early to watch it live).

VOTE FOR BECKY ON SUNDAY.

That is all. :-)

Football silly season(s) and stupid transfer exclusives and what not

2008-12-10T16:37:00.003Z

I love my football, but I also despise some of the rubbish that goes with it. Non-stop press "EXCLUSIVES" and the occasional outburst of utter drivel, probably as this article is.

David Bentley is a quality player. He is also a prat and the opinion he gives is that he thinks more of himself than he should do. The ability to kick a ball about for a salary of somewhere between £40,000 and £140,000 a week (yes, a week!) is a nice job if you have the talent to play in the Premier League. Although, the unfortunate side effect of so much money being earned by people who do not know how to handle it, is that they become somewhat lacking in their attachment to the real world, who wouldn't be?

Bentley was considered the replacement for Beckham. The phone-in shows were full of it. "Beckham is finished", "He's too old", "He can't run", "What has Beckham ever done for England?". OK, the last one is really stupid, as anyone with a brain will realise - but I tell you, I have not only heard phone-in shows spouting such trash, but have also heard first-hand from people with that belief. What? Well, quite.

Anyway, back to Bentley.... no doubt that he moulded himself on Beckham. He can play a beautiful ball, with some (not too dissimilar) style. But, he also refused to play for the England under 21's. He took a pay rise for joining Spurs and when Ramos was in charge, didn't look like he could be assed to play for them.

So, from the BBC, comes today's "gossip" column, with this little beauty being reported by the Daily Star...

New Real Madrid boss Juande Ramos will return to his former club Tottenham to try to sign wingers David Bentley and Aaron Lennon in January. (Daily Star)

Sorry. Am I really thick or something? Bentley couldn't be bothered to play for Ramos at Spurs. Why would he now want to sign him at Madrid? He doesn't, does he. End of silly season for this rumour. Things have picked up for Spurs under Harry Redknapp, and in no small way that is simply down to the players doing a bit more of what they are paid for.

It's also fair to mention that before Bentley was the "Replacement for Beckham", the previous candidate was Aaron Lennon, and before that (everyone forgotten already?) was Shaun Wright-Phillips. All good players, I prefer Shaun myself because I think he works for his place, but really, Becks is still going. Did anyone tell you he's joining Milan next month? Sure, it's for money, and to keep an option for his England place, and Milan are doing it for the same reasons probably. I will say though, nobody and I repeat nobody has ever played in an England shirt who could 'bend it like Beckham', and I think everybody knows that now and will miss him like hell when he is finally is gone.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

2008-12-09T11:38:00.004Z

As Chris mentions below, all of our iPhone and iPod touch apps are free this week.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and with our newly discovered 20-20 vision into the future, we realise that we should probably have made MyChristmas free as an introduction, rather than doing so now.

We put a lot of effort into ensuring that our apps are not only functionally sound, but also well presented and enjoyable to use. We are professionals and are primarily in this business, as you are in whatever your business is, to make money. This is part of our job. We have bills to pay and mouths to feed just as you do.

Our policy on providing free apps remains steadfast. Although everybody wants everything for free all the time, in practice that is not an option. We provide high quality products with good levels of support for a modest price where applicable. We do not believe that to be unreasonable.

iChoose is and always will be free because we believe it is best suited as a free app. It does what it says on the tin and it does it very well. An awful lot of people enjoy using it and we are very happy to have provided it for the iPhone and iPod touch community. This policy is not something that can be applied to everything we release, unfortunately that is the way of the world. We will continue developing both paid and free apps and hope that you enjoy using them. If you support us and help make us rich then we will give you back lots of free apps, that's a promise.

Enjoy this offer while it lasts.

Free!

2008-12-08T18:38:00.002Z

The festivity must be getting to us because for a very limited time (until the 14th) ALL our Apps are FREE! Yes, we've made them free!

This is for 2 reasons (and we're not shy saying why).

1) The Apps are buried in the App Store, so unless they are popular they are not found. Allowing them to be free for a while will hopefully allow people to use our Apps and see they are great. Hopefully in the future more of our stuff will be found, seen and purchased.

2) We love Christmas and we like being generous.

Merry Christmas from Talee Talee!

Oops...

2008-12-08T15:38:00.004Z

One of two things has happened. Either we have annoyed Apple to such an extent that they have removed us from the App Store, or (much more likely!) my own personal stupidity has resulted in our apps not appearing on the App Store at the moment, or indeed for most of the day.

We have rectified things (hopefully) from our end and they should start filtering through again soon. As far as we know the App Store links from the Talee Talee website work fine again now, although you may have trouble seeing us in iTunes.

Hope to be back soon!

Sorry, I won't do it again :-)

Spread The Cheer With Your iPhone

2008-12-06T15:54:00.002Z

Over on iPhone Nuts (www.iPhoneNuts.com) is the nicely titled: Best Christmas Application For Your iPhone

We agree.

"Well as I sit here typing this wishing I had a caramel apple spice drink, I’ve got the perfect iPhone Christmas app to let you know about. This app really has it all under one roof. The app is called MyChristmas, and for everything this app will do for you this Christmas it still comes in at a cheap $1.99. "

"My favorite part in the entertainment section was the Bells. There are seven sleigh bells you can tap and play your own Christmas song."

- Ryan Ray, iPhoneNuts.com

You can continue reading more of Ryan Ray's post on the iPhone Nuts website.

Christmas is nearly here, so get into the spirit right now with MyChristmas.

More information about MyChristmas (including additional screenshots and videos) is available from the Talee Talee MyChristmas website:

www.taleetalee.com/MyChristmas/

iChoose still going strong - it must be update time then!

2008-12-02T16:23:00.006Z

It's quite amazing really, when you think about it. Despite the fact that iChoose has been knocking about since July now, it is still going pretty strong and is currently the 52nd most popular entertainment app on the USA iTunes store.

We're still getting reports of quite a lot of downloads, and that's brilliant.

We believe in updates, so you'll be pleased to know that yet another iChoose update will be winging it's way to you shortly. What's new we hear you ask? Well, we'll tell you...

1. We've updated the UI a bit

2. A lot of people wanted 'shake' to make a decision, rather than just touch the screen. It's in now.

3. iChoose is now integrated with some of our other apps. MyChristmas and iChoose play together nicely, so that you can use MyChristmas to ask iChoose what music to play, what game to play, what entertainment to use and what carol to sing along to, etc. We think you'll like it very much. And, vice versa, from within iChoose you can ask it to choose an aspect of MyChristmas for you to see. (Obviously you will need to have both MyChristmas and iChoose installed on your iPhone or iPod touch for this functionality)

4. The same functionality integrated with uSnap! Can't decide which type of game to play? Let iChoose decide for you.

5. Following on from a wonderful comment from a bloke that downloaded iChoose, we've added in Turn Left or Turn Right decision making. This guy deliberately drives round getting lost so that he can learn the area and the streets! What a concept. Now you too can get lost with iChoose. It's sort of like a reverse sat-nav.

OK, so that's on its way in a few days when it gets through the App Store process - updates to iChoose (v2.1), MyChristmas (v1.1) and uSnap! (v1.1)

And, we have one more idea for another iChoose update before the end of this year. We're going to put in some GTD stuff - the iChoose way.

Christmas Bells for your iPhone

2008-12-01T15:48:00.006Z

Talee Talee bring you Christmas Bells, for your iPhone or iPod touch.

Christmas Bells is a free introduction into the joys of MyChristmas, available now on the iPhone App Store.

Christmas Bells has been released and should appear in iTunes later this week. Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! :o)

New review

2008-11-29T15:48:00.004Z

Just a little post to mention a new review of MyChristmas.

Head on over to AppleiPhoneSchool for a look. There is lots of other great info and reviews on this site if you're an iPhone/iPod Touch fan.

Enjoy.

MyChristmas Discount, this weekend!

2008-11-29T15:05:00.003Z

For this weekend, MyChristmas is 50% off on the iPhone App Store. For just $0.99 (£0.59) you can get this wonderful Christmas compendium, for holiday fun this season.

Hurry though, offer ends Monday!

iPhone App Store link

MyChristmas on Apple iPhone School

2008-11-29T10:01:00.001Z

Click here to read more