WordPress and Web Development › home of Ben Gillbanks
Toy Story 3 is coming, and it's looking fantabulous. I am really glad this looks like a real movie that's had love and attention lavished on it, and not a rushed shameless cash in. I don't want them to sully the wonder that is Toy Story. It's great that the original voice cast are back as well. Now to see Up! I'm going to be enjoying it this weekend Related Posts I reviewed the movie Up here I wrote some [...]
I have a massive appetite for learning. I am always reading books and blogs to try to better understand the things I want to do. Design, programming, marketing, copy-writing, I constantly strive to improve. On the web your skill set needs to evolve constantly. Things change at a massive pace. New technologies are constantly being introduced and to compete you have to learn. The best way to do this is to learn by doing By trying out new ideas yourself [...]
At the start of last week I ran a small competition to give away the book WordPress 2.7 Complete that I had reviewed. I had a few entries and, as promised, I have posted below all of the entries. Read on to see what people said, and to find out who has won. Entries Travis Vocino - I should get the WP 2.7 book because being just slightly behind is just my style Mark I have a hat of baby [...]
This is a very quick post, purely to say that the new Binary Moon design is now live (so click on through if you're in a feed reader). I will do a proper write up next week, pointing out some of the many new features and different things I have done. There's been a lot of time and effort spent on the theme, most of which is in Elemental - the new theme soon to be released by Darren and [...]
I haven't read any WordPress books before, and have always wondered what they would contain so I was instantly intrigued when I was contacted by someone from Packt publishing asking if I wanted to review a new WordPress book. WordPress 2.7 Complete is squarely targeted at the new WordPress user. The chapters actually cover quite a broad range of topics, including everything from the initial installation of WordPress, through adding and customising new themes, and even creating your own WordPress [...]
I have a fair few people following me on Twitter. It's not as many as some Twitter users but it's enough to make me feel a little bit special - after all I don't know all my followers. Because there are so many people following me I thought I should explain why I don't neccessarily follow you back automatically. Why I don't follow you on Twitter Your profile is incomplete. If your description empty or you haven't listed a website [...]
As with all things, blogging is evolving. I mentioned a year or two about how the popular blogs are becoming more like websites - and the current trend of magazine themes is making this ever more real... and I think they will change even more. The way I see it there are three main changes taking place. 1. Twitter Twitter has recently exploded onto an unsuspecting public, I've even blogged about it a couple of times and there are many [...]
After my recent post on celebs and Twitter a few of my real life friends signed up - and a couple of others asked what on earth I was talking about and why they should care so I thought I'd put together a short intro to Twitter. 1. What and why Twitter is a relatively new form of communication with a simple premise. It's used to tell people "What am I doing now?" Explaining why it's popular is harder - [...]
There have been celebrities on Twitter (follow me here) for quite some time but over the last couple of weeks there has been a huge surge of them joining in the UK. I've seen Twitter mentioned on a number of tv shows, and heard it on a couple of radio stations. It's also been mentioned on some prominent UK news websites. Apologies in advance to people outside of the UK - I am pretty sure I'll mention a fair few [...]
There's been a lot of snow in the UK over the last few week. Apparently we've not had snow like this in 18 years. The whole of the South East of England pretty much shut down - London was almost empty, and I had a day working from home. On Sunday last week it all started and I went out with my girlfriend and built a snowman, in fact over the two days of non-stop snow we managed to build [...]
Nearly a whole month and no posts... What is the world coming too? I don't know why but ever since Christmas I have been feeling motivated to do all sorts of things - unfortunately blogging isn't one of them. Last year was a busy one for me, both at home and at work, and if I can do half the things I have planned this year, then it'll be even busier still. Recently I've been feeling very creative; I've been [...]
I have recently been looking into Lego for a project I am working on, and have come to realise that I still really really like it. Despite being 28 Lego still has the same sense of fun it had when I was 5 and I got to thinking about why. Below are some of the reasons why I think Lego is such an awesome form of entertainment. 1. Appeals to young and old alike As I mentioned above, I still [...]
I am in the process of working out a redesign for my site. The redesign will focus on building more of a community feel, and making the site more personal - in short focusing on what the you want rather than what I want. Some of the things I plan to add include recent comments, popular posts (based upon comments), and ... a link list. I have already started creating [...]
On Monday I started a giveaway to get Fast and Furious free on iTunes movie. Today I am giving away an iPod Nano to watch it on! To celebrate Halloween Universal are reducing the price of some spooky movies on iTunes to £3.99 - and because I am awesome they have given me a shiny new iPod Nano (the new type with a camera) to give away. You can watch [...]
I have been rather quiet on the blogging front recently and there have been two reasons for this. Number 1 - well... see the title of this post, and number 2? I'll explain that one in a week or so. Anyway a couple of weeks ago (10th of July 2006) the new Miniclip website was released. For those who don't know Miniclip is the company I work for, as a [...]
I recently had someone email me and ask what a day in my life, or that of a web designer, was like. A slightly unusual request but I thought I would take up the challenge and document an average day. I don't mention it very often so I am not sure how many people realise I have a full time job. The websites I run I work on around the [...]
Part of getting my iPod Touch is that I get to download movies by Universal from iTunes which is great - but I want to spread the love. The latest film I was given is Fast and Furious - a sequel to a film with a ridiculously similar name (which I guess is a conversation for another post). The film is a return to its roots (hence the similar name) [...]
I have recently published my first 'Art Directed' posts on Binary Moon - namely my reviews for the movies Coraline and Up. Ever since I saw Jason Santa Marias art directed site the idea has brewed in my head that I would do something similar, so when I redesigned I kept that wish in the back of my mind so that new designs could be slotted in easily. What is [...]