Apr 29
MoggyBBC, Politics, Web Design, Website
With the General Election coming in a month, many of the news websites have fantastic interactive map guides to the constituencies and the political party each MP represents. Here is a guide to the 5 best maps online:
Summary: My favorite is The Times, followed by Sky. They are both accurate, to scale maps with detailed information on each constituency. The Times more so because of extra features (such as the predictions) and it seemed to run a bit faster for me.
Feb 22
MoggyInternet, Web Design, Website
After a couple of days, I have now officially decided not to recommend on the site 123-reg.co.uk to friends. I will admit that they have been a great hosting and domain provider in the past (my website used to be hosted with them), but the debacle I’ve had in the past couple of days has really irritated me. This is the email I sent to the support centre.
Dear 123-reg,
Up until now, I have been a user of 123-reg services and have had no problems with the service at all. However, until the other day, when I signed up for my third domain (www.******************.co.uk) with you.
The purpose for the domain was simple, to set up a forward to the current .org.uk site. However, I specifically needed the domain forward set up for yesterday morning.. but this didn’t happen since my domain still hasn’t been set up, even after the “up to 48 hours” period of setting up.
Interestingly, today I can still search for the domain on your site, and it is listed as ‘available’, even though I’ve paid for it.
I purchased it at about 5pm on the 18th Feb, which I will admit allowed less than 48 hours for when I wanted the domain (about 10am on 20th Feb), but it is currently 11pm on 21st Feb, well over 72 hours from the purchase, and my domain still has not been set up in my control panel.
Another thing I would like to complain about, with regard to the “up to 48 hours” setting up period – I saw absolutely no detail of this information before purchasing – I only found it AFTER buying the domain. Knowing this info may have stopped me from purchasing the domain.
Because I only needed the domain for ONE simple task that has now passed, and it still hasn’t even been set up, I would like to request my money back (the invoice totalled to £7.03 inc. VAT).
Regards,
Alastair Mogford (username: **************)
PS. This is one of many times that I have tried to send this question. Turns out that both Safari and Firefox are determind to keep me logged into the site, prompting the message “all browser windows must be closed” – which ironically appears when it is the only browser window open.
The response given was rather interesting, they wanted me to fill in a manual form to complete my registration for the domain that had “failed”. There was no mention of any money return, at all.
I shall keep you posted with updates… although, for the moment, I will have to say avoid using the service for the above reason.
Update (9th March ‘10): After chasing the case up, it turns out that my domain failed registration. After asking for a refund, they seemed fine and wanted to pay it in, however it’s only today when my refund has actually made my bank account. 
Jan 26
MoggyApple, Mac, Web Design, Website
Apple, the company of absolute perfection and absolutely no room for error, has buggered up… and I know it’s industrially sad of me to point this out… but I just find it weird.
You’ll notice there is a difference between the horizontal viewing scroll bars on the USA and UK versions of Apple’s Mac website. It appears that Safari only exists in the States, despite the Safari website on the UK section exists, completely normally. Bizzare right? Check it out (click for larger previews):
So there you go. Do I deserve a reward? Or is there some anal reason why this is meant to be?
Aug 27
MoggyBBC, Internet, Media, Web Design, Website
On a day-to-day basis, I, and I’m sure many others of you do too, read the news. I commonly read mine online, brought forward to me either by RSS feeds or Twitter feeds – or by looking at my Safari homepage, currently set to Guardian.co.uk.
If you know me personally, you will know how much of a picky person I am, and here I will tell you why I picked the Guardian for my homepage out of all the other news sites to compare. I hve compared the layout of The Guardian to two other media sources; the BBC and The Times.
BBC News Online
I have always been a supporter of the BBC, and I shall say that for specific news stories, I read the BBC News online articles by choice. However, I dislike the BBC Homepage. Firstly, the whole thing just looks crammed in my opinion. I dislike the way that those eight ‘other top stories’ on the right don’t even get a description… and compare this to the ‘also in the news’ section and the ‘video and audio news’ section which have far less important stories, but are granted a thumbnail. Don’t get me wrong, the content on the BBC is great – but the layout and the homepage… not so.
Times Online
I rarely use the Times Online website, which is strange for me considering the Times is my favourite newspaper. Strange right? Well, I don’t read the online articles out of choice, nor is it set to my homepage, nor do I have any Times-related RSS feeds or updates of any sort. However, I thought I’d bung it in for comparison. I do rather like the layout, though see that big white space above the logo… yeah, thats a big banner ad – thankfully it’s not showing as I have an ad-blocker plug-in installed. Also see that space in the bottom right, yeah, that’s an ad too. I know companies like Times Online have to make money somehow, but I honestly hate large obtrusive adverts. Then there’s just the general feel of Times Online, it just looks… bland, plain, boring. Compare it to the Guardian, below, which makes better use of colour. And then, the layout, it hosts the biggest crime of all. When I’m scrolled to the top, excluding the ‘most read’ box, I can only see a maximum of 4 news stories. Just 4.
The Guardian
And then we have the Guardian, my current favourite. The page is vibrant and attractive, unlike The Times it is colourful and mildly exciting – and I can see more than just 4 stories! There are no obtrusive ads, and the column on the right is small and out the way in my opinion.
And then, finally, as it’s worth a mention – the Media Guardian section is fantastic and hosts great content – one of the real great reasons why I use The Guardian for online news reading.
Aug 19
MoggyMe, Update, Web Design, Website
Hi everyone,
I’ve spent the day flipping around my whole website. Homepage, blog, domains, hosting… everything. I’ve still got a long way to go, so if you’re reading this, don’t expect anything special to happen until around the beginning of September. After then, expect more and more frequent posts about interesting stuff!!
This blog is now hosted on Wordpress. I used to use Blogger, though found it restricting and annoying. I have since transferred all my previous posts over to here, and been making the UI look a little nicer.
Today, I also switched domain hosting. I was previously using alastairmogford.co.uk, though switched to alastairmogford.com after realizing that GoDaddy (whom I had just purchased hosting off), couldn’t transfer .co.uk domains. Therefore you’ll find I’m starting all over on the .com hosting, along with a fancy new subdomain. Nice!
Later everyone!
Aug 15
MoggyDesign, Fonts, Software, Web Design
Here are 4 free, clean, slick and modern fonts you may want to download and install… for free.
Bastardus Sans – download
Blue Highway – download
Sansation – download
Union – direct download link, and bold direct link
Enjoy. Share some of your own in the comments below if you so wish.
Jun 14
MoggyInternet, Technology, Web Design, Website
In this post I will list the sites that I use to get extra code for great features on mine and other websites. All are pretty easy to use (just read the instructions on their websites) and you should be fine. Enjoy.
DynamicDrive
Geeat site full of DHTML stuff, and a GREAT Ajax and Javascript section. You may notice some of the scripts I’ve used on my site.
DHTML Goodies
A site full of DHTML goodies (as the name suggests… well.. duh!). Similar set up to DynamicDrive.
Script Asylum
Another site full of great scripts worth checking out. Has a really good games section which is a bit of fun.
MiniAjax
A nice library of an expanding collection of really pretty looking DHTML and Ajaz scripts from around the net. Lots of misc. scripts. Worth checking out if your fetching ideas.
DHTMLsite
Another site of great scripts. Not quite as popular as some of the others, but still very good. 300+ tutorials.
Kazaap
I personally didn’t take a liking to this site, but you may enjoy it a little. It’s got some pretty cool animated header creators… and all the effects seem to be a little more basic than a few others I’ve seen.
Sohtanka (css/xhtml)
Awesome blogger for web design. Check out the css/xhtml section of the blog for some great tutorials and scripts. Some nice animation with jQuery here.
JavaScriptKit
Sister site to DynamicDrive, but has a lot of scripts not found there. Worth a look.
Flowplayer (jQuery Tools)
Not so much a script library – but has some really good tutorials into making some really nice web 2.0 tabs, tooltips and other designs. I learn’t a bit from here.
Enjoy!
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