Phil Wylie

WordPress developer, Code Club volunteer & Staffs Web Meetup organiser

February 11, 2009 — 1

Spotify – a free, legal music service

Spotify

Spotify recently removed the invite requirement for its free service in the UK:

“starting today people in the UK will no longer need an invitation to join Spotify, you can register for our free service directly from our website as always our premium, ad-free service is still available”

Having used Spotify for a few weeks now, I’m convinced this is the future of music! The player lets you search through an ever expanding selection of music, which can then be streamed instantly. It’s like having iTunes preloaded with the world’s music.

It’s probably better explained by them:

The free version is supported by occasional adverts between tracks and every so often you’ll see a banner ad within the player. At its current level it’s not enough to push me to subscribe and it’s certainly not as bad as commercial radio stations that devote more airtime to ads than music.

Its available from spotify.com

Now if only Last.fm could generate Spotify playlists from its recommended music…

January 23, 2009 — 0

Looking for a 12 month web development placement

Wow! Long time since my last post. So what’s going down you ask? Well I’m working hard at university, taking more web based modules this semester, so it should be a little more fun.

free for jobI’m looking for a 12 month placement for sometime between June 2009 and September 2010, so if you’re looking for a keen web developer – get in touch and I’ll send you a copy of my CV.

In other news…

You may have noticed my Flickr stream has been dead for a while, that was my fault – I smashed up my camera whilst out and about. I have now replaced it with the model up, the Canon Ixus 70 – nothing extra special but still an excellent compact camera.

Until next time, stay safe and remember to subscribe to my feed!

Update – 09/12/2013
You’re looking at an ancient post! I ended up spending a year working with the web team at Experian QAS. I wrote up the experience for anyone interested.
August 5, 2008 — 0

PhilWylie.co.uk launched

I’ve been working on a personal site to bring together my web presence. My blog used to be a wholly separate site; however this reshuffle included streamlining the blog’s theme to match the unified look and feel. No easy task when you’re restrained by the limitations of WordPress.com’s hosted blogging service.

Stockxpert

My aim was to be representative of current design trends; the artwork was sourced from Stockxpert and carefully mashed together to create a simple, easy to follow site. For once, I’ve tired to leave the rounded corners and gradients behind!

Through the magic of Apache’s mod_rewrite module all the old URL’s are permanently redirected to their new homes.

Hope everyone’s enjoying their break, take care and talk soon 🙂

January 26, 2008 — 7

Big boys and their little toys!

Everyone and their brothers talking about it, and I’ve seen a few around the uni, I even hear my old mate Adam has one too! I’m talking about the Asus EeePC, I thought I’d document my recent purchase as taking photos of it gives me an excuse to clean up my desk!

It’s a small, inexpensive laptop which I thought might be useful while at university. It’s in no way intended to replace a desktop computer, but it’s very handy at getting on the internet while out and about. No messing around with mobile phone browsers when I can get free WiFi around the university campus, at home and at my girlfriend’s house.

Still not decided what operating system to run on it though, the default install was too limited, so I replaced it with XP, since then I’ve installed Mint Linux, and now I’m considering going back to XP.

My main concern is related to its screen size; some windows become inaccessible as their height is fixed meaning some of the content is out of sight, and without scrollbars it becomes impossible to use. Most frustrating 😐 The solution? In Linux, Alt + left-click to drag the window up to reveal the out of sight content. In Windows, you can use the bundled utility to up the resolution, allowing you to “pan” up and down.

There isn’t much more I can say, so until next time, I wish you all the very best.

Asus EeePC Photos

Asus Eee PC

Eee PC keyboard closeup

Mint Linux

June 12, 2007 — 1

Creative advertising from Microsoft

This is the second time Microsoft’s advertising has impressed me recently, a few weeks ago I had fun with their “Certified for Windows Vista” campaign site. In particular the staring competition against “the coach” which uses your webcam to detect when you blink (or basically any movement!). Nick dugg the site, it’s well worth a look if you’ve got a webcam.

I wouldn’t have ordinarily noticed this, but earlier today I opened Internet Explorer (*shudders*) and waited for the MSN homepage to load, I thought they’d done a fancy redesign at first; however it’s just an interactive (in a way) advertisement for Office 2007 – for today only.

msn_2

They’ve placed the standard MSN page inside a Word document, and by using the Ribbon and Office’s live preview feature you can make a few changes to the styling of the page.

msn_1

Update – 03/12/2013
You’re looking at an ancient post. The Internet Archive has a copy of Nick’s Digg post. However, the original Microsoft stare down page is unfortunately no longer around.
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