darren swan | my blog

Learn new skills while unemployed

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Adobe are offering a helping hand for developers who have found themselves unemployed in the current economic downturn. If you "honestly" don't have a job at the moment and would like to learn a new skill, specifically Adobe Flex, then take a look at their new initiative where they are offering a FREE copy of Flex Builder 3 Professional (plus a few extras).

Definitely worth a look if you have some free time on hour hands!

New Cadbury's TV Ad

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:25:00 +0000

A preview of the new Cabury's TV advert has been released on YouTube and, personally, I think it is far far far better than the last one of some airport vehicles racing along a runway! The title is "Eyebrows Dance" - enough said, go check it out!

TripBuster.co.uk gets social

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:09:00 +0000

You can now find TripBuster.co.uk, the travel comparison site, on the Facebook social networking website. Become a fan of the page and keep up to date with site updates (such as new partners appearing in the searches) and the latest editions of the Top 25 Travel Deals.

Also appearing soon will be the TripBuster.co.uk Facebook Application - search for the best travel deals from around the web right from your Facebook account.

Thinking of summer sun?

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:19:00 +0000

As January approaches, a lot of people are starting to think about their 2009 travel plans. There are lots of bargains to be had already with big high street brands launching their TV adverts and the sales starting. It still pays to look around and TripBuster.co.uk is the ideal website to find the deals from all the top travel companies aswell as the smaller independent agents.

TripBuster.co.uk has just launched two new searches - holidays and car hire - so not only can you find flight and accommodation, you can compare prices and deals for all your travel needs in one place.

Lapland Rip-Off

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:04:00 +0000

After hundreds of complaints to the BBC, Lapland New Forest has been branded "a disgrace" by many visitors who spent £28 a ticket for the attraction. Many visitors want a refund after visiting the attraction on the Hampshire-Dorset border at the weekend and also calling for it to be closed, just days after it opening last Friday.

On another note, why not get a letter from Santa this Christmas and make your child's day!

No Slanket? Try the Moon Cosy

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:59:00 +0000

Having trouble getting hold of the hugely popular Slanket? Since appearing on TV recently, it is now selling out all over the place and customers are finding it increasingly difficult to get hold of one in the build up to Christmas. Simply put, the Slanket is a gigantic fleece blanket with sleeves!

As an alternative to an original Slanket, why not opt for the slightly cheaper Frostfire Moon Cosy available at SuperShoppa.com for a great price of £29.99 - but be quick as they are selling fast!

SuperShoppa.com Christmas News

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:46:00 +0000

SuperShoppa.com has just released it's affiliate program on Affiliate Future. Their program is ideal for earning comission on the pre-christmas rush and with hundreds of gift ideas such as gadgets, gift sets and games there is something for everyone!

Join their affiliate program on Affiliate Future and also get access to their complete product data feed using AF's Xenon system.

For everyone, including affiliates, they have also published a couple of discount vouchers to help you save that bit extra on your christmas presents (enter the code at checkout):
GADGET - 5% off their entire range of nearly 300 gadgets.
SANTA - 5% off their "gifts under a tenner" section which is ideal for secret santa and stocking filler presents.

SuperShoppa.com Launches

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:47:00 +0000

SuperShoppa.com is the place to find all the latest gadgets, gifts and electricals such as iPods, ride-on toys and USB gadgets from all the top brands. With over 10,000 products there is something for everyone. Not sure what gift to buy? They have a gift finder with recommended products for him, her and to different budgets. SuperShoppa.com is the latest website built by Digital Trip using their EvolveCMS content management system with built-in ecommerce.

XL Leisure Group is no more

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:51:00 +0000

Unfortunately, XL Leisure Group Plc is no longer. Yet another travel company to be affected by rising fuel costs, the group comprising XL Airways UK Limited, Excel Aviation Limited, Explorer House Limited, Aspire Holidays Limited, Freedom Flights Limited, Freedom Flights (Aviation) Limited, The Really Great Holiday Company plc, Medlife Hotels Limited, Travel City Flights Limited, Kosmar Villa Holidays plc went into administration on 12 August 2008.

In an interview on GMTV last week, an ATOL spokesman said that passengers yet to travel should make alternative arrangements, while those already on holiday will be brought home on flights arranged by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Need to rearrange or rebook your flights? Visit tripbuster.co.uk to find the best prices!

Email marketing that gets results everytime

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:01:00 +0000

Digital Trip Ltd has just launched its new email marketing solution called MailboxFox. Email is the worlds favourite way of communicating with 84% of internet users citing email as their main reason for going online, in fact, a recent study found that 67 per cent of respondents prefer email to other online communications (such as video, instant messaging etc), and 65 percent believe that they will continue to do so for the next 5 years.

Their main focus is to manage your email marketing as if it was their own, ensuring the best possible return . With one of the leading email marketing solutions available - it's easy! They even provide a FREE trial account where you can send up to 100 emails a month with no cost to you.

FilmMonkey.com launches

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:04:00 +0000

A friend of mine, Laura Rudd, has just launched a great new website for all things film called FilmMonkey.com

If you are into films or just want to find out about a new release, the site has something for everyone - news, reviews, ratings, trailers and even a shop to buy the DVD!

Moness House Hotel & Country Club

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:02:00 +0000

The Moness House Hotel & Country Club has just launched its new website with online availability searching and booking for their newly-refurbished hotel and self catering cottages.

Set in 35 acres of picturesque countryside, in the heart of Highland Perthshire, the resort provides an ideal base from which to explore the surrounding area.

The resort consists of a delightful hotel and separate leisure complex, which includes an indoor heated pool, steam room, and solarium, and a selection of luxury holiday ownership cottages that are available on a rental basis (please contact them for details).

New Timeshare Hypermarket Site Launch

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:35:00 +0000

The new Timeshare Hypermarket website, part of the Worldwide Leisure Group, launched today. It offers a range of services to holiday timeshare owners, including the ability to buy or sell weeks at over 800 properties worldwide.

It is powered by the new version of the Digital Trip CMS, along with powerful timeshare-week management provided by the AbsolutelyProperty.co.uk Agent Portal, also by Digital Trip Ltd.

R.E.M., Amsterdam, 2 July 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:21:00 +0000

R.E.M. bring their 2008 tour in support of new album, Accelerate, to the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam.

Twenty-five years after the release of their debut album Murmur, R.E.M. are now established as one of the world's biggest rock bands. Several years of cult success primed Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry for the mainstream, which they entered in 1987 with the hit single The One I Love.

The band have gone on to give us standards like Losing My Religon, Man On The Moon and Everybody Hurts, all from the early Nineties when they first tasted huge international success.

Despite losing Berry, one of the founding foursome, in 1997, the group have continued to produce popular albums. Reveal (2001) was universally applauded as a return to their early 1990s glory days and the new album has been hailed as their best for years.

Find flights and accommodation in Amsterdam for this event.

Radiohead, Paris, 9 - 10 Jun 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:56:00 +0000

British quintet Radiohead bring their 2008 tour on the back of new album, In Rainbows, to the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy for two nights.

After an overtly experimental period when they put out Kid A and Amnesiac, the band released the more traditional and accessible Hail to the Thief in 2003, featuring spiky guitars and rock drumming. Five years later, they merely had to announce on their website that their new album was ready to send shockwaves through the contemporary music scene.

The new release finds the band in an optimistic mood. Stripped-down but as compelling as ever, shimmering layers of guitars and effects over metronomic beats provide the base for Thom Yorke's keening vocals.

Find flights and accommodation in Paris for this event.

The new Skybargains.com finally launches

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:15:00 +0000

The new Skybargains.com site finally launched last week, bringing together the ajax technology we previewed in IWantToFly.co.uk and SkyVillas.co.uk - along with the new Flight + Hotel search route.

We've also revisited the Travel Guides section (utilising our new GeoData system) with lots of information on the top travel destinations around the globe.

Free Mobile Push Email

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:44:00 +0000

I have been looking into ways of pushing emails to my mobile without the huge costs involved with services such as Blackberry and offerings from the networks.

By chance, I saw a link in an email newsletter I received about a service called Momail - and "at the moment" they are offering the service completely free (you still have to pay data charges from your operator obviously). I say "at the moment" as there is a banner on their site referring to future premium services, but I presume they will keep the basic service free which will be enough for most people.

When you sign up, you get a new email address which is your_mobile_number@momail.co.uk so your friends and family can email you directly to your mobile, but an added bonus is the fact that it can "collect" your emails from other accounts around the web such as your work address, Gmail account or others such as Yahoo and Hotmail.

Excellent productivity tool for Outlook

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:24:00 +0000

I found this great productivity tool for Microsoft Outlook today - it's called Xobni (Inbox in reverse) - and helps you speed up things in Outlook like searching for emails, attachments, contacts, etc.

I had heard a bit about it from various technical websites, and thought I would give it a quick go. I must say, I was VERY impressed, especially the search feature which was lightning fast compared to the in-built search of Outlook 2003 - a normal search of my 16k+ emails would have taken 2+ minutes, but Xobni found everything in about 1 second!

It also has a very good contacts feature that extracts telephone numbers and can group contacts by groups (eg. company contacts) helping to find all those people related to a certain email conversation.

I highly recommend it - so check it out today.

Threading Issues Resolved

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:30:00 +0000

Version 2 of our webservice has been released and running for almost 2 weeks now. Rewritten from the ground up, it can handle over 3 times the traffic of version 1.

Threading Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:06:00 +0000

We finally had our first proper load-test last week on version 1 of our new webservice in the form of 100k recipients receiving an email newsletter. The result: several hundred simultaneous users performing searches on the site and server overload.

After going through all aspects of the code looking for ways to improve the system, I finally found a better way of threading thanks to using manual threading instead of using the managed threads from the thread pool - giving that little bit more control over how things are handled.

Another area of improvement was using Asynchronous Execution Patterns. This obviously improved the thread management as it returns the threads to the thread pool while waiting for long running queries from suppliers.

After initial tests, these changes have infinitely improved the performance and stability of the system - hence version 2 of the webservice was born!

The Matrix arrives on IWantToFly.co.uk

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:39:00 +0000

We've just launched a great new tool on the I Want To Fly website - The Matrix View.

This great new tool allows customers looking for flights to quickly and easily compare flight prices from other airports in their region, over a 14-day period, highlighting the cheapest fare for them. It's great if they are flexible and can save them loads!

Absolutely Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:49:00 +0000

Another microsite has been launched by Digital Trip and Skybargains, this time targetting travellers to Turkey. Absolutely Turkey contains local travel information, guides and hotels aswell as enquiry forms (called the Travel Planner) to enable travellers to obtain a quote from the company.

TravelChecker.co.uk Facebook App

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:51:00 +0000

Digital Trip's first Facebook application has just launched - TravelChecker.co.uk - helps you find the best flight prices from several top UK travel websites.

It also has links to several useful travel booking, accessories and resource websites.

Digital Trip gets a new holding page

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:10:00 +0000

Digital Trip finally got a new holding page today and is starting to look more professional. It includes links to some of our recently launched sites such as Sky Villas & Apartments, I Want To Fly and the1440.co.uk - all sites using the Digital Trip CMS.