I’ve been experimenting with developing my Twitter account for the last year or so, and this week I published 5 simple steps for getting from beginner to a successful Twitterer: Getting Started with Twitter: 5 Simple Steps. The article is aimed largely at small companies and organisations who are looking to use Twitter to drive traffic to their sites and improve their Brand’s reputation.

Last week marked the launch of the 7th ExplicitWeb podcast, complete with our second guest, Rick Nunn. The show seems to be gathering strength with each new episode and I thought it about time I shared my thoughts. If you haven’t heard the podcast yet, I recommend checking us out either at the ExplicitWeb site or our page on iTunes.

Just a quick post on the origins of the podcast, the idea behind it and why it is the way it is!

I’ve just signed up to Project52. Originally intended as a small group of friends supporting each other to reach their goals, there are now over 700 members and I’m really interested to see how this develops into a workable system.

Last year I promised to write once a week and failed, so I’m hoping this might spur me on to achieve that goal this year. The intention is that a tracking system will be created to monitor progress of group members. If the system works (once it goes live) I’ll also be purchasing a mug as a daily reminder – I just wish they did one in purple!

This past week and a half I have “moved home” in more ways than one. Not only have I had to move EVERYTHING out of the house we bought 8 months ago so that electricians can re-wire the entire place, but I have also moved this blog to a new home with PeartreeUK. The result is I have been unbelievably busy, have no electricity at home (or sofa, or bed) and the 3rd part of my YUI: Javascript Carousel series has been delayed.

Web Hosting is a minefield…

Seeing the web hosting feature in the latest edition of .net Magazine has confirmed my feelings about the web hosting industry: it’s a minefield. A completely over saturated market of small-fry & big brands, most of which you will never have heard of unless you’ve heard a horror story or two. In my experience it doesn’t seem to matter where you turn, something unexpected goes wrong.

..last weekend I decided to finally sort out my hosting life. With all my resold accounts still hanging around on slowly-slowly-Surpass, and my blog on clunky-Clook, I’ve turned back to the one place I know I’ll get what I pay for – PearTreeUK. They may be relatively small, but there’s nothing like being able to get hold of an intelligent human being whenever you need one! Having kept my original account open as a test bed, I have now upgraded to a reseller with them.

There has been much talk in the web design and development community of late regarding the demise of Internet Explorer 6. Most web developers and designers have a special place in their hearts for their hatred of IE6, but the strength of their loathing varies from the occasional moaning, to the t-shirt wearing, to those running campaigns of contempt (see IE Death March, Bring Down IE 6 or Stop Living in the Past).

Personally, I strongly disagree with those who say web folk should stop supporting IE6 now, that we should use special stylesheets to make sites look particularly ugly in IE6, or more worryingly that scripts should be used to prevent sites from working in IE6 at all. It is the job of a web developer to support all major browsers (of which IE6 is still one) and punishing unwitting users is not the solution. It is Microsoft’s job to cease support of this ancient and incapable technology not ours.

Last night this article hit the front page of Digg. Written by Thomas Hardy over at Web Designer Help, it’s a showcase on the top 30 web folk to follow on twitter, in which I was included. I had no idea that the article had been written or that I was in it, so imagine [...]