Coding In The Darkness

BT Better World Campaign Exhibition Bag

Today I happened to be scanning my Google Analytics account and noticed a big drop off for the BT Better World site.

Forgetting that i was still subscribed to the tracking data i decided to remove it when i realised that it had no fews on Tuesday, knowing that couldn’t be possible my fears had become reality, the URL btbetterworld.com had been redirected to the main BT CSR site.

Now of course many of the tools still exist on the BTPLC site and they are really, really useful for teaching young people vital and valuable communication skills, but after working on the previous site I was very sad to see it virtually die in the eyes of the web.

It always felt odd that the site was created off the BT main site and perhaps should of been built onto it in the first place although corporates have very strict rules when it comes to what sits on their webspace.

With much of my early web work hosted on the site and the hours I put into the web pages both my own and using the templates system, the newsletters from early HTML to the fancy Adobe designed masterpieces and even the beloved TalkDog mini site it’s a shame to see all that work now gone.

Even more so the special html pages i coded to make all of the Flash animations run in full screen on all browser types and sizes, they really should of kept that code.

It gave me a reason to look back and remember the good, fun times I spent on what i value as a major part in shaping the current person I am today, from what I learned and from the great people I met and worked with. Although I don’t miss waking up at 5AM to catch the first train to an exhibition up North!

So goodbye btbetterworld.com you’ll always have a found place in my heart.

My Thoughts On Reach

After the Wordpress iPhone app decided to lose my draft I’m begining again…

So as a Halo Fanatic what are my first thoughts on the Reach Beta.

Well so far amazing, the best Halo multiplayer experiences i have had. Halo 3 was obviously really fun and Halo Combat Evolved had some great moments with 3 or 4 friends on one console or the occasional time we got the Xbox’s networked for 4 vs 4. But Reach already seems like a big step above.

The new armour loadout system has been talked about alot and it moves Halo into a new direction without over powering the whole experience which is the key thing as i think Perks on COD Modern Warfare is what put me off the multiplayer.

Slayer, Team Slayer etc have been very fun on the two new maps, both classic Halo: Powerbase being the familiar outdoors style map, which although i think is quite small provides a perfect balance of action and the feel ofhaving lots of space.

Swordbase is one I am learning to love, very good for the objective based games but I feel it’s more prone to people hiding in random places to pick up easy kills.

Special mention as well for team swat which I have enjoyed although I haven’t been able to play the new skull collecting game as I think that is in free for all.

Invasion which came out on the 7th has been really good fun and I’ve enjoyed playing as both sides, it’s great to overcome the odds and the Covenant but’s it’s just as good to win one for the Spartans, the eventual loadout plan is a great touch and adds up to some great drama in the final two minutes.

Including an excellent airbourne, rocket double kill by me to stop the covenant extracting the core with 30 seconds to go. Although when I tried this in the next match using a Spartan laser it was perhaps as suggested by my buddy to “Audacious”.

So to summarise the Reach Beta just like the Halo 3 beta around 3 years ago has got me really excited about Reach, if it is indeed the last first person Halo game Bungie make I am sure it will be the best FPS in 2010, on 360, in this console generation and heck maybe alot more.

So I’ll leave you now with what I hope are decent working links to my Halo 3 and Halo Reach Beta service record, although I think you will need a Bungie.net account, but you should have one of these anyway

Halo 3 & Halo ODST

Halo Reach Beta

It’s easy to get complacent in life, you make a minor achievement and rather than push on with other goals that you want to accomplish you get happy with where you are and become lazy about chasing those goals.

After some general searching around the web at other sites, people, blogs i decided that i never really achieved what i had set out to do with my own site and blog, which was to create a site that would give me a personal area on the web to own, play with and enjoy using and hopefully people would enjoy reading, viewing or whatever.

All my big plans to learn this, create that sort of hit the back burner, so…. Here is my 2010 ToDo list.
I have until the 23:59 – 31st of December 2010 to complete the following below.

1. Redesign site
2. Redesign Blog – My own template
3. Learn basic PHP
4. Learn objective C and create an iPhone app
5. Add 2-3 sites to my portfolio

That’s it, if i can complete all of those tasks this year I will be very happy.

This decade will be the decade that i step up and become a complete finisher rather than a ideas man / team worker, kudos if you know where knows terms come from.

Lets hope I don’t make an idiot out of my self by Jan 1st 2011!

… or does it?

A Simple Format Away From USB 360 Storage

Sorry if this seems rushed my laptop battery is flashing, although luckily not 3 flashing red rings!

Anyway after a very short burst on Resident Evil 5 last night i was greeted with a system update, which actually took some time to install, not noticing directly what it did I carried on blasting some zombies, Guado,  or is it majini-something.

After a quick virtual trip to Major Nelson I was greeted with delight to see that you can now use a USB stick to store Xbox 360 data, great i though as I’m still stuck with a lowly 20GB drive, 13 GB after formatting of course.

However my exciting has sort of been stunted after discovering you are limited to just 16GB, as I like to install games to my hard drive this is quite disappointing as the average game sits at 6.1 GB.

I’ll leave you to ponder that whist i recharge the battery, meanwhile hit up MajorNelson.com for more info and comments.

Wow 2010 is here already.

Looking back i don’t think any decade will be so jam packed with so many events in my life!

• I finished School, College & Uni all in the last decade
• Saw in the start to a new millennium
• Had 2 part time jobs, 2 full time jobs and 1 graduate placement
• Found my girlfriend, got engaged and had my first child
• Had multiple ideas about what career I wanted to pursue from (laugh now) F1 Race driver, Computer repair guy, Games Programmer, Web Designer, Teacher, Online Marketer to name a modest few
• Finally meet some really amazing people, made some great friends, shared some wonderful experiences and lost touch with too many faces, sadly

Looking back I don’t think I will ever cram so much into another 10 year period, I probably don’t want to either.

2009 also being the bad year it was for me I’m glad to see it gone, a year that I’ll remember due to losing my job with BT due to contractor cuts, the passing of some legendary people and the personal losses in my own family, especially my very dear Nan Win.

One thing i would like to do for the next year any way is at least once a week just write up what I have learned each week. We learn so much random stuff everyday it would be cool just to collect all that info and summarise in early 2011.

Well that’s it for my first post in the new decade, I’ll leave you now with one of my favourite photos,

It's very blurry but brings back some great memories

Its been over a month since my last post, incredible really, i have had much to say but so little time.

Ben's trips to the Job center didn't last long!

I will post an update my Social Media Experiment this week, although i can’t say i expect a massive improvement as i haven’t been dedicating much time to it. Thanks to the recent leaving then rejoining BT / Dialogics and finally leaving again i found myself without work, for 1 day!

So my current role if you haven’t checked my LinkedIn Profile is with a very new online retailer called shop.co.uk, they are a UK only online retailer and they / we are looking to join the likes of Play.com and Amazon in the online retailer environment. So my current role is “Online Marketing Executive” which basically means i optimise content pages, promote pages, help devise PPC campaigns, generate inbound links, create good content and lots more techniques i haven’t started yet (All white hat SEO techniques of course!)

i have also been spreading the word via the old fashioned word of mouth with my friends as Shop.co.uk sell many items very cheaply including two of the products i have been working on Sim Free Mobile Phone Handsets & Discount Perfumes, Discount Colognes / Aftershaves & Discount Beauty Products.

My role is with Shop.co.uk

I’m hoping i gain some great SEO experience form this role, it’s very fast paced and a definitely different environment from my last role. Lets hope it turns into something really great.
Oh i also wrote an online buying guide for mobile phones, it may be worth a look maybe you know someone who could use it? Either way here it is Mobile Phone Buying Guide.

Over the last two months i have also been doing some freelance work for friends and I’ll add links here as well as my online portfolio as soon as it all finished. One is for a friend who is a recent Dance graduate who is starting her own Dance class business called Rhythms, if you live near Southend i suggest you take a look.
The other piece of work is for my ex managers husband Anthony Bailey who is a Cambridge & Chelsea based Counsellor. He needed some SEO advice and we done some basic SEO techniques to help him get higher ranked in Google which proved quite successful. For his four main targeted keywords he now has 4 top 100 results including a #1 and a number #3. You can view Anthony’s site here Chelsea & Cambridge Counsellor.

Well that’s it for my brief update, i had more interesting stuff to talk about like the decline of MySpace & Bebo, where i think Twitter, Facebook & social networking is going in general with the mobile arena, plus other bits and bobs but another time perhaps?

Stay Classy

Ben Scowen

Was reading this article on the BBC Technology pages today – Robot To Create Facebook Page i may actually ask to be his friend, just to see what he is getting up to, what his status updates code be (“1000101 101001010 101001010100 100101″, “having a recharge”, “Why is it only female robots get multi core processors?”), will he speak to me on Facebook chat, invite me to join him on some apps or maybe he’s really passionate about his carbon footprint and has made a group that i can join.

First Robot to get Facebook profile

But it just got me thinking about what role robots will play in the future?

Me and @ShaunMarshal have had a few conversations which must seem ridiculous to passers by about;

• what robots will be doing for us in the future
• how long until we are living and interacting with robots on a daily basis
• how long before they overthrow the us and destroy the human race!

Even writing now it sounds crazy but as technology gets increasingly powerful and smaller how long is it until we enter an iRobot type world?
Thinking back to articles I’ve read and videos I’ve seen they have robots that look like humans, act like humans and learn like humans. Now add that to the fact that there are plenty of Hollywood movies where robots end up in charge and go on some murderous rampage.
What you get is a human like creature that learns how to take over the world with their legions of robot allies.

How long before we are all terminated?

Again it may sound like crazy, paranoid ramblings of a mad man but for those of you who have a similar instinct to me i urge you to watch The Terminator 1 – 3, A.I., iRobot, Transformers, RoboCop, Universal Soldier and that one where the robot guy is driving a yellow taxi, so we can anticipate any form of attack!

I shall be keeping a firm eye on this whole robot up-rise, i just urge you that global warming may be threatening are world over the next 100 years, but the dawn of a robot age could be soon upon us!

Update!: Now Japan has developed Worlds first robot teacher! > Actually quite funny looking at the pictures, is very freaky, but where will this lead us, teaching is a well paid job, will robots be the future of teaching?

I found this blog whilst googling the other day and thought it was just such good advice i had to pass on.

Google doing it's searching magic

SEO Gold – http://www.seo-gold.com

I will be viewing posts regularly as there just seems to be some good information there about Search Engine Optimisation, I’m still learning and perfecting the craft and i wish i had found this site months ago!

I think its worth checking the SEO Tutorial post first, to help get your head around the whole idea and references. Also helps to teach you the good and bad ways to do SEO, although they mention they fit into neither bracket as they test both ways in a test environment i just find it helpful that someone is presenting all the information clearly without pushing the one and only “correct way to do it”.

Also the fact that the advantages and consequences for doing SEO cleanly or doing it the risky naughty way are very interesting and hopefully the more people who have a better understanding of the subject means that we will always have search engines pointing us to the best and correct content.

Let me know if it helps you in anyway, or you could let SEO Gold know yourself!

It’s a deceiving title i know,

After using WordPress for just over a month now i am really impressed with it, so much so that i have been desperate to try out the install version on my own server.

So after a friend gave me some web space [ Cheers Rob ] and i finally bought the URL and created my website i am ready to say goodbye to codinginthedarkness.wordpress.com and hello to http://codinginthedarkness.com/blog/

Hopefully this won’t impact on my Social Media experiment to much as i am seeing small improvements, this blog now comes forth on the ben scowen search.

So i will be copying over all of the posts in the next day or two, setting up my theme, tracking code etc but blah, so please hold on whilst i update and hopefully I’ll see you in my new web dwelling.

Goodbye WordPress.com

Wow it’s been 12 days since i started my social media experiment, I’ve been putting this first update off for a while as i have been busy with life and my own site but i think now is a good time to see just how everything is going.

Before i get into the numbers i thought I’d just give my overview and thoughts. I think i have been doing an OK job so far of actually trying to boost my web presence, i have been blogging on a occasion basis, updating my twitter feed and looking at trends, as well as regularly checking my Google rankings. But i know i need to do more, so I’m gonna up my game as far as blogging and twitter goes so hopefully by update #2 i feel like i should have a 8/10 for effort rather than the 3/10 i feel like so far.

Coding In The Darkness meets Google spider

Although if you have a look at the image to the right, Google found my blog after 45 minutes of posting, so i was very happy with that! I’ll wait to see how well my other posts and website go down but was shocked to see that the blog was picked up so quick when it wasn’t ranked in at least the top 10 pages before and it jumped to 6th.

So the stats so far;

• Twitter follower increase by 5 to 31 (I have had more followers but i seem to be losing some, maybe i am not interesting enough!)
• Blog views was 128 now 223 with an average of 5 views per day
• Facebook – i have decided to drop this stat as i just think it won’t be a good measure
• LinkedIn – still 23 connections, i haven’t done much with LinkedIn put i am looking to get involved with groups soon so we’ll see what comes of it, hopefully some good connections

Google Results

• ben scowen – 5,650 results, 7 out of 10 on the front page are all me and this blog is 6th!
• “ben scowen” – 121 results, same as above

I haven’t looked at anything else yet but i am going to try and impact the top 100 for:

• scowen
• ben! – Will have some competition for that one
• Not sure what else maybe London freelance web designer etc, let me know your ideas.

That will do for this update, i am off now to write some code, buy my domain and re-enter the Twitter-sphere, but next time i am going to add some data from various twitter mash ups, and some more blog stats, but before i go here is a great piece by MediaSnackers who have a guide for entering Social Media for beginners >,
enjoy.