Last Post Before Christmas!

Ah, well here it is, my last post before I stuff my face full of all of that Christmas food! Yes I know, I just can 't help myself when it comes to honey roast ham and all of the good stuff!

So we all know that is a trait of Christmas, all of that alcohol and food can really pile the pounds on, so what are you going to do about it? A new years resolution? We all know that never works! What you need to do is get yourself down to this website I have found! An all in one solution to the problem of getting chubby!

Yeotown is a yoga / fitness retreat in the lovely area of Devon. It is not actually a fat camp but a refreshing take on a healthy get away. here they will try and change your lifestyle and way of eating and as a by-product you will lose weight. The site is beautifully designed, with lots of photos of the wonderful Devon countryside, you will also be able to see a gallery of some of the activities they do kayak experience and hiking.

Yeotown do all kinds of different packages depending on what suits you're needs, they feature Yoga and detoxing to help you rid your body of toxins and stress. If you're interested in taking a look, just go onto their detox retreat homepage. 

Great Website To Learn How To Draw

I've always admired people who could draw, it's an amazing talent and it not all in the wrist. It's all about visualising things on a 2D plain, and then being able to draw the lines appropriately. Well, I say admired, more like jealous! Sketching and drawing has been something I've wanted to do for quite a long time but I'm just no good at it!

That's when I came across PortraitClub, this website gives some great tips to help you learn how to draw, I mean I've been having a read through and trying some of the techniques and I tell you now, I've improved already! I went onto the website with pencil in hand and just sat down for an hour or so practising I could already see my advancements, its definitely all about the way you look at things. They don't give out too much information because the real "meat" of the help is in the portrait course they offer but that's enough of that let me tell you about the website.

The website has a fairly simple design and features Youtube videos and vast amounts of text to teach you the different ways of learning. They also feature a Blog that has little tips and tricks and some fantastic sketches from all across the web. The project course section features their offer of a step by step course featuring 3 DVDs with 4 hours or tuition and a free 100 page book explaining the portrait by eye. All in all if you think you would be interested in learning to draw then this is the website for you.

Home Or Away This Christmas?

So Christmas is coming up, Are you one of those who stays at home or are you one that visits?

I know a lot of families meet up to have that magical time but can Christmas really have that same feeling through technology?

Technologies like skype and other videocall software, do you know anyone who this as a form of communication over Christmas? I usually have about 10 relatives down for Christmas and it's always a great time. But this year it's going to be a bit different. I'm having to travel over Christmas this year and I'm really not looking forward to it. So I have been looking into websites that might help me get in video contact with my family.

So far I have researched several websites that don't have the need for software downloads.

The top website that I came across was the almighty Google+ they seemed to have free conference calls with little hassle, along as you are signed up. Another alternative seemed to be TokBox, but I believe they have just changed to a APP style program.

So in the end i've settled for downloading the skype app, I believe it will be easier to get going once I settle and my Somerset accommodation.

Internet blogging/website solutions

After my last article I've noticed that Wordpress is becoming an amazingly easy tool for new website owners to create the content that they want. Started in 2003, Wordpress quickly grew to become one of the biggest blog/website tools on the internet. With all that success I thought I'd take a look at the alternatives available and see how popular they are.

HABARI
A safe and secure blogging platform, HABARI is designed with the needs of the internet community in mind. It is designed to be an open platform that is constantly being worked on. It has a sleek interface and it uses modern software development techniques in its fantastic design.

Concrete 5
Concrete 5 is a free content management system that is a great alternative to wordpress. It's open source so people can contribute and make the software better for everyone.
Similar to WordPress and Habari, concrete5 is able to be downloaded, and installed on your web host and is a great platform built from scratch. It's main clients are website editors, designers, and developers.
Concrete5 is designed to make owning a website easy. You can simply edit away till the end of the day!

Cushy CMS
CushyCMS is a very simplistic way to run a blog/website. It has been designed to be implemented with little trouble, and boasts about it's ease of use. CushyCMS is a fully hosted solution, so no option to host your website/blog on another domain. That's not a problem here though, its a fantastic piece of kit!

Tomato CMS
Just like the others, Tomato CMS is an open source, blogging and CMS solution designed to meet the requirements of the modern blogger. I think this is a great tool and if you have used the others, why not check this out?

Wordpress a platform to success.

The VW transporter has long been my favourite of the larger vehicles and vans. I've come across a website that I feel really shows off the craftsmanship of Transporter restoration. S-Line transporters is another website built from a wordpress template, the site doesn't look too bad and shows that wordpress is really a growing solution to website creation. The main aspect of this site that I find entertaining is the gallery section.

Browsing through the images you can really see how well this company can fix up transporters, from fantastic looking seat covers to complete conversions every image has something to gawk at.
Taken from their website:-
"S-Line Transporters are the leading supplier for VW T5 Transporters in the South West, and exclusive stockists for Autohaus VW. We have now managed to increase our stock levels to cope with the demand, we have a forecourt in Minehead with an accompanying shop full of our parts and accessories. We hold over 10 vans in stock at all times and each van is carefully selected ensuring that they are well looked after, low mileage and one previous owner or less"
So if your interested in larger vehicles, take a look. They have do have lots of vehicles on show!

Surfing In The UK

The sport of surfing now represents a multi-billion dollar industry, but its not just America and Australia that surfing has become popular. The UK has seen surfing popularity skyrocket this year. With places like Cornwall, Devon and Bournmouth busy even on cold days! A great time to open a surf shop I would say.
A lot of surfing establishments have now opened online shops such as Freakfish, and quite right too! there is a large market to be explored.

English weather is always a factor against getting into the sea, but with the right wetsuit you can still keep fairly warm whilst riding the waves. After seeing all the people in the sea on my last trip to Cornwall, I think I might take up the hobby myself. There is a lot of trial and error involved and I realise I'm not going to be able to just get onto a board and surf, but with help from websites like surfingtipsandtricks.co.uk I may just be able to survive!

Online Security Recruitment

My husband has been looking for a career change these past few months and has stumbled across a great resource. Cross-deck.co.uk has a wide range of security based positions over 11,000 to be exact. These range from Close protection jobs to security Training. If your after a bit of excitement in your career I would say that this site is definitely for you! Currently the website has a free signup membership until the end of September, so if your interested in browsing the security sector I would do it now before your time runs out. The website has a sleek design and allows you to apply for positions once you are a member. As the site says, further your career in the security industry and sign up today!

Website Spotlight: Themes For Automotive & Vehicle Companies

 I came across this yesterday when I was browsing some websites which belong to my local networking group. I haven't actually attended a networking group in a little over 6 months but its interesting to see what they are all doing and what the latest developments are.

In doing so, I found out one of the local vehicle workshops had changed their website, and had opted for a Wordpress template. Now being from a web-based background I am fairly familiar with what templates are available, and their typical application. This one was a little abnormal for me, but I thought it worked quite well - Autohaus VW Camper Conversions

Autohaus VW are a leading team of campervan converters who specialise in VW and luxury vehicles. Their range of VW T5 converted camper vans are considered some of the best in the UK, with many award and show winners being produced in Somerset by the Autohaus VW team!

If you are looking to get your campervan converted, or are looking for your own custom conversion for a camper then get in contact today or you could get in touch with My Transporter Van - A website dedicated to giving great advice about Vw Campers.. The range of conversion possibilities are endless, they can even supply the VW vehicle!
Autohaus VW also have a range of campervan accessories, equipment, electricals and other items for sale via their website. Along with this they have also developed their own pop-top roof system which is lightweight and strong. If you are looking for a quality campervan converters workshop then look no further than Autohaus VW.

Their workshop is located in Minehead, so just off the A39 coming through Somerset. They are a great business to work with, and are always up for a good laugh. The team are always interested in helping out too!

Article Writing, is it still done?

If you are a freelance writer then you will be familiar with the big drop in certain publishing websites such as ezinearticles and hubpages. For example, one notable publisher on ezine was getting a lot of impressions on his writing profile. Since the update (codename Panda) his profile has moved down rapidly in the search results, as has many other people who have seen similar problems with their traffic.

Obviously certain sites were hit more than others, like we know ezinearticles was penalised, but contrary to that, DemandMedia actually saw an increase in their search results. Overall, there were many losers in the update, but also many winners.

...because of the loss in traffic freelance writers were receiving, what are they doing now to earn an income online? It seems the trend has moved quite rapidly into niche sites and expert information exchange. Gone are the days of writing generic text on a subject and getting it high in the results with little to no work.

There are a few options which have now opened up to freelance writers -

- Writing for a niche blog - this is quite popular as many of these blogs already have an existing readership who are likely to share your post. If you are already writing about parenting, then tapping into a popular parenting blog can increase your following to no end.

- Heavy optimisation - if you have built up a readership on an article site, it may be hard to let that go. Some writers have managed to make this work for them though. For example, this baby clothing article picked up quite a lot of traction from the authors readers, who are then encouraged to share it and blog about it. This social media promotion provides extra traffic, but also provides quality links which helps the article rank organically.

- Starting your own blog - if you are a enthusiastic writer about parenting, and already have a readership, then it can be quite easy to start your own parenting blog. Promoting it to your existing readership can be easy and that way you do not have a cold start. Admittedly you will be taking a couple of steps back...but in the end you are in control of everything so you are given a lot more flexibility

HR's Worst Nightmare - Back Pain

It may come as no surprise to some of you that back pain is a killer in the office environment. Okay not exactly a killer, but its a pretty big obstacle for those in HR. When I was reading an article on back pain and ergonomic seating it was interesting to know that nearly 80% of all office workers will suffer from back pain at some time during their career.

I was a bit shocked by this figure so I done a little research myself. I started looking around health care statistics and office absence statistics but they are all at least 3 years old. Then it struck me to start looking at different ergonomic chair manufacturer websites, they sell the remedy so they should know the problem! I actually contacted one back support manufacturer directly and they were nice enough to tell me about their latest statistics (from last year). It turns out that the 80% figure has decreased slightly over the last few years, but it is still well within the 70% range. Thats still around 3 in 4 people which will be affected.
So if you are in HR then you should think about buying your staff some ergonomic chairs, standing desks or even back massagers, you wouldn't want them going sick for extended periods of time!

Baby Shoes themed Website Design

We just found the wonderful Hippychick website while searching for some baby shoes for our youngest, and I was a bit surprised by the level of detail in the website design.
Hippychick are a fairly new company who have revolutionised baby shoes and baby products, with award winning products and business practices they are on the road to success.

We actually got turned onto their category while looking for Shoo Shoos soft baby slippers. Their chosen layout for the page is very simple and elegant, it also draws the eye to the images and the price...which are the most important factors for many parents. Go check it out!