Newport's Social Site

I said wha wha now?

Laura Lou — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:12:00 GMT

Last night in a state of (utter) drunkenness I invited one of my boyfriends friends to my house to have a few drinks with me tonight. Of course, now I'm sober (and very very hungover) all I want to do is drink coke, lay on the sofa cwtched up with the puppy and recover from the monster session I had last night

Why oh why do I do these things? It always seems like such a good idea at the time...

Argh!!!

Laura Lou — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:10:00 GMT

Well I'll keep this short seeing as it's my first ever blog and it's a rant...

Families suck! ex boyfriends suck! and friends suck! (I have to point out that it's not all friends... 99% of mine are fab and I love them to bits... but there is always 1 or 2 that that manage to creap up and smack you right between the eyes).

And when you put said families, ex boyfriends and friends on facebook... where they can communicate with each other (ABOUT YOU!!) freely... well that's just asking for trouble.

Yup.

DIY Wind Turbine - Part 5 - Updates

Jay Neal — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:35:00 GMT

Well i have been so busy lately i have not had a spare second to post any new blogs, but it's getting to the point now where i need to catch up a bit. The foum has taken off a bit and i have been inundated with users requesting custom groups, and a large number of moderation jobs, this has tied my hands, but today is a little more relaxed so i thought i should spend the time on some DIY Wind Turbine updates.

During testing of the Better Blades from part 4 i noticed that the output of my 180V DC motor was not as expected, the blades worked a treat, and the turbine spins well in very low wind, producing between 4-8V, in high winds this exceeds 15V but how often do we get those high winds, this is simply not suitable, the battery will never get recharged. I decided to focus my attention on boosting the output voltage of the turbine with a voltage doubler, so i purchased a 6-12V DC voltage doubler (input range 4-11V, with over 90% efficiency), this should do the trick as the average output of the turbine is 6V .

I eagerly awaited delivery of the voltage doubler, and when it came i was straight on the case, it was wired into the system in about 5 minutes... again typically when your trying to test a wind turbine, no wind, not even a nats fart. I waited for 2 days and then, a slight breeze, the turbine spinning away, and for once a green charge light on my battery charge controller, yay, the doubler output voltage was around 12.5V.

Impatiently i had used the inverter and battery to charge my mobile phone and laptop a couple of times so the battery voltage was slightly depleted, i measured the voltage from the battery terminals which was 11.36V, i left the sytem for 45 minutes and returned to measure again, i waited until the turbine had stopped spinning as this might affect the results, the new measurement was 11.52V.

Ok so it seems that the voltage doubler is working but over the next few days the voltage barely increased, and the charge light was on more or less 50% of the time, i then decided that the initial increase in voltage was due to stabilisation after i had finished charing my phone and not from the wind turbine. So what is the problem, the voltage doubler uses a circuit that halves the current in the system in order to double the voltage, and with losses in the components the output current from the system was quite low even though the voltage was high enough to turn on the charge controller. I noticed that this was the case when i tried to turn the turbine by hand, it was a lot harder to turn compared to before the voltage doubler was installed, this means that there is more load in the system introduced by the voltage doubler components.

So most of the energy produced by the turbine was being wasted in the doubler components. This situation is not suitable, and currently the system cannot produce a sustainable electricity supply, so since discovering that a voltage doubler circuit does not do what i had expected i am now looking for an alternative DC motor, a motor that will hapily develop 12V in low wind speds. This is also the reason why i had not posted about the mountings, a different motor will require a different mounting as my original motor already had a bracket that was modified to suite the purpose.

Once i get my new motor, mount the blades and test its output i will move on to the mounting.

DIY Wind Turbine - Part 4 - Building Better Blades

Jay Neal — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:09:00 GMT

I know this part was supposed to describe building the mounting and tail of the turbine but i had a problem with the design of the first set of blades, so this part now contains details of a revised set of blades... i do think though that the design would be ok if a stiffer plastic is used, like the proposed waste pipe, but i wanted to used the scavenged piece of guttering. ...So, the first set of blades were too flexible as i had thought, how do i know??? read on... I had mounted them to the generator...(read more)

DIY Wind Turbine - Part 3 - Building the Blades

Jay Neal — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:24:00 GMT

If you have been following this blog from the beginning you will know that my plan was to fabricate the turbine blades from a length of waste guttering, and a second set from waste pipe which is thicker, the secondary pair will be used if the guttering blades are too flexible. I have completed the first set of blades, what follows is the procedure for producing the blades:

TOOLS AND MATERIALS:

You will require the following tools and materials in order to make your guttering turbine blades:

1. Electric saw - for cutting out the blade profile (hand saw will do but i found the guttering bends too much when you try and cut)

2. A flat boot lace - for tracing out the blade profile, must be longer than your blade.

3. A suitable permanent marker - for marking out the blade profile.

4. A tape measure or rule - for marking out your dimensions.

5. A length of plastic guttering / waste pipe - turbine blade material.

6. A sharp knife - for smoothing the cut edges of your blades.

7. A drill - for creating your mounting holes.

PROCEDURE:

Use the Blade Template image to better visualise the procedure, i have not dimensioned the image as you may want to play around with them on your own design. Looking back i should have taken pictures as i was making the blades as this would have made the procedure a little easier to follow, so next time i make a set i will do just that and update the blog...

1. Cut the guttering into 3 lengths (for a three blade turbine) of 660mm.

2. Measure 12cm around the circumference of the guttering at the one end and mark - this will be slot B.

3. Measure 5cm around the circumference of the guttering at the opposite end from the same edge and mark - this will be slot A.

4. Cut a very short slot at each of the marks just big enough for the lace to fit.

5. Tie a knot in one end of the boot lace and insert into one of the slots from the underside of the guttering, pull the lace tight along the length of the guttering and tie a knot at the next slot, insert the lace into the slot. You should now have a piece of guttering with the boot lace running tight along the underside of it from slot A to slot B.

6. Use your marker to trace along the edge of the boot lace, and then remove the lace.

7. Using your saw cut carefully along the marked line from slot A to slot B, keep the section that measures 5cm at the tip, this will become the blade.

8. Using your tape or rule mark half way between Slot B and the straight edge, and 10cm down along the cut edge which becomes point 2.

9. Mark a line parallel to the straight edge of your blade 5cm long, the end of this line will be point 1.

10. Join points 1 and 2 together.

11. Cut along the drawn line, and there you have your basic blade profile.

12. Tidy up the cut edges of the blade using your knive, by scraping off the burs, you can also smooth of any corners.

13. You can drill your holes to suite your turbine mounting, i recommend a minimum of 2 holes for fixing ( i only had enough room for two).

Blade Template - click for larger image

NOTE: For my first attempt at making the rest of the blades i used the first blade as a template, but due to the curvature of the plastic each blade when cutout became progressively wider. So i would advise that you mark out and cut each blade individually.

I used the procedure above to create the secondary set of blades, after cutting the length of the pipe i quartered it, and made a blade of 3 of the 4 quarters, hold on to the the fourth quarter in case you need to replace a damaged blade. For testing i will use the first set of blades though they do seem very flexible, for a permanent system i would not recommend using the guttering blades unless you can get guttering that is thicker than standard.

Here are some images of the finished blades, the fabrication time was approximately 1.5 hours:

DIY Wind Turbine Blades - 1

DIY Wind Turbine Blades - 2

DIY Wind Turbine Blades - 3

Part 4 will describe mounting the blades and building the rest of the turbine, including the mounting and tail.

DIY Wind Turbine - Part 2 - Components

Jay Neal — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:44:00 GMT

And so, the search was on to find some components to build the wind turbine and services to store the electricity generated by the turbine and convert it to 240V AC, a more house hold appliance friendly voltage. Although there are a lot of online sites dedicated to wind turbines, most of the parts required to build the full system are very expensive, so i started looking for alternatives, i had already decided that i was going to build the turbine myself, but what about the battery charge regulator and 12V DC to 240V AC inverter? These are parts i need to buy, if i am to get the system up and running quickly.

GENERATOR:

As described in 'Part 1' of this blog the genorator that i am going to use will be a DC Permanent Magnet motor, salvaged from some other device, it has to be high voltage at low rpm, so i set about trauling t'internet for such a motor...

Hours later i had stumbled across a site that sells new and used exercise machines, and parts. One of their parts interested me the most, it was a 4000RPM @ 180V DC PM motor, for use in running machines, it even had a pre balanced fly wheel that i could use to attach my turbine blades. A quick linear calculation (with 100% efficiency) gives 12V @ 266RPM (the minimum voltage required to charge the battery). I am not sure what wind speed will be required to turn the turbine at 266RPM but i am hoping the ambient wind speed where i live will do the trick, i also don't know what that wind speed is at the moment, this will also depend of cousre on my blades.

I ordered the motor and it was delivered the next day, surprisingly heavy at 7KG but did have the mounting bracket still attached, a quick measurement of the output voltage gave 5-7V DC simply twisting the rotor between my fingers, seems like it may do the trick.

BLADES:

I had read some interesting blogs describing fabrication of the turbine blades from sections of plastic pipe. Although these blade would be very crude and not as efficient as commercially available blades, the cost to make them would be next to nothing, especially since as i have some guttering lying about in the garden. The guttering is not very thick and i am wondering if blades made from this material will stand up to a strong gust. So i will make two sets of blades, one from the scrap guttering and one from waste pipe, which is substantially thicker. All of these parts can be found in your local DI|Y store.

BATTERY:

Lead acid batteries are typically not very good for this application unless the discharge of the battery is closely regulated, they are easily damaged by regular deep discharging, and as i wanted to use a 12V car battery using one is not ideal, the plus side is a small battery will only set you back about £60. I went to my local battery store to find that they also sold lesuire batteries, a bit more expensive than a car battery but with higher capacity, and the added benefit of being able to withstand deep discharging. I opted for the larger 110AH battery as it would store more charge and mean i would require a smaller number of batteries to supply the power i need. If the turbine produces surplus i can always purchase another later on.

I performed a quick calculation on my iPod Touch to see how long my laptop would last if running soley from the battery (no turbine), the power required for my laptop as stated by the power supply is 65W (not bad for a dual core machine, but then its and AMD processor :)), the inverter will use 12V so the current required is: 65/12 = 5.4A, so if the battery can supply 110A for an hour the laptop sould last approximately 110/5.4 = 20 Hours

The alternative way of calculating this would be to convert the battery to Watts 110*12 = 1320W (for 1 hour), so 1320/65 = 20 Hours.

My mind was made up, i bought the battery and a set of double ended (for battery expansion) battery terminals for £160.

INVERTER:

The inverter will probably be one of the most expensive parts in your system, however, i found a very nice inverter for use in caravans and cars at my local camping centre. They had a wide range, from 100W to 1000W, all of which are ideal for this application, but if i am to connect more than one device at a time to the system i would require a larger unit, so i opted for the 1000W version, it connects directly to your battery, and it also has low voltage warning when the battery drops to 10.V and shutoff at 10V, so although i have a deep discharge capable battery it will never drop below 10V. I had to order the inverter, but at £130 i dint mind, waiting.

CHARGE CONTROLLER:

While i was looking through the catalog at the camping centre for inverters i noticed that they also sold a range of 12V battery charge controllers. These units prevent your battery being over charged by your turbine or solar cells, and give you an indication as to the charge rate and current battery status. Some controllers can shitch the power generated by your system to another load or battery once the first battery is fully charged, but the unit i purchased just disconnects the battery. If the turbine ever does produce surplus i will just add another battery and connect it in parallel to the existing battery, so any disconnecting of the battery will occur less frequently, minimising wasted power. The charge controller was £100 and was ordered with the inverters.

VOLTAGE DOUBLER:

To boost the charging performance of the turbine in low wind speeds i have also ordered some 6-12V voltage doublers, the input voltage range of this unit is 4-11V, they have not been delivered yet and i may not even need them but i go them just in case. I could also use them to boost output of smaller motors.

MISC:

With some of the parts on order i have some time to concentrate on fabricating the blades and building the turbine mountings and tail. These will utilise the bracket that came fixed to the motor and some other bits of scrap. i may need to get a tail made as i have yet been unable to find a suitable piece of metal or plastic to use. Thats it for now, but part 3 will describe fabrication of the blades, once i have worked out how to do it...

I need a rant!!!!!!!!

shelly — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:16:00 GMT

I'm feeling the need to have a rant today as ive had one of them fortnights!!!.........................I've had loads of things to sort out this week and i seem to have got nothing done. I cant get over how unhelpful some people enjoy being when its their job to help you.....do some companies send their employee's on 'How far can you stick your head up your own arse workshops' just incase they start to show signs of humanity?.....I was trying to get some sense out of the tax credit people and i really think i'm going to have to give it up as a bad job, coz ive yet to speak to anyone who can asnwer my question, which in all honesty is a really simple straight forward one i.e. how much should i be receiving? an not one person has been able to tell me...they just read something from the text book that applies to about 3 quarters of the population.......the last girl i spoke to just kept on repeating the same thing ....so in the end i said...look forget thet what you keep saying to me and just tell me if you understand what i'm saying-human being to human being- .........I just want her to say yeah i understand what your saying but i'm only allowed to say the same 3 sentances all day so i cant help you..............

And this I couldnt believe....to ring the child benefit (used to be family allowance) you gotta ring an 0906 number....1.50 a min.....cheeky B*******ds!

An i dont think i'm even gonna start over the civic..................................Ive just been running into brick walls all week. and its really annoying but it's all sent to try us ...as me mum would say.....actually I think my mum has got a cliche for every given situation.....it doesnt matter what it is how trivial or traumatic...she got that llittle line just hovering on the tip of her tongue ready to put it all in perspective......the other day I was moaning about my gas bill which is huge an i have no idea how im gonna pay for it and i was moaning to her bout how skint i was ...and i found a tenner in a little pocket in my purse (chuffed) and my mum said (she's dead serious too mind when she says it) there you go see....if god dont give he sends!!!!??? so what are you saying mum? God could'nt afford my gas bill either, but he was ok to slip a tenner in my purse...............lol I dont think she can explain that one either....she not even religious!!!!!

well i went a bit off the beaten track then didnt i, but I just cant help that sorry....

Oh yeah I had my uni interview....mmmmmm went ok i suppose...it was a long day presentations, eng n maths audits, reading passages out loud!!! (FFS!) lol but wont know how i did for 2-3 weeks...cant believe they make you wait that long!!.......

anyways...enough from me i better get back to my homework.......................

DIY Wind Turbine - Part 1 - Introduction

Jay Neal — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:27:00 GMT

Jesus Christ (don't take that the wrong way, i am an athiest), had my electricity bill for the month, £78 (WTF)... and most of this must be from the use of my computers and 'Always On' broadband (i have started turning this off when not in use which will get me in the habbit). There has to be a cheaper way to generate at least a portion of my electricity requirements, even if i offset my computer requirements this would be a large portion of my expenditure and carbon foot print?

I must say that the green issue also plays a lot on my mind but having to fork out thousands of pounds on a commercially available system is not justification enough, especially when you could fabricate your own system for a fraction of the cost and be doubly green by building it from recycled components.

So i started researching wind turbines, as there is always a prevailing wind where i live, our house is located on an exposed valley wall that heads to the sea. I was shocked to find that systems for purchase were very expensive, with basic systems, around £1500, not even having battery storage or quantification of generated electricity so it can be sold back to your energy supplier. With this initial expense and the fact that any generated electricity that is not used would be lost, does not make this a very efficient system that would take years to pay itself back.

Much of the information that i found favoured constructing the wind turbine yourself from high voltage permanent magnet DC motors, and self made turbine blades. The higher the voltage, and the lower the RPM of the motor, the better for this application as you want to generate as high a voltage as possible at a low RPM, this enables your turbine to start generating power at lower wind speeds... so i started looking around for a motor with these characteristics. Athough your home mode system will be a little less efficient than a purpose built system, it will cost next to nothing in comparison to build.

I decided that with the saving in building the system myself i could afford to buy some batteries for storage and a suitable inverter for converting my 12V DC battery into usable 240V AC, this will make it very easy to connect most of my computer equipment.

gggrrr to photo uploader!

shelly — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:32:00 GMT

ola! well been trying to put my pics up,but its taking me forever and i think each photo is in a gallery of its own!!! The first one i put on ...that was ok than the 2nd one i put up replaced the 1st one!! so i been faffing bout for hours.................well ok it felt like hours! an still only got bout 4 pics!! can i upload a whole file? that would make shelly's life nice and easy!!

I should be doing college assigments right now but I;m putting it off, an essay on crime and deviance!!! it's so boring!! thats just the beginning got about another 10 to do!!!!!!!!!!! I had office 2007 on trial version and most of my college work is on there but this week the trial ran out................................and it has half my stuff in it,but i cant change it to put it in my normal word it wont let me do any thing, so i,m really chuffed off about that!!!! and I need power point to do 2 presentations but no longer have that either!! if i'd have been a bit smarter i'd have got it done and saved it on me flash stick....but you know..... had important social commitments to attend ..............

well back to crime and deviance for me, n then ive promised boys we can go and play football......I'm the best goalie ever!!

have a nice day xxx

Let's begin then............

shelly — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:22:00 GMT

well hello to all my fellow port forum members, today i'm on a mission to get my pics on here and get my blog going, just went to upload my pics from tj's but it dont actually show me the pic just a ramdom number..............lol so im goona have to name pics so i know what im up loading...wouldnt want any dodgey pics of me on here now!!!.........so im off to do that pain staking job now ..............and hopefully by end of day i should have them uploaded.

Anyway, let me tell you a bit about myself first so we can get aqainted....i'm only a young'un at 35!! I got 3 kids, all boys ages 10, 6 and 5. I'm a fulltime student at nash and off to uni in september to do a teaching degree. and its hard ............lol but i'm loving it anyway. Been accepted in cardiff uni, but got an inteview at caerleon on 15th april....which i'm pretty nervous about, as thats where i'd rather go ..........so we see what happens.

I love to go out but dont go out too often (kids an that) although last week my boys were away at their dads for a week so i managed to cram about a months worth of parting into a week, which was brill, but i paid after as its taking me far too long to recover!! Rev's I love and thats where you'll usually find me on a weekend if i'm fortunate to have a sitter.

TJ's has put on a few good events over last few weeks which fall under the name funky phil's.......whatever it maybe, it's alwys a good night so i'll let you know when the next one comes up and maybe some of you will go and have as much fun as i do!!

Well i'll leave it there for now but by no means have I finished ..........................lol xxx

Sunday, November 11th 2007

Gareth_25.05.05 — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:21:00 GMT

Early Doors, Up at 9 for Football match at 10.30

Got down Llanwern RTB fresh and up for it. Playing a team one place below us in the table ( Pioneer ). Found out i was starting in my fav posision of Centre Mid . Had a solid 30 minuites, and accualy had a good shot on target towards the end of the half.

Second half was quite entertaining. There keeper wasnt very good and struggled to catch the ball lol. We went a goal up ( forgot who scored ) nice goal tho. Again their keeper should of done better. I had another shot that just scraped the post as it went out, Im not that good at shooting lol. Contunied with a solid last 20 minuites and ended the game as 1-0 winners.

All the lads went to the club for a couple of pints, I came home and got ready for second game later on that day

Got over Astro at 2.30 ready for the Astro League game. Met Stu and had a kick around for a bit.

I sharnt bore you with the info about the astro game but we won 7-1, I did score 1 aswell. A header to be precice.

End of that game we won 7-1, Had a lift home to rest my bruised and hurt body lmao.

Got home and chilled for the rest of the time. Speaking to Jay on the pc and created this blog lol Getting ready for the best programe on TV ( Top Gear ) on at 8.

Prob just watch that then go to bed, Work Tomorow

Til the next post

Over and Out.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Web Development - Episode 9

Jay Neal — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:40:00 GMT

Site 81% Complete:

I have been working on a template for a vehicle dealer website so have not done much towards completing the Portside Technologies site for a while, as i wanted a little break from creating the vehicle site template i looked into formatting my accounts report, mainly to get all the informatin to fit on the page.

For this i changed the gridview columns from a dataset databind via a SQL connection to bound columns to the same SQL connection, these columns were then converted to template columns, giving far more control over the layout and formatting of the data. I arranged the columns into the following sections:

Details

Receipt Number
Expenditure Area
Goods/Service
Quantity

Description

Description

Date

Receipt Date - Used function to truncate the date string to dd/mm/yyyy
Added Date - Used function to truncate the date string to dd/mm/yyyy

VAT Costs

VAT Cost Each - Formatted as currency
VAT Cost Total - Formatted as currency

Item Costs

Item Cost Each - Formatted as currency
Item Cost Each Ex Vat - Formatted as currency
Item Cost Total - Formatted as currency
Item Cost Total Ex Vat - Formatted as currency

Once i had completed the layout i changed some of the colours of the template columns via a style sheet in order to break up the data so sections could be more easily identified, the following image shows the completed output from the expenses query, this format will also be applied to the accounts query:

I will be working on starting the products and configurator sections very shortly, the configurator will be a spin-off of the control panel section that i will use essentially to build product templates, from components that have been added to the database via the add components page. The configurator will be available to registered memebrs to build their own computer templates and save them for specification and price optimisation/comparison.

The templates that are created by myself will then be made available to the products page via a SQL query filtered by product type, each product type will be found in its own tab panel, memeber generated templates that are identical will be made available as products once the same template has been configured a certain number of times (yet to be determined), this means our site will identify the systems and specifications that customers want and will make those specification templates available for sale.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Web Development - Episode 8

Jay Neal — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:27:00 GMT

SITE 80% COMPLETE:

Finally added a page to show the services that we offer, imaginatively named services.

Created four panels, these panels break our services down into four sections:

COMPUTER SERVICES
NETWORK SERVICES
SERVER SERVICES
MISCELLANEOUS SERVICES

Each section is made up of two ASP.NET panels, one for the heading and one for the content section, which is the part that expands and collapses. The ASP.NET panels are extended with the AJAX collapsible panel extender.

The content panel contains a table with two columns, left-hand column holds images relating to the service being provided and a description of the service is provided in the right-hand column.

Only the first panel is expanded on page load (collapsed="false"), the other sections are collapsed on page load (collapsed="true"), these can then be expanded/collapsed at users content.

Each panel has a height attibute of zero in the style sheet (height: 0px;), this prevents the panel from being displayed before it is collapsed by the extender as the css attributes are fired first. If this attribute was not set this way, you would get a flash of the panels on page load, which is very annoying.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Web Design - Episode 7

Jay Neal — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:48:00 GMT

SITE 75% COMPLETE:

Modified the accounts page and database some what, mainly to include a VAT calculator, the tax can then be broken out and stored in the database.

Added transaction type drop down list; this enables the user to select either debit or refund, on selection some code-beind determines the selected value and determines "r" for refund, "d" for debit which are the values that get strored.
Changed the type of the transaction type column in the database from integer to a single character (for "r" or "d"). This table will also be used for credits so the transaction type for credits will be "c" imaginitively.
I wanted to be able to rationalise credits, debits, and refunds in the table, so i added a further column called multiplier which is populated with "-1" for debits and "1" for refunds and credits, i can use this value later when displaying accounts in reports.
Removed the VAT text box as VAT will now be calculated in the code-behind section.
Added the VAT calculation which produces the following output:
- Cost before VAT.
- Cost after VAT.
- Cost of VAT.
- Total cost before VAT.
- Total cost after VAT.
Added the new columns to the accounting transactions table.

Completed adding controls, code-behind, and database table for the cases component type, the details of which follow:

Added Ajax update panel to ther case tab panel to enable asynchronous postbacks.
Added controls to case update panel for selection of case attributes.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to case update panels, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to case tab panel to show status of sql transactions.
Finalised case database table schema.
Completed code-behind to write case tsb panel controls attributes to the case database table.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to case update panel, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to expenditure tab panels to show status of sql transactions.

Added a column to all product tables and set the Computed Column Specification, this will automatically calculate the sale price from the price column multiplied by the markup percentage (which varies for different components). This means that the sale price does not have to be calculated in the code, reducing the need to modify code, instead you can just modify the formula in the Computed Column Specification in sql for each of the required tables.

How Smart is my HP Photosmart C4180 Really?

Jay Neal — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:49:00 GMT

In case you didn't notice by the rest of my blog posts i recently started a company called Portside Technologies Ltd (www.portsidetechnologies.co.uk), and have been blogging about the progress of the website build, but thats not the point of this blog.

The point is this; i decided to try and start advertising the company a little by producing some fliers, to post around some local businesses and homes... a good idea, right? Then i remembered that i recently sold a colour laser printer on ebay that would have been perfect for the job, professional quality prints, and at speed.

So being a tight arse and not wanting to pay money*stupid for printing i decide to use my HP Photosmart C4189 printer for the job... Ok, so when i turn it on it says that both the Tri Colour (343) and the Photo Colour (348) ink cartridges are out... 1 hour later i return from PC Shite empty handed as i forgot to take the codes for the carts and they don't have a catalogue to reference to, doh, and they know as much about printers as i know about quantum physics (i scratched the surface but it wasn't for me!).

Armed with my cartridge numbers i head back to PC... god, i hate even typing it... World, and hey presto they were the ones i was looking at, so another hour later i got my carts on the desk, ready for installation.

Hmmm... i wonder how many pages i would get out if i just tried to print, with the empty cartridges? None? 5? Lets try 1 as a starter... wow, that looks ok, for a printer with no ink, so i decide to try 20, as i click the print button i get "Your Ink is out, do you want to continue anyway? Or something like that, so i continue.

Well again 20 out, same as the first, go on then we will have a go at 50 (same warning when clicking print)... 30 mins later 50 pages out the same as the first, no noticable degradation in print quality, am i missing something here? Those physics lessons came in handy as i realised there must be a rift in the time-space continuum inside the cartridge that is maintaining an infinite level of ink, yay.

But no, 300 pages later and its still going.. until, yep there we have it, it starts printing shite, not bad though for a cartridge that was empty, and these pages were colour! What if i had of just changed the cartridges, well printing the fliers would have been more expensive than printing on gold leaf as 10 pages later it would have told me the ink was out, nice job HP, as if your cartridges aren't expensive enough without telling me it needs changing when frankly my 7ml cart was half full!!! 10/10 for profit though, but not from me as i bought PC Shite alternative ones, just hope they don't end up effin my printer ;)

So in conclusion the printer itself isn't smart at all, it just does what it was built to do, the genius behind this little caper is down to the boffins at HP.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Website Develpment - Episode 6

Jay Neal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:39:00 GMT

SITE 70% COMPLETE:

Thought it might be a good idea to start logging my accounts, so i built a sql table and an input page on the website to enable us to account for company expenditures. Due to this slight deviation from my project plan i set myself back a whole day on the progress of the overall website, so only 1% closer to completion :(.

Created new accounts page from the masterpage.
Locked the accounts page down for access by admins only.
Added a hyperlink to the accounts page in the administrators section of the control panel.
Added Ajax Tab Container and populated with single Tab Panel called Expenditure. More tabs will be added later in order for us to review our accounts, and allocate sales.
Added Ajax update panel to enable asynchronous postbacks.
Added controls for expenditure area (where the cash got spent), expenditure goods (the goods or service paid for), description, cost, quantitiy, VATcost, reciept/invoice date and receipt/invoice number.
Filtered expenditure goods dropDownList to only display relevant goods/services on expenditure area selection.
Added async. postback trigger to update panel on expenditure area selectedIndexChanged, so expenditure goods dropDownList get filtered without a full postback to the server.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to expenditure update panels, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to expenditure tab panels to show status of sql transactions.
Finalised accounting transactions database table schema.
Completed code-behind to write expenditure controls attributes to the accounting tranactions database table.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to expenditure update panels, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to expenditure tab panels to show status of sql transactions.
Tested various configurations of the expenditure controls, transactions were failing as i had forgot to set identity specification on the ID column of the accounting transactions database table, doh, doh, doh... Worked after i had realised my minor oversight.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Website Development - Episode 5

Jay Neal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:31:00 GMT

SITE 69% COMPLETE:

Finalised main board database table schema.
Modified controls layout on motherboard tab of the add components page.
Completed code-behind to write main board attributes to the main board database table.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to main board update panels, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to main board tab panels to show status of sql transactions.
Finalised hard disk database table schema.
Modified controls layout on hard disk tab of the add components page.
Completed code-behind to write hard disk attributes to the hard disk database table.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to hard disk update panels, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to hard disk tab panels to show status of sql transactions.
Modified processor and memory table schema, and code-behind to insert date component added and the user that added it, this functionality was already included in the main board and hard disk shema and code.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Website Development - Episode 4

Jay Neal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:29:00 GMT

SITE 63% COMPLETE:

Added identity banner, went through many iterations, but finalised on the current design, the blank section will house flash banners (once main site is complete), and the PortsideTechnologies.co.uk logo will be used on to create stickers for the company van.
Finalised processor and memory database table schema.
Added required controls for processor, memory, hard disk and motherboard(Jesus there are loads) component attributes, each attribute will be written to respective table.
Completed code-behind to write processor and memory components to respective tables.
Added updateProgress Ajax control extender to processor and memory update panels, to indicate sql transactions.
Added label to processor and memory panels to show status of sql transactions.
Uploaded two pictures of my web server(since no-one else has :'(), only two as i am currently in the process of upgrading, no point in taking pics of a legacy system :).

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Website Development - Episode 3

Jay Neal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:27:00 GMT

SITE 59% COMPLETE:

Created components tables in database and started working on schema for computer specification creation.
Added members page, which queries database for site members, locked this to non-admins.
Added add components page, which consists of a tab panel, with a tab for each component. Started to populate with controls that will add components to the components database table, completed processor, memory and hard disk layout, no database connectivity yet. Components will be used to generate computer specifications on the create computer page. This page has been locked out for non-admins
Added create computer page, this is currently empty but will query components table and will use components to generate computer specifications. This is locked top non-admins, but will form the basis of the code for the configurator, which members can use.
Created admins only section on the control panel which gives access to add components, create computer, and view members sections, more sections will be added when concieved, required and coded.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Website Development - Episode 2

Jay Neal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:24:00 GMT

SITE 55% COMPLETE:

Added tools page, which will eventually have a whole host of online tools to help you maintain your computer and provide you with helpful information.
Added the first tool to the tools page; IP Address Detector, which enables members to find their IP Address quickly and easily. Coming soon... hard disk free space wiper, delete your files permanently.
Locked tools page for use by members only.
Locked configurator page for use by members only.
Locked control panel page for use by members only.
Added tab panel to the products page to separate home/office, server and gaming systems, actual products coming soon...
Added accordion panel to the home page to keep my scriblings tidy, and show most recent updates.
Temoporary logo added to give the site some sort of identity; this will be replaced by flash banner when i have time to do one ;)
Added my first testimonial from Leeway Van Centre to the testimonials page.
Added testimonial from BP Builders Ltd to the testimonials page.
Ooops, almost forgot, added new panel on navigation side of page to display number of members, will add newest member ID when time permits.

PortsideTechnologies.co.uk - Website Development - Episode 1

Jay Neal — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:22:00 GMT

SITE 50% COMPLETE:

Site layout more or less complete, decided on pages and functionality:

HOME - updates, new features and products.
ABOUT - description of company, products and services.
PRODUCTS - list pre-configured computer systems for purchase online.
GAllERY - pictures of members computer systems, members can upload images.
REFERENCES - pictures of members computer systems.
CONTACT - pictures of members computer systems.
LINKS - pictures of members computer systems.
CONFIGURATOR - enables members to configure their own system.
CONTROL PANEL - enables members to configure settings.
REGISTER - enables new members to join the site.
FORGOT PASSWORD - enables members to recover their password.

Added image upload code to the control panel, this creates a thumbnail image on-the-fly and saves to the server, the member name is tagged onto the image name, just so we know who upladed the image.

Added image display functionality to the gallery, so all images thumbnails in the gallery are displayed, may need to page this if gallery gets too large.

Added new user wizard so that members can join, which enables them to use the configurator, and to use the control panel, more to come...

the-port.co.uk rebirth chapter 1

THE-PORT — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:44:00 GMT

SITE 0.5% COMPLETE:

Decided it was high time that The-Port.co.uk got a long overdue face lift, this iteration of my first website (i know it's easy to tell, it's shite) will be written in ASP.NET with a little help from my friends the AJAX extensions for ASP.NET.

The overall colour scheme will remain the same, mainly blues and white, but i have decided to change the layout of the page somewhat. I will be scrapping the left hand navigation panel, lets face it most of my sites got that and i'm getting tired of it.

Started on layout which is about 95% finalised.

Created logo section which will house... um, the logo, and login controls, i forgot my password and registration links.

Updated the "THE-PORT" logo, and gave it a hover animation, dropped that in the logo section, oh, and linked it to the home page.

Added register, and forgot password links to the logo section and positioned in the top-right corner.

Added a horizontal navigation bar under the logo section, which currently has the following links:

HOME - Link to the home page, duh.
FORUM - Link to the forum, which will discuss all thing Newport and not.

PROFILES - Link to the member profiles page, list all member profiles.

GALLERY - Link to the gallery, pictures uploaded by members.

ARTICLES - Link to the articles page, may scrap this as i'm not a news reporter and i can't be arsed making stuff up.
LINKS - Link to the links page which contains links.

Created basic page with title for each of the above pages, save the forum as this is already established on the old site.