Well, after much debating, thinking, reading reviews and generally getting bitten by the upgrade bug; I invested in a spanky new Nikon D300 dSLR yesterday, and I have to say that after an initial wave of ‘Oh crap, what have I done!!!!?’ I’m really happy with it.
The new screen and live preview are worth the upgrade alone, but the new features that I’ve actually had the opportunity to play with are certainly useful. I’m really looking forward to getting the chance to shoot some motorsports in the next few weeks (BTCC at Donington or Thruxton in May I hope!)
If all goes to plan, the extra FPS should be really useful for capturing the action, and the new 51 point 3D matrix autofocus system should prove very handy with the fast moving cars and hand held panning shots.
As you can imagine, there will be a whole new collection of photographs posted here and on the forum from the day(s).
Well, 2007 is almost over and the new year is just around the corner; so now seems like a fitting time to take stock of where I-Pixel is and where it may be going!
November and December have been like a commercial roller coaster, with hectic workloads, short timescales and tight deadlines and it looks set to continue in to 2008! Without wanting to jinx things, the last few weeks have proved a fantastic time for Duffy and I in relation to work. We have seen us winning the contract to develop the new Abergavenny & District Tourist Association web site, which for me personally is a pretty cool achievement.
I-Pixel was recommended by a client along with a couple of other recommendation from various other committee members, and we were shortlisted to 2 based upon our estimate. The 2 remaining companies had to meet the committee and discuss the requirements, answer questions and deliver the pitch. Well, to cut a long story short, we were informed the following morning that we had been successful with a unanimous vote in our favour! Whoohoo!!!! Read the rest of this entry »
With interest in Imperium growing and the commercial projects it’s being used on grows, it only seems fitting that the project gets its own domain and support forum. To that end I’ve purchased and set up www.imperiumcms.co.uk and the linked support forum at www.imperiumcms.co.uk/forum/ to allow interested parties to contribute to the project and its future development.
With the addition of the skinning feature where admins can upload a css file and then activate it to change the look of the site. Obviously, the beauty of this is that 3rd parties can develop new looks for the site and make them available to other users.
Finally, I’ll be making a demo admin available via a sub-domain in the near future so interested parties can log in and take a look around at how various features work and offer feedback on suggestions, etc.
So why not pop over to the site and forums and offer your support and feedback for Imperium CMS.
It looks like I’ve been hit by the photography spending bug yet again! After looking at various pieces of camera sexiness I’ve succumbed to the VR bug… I had my spanking new Nikon 70-300mm F4.5/5.6 ED-IF AF-S VR lens back, and after a brief play I can say it is a stunning piece of kit. The VR (Vibration Reduction) works a treat and really allows incredibly slow hand held images. I’ve had success down to 1/6th of a second!
I also had my MB-D80 multi-battery grip back which certainly adds to the bulk and weight of the D80. It certainly looks like it means business when it’s attached and the 70-300mm VR is on the front! Read the rest of this entry »
Ok, it’s been a little while since I added an update around here, but work and social life have taken precedence of late. That said, I have had the chance to get out the camera and do some fun photography over the past few weeks. One of which was the recent Renault World Series at Castle Donington.
For anyone who hasn’t been to the Renault World Series in the past, it’s a race weekend (Saturday and Sunday) that is completely free that includes Formula 1, formula 2, Renault Megane and Renault Clio racing, time trials and exhibitions as well as a fun fair (again, free), historical vehicles and loads more all set in the grounds of the Castle Donington race track. Read the rest of this entry »
Damn, holidays go by so quickly you soon wonder if it was all just a dream!
As you can probably tell, I’m just back off a summer break and back in work ready and raring to go (well, almost ;)).
The weather was mostly dry, with a few exceptional days thrown in to make the whole affair all the more fun and enjoyable. I had a real blast taking photographs; some creative, some just holiday snaps. Some of the highlights (photographically and holiday wise) were visiting Tenby on a stunning day. The sun was beaming down, the sky a beautiful blue with clouds so white they could only be from the pages of a novel (poetic eh?). Another highlight was a visit to an indoor tropical rainforest and butterfly farm. Some of the butterflies were amazing to behold (not that my girlfriend LJ stayed in there long enough to see more than a couple of glasswings.. hehehe!) Read the rest of this entry »
Imperium reaches a new milestone build today (1.1.0) with a range of new features as well as some major tweaks to the Administration Control Panel.
With every site that I develop using Imperium, I learn a little more and add some new features which sometimes filter down into the new build of the core product. However, today I’ve spend about 7 hours developing the core Imperium module to offer a more cohesive and streamlined navigational structure, as well as a range of new and tweaked features.
Read the rest of this entry »
As I spend more time dealing with accessability issues, I’ve tried to impliment various features into Imperium. So, today I’ve started adding the ability to use accesskeys and titles to master categories in the main navigation and in the footer navigation areas.
So far so good! Now when you add a master category, you can include these optional fields of information into the database and your site.
Still laods more to go, but v1.02 is good to go with the new features. 
I’ve read plenty of things mentioning Google Analytics, but until this weekend I haven’t realy looked into it. Boy, am I ashamed that I haven’t delved into this almost invaluable online tool before!
If you run a website, you really should be using this incredibly detailed reporting service. The level of detail and information available is staggering; from simple geographic reports of site visitors to the more complex and useful eCommerce sales tracking tools.
As you may be aware, I’m in the process of getting Simply Sexy UK off the ground with my partner LJ, and as such we really want to ensure that we have as much information about the online process as possible. With Google Analytics, we can easily monitor the whole process and see where visitors enter and exit from, the duration they stay on the site, on each page and if they jump-off at any point. Read the rest of this entry »
Simply Sexy UK will be an online shop in the same vein as Lush but with one major added advantage - Our prices.
Simply Sexy UK specialise in high quality bathtime products like bath bombs, bath fizzers, soap loaves and more all nicely packaged and shipped direct to you in a choice of packages and options to suite most tastes. Read the rest of this entry »
