The DaxMindMapper Reloaded

On Sunday I added the full Microsoft web development stack (ASP.NET v3.5, Silverlight, MS SQL 2005) to the hosting options I can now offer clients.

First client to make use of this new capability was Tiered Solutions Hosting itself - I knocked up the web site and published it in a few hours. It was great to be using VS2008 and all of the lovely ASP.NET features rather than the PHP I’ve been using for the last 8 years.

Mosso - Rackspace cloud hosting. Very sexy.
GoGrid - More cloud hosting.

Brinkster

Free
30 mb web space, 500 MB WEB TRAFFIC (limited to 16.7 mb web traffic per day), Brinkster control panel, ASP 3.0 , ASP.NET
xml 4.0
wap enabled
flash enabled
ssi - server side includes
MDAC 2.8
MS ACCESS
.NET MOBILE INTERNET TOOLKIT
ONLINE FILE MANAGER

Advanced
• 5 Free Domain Names
• 500 GB Web Space
• 6000 GB Web Traffic
• 2000 Email Accounts
• ASP/.NET/PHP
• 250 MB MySQL DB
• 250 MB SQL Server DB
• Website Builder
$28 per month

Pro
• 2 Free Domain Names
• 350 GB Web Space
• 3500 GB Web Traffic
• 500 Email Accounts
• ASP/.NET/PHP
• 250 MB MySQL DB
• MS Access/MySQL
• Website Builder
$10 per month

M6.Net

Both Brinkster and M6 seem to offer ASP.NET + PHP side by side.

In the second week of July I’ll be ending my current role with Intergraph (.NET 3.5, C#, WinForms, Oracle, TDD, UML, Enterprise Architect) and looking for new work, be it role or project based.

As my new web hosting service enters its 6th successful month I’m also interested in talking with anyone that might want help starting up/or updating their online business, anything from simple websites to online shop fronts.

Just thinking over the climbing and technical events of my life during 2008 (I’ll update it now and then):

• Climbing 101 routes out doors!
• Falling off and decking on an HVS (Gonna Write a Classic) over at Banygor - oops
• Having to jump off a 6B route at Wyndcliffe Quarry (Silver-Tongued Cavalier) and take a bit of swing - wahey!
• Fave climb of 2008 was a VS route at Symonds Yat called Goblin’s Grumble.. not a star rated one but felt great to make the moves upto the bird’s nest at half height
• Another fave route was A Little Stiff’ner F6a+ over at Banygor - awesome
• Having a project canned on me (and the rest of the team) but still walking out of that role on a Friday and straight into another one on the Monday == result!
• Working 10 minutes from a indoor climbing wall == life is sweet
• Getting Tendonitis in my shoulders for the third year running but this time beating it off with no loss in climbing (using exercises and taking it slightly easier at the wall) .. in the past I’ve had so much pain that it’s been difficult to change gear in the car and had to stop climbing for months.
• Getting really bad neck pain (to the point where I’m having to decline belaying duties and not being able to sleep at night) .. but beating this too using exercises and sorting out my posture).
• Discovering AAA syntax with Rhino Mocks 3.5 - it makes mocking a whole lot more readable - well done to Oren Eini for this quantum leap in readability.

Boring I know but this pension, after some searching and head scratching, seems to be the one to go for:

Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension)

Really low charges and the ability to pay into an index tracking fund (HSBC’s FTSE All Share Tracker) at below normal fees sounds the business to me.

Just got to find the money to pay into it now.

UPDATE

HSBC FTSE All Acc - Total Expense Ratio 0.27%
L&G International Acc - Total Expense Ratio 0.92%

I’ve taken out a Reseller package from UK2.NET and can now offer website hosting

I’m in the process of moving a whole bunch of sites across to the new system:

Tents
www.tents-direct.co.uk
www.tents-direct.com
www.tentsdirect.com
www.tentsdirect.co.uk
www.tentsdirect.com

http://www.mailordertents.co.uk/

www.familydometents.com
www.familydometents.co.uk

Spanish Properties
www.utopian-properties.com
www.utopian-properties.co.uk
www.utopianproperties.com
www.utopianproperties.co.uk

www.spanishbarsforsale.com
www.spanishpropertyrepossessions.com
www.spanishpropertyrepossessions.co.uk
www.propertyrepossession.eu

Tiered Solutions
www.tieredsolutions-hosting.com
www.tieredsolutions.com
www.tieredsolutions.co.uk

If anyone needs their websites hosting drop me an email at hosting@tieredsolutions.com.

I’ll be putting together a website to detail what the hosting offers, support details, costs etc. and publish a link to it later next week.

.. and loving it.

I’ve dived straight in and I’m investigating how we need to use a 3rd party charting component to display large amounts of project information in a Gantt stylee within a complex WinForm app.

The 3rd party product (GTP.NET) is not a bad starting point but it has limited control scrolling abilities in one of it’s two dimensions. I’ve created custom code to work around this.

I’m currently ironing out some of the implications of the customisation and also moving onto performance/usability testing.

Great stuff

http://www.n4s.co.uk/

Using Object Modelling, VS2008, WCF, SOA, strong emphasis on quality coding and the tools/processes to support it: CI, CC, Resharper, NUnit, NCover and a whole bunch of other usefull stuff

I’ve just found out my contract start date is this Wednesday and not a week Monday.

I’ve also had some other work land in my lap so it looks like my DDD expedition will be cut some what shorter than I had hoped.

Oh well.

Writing up a list of links, info on Confused.com.

links with references to work relating to Confused.com

The project management and design of the Web-based consumer reviews database - Confused.Com used to be a review site. Not any more.
This link is from 1996+.

To design and develop a robust and scalable architecture on which all the back office processing components could be built. We also designed and developed the majority of the back office business components that are used to provide Confused.com�s customers with the competitive quotations. We also provided basic training and mentoring to the internal development team.

Tim Roberts, Senior developer at Confused.com. - Contractor/Owner of Kilostar Solutions Ltd. (Newport based IT company). Has own blog.

SOA underwrites insurance firms