Author Archives: Grant

A neat way to change PHP / MySQL timezones at the script level

<![CDATA[If you do any programming on shared hosting environments – like MediaTemple, Go Daddy or whatever – you'll be familiar with the problem of timezones. While it's easy to set the correct timezone on a server you have full control over, things get much trickier on a shared server. However, if you're working on PHPContinue reading “A neat way to change PHP / MySQL timezones at the script level”

My first newspaper exclusive

<![CDATA[Ok, so I've been a part-time technology writer for The Herald for all of three weeks. It’s going pretty well so far with positive reader feedback and even a couple of responses from companies who’s products I’ve reviewed. But last night I made the jump to mainstream news… At around 3pm on Monday, a colleagueContinue reading “My first newspaper exclusive”

New social features on heraldscotland.com

<![CDATA[Yesterday I integrated some of the newly announced Facebook Social Widgets into heraldscotland. Using their new auto-connect system, any Facebook users who visit heraldscotland will now be able to see what their friends are recommending and sharing on our site. The demo below outlines how it all works… /blog-images/facebook-demo.swf I’m quite pleased with how smoothlyContinue reading “New social features on heraldscotland.com”

We won the regional TV news bid for Scotland!

Ok, first a quick bit of background: The Government are funding a pilot scheme for independent TV news production in Scotland, the North East of England and Wales. In Scotland, this would replace the regional news currently broadcast by STV. If you’re interested, The Guardian has a good history of the whole process. Only twoContinue reading “We won the regional TV news bid for Scotland!”

Diary of a new garage – part 5

<![CDATA[With winter on the way, one thing I really had to sort out was heating for the garage, especially on the summer house side. The insulation in the walls and ceiling is working well, but with outdoor temperatures dropping to single digits I really needed something to raise the temperature in the winter evenings. IContinue reading “Diary of a new garage – part 5”

heraldscotland.com loses beta badge, goes fully public

<![CDATA[At 2pm on Monday we took heraldscotland.com out of public beta and directed all of our traffic from http://www.theherald.co.uk and http://www.sundayherald.com to the new site. We ran the beta for just over a month during which time approx 10% of our regular online readership switched over to the new site. This gave us a lotContinue reading “heraldscotland.com loses beta badge, goes fully public”

Diary of a new garage – part 4

<![CDATA[I took a few photos of the garage last night. All the photos below are clickable to a larger high-res version. The summer house side View from the sofa The garage side As you can see, organising everything on the garage side is still an ongoing project, but at least everything is now undercover inContinue reading “Diary of a new garage – part 4”

Diary of a new garage – part 3

<![CDATA[It's been a while since the last update, but a lot has happened in that time. We now have power, insulation, flooring and even some guttering. Picking up from where I was last time, the electrician came out and fitted a consumer unit to power the ring main and lighting circuits. I read in myContinue reading “Diary of a new garage – part 3”