Now I have had my Sony UX180P for about a week now and am still learning all the things it can do. When it first arrived my initial thoughts were Wow!

It’s just so tiny about the size of a PSP. I bought it primarily because I am a man who likes to travel light. When I go away I still want to be able to keep in touch with the world and keep an eye on my websites and email. My previous sub-notebook was a Flybook which served me well but when I originally bought it on Ebay from a German seller it never crossed my mind that it would come with a German keyboard and Windows XP in German. For the most part that wasn’t too much of a problem as I installed a fresh copy of Windows XP on it and set the keyboard to English. There aren’t too many differences and if you use a keyboard often enough you get to know where all the keys are. It is only the special characters I have a hard time finding sometimes.

Anyway, back to the Sony, the first thing you notice is the screen. It is just amazing and although it is a tiny 4 inches it is so clear there is no problem reading it at all. They do provide zoom buttons to enlarge what you are viewing but honestly I haven’t found them necessary.

Its also so bright that you can use this pc just about anywhere except for in direct bright sunlight. This is something that I was never able to do with my Flybook. Even in a bright sunny room indoors you wouldn’t be able to see the screen.

I wouldn’t recommend using this as your only pc or even only laptop if you need to do a lot of typing as you can imagine the keyboard is only just big enough to type with two fingers or thumbs and will slow you down considerably. I know you could use an external keyboard but that really defeats the object of an ultra-portable pc. The other option albeit still slow is to do what I’m doing now and use some handwriting recognition software. I am using EverNote’s ritePen 2.5 which works really well.

I managed to get the Cingular Edge card unlocked so can use it with a UK network card and with the built in wireless I am able to connect into my home network and hotspots without any trouble.

The test of time will be once this Sony UX180P has lost its initial novelty factor. I am pretty confident I’ll be using it regularly way after that happens. I’m still learning what all the buttons do and once I’ve figured it all out and been using it a while I’ll give an honest opinion to what I really think to it in an everyday world.

Okay so I’m reading the local newspaper and see an advert from Thames Water reminding us that England is in crisis because of the drought! Thames Water which supplies the area I live in imposed a hose pipe and sprinkler ban on April 3rd 2006. Anyone who is caught breaking this ban could face a fine of up to £1000.

Thames Water has now applied to the government for a drought order to further restrict the use of non essential water.

If granted under the Drought Direction 1991 the following activities will be banned under the order:

(a) the watering, by hosepipe, sprinkler or other similar apparatus, of:-

• gardens (other than market gardens), including lawns, verges and other landscaped areas;
• allotments;
• parks; or
• any natural or artificial surfaces used for sport or recreation, whether publicly or privately owned;

(b) the filling (whether wholly or partially) of privately owned swimming pools, other than:-

• pools designed to be used in the course of a programme of medical treatment;
• the filling of pools where necessary in the course of their construction;

(c) the filling (whether wholly or partially) of ornamental ponds other than fish ponds;

(d) the operation of mechanical vehicle washers, whether automatic or not;

(e) the washing of road vehicles, boats, railway rolling stock or aircraft for any reason other than safety or hygiene;

(f) the cleaning of the exterior of buildings, other than windows;

(g) the cleaning of windows by hosepipe, sprinkler or other similar apparatus;

(h) the cleaning of industrial premises or plant for any reason other than safety or hygiene;

(i) the operation of ornamental fountains or cascades, including those where water is recycled;

(j) the operation, in relation to any building or other premises, of any cistern which flushes automatically, during any period when those premises are wholly or substantially unoccupied.

Now I live right on a lake and since the original hose pipe ban was put in place I have never seen the water level so high. At one point I was beginning to wonder whether we were going to need sandbags put outside the house to stop the flooding. We are now almost at the end of July which has seen the highest recorded temperatures ever in the UK and even now although the water level has gone down it is still quite high which makes me think where has all the water gone to cause this drought.

Thames Water’s advert in the paper it warns “Using a bucket and sponge to wash your car instead of a hosepipe could save you a £1,000 fine and 125 litres of water”.

What they don’t tell you is according to OFWAT Thames Water has the highest water leakage figure of all water companies loosing 895 million litres of water a day, 253 litres of water per property per day. So if Thames Water fixed all their leaks that would be enough water to wash your car twice everyday!

Now I am not particularly bothered about the hosepipe ban. I’m not a keen gardener and I don’t wash my car (for £5.00 you can drive down the road and have it washed and dried by hand for you) but as customers we are forced to conserve water facing huge fines if we don’t because Thames Water can’t fix their leaks quick enough. Is that fair?

Okay, I have been very lazy with this site. Partly the reason for this is I wanted to get the site design right before anyone saw it. I’m not expecting to get many visitors if any at all other than from friends and family but I believe presentation is important. I’m a bit of a perfectionist at times and if you are going to do something then you must try to do it well.

Designing and building websites isn’t difficult. Doing it well takes real skill. Its easy to buy a ready made template on the web but I personally don’t like that idea. I would always worry about coming across another site that was using the same template much as a girl would be horrified to go to a party and see someone else wearing the same dress!

If you don’t have the necessary skills to do it yourself then it is worth paying someone to do it for you. There are plenty of web designers around and you even see them advertising on Ebay. Choosing one though can be tough. I’ve looked through many sites and their portfolios and am horrified to see broken pages, bad design and just general lack of attention to detail and that is on the web designers own sites. A tip to any web designer: Make sure your own site works and looks good before trying to sell your services.

The other thing that amazes me is the vast difference in rates that people charge. I have seen people charge as little as £10 for a single page up to £2000 for a 5 page website. Choosing the £10 page will likely be a waste of money and you will get what you pay for. Paying the £2000 for a 5 page website may seem a good idea for a naive company with a budget (who these deals are targeted at) but you are being ripped off.

I was lucky to stumble across Mike Anholm from Anholm.com. Mike has designed a few websites for me including this one. He did the original concept and then integrated into a customized Wordpress theme. Mike offers very affordable web design and produces very good results too. He is very conscientious and will work with you to get the results you want without breaking the bank. If you are looking for a good web designer then give him a go. You won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, back to setting myself a target. Now I have the site design completed I am going to make an effort to get the site ranked for my own name “Philip Nicosia”. Getting to number 1 should be achievable but because I have written quite a few articles that have been published on the internet there are some strong sites which are ranking for this. So my target for this week is to get into the Top 10 results in Google for “Philip Nicosia” within 7 days. I will check next Sunday, 30th July to see if I have achieved it.

My quest for getting to number 1 in the search engines for my name “Philip Nicosia” isn’t fairing too well. It’s not really surprising though as there are no links to this site and I haven’t manually submitted the site to any search engines.

I did a search today on Google, Yahoo and MSN and on all three search engines there were no results for www.philipnicosia.com.

I’ve been making websites for a few years now so I know what to expect and how hard it can be to get good results but for someone just starting out I also understand how frustrating it can be too. You can spend days, weeks or even years creating the best website in the world, the most informative website in your field but if no one knows it is there where are the visitors going to come from?

One thing you shouldn’t do is take short cuts. As a webmaster you are responsible for your website and trying to cheat the search engines may work short term sometimes but eventually you will get banned. Its not just the search engine algorithms that will catch you out. Competing webmasters who see your site above theirs will want to knock you off. If you are doing everything by the book then you have nothing to worry about but if you are cheating to get there don’t be surprised to see your site suddenly disappear one day. It could only take 1 well written spam report for your website that you’ve invested time and money in to be removed manually from the search engines if your tactics are bad enough.

If you want to keep on the straight and narrow and avoid all the major pitfalls and mistakes then I would recommend getting the SEO Book. Aaron who wrote and constantly updates this book lives and breathes search engines.

Say Hello to Bugs

Bugs is the latest addition to the family. We got her about a month ago and she is about 2 years old. Our biggest fear was how the cat would react to her. Lotty can be a real terror and we were worried that she would attack the rabbit if she was loose in the garden.

Much to our surprise though we found the cat was absolutely terrified of Bugs to the point that she didn’t even want to come into the house just in case the “big eared monster” was around. We had to coax her in with freshly cooked chicken for the first couple of weeks but I’m happy to say I think although wary of each other, they do seem to be getting used to each other more.

Sometimes I’m sure Lotty is too intelligent for her own good and is using Bugs as an excuse to get her own way and be spoilt with better food. She won’t even touch Whiskas now and is on to the Gourmet Pearl foods now.