http://www.garethdickson.net I’m Gareth Dickson and I’m a web developer specialising in PHP, MySQL and Javascript with a bit of Flash and ASP thrown in. I also integrate RSS feeds and Google maps. Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:45:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en After months in the making, the Swim Ltd website is now up and running. Swim Ltd is one of Ireland's top providers of swimming courses and coaching. The site again utilises Google maps to show course venues and information and has a mySQL database and admin site to control what ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2008/04/07/swim-ltd-website/ I've finally uploaded the new version of my first commercial website - Knightsbridge Fireplaces. The client wanted to keep the look and add a few sections. I took the opportunity to re-structure the site and add a few features such as the javascript slideshow effect on the home page and ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2008/02/05/knightsbridge-fireplaces-v2/ I've just uploaded my updated website. It runs off Wordpress with a few modifications. I've written my own theme which is customisable so I can change the top image / colour scheme etc. if I get bored with it. It's all dead easy to do and worth the work it ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/10/16/garethdicksonnet-powered-by-wordpress/ I've been looking at the multi-user version of Wordpress - Wordpressµ. The idea being that if blogging software can be used to create content-managed websites that don't look like blogs, multi-user blogs should be able to allow for large scale content-managed sites. These sites could have many subsites (sub-blogs) with ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/09/19/experimenting-with-wordpress/ Sky News have reported on the heavy rain across Britain and used our map mashup to show some of the worst hit areas. This particular application shows the polygon feature - they have highlighted an area south of Rotherham which could be affected if the Ulley Dam bursts. This is a ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/06/26/map-mashup-used-for-weather-warnings/ I’ve been working away at the Google Map mashup tool that I developed for Puffbox and have added some functionality to it. Editors were already able to add / edit / delete points on a map with custom markers and custom information windows as well as run multiple maps. Now ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/06/14/increased-functionality-for-google-map-mashup/ Well, it only took a day for our map mashup to get results - a murder suspect featured in the Sky News Crime Uncovered week website map has been apprehended. I don't think we could have got a better start - our first project has been picked up by a ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/06/05/puffbox-sky-news-map-reaps-results-murder-suspect-arrested/ Today the Google map mashup I made with Puffbox went live with the start of the Sky News Crime Uncovered week. They've used it show Britain's most wanted criminals. The really clever stuff is going on behind the scenes where journalists with no specific technical expertise can add items to ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/06/04/skymapping-goes-live/ I've finished my first crack at AJAX programming (loading pages without having to load pages - sort of). It's a calendar which uses PHP to work out which watch is on day shift in the NIFRS (Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service) and it works for every year from 2004 ... http://www.garethdickson.net/2007/02/27/ajax-calendar/