Doodgle for Google Winner, Sophie Redford

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 4 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes's ago.)

Google for Doodle have just started to show the winners of the 2009 Doodle for Google competition.

Sophie Redford is this year’s overall winner with ‘My Hero’.

Every year school children between the ages of 5 to 16 are able to submit their doodles for Google with different awards and the grand prize of having your design shown on Google for a day.

I really think this is something that kids can engage with and I think more schools should get involved.

Other winners were;

Ellen Blair (aged 5) with "Super-Gran", Harrison Marley (aged 11) with "Everyday heros", Sarah Hendry (aged 13) with "Remembrance" and Rachel Betts (aged 15) with "Anyone can be a hero".

I think my favourite was from Rachel Betts, below is the winning doodle but all can be seen here.

Avatar - My Feedback!

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 4 days, 7 hours, 42 minutes's ago.)

Avatar was unarguably one of the most visually stunning films I have ever seen. This being said though I felt like at points it was done for the sake of doing it – in short it was too long.

So visually great... but the story was dull as dishwater, it took me a time but it basically boiled down to Pocahontas on a blue alien planet.

And talk about American... ‘Unobtainium’ (fairly sure that is spelt wrong). This is the Pocahontas gold that they covet. The first time I heard it said I thought I was going to be in for a long night!

So whilst I’m being unfair when I say it should have been a straight to DVD film I’m also disappointed that I invested my emotional capital in the prospect of the film as now I feel a little abused.

Going to see Avatar tonight

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 4 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes's ago.)

Really looking forward to this, letting the kid out in me and going to see Avatar tonight!

This film is nearly 3 hours long and has been amazing hyped so it better live up to expectations...

Anyway, just a quick update, will let you know what I think about it tomorrow!

Domains Names - Hyphenated or Not?

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 4 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes's ago.)

As web developers we get asked many questions and one of them is whether to hyphenate a domain name.

If you Google the question you will find a number of different opinions, ours is relatively simple, the domain name is one of the most important parts of a website for small businesses when you look at optimisation.

We suggest you keep it as simple as you can for the search engines to understand, hyphens are treated as a break in the word so if you are an accountant in Southend the ideal domain would be www.southend-accountants.co.uk as that is a logical search term.

If you use www.southendaccountants.co.uk search engines sill look at the word ‘southendaccountants’ and try to make sense of it – it does not know where one word ends and the other starts.

If you are ‘Alexanders Accounts’ you can have for marketing purposes www.alexandersaccountants.co.uk as your domain name, simply buy that domain and forward it to www.southend-accounts.co.uk, the browser will not know the difference, but the latter will work much better than the former.

There is a cautionary note though, if we wanted to have www.knowitallwebguys.co.uk we would not register www.know-it-all-web-guys.co.uk as this is frowned upon. Our experience is that you can have two hyphens but no more.

So there you are, just a little food for thought, have a great online time!

Essex Business Networks, Brentwood, Essex

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 5 days, 6 hours, 25 minutes's ago.)

Just back from Essex Business Networks meeting at the Marygreen Manor hotel in Brentwood.

It’s a small meeting but the members are enthusiastic and the atmosphere is relaxed.

Steve Parker was there from i4 Visual Media as well as Scott Muller from Citylights Payroll, Ian Smith from Coloursmith, Robert Hutchinson from St.James's Place Wealth Management and one or two others that I didn’t manage to get business cards from (sorry guys).

Business to business networking is very important for my business as we really benefit from personal referrals of clients and contacts, so the more opportunity we have to make contacts and build relationships the better!

Anyway, Essex Business Networks, Thursday mornings, 06:45 at the Marygreen Manor, Brentwood – would be good to see you one week!