Myself, Jason, Mark and Lydia went over there for five days to experience a place that is genuinely extra-ordinary. It was quite an eye-opener; from the exquisite but massive hotel buildings, to the incredible energy from walking around at 5am in the morning - the place is something else.

The boxing itself was the highlight, with our boy coming up trumps against Hopkins, who famously said that he’d “never get beaten by a white boy” - oh dear oh dear. The after show party too contained a lot of fun and frolics, most of which are pictured over here, with celebs such as Tom Jones, Whitney Houston, Arnie, Rocky, Beyonce, Amir Khan, Brandy, Sam Davis, and Catherine Zeta Jones turning out. What a Saturday night - just a shame it is now nothing but a blurry drunken hazy memory…

As well as entertaining, I found the trip pretty helpful, as I realised a few things about myself. Firstly, I’ve realised that I hate themed loos. You know, like the ones you get in O’Neill’s that say”Mna” and “Fir” - which one is bloody which? Exactly, I walk into the “Mna” one too… But in Vegas there were a numerous themed places which had loos which required some brain-power when it came to picking the door to go in. I hate that shit. In the Jungle cafe is was “Tigers” and “Rhinos” - in the Aussie bars it was “Bruces” and “Sheilas”, and then another place “Winkles” and “Winkle-pickers” - what the hell?

Still, these brain-games took my mind off the constant frigging static shocks I was getting everywhere I set foot in Vegas. I swear I must have been hit by a thunderbolt at some point during the week because every person or piece of metal I touched seemed to send 10,000 volts of pure pain up my arms. Playing the fruities was pretty much a no-no because of this… so maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Thankfully it was not only me that had it… I’ll never forget the look of the casino dealer when Jason handed him his dice back as it came off the table. Jason duly picked it up and passed it over, only to spark out the croupier with his static. The poor guy looked at his hands in wonder, and simultaneously gave Jason a puzzled look, one akin to having just been shocked by a walking electricity pylon.

Toilets and static aside, there were a few other observations which I couldn’t help but make. One of them included the tipping debacle - ludicrous, you’ve served me a drink with a moody face… and you WANT a tip for it?! Also, smoking in enclosed places - how weird - it wasn’t enforced there, so it felt mad to walk around seeing people chug fags inside hotels.

Anyway though, great trip, a little jetlag - but a definite place to see without a doubt!

Produced by a company called Varien, Magento is easy to use once it is installed. However, quite unfortunately, it has already got a reputation for being a bit of a nightmare to install. You need to have your server set up just right, with the right versions of PHP, MySQL, Apache - plus you need to have right PHP extensions such as PDO_MYSQL added. For many people who may have webspace from a reseller, or on a managed server, this may well prove difficult.

Even I myself have use a dedicated fully accessible server, and getting it just right is a bloody tricky thing to do. That’s why, if you’re looking for some reliable to host it, you should use Simple Helix. This company have a numer of flexible hosting packages which are amazingly good value, but the best things is that they have a number of packages already pre-installed on the server.

This means if you want to have Magento set up on your webspace, you simply login to their Control Panel and select Magento, and it unzips it and installs the package on your site for you. I would really recommend it, especially even if you’d just like to test Magento.

Get on to SimpleHelix.com and sign up and give it a whirl, because you’ll definitely find Magento so much nicer hosting it here!

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your comment, We are constantly trying different things and hopefully soon we’ll have a solution. We appreciate your custom and hope you return.

Kind Regards

Toko Management

Well, I’m not holding my breath. Actually, more to the point, I am…

For some reason last Friday (I must have been pissed), I walked into Toko at 3am and as soon as I went in there was this disgusting aroma of man puke and sweat. It started off as a relatively “high class” venue back in the day, but now unfortunately it has gone down the cess-pit route. I just sent this letter to them….

“I went out last Friday night and walked in to Toko, only to have to walk out 20 seconds later, due to the unbelievably disgusting smell of sweat, puke, and disinfectant.

Is there any way this can be dealt with. I’d have been willing to have bought a number of drinks and spend more nights there if this evil smell wasn’t there. It makes me want them to bring back smoking in enclosed spaces.

It also makes me slightly concerned that a lot of your trogolodite customers don’t have a sense of smell.

Surely opening the doors in the daytime, doing a deep carpet clean, and a good old polish elsewhere would really help to make this venue more approachable.

There is definitely life in the old dog yet… I just wish it didn’t smell like one.

I’ll let you know if I get a response…

Often I don’t really take note of the meaning of lyrics in songs, and I just think the syllables are there to match that of the beat - however one of their songs called “With Violence” really caught my attention, not only for their interesting take on the subject matter - chavs, but also for the downright accuracy in describing these 21st century parasites. So, given my recent blogging and annoyance at this breed, I thought it was pretty damn apt to give you a chance to listen to what I think is a very very good song…

They just wanted a hit, they just needed a fix - no excuse
Can’t trust them now, can’t be left on their own - they’re liars
They’ve stolen your car, they’ve messed up your day - it’s “our” fault
Vandalising a bus, vandalising a train - it’s a “night out”.

Misunderstood in shadows, far from the path they should take
I can’t forgive their mistakes, they say it’s youth - it’s evil

To be understood with violence
Restart it and load up again, it’s only a matter of time
Before this tracksuit army disperses

Years of care down the pan, they will work where they can - it’s hopeless
Vandalising a bus, vandalising a train - it’s a “night out”
I can’t forgive their mistakes, hey say it’s youth, it’s evil

To be understood with violence
Restart it and load up again, it’s only a matter of time
Before this tracksuit army disperses

No streets are safe, all lights are out
They’re hunting in packs with their gold baseball caps
They’ll be smoking some pot by your local One Stop
They’ll spit on the floor as you walk through the door
And with their vicious stare you’ll wish that you weren’t there

Restart it and load up again, it’s only a matter of time
Before things move on, we’re tired of these wasters

Well you’ll just be driving along
They’ll be right behind you with their full beams on
Twinkle twinkle neon lights
Follow by the hisp, their pneumatic bliss

There are no words to describe how much I feel so ashamed to be part of this,
This noble nation, this standard country

They say there’s nothing to do, I say they’ve got no clue - try reading
They just wanted a hit, I’ll give you a tip - they’re northern
They say it’s youth, it’s evil

To be understood with violence
Restart it and load up again, it’s only a matter of time
Before this tracksuit army disperses

A seal is then supplied to the user provided their web-site passes a number of stringent tests, which verifies everything from website security and encryption, the authenticity of postal addresses and telephone numbers - and it ensures the company is fully legitimate in terms of their T’s & C’s, Privacy Policy, Returns Policy, delivery schedule, and correct VAT and Company information.

A ShopperGuard seal benefits both the web surfers, and also the company whose website the seal is on. Firstly IBM-gathered statistics in 2006 showed that “70% of shoppers only use sites that display a security protection seal” - therefore I’d consider it crazy as a business to not get a seal and risk only converting 3 out of every 10 customers.

Indeeed, it’s the difference of conversion rate that sells the ShopperGuard concept, and we’re currently pulling in the final batches data to convey the effctiveness of this logo - as it is most definitely making differences to the sites we’re currently testing. We’ve got a number of clients on board at the moment, and one of the guys at Simply Bar Stools has been giving us estimates of 14-15% improvement since its inception.

So, it’s good for the business - but, decisively, it’s also essential for the customer. Seeing a security seal such as ShopperGuard is reassuring, and it provides peace of mind that they are shopping at a kosher company! With the confidence in our seal, the user will spend less time checking the identity of the company and more time deciding what to buy - which can only be a good thing for both parties.

A simple click of the seal will open a window which shows them the authenticty of the web-site. Plus, it has been designed in such a way that the seal can not be forged easily. We’ve got a number of different logo options to choose from, and as the service comes in at a much cheaper rate than other companies such as Hacker Safe, ISIS and Trust Guard - everything points to our product becoming a huge success. Will let you know more about it when it is live!

In the meantime, any inconsistencies or errors throughout the site would be appreciated, as this baby is going live this year…

Check out Abbey-Models, it’s a webiste which was created in no time - and it lists a number of Ebay auctions on the site from a chosen category, in this case, collectible cars. On this occasion, I have manually gone in to the code and ensured that only the sellers own listings actually feature on this site - but the whole purpose of the software is to embrace all sellers, and list categories and sub-categories on a niche subject. Your affiliate ID is inserted into the URL that sends the user off to Ebay, and then you gain commission on every Ebay item which is subsequently purchased.

However the beauty in this really revolves around the fact that the EBay listings on your page are shown as HTML and therefore searchable by the search engines. A lot of Ebay’s own scripts that they offer for affiliate marketing come in the form of Javascripts, which do not do the user any favours in terms of optimising their pages.

Similarly, a plethora of neatly worded articles can be easily imported in to the site, and, together with an intelligent Adwords campaign, building plenty of incoming links for natural SEO, this would provide an instant hit. The success stories I’ve already heard from this are staggering, so it is definitely worth checking out!

Not because she’s good at acting, but because she must have the patience of a saint, especially with the rubbish story lines that she is given. I’m convinced that if you were a fly on the wall in her dressing room, like clockwork, you would be able to hear a sigh of resignation every morning as she picks up the script only to realise that once again she is burdened with the task of taking part in more meaningless pub chat in the Rovers.

This woman, whatever her name is, does this day after day, and probably gets paid something like 50K for it too. The role is plain awful, and it is something pretty must any old biddie could do ad hoc.

Similarly, character-wise, apart from having a long lost husband - I don’t know anything about her.  I mean, does the poor cow live in the Rovers or what? I know she cooks a mean hot pot but thats about it! Granted, the actress and the character is old, but even still, I’m sure she’d appreciate something more challenging than taking yet another G&T order off Rita.

Her and Emily Bishop must wonder what they’ve done wrong.

Given that chavs are recognisable from their crater-face skin and their general disgusting-ness, I have now taken a dislike to this kind of attire, as quite frankly, I do not want to be one of them. What are they going to copy next?

I have added the htoamil domain to be a domain alias of blastedthing, so that if you type in the former, you would arrive at the latter - however the user would still see the htoamil.co.uk domain name in their address bar. Rather than use an ugly but simple framed redirection, you can use a domain alias, which enables the user to browse through the pages on htoamil.co.uk, and the page and file names in the URL mirror exactly what it would on blastedthing, but it retains the htoamil.co.uk domain!

By the way, at this point I should mention that the reason for buying the htoamil.co.uk address was simple - the amount of internet users who over-enthusiastically access their email only to spell Hotmail wrong is incredible.

But thats beside the point! The whole domain aliasing subject got me thinking. As we know, by using PHP, it is possible to read the address bar, and display different contents based on what the URL is. For example, as you can see with htoamil.co.uk, renting-advice.com, blastedthing.co.uk, or any of the other domain names that I’ve got - the site title is different for each one. So we are getting the same site on the web with slightly different characteristics - enough for Google to think it is a separate site perhaps….

As well as this being ideal for SEO, it also paves the way for new ideas. I mean, why stop with changing the site title only? Why not integrate colour changes, logo differences, textual changes too? I could implement these and lots of other functions which would effectively produce different looking sites with the same content.

That’s got me thinking, I’m off to play with Magento…