i'm peter
i love the internet and creating websites is my passion.

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I love the internet, it says so on the main part of my site, so to me nothing is more enjoyable than being able to do work on the internet whilst on the move. Bring in my iPad. It’s brilliant for doing so and I’m going to share with you the contents of my “Web Development” folder.

 

First app up is Bamboo Paper

 

 

 

  This is pretty much your very own sketchpad. You boot the app up and you’re greeted with a book. Open the book and it’s the first page of your sketchbook. Draw, design, erase, colour, write. Just let your creative juices of your next big website design flow through your finger and appear on the screen without having a pencil and paper. Even better is that this app allows you to share your sketches. You can Email the page as an image, which is perfect for sending to clients if they want a quick copy of your ideas. There is also the option to save the page as a photo, or print the page. Fantastic app and definitely one I recommend to those always on the move.

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  Next up is Dropbox

 

   

 

I use this app to share files with clients. It lets you see documents that you have on your computer at home whilst on the move. Uploading the files to your private dropbox folder from your home computer, you can access them all whilst out and about, or even give other people access to your files. Sharing files with others is simple and can be done in seconds.

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Gusto

 

 

 

For my next choice of Web development apps I have chosen Gusto. Gusto is an app which allows you access to your online websites whilst on the move. Set it up with your servers through FTP and you can download or upload your website files right to/from your iPad. What’s better is that it then allows you to edit your text files. This is brilliant if you have to make really urgent changes to your site, but don’t have access to a computer. Certainly one of my favourite apps to have.

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Got a really bad memory? Reminders app is one that can help you with that.  

 

 

Set it up to remind you of things that you need to do during the day. It allows you to also mark tasks as completed. This can be very handy as a workflow to show the progress you are making through a project and what other parts still need worked on.

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The next is the standard Notes app.

 

Meeting a client, but forgot to take a pen and paper? Use this handy app to keep yourself organised with questions you want to ask and then type up their answers using the handy on screen keyboard. It’s a notepad app, pretty much speaks for itself.

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Last but not least is my latest discovery CodeToGo

 

   

 

If like me you are teaching yourself Java or another programming language, it can be frustrating to be reading your book, but unable to do the practical parts as you can’t access a computer. This app is perfect for this. Supporting an impressive list of languages, this app will let you write java (or any code you need to work on) on your ipad. Not only that but it takes it one step further by also letting your run your code. I have only tested this using really basic Java code, like the standard “Hello World” and other basics, but I was definitely pleased with the results. One app I will definitely be looking forward to using over the coming months. Right so that’s my roundup of the apps in my “Web Development” iPad folder. Hopefully it’s given you an idea of the apps out there in app store. Until next time folks….

 

 

 

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I am far too cool. Just figured out that I can hangout whilst also doing my normal browsing at the same time.

When I was browsing the internet and wanting to use the hangout feature I had to switch between windows, which became quite a pain in the backside.

Then I remembered that I have an iPad. So I booted up my airdisplay app on the ipad and set it up as a second monitor which means I can now have my hangout window displaying to my right and my normal browsing window on my macbook.

Lag appears minimal and is definitely a solution to those who can’t be bothered flicking in between windows and have access to an iPad.

The application I used was “Air Display” which can be bought athttp://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/air-display/id368158927?mt=8, There are plenty of Dual Display applications around, this is the only one that I managed to test with.

It’s really simple to get it set up, but if you have any problems then just give me a shout.

Share this one if you think it’s worthwhile. I’d appreciate it.

Well I’ve been fortunate enough to have had access to the very sought after Google+ beta for around a day now and during this time I’ve been playing about with it to get a good feel for what’s been portrayed as my possible new home.

Google+, which I shall refer to as G+ from now on, is the much anticipated “Facebook killing” social network brought to us by search engine giants, Google. It comes in the wake of two failed recent attempts to bring something new to the internet with Buzz and Wave, which never really took off at all, if I’m honest.

This however had my eyes and ears perking up as soon as I was given the nod to enter Internet Nirvana. I was treated to a clean UI and a clean slate to run amock with. This was soon spoiled by the realization that nobody else I knew had G+ and using the “Hang Out” feature isn’t really as fun when you’re just hanging out by yourself.

So I began to send out invites to my friends, which Google soon put a stop to by capping invites (temporarily, I hope). This gave me the chance to have a proper play with the features on offer.

Circles

Circles allow you to categorize your friends into groups based on how you know them. You can name these circles as anything you wish and as far as I’m aware you can have as many friends within a circle as you wish. Even better is you can put a circle within a circle if you have contacts that would be included into multiple categories.

 

 

I had a lot of fun with this and as you can see not many people that I know have signed up yet, but they’ll get in once the invites re-open.

 

The next feature that I had a play with was Sparks

 

Sparks

This is your place to add your interests and have the latest news/information about these in your feed ready for you to read. I will say that I found it rather unstructured, as a lot of the information/news appears to be old and picked at random. I’m yet to find any information that I enjoyed reading about in Sparks. So for the moment I’m leaving this bit until I figure out the rest of G+.

 

Next up was The Hangout

 

This bit was my favourite although for a while I had nobody to hang out with. Once you do it can be pretty fun, although every time I tried it, my hangout partner kept losing connection.

 

The hangout feature is basically a place where you can just webcam chat with your friends and display that you’re hanging out to different circles. It has the potential to be something great. A sort of mini web-conference for your friends, business meetings and anything else you can think of using it for. Post suggestions in comments.

 

 

The Feed

 

This is your main connection with your contacts and is as standard as the “Facebook” feed. The only difference with this at the moment is that the most popular posts are pinned to the top, which is pretty rubbish if I’m honest. It is in the process of being ironed out by the techy folks over at G+, to get it changed into something a lot more user friendly. Get this part sorted and I can guarantee that G+ will be a very hot contender to taking over Facebook. Oh and once there are more users allowed in of course.

 

Overall I’d say that G+ is a stunningly simple social network of the future and will certainly be more of a hit than Google’s previous attempt to topple Facebook. Whether it will manage to is a different story. One which I will be very interested to see the outcome of.

 

Feel free to add me on Google plus or leave a comment if you would like an invite sent across once they are live again.