May 27 2010
Scrum & Agile 0 comments
Introduction to Agile Development and Scrum | Life On Lars

Introduction to Agile Development and Scrum

If you’ve ever been involved in web, application or software development or any kind of media production or IT project then chances are you’ve run into some sort of methodology or project management methods. You might be familiar with PRINCE2, PMI and the Waterfall Model. In some cases companies also develop their own internal project methodologies or cusomise or adapt existing methodologies to fit their own structure with varying degrees of success. If you are familiar with any of these methods you may also have reconised that a lot of their principles often don’t work as well when internal and external requirements as well as market conditions frequently change. This is very often the case when dealing with website development and web application development projects and perhaps even more so with mobile application development projects. If some of this sounds familiar then perhaps it’s time for you to have closer look at Agile Development. In this article we’ll cover the basics of Agile and in particular a at Scrum.

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May 5 2010
SEO, WordPress 0 comments
WordPress SEO 101: 5 Easy Steps for Better WP SEO | Life On Lars

WordPress SEO 101: 5 Easy Steps for Better WP SEO

WordPress offers pretty good basic SEO by default and by spending a bit of time focusing on a few additional areas your on-page and on-site SEO will gain a significant boost. If you’re creating a new site, creating a new design and theme for an existing site or just updating your current theme to be a bit more SEO friendly the principles are pretty much the same. If you already have a working site and theme then don’t worry most of the following SEO tweaks can be done with a few code snippets and plugins added to your existing WordPress site. This article will cover 5 optimisation areas that will improve your WordPress on-page and on-site SEO.

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Apr 21 2010
XBMC & HTPC 0 comments
6 Things to look forward to in XBMC Media Center 10.05 | Life On Lars

6 Things to look forward to in XBMC Media Center 10.05

The latest release of XBMC (9.11 Camelot) was a major milestone for the media centre with regards to both stability and usability. The release stabilised and improved a lot of the core features, vastly improved the skinning engine and came with a completely new and much improved default look and feel.

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Apr 18 2010
XBMC & HTPC 0 comments
Building an HTPC – Part 4: Media Center Software | Life On Lars

Building an HTPC – Part 4: Media Center Software

Without a solid media center software your HTPC wouldn’t be much more than a regular PC hooked up to your TV. If you are desperate you could resort to using Windows Media Center, but you HTPC could be so much more and it won’t cost you anything apart from a bit of time and perhaps an ounce of dedication. There are several great open source alternatives to Windows Media Center available and the one I finally decided on was XBMC Media Center.

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Apr 18 2010
XBMC & HTPC 0 comments
Building an HTPC – Part 3: Peripherals, controlling your HTPC | Life On Lars

Building an HTPC – Part 3: Peripherals, controlling your HTPC

Having an HTPC hooked up to your TV just isn’t the same unless you’ve got an efficient and simple way of controlling it from the couch. The whole idea of an HTPC is to have access to all your media at your fingertips and getting off the couch sort of defeats that purpose. There are many different gadgets and peripherals you can buy to enhance your living room experience and give you greater control of your HTPC. At the very minimum you’ll want a remote control and/or a wireless keyboard.

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Feb 19 2010
XBMC & HTPC 0 comments
Building an HTPC – Part 2: Components and hardware | Life On Lars

Building an HTPC – Part 2: Components and hardware

Choosing the right hardware for your needs. When choosing the components for your HTPC you should first consider what you will be using your HTPC for.

  • Do you plan to play full HD 1080p content?
  • Do you plan to play games?
  • Do you plan to record TV programmes?

You don’t need the hardware of a revved up gaming computer just to watch HD content but if you plan on playing some newer games then you’ll probably want to invest a bit more in components. For slower systens there is now an ideal (and cheap) hardware solution to provide smoother 1080p playback even on slower machines, it’s called Broadcom Crystal HD. Check out the Broadcom website for more details.
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Feb 16 2010
Design Toolbox 0 comments
5 must have free browser tools for web designers & developers | Life On Lars

5 must have free browser tools for web designers & developers

Most designers have a set favourite tools they turn to for day to day design tasks. In addition to the more traditional design tools like Photoshop and Dreamweaver some little applications add-on or integrate straight into your browser without the need to use a separate application, allowing you to skip a few steps and streamline your workflow. Most of these tools make daily tasks easier whilst others are simply so great that you can’t comprehend how you survived without them. Here are the top 5 browser tools in my design toolbox.
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Feb 11 2010
XBMC & HTPC 0 comments
Building an HTPC – Part 1: Overview, Aesthetics and Noise | Life On Lars

Building an HTPC – Part 1: Overview, Aesthetics and Noise

Over the past decade computers have slowly but surely crept their way into the living rooms of more than just uber geeks. I’ve wanted to build a dedicated HTPC for ages but I’ve never felt the timing was quite right, until now. Full HD TV’s are dirt cheap, the computer hardware required to run and store 1080p is cheaper and more readily available than ever. Recent graphic cards that have HDMI output supporting 7.1 surround sound means that you can easily assemble an HTPC with a single cable connecting to the TV. Hard drives cheap and big enough to support even the most ambitious media collections. My childhood dream of having access to a massive media archive at my fingertips is almost a reality; no more having to search for that elusive DVD missing from it’s cover to watch something

Building your own HTPC is not that different from putting together a regular computer, but there are some things you should keep in mind.

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Feb 10 2010
SEO 0 comments
SEO 101: Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation | Life On Lars

SEO 101: Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is a set of techniques and methods aimed at improving and optimising the ranking of a website for particular search terms in natural search engine results.

Having a well designed functional website is great, however it will do you little good if nobody can find it.
Regardless of what you are trying to achieve with your website you will always need traffic; and the largest source of website traffic will almost always come from search engines. In order to increase the amount of traffic your website receives from search engines your site needs to rank well for relevant search terms across multiple search engines.

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Feb 9 2010
WordPress 0 comments
Remote blogging with the WP iphone app | Life On Lars

Remote blogging with the WP iphone app

Having used WordPress on and off for a number of years and only recently jumped on the iPhone bandwagon it was more or less a given that I had to try the WordPress iPhone app. The app is very easy to setup and supports multiple WP blogs.

Convenience for being able to blog wherever you are does however come at the cost of several core features. Realistically though I doubt you’ll be churning out novel length posts this way but it does have some uses for basic admin tasks and micro-blogging.

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