tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:24:32 +0000iPhoneA blog for chatting about the development and running of the <a href="http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/">www.pubsgalore.co.uk</a> websitehttp://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/noreply@blogger.com (Conrad)Blogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-4534197697327631033Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:16:00 +00002010-08-27T14:27:47.135+01:00iPhoneHaving just got myself an iPhone I have been playing round with the apps on the app store, there is loads of fun to be had on there, and thank goodness for the various review sites that point out some of the goodies.One that particularly caught my attention was Layar (iTunes link)(Android Market), it is an augmented reality application. This is a category of application that lets you look http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/11/having-just-got-myself-iphone-i-have.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-2092709836962144756Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:26:00 +00002009-10-13T13:47:27.542+01:00There has been a lot of publicity surrounding Twitter, with even the government jumping on the band wagon.We have actually seen a few pubs making excellent use of it though, and now we are showing the latest Tweet a pub has made where we know about them. These will also link out to the pubs Twitter feed. I think the best use I have seen for this is to allow the pubs to give updates of the Ales http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/10/twitter-feeds.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-3491900160559211962Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:10:00 +00002009-09-09T12:17:52.144+01:00Just a quick reminder to check out our forums.Historian is currently trying to get some life into them with what I would say is best described as an introductions thread.Our forums have suffered a lot from the lack of chatty users on the site, for forums to work they really need a critical mass of users who are willing to chat. For this reason we have not pushed them too hard. I think we are http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/09/dont-forget-forum.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-2277359907693636860Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:31:00 +00002009-08-27T16:08:33.469+01:00Today we have removed the restriction on review size, so to all our verbose and artistic reviewers, go mad!We have recently had a complaint about the size we allow our reviews to be and also have noticed that a number of our members are struggling to keep under the letter limit (mostly pub owners promoting their service).To be honest I dismissed the complaint as it was a member writing an http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/08/longer-reviews.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-3196830021674244940Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:53:00 +00002009-08-09T01:21:38.804+01:00We have finally improved the search on the site. It has long been a weak link on the site, and is still not perfect, but is at least finally useful.Previously if you wanted to find the Red Lion in Bristol you had to search for Red Lion and then filter by Bristol, Now you can just search for Red Lion, Bristol and the search will return all the matches. The new search will also do its best to http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/08/improved-search.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-2396698729761899269Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:47:00 +00002009-07-29T17:08:29.577+01:00We have just released a new version of the Pubs web site.Key changes are that the pubs page is now under the new design, and a pictures page has been created.The new pub page is pretty much the same in functionality as the old pub page, but rather than having a stream of images down the right, we are just showing 1 from a randomly chosen contributor. This has been prompted with us now having http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/07/showing-off-pictures.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-6736390186384445115Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:10:00 +00002009-07-27T13:19:49.642+01:00Following on from my last post moaning about some marketing tactics employed by Vintage Inns. We noticed that one of Pubs Galore's fantastic members has been to and posted a review of the Titchfield Mill in Fareham. He also gave it a very respectable review, and far more meaningful than the fabricated review previously posted in the Vintage Inn deluge.Well done to the Titchfield Mill for it's http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/07/marketeers-who-needs-them.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-5654191491905976635Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:14:00 +00002009-07-22T15:41:57.135+01:00We have just been watching an amusing pattern forming on Pubs Galore, and I thought I would amuse myself and possibly others by blogging about it.We regularly see Landlords review their own pubs, and the more credible ones admit in their review that they are the owners. We are happy for owners to review their pubs, but do hope they will say in their reviews they are the owners, personally I http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/07/marketeers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-6937148848339273514Tue, 19 May 2009 10:52:00 +00002009-05-19T12:27:02.246+01:00We have just released a new version of the town pages. This is quite a major update that implements a lot of changes suggested to us. Firstly though if you spot anything that looks wrong to you, please let us know, with a change like this it is hard to be confident we have not made any mistakes in the release and we may need to iron some stuff out.This release follows the trend of adding Google http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/05/new-town-pages.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-6313211758408606606Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:46:00 +00002009-04-21T15:59:32.703+01:00We have just released the new versions of the Country and County pages.They are quite fancy and have very tight integration with Google Maps. It looks very nice and we are quite chuffed with it, but if you are having any problems with it let us know so that we can keep improving it.Update:We have added some lo-band versions just in case your computer is having problems, on the town or county http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/04/some-page-updates.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-5342497836675045654Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:45:00 +00002009-04-20T12:46:54.782+01:00Tomorrow (21st April) the pubs galore site will be disabled for maintenance for about 30 mins from 2 O'Clock.Sorry about any inconvenience caused.http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/04/early-warning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-2096906077485009693Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:48:00 +00002009-04-03T16:40:01.081+01:00Well I know I promised we would be rolling the new design out, but nothing new has appeared with it. I am working on it in my spare time but it is proving to be a devil.The next page we want to roll out is the country (England, Wales, Scotland, & N. Ireland) page, and with it a new town page. We have it in mind that we are going to do away with the very nice pictures of the UK that we are http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/04/so-where-is-it-then.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-3814891297809357171Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:30:00 +00002009-03-20T16:10:28.338ZWe are always interested to hear what people would like to see on the Pubs Galore site. And even more pleased when we see the site mentioned in a positive light (so please do that more often). We did notice ourselves mentioned in a topic on the CAMRA forums (dubiously under the title 'Bogus pub sites'), in general they have posted us in a positive light which is nice.Anyway we couldn't resist http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/03/pub-sites.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-315382732627821905Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:42:00 +00002009-03-13T12:35:50.348ZI have been quiet on my blog for a while now, part of this is because we have not done much with Pubs Galore. Although in the time I wasn't updating my blog we did release one big feature, listing beer festivals.The beer festival listings were suggested by one of the sites regular contributor's. It was something we had toyed with before but it kept getting sidelined, once it was requested http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/03/beer-festivals.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-1156042098586732324Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:39:00 +00002009-03-06T14:04:16.063ZIf you are reading this you have hopefully seen our new page design on the title page. Please do let us know what you think of it as we are keen to correct it if it isn't right.For a long time now we have wanted a new design for the page. The previous design (still in use on most of the site) whilst being very pretty and holding a great deal of sentimental value has been reaching its http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2009/03/new-page-design.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-7656081677870969946Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:40:00 +00002008-09-22T17:55:12.533+01:00Sadly I have not been doing any development on Pubs Galore for a while, I have been too busy. Which is a real pity as we have had some excellent new contributors on the site to mention a few Graham Mason, Peter Ashworth and T Valtojos (but there have been many more and we appreciate you all) have all been contributing regularly since just appearing on the site, which is fantastic to see.I have http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/09/doing-well.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-679423292251416982Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:30:00 +00002008-09-08T17:14:11.469+01:00In the past we have put a lot of work into trying to stop the site turning into a complaints web site. Things like calling reviews recommendations to try and give them a positive onus. We have begun to relax some of these ideas to try and get more reviews as we recognise that this is an area where our site is less productive.Despite this we still require that users are members before they can http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/09/bad-reviews.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-2693199806667028952Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:40:00 +00002008-09-01T14:24:04.786+01:00We had a regular contributor ask us this week why we had taken more than a week to approve some of their pictures and why we were rejecting so many of their pub contributions when they weren't being reported on postcode match.They were actually different issues but both demonstrate that work goes on after every contribution to the site. Pictures at their most basic level do need approving, way http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/09/in-background.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-1779707040802782453Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:56:00 +00002008-08-27T14:04:01.052+01:00I was a bit disturbed to read about this local pub in our local rag. I haven't actually been to this pub so can't comment on its merits. It is a pity to see that it is being closed down and sold on with a restriction on its use, apparently the pubco that owns it is concerned that it will compete with their other pubs. As if pubs weren't under enough threat already, they are now using this http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/08/cutting-your-nose-off-to-spite-your.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-475197395719476524Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +00002008-08-18T17:08:58.251+01:00Been a bit under the weather for the last week and seemed to have spent most of it sleeping. So really don't have much to write about, alough after last weeks rant I was amused by one of our members who let me know that the Isle of Man is not in England. They are of course correct, however redoing the Flash map of England and creating an International concept on the site are an equally big taskhttp://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/08/man-flu.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-5347144412763711446Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:27:00 +00002008-08-09T21:02:11.824+01:00Time for a bit of a rant.We get a lot of feedback on Pubs Galore, and it is all interesting. In the last week we have had a couple that rake over an old issue though, county boundaries.The site has been through a couple of generations:Initially when it was created the towns and counties were purely maintained as postal counties in the same way as the Post Office did (and still does except that http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/08/dammit-jim-its-pub-website-not.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-5001200892124385540Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:03:00 +00002008-08-01T15:15:11.556+01:00Apologies, I have gotten really bad about keeping this up to date. I am really busy and sadly not finding as much time to work on Pubs Galore as I would like. I have done a few fixes to the bits of the site we use for administration, sadly it is not the sort of thing that would impress our regular users though.We are still seeing a steady flow of new users to the site, so thank you to all of http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/08/sorry-sorry-sorry.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-711103958027297181Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:20:00 +00002008-07-16T17:04:07.993+01:00Sorry I didn't write anything before going away. I seem to be really busy and sadly just don't seem to have much to write about. I am in one of those phases where I seem to be getting a lot of work thrown at me from different directions and am finding little time for the pubs website.Happily the sites users continue to be busy. We have had some excellent new reviewers join and get going, so http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/07/back-from-holiday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-73464567527557878Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:53:00 +00002008-06-27T18:03:10.754+01:00Well another week down, really not got anything to mention either. I have a holiday coming up in a couple of weeks, hopefully I can recharge my batteries and be a bit more imaginative about my blog after that.Whilst I am sadly not managing to show too much work on the site that is thankfully not slowing down our members, we are still getting a good flow of recommendations, pictures, links and http://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/06/i-cant-think-of-anything.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-1001319933028551402Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:08:00 +00002008-06-20T17:15:50.531+01:00Sorry I haven't been posting, my personal aim is to do at least 2 posts a week, I have recently been at a loss for things to write sadly. So if anyone has something they want me to ramble about feel free to post suggestions on the pubs galore feedback, forums or on this blog.I have continued to work on the ability to add beer festivals, they are slowly getting there, although I still need to dohttp://blog.pubsgalore.co.uk/2008/06/unreliable-me.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Conrad)0