Here’s a couple of recent posts from my alter ego, Ring Alpha, about the recent web development I’ve been doing recently.
These are exciting times and the move away from games is welcome right now given how bad 2010 has been, here’s looking forwards to 2011.
I have also been working for a while now on a commissioned online accountancy package, provisionally called ‘Uno‘. The work is entirely developed by Ring Alpha.
Uno is to be used by an Account partnership to roll out as a public face to their clients and for their internal accounting and auditing purposes. Beyond this we envisage the software being made available to other accountancy firms to roll out to their clients.
The online accounting is specifically targeted at UK small business, soul traders and contractors and the final product will be rolled out mid-2011. The software is specifically written for UK tax law and is also backed up by a group of professional accountants to ensure a complete service.
The emphasis of the online accounting software is to provide a simple, error free way for business to perform simple book keeping whilst maintaining the level of detail and logging that accountancy requires in order to do their diligent work. The supporting Accountants can move the data into more comprehensive packages such as Sage for complete analysis.
It features areas dedicated to:
The software itself is written on a robust and secure PHP framework called Code Igniter with many custom written enhancements to improve authentication and security to ensure the data is kept very safe from prying eyes. The site also includes Google’s reCAPTCHA authentication to further enhance security.
The user interface is built using good design principles and incorporates the latest UI technology such as jQuery to ensure a great experience.
Uno, the online accountancy software will be ready during 2011 so watch this space for more information.
If you have a blog with affiliated links, you will eventually run into link hijacking. It does not matter if you are writing about poster printing or computer programing, this is problem that every blogger will face. In order to prevent someone else from taking the money for your affiliated links, you will need to cloak the links that come and go from your site. There are many plugins available for WordPress, but here are some of the best.
If you want to mask your affiliated links, make your links on Twitter come from your own domain, tack clicks from emails, and spread links on forums and comments on blogs, then Pretty Link is the best option for you. You can also upgrade to Pretty Link Pro so that you can have the capability to automate your Pretty Link creation.
WP Marketer is a free plugin for WordPress that will manage your affiliated links all in one tool. You won’t have to use multiple tools to manage your inventory, set up ads in posts and landing pages, or track your results. With WP Marketer, you will have more control than ever before.
Link Hopper is very useful for managing your affiliated links. You can make changes in one location and Link Hopper will then also make this change throughout your site for you.
“Slightly Advanced Computer Stuff (and some magic),” according to W-Shadow. This link cloaking plugin for WordPress will cloak your outgoing links on any of your pages or posts. You choose which links and when.
Max Blog Press Ninja Affiliate
Ninja Affiliate contains common WordPress affiliate plugin features: link autolinking, customer styling for links, and link stats. It also offers the ability to hide links in a browser’s status bar, creating subgroups for link sets and grouping links.
In order to avoid loosing your commissions, choose Eclipse Cloaker to cloak your links automatically. This plugin will also let you control the link cloaking and track link stats so that you know where you are making the most money. It is compatible with all browsers and provides free upgrades.
This plugin specializes in “in-text” advertising. With Instant WordPress Link, you can count clicks, style custom links, autolink to pages, track conversion, shorten URLs, and much more. Created by the well-known plugin developer, Tricks and Tips HQ, Instant WordPress Link is one that you can rely on for quality.
No matter what your topic, your blog should be free of worry. Keep your blog safe from hijackers by cloaking links, and add value with the many other features that come along with link cloaking plugins.
It’s been quite a long time since I posted about Game Production as I’ve been focusing my efforts on my new venture ‘Ring Alpha‘ where I’m currently focusing on making my own video games and collaborating with other indie developers around the world.
It’s pretty obvious that the UK games industry has been in a massive state of flux for the last 2 years and there’s no sign of this slowing down anytime soon. I’ve been caught in the midst of this shift and personally suffered a few times this year but it’s not stopped me yet. Right now I have lost faith in the large traditional companies who are really struggling to redirect their oil-tanker like ideas and my only desire is to work with Indie developers right now.
We’ve seen the fallout from these changes and there have been massive lay-offs this year as we’ve seen some of the UKs biggest developer close their days and the upshot of this is that the job market is crowded with lots of developers looking for fewer and fewer jobs. The failing game developers have been left to rot before the vultures swoop in and pick over the carcases looking for tasty morsels of IP and down on their luck developers.
The makeup of a typical team means that production/management roles are few and far between and what few there are have many applicants, which of course means that salaries get driven lower and lower as it’s essentially a buyers market.
On the flip-side skilled, experienced programmers who can work onsite are a rarity. There is opportunity out there if you can work hard and find it.
On a more personal note, unlike most Production staff I have always kept my programming skills up-to-date and I’m now taking advantage of this to make my own games and collaborate with others around the world via sites like oDesk, Elance and PeoplePerHour. At the moment I’m concurrently developing games for iOS devices and also HTML5 and I find the experience invigorating and pain-free.
What I have witnessed and experienced by engaging with the global development community is that the UK remains are very expensive location to make games and if you’re able to work with a global sparse team that you direct accurately and manage efficiently then there are thousands of people out there who can bring your game to life (me included).
All things said, 2010 has been a painful year for me personally but I’m over it now and I feel like I’ve escaped the cul-de-sac of ‘traditional’ game development and joined the mainstream, even though it’s a little belated.
So, it’s back to work, heads down, making things happen.
Thanks.
Hi, my name is Simeon Pashley and I'd like to introduce you to my blog. I've been professionally developing software since 1986. After an extensive career in Game Development, I switched to Web Development in 2010.
I work full-time as CTO, CIO, CMO for food ecommerce business Approved Food and I'm an acting Director for web developer Ring Alpha.
I also own & operate WriteDaily
