Database Design for Business - Part 3 Working with the designer

Now that you have decided who is writing your database we move onto the database writing phase.
The database designer might initially start work on his own premises and only later in the project will he start working on site. When the writing phase begins make sure that you have a desk and internet connection available for the use of your designer. Remember you want him working not looking for somewhere to plug in. Make sure you have introduced him to all the relevant personnel he will have to deal with and that they know what level of cooperation with him that is required.
When the designer asks for information make sure it is provided promptly and accurately. A proffessional data designer should be extremely trustworthy and safe to entrust access to your data. A database designer who allowed information to escape would not be designing databases for long. A non-disclosure agreement might be applied to business processes to prevent your database designer selling the same system to one of your competitors.

Payment should be made on agreed targets being met. This is where your initial description of what you want done is very important. Most database designers will not embark on a project until an initial deposit is paid typically 20-30%. The designer should have a design path laid out with key completion points and payment schedule inbuilt.

Reporting design is where you will have the biggest input. Remember these reports are why you wanted the database in the first place. Specify the information you want to see before you tell the designer how you want it to look. If it has to fit in with a corporate style make sure the designer has access to the necessary graphics files.

Make sure the designer has all the contact details of the personnel involved in the project. A good practice is to set up an internal blog that everybody involved has access to. This can used by the designer to document the development process also.

I know I have said he and him for the designer, who could in fact be female.

Irish Mortgage Brokers mop up Cork

.. and Kerry,Limerick, Tipperary, and in fact the whole of Ireland. Mortgages brokers in Ireland now supply approximately 70% of mortgages sold in the country.
The number of people re-mortgaging or switching their mortgages to new lenders in Ireland has grown dramatically . These now account for 15.5% of the total number of new mortgages in Ireland. The highest figure of all time.
The mortgage brokers are paid by commision from the lender and do not charge fees to their customers. For anybody considoring taking out a mortgage in Ireland an obvious first stop would be to visit one of these mortgage brokers, many of which are online and provide lots of information and calculators. One of the better mortgage brokers in cork has a very comprehesive selection of downloads.

Database Design for Business - Part 2 Instructing the designer

There are two elements to this first appoint the right designer and second communicate your database design ideas to them.

The database designer should understand your basic business processes and not try to add extra processes you do not do already, unless of course you are introducing new practices. To acheive this they should be prepared to visit you at your premises and look at existing practices and figure out how they will impliment your new system, assuming that they think they can. If they suggest that you need extra hardware or software ask them why they are needed.

If you communicate your design idea effectivly to the designer you can more easily set a fixed price. If your ideas are a bit vague so will the pricing. Write a detailed list of the differant elements that your idea requires. (Customer List - Name, Adress,telephone, e-mail, Accounts ref,fax, delivery addresses, e-mail preferance,credit limit, etc,) Show the calculations that you need to do on the data, and do mock ups of the reports you would like.

The designer should be able to tell you when they can start your project and how long it will take. They should be available to train you and your staff if necessary. There will more then likely be some issues and unforseen circumstances that will need to be patched up when the system goes live. Will the database designer be able to offer remote assistance or onsite help?

Get the designer to show you some other projects they have completed. Try and see more then one designer! Some designers speciallise in differant industry sectors but this is not something that you should give to much weight to, as long as your designer understands your business processes.

Next we will look at the technology choices available in Part 3.

Database Design for Business - Part 1 Getting ready

Define and Refine and then Define again

Ok so you have a problem that you think you can solve by getting a database written.

Well the first step in having your own database is to define the problem/task you want it to do. This requires more then an outline of the problem/task. As databases are just a method of dealing with various bits of information, this means looking at everypiece of information that you will need for your project. Where does the information come from? What calculations need to be done on this information? Where is this information going? Do we need to print anything? Are we publishing to a webserver?
At the early stage of development we need to look at how many users there will be on the system?
How many different transactions will we be recording? How critical the system will be when it is in place? This information will help us to decide which platform to use. By platform I mean the program you or your database designer will use to design your database. The platform or database management system (DBMS) is computer software designed for the purpose of managing databases. Typical examples of DBMSs include Oracle, DB2, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and FileMaker. DBMSs are typically used by Database designers in the creation of Database systems.

Here are the top 10 things to do if you are considering buying/building your own database.

Be realistic about the number of users, transactions, etc, and about how the workload will grow in the future. There is no point using a huge Rolls Royce engine when a small Honda will do, and equally a small Honda when you really need a big Jet engine.

Keep focused on exactly the immediate job it needs to do. Don't add unnecessary bells and whistles. The most successful databases are the ones that kill those little repetitive jobs that eat up you and your staffs time.

Format the data to a form that can be easily incorporated into your other systems.

Draw a diagram of how the data is collected and input
(Jim in the warehouse enters the incoming delivery details into a form on his computer, the database interrogates the clocking in machine, whatever.)
Continue the diagram to show what happens to this information
(Ann in accounts matches incoming invoices with Jim's delivery notes, The database works out wages based on a table of employees and their pay rates.)
Then show the output of the database
(A report is emailed to the MD to tell him the value of uninvoiced deliveries in the warehouse, the database sends weekly wage figures to the Payroll program for processing.)

Take a long look at the existing input procedures you are using (we are assuming they are successful) What parts of the process can be speeded up? (Is Jim in the warehouse having to type in the same address 30 times a day?) As a general rule ask the person doing the job currently what takes them the most time and invariably they will immediately describe the most boring and repetitive part of the job and is usually the first problem the database should address.

You already know the calculations you make on a daily basis and funny enough a lot of them are boring and repetitive no matter how fancy the mathematics is. So if your database can collect all the figures and variables you need for your calculations why not let it do the calculations for you.

Is the incoming information accurate? Does the database need to enforce any rules on the incoming data?

How many people will be using the system, Where are they using the system from? How secure is my information?

Different levels of access to reports and information.(Does Jim in the warehouse need to know what you are paying for stock?)

Know what benefits you are bringing to your company if the system works as you imagine. (Increases in productivity, lower costs, quicker process, and what that is worth in financial terms.)

If you do these things you are ready to start talking to a database designer in general terms about your project.

I will tackle this question in Part 2 Appointing a designer

Copyright 2007 node-net.com

List of PC and IT services for Leicester Users

We have updated our services list and it can be viewed below or here


Services Available from

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New PC setup
connect to internet, install anti virus and antispyware, setup browser, and email client., connect leads


Price £45

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Install Printer
Install printer on system incl. supplied software


Price £35

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PC Tune up
install up to date antivirus and antispyware, scan system,remove bad files, driver updates, recommend upgrades, keep your machine running quick


Price £45

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ADSL setup
Install adsl modem and router for single user


Price £45

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Wireless ADSL setup
Wireless ADSL router setup, security enabled, Access points


Price £60

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Data Transfer
Move files from one PC to another, move all your music,pics,data, contacts, etc to your new pc,


Price £35

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PC Upgrade installation
Install recommended upgrades,


Price £30

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Data recovery
Data recovery from damaged harddisc, backed up to CD or DVD


Price £100

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Network server setup
Set up of a Linux or Windows server 1-8 clients, datatorage,internet and email access, security


Price £350

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PC Security Analysis
PC security check, How is your firewall performing? What security issues do you need to address? Remove spyware,spy related programs, set security settings, Check PC for vulnerabilities.


Price £45

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Network security check
For networks 1-8 clients,How is your firewall performing? What security issues do you need to address? Remove spyware,spy related programs, set security settings, Check network for vulnerabilities.make recommendations


Price £280

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Domain registration and hosting
Domain registered for 1 year with fast hosting, unlimited email addresses, 100mb of webspace.


Price £150

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Web site design 4-page
Point of presence site with contact form,


Price £250

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Web design e-commerce shop
full featured e-commerce site, supporting almost all payment gateways, search engine friendly design, from


Price £1000

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Website health check
Have your website checked for search engine visibility, accessability, analytics, speed, Report and recommendations


Price £100

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Website optimisation and analytics
Website optimised for Google, Yahoo and MSN, analytics installed. Bespoke service not automated program.


Price £350

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Database Design
Bespoke database design from


Price £1000

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Pre Purchase consultation
Need to talk through what it is you need? Hardware, software, networks,services, etc, from per hour


Price £50

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Unspecific troubleshooting
We will approach almost any IT related problem. If we cant solve it we will know someone who can. From per hour


Price £50

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Available within 5 miles of Leicester City centre, Outside of Leicester travelling charges apply.

BlackBerry Pearl Software

I have come accross a great source of software for the BlackBerry range of handsets. The software is written by lots of differant companies and made available for download by Handango. Some of the software has try before you buy versions. Browsers, organisers, maps, etc., are available broken into differant catogories for easy shopping.


Blackberry Software source par excellance!

Biofuels-Taking Food from third world children

Will Biofuels cause food to be diverted from the plates of poor third world children and into the 4x4 monster fuel guzzlers "eco-friendly" bio-diesel fuel tanks?

Yes I think it will. We currently have 56 days cover for food supplies. This is not enough and will come under more pressure as agricultural land is diverted to biofuel production. Poor people in the third world will be competing directly for their food supplies with car owners in the west. Guess who will win that battle?

I came across this article by Eric Holt-Giménez which I reprint in full.

The Biofuel Myth
The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress. This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy.

But in reality, biofuel draws its power from cornucopian myths and directs our attention away from economic interests that would benefit from the transition, while avoiding discussion of the growing North-South food and energy imbalance.

They obscure the political-economic relationships between land, people, resources and food, and fail to help us understand the profound consequences of the industrial transformation of our food and fuel systems. "Agro-fuels" better describes the industrial interests behind the transformation, and is the term most widely used in the global South

Industrialized countries started the biofuels boom by demanding ambitious renewable-fuel targets. These fuels are to provide 5.75 percent of Europe's transport power by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020. The United States wants 35 billion gallons a year.

These targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the industrial North. Europe would need to plant 70 percent of its farmland with fuel crops. The entire corn and soy harvest of the United States would need to be processed as ethanol and biodiesel. Converting most arable land to fuel crops would destroy the food systems of the North, so the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries are looking to the South to meet demand.

The rapid capitalization and concentration of power within the biofuels industry is extreme. Over the past three years, venture capital investment in biofuels has increased by 800 percent. Private investment is swamping public research institutions.

Behind the scenes, under the noses of most national antitrust laws, giant oil, grain, auto and genetic engineering corporations are forming partnerships, and they are consolidating the research, production, processing and distribution chains of food and fuel systems under one industrial roof.

Biofuel champions assure us that because fuel crops are renewable, they are environment-friendly, can reduce global warming and will foster rural development. But the tremendous market power of biofuel corporations, coupled with the poor political will of governments to regulate their activities, make this unlikely. We need a public enquiry into the myths:

Biofuels are clean and green.

Because photosynthesis performed by fuel crops removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and can reduce fossil fuel consumption, we are told they are green. But when the full lifecycle of biofuels is considered, from land clearing to consumption, the moderate emission savings are outweighed by far greater emissions from deforestation, burning, peat drainage, cultivation and soil-carbon losses.

Every ton of palm oil generates 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions - 10 times more than petroleum. Tropical forests cleared for sugar cane ethanol emit 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline.

Biofuels will not result in deforestation.

Proponents of biofuels argue that fuel crops planted on ecologically degraded lands will improve rather than destroy the environment. Perhaps the government of Brazil had this in mind when it reclassified some 200 million hectares of dry-tropical forests, grassland and marshes as degraded and apt for cultivation.

In reality, these are the biodiverse ecosystems of the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado and the Pantanal, occupied by indigenous people, subsistence farmers and extensive cattle ranches. The introduction of agrofuel plantations will push these communities to the agricultural frontier of the Amazon where the devastating patterns of deforestation are well known.

Soybeans supply 40 percent of Brazil's biofuels. NASA has correlated their market price with the destruction of the Amazon rainforest - currently at nearly 325,000 hectares a year.

Biofuels will bring rural development.

In the tropics, 100 hectares dedicated to family farming generates 35 jobs. Oil-palm and sugarcane provide 10 jobs, eucalyptus two, and soybeans a scant half-job per 100 hectares, all poorly paid.

Until recently, biofuels supplied primarily local and subregional markets. Even in the United States, most ethanol plants were small and farmer-owned. With the boom, big industry is moving in, centralizing operations and creating gargantuan economies of scale.

Biofuels producers will be dependent on a cabal of companies for their seed, inputs, services, processing and sale. They are not likely to receive many benefits. Small holders will be forced out of the market and off the land. Hundreds of thousands have already been displaced by the soybean plantations in the "Republic of Soy," a 50-million hectare area in southern Brazil, northern Argentina, Paraguay and eastern Bolivia.

Biofuels will not cause hunger.

Hunger results not from scarcity, but poverty. The world's poorest already spend 50 to 80 percent of household income on food. They suffer when high fuel prices push up food prices. Now, because food and fuel crops compete for land and resources, both increase the price of land and water.

The International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated that the price of basic staples will increase 20 to 33 percent by 2010 and 26 to 135 percent by 2020. Caloric consumption declines as price rises by a ratio of 1:2.

Limits must be placed on the biofuels industry. The North cannot shift the burden of overconsumption to the South because the tropics have more sunlight, rain and arable land. If biofuels are to be forest- and food-friendly, the grain, cane and palm oil industries need to be regulated, and not piecemeal.

Strong, enforceable standards based on limiting land planted for biofuels are urgently needed, as are antitrust laws powerful enough to prevent the corporate concentration of market power in the industry. Sustainable benefits to the countryside will only accrue if biofuels are a complement to plans for sustainable rural development, not the centerpiece.

A global moratorium on the expansion of biofuels is needed to develop regulatory structures and foster conservation and development alternatives to the transition. We need the time to make a better transition to food and fuel sovereignty.

Eric Holt-Giménez is executive director of the Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. This article was distributed by Agence Global.

Sothink DHTML Menu reviewed

I have used Sothink DHTML Menu on the redesign of my www.node-net.com website and found it a very useful tool. Unlike some DHTML menu generation programs it works well across all the major browsers. This menu also generates text links so it is fairly search engine friendly. Have a go with the free trial version here. Alternatively you can buy it here.

E-mail Marketing

I have been using a mailing program called Constant Contact. It comes with ready made templates and a built in tracking system. Was the email opened, forwarded, bounced, clicked through, all this information is available in real time for the email marketer. It is a relatively inexpensive solution and complies with spamming regulation. It allows recipients to easily unsuscribe. For mailing lists from 50 to 2500 the service costs about £15 per month. If you want to present a professional imagre through email then this is the product for you.

Lies or Help in Madeleine case?

The BBC: Outright lies or shoddy reporting

The 1.00pm BBC television news reported that the findmadeleine.com website had fifty million hits. Because as it is an emotional subject I would let that pass.

However from the Times online today

Calum MacRae, a director of Infohost who knows Gerry McCann's sister, Philomena, said that his company was passing on all information relevant to Madeleine's whereabouts on to the police.

“It seems that a lot of people don’t like phoning CrimeStoppers so we’re hoping the site may be a way of getting someone to talk.”

“We’re overwhelmed by the attention the site’s getting. Usually it would take one of our sites a month to get 10 million hits, so this is completely unprecedented.”

I wonder does he mean 10 million unique visitors, 10 million page views, or what. It seems very unlikely from looking at a list of sites posted on his website www.infohost.co.uk
that any of these sites would have had ten million "hits" in the their whole life , dont mind the first month.

This I would not allow pass and it would also make me question the validity of the claims made by Mr MacRae. There is a link on the front page of www.findmadeleine.com to the BBC, which automatically opens a video feed from the BBC so the BBC knows exactly how many hits that page had.

News is supposed to be fact based and not a rehash of a PR release.

I know everybody wants to help but lying does not do that.

From the BBC website now

Producers of a website set up to find the four-year-old from Leicestershire say it has received more than 58m hits.
updated Friday, 18 May 2007, 14:42 GMT 15:42 UK

Michael Wright, a close relative of Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate, said a campaign website has had more than five million visitors.
updated Thursday, 17 May 2007, 16:53 GMT 17:53 UK

The BBC should know exactly how many hits the website is getting today seeing as the page is pointing to one of their video streams.

Don't just take us all for fools.
And we all have that little girl in our thoughts I hope she's found soon.

New design for node-net

Just finished the redesign for node-net. Ver pleased. I converted to CSS based design. Didnt do much to graphics but used DHTML menus for navigation.
The old site was full of dead ends and defunct code. My forum was hijacked to death.
It should be faster and easier to maintain.

E-commerce and Google Analytics

Have just finished site for client using PHP/MySQL, with Google Analytics built in and it a very proficient system. Fast and invisible to clients, It has made the analysis of traffic a pure pleasure. Athough it doesnt show visits by robots.

The site is a high street style online fashion shop called Miss Butterfly.

I am glad to be back.

Database society will slow business growth

The forthcoming ID system in the UK will literally imprison 1 million people who for various reasons cannot get one or do not want to reveal past identities or are not entitled.
Because of the compulsive measure of having to have an ID card to get a passport, passports will not be issued to large numbers of people.
It is well known that travel restrictions on large numbers of the population, particularly economically active ones, have a braking effect on economic activity. Look at the old Eastern bloc models.
These people will also be forced into the black economy which will increase in size with more intense government intrusion. Workers will lose their protection from exploitation and wages will fall.

Access to Health and Education services will be restricted to these people as well. The Bill has not taken into account the people who are living in the UK already under a shadow. I personally know a family who have been here working, paying tax for 17 years and have no formal paperwork. These people will be a true underclass with even the status of their children in the hands of a whimsical government that obviously has no respect or care for them.

A general amnesty should be given to all people here already who want to remain.

We are told that this is needed for anti-terrorist purposes but the reality is that more people are killed by falling down the stairs in the UK then by terrorism. The classic purpose of terrorism is to cause a government clampdown on the population and ride the subsequent revolt.

There will be determined opposition to the ID schemes and to government intrusion generally, and this will increase in the future. At some point a line will be drawn and beyond that line is outside the domain of government. The line will start with an assumption that your first thought in the morning is yours, safe inside your head, no business of anybodies. Then it is written on a page and put in a sealed envelope in your pocket, Is it still yours? Does the government have the right to know what it is. Then put it on a website (your private website,)
Is it still your property? Now show it to a like minded friend , and so on..
The current rush by governments to moniter everything will bring this debate to the fore.
I would predict that political movements will appear which will want to limit the power of governments in these areas. Will they be treated as terrorists or heroes?

E-mail marketing

Informing your customers regularily about special offers and your latest pricelist is a great marketing tool and the easiest way to do it is by using an email list manager.
This program should be able to maintain your mailing lists, import your contacts and moniter the list for bounced emails and invalid addresses.

You could use one of the hosted services but it would cost you about 15-20 pounds a month for a small number of lists and low membership lists.

I am trialing a program from Dynamic Software called Dynamic mail Communicator.
You can get a free trial here.

Alpha Five version 7

I have been using Alpha Five for about a month and find it a very useful tool for making PDF files from Access. I like the fact I can watermark the PDF.

Alpha Five version 7 is more then just a reporting tool. It is a wizard led application development environment that is extremely good value for money. It can import from almost any source and although I had some problems with certain MS Access number fields, I reported the problem to the Alpha Five forum and the patch was ready in a couple of days.

I will be trying out the Data to Web side of the program soon and I look forward to seeing the results.

If you would like to try out the program it is available here.

War on Your Desktop

Google courts our trust, in bid for market share consolidation

Google fighting the US Governments request for information (1 week of search terms and 1 million domain names) is their way of saying 'Trust us with your information, including your email, we will keep it private.' We all know the problems that Google have had with the Chinese government , a far nastier animal then the US Govt. and they did roll over for them!.
So Google do not have a philosophical problem with the request. It does however give them a serious marketing opportunity.

This is the essence of the War on Your Desktop . Google have 'inadvertently' told us in this PR effort that MSN,AOL and Yahoo have already complied with the government requests and so they are less trustworthy then the Google team. MSN have already had an own goal this week with the Chinese blogger at the The New York Times - they pulled a site on the request of the Chinese government - hosted and written in the US.

We the consumers will only have stuff on our computer that we control or feel we control and that can trust implicitly not to leak our information out all over the internet. The company that can instill and install the most trust on us and our computers will win the desktop wars.

Anybody who runs search with Adwords can see the sort of searches that are popular I don't think that consumers will really want this search history handed over to Governments.

The question is does the government have the right to know everything about you?
We need a definition of personal space over which no government would have domain nor could claim it. Whoever carves out this space online will have a good chance of winning the prize.

Opensource applications online are a very compelling and successful business model. The same sort of rigour with peer and end-user review driving up excellence, could easily be applied to the workings of government departments, who are now migrating to the online world as well.

It is not OK for the state to have secrets and not us. Internet companies are more influential for good then bureaucrats on the lives of ordinary people. They do that by being honest and committed to the original ideas that made them successful, unlike politicians. Becoming quasi government bodies like banks would be a way for Internet companies to lose the trust of consumers who already to a great extent don't trust politicians and governments.

Use Google as a spam filter

If you forward your me@mydomain.com email to your Gmail account then it will be processed by Googles spam filters. Then set up a new email account me2@mydomain.com and forward your Gmail to it.
Remove your me@mydomain.com account from your e-mail client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc.) and replace it with me2@mydomain.com.
This way you get the benefit of Google's spam filters working for you. This will also give the spammers something to think about, as Google will have a great big list of spammers.

To do this you will need 2 things.
1./ An email account that you can forward
2./ A Gmail account.

Node-net are offering a simple solution whereby you can have a yourdomain.com mail server with unlimited email addresses, including domain registration fees and hosting for £50 per year.
This service is particularily suitable for small businesses with up to 40 PC's on site. For larger companies the fees would be a little higher as traffic would be higher. We will also invite you to join Gmail. If you need help in setting up then we can also do this for you for a small fee.

Forward AOL mail to Outlook Express

I got this instuction from AOL UK today and it works for UK based AOL'ers. It will probably work for Outlook and in fact any IMAP enabled mail client program.

1. Sign on to AOL.
2. Double-click the Outlook Express icon.
3. Click on the Tools menu on the toolbar, and select Accounts…
4. Click on the Add drop-down menu and select Mail.
5. On the ‘Your Name’ window enter the name you wish to appear when you send emails, e.g. John Smith, then click Next.
6. On the ‘Internet E-mail Address’ window enter your email address in full, e.g. jsmith @aol.com. If you are given the below option select ‘I already have an e-mail address that I’d like to use’ and then enter your email address in full.
7. Click Next.
8. On the ‘E-mail Server Names’ window you will see ‘My incoming mail server is a POP3 server'. Change this server option to IMAP using the drop-down menu.
9 Enter the ‘Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) server:’ as follows: imap.uk.aol.com.
10. Enter the ‘Outgoing mail (SMTP) server:' as follows: smtp.uk.aol.com.
11. Click Next.
12. On the ‘Internet Mail Logon’ window enter your AOL Screen Name and your AOL password.
13. Click Next.
14. To save the settings click Finish. If you are returned to the ‘Internet Accounts’ window click Close.
15. You may receive the following message if you do not have a default mail client on your computer: simply click OK.
16. If you receive the following message click Yes.
17. Please wait while these files are downloaded.
18. Click on Inbox. Then click on Go to.
19. Again, click on the Tools menu on the toolbar, and select Accounts…
20. On the ‘Internet Accounts’ window, ensure you are on the Mail tab.
21. Click on the Properties button on the right.
22. Click on the Servers tab.
23. Beneath the 'Outgoing Mail Server' section, click on 'My server requires authentication' checkbox.
24. Click Apply.
25. Click OK.
26. Click on the IMAP tab and click to untick the 'Store special folders on IMAP server' option.
27. Click Close.
28. Outlook Express is now ready to use.


I dont know if you need to run the first step.
Outlook Express will download your AOL mail and all your AOL Mail contacts and saved folders. even if you are not logged into AOL.

This is great news for people who are using AOL dialup and want to buy cheap broadband from somebody like Tiscali.

Freedom Of Information Act UK

The government of the UK wants to introduce charges for Freedom of Information requests.
They say that it is costing them too much to answer these requests. This is ridiculous considering the amount of computing power available to them and the spending they have done and are doing. 4 billion pounds on ID card database, 5 Billion on ID card usage database, 5 billion on NHS consultant booking system. ( I personally believe there is massive corruption in the purchase of these systems.)
I might set up a site to allow people to publish the answers they receive under FOI requests. Remember you can request information anonymously.

All government information should be published automatically with an easy to search index.

I notice that the government is considering changing its cannabis leglislation today on the grounds that it may cause mental illness, this is fresh coming from a government that just liberalised alcohol selling rules. Most people under the influence of alcohol ARE psychotic. Cannabis is a very mild drug in comparison.

Google backs Firefox!

As from this week Google is paying one dollar per download of Firefox. This reflects the value that Google puts on our researching our search habits and also puts one over on Microsoft and Internet Explorer.
All you web designers out there make sure your sites are Firefox friendly.
The battle of the desktop is hotting up.
That said Microsoft is also paying for the download of MSN Messenger.