Sometimes people just can’t get away from their laptops or smartphones for their business and personal uses and with constant technological advances, things are getting faster and even more convenient. This has been taken one step further (or higher!) with the partnership between British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat and global aviation supplier, Honeywell. Inmarsat have plans to launch 3 satellites into orbit over the next couple of years, with the first being launched in 2013 which will be the beginning of their plans to provide global coverage.

Global Xpress is the project’s name and they claim that speeds up to 50 megabit per second download and 5 megabit per second upload will be attainable at times. However it’s more than likely that speeds will be closer to 10 megabit per second in most cases, this is still much faster than what is currently provided on airlines and will provide business users a high quality connection to keep in touch whilst cruising at 36,000 feet.

There are two different bands that could be used for this service and they are the Ka-band and Ku-band. Both have their pros and cons, however Ka-band is the one that Global Xpress have chosen. Pros for the Ka-band include a higher frequency, faster speeds, a larger spectrum as well as the antennas being cheaper for the aircraft. Cons however, include the fact that it’s not had a great deal of testing in the aviation sector, it’s susceptible to changing / bad weather conditions. Finally, there aren’t that many satellites out there, but that’s what Inmarsat are working on by deploying additional satellites.

This development in in-flight Wi-Fi is going to be of most use to business users wanting to stay in touch with their clients / colleagues whilst cruising at altitude, however personal users may be interested in the service on long-haul flights to keep themselves or children occupied. Prices are only speculation at the moment, however prices for current services are around £2 an hour (depending on whether you’re on a short or long-haul flight) so expect them to be roughly the same.

To keep up with the moving trends, 4G has been designed from the ground up with the purpose of data transmission, whereas 2G/3G were designed primarily for voice transmission. This means that for tablet and smartphone users that want to watch bandwidth hungry videos in high resolutions, or want to download large files, they’re in luck since the faster speeds will mean less buffering and simply allow you to do more with your mobile gadgets on the web.

The above video explains the various differences between the technologies, the key difference however, is the speed. On 3G technology, you can expect a maximum throughput of 3.1Mbps, whereas 3.5G (also known as HSDPA) can give you up to 7.2Mbps. HSDPA+ is the next level up and here in the UK most providers have already brought in 14.4-21.1Mbps services with Three set to raise this to 42.2Mbps in the near future on their network. 4G networks take this one step further with attainable speeds of 100-300Mbps, which is much faster than what most households in the UK can get on their home connections. This is delivered over what is called LTE (Long Term Evolution) and in addition to the 300Mbps peak download speed, you can also expect upload speeds of up to 75 Mbps and latencies of roughly 5ms in the radio access network. Countries such as the US, Germany, Sweden, Norway, India and Denmark have already rolled out the technology and are enjoying the benefits. Videos on YouTube and similar sites show people in rural Indian areas getting 40Mbit download and 1Mbit upload which is truly incredible. Sweden has also had reports of 60Mbit download speeds and 6Mbit upload speeds, with very similar in Norway.

Closer to home, O2 have been testing their 4G network in areas of London and in Slough (where the company is headquartered) and have had great success, seeing speeds up to 150Mbit in certain sections of London. However don’t get too excited, the company say that users are more likely to see speeds of 40-50Mbit when the technology is rolled out nationwide, which is still extremely impressive for mobile internet and more in line with other countries offerings.

4G can only be a good thing for the UK’s tech-heads as they continuously crave more bandwidth for their tablet PCs and smartphones to catch up on their favourite TV program on the BBC iPlayer, or download the latest blockbuster from iTunes.

The Earth’s natural resources are running low, a decision has been made to send out space shuttles to mine asteroids for their raw materials and transport these back to Earth. Sounds like the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster right? That is exactly what Planetary Resources have planned though, it’s a company with some high profile backers including the Google co-founder, Larry Page & James Cameron (director of Avatar & Titanic) that plan on doing some revolutionary things outside of Earth’s atmosphere; using robotic probes to do some cool things to asteroids! What they intend to do is mine near-Earth asteroids that have high stores of Platinum group metals and water and in turn, have a massive effect on the global economy.

You may ask how it’s going to have a massive effect on the global economy, but when one of the company’s creators is quoted as saying “each asteroid is worth about 20 trillion dollars in the platinum group metal marketplace” then you can see why this could have such a massive effect – the global GDP of the entire planet is estimated to be around $63 trillion at present so one asteroid could potentially be worth nearly a third of that at current prices. They’ll be mining for platinum group metals such as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium and of course platinum as well as water, which is going to be sold for use in space. Selling the water found in space will save shuttles having to pull the extra weight of water brought from down on Earth, thus bringing new possibilities when it comes to space travel since you could have smaller shuttles

A mass of unmanned spacecraft will be the machines of choice to carry out the actual mining and they’ll scour and scrape the surface of the asteroids to extract the metals and either store them in storage facilities purposely built in space, or brought back to Earth. How they’re going to bring them back isn’t quite known yet, however it will no doubt require some innovation.  At the moment there are roughly 150 asteroids close enough for exploration with the possibility of being mined, with hundreds more just out of reach that with some technological development should be available to mine.

Probes are expected to be sent out to take a look around in the next 18-24 months, this will also serve as a test for future models that will go up and delve deeper into the task ahead. They haven’t however, disclosed when exactly they plan on going up to extract the metals and water from the asteroids but sources say that they could pull a 500 ton specimen into the moons orbit by 2025 at the cost of $2.6billion. That may sound like a gargantuan amount, but when you look at who’s backing the program (Google being one) and the potential return of $20 trillion, it doesn’t seem all that bad.

We’ll certainly look forward to seeing how this project unfolds, a video is being released tonight at 18:30 UK time which you can watch here: http://www.spacevidcast.com/live/ and we wish them the best of luck!

There’s a new kid on the block when it comes to web analytics and it’s just been given a massive boost by being included in cPanel’s latest update. This has of course sparked an interest among users and admins alike and many are wondering “What exactly is Logaholic and why should I use it?”. Hopefully I’ll be able to give you an overview and some reasons behind using the new piece of software over its rivals such as Webalizer and Awstats.

Logaholic is a new, powerful piece of software that looks more like Google’s Analytics system than a simple log file analyser. With this brings many new and improved features to the table when compared to what you may be used to using and they’re going to greatly change the way you look at your websites traffic information.

One of the big points we can make about Logaholic is that it is better at measuring what are known as “Unique” visitors to your web page. With this, you can get in-depth and more accurate results to work with on your advertising campaigns. Or you can use them to know how many people are really going to your site which are both must haves for any modern web master.

However, saying that, Logaholic isn’t just an access log analyser as such. It will also provide you with data and information on how you can better optimise your website to get the most out of it. Whether it be for sales or for general visitor numbers, Logaholic will tell you where on your site you can make adjustments to improve its overall look and functionality (such as letting you know where error pages are being displayed to visitors or showing you the conversion rate of your important pages).

Overall, Logaholic is a welcome addition to our fleet of servers with cPanel and it will no doubt benefit users that wish to know that little bit more about how their site is performing, in a much easier and user-friendly interface. NetHosted clients can log in to their cPanel account and find Logaholic in the Logs section of the control panel.

Note: Logalics is an opt-in option on our service. To have it enabled on your account, submit a ticket to our helpdesk with the relevant domain/account

Meet Pebble, the watch that will change the face of the watches forever! Not only that, it will change it’s own face, whenever you tell it to.

E-paper is nothing new, it has been used in Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader since 2007, mobile phones, USB drives, digital photo frames and even other watches (though the Seiko Spectrum SVRD001 would set you back nearly £2,000!). So, what is it that makes the Pebble revolutionary? There’s a number of things, not least the way they have approached this project. Unable to secure funding through the traditional venture capital route they did what any self-respecting entrepreneur does these days… put their virtual cup out and started their virtual busking! It just so happens though that when the cup has the potential to have money thrown in from the far reaches of the Internet, making money with a great idea (and prototype) isn’t that difficult.

Kickstarter was the platform they chose, a crowdsourcing site which allows people to donate to projects people post on the site, often receiving something for their donation, in this case they will provide a watch or ten to the investors depending on their level of investment. You can see their project here, with a live count of their donations received. To date the Pebble is the highest funded project on Kickstarter, with over $5.4 million donated and raising their first $1 million in just 28 hours. Donations show no sign of slowing down either, and with 28 days to go I wouldn’t be surprised if they top $10 million as people now use it as a pre-order system!

The reason for their success isn’t hard to see, they have made a watch that really should be a game-changer. Pebble includes Bluetooth which allows you to pair it with your iPhone or Android-based smartphone and once this is done you can do all kinds of useful things, have it act as a caller display for screening calls, make it vibrate when an email is received and partially display it, use it as a running/cycling monitor showing your speed and distance using the smartphone GPS. It can act as a remote for your music player too, it’s waterproof and comes with an SDK so developers can write new apps increasing the functionality even further. Did I mention it even tells the time?!

I have to confess to being quite excited about this myself and the biggest question for me is if I can resist “investing”. Ok… who am I kidding, the biggest question is what colour should I go for!

HTML5 has been in development since 2004 now and we’re still far from being able to call it finished, or even close to finished! It will however, provide a great, new platform for website designers and developers to show their creative flare and make better use of their time with simplified tags and all-round options. Whilst there have been quite a few examples of HTML5 in the past year or so (http://lights.elliegoulding.com) we’re still a long way off from seeing it on every website, as well as actually being able to see it in a wide range of browsers. Below I have made a quick overview of 5 features within HTML5 that will make your lives easier and your code a bit more lively!

Content Descriptions
One of the new features within HTML5 is the fact that you can now describe content easily. In the previous iteration of HTML (HTML4, which has been used for over 10 years now!) you had to use <div id=”header”> to let the page know that it was the header. Now, all you have to do is <header> and the browser will know exactly what to do.

Embedding Videos
Embedding videos on a page is now much easier than what it was previously with HTML4! Say goodbye to relying on 3rd party codes to embed videos that your users and visitors can watch, now all you have to do is use HTML5′s built in coding to embed your media of choice. All of this is then rendered by the browser itself and with  a <video preload controls> tag, your users can easily start/pause the video, skip and change the volume – everything you’d expect from a plugin, but direct from your browser!

Canvas
The new canvas addition to the language is one that’s going to (in my opinion) feature in the vast majority of websites once HTML5 has been made “the norm”. It can be used to dynamically create graphics, animations and graphs as well as a few other nifty things, all whilst preventing the need for plugins or addons. There have been quite a few examples of the HTML5 canvas code in the past couple of years and one of the most popular was Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown” which shows off just what you can do with the canvassing feature and it’s very impressive.

Editable Content
With the new “contenteditable” tag, developers are able to design sections of their pages to be editable by it’s visitors.  This can be useful in many situations, such as making a to-do list (couple it with the local caching feature below and you have yourself a little application available both on and offline!) or even something as complex as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor to edit web pages and code! Most browsers already support this code so there are countless examples of editable content on the internet and one of the easiest pages to test this out on is here.

Local Caching
With HTML5 comes a local application cache. This can be used for various things but the biggest example at the moment would be for storing applications locally such as e-mails. The guys over at Google have already started using this feature with its Google Gears client making way for a HTML5 based solution. Now I know browsers already cache content to a certain extent, but it’s not quite the same. With HTML5′s new local caching, developers are able to define which parts of the webpage are saved locally, such as images and css (entire pages can be saved if you wish!) and then can be recalled either when you load the page again in the same session, or even after you’ve restarted your PC. Developers can also create applications that can run both online and offline using this part of the code, which will open a whole host of opportunities in the future.

All in all, HTML5 is looking to be very promising and with constant development of ideas and uses for the language, the web is set to be taken by storm. The endless possibilities brought to the table by HTML5 will change the way we look at and use websites in the next few years and quite frankly, I’m looking forward to it (even if they do say it won’t be completed until 2022!)

Space at a premium? Trying to look “hip” with one the latest trends coming from notebook and laptop manufacturers? Then an Ultrabook may be what you’re looking for! A whole host of companies have got in on the act and are now producing a range of notebooks under what Intel are calling Ultrabooks. Ultrabooks have been designed with the aim of reducing the size and weight in relation to the regular notebook, whilst extending battery life and still providing great performance for the end user. Obviously, with Ultrabook being the brainchild of Intel’s development crew, the notebooks all contain Intel Core processors in addition to a wide range of other, low power components such as Solid State Drives. These have been brought in in favour of their mechanical cousins for their versatility on the move (own up, who’s dropped their laptop before?) and extremely low power usage, which when you’re trying to get weeks of battery life out of your machine (as Acer are claiming with the specific Ultrabook we’re going to look at today) is extremely helpful.

Let’s start off with letting you know what exactly is inside the incredibly thin Acer Aspire S5 (it’s only 15mm thick at it’s thickest point!) and what will be powering it!

Main Components
CPU: Intel Ivy Bridge 1.7GHz
RAM: 8GB DDR3 (Up to)
HDD: SSD (Varying sizes)
Graphics: Intel HD4000

Additional Features
Built in microphone and webcam
1x HDMI – 2x USB3.0 – 1x ThunderBolt
13.3″ LCD Screen @ 1366×768
Weighs just 2.97lbs
MagicFlip I/O Ports
Dolby Home Theatre Audio
Chiclet Keyboard

Aesthetically, this specific Ultrabook is amazing. It looks extremely slick and the way it’s put together is very pleasing on the eye. Reports from users that have had hands on experience with this item have reported that it doesn’t feel “plasticy” and has a good feel about it, so on top of it’s great tech specs, this seems to be an all-together well thought out range from Acer. The Thunderbolt port that this Ultrabook has is an unusual but welcome addition, generally being found on MacBook Air/Pro’s, offering a very impressive up to 20Gbps data transfer rate, whilst Thunderbolt accessories are rare at present they will no doubt increase in popularity over the coming years.

Pleasant to look at AND packing a punch?

In addition to the Aspire S5, Acer have released the Aspire Timeline M3 which is being targetted at those who need a bit more “oomph” from their notebook. Being a 15 inch Ultrabook, it gives you a larger screen, although it is still stuck with a rather unimpressive resolution of 1366×768 and really, we expected something a bit more. One bonus however, is a dedicated graphics card in the form of a an NVIDIA GF640M which is more than adequate for a wide range of graphics work, as well as being able to handle a handful of the newer games! This is the first Ultrabook released that could really be considered as a main desktop replacement with the larger screen and improved graphics, yet it’s still extremely portable with a 20mm thickness.  Wrapped in a magnesium alloy similar to the S5 it’s extremely durable and feels very solid.

All in all, the Acer range of Ultrabooks are looking impressive and I’m excited to see what the rest of the year will bring for competing manufacturers and to see what the future holds for this Intel led brand of notebooks.

 Step 1 – Backup!

The importance of creating a backup of your site before making changes to it can never be overstated, using cPanel this can be done with just a couple of clicks and could save you hours if not days of work down the line. This process shouldn’t affect your existing site however mistakes can happen so it’s always best to be on the safe side.

 Step 2 – Export database via phpMyAdmin

Select phpMyAdmin in cPanel and click the name of the database you wish to export on the left, then click the Export tab. The default options are fine so you can just leave quick selected, then press the Go button which will download the database .sql file, make a note of where this downloads to on your computer.

Step 3 – Download website files

Login to your old site via FTP and download all files inside the public_html/ folder (assuming this is the main domain on the account, if it is an addon domain then you should download all files within the addon domain folder which is a subfolder of your public_html). You will need to upload these to the new site via FTP shortly.

Step 4 – Upload website files

You should now login to the new site FTP, and upload the files previously downloaded. If this is the main domain on a new account then these can go straight into the public_html/ folder, if it is an addon domain then you should put them inside the addon domain folder that you have specified in the cPanel Addon Domains section.

Step 5 – Create a new database

In the MySQL Databases section of cPanel you now need to create a new database

Then create a new user, making a note of the password.

Now add that user to the new database

Step 6 -  Import database via phpMyAdmin

Go to phpMyAdmin in your new account and select the new database you just created on the left. Now click the import button, then choose file and select the earlier database backup that we made, then click Go.

Step 7 – Edit configuration file with new database settings

The location of this file will vary depending on what CMS you are using, but the process should be the same for all CMS. You will need to locate the configuration file and edit this, changing the database name, database username and database user password, all of which you have previously created. The database name and database username will begin with your cPanel username followed by an underscore.

Common CMS configuration file locations (relative from installation directory):

Drupal – sites/default/settings.php

WordPress – wp-config.php

Joomla – configuration.php

Magento – app/etc/local.xml

Concrete5 – config/site.php

Step 8 – Edit the site URL in the database (URL changes only)

This step may not always be necessary, some CMS’s hardcode the site URL into the database when they are setup, if this is the case then when you visit the new site some links or the whole site may end up redirecting to the old URL. You should then go back into phpMyAdmin and select the new database, select the search tab and enter the domain surrounded by % signs, e.g. %domain.com% – You should edit any instances that show up in configuration tables to the new URL.

Step 9 – Finished!

Admire your work as you’ve just migrated your CMS successfully (with a bit of luck!)

Blogolife

BlogoLife is a simple and attractive theme built in HTML5 & CSS3 for personal blogging , it’s fully customisable and clean so can be styled if you want to change it, otherwise it can be used straight away.

Colorway

Colorway is a simple elegant theme that is fully customisable and has built in support for analytics. This theme is built by InkThemes.com and has support for a range of site types including gallery display.

Ping

SwitchUp Studio’s Ping Theme is a simple stylish blog theme, quite traditional but with fully customisable colour options.

ToomMorel Lite

ToomMorel Lite for WordPress allows you to get a stylish site up and running in minutes. It features templates for blogs, gallery, fullwidth pages without sidebar and a contact us page.

Triton Lite

Triton is a all in one WordPress theme with awesome 3 fonts, 1 slider, 1 layout & easy to use theme option panel. It is SEO friendly and has plenty of user-friendly options. The theme also comes with a contact page template which doesn’t require any setup.

ZeeBizzCard

zeeBizzCard is a clean and elegant styled Business Card Theme for WordPress that fits perfectly for a sleek homepage for personalities, freelancers, entrepreneurs or small business owners. It comes with a featured posts slider, a custom post types based portfolio and shortcodes for resume, aboutme box and skills.

A team of US engineers working at the University of California, Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have revealed the result of their latest research, a material they claim to be the world’s lightest.

This material is created from a collection of tiny hollow tubes, each tube having a wall thickness of just 100 nanometers, around 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. These tubes are arranged into a micro-lattice formation, a diagonal pattern with the tubes crossing each other with small open spaces between them.

The resulting density of this material is 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimetre, compared to polystyrene this is around 100 times lighter. This metallic micro-lattice consists of 99.99% air and 0.01% solid which gives it such a low density.

As well as being the lightest material it is also very strong due to the ordered nature of the lattice design. Potential uses of this material due to it’s properties are in shock absorbers and next generation batteries. Further details of this research are published in the latest edition of Science.