tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29101334013327053512009-05-19T12:27:02.236+01:00A blog for chatting about the development and running of the <a href="http://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/">www.pubsgalore.co.uk</a> websiteConradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-69371488483392735142009-05-19T11:52:00.002+01:002009-05-19T12:27:02.246+01:00

We 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-63132117584086066062009-04-21T12:46:00.004+01:002009-04-21T15:59:32.703+01:00

We 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-53424978366750456542009-04-20T12:45:00.001+01:002009-04-20T12:46:54.782+01:00

Tomorrow (21st April) the pubs galore site will be disabled for maintenance for about 30 mins from 2 O'Clock.Sorry about any inconvenience caused.

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-20969060774850096932009-04-01T16:48:00.006+01:002009-04-03T16:40:01.081+01:00

Well 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-38148912978093571712009-03-20T15:30:00.003Z2009-03-20T16:10:28.338Z

We 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-3153827326278219052009-03-12T21:42:00.004Z2009-03-13T12:35:50.348Z

I 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-11560420985867323242009-03-05T16:39:00.005Z2009-03-06T14:04:16.063Z

If 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-76560816778709699462008-09-22T17:40:00.007+01:002008-09-22T17:55:12.533+01:00

Sadly 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-6794232922514169822008-09-08T16:30:00.004+01:002008-09-08T17:14:11.469+01:00

In 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-26931998066670289522008-09-01T13:40:00.004+01:002008-09-01T14:24:04.786+01:00

We 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-17797070408027824532008-08-27T13:56:00.004+01:002008-08-27T14:04:01.052+01:00

I 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-4751973957194765242008-08-18T17:00:00.002+01:002008-08-18T17:08:58.251+01:00

Been 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 task

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-53471444127637114462008-08-09T18:27:00.003+01:002008-08-09T21:02:11.824+01:00

Time 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-50012008921243855402008-08-01T15:03:00.003+01:002008-08-01T15:15:11.556+01:00

Apologies, 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-7111039580272971812008-07-16T16:20:00.002+01:002008-07-16T17:04:07.993+01:00

Sorry 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-734645675275578782008-06-27T17:53:00.002+01:002008-06-27T18:03:10.754+01:00

Well 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

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-10013199330285514022008-06-20T17:08:00.002+01:002008-06-20T17:15:50.531+01:00

Sorry 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 do

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-79515506978324518222008-06-13T16:34:00.002+01:002008-06-13T16:58:04.962+01:00

Been a bit of a boring week to be honest, so sorry I haven't posted on my blog.We got some nice feedback this week telling us that the new pub filters on the town pages are useful, it is always nice to hear where you are getting it right, and even where we are getting it wrong. Hopefully over time we will get more right.I have been continuing work on the idea of beer festivals, at the moment I

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-35817671969112286362008-06-06T18:35:00.002+01:002008-06-06T18:46:59.421+01:00

One of our members kindly let me know about this talk about the changes in pubs over the last 40 years from the National Archives. It is an interesting listen to hear about the changes pubs have gone through, quite a few of them for the better as well I feel. I hope that the current downturn in pubs will eventually just be seen as another change in the character of pubs as we come out of the

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-53495277609051892702008-06-04T18:32:00.002+01:002008-06-04T18:38:21.682+01:00

I have been struggling this week to think of something to write about, I seem to be struggling to keep up this week and have been doing very bitty work.I was just going through all the approvals on the Pubs Galore site though and was amused to see that Andrew Evans had taken up my challenge to find our missing Red Lion's.In one go he has successfully added 3 Red Lions in Warrington, along with

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-50072363314040932232008-05-30T18:35:00.002+01:002008-05-30T18:39:29.451+01:00

Sorry about the lack of updates this week, been running round doing various small jobs that suck away all my time, so I don't really even have anything interesting to report.What little work I have done has been making some of our features a little more stable and look at speeding up the site. Hopefully I should have more to report next week though.

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-56118268495831318982008-05-28T15:15:00.002+01:002008-05-28T15:25:14.063+01:00

I just uploaded a couple of minor changes that have been requested.Show/Hide closed pubs will now remember the last setting for a couple of days.Village names are shown in the search.Filters on the town pages to try and find pubs more quicklyThe filters are sadly a little slow on our larger towns and I am not sure how they will perform on older computers, hopefully users will just not use them if

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-53142659212990004812008-05-23T17:17:00.002+01:002008-05-23T17:37:54.363+01:00

I haven't had a lot of time to look at the site. I have been selling myself to see if I can get a little more consultancy work on the side.The little bits of work I have looked at are not released, but we have addressed a couple of the requests on the forum. One requesting that we make it clearer in our search that a pub is in a village not the town nearby (or a long way off in some cases). And

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-80551838326737331302008-05-20T17:28:00.002+01:002008-05-20T17:35:00.206+01:00

A busy week planned this week and sadly not a lot of time for the pubs site. Tomorrow I have a day off, and Thursday I am out visiting a client looking at some potential consultancy work, so will probably not post until Friday now.We released the new version of the site yesterday that allows members to add links to towns. As an improvement it is lacking in excitement, but it should allow some

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2910133401332705351.post-31424264382721039872008-05-16T16:16:00.003+01:002008-05-16T16:29:11.002+01:00

And todays amusement when looking at another site comes from beer in the evening, on their forums is this post, well we have managed the scrolling map, admittedly not got the cash points and petrol stations, but I will keep the ideas in mind. Sadly bite will remove posts with other sites links on (in the true spirit that the Internet was built with), and I wouldn't post our site up there anyway.

Conradhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10327644997420664890noreply@blogger.com0