over the next week or so we need to make some changes to servers, networks and equipment back at SRL HQ. To this end we’ll be taking the store and downloads off-line from about 3pm (British Summer Time GMT +1) on 31st March 2009 and hope to have everything back up and running again as soon as possible thereafter.

Support and emails will continue during this period, so please feel free to contact us if you have any questions…

Firstly, a new NEWT site. We are working with our local archery club (Lincoln Archers) to provide a full make-over of the current website (http://www.lincolnarchers.co.uk/). This will be both graphical and functional…

We are also working with Border Bows (http://www.borderbows.com), based on the Scottish side of the Scotland/England border, to give them a fully functional web-tool that will not only mean that they can keep the site up to date but will also assist in some of the day to day functions of the business too.

Lincoln Archers

The Lincoln Archers’ site is currently a static HTML page based website. Whilst providing all the core information it suffers from the traditional difficulties of keeping it up to date and limited access to the files behind.

This makes for an ideal candidate for NEWT. With its flexible approach and multi-user access it can be maintained by the (appropriate) club members from any web browser. With its approval and publishing features then ‘articles’ can be approved by the committee before going live for everyone to see.

The site will also benefit from NEWT’s tiered options meaning that the site will present a ‘public’ face that anyone can access and a ‘private’ face that will only be accessible to members of the club itself. This means that site can show an audience specific face… Members will get access to more information and features than the public.

We plan on having this updated site live by the end of March.

Border Bows

Originally planned as a straight NEWT site we have now enhanced the plans and are providing the first of our NEWT(+) sites. The site will utilise NEWT functionality where appropriate but will also benefit from a number of additional features.

The site for Border Bows is slightly different to the ‘usual’ NEWT based site. As well as being information driven it also needs to be product driven and showcase Border Bows’ innovation and design. This has led to some interesting design work and is making for a very interesting site (but then we would say that…).   

As a manufacturing company, Border Bows want to concentrate on their core business, of making some of (if not the best) archery limbs, risers and bows in the World, rather than worrying about what is on their website. We’re working with them to provide a tool that by helping with some of their processes will also keep their website refreshed and up to date.

This site is being delivered as a phased approach and the initially prototype should be entering testing very soon.

We’ll let you know when it’s due to go live!

Final thought

If you’re noticing a common theme here, then even hardworking IT types are due some downtime sometimes too

Well, we can assure you that there’s a lot going on in the background! Time Architect v 2.3 went to beta at the tail-end of 2008 and we believe that it should be all ready for launch early in February 2009… (Keep watching, as soon as it’s ready, we’ll let you know!)

We’ve also been working on a number of other projects both for clients and internally and hope to have some formal announcements soon. In the next couple of weeks we should be announcing the full details of our new add-in for Enterprise Architect that we plan to release to public beta very soon…

We’ve also been working hard with a number of partners on a range of things and there should be some announcements on some of those in the near future too.

So, all in all, don’t worry, we’re still here and we have some good stuff planned for 2009!

Well, once again, it’s that time of year when most of us think about doing very little for a few days other than eating, drinking, sleeping and spending time with family and friends (please choose your own order for these…). It seems like Christmas 2007 was only a few weeks ago, but Christmas 2008 is all but arrived and another year is coming to a close.

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our customers, business partners, friends and acquaintances a very Merry Christmas and a very successful 2009! We’d also like to say thank you for your support, custom and interest in Solutions Reality and our products and we look forward to working with you all next year.

With this being the festive season…

… we will be shutting the office from 23rd December through to 5th January 2009. During this period there will be limited support available via the contact form (http://solutionsreality.com/contactus.aspx) - drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

During this quiet period we will be releasing TA 2.3 beta to our beta testers ready for a release early in 2009. This will be followed quite quickly by the updated Time Architect website (www.timearchitect.net) and the final version of the NEWT website (www.sitesareeasy.com).

So although we’ll be quiet we’ll still be busy!

Once again thank you for all your support and we hope that 2009 will be a great year for you all!

Matt and the rest of the Solutions Reality team…

We then had a few issues with hosting which meant that the database got deleted and the forum kind of died a death because of it.

Since we have moved the hosting across to Netcetera, our new hosting provider, we have had no issues but also no forums…  We want to understand what people like about TA and also the things that frustrate them too - we’re sure there must be some things…

So, would anyone like to see the forums started again?

We look forward to hearing from you either as a comment on the blog or via the Solutions Reality contact form.  If you are concerned about emailing us, then just add a spoof email address in the form - like some people do when downloading!

Just for the record, we NEVER give out email addresses to anyone.  They are only used internally to register downloads to purchases and to inform you of critical changes to our products (if required).

“We’ll never develop anything for the iPhone!”

or even:

“I’ll never have an iPhone!”

OK, well both of these statements are now false - and added to a long list of other such lines over the years!

But then I should have known really.  It’s not like the first time I’d ever said “never” only to later change my mind.

I mean back in the Sinclair days (yes I have been programming that long) with my ZX81 (back then, a whole 1K to work with!) and later the Spectrum - “I’d never have a Commodore!”  Yes, the VIC-20 was ‘interesting’ but it was never going to get me to replace my trusty ZX81 or the Spectrum I upgrade too.  OK, then the C-64 came out and I was tempted but I stuck to my principles, remembered “never” and stayed with… Atari!

Well, the logical step across in those days, if you didn’t want/like Commodore, was the Atari ST.  Eventually, however, with the release of the Amiga 500 and then the 1200 - I finally bought a Commodore and had my new favourite!  I did run them in parallel for a while but eventually I released that I wasn’t really using the ST anymore and so got rid of it… (it actually paid for the upgrade to the 1200).

These were the days when the ST, Amiga and even that thing from Apple blew the PC out of the water for just about everything.  They had huge amounts of colours (up to 4096 on the Amiga vs 16 at the time on the PC!), full sound and it was all in the same box - they all just worked!

“Give up my Amiga?  I’d never have a PC…”

I actually kept to this for a long time until the late hours working to complete software, on the work PC’s, was becoming ridiculous.  Staying until 4 in the morning to be back at work for 8(ish) just so that I could complete a block of code or 3.  It would make much more sense to buy one for home.  I could then leave work at a sensible time, go home, eat and still do work - but in the comfort of my own home.  So yes, I finally bought a PC and slowly but surely stopped with the Amiga and replaced everything onto the PC…

In parallel with this I had various iterations of Psion mobile computers from the 3a through to the, at the time, sublime series 5.  (You can probably guess by now the next “NEVER”…)

“I’ll never have a Windows CE device!”

and, to be fair, I don’t think that I ever did, technically!  But, again due to work, there came a time where having one made more sense than not.  With .net development, wifi capabilities and more, there was a lot that you could do and could make some pretty cool functionality.  By now they were called Pocket PC’s, a misnomer to many but, when you compared the power to some of my earlier devices, kind of fair in some ways.  I’ve stuck with these devices since those days through the evolution to the smartphone devices upto and including Windows Mobile 6.1 on my current HTC Touch Dual.

So when the iPhone came out, you can guess my response!

“I’ll never get an iPhone!”

Again, technically that’s true as my wife has the iPhone 3G that I keep ‘borrowing’ to test things out and test websites and web apps and dashcode and the odd game or two…

So, once again, I think that the never may end up being a little premature!

We are now taking commissions to bring affordable, professionally designed, content management driven sites to anyone who wants them!

Our simple tool means that we work with you to get the look and feel of the site how you want it - but you manage the content of your site through a simple to use web based tool. This allows you full control over the content of your site and what is on there. You can add, update or change your site from anywhere that you can connect to the internet!

The dedicated site is in the final stages of being published - but if you want to know more then keep an eye on http://sitesareeasy.com and find out how you can manage your presence on the web!

Now, the next question is ”what we will be using it for?” We plan on using it to keep in touch about what we as a Company are doing; about the products that we create and for general observations.

“Why now?“ Well, November 5th 2008 (tomorrow) is the 1st Anniversary of Time Architect (TA), our time toolkit for Enterprise Architect (EA) and so it seemed like a good time to move forward with some changes.

”Having both a Blog and News pages, where should I look for information?” Ideally, both! The news pages will continue to be the place for headline information, whereas the blog will be slightly more free form and will contain information that we think is useful (and some that you might find less useful).

So, please keep an eye on this blog and we will show you features in TA that you never knew about; things that we, as a Company, do that you never realised; and share with you some of our favourite ideas, distractions and past-times.

We invite comments to our posts but we have set it up that you need to register first to hopefully prevent too many spam comments.

Welcome to the blog and the next chapter for Solutions Reality…