The book I read to research this post was Corporate Blogging For Dummies by Douglas Karr which is a very good book which I read at https://safaribooksonline.com . This book is about blogging as it relates to big companies. They normally use a specialist blog platform like Wordpress VIP or Compendium and will have a theme specially written for the job. One thing it says in the book is you must give the bloggers time to settle in and develop their style as bloggers. I know when I initially started blogging I tried to write about subjects and gradually found doing book reviews where I tried to give people an idea of some of the things that were in a book was better. Quite a bit of this book is on SEO, Google Analytics and landing pages, much of which I have covered in other books. They are important in corporate blogging where you want what you write to be read by quite a large audience. Google Analytics can be linked to many blogs and gives feedback on things like what people read and demographics of your audience. Of course with a big company you might want something more heavy duty like Omniture. An important thing is don't just regurgitate your sales spiel but try and put information in that people can't find elsewhere particularly about your products. You can compare your company to your competition although you have to be realistic about this and make sure the competition doesn't ridicule what you say. You should try and develop a chatty style where you tell people about every aspect of your company. It isn't just buyers you will visit your blogs and you should have a customized URL and preferably have blogs in the name to let people know what it is. Smaller companies might use a platform like Typepad or Moveable Type or even a self hosted Wordpress blog. You can get the Wordpress software which is open source and free at https://wordpress.org . Many like this option because of the huge amount of potential customization available and plug ins. I did quite enjoy this book which covers the topic well.

The book I read to research this post was Mind Mapping Secrets For Business by Katie Darden which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is quite short but succinct and is informative on this topic. Apparently Katie has taught mind mapping to students so does seem to explain it quite well. The British psychology author Tony Buzan came up with the idea of mind mapping and was inspired by ideas in science fiction novels of a technique of showing relationships between things and doing it in a visual way. A mind map typically will have a photo or picture in the centre showing the key subject and will have wider branches coming out of the centre narrowing as you go further out. The key thing is for it to be visual and pictures tend to be used to symbolize things along with keywords running along many of the branches. Many people use software to do mind maps and they certainly make it neater and are especially good for the beginner. This book does promote freemind a free open source mind mapping software and even includes how to install it. There is a whole list of free mind mapping software in the book. Some applications mind mapping is particularly good for are SEO, website design, planning your day, studying and revising and anything where you need to plan out your thoughts. Everything in a mind map is put in categories so that you don't miss anything out. The human brain can remember between 5-9 items in any one go and this retention improves if the items are put in groups or any kind of logical order. Another technique is of course mnemonics where you come up with a sentence that the first letter of each word represents an item. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would probably read other books by this author and think it is a pretty good book if a little bit short.

This is the 7th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. I am going to look at themes mostly in this post. If you press shift and left click on the corner of some shapes it works differently but only on certain shapes. With triangles for example it changes its constraining proportions and with a square it will let you change it to a rectangle. If you click on design/ themes there is a variants option next to it that changes according to what theme is selected. There is flyouts in both themes and variants with various selections. On themes is a setting called apply to new shapes which is selected by default but when unticked the theme has to be manually added to each shape you draw and doesn't inherit anything you previously drew. There is effects, connectors and embellishments options in themes. Embellishments is normally best set to automatic. Effects does things like drop shadows and connectors changes the appearance of selected connectors between shapes. The theme you set up is automatically set up in themes flyouts for re use. There is a setting to apply it to all pages in a document. File/ paste just pastes a shape minus the formatting information. File/ paste special has various options for pasting the formatting settings for text and shapes. This includes themes. Home/ shape styles concentrates on settings for the shape. You can set things like fill color and a gradient if needed. You can cut, copy and paste with in this program using the shortcuts control+ x for cut, control + c for copy and control + v for paste like in most other programs. When you do some text somewhere and do some in another shape only the font color is stored and passed on by default. The command to copy formatting information is home/ paste/ format painter. You normally select what you want copied and have to select what you want copied and where you want it to go to. If you double click on the format painter it copies all the formatting information.  When you select shapes going onto something else you can put them in containers or groups. Home/ group does grouping and insert/ container is the container command. Groups using a default visual boundary around the group but containers let you choose a boundary from the options. In groups you can double click a shape and move it outside the boundary but if you move the group the shape will follow. In containers the shape can be selected by a single click and moved outside but then becomes separate and follow the boundary if moved. Also you can add text to containers in predefined titles specially for that purpose. In groups text is normally just put into the centre space in between the group.

This is the 6th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn doing the video training course by VTC on this software. If you click on review/ shape reports it lets you configure reports to get them just right. There is an autocomplete feature to help you find preselected fields. Selecting and clicking add lets you add a field. Similarly using the remove button lets you delete it. Clicking finish takes you into the wizard where you can configure it. If you select view/ then tick dynamic grid and connection points it lets you see potential connection points on a shape that you can add. Home/ align,  aligns shapes. There are various options on the fly out like align left. If you have several shapes one will be designated an anchor shape with a slightly darker outline and the other shapes will align to it. Autoalign aligns shapes to a set amount and lets you choose another anchor shape. The position button also under home has various options and aligns and spaces out shapes. There is an option where you can specify figures for alignment and spacing and a position/ autoalign and space which uses default values. If you hover over the button with the mouse it gives you a preview. Home/ connection which is an x button lets you add a connection point. These are dynamic and adapt to you moving shapes around with the connection point remaining the same. If you right click on the connection point of a shape you can select whether you want it to be inward, outward or inward and outward. Using control and the scroll wheel zooms in and out. Using just the scroll wheel on the mouse lets you scroll up and down on the page. Pressing control, shift and w lets you zoom to the extents of the image or images. View/ task panes brings up a floating panel which you can drag around the screen. You can choose a region on the screen to go to by simply clicking and dragging towards it. The x icon closes the pane. Finally some shapes like a triangle have various handles where you can do things like drag the point to somewhere different. Not all shapes have this.

This is the 5th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. I am going to write about linking shapes to data. If you right click a shape in visio and select from the menu data/ define shape data it lets you specify data for that shape. If you drag a shape partly off a page it expands to accommodate that shape by default. File/ auto size sets whether this is default or not. File/size changes the page size either to a predefined size or a custom one. File/ orientation selects whether the page is in landscape or portrait mode. Properties are copied from what you have set up and what the last page you had, had for its properties to any new page you create although you can still change these properties. If you choose insert/ new page it creates a new page. You can have a watermark on a page which is useful for security or copyright reasons. You generally have to create the watermark although there are some predefined ones you can select. When you create a watermark it is automatically imported into the page set up dialog box. Design/ backgrounds brings up a background page normally on its own layer. You select a blank background in with the foreground page selected to get rid of a watermark. Data/ refresh all refreshes the shape properties and links connected to a shape. You will often specify a frequency for how often you wish it to be refreshed. Review/ shape reports lets you do a report on the properties of a shape. You normally select what fields you want displayed and the format ie excel workbook or visio shape for it to be displayed in. You can also link data to a excel workbook in either a single page which is done by default or by selecting various pages.

This is the 4th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Visio 2013 based on what I learn on the video training course by VTC on this software. I am mostly going to look at org charts. In org chart mode mostly there are either actually in the workspace or about to be displayed some org charts, there is an org chart tab which appears. You can apply any shape to the elements of the org chart and it is infinitely configurable. If you select one of the shapes and click  position you can select a predefined job title which is then applied. If you click the photo icon you can select a photo which is then applied to that person's shape. You can apply photos en masse but it is essential they are labelled so they can automatically be applied. This won't work with a digital camera where most photos are numbered rather than labelled. You also to do this use a multiple selection of the shapes. If you click on home/ layer/ assign to layer you can assign several selected shapes to the same layer. If you still click on layer but also click on layer properties on the same button, you can configure the properties for that layer. You can lock a layer in properties to preventing accidently selecting it. You can click on home/ select/ select by type and can select the constituent parts of a layer. When you delete a shape the properties for that shape remain and you can apply them to new shapes. Simply select active then draw shapes. You can select a layer with in select by type or select something with similar properties ie shapes. You can set properties for a shape although not all shapes have this type of data. One that does is flowcharts. This data isn't generally displayed but is attributes. The command for this is data/ shape data and you can tab between the fields or left click them. The attributes can be things like currency, a serial number or boolean. The last is typically true or false values.

The book I read to research this post was From the Footplate: Eurostar by Peter Waller which is an excellent book that I bought from a local secondhand bookstore. This book is quite succinct at around 110 pages and much of that is photos but what information there is, is quite interesting. It was also published in 1998 so some stuff might be a bit dated. The Eurostar was built by a French, Belgian and British consortium overseen by GEC-Alsthom with various contractors in the 3 countries. Much of the British work was done at Washwood Heath in Birmingham which I think also did work on the Pendolino's used by Virgin Rail for high speed cross country travel in Britain. The Eurostar is essentially a form of TGV but is one of the most technologically advanced trains in the world largely because it has to handle 3 sets of voltages in the 3 countries. The supply inside the Chunnel itself is 25 KV the same as in France. All 3 countries have intermediate towns for people not travelling to either London, Brussels or Paris. The 3 destinations it travels between. Of course in Europe there is an extensive TGV network. The intermediate stations are Ashford in Britain, Calais in France & Lille in Belgium. In Belgium & France they have built dedicated high speed line with the result it can go faster. In Britain various work has been done including a cross train train route through London for conventional trains and a new station called St. Pancras International for Eurostar passengers. Previously the trains left from Waterloo but the line overall the Eurostar travels on is slower than on the continent. I think when they upgrade the line for faster speeds the main consideration is allowing for the drivers reaction time to signals at these higher speeds. Obviously he has less time to react and they have to be placed further from where he must stop. The Eurostar cab has no side windows and the driver is centrally located to prevent him becoming disoriented by things passing by the side of him. This is especially the case in the Chunnel. The drivers also had to learn the routes and the systems used in the other 2 countries which was a steep learning curve. I really enjoyed this book and would wholeheartedly recommend it.

The book I read to research this post was How To Secure Your Website From Hackers by Ashish Ghanti which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is about the various techniques hackers can use to damage your website but even more importantly how they can gain access to passwords and financial information via your website. The latter is the priority with most hackers and they will mostly not damage your website as such and try to hide their tracks and not get caught. Your website for a start must always require passwords before doing any functions and must require the exact URL. Many hackers don't know the exact URL and it's amazing how many this will trip up. Often they will do HTTP injecting where they enter the known part of the URL and an extension they think will take them to a part of the website that maybe is a database or stores credit card info. Another very frequent method is social engineering and another similar one is phishing where they try and get an employee to part with the password. You need to educate your staff to prevent this and in thinks like emails look at the language carefully and study the links. What this book doesn't say but is the case is nowadays they can use a genuine link that seems okay when you hover over it with the mouse but which uploads software onto your computer like malware and you best bet is enter the address manually into the address box. Ashish is from Nepal and is a blogger and SEO consultant. I think this book is well written although one problem is I think it says hacker not hackers in the title and I suppose English isn't his first language. The information on securing your website is good although the book is somewhat short. It does suggest using open source tools Nessus and Nmap to test the integrity of your site and I think I learned quite a lot from it. There is obviously a lot of information in the book I've not covered. I've just included it a taster. I think I recommend it.

I am reviewing the album Rockferry by Duffy which is an excellent album. The album is soul and alternative music influenced and Duffy was the first Welsh lady to top the British singles chart since Bonnie Tyler with Total Eclipse Of The Heart in 1983. She was born in Bangor in North Wales in 1984 and her parents separated when she was 10. Apparently her stepfather's life was in danger and they had to live in a safe house for a while and she ran away to be with her father. Several members of her family wouldn't speak to her for years afterwards. Her father's partner had taken out a contract on her stepfather and as a result had to serve a prison sentence. She doesn't play any particular musical instrument. The best track is probably Mercy  but she also had a huge hit with Warwick Avenue. The latter was based on an experience in London when she struggled to make sense of the London Underground system. She won 3 Brit Awards & 1 Grammy for the work on this album. Adele cited her as a major influence in her acceptance speech at the 2009 Brit Awards. She did have an acting role in the 2010 film Patagonia and is currently taking a extended break from her work. The film is about someone journeying from Patagonia in Argentina to Wales. There is a huge Welsh community in Patagonia with many people still speaking Welsh there. This is one of my favorite albums and she did do a follow up album which wasn't as successful but still pretty good. She has a university degree in commercial art.

I am reviewing the pop album Meet The Vamps by The Vamps which is a very good album. The Vamps are a new group who have recently achieved  quite a lot of success. Their debut single charted at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and was kept off the top by One Republic. Their follow up single reached number 3 in the UK Chart. Their album also charted at number 2 on the UK Album Chart and was kept off the top by Paolo Nutini. Two of the members met on You Tube and they subsequently met the 3rd on Facebook and met the 4th member through a mutual friend. They have released their 1st single in the States and very much used social media sites to get exposure and subsequently a recording contract. Their 2 singles were nominated for Best Singles at the World Music Awards. They have recorded a track with Demi Lovato whom they have also been a supporting act to at her concerts and it looks set to be their next single. They have also supported The Wanted. They are signed to Mercury Records and this album is better than I expected. Wild Heart is probably the best track on it and there is a good variety of different types of songs. It's probably not a classic album but is really good. There is a nice bit in the video to Wild Heart when someone is lying still made up to look like a corpse and it turns out he is merely sleeping off a wild party and just been done up to look that way for a joke. It's quite original. I think I would recommend this album and I am sure The Vamps are going to be huge.