Tom Edson's Social Enigma (on Tumblr.)

Slow WiFi/YouTube on iPhone/iPad Easy Fix

So, I’ve had iPhone’s for about three years now, and every time I’ve been on my home WiFi network, I’ve NEVER been able to view YouTube videos on it. It just takes too long to load. I assumed that it was because my home WiFi isn’t fantastic, on WiFi it streams higher quality vids by default, and because it’s possible that the network adapter inside my iPhone wasn’t as good as those on my laptop/desktop machines. Annoying as it was, it didn’t bother me that often, as I rarely wanted to use it.

Jump forward to a month ago when I finally got round to buying an iPad, and to my surprise I had very much the same problem. Slow WiFi, especially on YouTube. And if there was ever a device made for viewing YouTube videos, the iPad is just that. So I really wanted to get it fixed, and as YouTube has always streamed fine on my computers, I couldn’t see why it wasn’t possible.

Now if you’ve found this post, I’m pretty sure you’ll have seen all the stuff about the problem lying within your DNS settings right? Well, they are correct, but what many of them don’t do is tell you the correct way of going about fixing it! It’s pretty obvious that one DNS setting won’t work for everyone, as everyone has different brands, makes and models of wireless infrastructure.

So, how to go about it. Firstly, you need access to your routers settings, to do this type your routers IP in to your web browser. Most routers use either http://192.168.2.1/ , http://192.168.1.1/ or http://192.168.1.0/ .

If you can’t find your routers IP address, click Start, search or find the ‘Run’ option in Windows. Type ‘CMD’ and click OK. When the black input box appears type ‘ipconfig’ find the part of the results that detail your ‘Default Gateway’, this number is your routers IP address.

Once accessed, you should see something like this:

Depending on your router this will probably appear slightly different, however, you need to find the ‘DNS Address’ of your router. (As circled in red on my image.)

If this is different to your iPad or iPhone’s DNS in your WiFi settings, this is why you are having problems.

To check and change your devices DNS settings, click Settings » Wi-Fi » Click the blue arrow by your WiFi name »DNS.

Please make a note of the existing DNS before making any changes in case you need to revert back to your previous settings.

If the DNS is different, please change it to the one found on your routers information page, and hopefully your device should be significantly quicker!

I make no promises that this will work for everyone, however it worked wonders for me, and am sure there are others out there with similar problems!

Please comment my post if you found it useful or require further instruction.

Thanks guys!

Click here to download:

image001.emz (128 KB)

Click here to download:

oledata.mso (138 KB)

Client Project Update

I have been so fantastically busy I don’t know where to start. But here it goes; an update to my client project. My client project is a portfolio/blog website for fashion designer Izabela Targosz, based in Paris. In my project proposal, I had decided to suggest producing a website with. ‘split’ feel. One side focused on information, and other on visual elements, including Izabela’s illustrations and photographs of her work. After some deliberation with the client; we agreed on the following colour scheme. Below are proposed images of the intro page and a generic information page layout.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

The intro page is to include an interactive animation feature which uses the letters of the clients name to trigger images viewing in the right hand window. This part of the website is already complete and can be seen at; http://tom-edson.co.uk/izabela/index.php The rest of the website is under development and more updates will be applied to that link throughout the project.

Front-End Web Job Opportunity

Hey everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that Chemistry (www.chemistrygroup.co.uk ) are looking for a Junior Front-End Designer to start ASAP.

The job boasts a 15-20k salary and is to start immediately! They are looking for people with jQuery, CSS and JAVA/JavaScript skills.

If you’re interested send your CV to sarah.goodman@chemistrydigital.co.uk with links to your work and Sarah will send you the job spec in return.

(A note in the mail that you heard it from me wouldn’t go a miss either =D )

Happy Jobbing.

Super Delayed Blog Update

Sorry.

Is the only word I can really use to apologise for the monumental lack of blog posts in the last two months, I’ve been just about the busiest I’ve ever been, so I figured I should give an update about everything I’ve been doing. Also a good opportunity to test out the typing ability of my nee toy. I’m an iPad hussy now.

So let’s start with University.

Client Project - this is going really well, I am producing a complex portfolio for a fashion illustrator and designer based in Paris. At the moment the design concept is complete, just going over the fine details and construction is imminent. The latest updates below:

Personal Research Project - I completed my first draft of the document at the beginning of December, and the final production is imminent. The thesis of my project is ‘How is the evolution of publishing modes providing new visual communication opportunities with online and mobile environments?’. As some of you may have guessed, my new toy is hopefully going to help further my thesis and understanding of the subject area. It will also form a major part of my artefact platform.

Non uni stuff:

Well this is where I’ve been really busy. I’ve gained a number of freelance projects since the start of December, not to mention a massive fast-paced creation for my employer.

My employer has extended their business in to a new marketplace, and as such a new website was needed. The business decided to split the work between myself and another designer for this project, and I ended up with the back-end development, so at present there’s not much to show of my own work at the moment. The website will be going live on January 4th, so stay tuned and I’ll post a link when its publicly available.

As for the rest of the work, I’ll post samples and concepts once they are approved by their respective clients.

Happy Holidays!

Here’s a picture dedicated to our new coffee maker, which is now the reason I don’t sleep >.<

Free Web Development Work

This post is just as much an advertisement as it is an observation. I need to find, in the next 2-3 weeks, someone who needs a relatively complex web based solution, that they are willing to let me implement for them, for free. Which is about the best offer you can really get. I’m not really sure who I should try and target in terms of a client, I’m not sure if I want to go down the shopping-cart route. And I’d like to do something a bit different than ‘just a blog’. If anyone is interested, or knows someone who might be in a potentially completely free full web project please tell them to get in touch (tom.edson@edsonweb.co.uk) so we can discuss ideas. Over the next few weeks I’m sure I’ll find out how hard it really is to give away free work. tom.edson@edsonweb.co.uk

1and1 - The Global Web Host Power, redesigned.

(Note: I am not promoting 1and1, but i do use their services.)

If you’ve ever even thought about getting a web host/server, then you’ve heard of 1and1, it’s as simple as that. There top-dog (by that I mean bloke, not a spaniel) is on of the wealthiest web-businessmen, period. And as the title might suggest, they have redesigned their site!

Now, at first glance your probably just gonna go “it’s another well read website for a large global firm”, and you’d be right. But what I think you should be thinking is; what would I do if asked to do a design for a company with such prestige, magnitude of products and in such a competitive industry. It’d be a lot harder than you might think.

I have included a snap shot of the new 1and1 design, but to see how it really ‘fits’ on the web, go check out http://www.1and1.co.uk .

I think looking at how these sites are designed can be just as interesting as looking at those that are considered more ‘cutting-edge’ and ‘breathtaking’ because gaining the inspiration and ‘stand-out’ factor in a site which is no doubt subject to LOADS of design constraints must be a massive burden to the designer.

I believe the colour-split really helps to provide good boundaries between what would be considered the ‘important’ bits, and the generic items lower down the page. And once again in web design, dividing by ‘3’ really used to good affect.

I’m not going to waffle on about this as I’m sure you’ll make your own opinion, but I think it is a nice design to provide inspiration for some of those more commercialy rigerous projects. Oh, and just some advice - if your bored and fed up of your cheap but unreliable, slow or featureless web provider, I’d recommend 1and1 - I guess they’re the biggest for a reason.

Setting Up The NEW NTU E-Mail On Your iPhone

Hey everyone,

This post is a response to two things. 1^st, NTU have changed all their e-mail protocols over the summer (2010) and have in effect given everyone an entirely new e-mail address, server and webspace. Now this is important because not only have the settings changed which enabled us to receive our NTU e-mail via our SmartPhones, but it also means you need to tell people NOT to e-mail your old e-mail accounts, as what I’ve seen so far suggests that you can still access your old e-mail accounts, but they are not forwarded (hopefully this will be fixed at some point?).

If you want to access your old NTU e-mail account (Pre August 2010), login here: https://owa2k.ntu.ac.uk or http://outlook.ntu.ac.uk

Right, down to business, how to set up this new e-mail account on your iPhone.

Just a little intro to let you know what we have to do, so it doesn’t seem like you’re on a wild goose hunt; for reasons I don’t understand, the new e-mail system does not have the same password as your NOW logon, but it doesn’t tell you that, and you wouldn’t know, because it automatically logs you in from the NOW screen, but when it comes to adding e-mail address’ to other things, of course you need to know the e-mail address in order to get anything to work. There is no way I can see to figure out what your mystery password is, so we’re going to go ahead and just change it to something easy to remember (whatever you want), and then use that, along with the server settings I’ve figured out to get it working on your phone.

Step 1: Go to http://now.ntu.ac.uk and log on as normal.

Step 2: Hit ‘NTU Mail’ at the top of the screen.

Step 3: In the mail window, click ‘Options’ – it is located underneath your name in the top-right hand corner.

Step 4: Click ‘Change your password’ – located on the right hand side, bottom middle box (listed under ‘Shortcuts to other things you can do’)

Step 5: Click ‘Change’ – the option next to the Password field near the top of the page – under your date of birth.

Step 6: You won’t know your mystery password so click ‘Forgot your password’ – under the ‘Old password’ box.

Step 7: Insert your Windows ID (this will be your n-number @my.ntu.ac.uk i.e. n0000000@my.ntu.ac.uk)

Step 8: Complete the ‘Captcha’ (the thing where you have to type the funny letters).

Step 9: Follow the onscreen instructions, you will also receive an e-mail about now to re-set your password, complete this, preferably using a password that you know and is easy to remember.

Step 10: Ok, now you have changed your password we can enter the details in to your phone. On your iPhone, go to ‘Settings’

Step 11: Then ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars’ (this is for iPhone OS 3.0 and later – use closest match on previous editions)

Step 12: Under ‘Accounts’, tap ‘Add Account…’

Step 13: Select ‘Microsoft Exchange’

Step 14: Enter the below setting, adapting them to your own mailbox account:

Email – your-n-number@my.ntu.ac.uk

Server – pod51007.outlook.com

Domain - *LEAVE THIS BLANK*

Username – your-n-number@my.ntu.ac.uk

Password – yourpassword (the one you just changed)

Use SSL – On

Ta-da!

Important things you should know: You e-mail address, when using this new system appears as firstname.lastname0000@my.nty.ac.uk – where the 0000 is the year you started, i.e. 2010. However, when dealing with the server in this way, the logon is in fact n0000000@my.ntu.ac.uk – you can email either address and it will work – but make sure you use your N number when setting this up

Hope that helps!

Leave me feedback if this worked for you/need more help with it.