Cloud Bite » Blog

What’s Happening to Cloud Bite?

Mark Haynes — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:06:13 +0000

Hello everyone, it’s very rare I, the sole writer of Cloud Bite talk to you so informally but if your here, reading this, then I class you one of the sites friends and therefore my friend! Ok so as you will see its been nearly 2 months since anything appeared on Cloud Bite. The reason for this is because I have been really busy setting up a web design business as part of my University placement. I was hoping by the beginning of August everything would be sorted but when does anything ever go smoothly? Well its starting, for now, to settle down a little and I should be back writing posts, reviews, you know, the usual Cloud Bite quality content, sometime next week.

I have reviews of products coming up including the Harmony Remote Control from Logitech (thanks guys for hanging on), some app reviews I think you will like, a new keyboard/mouse desktop suite, a laptop (or 2) and a couple of other things. I have allotted time during my business hours that should allow me to do a post a day also! Also in the future im hoping to change Cloud Bite a little. I still love how Cloud Bite looks but its falling behind a little in terms of technologies and design so needs a, “Spring Clean” we will call it (and possibly a face-lift) but at the moment that’s in the future.

So yeh, I just wanted to update you with my status and the blogs status. Cloud Bite means a lot to me and I hope you like it to so it’s coming back just think of it as a long holiday!

Cheers guys, and remember you can get in touch with me at all times (apart from when im asleep) just hit contact us up there or email me at mark(at)markhaynes.me!

We Want You!

Mark Haynes — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:41:40 +0000

Cloud Bite has been operating for just over a year now and we want to expand! Our motto is adding small bites to a big cloud and to add more bites the team needs to grow. At the moment the blog is ran pretty much solely by myself and as much as I try with lots of other commitments I can’t carry the cloud alone anymore (like what I did there?). If you like the sound of joining us and helping to make Cloud Bite bigger and better for 2011 then read on…

Ok so who do we need?

Firstly and mainly we are looking for someone who can write a weekly news segment for us. This will follow the same sort of posts that the Weekly Tech Bite (see an example here) did. It’s simply a round up of the main tech news that has happened that week along with a round up of the Posts that have appeared on Cloud Bite! Also if the person wishes they will be able to write news of major events when they happen. So if Apple have announced a brand new product, or something else big has hit the tech world then it would be great to write that the day it happens and sum it up in the Weekly Tech Bite.

What we don’t want though is someone who heads over to them other tech news blogs and simple does a copy and paste. The idea of Cloud Bite was to give you, our readers information in a more personal way so we want someone who can write with their personality injected into it!

So, What we need from You…

We want a writer who can give up a couple of hours of their time (or however long it takes to write the Tech Bite) each week.
We want a writer with a personality not a robot who just churns out other peoples news!
We need your dedication, if you think you can spare time but aren’t sure or will have to quit in a few weeks/months time then this is not really what I’m looking for.
We need someone who has the passion like we do to make Cloud Bite Bigger and better. We have a great foundation now it’s time to build on it!

What you will get from us…

We will support you as much as possible as you write for us.
We are happy to take a look at your ideas for the future.
We will give you a trial if your not too sure it will suit you.
A platform to share your writing skills and your passion for technology!

What next…

Firstly please don’t apply if you are expecting to get any sort of payment. Cloud Bite doesn’t make much money at all, and anything it does make gets put straight back into the site and usually the running costs.

If your still interested though that’s great, drop me an email to info @ cloudbite.co.uk (remove spaces) and we can take it from there.

If you have your own blog or have written tech posts before be sure to mention them! If your new to all this don’t worry we all have to start somewhere.

There isn’t a closing date for applications until I update this post but I will give it a little time to give everyone a chance and if you don’t wish to do the above but would like to help another way be sure to get in touch!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Mark Haynes — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:45:15 +0000

It’s that time of year again when ghouls, ghosts and zombies are lurking around, ready to scare little children and eat them all up! Ok, ok, maybe not them eat them but definitely scare the living daylights out of them! With Pumpkins, witches hats, broomsticks and frightening masks running low in stock in the shops it’s a sure sign there will be a lot of trick or treaters walking around! Cloud Bite wants to give you a little treat too, so head on past the break and watch our Halloween special.

Cloud Bite’s 1st Birthday (Giveaway)

Mark Haynes — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:14:29 +0000

Today is Cloud Bite’s very first birthday. 1 year ago today the first Blog post was written introducing Cloud Bite to the world. It has been a journey that has had it’s ups and downs but overall has been great. With the support from some great people (see the Links to the Cloud Page) Cloud Bite has gone from strength to strength and we couldn’t of done it without you so thanks so much! Over the past year we feel Cloud Bite has evolved from a little amateur blog to a more professional brand. Not only has the design of the site dramatically changed from the original but the YouTube channel has grown into a more informative and professional feel. (We hope you think so too!)As we are so grateful for your support we wanted to give something back. Therefore we had a look at the stats and one of our most popular videos and blog posts was the Plantronics Gamecom Headset one. Now I wish we could give everyone a set of these but budgets are tight so 1 of you has the chance to win a brand new pair. For more information check out the Birthday video below!

Cloud Bite Cake

For anyone who wants to see the Cloud Bite Cake:

Thanks so much for your support and lets hope we can do this again next year only bigger and better!

Updates: Links to the Cloud and Badges

Mark Haynes — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:30:45 +0000

Cloud Bite is exactly that, a bite of the cloud. The cloud is huge though and so we felt it was necessary to link to some other great parts of the Cloud to help you find them! Therefore we have added the new “Links to the Cloud” page. It features the great companies that we have worked with and some of our favourite sites/blogs in the Cloud. The “Cloud Badge” as we call them are designed completely by us and are only available to those who we feel deserve them or have worked directly with Cloud Bite!

Get your own Cloud Badge

You should think of the “Cloud Badge” as a achievement, which you could feature anywhere, just be sure to mention it too us so we can tweet it out! Also only Cloud Badge holders get exclusive membership to Cloud Bite! We are happy to create a Cloud Badge for anyone just be sure to work with us! Also you can get a badge for your company if you sponsor us! It will be featured on the homepage too, get in touch at info@cloudbite.co.uk for more details!

So go on then, check out who so far has managed to achieve a Cloud Badge by visiting our Links to the Cloud.

If you think your site deserves a Cloud Badge or you wish to sponsor us then please feel free to contact us at info@cloudbite.co.uk

Updates to Cloud Bite

Mark Haynes — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:47:53 +0000

New Updates to Cloud Bite

Over the past couple of weeks there has been some great posts on Cloud Bite with unboxings and reviews of several products. When writing these reviews and inserting images, video etc for them I have noticed a few issues with Cloud Bite Website which have either made it harder and slower for me to add updates or are just general styling that I thought could do with been changed in order to improve your experience as well as my own. I thought I’d write this update to outline some of the changes that will effect you as a viewer of the website, however there is also a lot of changes made underneath! Please just bear in mind not all changes are complete at this time and small tweaks will no doubt be made over the next few days! In fact just writing this now I have just made a “tweak” to the Style Sheet of the website.

What’s Changed?

Sharing - We all like to share right? Well I suppose it all depends on what is being shared. I mean you wouldn’t really want to share your last Cadbury Button would you? Arhh Cadbury Buttons mmmm. Blog posts though, well good blog posts like mine , should be shared with your friends and beyond! Cloud Bite fully integrated the Tweetmeme button right from day one but other social networking sites like Facebook were overlooked, that is partially due to the fact I’m not a fan of facebook, however there are gazillions of people on FaceBook like there are on Twitter and other Social Media Sites. Now as the aforementioned social networking sites are the biggest, or appear to be, they have their own dedicated buttons right up the top of the post. However at the bottom of each post is also a ShareThis button which you can click and the post link gets repeated across all your social sites.

Facebook and Tweetmeme Sharing

ShareThis Button

Font – You may have notice the fonts have changed a little, or you may have only noticed when reading this. The reason the font has changed is I noticed that this font looks clearer especially on mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone. Other than that theres no other reason!

Width - Another small change to the site is the width of the main post area. The extra width even though a small increase aids the layout of a blog post and the ability to have larger images without effecting the sites design.

Article Information - At the bottom of each post you will now see the article information box. This contains the tags, category, last updated information and the ShareThis button! You can check it out below.

Article Information

Lightbox – The site now uses light box features to display images it just makes it that bit easier for you! At the moment not all of the images on the site have been fully adapted to correctly work with this feature but they soon will be.

Click to try the Lightbox feature.

Featured Posts - The Featured Posts at the top of the main page has been updated. This is more of a Style change than a features change.

Cloud Bite New Featured Posts

Ok so thats a round up of most of the changes that are obvious. There will be more updates soon but these will be gradually integrated into the website. If you spot any issues make sure you comment below also make sure comment if you like the changes of course!

Cloud Bite Voice Server

Mark Haynes — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:25:33 +0000

TS: 87.194.138.186:9987

Cloud Bite now has a voice server so that anyone can come in and have a chat! The voice server can be used for anything, within reason, and was set up so myself and friends could chat together whilst gaming or just sitting by the computer!

It’s really easy to get into the server firstly you need a headset or speakers and a mic (otherwise you can’t chat) and then you need to get the TeamSpeak Client links below.

PC: Team Speak 3: http://www.teamspeak.com/?page=downloads

Linux: Team Speak 3: http://www.teamspeak.com/?page=downloads

Mac: Team Speek 3: http://www.teamspeak.com/?page=downloads

Next hit the connect button and use the IP address: 87.194.138.186:9987 the server has no password so leave it Blank.

If you come in and there’s no one there then stay in for a bit someone is bound to come in soon! You can bring your friends in and make a channel but remember until you register (which is granted by an admin) if you leave the channel the channel will disappear (helps prevent spam).

If you are trying to get in but can’t make sure you inform me by E-mail (ts@cloudbite.co.uk) or Twitter (@CloudBite or @MarksBlog)

UPDATE: The Server has been updated to support 40 similtanius users and now has shared access with a World of Warcraft Guild Chronic. The guild isn’t mine but is a friends guild. This wont effect your usage please feel free to join at any point.

~~UPDATE 2: Ok so the guild decided they never wanted to come in and my friend didn’t want to pay the extra slots if people didnt use them! So Back we go to 10 Users max.~~

UPDATE 3: Gosh this post is getting updated alot! Anyway I now have my own server at home so host my own TeamSpeak 3 server so now you can connect to that. It’s Called Haynzee’s TS3 Server check it out at.. 87.194.138.186:9987 also you can see exactly whos in the Server right now! Check out below…

Cloud Bite’s First Merchandise

Mark Haynes — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:50:29 +0000

Today I arrived home to find a parcel from PhotoBox waiting for me. I would of done an unboxing but felt it was a rather boring one to do for the viewer so just ripped open the Packet. Inside I found 3 Cloud Bite Keyrings that I had ordered only 2 days ago.

Cloud Bite Key Ring

Why am I blogging about a keyring I hear you ask?

Well it’s a good excuse to tell you about the great service from Photobox.co.uk. I have used this company for the past few years and never had a problem with them. By goods have always arrived on time and are great quality. Photobox let you upload your photographs and have them printed on, Paper, key rings, cusions, T-Shirts, albums, Paper weights and you can even make a Cadbury Chocolate Eye Brows mug.. Don’t ask just check it out!

The prices are really good too and new customers get 40 free 6×4 prints for just signing up all you need to do is pay the P&P.

Cloud Bite, Mouse Mat, Stickers and Keyrings!

With the age of digital cameras we very rarely print our images any more and it’s a shame really. You buy that great camera but never get prints made and can only see them on the computer… how fun! So go give PhotoBox a try, and no I have nothing to do with them and aren’t getting commission… I wish I was though!

UPDATE: As a quick update the Mouse Mat and Stickers have now come too!

Oh 1 last thing, if you really love Cloud Bite, who doesn’t, feel free to order your own version of the Key Ring / Mouse Mat or stickers just download this photo: Cloud Bite Photo and upload it to PhotoBox!

Welcome to Cloud Bite!

Mark Haynes — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:03:42 +0000

The day has come and it’s time to release Cloud Bite to the Cloud! It’s taken a long time to arrive but it’s finally here. There are still several “items” that need ironing out and several pages to be added but they will all be sorted by the end of the coming week.

New posts including an iPhone desktop holder will be released soon but in the mean time check out the ‘about’ page which will tell you all about how Cloud Bite began. Check out the You Tube Channel at CloudBiteUK and the Twitter Page @CloudBite.

I would just like to say thanks to all those who stuck by me and I’m sorry it took so long. Hopefully though nothing major will happen and this time there shouldn’t be any interruptions!

Please add your feed back in the comments or @CloudBite or @MarksBlog

Thanks

Mark