It's a part of my job to try and market our website. As I get older I guess I really ought to do my job instead of chan-ing. That's a shame really as I like to chan but I get paid to do this stuff and over the years working here has looked after me through thick and thin so I need to pay back really.

Our new website was designed and built by the guys at Argument from Design. I had asked them to start looking at a fresh new face for our site as it had started to look a bit dated. Also, a lot of new technologies had come out and it looked as though we could benefit from getting on board with them.

Previously Ian White and Ray Drainville at Ardes.com had talked me into using a new development platform (am I using the right words here?) called Ruby on Rails. Both Ian and Ray were keen to use this as it speeds up website development (meaning my budgets stayed intact - Yay! for Rails) providing a faster turnaround. Cheaper, smoother, faster websites with speedy delivery. All good stuff I'm sure anyone will agree.So I had agreed for them to move away from PHP while developing another site of ours called Distinctive Windows (currently offline).

During development of the windows site and in the period between finishing  that and myself wanting to start this new project ardes.com had become pretty decent Rails Developers to say the least. Ian has really got into the free software vibe with Rails and has lots of Rails plugins in the public domain. He has even given a speech at  RailsConf this year.

Incidentally, if you are into Rails development then you may want to read the Ardes Rails blog to pick up some decent tips and free stuff.

Anyway, I digress.

Oh no look - its time to go home. I normally finish about 7pm but tonight I have the luxury of being able to go home with everyone else as I'm going to see Will Young at Sheffield City Hall.

I'll have to finish this later then.