﻿<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>VSI Thinking - Company Blog</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/</link><generator>thinkingBlog 1.0 From VSI-Thinking, www.vsi-thinking.com</generator><language>en</language><description>News and thoughts from the developers at VSI-Thinking</description><copyright>(C) 2008, VSI-Thinking</copyright><item><title>3D TVs are arriving!</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/03/3d-tvs-are-arriving!/</link><pubDate>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:49:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Braund</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[New Sites]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Awaiting 3D TV with baited breath?  The wait is almost over - the first 3D TVs by Samsung are to launch in the UK within the month!
Visit <a href="http://www.3dtv-products.co.uk" title="Visit 3D TV Products for the latest 3D TV reviews!">3D TV Products</a> now for all the latest 3D TV reviews!]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>Awaiting 3D TV with baited breath? The wait is almost over - the first 3D TVs by Samsung are to launch in the UK within the month, and not only will they hook up to 3D Bluray films, they'll also convert 2D "standard" pictures to 3D!</p>
		<p>And being LED, they're not only ultra-thin, they're also brilliantly bright!</p>
		<p>Click <a title="Visit 3D TV Products for more information on the new Samsung 3D TV and the latest 3D TV reviews!" href="http://www.3dtv-products.co.uk/products/archive/2010/02/samsung-55-inch-led-3d-tv-launched/">here</a> to see more information on these amazing screens.</p>
		<p>The new <a title="Visit 3D TV Products for the latest 3D TV reviews!" href="http://www.3dtv-products.co.uk">3D TV Products</a> site has all the latest 3D TV reviews, allowing you to browse as they come to market and decide which one suits you best.  There's plenty of information and helpful advice too, in case you get stuck.</p>
		<p>You can also find 3D TV news and accessories, updates on the latest 3D film releases, and links to the latest Bluray 3D releases, making this site a one-stop shop for all your 3D TV needs!</p>
		<p>Visit <a title="Visit 3D TV Products for the latest 3D TV reviews!" href="http://www.3dtv-products.co.uk">3D TV Products</a> now!</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/171/</guid></item><item><title>Luxury Hotels</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/03/luxury-hotels/</link><pubDate>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:06:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[New Sites]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Want to stay at a Luxury Hotel, we have the very best available.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>Luxury Hotels throughout the UK are listed on our latest hotel web site. The <strong>web site design</strong> from VSI-thinking shortlists some of the most <strong>exclusive hotels</strong> in the UK. There are great offers available which are ideal for a short stay. The site uses a Google map to show where the <strong><a title="Luxury hotels accommodation" href="http://www.luxuryhotelsaccommodation.co.uk/" target="_blank">luxury hotels</a></strong> are so it is easy to plan any excursions during your stay.</p>
		<p>The web site is great at helping the customer see just where the hotel is located. Often you can arrive at a hotel and find it is miles from anywhere. Whilst <strong>luxury hotels</strong> should have all the facilities you need to keep you entertained and pampered, it is still essential to see how close they are to cities, airport, stations and places of interest.</p>
		<p>The list of hotels has been hand picked by our hotel team to ensure they are top quality and offer the highest level of 4 and <strong>5 star service.</strong> Why not check out the site and plan your next stay <a title="luxury hotels" href="http://www.luxuryhotelsaccommodation.co.uk/" target="_blank">luxury hotel</a> break.</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/169/</guid></item><item><title>Spa Hotels</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/02/spa-hotels/</link><pubDate>Sat, 20 Feb 2010 11:07:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Relax in style at a Spa Hotel, we short list the best in the UK.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>Spa Hotels are a popular retreat for weekend breaks and short stays. The latest hotel web site from VSI-thinking shortlists some of the most exclusive in the UK. There are great deals available at these hotels which are the ideal weekend get away. The site uses a Google map to show where the hotels are so it is easy to plan any activities during your stay.</p>
		<p>Visit <a title="spa hotels accommodation" href="http://www.spahotelsaccommodation.co.uk/" target="_blank">Spa Hotels</a> today.</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/168/</guid></item><item><title>PhUSE polling their members</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/02/phuse-polling-their-members/</link><pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:45:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[It's testament to the scalability and future-proof nature of VSI-thinking's thinkingMODULES that a small module such as the thinkingPOLL could be extended to provide a solution to a recent request from PhUSE.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>It's testament to the scalability and future-proof nature of VSI-thinking's thinkingMODULES that a small module such as the thinkingPOLL could be extended to provide a solution to a recent request from PhUSE.</p>
		<p>PhUSE needed a poll that could cope with elections amongst their members for different positions within the organisation.</p>
		<p>A tailored solution was created by extending the thinkingPOLL, allowing for the administration of different elections, positions and candidates in the back end, and providing a user interface in the front end where a user could vote.  The extensions also included the provision of reports for the election results and for a list of voters for each candidate, along with date and time voted, allowing for analysis of voting habits and prevention of block voting:</p>
		<p>
				<img style="WIDTH: 463px; HEIGHT: 400px" height="556" alt="PhUSE Poll Screen" src="/downloadDocument.aspx?DocumentID=369" width="724" />
		</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/161/</guid></item><item><title>Golf Courses in South Wales</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/02/golf-courses-in-south-wales/</link><pubDate>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:26:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[General]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Play and Stay at hotels and accommodation in South Wales to enjoy a great golfing experience.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[South Wales has a wide variety of great <b>golf courses</b>, many blessed with spectacular scenery and challenging holes. People from all around the UK come to play our courses throughout the year and for the first time there is a web site to help visitor find a <b>hotel</b> or <b>accommodation</b> close to the <b>course</b>.<br /><br />Often when you go play a course you automatically stay at the course, if they have accommodation, or are left searching high and low for a hotel nearby. The new <a title="South Wales Golf Courses" href="http://www.southwalesgolfcourses.co.uk/" target="_blank">South Wales Golf Courses</a> website uses a map to show a given course and the position of surrounding hotels and courses.<br /><br />It is now so simple to get the best <b>accommodation</b> that is visibly close to the course. Another great feature is that you can see other courses close to the course you want to visit and play, so you can easily arrange a <b>Play and Stay</b> at a number of courses from one central and accessible hotel.<br /><br />Check out the <a title="South Wales Golf Courses" href="http://www.southwalesgolfcourses.co.uk/" target="_blank">website</a>, and start planning your <b>Play and Stay</b> at <b>South Wales golf courses</b> now.<br /><br />]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/167/</guid></item><item><title>How big is yours?</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/02/how-big-is-yours?/</link><pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:23:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[Uncategorised]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Hosting on the right hardware is important, particularly for larger sites and web applications where choosing the right platform is key.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>VSI-thinking has recently comissioned a new server for our rack in Canary Wharf, due to come online in March 2010. We talked to our Technical Director to found out a little more about what influences the purchasing decision of such a large scale and importance piece of hardware.</p>
		<p>
				<strong>Requirement</strong>
				<br />VSI-thinking provides many large scale applications for customers together with many important business critical software solutions. Our key consideration is to ensure a high level of performance, which is scalable for the future while still providing long term reliability. Whilst there are many third party hosting companies in the UK, we feel their solutions always fall short of fulfilling these criteria.</p>
		<p>
				<strong>Processors<br /></strong>The more processors and cores the better, especially for web servers when there are hunderds of visitors all wanting their data processed. Caching is also very important, processors with larger Level 1 and Level 2 caches are always going to be quicker as they keep the cores fully loaded with processing tasks rather than having to wait to get information from main memeory.</p>
		<p>
				<strong>Memory (RAM)</strong>
				<br />Lots and lots of memory is essential, the more the better. The new server uses the latest DDR3 memory which allows wider bit addressing and runs at higher speeds. With 32Gb of memory, the same as about 8 or 10 desktop computers, the server can handle large data queries entirely in memory.</p>
		<p>
				<strong>Hard Disks</strong>
				<br />When performance is the key drive only SCSI will do and the new server has 15000 RPM drives. These drive not only spin twice as quick as a desk computer drive they have much quicker interface and a huge data cache. There are two RAIDs in the computer, one for the operating system and the other for the web sites and databases.</p>
		<p>
				<strong>Redundancy</strong>
				<br />The disk RAIDs ensure a copy of all data is written whenever the drive is accessed. The memory has parity built in, and the two processors with their 4 cores each help to provide a lot of processing resources. There are physically two network cards and two power supplies to ensure that in the event of a failure a reserve is on hand, ready to take the place of the failed unit.</p>
		<p>
				<strong>Summary</strong>
				<br />At nearly £10,000 for a computer it sounds like a lot of money, but servers like this are highly specialised and provide a level of performance to which third party hosting companies just can't get close.</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/165/</guid></item><item><title>3DTV television the future is here</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/01/the-future-of-tv-is-here,-3dtv/</link><pubDate>Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:44:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[General]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[3DTV television has arrived and its here to stay, find out more on our information site.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>
				<strong>3DTV television</strong> has arrived and its here to stay, VSI-thinking has brought together all the information from across the internet. The latest <strong>3DTV products</strong> are listed, together with accessories and background information. We list all the latest <strong>3D film</strong>, DVD and Blu-ray releases so you won't miss a moment of the 3D revolution.</p>
		<p>Take a look at the site on <a title="3D TV television products" href="http://www.3dtv-products.co.uk/" target="_blank">3D TV</a> Television Products it is interesting and exciting.</p>
		<p>Over the next few months we plan to launch dedicated sites for; 3DTV forums, 3DTV accessories, 3DTV information and 3D Blu-ray players.</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/160/</guid></item><item><title>Customer Survey Questionnaire reporting</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/01/customer-survey-questionnaire-reporting/</link><pubDate>Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:39:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[New Sites]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[The latest VSI-thinking customer survey questionnaire (CSQ) reporting web application processes millions of records in real-time.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>The latest VSI-thinking customer survey questionnaire (CSQ) reporting web application processes millions of records in real-time. Over 150 million answers (records) are held in the dataset requring 10Gb of storage. Developed for Thomas Cook, it replaces the existing ASP appliction which had served them well for over 8 years, proving how scalable and future proof solutions delivered by VSI-thinking are.</p>
		<p>The new .NET solution has a completely new relational database with improved indexing. Scalability was a key consideration in the development of the new database, with the potential to double in size and retain performance within acceptable response times. Hardware scalability was also important, so the application is being hosted on our latest database application server in Canary Wharf with a Terabyte of storage available.</p>
		<p>What's the verdict? Key reports for all gateway scores are now returned in less than 10 seconds rather than over 60 seconds for the previous application. Individual gateway reports and resort reports are near real-time, making the web application more fluid to use. Perhaps the great performance benefit however is the performance under load, where response times would increase rapidly with multiple users. The new .NET solution has no noticeable increase in report times when multiple queries from multiple users are loaded on the application.</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/154/</guid></item><item><title>Putting a value on good SEO</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/01/putting-a-value-on-good-seo/</link><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:44:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Value of VSI-thinking search engine optimisation to these two hotels in 2009 alone was £62,047.86!]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>Recently we undertook a <strong>Pay Per Click campaign</strong> for a customer, Peterstone Court hotel in Brecon, that was already on the first page of Google using our search engine optimised (SEO) web site solution. The additional traffic from the adverts, which cost £500.00, was 1,198 visitors, giving each visitor a value of 42p. Over the last 12 months the web site has been naturally listed on page one due to our <strong>SEO optimisation</strong>, the same location as with paid advertising, and has received 82,836 visitors. If we apply our visitor value of 42p then the benefit of the SEO web site we provided was £34,791.12!</p>
		<p>This is even better value when you realise that their sister hotel, the Manor Hotel is also on the first page of Google with 64,897 visitors, generating an addition £27,256.74!</p>
		<h2>Value of VSI-thinking search engine optimisation to these two hotels in 2009 alone was £62,047.86!</h2>
		<p>
				<em>"Having a web site that performs well in the search engines is essential, VSI-thinking have saved our business a huge amount in advertising, enabling us to focus on key offers and increase our yield."</em>
				<br />
				<strong>Sean Gerrard, Taste Inn Wales</strong>
		</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/164/</guid></item><item><title>Neilson polling for opinion</title><link>http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/2010/01/neilson-polling-for-opinion/</link><pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:43:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chris Thomas</dc:creator><category><![CDATA[New Sites]]></category><category><![CDATA[VSI-thinking News]]></category><description><![CDATA[Neilson is polling for customer opinion.]]></description><content:encoded><![CDATA[
		<p>The Neilson Active Holidays homepage has recently been updated with a thinkingPOLL module. Currently they want to find out how many customers have been on holiday with them before. Once you have voted you can not vote again to stop people adding bias to the results.</p>
		<p>The thinkingPOLL is a versitile module, being used by PhUSE.eu as a web service, to vote for board members and organisation positions.</p>
]]></content:encoded><guid isPermalink="false">http://blog.vsi-thinking.com/archive/post/158/</guid></item></channel></rss>