With these things in mind we invite you to answer a simple poll, currently available on our Facebook page, to tell us what fifth-generation iPhone you’re more likely to get:

• iPhone 5 – the high-end model that should be available for regular smartphone (subsidized) prices when bundled with new two-year contracts
• iPhone 4S- the low-end model that should be available for full price (somewhere around $299 – $399) and bundled with pre-pay SIM cards

Of course there’s always the option of not getting any of these iPhone models starting with September so go ahead, use the poll page to vote accordingly.

We’re also inviting you to follow our iPhone 4S/5 updates via our Facebook page, as, with at least two months to go until Apple makes the iPhone official, there’s plenty of time to see various fifth-generation iPhone rumors hit the web.

So, head on over to Facebook and like our newly launched page*! Not only does this serve as another great way to keep up-to-date with the latest tech, gadget, computer, and video game news, but there you’ll be able to like and comment on our stories and interact directly with the writers here at TFTS.

Oh, and becoming a fan is the only way to find out how you can participate in future contests we run here on the site. So head on over to our Facebook page by following this link, hit that like button, and never miss an article from TFTS again.

*In truth, we already had a Facebook page previously but, following on from a number of emails from readers (thanks to those of you who wrote in via our contact form, we have personally replied to those that included their mail addresses) we decided it was time for a total revamp and this is what’s resulted in this new, better TFTS Facebook page (you asked for it, we listened).

The boards on our new forum cover a range of topics, including mobile phones, computers, video games and more – if there’s something you want to talk about, there’s a place for you to discuss it on the forum. Forum users are also able to come and write their own reviews of phones, video games and computers, as well as give us suggestions on how we can make both the main site and forum better on a board dedicated to TFTS Feedback.

So head on over to our new forum, create an account, and lets start the conversation!

Take care wherever you may be, and have a good one from a team that continues to be enormously proud to be your chosen port of call for the latest in tech and gadget news.

Peace.

The result of the above detailed move will be a period ranging between four and six hours of downtime, during which TFTS will be completely offline.

The team and myself would like to apologise for the pending downtime but we would also like to stress that this migration to a new powerhouse of a server is not only very obviously required but that that this new ‘home’ will allow us to serve you better, allow us to bring in a new design with enhanced site features (being worked on already) as well as act as the backbone that will serve as the foundation for us to continue to actively, and aggressively grow the site in line with our ever increasing audience base.

Whilst many sites in (and outside of) our niche have been letting staff go due to diminishing advertising returns during these tough economic times, TFTS has been expanding rapidly and, of late, you’ll doubtless have noticed that we added to the standing writing team of Chris, Kevin, Robert and Steve (and, occasionally, myself) with four new, experienced writers – namely Oliver, Catalin, Eric and Angelo (in no particular order). And, of course, you can count on us looking to bring in more experienced writers to the team as and when we’re in a position that enables us to as we move ever forward in acting to bring you more of the content you positively crave.

Exciting times lay ahead, what with the pending new design, a host of new features and other enhancements and, with the new server, we will be more free to breathe as we look to surpass the 100,000 page views a day mark and keep pushing still further.

Of course, our growth is down to you, the readership (both site visitors and feed subscribers), and the team and I would like to stress that we appreciate your patronage. From a personal perspective I would also like to thank my team for the sterling work they do day in, day out, and for their ceaseless passion for the site as well as their unerring support concerning its growth and what lies ahead in terms of expanding features and content. I am enormously proud of them, and I feel genuinely privileged to have each and every one of them working for TFTS.

So, with the downtime pending as we look to move to our new server, I’ll sign off with the promise that we, as a team, will be coming back at you from outr new “home” with the same fervour that has got us to where we are now.

We look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Andrew Tingle (TFTS Editor)

It’s that time of the year again when people are, quite suddenly, nice to each other for a while (ah, shame it isn’t like this the year round, eh?) and we at TFTS – that is Alex, Chris, Kevin, Mike, Nick and myself – would like to extend our warmest wishes to you and your families and, above all else, wish you a very, very merry and peaceful Christmas.

Whilst we like to keep site notices to an absolute minimum, we felt it necessary to just offer a quick head’s up for those sites either already featured on our (newly updated and revised) links page or who are on topic and would like to be featured, as we are now implementing a new enhanced crediting system for sites who make our (ever so) discerning links list.

In short, any sites featured on out links page who we credit as a source for a given post will now gain enhanced credit links which will see their site logo prominently featured along with a link through to their respective page – thus making their link all the more visible and thus offering our readership a more obvious heads up concerning sites that we are particularly fond of (which they may not otherwise be aware of).

Of course, if you own/run a tech/gadgets site and want to get your site on our links page, and therefore gain ‘enhance credit links’ we’d love to hear from you as we’re more than happy to link with sites that we feel will be of genuine interest to our readership (please see our links page for more details).

I am personally overjoyed to welcome two new staff members to TFTS with both Gary Sims and Piyush Bakshi joining our writing team today, both of whom are not only accomplished and proven writers in their own right but both of whom are bringing with them a great deal of enthusiasm for all things gadget and technology related.

I am working on getting a staff page up which will offer a little more insight as to what both Gary and Piyush are bringing with them in terms of expertise, however, in the meantime, I just wanted to offer them both a very warm welcome to TFTS as well as introduce them to you – certainly, they are both considerable assets and we hope that you will make them both feel very, very welcome.

Interestingly, the team expansion is not stopping here as we hope to have another writer joining us soon once we have selected them from a host of applications we’ve received in the last few days. Expect more news soon.

Gary, Piyush – welcome on board!

As you may be aware, TFTS has just opened its brand new forums and, as with any new forum, getting the ball rolling is an initial hurdle so we thought ‘how can we really act to get the ball rolling?’ and the answer is, let’s face it, in these time of worldwide economic doom, gloom and despondency, cold hard cash – to the tune of $250.

In the space of the next month we are looking at you helping us to get the TFTS Forums up and running by becoming actively involved but, of course, we realise that, at this early stage, you perhaps need a little (or, perhaps, not so little) incentive – so how does the opportunity to win $250 sound?

In order to qualify for the $250 all we ask is that you get involved with our forum and help us to get the ball rolling. The $250 prize (which we’ll pay via PayPal or any other means if we are able to accommodate it) will go to the user that, we feel, has helped us to get out new forums the buzz it needs to get established and will be decided one month from now (which means the winner will be receiving a nice payout prior to Christmas).

We are not asking for bulk postings. All we are asking for is users to get involved and help us inspire interest and discussion and, a month from now, you could be $250 richer for just helping us getting things going.

If you want to be in with a chance to get your hands on $250 please visit our TFTS Forums and get active and the money could be yours.

Note: The winner will be decided one month from now and the payment will be made for $250 (USD) at the prevailing exchange rate for that date (21 November 2008) with the winner being announced on TFTS via a posting on the 22 November 2008. Payment will be made via PayPal or via any other means we can reasonably accommodate. The editor’s decision is final (period).

We are pleased to announce that, in a bid to engage with you more and to offer a means of free interchange, we have just opened our new TFTS Forums where you can talk about gadgets and technology, write your own mini reviews (which could appear on the site with full credits – therefore gaining you exposure to our 250K+ readers per month), tip us on gadget related news, offer feedback concerning the site and its development, tip us on your gadget sites (so we can come visit) and generally hook up with us and other geeks and gadget lovers.

We would be overjoyed to meet you in our new forums to hear what you have to say and, needless to say, if you have any ideas as to how we can develop the forums further in line with your expectations there is, of course, a means for you to give us your thoughts and ideas. We would love to hear from you.

We have been ‘faceless’ for long enough and we generally look forward to ‘meeting’ you. With your help we hope that the forum will, over time, become an invaluable resource for geeks and we would urge you to step forward and take the plunge.

Come and speak to us. You’re more than welcome.

You can access the new TFTS Forums via a link in the header menu bar.

Life eh? Just when, yesterday afternoon, I’d managed to pop the new TFTS logo onto the site and whilst still in my FTP program sorting out a little code my computer’s CPU decided to give up the ghost with somewhat of a pop leaving me with no computer and no access to the net (and therefore the site) and a number of site formatting issues due to some PHP that corrupted.

The good news is that I am now writing from a new Quad Core PC which is significantly superior to my previous (very dead and very cannibalised) machine however the bad news (the two so often go hand in hand, don’t they?) is that I’ve been rather consumed by trying to get all my programs and access passwords back together to the point where I’ve been unable to post. Thankfully, at least Bo has managed to get a little writing done.

I hope to be back up and posting as of tomorrow assuming that the house isn’t struck by lightning tonight (which would not comes as quite the shock it otherwise might considering the week I’m having).

The positive side to all of this is that I might, for a change, actually backup things properly this time around.

As regular readers will know, we have been searching high and low for additional writers for TFTS for some time now and, whilst we’ve had a fair few applications, we have been holding out for writers who, we feel, will bring a genuine (almost tangible) passion and enthusiasm for all things geeky as well as a writing style that will compliment the site beautifully and we are therefore overjoyed to announce that we have now secured our first staff writer who will start writing for us from Monday.

We would like to extend our warmest welcome to Bo who, apart from writing for us on a daily basis, will also bring a refreshing, female perspective to TFTS and, based on the fact that we have a considerable female readership, we are naturally extremely happy to have Bo join the team.

As mentioned above, Bo will officially begin posting as of tomorrow (Monday 11th) but, until then, and by way of an introduction, here’s what Bo has to say about herself when (somewhat cruelly some might say) pressed by us for a little background information:

‘I’m an eccentric South African female designer/writer addicted to the Beatles and fond of music. So much so in fact that over the past 3 years I have taken on a series of South African bands and managed them under the name, ‘Black Pencil Studios’. I also run and manage a series of music festivals in South Africa and love the hard work and creativity that goes into it. Having said this, I’m a tech junkie who wants all the latest gadgets to make my life that much easier, as well as more fun.

I’m a slave to my fancy graphics-enhanced laptop and my touch-screen cell phone! Sometimes I feel that I may implode without those 2 objects in my life – keeping me on my toes at all times! Other hobbies include my incessant need to read, read, read and oh, did I perhaps forget to mention – read? I will read anything and everything, from a sweet wrapper to a 700 page novel and I’m rarely found without a book or at least an e-book sitting on my PC.‘

We would like to warmly welcome Bo to TFTS and we very much look forward to her first posts.

Just a quick note to advise that, as I will be off sunning myself in warmer climes and consuming copious amounts of beer/cocktails/spirits for a week on a well deserved break, there will be no updates on TFTS for the next few days. In the meantime, however, please do feel free to check out the contents of our primary categories as listed in the far right sidebar and, if you happen exhaust the 1,800+ posts on offer here, perhaps you might like to check out our links page which offers a series of sites that we think particularly highly of (all of which are very much worth a visit).

Photo Credit: ‘Bacardi Feeling’ By Sabinche [via Flickr]

Its been a while in the making and its taken a non-stop 48 hour stint – hence no posts during this period – to tweak it to match our initial ‘vision’, but at last the new look is now live and (touching wood) we appear to have most the creases sorted out apart from our 404 page which needs some work (the blissful irony of this page escaping our attention, considering our actual web address, is not escaping us, by the way).

Needless to say, we hope that you like the new design and find that trawling our wealth of content is now easier than it was before as well as being a great deal faster loading. If, however, you find something that you think we have overlooked, or if you have an idea as to any further developments that could enhance the site further, please, as always, feel free to contact us via our contact form (now linked to in the top navigation bar instead of the top left sidebar).

Having worked every day pretty much without exception for as long as we can remember, except for when we experienced a family loss, the time has come for me to recharge my somewhat depleted batteries so TFTS will be taking a two week break as the wife and I jet off to Perth, Australia to look around what we hope one day will prove to be our home.

In truth, we don’t jet off until this Friday but on account of me working across the sites virtually non-stop no packing is done so the sensible option is to use the two remaining days to get our house in order and actually think about putting something in a suitcase (if only to appease the wife lol).

In the meantime, please do feel free to look around the site as we have a wealth of content available which can be accessed either by clicking on the related links at the bottom of each post (category links are also provided there) or by browsing our Categories Page. And, if you feel you’ve exhausted all we have to offer please also feel free to check out our Links Page as each site listed there is well worth a visit and comes with our personal recommendation or you might like to check out our sister site, e-Potpourri – Style, Design & Inspiration where you get to decide what’s cool and what’s not.

Till we meet again in two weeks, enjoy life and, above all, stay safe.

Some of you may have noticed that we have experienced a few ‘blips’ of late due to traffic surges bringing our server to its knees so, in order to resolve these issues, we are upgrading to a new quad core dedicated server which will, unfortunately, result in some downtime as the move is completed.

By way of advanced warning, we expect the downtime to occur sometime from 1700 hrs (EST) / 2100 hrs (GMT) on Sunday 9th and have been advised that the break in service could last around anywhere between six and eight hours. (I’ll be lost, I know I will. I also know that the wife will rope me into taking her out shopping being that I’m free. Oh boy is this going to cost me).

We would like to apologise in advance for this upcoming downtime whilst assuring you that all is well at TFTS Towers and we very much look forward to seeing you back once the site is back online and coming to you from a beast of a machine – at which point we hope that you’ll also find that the site is rather more responsive than it has been of late.

In the meantime business will, of course, continue as usual.

Incidentally, we’ve already had a beer for this outgoing server which has done a sterling job of trying to keep up with our escalating traffic levels – you’ve done us proud, my friend.

10/04/08 Update: The server upgrade has now been completed and all appears well.

If you enjoy writing, have a keen eye concerning gadgets and can write engaging prose we would very much like to hear from you as we are now looking to get a few additional writers on board to help us drive the site onwards and upwards by offering more content to our escalating readership.

Whilst we accept that everyone has their own particular writing style ideally we are particularly looking for wordsmith’s with a slightly sarcastic bent (we say ‘slightly’ as we would rather avoid lawsuits).

The positions we are recruiting for are on a ‘pay per post, post when you want’ basis allowing you to fit the role in with your lifestyle (there is, after all, more to life than work) and, apart from offering you a warm welcome (and hard cash), we are offering the opportunity for you, and your voice, to be heard the world over by an ever escalating and highly discerning readership base.

Perhaps you just enjoy writing, perhaps you already run a tech site but are looking to supplement your income whilst you work to make it into the big time (we can relate to that) or perhaps you just have a burning passion for gadgets – whatever the case, we would very much like to hear from you though, we should stress that if you inherently know that your writing abilities leave a great deal to be desired we’ll knock you back (sorry).

We warmly welcome applications from men and women (we would love a woman’s voice on TFTS, are you it?) and, just for the record, over liberal use of punctuation and the excessive use of alarmingly long paragraphs is not a prerequisite (we have those angles covered).

Interested? Please contact us via our contact form offering a little info about yourself, your abilities and your per post payment expectations and we’ll get back to you. Please note, however, that we will require samples of your work should your application prove especially tantalising.

We look forward to hearing from you.

We’re genuinely thrilled to announce that TFTS has passed the somehow rather meaningful 1,000,000 unique visitor mark today (courtesy of a visitor from Jackson, Mississippi) within 18 months of featuring our very first post – an occasion that we couldn’t possibly let pass without a brief acknowledgement and the cracking open of a few beers this end.

For those of you who are interested in stats – and we’re sure that some of you may be – TFTS is presently serving well over 110,000 visitors per month (we’re at the 180,000+ page views mark in February already) with around 8,000 page views being racked up in every 24 hour period which, in all honesty, considering TFTS is very much a one man operation, we’re fairly happy with (I say ‘we’re happy with’ on account of the wife’s support during this period and the fact that the cat has just acknowledged my existence for the first time ever – a coincidence, perhaps?).

So here’s to the next million, which, on account of the fact that we’re presently looking to hire a team of writers to assist with content, we hope will not prove too distant a target. (We’ll be making an announcement concerning staff positions here at TFTS in due course but, in the meantime, if you are interested in writing for us – and getting paid to do so – please do not hesitate to contact us via our contact form).

I’m off for a beer.

Whilst it’s our intention to continue posting through the festive season as best we can – allowing for periods of apparent lack of activity due to excessive alcohol consumption and the traditional bout of food poisoning occasioned by my wife’s continued attempts to craft a Christmas dinner that doesn’t result in us all having to visit our local casualty unit to get our stomachs pumped (think yourself lucky that you’re not invited) – we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all, wherever you may be in the world, a very merry and, above all, a very peaceful Christmas.

If you are one of the hundreds of people who subscribe to our feed then a few of you may have noted that a post that temporarily appeared in your feedreader has since gone AWOL on account of us removing it, thus resulting in a 404 error – here’s why it has been deleted.

We have co-operated with a great many companies whose products have been featured on TFTS and (almost) without exception we have found them to be extremely accommodating and helpful – after all, sites like TFTS creating a buzz about your product is good, right?

Well not in all cases, it seems.

Unfortunately, a product (which will remain nameless) that we were rather complimentary towards has been removed on account of a company representative becoming rather hostile towards us when we ‘dared’ to ask why their product was slightly higher priced than another competing product that’s just made its way onto the market, and against which this up and coming product would be competing.

As a consequence we deemed it appropriate to reconsider featuring the company’s product here on TFTS as we would rather work with companies who are rather more tolerant of what are, in all honesty, valid questions that any potential purchasers of the product would no doubt be asking themselves before parting with their hard earned cash.

C’est la vie.

In the meantime, perhaps this post concerning the Roberts Robi Pod1 DAB Radio attachment may be of interest? (If you are a feed subscriber then you’ll be in on the relevance of linking to this particular post and if you’re not a feed subscriber we’d like to politely advise that our RSS subscription button can be found in the uppermost section of the left-hand side bar).

We are overjoyed to announce that, following our site featuring in Belgium’s edition of Maxim Magazine a while ago and our recent celebration concerning TFTS passing the magic 1,000,000 page views mark within fifteen months of the site’s conception, a TFTS reader has kindly been in contact (thanks Matt) to advise us that none other than Reuters are also beginning to feature our content.

We would like to thank Matt for calling this to our attention and, of course, we would like to thank Reuters for featuring us (as well compliment them with respect to their discerning taste, naturally).

Ever so often we like to celebrate something concerning the site and, being that we passed our 500,000th unique visitor mark some days ago without so much as a whimper, we wondered whether we should also sit back and watch our one millionth page view pass equally unmarked – then we thought, what the hell, let’s mark the occasion with a brief post.

Yes, as unfashionable and as uncool as it doubtless is to pat oneself on the back I can remember some 14 months ago dreaming of reaching such a figure in terms of page views – TFTS is a passion, so excuse me for being rather happy at this juncture – and yet, here we are: older, uglier (didn’t think that was possible, but hey), and with six zeros.

Needless to say, the vast majority of hits have resulted from our traffic levels showing a healthy growth of late – the first few months of the site (not so long ago) used to occasion a cold beer if I got so much as one person slip past in a day, albeit probably as a result of no more than a nervous twitch on their part whilst typing in a search term.

From the very first design to the present

(we like to think things have improved)

Here’s to the next million (I don’t know, some people are just never satisfied are they?). lol.

Thanks for your visit/s. This is my home. Pull up a chair – you’re always welcome.

My sincere apologies to regular readers, however, for the next five days there will be little (if any) in the way of posts on account of the fact that I have matters to attend to away from TFTS Towers as a result of a recent death in the family (alluded to in a post a few days ago).

In the meantime, if you’re looking for your daily fix of TFTS may I cordially point you towards our existing content which no doubt includes many posts you may have missed and which can be accessed via our navigation menu in the inner sidebar.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for fresh content during this period, you’ll find a host of sites on our links page that are well worth a visit.

Normal posting will naturally resume – with particular vigour, I suspect – on my return.

As a footnote: I did ask the wife if she would post whilst I’m away but had second thoughts on account of the fact that I don’t doubt that there’s a limit as to just how many pink items you can take being raved about on any given day – besides, would it not be true to say that such occasions bring out a streak of humanity (however fleeting) in us all.

Till Next week – Take care.

Yesterday we received some feedback from a reader which we thought we really ought to draw attention to as he raises a number of points that we felt we should address in full and, as we are always looking to learn and move forward as a result of feedback, we would readily welcome your take on the developing (in places somewhat heated) discussion.

Unfortunately, as the criticism received is tucked away in a comment, and so can be easily overlooked, we thought we would offer a heads up here with a link so as to open up the discussion to a wider audience as we would genuinely love to hear regular readers take on matters.

You can join the developing discussion here.

Long term readers of TFTS will no doubt recall that, back in the day when TFTS was a predominantly orange affair (we like to think that the new colour scheme is a little more pleasing to the eyes these days) we had our own online store which suddenly went MIA – well the good news is that its back, and its better than ever before so not only can you read TFTS, you can also shop with TFTS.

The burning question here is, why would you want to shop with us and, in order to answer that question with respect to yourself, our answer requires us to be up front and above board about why we would welcome your patronage.

In short, and for those unfamiliar with how Amazon Affiliate Stores work, shopping via our online store is a win-win situation as not only will you still pay the some of the best prices for products available but, in purchasing items via us, you’ll also be helping to support the ongoing costs associated with running the site – without any impact whatsoever regarding the price you pay (it’s just that Amazon will offer us a tiny fraction of the sale value as a commission).

Of course, it’s entirely up to you whether you choose to shop via our site or not – regardless of the fact that you’ll pay the same price as listed on the main Amazon.com site – and we wholly respect that: which is why we thought that (unlike many sites running affiliate stores) we would be entirely up front with you as to how we benefit without impacting on you.

That said – having seemingly done my best to put you off it (a salesman I’m not) – if you would like to browse our online store and help us with the day to day costs of hosting TFTS having now moved to a dedicated server you can access our store either via the top sidebar page menu or via this direct link.

Your patronage would be sincerely appreciated.

We couldn’t possibly pass up on quickly marking the fact that Thoughts from the Sidelines celebrates its first birthday today – and what a year it’s been.

Whilst we are by no means a considerable presence on the net, we are extremely pleased with what has been accomplished in our first year not least due to the considerable amount of work we have put into the site. And we’ve loved almost every second of it.

In the space of the last year we have (at the point of writing) published a total of 808 posts which have received 717 comments and have been linked to 977 times by other sites which fills us with a warm fuzzy feeling (its either that or the beer). We have also received over 352,000 visits and served over 697,000 pages and our traffic, thankfully, is most definitely on the up.

If we can drop the curious use of ‘we’ for a brief moment and become an ‘I’ then I would like to thank all the sites that have linked to TFTS (big and small) as well as raise a beer to all the friends and contacts I have made during the course of this year and, or course, I would also like to thank those regular readers who visit the site day in day out or who access our content via RSS.

Here’s to our next year…

As regular readers of TFTS will know we recently moved to new hosting environment due to TFTS outgrowing our previous home and, initially, all was well.

Unfortunately in the last couple of weeks we have been plagued by repeated downtime on account of us already outgrowing our new home (that didn’t take long, did it) and so we are now forced to update to a dedicated server which should be able to handle serving the site with both arms tied behind its back and whilst (probably) chewing gum (I do hope I don’t live to regret saying this).

I would like to sincerely apologise for the downtime we have been experiencing but we could not possibly have foreseen outgrowing our new home quite as quickly as we have.

We hope to be coming to you from our new home sometime within the next 24/48hrs.

We are pleased – and somewhat relieved – to report that TFTS is now being served from our new, more robust server with the transition finalising only a few moments ago. We will now be requesting that our old server area is shut down having served over half a million page views (so long old friend).

We would like to offer our sincere thanks to readers of TFTS for their patience and messages of support during these past few rather hair-raising days.

Let’s get back to business…

If you are a regular reader of TFTS you will no doubt have noticed that we’ve been inaccessible for just under 24hrs – which, it has to be said, have felt like the longest 24hrs of our lives.

By way of explanation, we were (understandably) taken off line by our hosting service on account of the fact that we were over burdening the shared server and we have been working with our hosts non stop in order to get this resolved as quickly as possible.

As a result we are now back online in readiness to be moved in the next few hours to a more robust hosting package (a virtual private server) that can withstand us and, specifically, cope with some of the scripts we use on the site.

We hope that this transition will prove seamless and that our new home will serve as a firm foundation to allow us to move onwards and upwards without further disruption.

Once again, apologies for the downtime which was beyond our control and we would like to thank our hosting service, Surpass, for their kind assistance and help with getting these issues ironed out – with particular thanks to Thomas who called from the US to the UK to help get this rectified (thank you Thomas).

It’s a little late here at TFTS Towers now so you’ll excuse there being no posts today but we hardly slept a wink last night and we had work this morning (who were kind enough to let us go straight back home to continue working on the problems).

We’ve thought long and hard as to when would be the best time to publicise our new site, as referred to a few posts back, and, after much head scratching, we’ve decided that there really is no time like the present. Besides, we’re very keen to hear what you think of the new design (which we toiled on through multiple revisions for longer than we care to admit).

So, without further ado, we present to you TFTS’s sister site – e-Potpourri – which presently offers only a few posts, but enough to give you a general feel (which is poles apart from TFTS in terms of aesthetics) as well as an insight as to its direction and how the site works in practice.

Please do bear with us, however, as these are e-Potpourri’s first tentative steps into the big wide world and we don’t doubt that it’s going to take a while before it can step forth from the wife’s ample bosom and truly stand on its own two feet. We just wanted to give all the regular readers here on TFTS a heads up as you may find the site of interest and, of course, your feedback could help us iron out any creases that may remain (though we have tested it extensively).

So, if you want to see what we’ve been labouring on behind the scenes into the small hours over the last weeks here’s your chance.

e-Potpourri – Style, Design & Inspiration

Can you write in an engaging style? Can you find original gadget related content that you think would interest our readers? If so we are now opening our doors to invite additional writers to the TFTS team.

If you would like to be read by thousands, but do not have the time to maintain a site yourself, or if you just enjoy writing and would like to reach a truly international audience here’s your chance. And, as if international recognition wasn’t enough we’ll even pay you on a per post basis.

Anyone interested in joining us should contact us for further information via our contact form, preferably offering us samples of your work (or links to previously published work) as well as offering some indication as to your price per post expectations and, you never know, you too could be read the world over.

We look forward to hearing from you.

We would like to sincerely apologise to any Internet Explorer 6 users who have had issues accessing TFTS over the last couple of days. Since the issue came to our attention (our thanks to Mike Perth in this respect) we have been working tirelessly on trying to replicate and resolve the problem – including having to install a Virtual Machine and paying for cross compatibility tests (which, helpfully, confirmed the problem we already knew about without giving any feedback whatsoever as to the possible origins of the error).

We now believe that we have isolated and resolved the problem which appears to have been a Javascript library for a smooth page scroll which we were experimenting with and yet, even when disabled, appeared to refuse to play ball (we will be contacting the author of said script to advise as to these cross browser compatibility issues).

I am genuinely thrilled to announce that a story that I featured a while back in TFTS concerning Guillermo Sureda-Burgos’s beautiful personal submersible concepts has been featured in a half page article in Belgium’s May edition of Maxim Magazine.

I have known about this for some weeks, in honesty, but thought it best not to post about it until the time was right but, having returned home from work to find the complimentary edition of Maxim waiting for me, this seems a fitting time to let the cat out of the bag (so to speak).

I would like to thank Maxim Magazine, and in particular Tijl (thanks Tijl) for not only featuring the story but also for offering a link back in the magazine to TFTS. And, needless to say, I very much look forward to working with Maxim in the future.

Needless to say I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to Guillermo Sureda-Burgos for granting TFTS an exclusive concerning his submersible concepts and are thrilled that his work is getting the publicity it undoubtedly deserves.

At this point perhaps I should add that if you are a designer that would like your work to be featured or you work for a company that has a product that you feel would be of interest to the site’s readership, and you would like to have your work or products featured or reviewed in TFTS for that extra spark of publicity we would very much urge you to get in contact with us, (having versed yourself with our submission guidelines), via our contact form.

Following on from user feedback, we are pleased to advise that we have now updated our site feed from a summary feed to a full post feed inclusive of imagery.

We would like to thank all those who have been kind enough to offer feedback concerning TFTS and we hope that moving to a full feed will be welcomed by our readership.

(Incidentally, we are afraid that we must disappoint those of you who emailed us as asked if we could display a larger RSS Feed icon on the site on the basis that Aunt Agnus, who regularly visits for her dose of gadgets, curiosities and spelling mistakes, only has a 800×600 monitor – :-) ).

Whether you are a seasoned subscriber to our feed, a regular visitor or are just passing by we would love to hear your views about the site – positive or negative.

As we gain in popularity – and we have you to thank for this as well as the countless hours we put into the site – we are constantly looking for ways in which we can improve your experience of Thoughts from the Sidelines. So if you could take a moment to offer some feedback we would greatly appreciate hearing from you (you do not have to register to leave a comment by the way).

We have implemented a number of additional components on the site of late but, never ones just to sit back, with your help and feedback we can act to tailor TFTS to your expectations.

As regular readers of TFTS will no doubt have noticed, there has been a great deal of interest in a number of stories we’ve featured here on TFTS of late and, by way of thanks to all those sites that have been kind enough to offer links back to TFTS concerning content featured obtained from us we have now implemented an incoming links feature on the site, which can be seen on the right sidebar.

Apart from offering something back to sites that send readers our way, we hope that the sites listed will prove of interest to readers of TFTS once you’ve exhausted the content we have to offer – which, incidentally, presently stands at over 500 posts!

This new feature follows on from our extremely popular, recently implemented browse by image page and in addition to the provision of a full sitemap to compliment our extensive post archive – all of which, we hope, will enable you to dig deep into the wealth of content we have to offer.

Needless to say, if you would like to keep a close eye on all future content offered here you can do so by subscribing to our feed to get our latest posts delivered straight to your desktop by clicking on the feed icon at the top of the left sidebar or, if its proving a little hard to find (can you possibly miss it?), by clicking here.

Finally, if you run a related blog and you would like to see your site featured in our incoming links list, just link to us and, if readers come our way you’ll get a link-back as thanks from us.

We’re overjoyed to announce that Thoughts from the Sidelines has been awarded the great accolade of being the featured Tech Blog of the Week for this coming week by the discerning chaps over at Daily Cup of Tech.

We are, obviously, delighted to have received this accolade and we would like to extend out sincere thanks to Daily Cup of Tech for their very kind words and extremely positive review concerning TFTS. It is also nice to see that our browse by imagery page has also been singled out for some attention, as well our random images from posts (as can be seen on the main page and at the bottom of every post) as we put a fair bit of work into this.

If you would like to read Daily Cup of Tech’s review of Thoughts from the Sidelines you can do so via this link, but in the meantime, here’s a taster:

‘I’ve actually got a major beef with this week’s Tech Blog of the Week is Thoughts from the Sidelines! They have so much cool stuff that if I were to buy everything that I wanted from their site, I’d have no money left for other, less important necessities in life like food and shelter.…’

[Source | Daily Cup of Tech]

TFTS has opened its doors, as we are now welcoming submissions from readers, bloggers, designers, conceptualists and product representatives in a bid to bring our readership more in the way of stimulating content.

Whether you are a reader who would simply like to tip us off about a news item you think we should feature in turn for being fully credited as the source, a conceptual designer who would like to get your work seen by a wider audience, a blogger who would like to share a story with us in return for a highly visible linkback to your site or a product rep who would like to offer us a heads up concerning a product you think would be of interest to our readership we would urge you to get in touch with us.

We cannot promise to feature every submission we receive, but if your submission is featured then, apart from being seen by a ceaselessly escalating audience, we will ensure that any submission posted is correctly and justly credited.

There has never been a better time to be featured in Thoughts from the Sidelines as we have number of highly exclusive posts backed up that are sure to cause quite a stir and, take it from us, we have it on good authority that certain highly popular gadgets and lifestyle magazines regularly visit TFTS looking for content.

If you are looking for good, free exposure concerning your designs, your website/blog or your product now is time to get your submissions rolling in.

Please visit our Submission Guidelines Page for further details.

We very much look forward to hearing from you.

It’s nice to be noticed and, with that in mind, I am overjoyed to announce that I have been formerly invited to become a guest blogger on none other than the Coolest Gadgets website – a particular cause for celebration as far as I am concerned as I have been a loyal follower of the much respected CG for some time now.

If you are a regular reader of TFTS, please rest assured that I will be continuing to work tirelessly on Thoughts from the Sidelines in unabated fashion, beer in hand, climbing mountains and swimming shark invested oceans for that all important content (well, ok, sitting in a decrepit swivel chair with West Midlands Police helicopter invariably hovering overhead – nothing I’ve done, I can assure you).

I would, of course, like to thank Coolest Gadgets for the interest they have taken not only in myself but also in TFTS and I very much look forward to working with them in the future.

By way of celebration TFTS now has an orange striped background (for no obvious or logical reason). Terrible, isn’t it.