July 2010 Blog Posts
I don't give a damn if you open on Saturdays (when you have a business account they don't credit cheque payments until Monday anyway), or if you are the only bank open in a town (you aren't in mine), or if you open late (again, payments after 3.30pm don't count anyway). How about when a business moves from Barclays to you on the basis that we'll get "better service" - you actually deliver it?? All we want to do is allow our customers to pay for renewals using debit or credit cards (transaction value <£120) and they tell us we...
We have now added 500 templates (most of them with a choice of three or more colours to the Site Builder). Head over to www.my-free-website.co.uk and play around with it! It doesn't cost anything to build your site and it knocks spots off the GBBO campaign!
If you decide to publish it just let us know and we'll create a hosting account for you. Remember, it's just £120 + VAT a year (which includes a .co.uk domain name and an email account).
We are coming up against this GBBO recently. Apparently mostly organised by Google we are hearing MANY reports of it being useless for any kind of reasonable business use (no real email, rubbish templates, 0800 number not recognised and so on). If you need a web site I'd rather you used www.my-free-website.co.uk than sign up for something that MANY businesses are realising isn't really fit for purpose. You've been warned but try this link for a LOT of issues:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sites/thread?tid=0beeba463f879b7b&hl=en
And this massive list of complaints is hosted by Google!
We are delighted to announce the launch of www.animalwelfareandrescue.org.uk. This site has been provided free of charge under our Community Spaces program and will expand as the charity increases it's reach around the world. For now, they have a presence and email accounts.
Our telemarketing team are reporting back that a few local developers (not companies - just idiots working from home) are giving "free" websites to businesses in the North East. We found MANY problems with their service offerings including:
1. No XHTML/CSS standards designs - all built with old HTML (which mostly failed even those less stringent requirements).
2. Very poor design and no client branding at all.
3. Domain names registered to the developer - NOT the client.
4. Non search engine friendly content.
5. Very expensive hosting - £20 per Mb per month in some cases!
So - here's my challenge. If you WANT a...
Why do we have to tell BT how to do their job? We had a simple problem which can be summarised as follows:
Our telemarketing team use Voice Over IP lines (VOIP) and these use strange numbers beginning with 0506. The problem is that when a customer uses redial (1471) the calls come to our VOIP system (which is usually engaged). So how to get the incoming calls to our 0800 number?
I spent a LONG time trying to get BT to understand what we needed and in the end I had to come up with the solution:
1. Add geographic numbers...
Telemarketing isn't for everyone. Michelle recently decided that telemarketing isn't the job for her and said that she would prefer an admin role. Therefore, we have moved Michelle from telemarketing into a role which combines our office administration and PA functions into one. We value her contribution to the business and we are keen to keep her in her new role - she will be responsible for devising our office admin systems (something I've negelected as the development work has increased!) and will then move into a role where she supports me (managing diaries etc) and provides a first point...
Apple Kitchens recently moved to our network and we are pleased that Apple North East (the division of their business that builds conservatories, sun rooms, garage conversions, and provides block paving) have also moved to us.
We have now completed their new site at www.applenortheast.co.uk and both of their sites will be optimised for search engines in the new couple of weeks.
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new web site for Apple Kitchens North East. The client supplies kitchens and bathrooms in the North East and has been established since 2005; they had an old site with dated branding and a tired look which simply was not performing in line with their expectations.
We downloaded all the content from their old site and merged it into a fresh new template before adding our new Foundation Framework code. Taking advantage of the new AJAX uploading system in our new Control Panel we were able to build their galleries in a...
We are now an approved provider which means that clients being funded by Business Link may be able to obtain grants for web development work. Being on the NEESPR is a mark of our professionalism - they have reviewed our performance by speaking to our customers, confirmed that we have Professional Indemnity, Public Liability, Employers Liability Insurance and all the other paperwork a real company must have in order to trade.
If you need more information please ask us.
Phil Miller is joining as a trainee developer within our Commercial Development Team - he currently has a good solid knowledge of HTML but we will be training him in the following areas:
XHTML
CSS
Accessibility
Our Foundation Framework
Ultimately, Phil will be moving into our Systems Development Team but in the short term he will be working with Louise Rising (Head of Design Services) and delivering scores of web sites for our clients every month.
Phil will be working at HQ for two days a week and from home...
Sorry - been too busy this week to provide updates on new clients or even update www.webmerized.co.uk (our portfolio) with new sites we've finished this week. I *will* get around to it next week and I've tasked our Design Team with putting together a new site on Webmerized and updating our corporate site - same old story, we are so busy with client projects that we never get time to update our own!
HD Financial Solutions are moving their web site to our platform to solve problems created by their present hosts. The first stage is to move their existing site to our network, transfer their domain to us, and fix the enquiry forms - all of which was done within 24 hours of receiving instructions from the client. Next, we will fix missing page problems by adding our own error handling modules for 404 errors. Then, we will rebuild the site on our Foundation Framework and implement an SEO solution. This project will involve our Design and Commercial Development (ComDev) Team as...
Aroma Store have chosen Ladybird Internet Ltd as their electronic commerce partner and we will be delivering this new venture into beta before the end of the week. The client will have full access to their back office system in order to enter their data before the site goes live at www.aromastore.eu. With a very simple gateway page leading to the online storefront (which will accept payments via PayPal and Google Checkout) the whole project is being delivered on a very small initial budget so that the client can focus on SEO and Adwords to generate traffic and sales.
Nick says...
We are delighted to announce that The Sanctuary Investment and Trading Company Ltd have chosen Ladybird as their developers for a new web site. We are also going to be providing all of their marketing and branding such as logos and corporate look and feel via our Creative Department.
The company raises funds by accepting donations and investing them with the profits going to animal welfare charities - they are funding another of our clients (see below) and are currently working with over £30m of investments and funds.
The initial site will provide information only but will grow in future to include...
We are delighted to announce that The Animal Welfare and Rescue Organisation have chosen us to produce their fund raising web site and e-commerce offering. We will also be providing Sharepoint 2010 technologies, email and groupware services, and search engine optimisation. We are happy to give them over 60% discount on our list prices as part of our Corporate Support programme and look forward to helping them in their drive to attract more sponsors and donors willing to support their effort. More information to follow.
It took a while but we finally managed to located Braines second hand office furniture in Sunderland (I was spelling it Brains). They quickly supplied us with some very basic (cheap!) office furniture like desks and stationary cupboards so at least we can start populating the new office suite with bodies. If you need office furniture in Sunderland give Braines a call on 0191 565 6530 and tell Gary we sent you.
Most customers know that we have a zero tolerance for spam and that we are always monitoring our network systems to see how we can foil attacks from these a****.
In the last few days we have been subjected to a huge increase in the amount of incoming spam and about 2% of it has got through to customer mailboxes. With this increase has come a big jump in the number of virus infected emails being sent to random addresses on our network, and a corresponding rise in the number of attempts to guess mailbox names.
In fact, here are some interesting...
We are moving - well not moving as such but expanding! I signed the lease on Suite 2 today which gives us about eight times more office space split between two offices in one. This gives us two suites next to each other and will allow us to seperate Marketing from Development - I am pretty sure that Suite 3 is going to be a store room for a while! It will take us a while to get the new offices open but all phone numbers will stay the same as I'm drilling holes in the wall and routing our...
Keith is currently out of action after suffering a foot injury. He'll be back and fighting fit soon!
I'll be heading out to Lanzarote at the end of July to hook up with some of our clients. It will be a short visit (Thursday - Sunday) and I'll be focussing on upgrades to our new Foundation Framework and updates for existing clients. So I'm currently populating our Sharepoint 2010 Server with content whilst eating; Olives in herbs, olive oil, and herbs with goats cheese all washed down with 43. Hopefully I will find time for some sunbathing out there and I'm looking forward to getting together with the team down there and giving them some brilliant new products...
A long time ago Nick owned the UK version of this domain name. We have purchased th EU version to provide a secure, controlled platform for groups in the European Union. Watch this space.
This is a domain name Nick used to own. After a three month auction we have now secured ownership for Ladybird Internet Ltd and we'll be using this for various sales promotions over the coming months. Watch this space.
If it says MICROSOFT in front of the name then I can pretty much handle everything from an old Windows 3.1 box (remember that!) to the latest Windows Server 2008 running multiple virtual servers. However, when it comes to non-MS stuff I can get a bit lost especially if it's something I need to build an entire business process around.
A typical example is this: Our developers, designers, and creative types don't all work at HQ but they (and the SEO Specialist) all need access to source code and our libraries. I don't really want everyone publishing stuff to the main...
I am seriously considering moving into the bigger office next door ... this one just isn't big enough any more and I am worried that staff will be too cramped in here.... I'll ponder over the weekend....
We now have our new Sharepoint Server 2010 installed and running on TRINITY at HQ. This powers our Intranet and provides staff with access to our Office Forms and Visio Repositories as well as shared Microsoft Project Server and other cool stuff. If any customers would like to see how it works please contact me for a demonstration - you won't believe how much better SP2010 is than SP2007 (and that was pretty good!)
We are taking on two telemarketers to work from HQ in Birtley plus a full time apprentice from August. The apprentice will be with us on the government scheme for one month and then they'll be employed full time on our normal contract; see here for what makes us different as an employer!
Of course, it struck me after hiring them that I now need to activate two more of our VOIP phone lines, sort out new computers for them, buy new office furniture, and all the other stuff that needs to be done (including giving them intranet access, keys, etc). ...