Ladybird Announcements
News and information about Ladybird Internet Ltd.
Gandy-Draper are viewed by many as our competitors in Lanzarote (or we are viewed as their competitors?). It's worth reiterating that I respect the professional integrity they seem to have and the way they appear to do business (I've never met them so I can't comment 100%); from the day they arrived in Lanzarote I maintained that NISCO needed a serious competitor and that I would rather a business dealt with them or us than any of the scammers and con-artists who seemed to be moving to the island around 2006. NISCO ticks over and offers a great service to...
I blogged recently about the appalling service we have been receiving from Natwest; despite our massive expansion in the last six months we found it almost impossible to contact our so-called Business Manager and found out that cheques paid into South Shields (the address on our cheque book) were being POSTED to Sunderland Business Centre with the result that if we paid in after 2.30pm on Friday the cheques didn't even show up as being credited until sometimes Tuesday of the following week. The difficulties this caused has been mitigated somewhat by the lines of credit we have with some...
Kate Hall joined us this week and is currently being trained on our new portal systems. She will be responsible for contacting businesses all over the North East and setting up new accounts on our new service and taking payments over the phone. Kate is young and joining us on a part time basis but I expect her to be with us full time by Christmas and I am confident that she will become a very valued member of our team.
Richard Evans (Head of Systems Development) and I will be travelling to Lanzarote on Sunday 2nd September in order to put the finishing touches to the new Inmo Estate web site. Although, in the main, this major development has been carried out by email, messenger, and phone, when a project this big comes to completion I feel that it is always better to be able to put the finishing touches to it with the client sat next to me and the lead developer.
If any other clients need to meet with me to discuss updates and amendments (particularly the new Control Panel)...
We've been trying to get the new Control Panel launched but pesky clients have been asking us to build sites for them instead . We are almost there and we'll make a demo account available in the next couple of days and start upgrading clients in the next fortnight. We are being slowed down a bit by the forthcoming launch of Look North East and the North East England portals. Watch this space!
Until the end of September we are offering the full version of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium for just £99+ VAT (cheaper than PC World!). We are also providing Microsoft Office 2010 Professional at just £315 + VAT.
Our business and home customers can have the software delivered and installed for an extra charge of just £40 + VAT (or £80 + VAT if we need to back up data and perform a clean installation).
With memory, large screens, and hard disks on special offer - there has never been a better time to upgrade to the very latest operating system. Our...
I have been trying to phase out payments to us by cheque for the last year and this method of payment will stop at the end of September. Waiting for cheques to clear (particularly when we are providing account facilities to customers!) seems to me to be archaic and, as a business, we are keen to reduce our paperwork as much as we can. From 1st October we will accept the following payment methods:
BACS/SWIFT - This is our preferred method of payment for all services. We will begin printing our account details on invoices in the...
Our new internal servers are now up and running. One of them handles our internal document management whilst the other provides project management and other services such as expenses, timesheets, asset tracking and much more. Running SharePoint 2010 on one system and SharePoint 2007 on the other server gives us more control and allows us to balance the loads across our systems. By extending our intranet to the Internet we are able to allow our home based staff to use all of the network features we have including SVN and our document repositories.
If you would like a demonstration of this...
It's almost ready for launch and our new Control Panel represents a major jump in the usability of our systems allowing clients to manage almost every aspect of their Foundation Site. If you would like to help us test the new version please let us know as we intend to launch it, the new Ladybird corporate site, and the new Foundation Framework (v2) on 1st September 2010.
This company is purchasing two web sites from us - one to promote their sandwich shop and the other to promote their Sunday delivery service. Watch this space.
We will soon be launching a new Foundation+ Site for REI Counselling and Therapy Centre in Bishop Auckland. Watch this space.
We have recently registered NORTHEASTENGLAND.org.uk in order to be able to launch hundreds of portals over the coming months. This will be a major launch for us tied into the relaunch of Look North East and is designed to be a complimentary product range providing additional exposure to companies using the new regional portal. It's all a bit hush hush at the moment but our Systems Development Team are working hard to deliver this exciting new service by the end of September. We can't say much more but it will be YELL.COM destroying project by providing much more functionality to...
D&B Motors (car repairs in Sunderland) are joining our expanding client base and we'll be launching a new Foundation Site for them in the next two weeks. D&B will also be providing servicing and MOT services for our own vehicles and we look forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationship with them. Watch this space for more information.
We have been hosting INMO-ESTATE LANZAROTE for some time as it was taken over and revamped by our sister business in Lanzarote in 2006. The old site was built using Classic ASP and had a number of problems and we've now launched the first public version of the site to coincide with a major marketing push across Europe. The current build is not the finished product but it has launched as it provides more functionality for the client - we expect it to be completed by the end of this week.
This was an interesting project as it covers many technology...
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new web site for Apollo Bathrooms (bathroom installers and fitters) in South Shields. The company was established in July 2010 and has a showroom on Fowler Street. They chose Ladybird to provide their web site for our value and quality of service and we will be helping them to market their site in order to reduce the cost of their advertising. I only wish we'd found them when we needed our new bathroom! Their site is at www.apollobathrooms.com.
We are delighted to announce with immediate effect that we can now supply computers without the need for cleared funds before purchase to our existing customers. As part of our expansion of the Ladybird Computers division we have links to the major component and software distributors who have provided us with account facilities; a benefit we are keen to pass onto our clients. This increases the range of products we can supply and also the speed at which computers and other equipment can be delivered; order a PC before 3pm and you'll have it the following day installed at your...
CB Commercials UK of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire have purchased a Foundation Site from us and we expect it to go live next week. More information on this commercial vehicle specialist will follow in due course.
We are in the process of installing our new network and setting up the two office suites. Our in house server is being opened up to the Internet which will allow home based staff to work on our labs server and for our customers to access our in house help desk and CRM Systems. There will be no disruption to our public facing network and the new phone systems should also help in directing enquiries to the right team much more quickly. We'll put a case study on the new web site so you can see how it works and...
With the addition of Dan Barnes, our team is now complete so I thought it might be useful to provide a quick overview of the key people we employ. I'm not going to list everyone as these people will be able to deal with every issue (if you need to speak to someone in Telemarketing then Michelle would be your first contact point):
Nick Bird - Managing Director (that's me!)
Michelle Patterson - P.A to the Directors and Head of Telemarketing
Louise Rising - Head of Design Services
...
We are delighted to welcome Dan Barnes to the Ladybird team - he'll be heading up our new business division and bringing his I.T skills to our business and to our clients. We are in the process of restructuring our business:
Ladybird Internet - this business division will focus totally on web site development
Ladybird Hosting - this business division will focus totally on hosted and dedicated servers. We will be launching Ladybird Hosting in January 2011 as a seperate company and all hosting contracts will be moved to the new company.
...
We are delighted to welcome Apollo Bathrooms in South Shields (an approved tc-Bathrooms stockist) to the Ladybird family. We will be launching their new web site in the next week and providing them with email accounts and our usual high levels of support and service. Watch this space for more information!
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). ...
Just one week since the new page went live and a search on Google for positive material identification puts PMI Just In Case on the first page of Google. We'll be running our monthly submissions tomorrow and we expect the newly optimised sites to leap up the results pages. Nice one Keith!
Louise in our Commercial Development Team has just finished rebuilding the web site at www.lanzarotepremiervilla.com. Originally built four years ago with .NET 1.1 it now has AJAX technologies and a much more modern look and feel (as well as being standards compliant).
This is the first time Louise has applied her skills to a client in Lanzarote and I have a feeling she will be much in demand over the coming weeks as we replace the Common Code Platform with our new Foundation Framework and Control Panel.
Just a quick note to let you know that Keith has worked his magic and we have a new site for Positive Material Identification at www.positivematerialidentification.org.uk which has been built for PMI Just In Case as a page to bring visitors into their main web site. The page has lots of keywords mentioning Positive Material Identification and should increase the number of visitors dramatically; remember that our SEO service costs just £50 for up to five main (root) pages and can have a dramatic impact on the number of visitors when combined with a gateway page and a more keyword...
We are delighted to announce the deployment of a new web for another new client - Lavender Massage and Spa in Newcastle. The client provides massage and other Chinese therapies in Newcastle and trades as Lavender Massage and has only been open for a month or so. If you need massage in Newcastle (or the exclusive luxury spa machine) you can visit their premises in Grainger Town and find out more at www.northeastspa.co.uk.
The enquiry was initially dealt with by Marie in Marketing and was the first site built by Louise Rising who joined us a few days ago. Nick...
We have just finished a rebuild of www.luxuryprivatevillaslanzarote.com - this site was originally built using FrontPage and our old Common Code platform about four years ago. Since then technology has moved on and it's just been revamped with XHTML and CSS on our new Foundation Framework platform. Casa Falcones and Casa Fabios are two lovely villas for rent in Lanzarote and I think the team have done a cracking job on the new design.
Louise Rising joins us today as Head of Technical Services responsible for Commercial Development at Ladybird Internet. In the short term she will be taking charge of ComDev Projects (such as the deployment of Foundation web sites). She will be taking the output from Product Development and using it to build new web sites for clients - ultimately she will be in charge of the Commercial Development and System Development teams.
As someone who uses CSS and XHTML all the time but who also has an extensive amount of experience with Photoshop, she will be trained quickly on .NET and will...
We are happy to announce the appointment of Stephen and Julie Relf of Applause Accountancy as our Accountants with immediate effect. They have taken the time to listen to our current needs and also where we think the business is going in the next couple of years and we are confident that they will provide us with a very professional service and one which is compatible and consistent with our Core Values. We didn't build their web site but if you need an accountant in the north east of England please visit their site at http://www.applauseaccountancy.co.uk/.
Our Company is growing...
We are happy to announce that we've been awarded the contract for the North East Spa and Massage web site. With a heavy focus on traditional chinese medicine and techniques this new business is in the heart of Newcastle City Centre. The site will launch at the end of June 2010 - watch this space for more information.
We are delighted to have won the contract for the new web site for Cafe 85 in Darlington.
With one restaurant in Yarm, Simon Leadbetter (pictured) and his partner have opened Cafe 85 in Duke Street, Darlington offering "affordable food in good surroundings". Having seen their menu I think we'll be eating there a LOT! With a three course meal just £12 Monday - Thursday (£15 Friday and Saturday) they deserve to be full!
Cafe 85 will use our Foundation Framework and, as such, is a low cost site which they can build on over time. Even though it's our entry level...
I am delighted to announce that Keith Pattison is joining the Ladybird team as our resident Search Engine Optimisation specialist. Whilst he provides high end SEO and Adwords management through his own company we are happy to have his skills on board for our own customers. Keith is available to all new customers to guide the development of their home page text and to existing customers who may want to tweak what they already have.
As our business expands we need to bring more expertise in house and Keith fills an important role within the business. Please note that our Lanzarote...
I don't usually blog about personal stuff but I've just watched the final of American Idol and all I can say is:
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL HAPPENED THERE?
Surely Crystal Bowersocks was destined to win? A duet with Joe Cocker and you couldn't even hear Lee. She wiped the floor with him in the last few shows and that voice is destined for big things.
I give up and I'm not going to watch it anymore. Shocking.
We have purchased the above domain name to provide telephone directory services to businesses in the North East. The .TEL extension is a special top level domain which uses the world wide DNS system to store detailed business information - we will use northeastengland.org.uk to hook into this system and provide contact information for businesses hosted with us and it will also be integrated into the new Look North East portal.
Watch this space for more information.
We are delighted to be able to announce that David Warden is joining us as Head Of Creative Services. With many years experience in the worlds of print and digital media, David will be responsible for delivering logos and other creative elements for customers. For our standard products, David will deal with header graphics and provide advice to customers on branding issues whilst for larger products he will drive the look and feel of a site in conjunction with our designers.
We are very lucky to have David on board and I am sure his contribution to the business and the...
We are currently rebuilding the Control Panel which drives our Foundation Framework sites. If you have a site where you can update photographs, comments, etc via your browser then this update will affect you! The new Control Panel will be used by ALL customers including those in the UK and Lanzarote as well as clients buying sites from us via Look North East and other resellers.
If you would like to join the beta test please drop me a line - and it's getting a new address; www.mywebcontrolpanel.co.uk is where the new Control Panel will live! It will have many more...
Please note that our Lanzarote Search Engine is being updated and is currently re-indexing all sites in the system. We estimate that the full crawl will take around 24 hours so please be aware that search results may not be 100% accurate whilst the reindexing is taking place. You can see the site at www.lanzsearch.com and add your site if you have a business in Lanzarote. Customers in North East England should use The Boggle at http://nesearch.theboggle.com (which will be updated towards the end of the month).
We are delighted to announce the launch of the new version of PMI Just In Case - this is a company which specialises in Positive Material Identification. Since the site moved to our network we have rewritten it using XHTML and CSS and given it a more modern feel with better navigation and more search engine friendly content. The company operates in a niche market and we are happy to be providing them with their outsourced I.T services including support and offsite backup later in the year. For more information please visit Postive Material Identification.
Well, the new installation yesterday didn't go to plan due to a faulty network cable - Office 2010 was fine but the Exchange Server dropped dead. Anyway, it struck me that we have a perfectly good mail server so we'll use that instead of an internal one on the internal network.
So we now have a shiny new Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition RC2 which is our Domain Controller and which also powers our SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and Sharepoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition. We also have a backup server running Windows 2008 Server Standard Edition (which handles our Microsoft...
I've had a day paying bills today including phone, bandwidth, new servers, new software.
In the words of Blackadder:
"Baldrick, I feel like a pelican - wherever I look, there's a large bill in front of me"...
We just took delivery of our new office software so I am up to my neck in shiny servers and DVD's. We've been testing the platform over the last couple of weeks and by close of business today we will have the following stuff installed:
Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus
Microsoft Visio 2010
Microsoft Project Professional 2010
Microsoft Windows Server Enterprise Edition 2008 RC2
Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition 2008 RC2
Microsoft Sharepoint Server Enterprise Edition 2010
Microsoft Dynamics...
We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded the contract to provide redevelopment services for the Look North East regional portal. With funding from the European Union and a strong focus on electronic commerce, accessible web sites for businesses in the North East, and a mission to raise the profile of the region we are not just developing the portal - we have a stake in the business. Look North East has been around for many years and is now being completely revamped (along lines very similiar to a project we were involved with back in the late '90s).
Over the...
Following the bankruptcy of Jason Haswell (see here, here, here, here) we have now completed the sale of the domain name northeastchauffeur.co.uk to Chauffeur Drive North East. If you need a chauffeur and car in the North East we recommend that you deal with an established company like CDNE!
We received notice today that Jason Haswell has been declared bankrupt - which seems to have happened two days before our CCJ was awarded. I've written to the Official Receiver asking why we were not notified of the fact that this was happening so that we could pursue our claim and I await his response with interest. What this has done is made us change our policy towards new customers who fail to pay their accounts on time; we will issue Court Summons in future for any new account with an outstanding balance overdue by more than 30 days. For...
We are getting so busy now that we are in desperate need of more bodies! Initially, we are looking for people on a "per project" basis and for telemarketers on a part time basis. Here's what we need:
1. A developer with VB.NET/ASP.NET skills. We have the code written in most cases but need someone to put the sites together based on our Foundation Framework. We pay per project so please contact Nick Bird via 07909 337 283 for more information. Eventually we will need a Technical Director - is that you? You can work from home and we will provide...
Our office phones are now working (thank you BT!) and so we are now 100% up and running in our new HQ.
Our 0844 number will continue to operate but will be phased out at the end of 2010 – it now directs to the office but will no longer be added to new marketing materials. We recommend you switch to either our direct line or our free phone number.
You can now call us free on 0800 084 2997 and this number directs to our office at no charge to you.
Our direct line in the office is 0191 410 5788 (customers outside...
We are delighted to announce the launch of our PC Mechanic brand which sits alongside Ladybird Computers. PC Mechanic offers an in-home or in-office service repairing computers and removing virus and spyware infections. We cover the whole of the North East for computer repairs including Newcastle, Gateshead, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, and County Durham. Serviced from our HQ just off the A1 we aim to offer a same day service across the region with a targetted time to fix (excluding operating system reinstalls) of less than one hour. Customers can contact us on 0800 084 2997 or visit PC Mechanic...
If you run a business in the UK with a WIFI access point OR if you have WIFI at home, it is now VITAL that you take immediate steps to ensure that:
1. Your connections are secure
2. No-one is using your network to download music, films, or other "illegal" content.
I was going to write an article about the iniquity of this bill but I couldn't put it better than Doug so please read his article at:
http://www.businesszone.co.uk/blogs/doug-richard/doug-richard-blogs/digital-copyright-bill-becomes-law-costs-terrible-mistake-0?ref=ukbf
This is a serious problem for many small businesses so if you'd like your systems auditing just contact us.
We are delighted to have secured a new contract with Just In Case Ltd who offer PMI testing and consultancy delivered through two brands. They provide materials analysis and ferritscope testing to clients all over the world and in addition to managing their web site (which will be rebuilt in the next two weeks) at www.pmijustincase.co.uk we are also running their internal I.T Systems via the Ladybird Computers division. We have already upgraded their operating systems and implemented a simple LAN and this is the sort of project at which we excel; simple changes which have a dramatic impact on the...
Our new free phone number is now up and working and is available from today:
0800 084 2997
This number currently diverts to my home number but will change once the lines are into the new office. Our full list of numbers is now:
Sales / Contracted Support : 0800 084 2997
All other enquiries and out of hours : 0844 884 9139
Nick Bird Mobile: 07909 337 283
We will provide direct dial numbers for our office as soon as we have them.
We hope that this number will make it even easier for customers to keep in touch.
We have reached our development capacity for April and we are not taking on any builds to be finished this month. All new projects will be started in May and delivered by the end of May. With eight microsites, two full sites, a huge real estate development, project management and planning for the new portal PLUS a new baby AND a new office to move into we cannot do any new sites this month! Of course, we are still doing consultancy and proposals for new work but there is no way new sites can be started until the end of...
We are delighted to announce the completion of a new web site for The Raj Indian Restaurant in South Shields. Established in 1994 and tucked away in a quiet street off the main shopping centre, The Raj is one of the best known and best reviewed indian restaurants in the area.
You can download a menu and also reserve a table online with enquiries routed directly to the restaurant via email and SMS. Our SMS routing technologies allow a web page to send a text message to any mobile in the world and we provide the first 100 messages a year free...
Working on getting the official site for Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett at number one on Google I just started our usual marketing activities - now, I know Google index blogs fast but this is crackers! I put a post up on my blog at about 23.31 on 28.03.2010 and it was indexed for the keywords within an hour by Google. Nice to know that Google knows my blog is a trusted source! Here's the screen shot which links back to this page:
The electronic commerce part of the official Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett site (Real UK History) has just gone live. It uses our hosted nopCommerce solution, includes payments by PayPal and it is a great example of how this platform can sell physical shipments and digital downloads. In the next few weeks all of their microsites will link back to this official store and allow visitors to purchase either a physical book or an e-book. To visit their store visit www.store.realukhistory.org.uk. The intention behind centralising all purchases through one location is to make sure that visitors to the official Alan...
We have now completed the first in a series of major history sites for Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett. The King Arthur Conspiracy is part of the rebranded Real UK History Network (which will be the official site for Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett). These authors have researched thousands of years of British history and these sites will reveal stunning finds such as the grave of King Arthur. Visit the site at www.kingarthurconspiracy.com and find out more about the King Arthurs of real British history.
The site has AJAX, electronic commerce, deep search capabilities, and incredibly fast load times and is...
I went to look at an office yesterday and within an hour paid the deposit and got the keys! We'll be updating our letterheads, Companies House information and all that good stuff over the next few days but in the meantime we are busy moving in.
We have deliberately chosen the smallest office we can get away with but we also have plans for the office next door later this year. We are seconds off the A1 (near Angel Of The North) and only five minutes from the A19. We are on the ground floor just off Reception and we'll publish...
OK - I give up. After trying to sort through fifteen computers clogging up my hallway, a huge amount of paperwork, three printers and loads of other components the time has come for me to stop working from home - our place just isn't big enough and with a new baby coming soon this just cannot go on.
Ladybird Internet Ltd will be moving into office space in the North East within a month so that I can concentrate and also stop our home looking like an industrial estate. It won't be anything flash (don't want to have to put our...
Our own e-commerce site is taking longer than we thought as we give it a lower priority than work for clients. However, remember that Ladybird Computers always has a range of second user machines (with warranties) from just £100 (including VAT).
Our current new machine promotion has an AMD Sempron 2.7Ghz processor, 4Gb RAM, 1000Gb Hard Disk and full two year parts and labour warranty. If you are part exchanging your old unit this machine is priced at £299 + VAT and can be delivered with Windows 7 Professional installed for an extra £69. We even get your old data off...
I was asked earlier today what happens to domain names which are not renewed or which we have no intention of using again. I have explained what happens in some circumstances but what happens if we just know that we will not be renewing a domain name but that we may want to wreck it for a competitor? A case in point is lanzarotebusiness.com (which I searched for today and found a blog post about) which was registered back in 2003 and which we took over in 2004 as an offshoot of Whitestar I.T Ltd - we ran it as...
We have a customer who is very keen on putting as many links as possible onto his site. This was fine in the bad old days as even the mighty Google loved incoming links (which of course had to be reciprocated with outgoing links) but this is absolutely no longer the case. This particular customer decided to add himself to a link farm and then added said link farm to his links page using our Control Panel - then he wondered why he slipped down Google very quickly.
I have said it before and I'll say it again : link farms...
I really should pay more attention to marketing - we build sites and then forget to shout about them! A case in point is our portfolio at www.webmerized.co.uk which has been sadly neglected. From now on, whenever a site is finished, I PROMISE that I'll remember to update the portfolio. I will, of course, remember to use appropriate link text and keywords so that the clients mentioned on there will benefit from increased page rank on Google. After all, businesses mentioned here get traffic so it should work from our portfolio as well.
So, if anyone is promoting us to friends...
We are delighted to announce the completion of Jack Dempsey Music - a site designed to promote the album "Elvis Rocked The People Then". The site includes flash players and is linked to an e-commerce platform allowing visitors to purchase individual tracks, the whole album as a digital download, or purchase a physical CD for shipment.
We have undetaken all of the work including installing and configuring the nopCommerce package, setting up and configuring the PayPal gateway, converting the album to the correct sample formats, and building the public facing web site. We are also providing full email services. The entire...
We still have not received payment and so this customer can expect a County Court Summons to drop through his letterbox in the next few days. We will, of course, be pursuing this to completion even if it means sending the baliffs in. We do what we say we'll do and that's all we expect of anyone else.
We are delighted to announce that Jack Dempsey and Mozart's Ghost have chosen Ladybird Internet to deliver their first album (released in the mid-80's) via our e-commerce system. The music has echoes of Queen, ELO, and massive orchestral arrangements that lift the spirits. The album "Elvis Rocked The People Then" is his first album release (following an aborted contract with EMI). WIth a MySpace group with hundreds of fans, Jack felt the time was right to deliver his music via downloads as well as shipping CD's.
We will be providing a site which will offer samples of the tracks and allow...
I love it when I get a better service than I expected and we just got exactly that from Bill Quay Joinery Service who operate in the North East. Not only did they install two new joists, they strengthened the existing ones, and managed to clear all their mess away well within the time they said. We now have a solid bathroom floor and I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending them if you need any kind of joinery or building services; we've asked them to quote for the rest of the wall coverings, tiled floor, ceiling and...
Suppose you own a hostel or hotel and you host your web site with us. Now suppose that you want to make it more visible in Google - we recommend a new XHTML / CSS compliant site and the marketing we do works. However, now suppose that you believe that a link on the Google Map displayed as part of the search results is very important. Now suppose that when you perform a search for your keywords that you come up at Number Four as part of our marketing efforts (which is free) and you are listed twice on the...
It's my birthday today and due to a massive waterleak we are having our new bathroom fitted over the next couple of days (assuming all goes to plan). For that reason (the bathroom, not the birthday) I will be working from home mainly and site visits will be kept to a minimum - unless it's really urgent I would like to schedule all site visits for next week if possible.
Yes, I am 41 and yes, by all means buy me a beer! The bathroom story will wait for another day......
Whilst on the subject of Apple please note that almost all of our sites now display flawlessly in the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone Devices. Now that they all work on Apple and Nokia hardware I don't see any reason why all smartphones won't view them correctly but if you come across a modern one that doesn't then please let me know.
Don't you hate it when you download an update for your iPod Touch and it thrashes your music collection resulting in a factory restore? It's usually a minor inconvenience but yesterday I realised that when I upgraded to Windows 7 I didn't back up my iTunes Library. I usually back it up to my backup folder on the web server but I removed that during the recent cleanup - after all, I had a copy on my machine and I could always use SharePod to put it all back after Windows 7 was installed. End result - cleaned out iPod...
We have now completed the new web site for Douglas Vaults (a hotel offering guest house accommodation in South Shields) and it can be viewed at www.douglasvaults.com. We handled the domain name transfer for the client and the new site was built using our new Foundation Framework - this allows us to have the basics of a site in place in just one day! If you need a guest house in South Shields we can now recommend both Douglas Vaults and Ocean Guest House (www.oceanguesthouse.co.uk).
Since the domain name northeastchauffeurs.co.uk is currently the subject of a court case (see here) we have decided that it might as well be put to good use.
The original site has now been removed and we are redirecting the domain name to a holding page which recommends people looking for those services to contact Chauffeur Drive North East at www.cdne.co.uk. We have had a look at Chauffeur Drive North East's web site and made some enquiries. They have been around for over ten years and (according to reports) offer a professional service of exceptional value. We are delighted to recommend...
Well, after six months we have decided to take Jason Haswell to court as he hasn't paid his bill. He commissioned us to build a web site for his business back in July last year and we managed to place it at the top of Google after less than three weeks online. He promised to settle his account by 7th August 2009 and we are still waiting despite many reminder letters, cards dropped through his letterbox, messages left on his phones, text messages and emails. He has made no attempt to contact us and ignored recorded delivery letters.
We are therefore...
We are about to start work on a project that is a little different in that we are putting together a portfolio of microsites, e-commerce, blogs, wikis, and multimedia systems (including subscriber video delivery) for authors writing books (amongst other things) The Ark Of The Covenant, The Grave of Jesus, The Real King Arthur and many more. Part of this project will involve digitising their books (some written in 1980 don't have digital versions available) and converting their DVD and VHS material (including TV interviews from the US networks) into Silverlight.
With deep links to Google Maps the authors will...
This has to be a coincidence right? From April 2010 the UK postcode database (PAF) is to be made free. This is what the www.mapme.biz site was designed to promote and it looks as people in high places have listened to us and people like our friends over at www.freethepostcode.org. Just goes to show what people power can do! We are planning to offer a very wide range of postcode and geographic / geocoding services as soon as it's legal to do so. In the meantime we will be releasing demo code based on our <ahem> source of the existing...
I am delighted to announce that Ladybird Internet Ltd has been awarded the development contract for a major project which will change the way businesses do business online in the North East of England. More details will follow.
Every year we have a big clean up when our network is relatively quiet so between now and 2nd January 2010 we will be:
Killing off old or unprofitable sites and services
Installing new versions of some of our components
Removing old log files and service databases
Changing copyrights on all the sites
Tightening up links between related services and updating content
None of the the changes will break anything or result in any downtime but (as always) if you think something has been affected by...
We will be open as follows:
Christmas Eve - 9am - 4pm
Christmas Day / Boxing Day / New Years Day - CLOSED
All other times per our normal opening hours.
A new swinging club is opening in Newcastle in January and we were awarded the contract for a marketing microsite - the sole aim of this simple site is to collect the email addresses of people who are interested in attending a Swingers Party once a month in the North East.
It's backed by a Google Adwords Campaign and a full site is planned for the middle of 2010.
If you are interested in this please visit their web site at www.newcastleswinging.co.uk.
The web site for Douglas Vaults in South Shields is now live on our network and will be having a major rebuild in the New Year. For now, if you are looking for a bar with top class live entertainment and excellent accommodation in South Shields please visit their web site at www.douglasvaults.com.
The domain name has now been transferred and Ocean Guest House (a bed and breakfast in South Shields) now have a shiny new web site on our network. If you need a hotel / guest house or holiday accommodation in South Shields please visit www.oceanguesthouse.co.uk.
One thing really annoys me. A customer decides they don't want to host their site with us anymore (usually because a friend of a friend is a "web developer"). Rather than be honest with us and explain that they are getting something for nothing they don't let us know and we renew their domain name - and then we issue the hosting invoice they tell us they are either "not renewing" or "don't want a web site anymore". We then notice a couple of weeks later that they have a new site somewhere else and we have been saddled with...
I found this good article about email scams to look out for. Interesting reading and quite relevant given that several of these scams are used to infect PCs with virus infections such as the fake "security centre" :
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1227&tag=nl.e101
This site rebuild has now been completed and is available at www.ronaldgrahamgroup.co.uk. I will be making some minor code changes in the next few days to give it standards compliancy but a fast build was needed as the address on the old site was incorrect. This customer only required development and hosting from us and we don't manage the DNS or email aspects of their service provision.
Whilst rebuilding one of our Lanzarote sites today I needed to pick two random images from the database and display them inside a Master Page wrapped in a Light Box and access the database through LINQ-to-SQL.
I found some useful stuff which other people might find equally useful (not sure where it came from but I've modified it heavily and converted it to VB.NET).
First of all create a view and a function in SQL:
CREATE VIEW [dbo].[RandomView]
AS
SELECT NEWID() As ID
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[GetNewId]()
RETURNS uniqueidentifier
AS
BEGIN
RETURN (SELECT ID FROM RandomView)
END
GO
These are the page controls:
<div class="adleft">
<asp:HyperLink ID="hyperlinkLeft" runat="server" title="Scots and Wry Costa Teguise" rel='lightbox[gallery]'>
<asp:Image...
It had to happen in the end but due to the high processing costs and long delays in getting cheques cleared we are going to stop accepting them as a method of payment from 30th November 2009.
We will continue to accept cash () and all major debit and credit cards via PayPal. We are sorting out a Streamline solution with our bank to further minimise charges and this will avoid any surcharges on large transactions.
Apologies for any inconvenience but the recent rapid increase in our turnover coupled with an increase in the number of cheques we are dealing with is...
I talked recently about the Busy Bird Computers brand being used for our Help Desk (click here to use it) and we are now almost ready to launch Ladybird Computers!
As part of our own repair work and the work we are contracted by PC Repairs UK we very often come across customers who need components or brand new computers quickly and preinstalled with all their software and data.
Ladybird Computers is a new trading division of Ladybird Internet Ltd and is able to provide custom built computers (with part exchange on your old one!) within 48 hours and we also accept...
The opening hours for Ladybird Internet Ltd are changing with effect from Monday 9th November as follows (we close from mid-day until 1pm for lunch):
Monday
8.30am - 4.30pm
...
After installing Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate and a fresh copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise I was faced with the task of setting Outlook up with my email addresses. I realised that I now have 20 addresses and that this might need to be simplified a bit!
So from today I have just four addresses as follows:
Ladybird Internet Ltd
admin@ladybirdinternet.com
...
Yep - it's true, they killed it. As a Partner it would have been nice to have been told in advance. Microsoft have been trying to break into the accountancy market for a while and I really thought Office Accounting Professional was the way they'd do it - looks like I and every other Microsoft Accountancy Network Partner was wrong. I'll be speaking to affected customers about Microsoft Dynamics in the next few months but please note that extended support is available until 2019 so there's no immediate rush. Please don't sign up with the company MS recommend until I have...
Grrr .. I've been running Windows 7 RC for a while now as part of the rollout to Microsoft Partners and I've had no problems with it at all. However, tonight I decided to vape my main machine and install my shiny new Windows 7 Ultimate DVD. But when it booted I had no Aero (this is the effect that gives glass and transparency effects on menus etc). It's one of those features you don't think you will miss but believe me - when it's gone you REALLY miss it! Having tried everything I had a little delve into the...
As part of the relaunch of the Busybird brands we are starting with Busybird Computers. We are authorised technicians for PC Repairs UK but we also operate our own repair and configuration service for home and business users.
All of the work we do (for example removing virus infections, trojans, malware, and repairing registry and permissions errors) is covered by our very simple call out and low hourly rate charges but with a no fix, no labour fee guarantee. Remember that we are a Microsoft System Builder and OEM Partner, an Authorised AVG Reseller, and a Malware Bytes Partner and we...
Confusion has been expressed about my use of pronouns in the blog - to be honest I did wonder how long it would take . To clarify, some of the entries on my blog are personal (see my entry about my new phone), some relate to Ladybird and/or NISCO, and some will be personal from me and/or partners, staff, associates, and resellers. Generally speaking I mix the pronouns up but personal entries are always written with the personal pronoun and corporate entries are a mix of both. If you don't like the grammer and the jump from personal to third...
After installing AVG Free Edition on over 200 machines in 2009 I decided that it was about time we got better support, better margins, and quicker access to their expanding range of server applications. For this reason, I am delighted that Ladybird Internet Ltd has been accepted as an offical AVG Reseller and we are now fully licensed to supply the full retail version of 9 and above which is compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows from XP to Windows 7. We can also upgrade the Free Edition with additional functionality - please contact me for more information at...
Whilst it would be wrong of me to allow people to download the actual Royal Mail PAF file from my network I can provide a link to WikiLeaks - this is an online organisation with a fierce reputation for leaking political news that is very often subjected to "super injunctions" in the UK. Here's the link -- if you (as a developer or business) choose to make use of it then is, of course, purely a matter for you! Ladybird Internet Ltd will continue to promote www.mapme.biz as an alternative source of postcode data and this link is provided purely...
If you use PayPal as a payment method you will know how frustrating it can be to get at the funds. We take payment online via PayPal (and will soon have a virtual terminal in place to do it over the phone) and some transactions are in the hundreds of pounds range - we pay the fees and it's convenient for our customers who prefer this method of payment. However, it can take over a week to transfer the funds into our business account so we were interested in the PayPal Top Up Card. This is a prepaid VISA card...
It is very rare that I get so annoyed about something that I put my hand in my pocket and put our resources behind a political cause. However, I was trying to get an exact latitude and longitude for a business yesterday and needed to do it on a postcode - now in the past I faced this problem with Lanzarote Maps and put it down to their being no postcode system in Lanzarote. Not a problem for the UK surely as the Post Office have a database which maps postcode information to latitudes and longitudes - so all I...
Most readers will know that we have a "light" e-commerce solutions but we have now introduced a much more powerful solution which is based on an open source solution for maximum flexibility. You can see an example at www.thebiginternetshop.com/bigshop - let me know if you'd like a username and password to play with the administration system.
nopCommerce has hundreds of features and is very customisable - we'll be using it ourselves and linking it our new CRM and accounts systems in the very near future. If you would like an example of your own to play around with please just let...
The rebuild has been completed at www.shincliffekennelsandcattery.co.uk and the two sister sites are also now live at www.durhamcattery.co.uk and www.durhamkennels.co.uk. The two Google Adword campaigns are under way and already delivering results to the main site.
We will be monitoring these three sites very carefully and using them as a case study on search engine optimisation and Google Adwords Campaign Planning.
We have now started work on the web site for the Las Coronas Apartments in Costa Teguise, Lanzarote. This is a very complex development and we are seperating it into different development strands:
Apartment owners intranet. This will store AGM documents, legal documents, accounts, and so on. This will be built on our Sharepoint Server and give the owners a brilliant way of communicating and sharing documents - particularly important as some of the owners don't live in the complex.
Apartment owners forums. We are using YAF for this bit as it is free...
This customer had their domain registered through a developer who changed the passwords on the registry account meaning that they thought control had been taken away from the customer. We have dealt direct with Nominet in order to ensure that the identity of the account was restored to our customer and then paid Nominet to change the IPS-TAG which allowed us to transfer the name to our control The registrant details have been changed to the customer and we have successfully moved it to our network despite the major problems the customer has had with the other developer in the...
We are in the process of performing our monthly backup. Customers using a monitoring service may notice a very small drop in performance of around 2 millseconds whilst the back up is in progress. This is because our network is transferring data to an off network location for additional security - our nightly backups are done to a server on our network which does not cause any performance issues. Some databases may be offline for up to 1 minute 30 seconds whilst the off site backup is performed. I won't be blogging these events in future but wanted it on...
I am delighted that Ladybird Internet Ltd has been accepted for the Microsoft WebsiteSpark Programme.
Acceptance gives us a closer relationship with Microsoft (our Microsoft Partner status is more for our networking and desktop software expertise). The WebsiteSpark program provides us with lots of new development software for free and although we already have Visual Studio 2008 Professional and SQL Server 2008 the shiny new Microsoft Expression Web and Expression Studio will shortly be making an impact on the look and feel of the sites we deliver for our clients.
Watch this space for more information!
Oh no ... I am actually excited about a mobile phone. In fact, I am not just excited - I am in love and want to take it to bed with me (in case the cat knocks it off my desk!).
Now, most of you already know that I am not a big fan of SMS as I have quite thick and chunky fingers and I find it difficult to hit the buttons on a normal phone. I have a mail server which supports IMAP and the Blackberry but haven't been able to find a phone that I like enough to...
The new build is almost complete and we expect this to go live at the weekend. Converting the old content from HTML to XHTML is taking longer than anticipated but needs to be done ...
The new version of Glasgow Hostels web site is now live and incorporates the very latest AJAX technologies (try the online booking system!) and links to Royal Bank of Scotland to handle live deposits. This has been a very challenging development as the client has used several different developers (all of whom messed him about) and in the end I decided that upgrading to XHTML / CSS 2 / and .NET would help his marketing and make it easier to add WorldPay integration.
The new site is available at www.glasgowhostels.com and uses our SQL Server 2008 database, AJAX, .NET 3.5, LINQ...
For a company specialising in web development I have been very lax in my approach to our own site. We've been so busy getting new business in and serving our existing customers that we just haven't had time to revamp the single page I put up in January! This has now been fixed with the launch of our new corporate home page - we've still got some work to do but at least it provides a lot more information about the Company (the history page brought some memories back whilst I was writing it!). By the way, if anyone wants...
I have spoken to some customers before about privacy and the new "deep search" services available which include www.pipl.com (which is scary enough!). I was surprised today to find a customer emailing me to ask if they could buy me a book from my Amazon wish list instead of using my virtual bar at www.getabeerinfor.me/nickbird.
I headed off to the web address they gave me (where they found my wish list) at http://www.123people.co.uk/s/nick+bird and was surprised to see a link to my Amazon Wish List at : http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/1KIVU3CTU17NV?tag=section_wishlist0e-21
How bloody scary is this? If you have a dig around for my name...
We have a new product available - this is an open source application written with SilverLight which we have rewritten to work with our network. You can upload videos to our wall or (free on request) we can setup a video wall on your own web site allowing customers to view videos in a very dynamic way - this is YOUR youtube!
Ideas on how to use it....
We'll be launching a new video service for Lanzarote in the next few weeks
Bars can get their customers to upload videos of their time spent inside...
We are happy to announce that we have been awarded the development contract for the Las Coronas Apartments in Costa Teguise Lanzarote by our sister business in Lanzarote NISCOWEB. The team in Lanzarote have done a cracking job in obtaining the account and they will handle the day to day requirements of the project whilst Ladybird handles the server side infrastructure and the development of the web site and intranet solution.
Quite apart from the provision of a high end public facing web site, we will also be providing over 130 dedicated email accounts and a private discussion forums which will allow the apartment owners...
We have had the contract through NISCO for another site owned by this customer and they are now moving their major Scottish construction company onto our network for a rebuild with the latest technologies. The old site is static HTML and contains out of date information which the client is struggling to get updated and our proven platforms are ideal for this kind of redevelopment project. We'll keep you posted.
We have just taken delivery of our shiny Microsoft Expression Web 3 development studio DVD. Whilst we use Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition for our .NET Development, the Expression Studio provides a better design service and standards compliancy - it also includes a super previewer which helps to make sure that the sites we build look great in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. You'll see an improvement in our accessibility standards too as we work to ensure that our clients' sites meet the latest disability accessibility legislation.
This site has been on our network for over three years and is now looking a bit dated so we'll be rebuilding it over the next couple of weeks with a new XHTML and CSS format for standards compliancy, online booking with payments powered by RBS WorldPay, and other neat features. The customer has many sites on different domains hosted with many different providers and we are working with the owner to move all of the domains to our network, relaunch them all in different languages, and provide a Google Adwords campaign to boost his traffic. You can view the...
We launched the final build of Booking Manager yesterday and sold the first account to www.theestatehouse.co.uk. As part of the rollout we have also integrated the Booking Manager Availability Wizard into the new site and this now allows visitors to the site to check room availability in real time. The next section we will be adding to the wizard is the ability for it to provide quotations and also to handle online payment processing via PayPal or WorldPay. If you haven't tried it yet, read the posts below to get access to the demo account or sign up for a...
We are currently developing a new service for hotels, guest houses, and bed and breakfasts which will allow these establishments to throw away their booking diaries. Whether you own ten hotels, manage villas for someone else, or have a guest house with a few rooms, this system will allow you to manage them simply and effectively. As the system is developed we are going to be adding invoicing capabilities and other functions needed by accommodation owners. To find out more, enroll in the beta program, and give us your ideas please contact us.
We will soon be launching a new site aimed at providing information about site make-overs - it's going to be called Sort My Site Out and we expect a launch towards the end of September to coincide with the roll out of our new search engine optimisation services (www.lanzarote-seo-expert.net) and www.google-adwords-expert.net. The optimisation service ties into the make-over service and our low prices for consultancy and analysis will see a big increase in this aspect of our operations in the Lanzarote and the UK. Contact us for more information.
As part of our Community Rewards Programme I am delighted to announce that Ladybird Internet Ltd will be delivering a web site for the Kings School Tyneside Old Boys Cricket Club to be launched at the end of the fourth quarter 2009.
As part of our committment to delivering web services into our community we are delighted to be offering this service free of charge for a year in order to:
Increase awareness of the activities of the club
Provide a stable platform for future growth of the site
Allow historical data...
As most people know by now, we have a site called "bummedbytheboss.co.uk" which was a project to monitor logs ... anyway, we included an image (with permission I might add!) of a character played by Catherine Tate. Imagine my surprise when I found a huge influx of traffic from a blog at http://www.singletrackworld.com/. What someone had done was simply link to the image on our server so that everytime the post was displayed the image was delivered from my network instead of their own. I equate this to someone stealing my money as the 585 people who received the image...
I wrote some time ago about our marketing plan for Shincliffe Kennels and that they intend to use the web as their only marketing outlet. We have registered durhamcattery.co.uk and placed a microsite on; this will be promoted via Google Adwords and our own SEO tools. The aim is simple - deliver more visitors to the main site and get a top 10 position on Google within a month. Take a look at the site at www.durhamcattery.co.uk; it's not a complex design, it doesn't pass all of the new XHTML and CSS standards but it DOES look good to search...
Less than two weeks since we launched the site, northeastchauffeur.co.uk is at number 3 for most of his search phrases. If you'd like help with your Search Engine Marketing (at a surprisingly low cost!) please contact me.
OK - I get asked a lot why some of the core services I provide through either Ladybird Internet or license through NISCO in Lanzarote are free of charge. I thought I'd answer that question since I understand that some people may find it difficult to see how we can continue to launch new services and not charge for them!
Sometimes I will relaunch a service and make it free for competitive reasons (or just to screw around with a competitor acting unethically - see my recent post about Lanzarote Maps).
Some sites will...
The redevelopment of Get A Beer In For Me is now finished and you can now sign up to get your own online pub. It is a free service that let's people buy you a virtual drink - very useful for those small jobs or support calls you do as a favour for your customers. If anyone wants to buy me a drink you can do so at www.getabeerinfor.me/nickbird.
Thanks to Natasha at www.ebfconsulting.com - the Budweiser she bought for me will be very much appreciated when the Swine Flu has been vanquished.
I'm opening up www.getabeerinfor.me to other people - watch this space!
Within literally five minutes of www.getabeerinfor.me going live, John of www.lanzaroteholidayapartment.info bought me a lovely bottle of wine - check out his holiday apartment in Lanzarote and tell him I sent you!
John has been a customer for about four years and we moved his site onto our network and added some groovy photo gallery stuff. His site is ready for a revamp to bring it in line with our new development tools and platforms but if you need a holiday apartment in Lanzarote give him a shout!
Thanks John!
Another idea ... I've just registered buyapresentfor.me and people will be able to give out a card with www.buyapresentfor.me/theirname and allow friends and relatives to buy them a gift. An admin area will allow them to add their own "wish list" and prices and the service will be very very low cost - in fact, less than a tenner or even free !
www.getabeerinfor.me will also work on the same principle --- Watch this space !!
I had a call today from www.pcrepairsuk.biz who had a call from an area where they didn't have an engineer. They passed the customer number onto me and I spent five minutes of my time (and my phone bill) helping the customer solve their problem. The customer rang PC Repairs and told Lesley that I had fixed the problem and could they pay me. She didn't want to give out my number or address so I rang the guy to check he had no more problems and that the issue had been resolved. He wanted to pay me and I...
We have recently had a couple of customers experiencing problems sending mail to Yahoo addresses (.com, .co.uk, and .es). We reported the fault with their servers to them and they have corrected the issue - all mail is now being successfully delivered to Yahoo mailboxes.
However, in order to ensure that future problems are resolved quickly please note:
If you are told by one of your customers that they have not received an email from you please look at your SENT folder and report it to us (the DATE and TIME are very important).
We apologise for any inconvenience...
We developed this site (www.shincliffekennelsandcattery.co.uk) back in February 2008 and it's time for a revamp. This customer has now decided to move away from all forms of advertising and concentrate his marketing budget on the Internet. Over the coming weeks we will be:
Updating the existing site with new content and a new layout whilst retaining the "paw" theme
Adding a blog with useful information for cat and dog owners
Adding a microsite on a different domain name to generate more cat boarding business
Adding auto responsders to...
The new web site is now live at www.northeastchauffeur.co.uk - it's a simple three page site with an enquiry form and the client will be promoting it using keywords in a Google Adwords campaign (which is one of the reasons why we have used organic keywords in his domain name rather than the name of his business). He is using an Auto Responder on his enquiry form so that the customer gets an immediate notice that their enquiry has been received and his blog (www.northeastchauffeur.co.uk/blog) will be kept up to date with photographs and information about jobs he has done...
We are about to start work on some new projects including a web site for a North East Chauffeur company - we have deliberately registered a non business name based domain name as Google seems to give a higher index position to web site urls which match keywords - we know this works from Jobs in Lanzarote and Property In Lanzarote (both #1 on Google) so it makes sense to do the same for our customers as well. We expect the new site (which is a simple one but still built to XHTML and CSS standards on the .NET platform)...
Well, we had a fantastic time in the USA and we are now back to reality. Actually, we are ALMOST back to reality - with 20 hours of travel under our belts we are now ready for some serious sleep.
We've got some new projects lined up for the coming weeks and, of course, the relaunch of Jobs In Lanzarote - but sleep really is needed for now...
Later :-)
I got fed up with all of our blogs being in different places and with different addresses so from today they are all going to be on www.jaculate.co.uk. Why the name? Well, first of all I tried HUNDREDS of domains with the word BLOG in them and couldn't find anything suitable so I got the dictionary out (well, an online one anyway!) and look for cool words. Quite apart from the very slightly sauciness of the name the word jaculate actually means:
Jac´u`late
...