Self-Promotion

Posted: Thu 25 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business | Leave a comment »

Over the last week or so, I’ve started working harder at doing a bit of self-promotion. This hasn’t been the easiest of things – for one thing I’m not a great self-publicist – but I’m getting there.

Not least among The Things Wot I Done was registering my business name/site with both the UKWDA (UK Web Designers Association) and GAWDS (Guild of Accessible Web Designers), which has been interesting, and brought about some interesting conversations (well, interesting in a geeky way, anyway) about markup and how websites ‘should’ be written.

In addition I’ve been getting myself more organised with regard to billing, and I sent out a couple more invoices this week – it’s one of those things that I know I should do, but I still sometimes forget. I really do need to get better on that one.

And at the same time I’ve also been working on gaining permission to get access to a couple of locations where I really want to take photos. I’m still waiting for the responses on those requests though. Still, see how it all goes.

But yes, it’s all coming together, and so far it’s all looking pretty promising…

Progressing : 2

Posted: Wed 24 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, House Purchase | Leave a comment »

So, we’ve now engaged a solicitor, and all that paperwork has gone off, including copies of all our ID. I know they need some kind of proof that we are who we say we are, but still, it seems a bit odd to be able to send copies of ID documents – surely that’s no real proof of existence?

Paperwork has been flying around the place – solicitors guff, estate agents guff, mortgage guff, insurance guff, and payment protection guff.

And we see the architect about our potential plans for the new place on Friday, which should be fun.

Also, supposedly the mortgage company sent out their valuing surveyor yesterday to check the place out, make sure that the building exists and so on. It’ll be interesting getting their report – I’ve paid £560 for a ‘Homebuyer survey’ so it should tell us about anything medium-to-major on the property.

So yes, things are coming through pretty smoothly so far.

Handwritten

Posted: Wed 24 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

In my opinion, some people just deserve to be ripped off.

Picture the scene – two cashpoint machines (ATMs to the Americans) side by side, in the wall of a bank. On one, a handwritten notice saying “This machine is out of order. Please use the other one.“. And the other machine has a queue of about six people using it, complaining that this one’s a bit dodgy too.

Me? Maybe I’m paranoid. But there’s no fucking way on earth, even if it were the only cashpoint in town, that I would use that machine. And it’s for the following reasons.

  1. It’s outside a bank, thus making people feel psychologically more secure. (“Oh, no-one would mess with this machine, it’s right outside the bank”)
  2. The notice is hand-written, you pillocks. Surely the bank would have either
    1. some pre-prepared properly printed notices
      or
    2. just turned the damn thing off, and let it display the ‘out of order’ notice
  3. The second machine is obviously slow, as there’s a queue
  4. People are audibly complaining that the second machine isn’t giving out money either

To me that’s a whole list of reasons that would generally add up to “this machine has been tampered with, and is currently recording your card details, and repeated attempts to type in your PIN” and as a result I just wouldn’t use it.

And let’s bear in mind, I’m talking about Cambridge. It’s not like there aren’t (quick mental tally) at least six other cash points within three minutes walk.

Like I said, some people just deserve to lose their money.

Smarties

Posted: Wed 24 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Many moons ago, I wrote about Nestlé ‘rebranding’ Smarties, changing the classic tube and plastic flip-off cap. Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I had a real craving for Smarties (no idea why, I just go with these things sometimes) And yes, the rebranding’s been done.

And somehow it’s just not the same. The cardboard tab just doesn’t have the same poppability (if there is such a word) as that old plastic cap. Even the colours have changed, and while I don’t have an objection to removing artificial colours- in fact I think it’s a good thing – I would perhaps rethink the brown ones, which now look (to be blunt) exactly like shit.

But when you get inside, well, Smarties® are still Smarties®. So it could be worse.

Green Olympiad

Posted: Tue 23 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

So the 2012 Olympics are going to be the greenest ever, are they? I don’t think so.

You see, when people start talking about “ever”, they’re wrong. After all, the original Olympic games were held in a stadium that wasn’t purpose built for them, thus not using shitloads of non-green cement, steel, concrete, and the like. The athletes didn’t travel in planes, buses, coaches and cars – they either came on foot, or on horseback.

The original games didn’t have a new set of stadia built every four years in some place or other, along with all the radical changes to infrastructure and environment. And they didn’t have millions of people watching worldwide on TV, thus also contributing to CO2 emissions etc. etc.

So, the greenest ever? I don’t think so, not at all.

Demotivated

Posted: Tue 23 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Sweary, Work-related | Leave a comment »

No idea why, but I’m having a bit of a demotivated “can’t be arsed” week when it comes to ‘proper’ work.

Partly I suspect it’s because the work I’m doing is earth-shatteringly, brain-numbingly dull, and is only necessary in the first place because other people are utter fuckwits who don’t think things through in the first place.

But also it’s because the company we’ve been talking to (since February) about a Content Management System have finally fucked up enough for us to walk away from them. Personally I’d have done it three months ago, when they fucked up the first time, and made everyone involved (including themselves) look like cunts. They’ve managed the same thing on another couple of occasions since, and there’s been the debate about walking away, which has always resulted in “but the product they have is really good”.

Today they were supposed to come up here for a final meeting, discussing contract terms and the like. Only they’re not going to come, because (and I don’t quite get this one) the time taken wouldn’t be billable. So they’re going to lose £100,000+ of business because they can’t charge us for the time to come up to Cambridge and get the business.

Yes, they really are that fucking stupid. It’s really quite worrying. And I’m sure I’ll write more about it over the next couple of days, when I’ve got my thoughts about it into some semblance of order…

Dogs and Health

Posted: Mon 22 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Health | Leave a comment »

In general, I can’t say I’m surprised at the ‘revelation’ that Dog owners (and, I suspect, pet owners in general) ‘lead healthier lives’. Particularly in the case of dog owners (or at least responsible ones) part of that is due to the enforced exercise regime – also known as “dog walking”.

Currently I’m not as good on this score, because Herself takes Hound for its morning walk while I’m sat on a train going to work – although on weekends Hound decides that it’s back to being my job. Which is fair enough.

Once we’ve moved, though, I suspect we’ll also be back to doing a lot more Hound-related exercise. In the current place, we mis-assessed the situation, and we’re actually not very close at all to anywhere that’s good for Hound-walking. There’s one small area that’s semi-close, but for a border collie it’s just too small. In fact, I’d say the designated ‘dog walking’ area is actually smaller than our garden. Once we’ve moved, though, there’s just fields all round, so I’m sure we’ll be doing a lot more, even in the evenings.

It’s also well-known that stroking one’s dog or cat is, in general, good at reducing stress levels, blood-pressure etc., and as such is usually quite healthy.

Then again, the people who created this report had obviously not met our two, as Hound is great at inducing heavy levels of stress when she’s in irritating (AKA “Barky twat”) mode, and Psycho Cat is great at guessing when you’ve just relaxed while stroking the furry little fucker, and then biting your fingers at the opportune moment…

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