A short blog for this week as I have to work all weekend to catch up after yesterday's disaster.
So, first things first, a BIG APOLOGY to anyone who has a site hosted by us for the downtime yesterday. We have our own dedicated servers but they're not shoved in the back of our office but are located in a data centre in Manchester in NW England (we're in NE England) and the physical management is covered by 34sp.com who we pay for that service whilst we control the software remotely.
Well yesterday a little after noon UK time we got a call from a client saying their website was down. So we checked it out or in reality didn't as we couldn't get on the server nor on our own site which is located on a server in that data centre. Checking on the 34sp status page (http://status.34sp.com/) at that time was impossible as their site was down also and their phone lines were permanently engaged. A short while later their site was back online with their status page telling us that there was a fibre break - the detail is still on the status page.
Later we found out that the problem was a failed management card in the data centre and there was no replacement available. Then when one was delivered it was the wrong one but eventually a full service was resolved some 11 hours later. Hopefully Messrs. Laurel & Hardy have been sacked and 34sp.com have replaced them with some decent technical staff. They also didn't do themselves any favours by their lack of updates online via their status page and twitter feed with their tweets only appearing when some of their clients, myself included, were making many public tweets about their poor customer service and the fact that their competitors were picking this up and contacting us.
Obviously a large part of our day was taken up with dealing with our clients who were understandably concerned re the lack of website and/or email. Luckily we have a pretty understanding bunch of clients who trust us but it's not helped when events beyond our control cause problems and then our providers seem to be telling porkies or didn't understand the problem - we shall see if any compensation is forthcoming (I'm not holding my breath) but if they provide us with a month's free server management we will pass this on to our clients with a month's free hosting - though not to those who weren't affected I should point out, i.e. some e-commerce sites whose servers were not affected.
Where there are problems with individual domains (e.g. where the owner has forgotten to renew) we will contact the owners. If there are more general issues such as server moves or server maintenance then we normally post a message on our site plus an email out to all clients. In such instances we will also post on our Twitter account http://twitter.com/IanE1111 which will also provide a source of information when we have no other avenue, like yesterday - so please make a note of that. Why not follow us on Twitter anyway and read even more of my nonsense?
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Sunday, 18 November 2012
Websites for Mobile Devices
The mobile web is a growing market sector and any company who do not have a mobile enabled version of their website are missing out on good and ever increasing numbers of potential clients. An Ofcom report of March this year showed that around 12% of all website visits come from mobile browsers and this is a big increase on the previous year, a fact that fits the statistics we get from Analytics reports from our own and clients' websites. Around 40% of all adults use their mobile phone to browse the Internet some of the time and this figure rises to over 70% for 16-25 age group.
So what are the key points to consider?
So what are the key points to consider?
- Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) currently have by far the biggest share of the mobile web market
- If you have any Flash on your site these devices do not show it (without a bit of jiggery-pokery)
- Mobile screens are generally smaller so a mobile enabled website should take this into account
- Mobile users do not generally want pages and pages of content but a simple site with key information
- Mobile phones allow people to ring direct from your website with a simple click if coded correctly
How is a mobile website constructed? There area few options:
- Responsive design, where a website stylesheet will respond to the device and/or screen size to serve a version of the site that fits the device screen and may even hide some content for mobile devices like tadwebsolutions.co.uk
- A completely different version of the site served on a special domain such as tadweb.mobi
- A completely different version that is automatically served to mobile devices on a subdomain such as m.futureroofs.co.uk
The latter solutions is our preferred option and this week we have created the mobile version of the website of a flat roofing company in South Yorkshire, Future Roofs. There main website looks like this:
This now redirects to a mobile version of the site based upon screen size and or mobile device type to serve the website at m.futureroofs.co.uk.
A nice clean and simple version maintaining branding with a simple click to call action button.
We're also working on a much bigger mobile project which took up a lot of time last week, but is not yet in the public domain (and won't be for a few weeks), and this includes animation and will work in an app-like manner on all devices.
So what are you waiting for? Contact Tad Web Solutions for a great mobile website.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
The Boro Feel Good Factor
Middlesbrough Football Club have certainly created a feel good factor across Teesside this week. A number of commentators suggest that the Olympic feel good factor is good for business in the UK and hopefully our very own Teesside version from Friday's football match v Sheff Wed will have the same effect. A big thank you needs to go to Steve Gibson and all at MFC for Friday night's great event.
Let me be clear, football is not my favourite sport, it comes below rugby union, cricket and rugby league in my list of sports to watch BUT in terms of the Tees Valley and it's profile as a region the ONLY sporting club known by many outside of the region is Middlesbrough Football Club. Therefore MFC is very important to all of us working and running businesses here.
Having said footy's not my favourite, I was brought up as a Boro fan. My Dad was big footy fan, played at a reasonable level and even played for the RAF in a 1-1 draw with an England team. He, like me, was Boro born and bred. He watched legends such as Mannion and Clough before I was born. He took me to my first match at Ayresome Park, a 2-2 draw against Sunderland in 1971 when I was 7 years old. Up to that point I was a fan of Dirty Leeds who were the top side in the country at a time when footy on TV was very limited. I was hooked (we were sat behind the goal in the East Stand and if he hadn't used his foot to block a Hickton shot that was destined for my face I might not have been).
Some great times followed, Jack Charlton's promotion team as a kid, as I got older and with most of my mates being footy fans there were great booze and footy trips away (Jamie Pollock's winner at Roker Park being a particular favourite), Juninho et al playing some sublime football, amazing Uefa Cup comebacks and more.
Once my son was old enough I switched from going with my mates and had a season ticket with my son, thus forcing him to change his very young allegiance from a TV Man Utd team to the Boro in the flesh and thus condemning him to a life of pessimism.
And then it all went wrong. I don't hate Gordon Strachan - I find him funny and the way he left Boro without compensation shows him to be a decent and honourable man - but I think he almost killed the club. It reached a point where I didn't even bother looking for the score on a weekend never mind not bothering with attending a match or even Ali's commentary on local radio.
Now that's changed. Mogga's in charge, local youngsters are playing and the players who aren't local have bought into what Teesside is about. Friend, Haroun and even the Mackem Leadbitter are all adopted Teessiders, one of us, following in the footsteps of adopted greats like Juninho and Mendi. It's a local club again and matters immensely.
Friday saw the club listen to the fans, the hard times we're having, and reduce prices for a match we could all watch on TV. There was a buzz on Teesside throughout the run up to the game, tickets started selling, people who haven't been for years came back, people brought their mates - it was like the Olympic buzz but for our own team and our own area. And what a performance, the team were fantastic, pride, passion, team spirit and skill - what a night.
Everyone is talking about it, local pride and belief in the club, the players and ourselves and our region plus a great showing on TV to the nation. The start of something great on and off the pitch? I hope and believe so (though I won't be at the next home match as it's England v Springboks on TV, I did say rugby union is my favourite sport and it is England). I'm still a part-timer but I've now been to 5 home games this season which is the most for many years.
A massive thanks to Steve Gibson, the players and all at the club - I spent many years at Ayresome singing "We Shall Overcome" and I really think we will - as the club will play a big part, along with SSI re-opening the steelworks, in the rebirth of Teesside.
Let me be clear, football is not my favourite sport, it comes below rugby union, cricket and rugby league in my list of sports to watch BUT in terms of the Tees Valley and it's profile as a region the ONLY sporting club known by many outside of the region is Middlesbrough Football Club. Therefore MFC is very important to all of us working and running businesses here.
Having said footy's not my favourite, I was brought up as a Boro fan. My Dad was big footy fan, played at a reasonable level and even played for the RAF in a 1-1 draw with an England team. He, like me, was Boro born and bred. He watched legends such as Mannion and Clough before I was born. He took me to my first match at Ayresome Park, a 2-2 draw against Sunderland in 1971 when I was 7 years old. Up to that point I was a fan of Dirty Leeds who were the top side in the country at a time when footy on TV was very limited. I was hooked (we were sat behind the goal in the East Stand and if he hadn't used his foot to block a Hickton shot that was destined for my face I might not have been).
Some great times followed, Jack Charlton's promotion team as a kid, as I got older and with most of my mates being footy fans there were great booze and footy trips away (Jamie Pollock's winner at Roker Park being a particular favourite), Juninho et al playing some sublime football, amazing Uefa Cup comebacks and more.
Once my son was old enough I switched from going with my mates and had a season ticket with my son, thus forcing him to change his very young allegiance from a TV Man Utd team to the Boro in the flesh and thus condemning him to a life of pessimism.
And then it all went wrong. I don't hate Gordon Strachan - I find him funny and the way he left Boro without compensation shows him to be a decent and honourable man - but I think he almost killed the club. It reached a point where I didn't even bother looking for the score on a weekend never mind not bothering with attending a match or even Ali's commentary on local radio.
Now that's changed. Mogga's in charge, local youngsters are playing and the players who aren't local have bought into what Teesside is about. Friend, Haroun and even the Mackem Leadbitter are all adopted Teessiders, one of us, following in the footsteps of adopted greats like Juninho and Mendi. It's a local club again and matters immensely.
Friday saw the club listen to the fans, the hard times we're having, and reduce prices for a match we could all watch on TV. There was a buzz on Teesside throughout the run up to the game, tickets started selling, people who haven't been for years came back, people brought their mates - it was like the Olympic buzz but for our own team and our own area. And what a performance, the team were fantastic, pride, passion, team spirit and skill - what a night.
Everyone is talking about it, local pride and belief in the club, the players and ourselves and our region plus a great showing on TV to the nation. The start of something great on and off the pitch? I hope and believe so (though I won't be at the next home match as it's England v Springboks on TV, I did say rugby union is my favourite sport and it is England). I'm still a part-timer but I've now been to 5 home games this season which is the most for many years.
A massive thanks to Steve Gibson, the players and all at the club - I spent many years at Ayresome singing "We Shall Overcome" and I really think we will - as the club will play a big part, along with SSI re-opening the steelworks, in the rebirth of Teesside.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Not the Most Productive Week
Partly my fault and partly circumstances but last week wasn't the most productive with the best part of two days midweek taken out of my schedule with another cheeky day off, this time walking on the North Yorks Moors, and a doctor's visit including a bit of minor surgery (nowt worrying or too scary but takes time). The sneaky days of walking, which are in reality a delayed "summer" holiday, are now done until over Xmas when, weather permitting, I'll be out again.
So the week was mainly finishing off some work including a website news section and some artwork plus following a few sales leads and doing some networking. All of that was productive with some new work confirmed and artwork complete plus some new sales leads from the networking and new people met but not much done in the way of creating new websites.
The coming week will see some graphic design being completed, a mobile website done and taking part in the Start Up Britain Bus Tour as a "successful entrepreneur" to help advise young people who are thinking of setting up in business - never really thought of myself in those terms before but I suppose I am.
Monday will be mainly written off with a hospital appointment - doctors and hospital within a few days - sure sign I'm getting old (time for the knackers yard).
So the week was mainly finishing off some work including a website news section and some artwork plus following a few sales leads and doing some networking. All of that was productive with some new work confirmed and artwork complete plus some new sales leads from the networking and new people met but not much done in the way of creating new websites.
The coming week will see some graphic design being completed, a mobile website done and taking part in the Start Up Britain Bus Tour as a "successful entrepreneur" to help advise young people who are thinking of setting up in business - never really thought of myself in those terms before but I suppose I am.
Monday will be mainly written off with a hospital appointment - doctors and hospital within a few days - sure sign I'm getting old (time for the knackers yard).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)