Just a brief post this week as I've go some work to catch up on after a brief walk trough the Valley Gardens in Saltburn which is a lovely place.
Peter is now 10 months into his apprenticeship and largely works independently with a bit of oversight. Last week he was on his hols in Spain and boy do I now know how much work he does! Luckily he's back on Monday so we can crack on with our busy order book.
That's it until next week, got some planning to do and a presentation to write.
Sunday, 27 October 2013
Sunday, 20 October 2013
A Much Better Week
Well I've ended the week with a great little walk on the North Yorks Moors and home in time for Sunday lunch and then work for the rest of the day. It's easy to get bogged down in work sometimes and not take time out for a bit of relaxation so I'm making a real effort to get out walking even for a couple of hours on a weekend. Middlesbrough should be abandoned apparently (The Economist I believe) but I'm a proud Boro lad, despite Mogga's worst efforts, and love the area. After a 15 mins journey today I was out and about walking here in god's country:
So to any London-centric readers - it's a dreadful place to live (keep the myth going, we don't want them up here).
I have to say the folk at Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council seem to have done a great job sorting out our Internet problems and also, fingers crossed, the problems with our windows, but we'll wait until a big storm to confirm that bit. I'm really glad as, although I was very annoyed at the problems we have had for a while, the Palace Hub is a tremendous place and I love my office view, though we do also have a view of the above from almost the same spot hung on our office wall thanks to a great local artist Di Fox.
So how will the week end? Mainly some work we weren't expecting to come in for a white label project which we thought was finished, but it's about keeping the client happy so a busy Sunday afternoon. There's also a quote to write for a project for Saltburn that looks really exciting. I'm really looking forward to working on that as it's an interesting technical project but I'm also an ex-resident of Saltburn and visit it often as it's such a lovely place and it's a great project for the town. Finally today will be the outline of my next Geek Author offering which will be a guide on using web analytics for Serco and their Superfast Broadband roll-out in the South West. As a result I've also got a publisher lined up for when I write my book on t'Internet, yes you heard it here first, which I'll begin over Xmas.
So to any London-centric readers - it's a dreadful place to live (keep the myth going, we don't want them up here).
I have to say the folk at Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council seem to have done a great job sorting out our Internet problems and also, fingers crossed, the problems with our windows, but we'll wait until a big storm to confirm that bit. I'm really glad as, although I was very annoyed at the problems we have had for a while, the Palace Hub is a tremendous place and I love my office view, though we do also have a view of the above from almost the same spot hung on our office wall thanks to a great local artist Di Fox.
So how will the week end? Mainly some work we weren't expecting to come in for a white label project which we thought was finished, but it's about keeping the client happy so a busy Sunday afternoon. There's also a quote to write for a project for Saltburn that looks really exciting. I'm really looking forward to working on that as it's an interesting technical project but I'm also an ex-resident of Saltburn and visit it often as it's such a lovely place and it's a great project for the town. Finally today will be the outline of my next Geek Author offering which will be a guide on using web analytics for Serco and their Superfast Broadband roll-out in the South West. As a result I've also got a publisher lined up for when I write my book on t'Internet, yes you heard it here first, which I'll begin over Xmas.
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Building a Better Business, Despite the Obstacles
The last week started off on a great note with a trip over to Bolton on Sunday, a pleasant evening in the bar with fellow BNI members which saw Dr Ivan Misner join us for a brief period and then a great event on the Monday. The Build a Better Business conference was great, networking and tons of useful information to improve your business, your sales and your networking. There are a lot of things I will implement that will improve the performance of Tad Web Solutions Ltd.
The rest of the week was a bit of a slide downwards with a few exceptions. Back in the office on Tues to find the rain still comes in, the Internet was intermittent on Wednesday, we left early on Thurs as they were working on the firewall, and on Fri we left very early to work from home as the firewall is preventing us from using ftp to transfer files to or from our servers. Getting very peeved with our landlords now and things will shortly come to a head if not solved very quickly.
The week wasn't helped by a message whilst in Bolton on Mon saying that Peter's tutor needed to come in the next day without prior arrangement which means Peter loses around half a day of work. On Tues his tutor says he needs him in college the next day, again unplanned, so another day lost.
Friday also saw PalaceFM lose in their bid to get an FM licence for their community radio station. We hope they continue with their great radio station and we will continue to provide web support to help them.
So the problem is we're a bit behind schedule with last week's projects and big apologies to customers for that. The good news is that it's a problem - a problem because we have a lot of work on the books. So I'm stopping whining as I've got some catching up to do and need to crack on.
The rest of the week was a bit of a slide downwards with a few exceptions. Back in the office on Tues to find the rain still comes in, the Internet was intermittent on Wednesday, we left early on Thurs as they were working on the firewall, and on Fri we left very early to work from home as the firewall is preventing us from using ftp to transfer files to or from our servers. Getting very peeved with our landlords now and things will shortly come to a head if not solved very quickly.
The week wasn't helped by a message whilst in Bolton on Mon saying that Peter's tutor needed to come in the next day without prior arrangement which means Peter loses around half a day of work. On Tues his tutor says he needs him in college the next day, again unplanned, so another day lost.
Friday also saw PalaceFM lose in their bid to get an FM licence for their community radio station. We hope they continue with their great radio station and we will continue to provide web support to help them.
So the problem is we're a bit behind schedule with last week's projects and big apologies to customers for that. The good news is that it's a problem - a problem because we have a lot of work on the books. So I'm stopping whining as I've got some catching up to do and need to crack on.
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Focus on the Positives
It's been one of those weeks, started with a bad head cold which continues and loads of stuff that has been a hassle.
We had a chunk of time without Internet and phone (VoIP) which is not great for a web agency and was not at the time we were told it would happen. It's obviously far too difficult, or more than their job's worth, for Redcar Council/Virgin media staff to fix the offending fan outside of office hours. I also loved the fact that they emailed us to tell us all Internet was down, after it had gone down.
I'm getting rather miffed with Redcar Council and their incompetence when it comes to the Palace Hub. Their latest "effort" regarding our leaking windows is to have someone from their internal maintenance team to pop in and say "there's nowt we can do", so it will now be passed to the external contractors. I have now pointed out to the council that I regard them as in breach of the license terms and we can walk any time. I will be seeking advice next week and am considering withholding rent and service charge payments or paying a reduced amount based on a suitable deduction for their poor service - if they want to fight that I'll happily enjoy the publicity of a court case.
The amusing thing is they are planning to hold a public celebration of the Palace Hub and they had asked me to speak at it as it seems I am the only tenant with a positive view - I think they should ask someone else.
Other hassles include the delight of having my credit card blocked. We had a VAT bill that was significantly larger than any previous VAT bill we've had. I paid on-line via credit card, or so I thought until my credit card company decided that was a strange payment and blocked it from use. Now I'm fairly happy that they look out for things like that but it was to HMRC, not like I'd bought a Ferrari. Anyway all sorted now.
Surely nothing else can go wrong! At least not until I got up this morning to find that my SIM card had been deactivated. I had upgraded my phone but have not received the new phone or SIM but seems that the company I upgraded with have kindly registered the new SIM. Been through EE/Orange who to be fair to them have been very helpful, old SIM should be back on later today and upgrade cancelled, I'll then do an upgrade myself but will stick with EE/Orange as they have done a good job for me today, assuming my phone becomes active again.
So I'm in a big grump today (what's new) but am starting to reflect on the good stuff including a 4-1 for Boro yesterday. We're really busy and I'm very confident about the future of the business (hence the much bigger VAT bill). There's lots of potential in the pipeline not just on our own but some collaborative work also. I've also made some decisions on a few side projects that I will do. I am going to extend my Geek Author role and write a book plus set up some workshops for local businesses to improve the way the use the web and get more business as a result. Need to set my self some deadlines so I get the workshops ready for after Xmas and write sections of the book.
In a couple of hours I'm off to Bolton for a night and day at the Reebok and I've not been there since a 1-0 loss by Boro some years ago. I'm travelling over with some fellow members of BNI Links and we will be attending the Build a Better Business Conference tomorrow - looking forward to it. Our BNI chapter is going well, passing lots of referrals and growing. There's a great bunch of people involved and it will play a big role in the growth of my business.
Lots of positives so I'll stop grumping.
We had a chunk of time without Internet and phone (VoIP) which is not great for a web agency and was not at the time we were told it would happen. It's obviously far too difficult, or more than their job's worth, for Redcar Council/Virgin media staff to fix the offending fan outside of office hours. I also loved the fact that they emailed us to tell us all Internet was down, after it had gone down.
I'm getting rather miffed with Redcar Council and their incompetence when it comes to the Palace Hub. Their latest "effort" regarding our leaking windows is to have someone from their internal maintenance team to pop in and say "there's nowt we can do", so it will now be passed to the external contractors. I have now pointed out to the council that I regard them as in breach of the license terms and we can walk any time. I will be seeking advice next week and am considering withholding rent and service charge payments or paying a reduced amount based on a suitable deduction for their poor service - if they want to fight that I'll happily enjoy the publicity of a court case.
The amusing thing is they are planning to hold a public celebration of the Palace Hub and they had asked me to speak at it as it seems I am the only tenant with a positive view - I think they should ask someone else.
Other hassles include the delight of having my credit card blocked. We had a VAT bill that was significantly larger than any previous VAT bill we've had. I paid on-line via credit card, or so I thought until my credit card company decided that was a strange payment and blocked it from use. Now I'm fairly happy that they look out for things like that but it was to HMRC, not like I'd bought a Ferrari. Anyway all sorted now.
Surely nothing else can go wrong! At least not until I got up this morning to find that my SIM card had been deactivated. I had upgraded my phone but have not received the new phone or SIM but seems that the company I upgraded with have kindly registered the new SIM. Been through EE/Orange who to be fair to them have been very helpful, old SIM should be back on later today and upgrade cancelled, I'll then do an upgrade myself but will stick with EE/Orange as they have done a good job for me today, assuming my phone becomes active again.
So I'm in a big grump today (what's new) but am starting to reflect on the good stuff including a 4-1 for Boro yesterday. We're really busy and I'm very confident about the future of the business (hence the much bigger VAT bill). There's lots of potential in the pipeline not just on our own but some collaborative work also. I've also made some decisions on a few side projects that I will do. I am going to extend my Geek Author role and write a book plus set up some workshops for local businesses to improve the way the use the web and get more business as a result. Need to set my self some deadlines so I get the workshops ready for after Xmas and write sections of the book.
In a couple of hours I'm off to Bolton for a night and day at the Reebok and I've not been there since a 1-0 loss by Boro some years ago. I'm travelling over with some fellow members of BNI Links and we will be attending the Build a Better Business Conference tomorrow - looking forward to it. Our BNI chapter is going well, passing lots of referrals and growing. There's a great bunch of people involved and it will play a big role in the growth of my business.
Lots of positives so I'll stop grumping.
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