General – Page 5 – Reverb Studios Design

3 Broadband Data Usage Stats

Despite living and working in Leitrim, I’ve had proper broadband now for about 4 years, either via landline/Eircom or (currently) 3 Mobile Broadband under the National Broadband Scheme but this week is the first time I’ve ever gone over my monthly data allowance. I only found out when I was unceremoniously and without any warning kicked offline by 3 in the middle of a working day. But only after they let me go over the 25GB limit to the tune of €40!

It’s all prompted me to check out my data usage in more detail and try get some feedback from other users similar to me to see what the average monthly usage might be so I can sign up to the right package.

I guess it’s kinda surprising that I didn’t go over it before now because I’m a Web Designer and I’m online all day. Here’s some of the typical things I do online on a day to day basis:

Download/Upload smallish files related to web design,
Browse the Internet heavily,
Use Email heavily,
Use social media apps on the PC & Phone,
Watch the odd youTube video,
Download the odd video or piece of software,
Make a few Skype calls a week,
Stream music while having food.

That’s about it. Wouldn’t have thought it was too heavy even for an IT person?

Anyway, I’ve knocked together a spreadsheet below with data taken from the itemised bill for the month in which I went over the limit. It shows the average daily usage, the highest day, lowest day and highlights weekend usage when I’m not at the pc but still on the smart phone a bit.

Feel free to download it and put your own figures in to find your own usage pattern.

PS – I’ve asked 3 if I can be switched from the National Broadband Scheme to one with a higher monthly data limit as the NBS can’t be raised from 25GB and I’m waiting to be switched to the ‘3 Broadband Pro’ offering which has a 60GB pm limit and is about €30 pm. Not sure why I wasn’t told about this initially. Seems country folk only get the piss poor service?

Leon

Poll: Why Can’t The Home Nations Play Football!?

After Ireland’s 4:0 defeat to Spain last night and the seemingly huge gulf in class between the sides, I got thinking about why it might be that teams from these parts, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England don’t seem to have the skill or comfort on the ball that nearly all other continental and Eastern European teams seem to have. After all, the game was invented around here wasn’t it!?

How hard can it be to pass the ball around? We’re all small countries so player base/pool is small but what’s England’s excuse!? Give your opinion below:

Getting Irish Business Online V’s A Proper Website

This is probably gonna sound like a bitter web designer’s rant who might have lost some business to the new kid on the block but sue me. I might actually have made some money as a result of this scheme!

The ‘Getting Irish Business Online’ scheme has got my goat up ever since it appeared a couple of years ago. It’s a Google, Blacknight Hosting, An Post!?, Enterprise Board joint effort whereby businesses can get themselves a free website with free address and hosting (for the first year only!) and avoid the alleged cost and hassle involved in getting a website the old fashioned way.

In the news today, I seen that 10,000 Irish businesses have now availed of the scheme and got their free website. So what’s wrong with a scheme that makes it easier for businesses to market themselves in the middle of a recession?

I’m sure intentions were good but the big problem for me is that this is the kind of scheme that should have existed maybe 10 years ago when the barriers to having a professional website were much higher than they are now. These days, it’s very affordable for a business to hire someone to build a proper internet presence that will look and perform a lot better than the “30 min” free 1 page template offering being given under the getting business online scheme. I think internet users these days expect a professional website from the companies they might hire, not a site that looks every inch a free handout! It’s like getting a fancy new business card and sticking a Yahoo email address on it. Potential customers will see the free site template and arguably guess that the business in question isn’t doing well enough to have more than a free site. And if they’re not doing well enough, maybe they’re useless?

Recently I’ve had a number of clients come to me looking to upgrade the site they got under this scheme and I’ve yet to see one perform well in search engines.

And just to prove I’m not bitter, I’m willing to upgrade any sites that are currently on this scheme, looking miserable and under-performing to a proper, content managed, SEO’d site running WordPress. All I’ll charge is the hosting fee as the free hosting Blacknight give out under the scheme is not useful enough to install a proper site on.

Leon

Do I Still Need a Website?

This was the question asked of me at the Leitrim Business Network ‘IT expert Q & A’ this week. I’d like to expand on my answer here.

It’s a valid and pretty common question and to be honest, not one I knew how to answer when people first started asking me. After all, you can probably reach a hell of a lot more people on the likes of Facebook, Linkedin & Twitter than your own freshly made website.

My simple answer is that you should have BOTH your own website and a presence on all the major social networking sites. The bigger footprint you have online the better. The only valid reason I can think of for not having your own site is if you have absolutely no budget, but many people still don’t realise the cost of web design has come right down these days.

What I would try to avoid is that old problem of having people think that you’re a business that can only afford a free web presence. It’s like having a fancy business card and a big ugly hotmail or yahoo email address on it. Nothing spells success and professionalism than a nice modern website. It can be just as much a mark of quality as a marketing tool.

Here’s a breakdown:

Facebook Pages & Twitter profiles are pretty basic

All that’s on anyone’s Facebook Business page (unless they spend serious money on having Facebook apps developed) is a small ‘About’ section, a news feed and maybe some photos. Same with Twitter. A small bio section then just a list of posts. Is that really the only business presence you want people to see!?

With your own site, you can lay it out how you like and have content presented more logically. I like to think of Facebook & Twitter as a teaser for your company, like a fish hook that you dangle in the stream of people. You give them the basics of your company and have them click through to your proper website where you present them with your full, properly branded business information.

Control

Facebook in particular are forever changing things around, whether it’s the size of banner images, logos or just the general rules on what you can and cannot do. With your own site you don’t have to be at their mercy, you control everything and always will.

The Future

Facebook wasn’t always popular and may not always be. What if you spend serious time and money cultivating followers and likers only for Mark Zuckerberg to get bored and sell the site to move onto something new? Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Conclusion

My blueprint for a modern online business precence is as follows:

Create a profile on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and any other Social Networking site that may be particularly relevant for your business, ie – if you sell visual products, maybe a youTube account too to show them off properly,
Make sure to properly fill out each site profile with your business info, service list, location and web address link,
Build an audience by spending some time connecting to new people on each site. Most of them make this pretty easy by suggesting friends based on your email contacts or location,
Build a standalone website with a modern web publishing system like WordPress,
Concentrate most of your efforts on your own website by regularly writing relevant news content/blogs,
Integrate your website with all your social networking sites to automatically send news posts through to them. Dlvr.it is good for this and FREE. This way you can be active on a pile of sites at once, from one location without really having to be on them.

If you’re like me and sit in front of a computer all day, you’ll have that extra bit of time to go in an be active on the networking sites too. Interaction gets you noticed remembered and liked. Reading other peoples news also keeps you in the loop as to what’s going on and what the prevailing mood is which can be helpful.

Leon

WordPress Commercial Plugin Affiliate System

We all like to make a bit of ‘automated money’ right? I’ve been on this affiliate scheme with Tribulant, a South African web development company that specialises in commercial WordPress plugins. I used some of their plugins below both on my own sites and clients’ and was so impressed with them I wrote some reviews to spread the word. The reviews got a fair few hits and then Tribulant started this affiliate scheme in conjunction with Post Affiliate Pro so it made sense to try monetise my reviews:

WordPress Newsletter Plugin

WordPress Banner Ads Plugin

WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin

Out of all the affiliate schemes I’m currently running or have run in the past, none come near as much monthly income as I get through Tribulant. Their 30% commission is pretty generous and payouts are prompt with no minimum withdrawl amount unlike most other schemes.

So I’m just spreading the word, no strings attached. It doesn’t matter if a ton of people sign up from here, it’s not competition for me.

So Sign up now, (it’s totally FREE) and link to some of Tribulant’s products and see how much you can make!

Leon

Cloud Computing??

Everyone’s got an opinion or definition as to what cloud computing is all about and why it might be beneficial so here’s mine.

First of all the standard definition:

“Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network (typically the Internet).” – Wikipedia

And in English:

“Rather than access software on your computer, you access it through a website.” – Leon

Why Cloud Compute? The Benefits:

Cheaper or FREE,
More secure,
Easy access via any internet enabled device,
Data backed up automatically,
Syncing between devices,
Flexibility,
More Scalable.

The Downsides:

Requires good internet,
Less capable software (but maybe not for long!).

I’m personally switching as much stuff to the cloud as I can, here’s what I’ve switched so far:

Email, Calendar, Contacts, Documents via Google Apps,
Invoicing via Zoho Invoice,
Business Website Hosting,
Cloud Printing via Google Cloud Print,
Computer Support via Chrome Remote Desktop,
File storage and sync via DropBox.

I’m hoping to buy a Google Chrome notebook soon which is a laptop that pretty much only runs an internet browser (Chrome). That’s all I really need to run my business these days. In fact I could probably do it all from my phone too!

Leon

Things I’ve done with my Computer

I feel I owe it to my beloved PC to tell the world of the many great opportunities it has given me in life!

I bought my first ever PC on August 22nd 2002 in the now long defunct Compustore on the Long Mile road, Dublin (€1,400!! WTF?) and after having not touched one in 7 years since I left college, jumping from Windows 3.1’ish to XP, I done well to get it out of the box, connected together and booted.

Here’s what I proceeded to do with it..

Met A Girl

The first thing I done on boot up was to connect to the internet of course. On dialup. The first page I seen was the Eircom home page since that was my ISP and I spotted an ad for an online dating site and decided to join for the crack. I met my current partner in the site’s chat room and we’re now engaged with 2 daughters and buying a house together!

Made Music

In 2002 I was an avid songwriter and musician and the actual reason I wanted a pc in the first place was to use it to record music. I got hold of Cubase and went mad with it recording, mixing and mastering a whole pile of bizarre self penned toons at pro studio quality.

Photoshopped

The 2 consistently coolest programs I’ve used since I got my computer were Cubase above and Photoshop. Teaching myself complex software like them gave me a great sense of accomplishment and the confidence to explore the full potential of the pc and even start an IT business.

Made Money

I’ve been making money and running a full time business largely via my computer since about 2005 and still can’t believe that I can sit practically motionless for hours on end in front of my screens and complete projects for clients all over the world.

Gained Knowledge

I personally can’t remember how I found information before I got connected to the web. Was it a trip to the local library or something!? The amount of information and answers available today in a matter of seconds via Google etc..is incredible. There’s almost nothing you can’t know instantly. That’s powerful.

Gained Respect

I constantly get people asking me about their computer issues and calling me a genius (not even nearly true!) for being able to sort things for them. Nice feeling. It’s still rocket science to most people.

Communicate

Every day I communicate with people all over the world in all kinds of different ways via the internet, gaining friends, knowledge, business and having a laugh. Not bad for someone who never said a word to anyone for most of my teenage years!

Lets hear it for computers…hip hip…

Leon

Content Scraping or Aggregation?

First, some definitions, in my own words:

Content Scraping

A largely illegal and often insidious attempt to rob, harvest or duplicate information from another website without permission in an attempt to avoid the effort involved in creating great manual content and generate income, usually ad based.

Scraped sites would not typically acknowledge the originator or location of the scraped content.

Content Aggregation

A gathering and organising of various sources of relevant information from different websites into a central area, usually via importation of RSS feeds. Such sites are considered helpful to visitors in that they contain all the information required in one place without the need to trawl the net. Aggregation sites tend not to be ad or commercial heavy.

Aggregated sites should acknowledge the author and location of the content they import.

Google has recently said that it will downgrade ‘content farm’ type websites where most of the content is not original and is automated in some way. I worry that they may not make a distinction between the above two types.

Leon

How I’d Like to Be Paid Please!

Just a simple public wish and hint about how I and presumably most people would like to be paid by their customers/clients. I will not take the ‘recession’ as an excuse for problems paying. If you don’t have money don’t hire me:

On Time Please

You may not realise that I, the company whose services you hire consists of real people (me) with real bills (many) that need to be paid. If you agree to hire me for the price I quote then I expect to be paid when I do what you asked. I put my valuable time and private/family life aside to work for you so I expect to receive the agreed fee when I ask for it. I will deeply resent being made to chase money owed as it will take up even more of my afore mentioned valuable time.

Pay Digitally

It’s 2011 and the ability to pay someone without having to move has been around for quite a while. Cheques are an antiquated method of payment. Why would you go to the trouble and expense of writing one, putting in an envelope, buying a stamp and traveling to your nearest post office when you could transfer a payment through online banking or Paypal instantly? You’re also asking me to leave the office and go lodge the cheque when received. For me that’s currently a 10 mile round trip taking at least 30/45 more minutes out of my working day.

Respond to Invoices

I send invoices digitally and very rarely get any response or confirmation of receipt. I consider it good manners to acknowledge an invoice and notify the sender of when they are likely to receive payment. Not acknowledging invoices makes sender nervous.

Alert on Payment

If you do pay by bank transfer, congratulations, I salute you but be aware that most people wont get notified by their bank that a new payment has come in and if I forget to check manually then I’m likely to presume you still havn’t paid. Also, make sure your payment is labelled as coming from you as it’s not always obvious who made the payment. Similarly, if you send a cheque, say you’ve sent it. Things get lost in the post.

Finally, make sure a cheque wont bounce before you send it and if you are in doubt then make an instant/digital or cash payment to make sure. Bounced cheques cause havoc in people’s accounts and invite large bank fees to process.

Leon