Promotion, marketing and sales of new technology and e-commerce
Archive for News
April 16, 2007 at 2:59 pm · Filed under Clients, External News, News
Google checkout has just launched in the UK and channeladvisor is not far behind. This means that on Rubbergirls Blue Boutique Adwords you will soon see the Google checkout badge as the integration seems effortless within the channeladvisor system.
Thanks to channeladvisor and our friends at Google for giving the e-commerce community an alternative to Paypal and a new marketing opportunity!
You can currently save £10 on an order over £30 with new use of Google checkout!
eBay is still not accepting Google payments though so watch out!
March 14, 2007 at 3:03 pm · Filed under Clients, News
A simple blog for two travelling freinds has now been completed with guest book and Picasa web albums integration.
See http://www.cyalater.co.uk…
Here is some recent news from that blog to brighten up our days!
After Luang Prabang, we went to Vang Viene for some much needed partying and tubing! We arrived in Vang Viene after 6 hours of minibus hell. We got on this comfortable leather upholstered bus which took us about half a mile to a bus station where we found we had to get on a crappy minibus with no air conditioning with asbestos seats. Me and Al had seats at the back where I sat above the wheel arch with my legs crushed against the seat in front. I was sweating like a scouser at an identity parade getting more and more pissed off and more nauseaus zig-zagging along the mountain range but eventually we got there..
The nicest thing about arriving in Vang Viene was the fact that for the first time in nearly 7 weeks we found a really decent, really cheap guesthouse. 40,000 kip which is about 2 quid for a twin! The first thing you notice however, is that the area is incredibly touristy with restaurants playing dvds of friends and the simpsons. Needless to say, I loved it here! That night we chilled out with some bears and went for a curry at Nazim’s which was probably one of the best I’ve ever had. Ever.
The next day we decided to try out the thing that everyone comes to Vang Viene for.. TUBING!! We met up with Sarah and Rachel, the Irish girls and booked our tubes and dry bags and got on the tuk tuk to the Song river. Al, being the most unfortunate of whatever activity he partakes managed to pick the smallest tube in the world much to our amusement and we got into the river and proceeded for about 50 yards to the first riverside bar. We stayed there for about an hour drinking BeerLao (an amazingly good cheap beer, designed and brewed by Germans for Laos) and riding the zipline into the cool river.
As you can see from the photo, Al was doing his Jesus impression!
Uh, maybe not then.
One of the coolest parts of the tubing was when we got further down the river to find massive swings which went out over the river. Now, the rational part of my brain was telling me “yeah, it’s high but it’s relatively safe. You can do it Andy!†But it took me a good half an hour and a couple of BeerLao before I got the courage to do it. I was shitting myself! If you don’t think it’s that much of a big deal or it wasn’t that high, dear reader, then take a look at these next pictures!
(above) No, this isn’t a screenshot from Spiderman 3! It’s a photo of me shitting myself. You see, the hard part’s isn’t the initial jump, it’s actually letting go from the swing that’s difficult!
(above) Al, Aka monkey boy.
See me smiling? This is my look of relief when I finally came off!
After a few hours of swinging and beer drinking we decided to call it a day and floated for another few hours back to the town. The next few days we didn’t do anything but drink and relax. We did go tubing again though only this time we decided to jump off the highest point into the water instead of using the swing. Never, ever in my life have I done anything as scary as this! It took me a while to jump but I did, hurting my face and chest from the impact but I did feel a sense of accomplishment!
As you can see, I fell through my tube coming towards a bar.. Everyone laughed. Doh!
On the 3rd, we arrived in Vientiene after a rather easy, if not hot 4 hour bus ride. It still amazes me how much they piss about here. No form of transport ever drives off until they’ve crammed every last person they can find on! They even placed some chairs on the middle aisle in between the seats to fit more people on. Crazy.
Vientiene is the capital of Laos but it’s absolutely dead here! There’s nothing to do and nothing to see. There are various temples of importance around the city but to be honest, i can’t be arsed with seeing any more temples.. I’ve seen hundreds so far and I’m sick of them. I will see some in Cambodia though in Angkor Wat which is probably one of the most impressive sights in South east asia which is where i’ll be heading in a week.
4th March.. Well well, I’m finally up to date with the blog and I’m writing this in real time dear lucky reader! It’s currently 36 degrees with 35 per cent humidity. The only reason I thought I’d write this blog today was because this internet place is air conditioned! We slept in a room last night for the first time with air conditioning which I thought would be luxury but it blasted cold, mould infested air around the room and leaked all over the floor. I may very well contract legionnnaires disease so I don’t know how many more blogs I’ll be able to write! I’ll be heading back up north tomorrow or further down south. I haven’t decided yet but that’s the beauty of travelling.. I can do what I want!! hehe. x
March 14, 2007 at 2:59 pm · Filed under Job Control Software, News
I have now nearly completed the job control software website to use as a internet base. Still to go are the new screen shots of the colour coded screens and to set up the ad words campaign.
Please Visit: http://jobcontrol.etashou.com
Info about the project:
Introduction
What is the difference between data and information? We think of information as data made useful. Information should be easily accessible, easily searchable, and provide links to all other associated information. Our system has been designed primarily to supply you, the management of a successful service company, more information.
Our system has been designed with all service industries in mind. If you operate a day-to-day service business, with operatives working out on site or even in your own workshops, our system is for you.
A computerised system is only ever useful if it simplifies processes. We have built our system with this clearly in mind. Our philosophy is a quick route to information. Imagine the following questions….
‘You did a job for us early last year, we need a similar job doing, which engineer did you send then?’
‘I enquired about one of your services last month, can you remind me what I was quoted?’
How long would it take you to answer these questions? Where is the information? How long will it take you to locate it? With our system, answering questions like these can take you as little as seconds.
Operating in a single or multi-user environment to suit your needs, our system will improve your performance, but hopefully your profitability too!
Our System in a Nutshell
1. Control of your service work from order right through to invoicing
2. Simple time scaling helps you measure and improve your response and completion times
3. Logging of timecards, material usage, operations, travel, and other expenses
4. Modules available for compatibility with recognised and bespoke Schedules of Rates
5. Automated invoicing with export routines for Sage Line50 and Line100 systems
6. Detailed measure of profitability at job level
7. Simple linking achieves tractability of all documents and records back to job
8. Support from detailed customer and supplier databases
9. Log enquiries and produce formal quotations
10. Raise purchase orders and maintain parts and materials database
11. Searches, filters and browse screens achieve instant location of information
Who Uses Our System - William Gough Limited – Building Maintenance Company
‘The investment made by our company in this software has paid for itself tenfold! For many years, we have utilised IT systems where only a small proportion of the package has been used. The system supplied by Biztech has revolutionised our business with 95% of our work being procured using this system. Not only has our productivity increased, but through so many efficiencies we are delivering an extremely high level of service. This has ultimately increased our sales on one 3-year term contract alone by over 40% with the same level of overhead. We couldn’t have wished for a better result!’
Explaining Our System in More Detail
Job Control
The core of the system is the Job module. A job is raised for every sales order received, be it a day-to-day call out, or a larger project. Time-scales are set, engineers assigned. The job record is dynamically linked to the customer account in the customer database. As work is completed labour and travel time are logged, along with and material usage, plus indirect items such as mileage charges and on the job expenses. As such items are logged to the job, job totals are calculated showing detailed profitability analysis. Each item may also bear a nominal code, which is used when the invoice is raised and transferred to the accounting system. On final completion of the job, an invoice is raised drawing forward the charges from the job. As invoices, purchase orders, quotations and letters are sent relating to a job, automated and user placed links are added to the job to enable immediate access to information whilst the job is live, and in the future.
February 8, 2007 at 10:43 pm · Filed under News
Over the past few months I have been hearing of various sites implimenting the anti-spam technique suggested by google. Sites like del.icio.us and wikipedia have now introduced the ‘no follow’ tag into their homepage. Anti-spam yes…..but as google page rank depends on the links its kinda cutting off your nose to spite your face? Or is it?
Google created the world of links SEO, forcing companies to use spam like techniques to get anywhere with google. So how does a company improve its position on the interweb?
We have gone back in time and now it is all about ‘Natural Linking’ - no automation, no spam and definatly not reciprocal!
Taking this from an enclick article by
1. Natural links are deeplinks. Links that point to specific material deep within the body of knowledge.
Deep linking is linking that points to a specific page or image within another website, as opposed to linking to a website’s main or home page. Deeplinking goes hand in hand with the long tail.
2. Natural linking is not reciprocal. Scientific papers are published sequentially in time. More recent papers reference older papers as they try and build the body of knowledge. Link exchanging, where websites exchange links, is not natural.
3. Natural links are built slowly over time. A seminal academic paper accumulates references, links, slowly over time. It is only well established highly regarded academic papers, like the discovery of DNA, that accumulate large number of references quickly.
4. Natural links make a point. Academics construct an argument around their references. So natural references are surrounded by relevant text and have specific anchor text, as each scientists tries to make his own point. The ratio of number of links to text has an upper limit, the density of links is relatively low, and the context surrounding the reference is relevant material.
5. Natural links come from everywhere. Scientists publish their research in many places. From important journals, like “Natureâ€, to less important conference proceedings. So, natural links come from varied sources of relevant material.
So unless you have a team of employee’s seaking out relevent links and communicating with webmasters peronally whats the fastest way to improve your page rank?
Spend alot of money….websites that have been arround a while will have the best page ranks in the end. I find this a good thing for the old school webby, but for new companies trying to get a grasp of the interwebby and improve sales, this is gonna hurt.
I am going to be watching this space, and I am going to work on my deep linking for my little business I wish to start up next year. I have 12 months, wonder if that will be enough time to get a decent page rank. I will probably make lots of web friends in the process!
I might even start a natural/deep linking experiment - leave a comment if you want to join or a link!
February 8, 2007 at 4:41 pm · Filed under News
Great for bulk resizing of images! - http://picasa.google.com/index.html
A free software download from Google.
Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organised by date with folder names you will recognise. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organised.
Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, make gift CDs, and even post pictures on your own blog.
January 9, 2007 at 12:09 pm · Filed under Marketing and Promotion, News
Well I have had no traffic or sales from google base, so why o why would microsoft want to have its own version? Running scared? Blinking before the lights come on? In this article microsoft launches a google base competitor. In fact its going to be better as it is limited to retailers. Less g-unk. This service (which will take an age to localise to the UK) should be a step up from google base and a serious competitor to any shopping comparison engine. I thought microsoft was only in the money making business? But all this free stuff, msn messenger and now code name Agora? Its this indicative of Bill ‘electro-bubble’ gates taking the long walk?
January 8, 2007 at 5:03 pm · Filed under News
This is the blog/website of etashou. Let us give you a future exsistance on the web!
