Debbie's Faux Pas Answerphone Message
I must say a big fat sorry to anyone who tried to contact me by phone today.
Basically I have been the victim of a practical joker who came over at the weekend and overwrote my answerphone message with an "Oh f**k off!" Hardly a welcome for anyone approaching a new supplier and I dread to think of the business I've lost today.
Luckily a friend of mine had the decency to tell me this, on the same note as she invited me to be a school governor!
Naturally the practical joker friend is no more, teaching them a valuable lesson that practical jokes just aren't funny.
Basically I have been the victim of a practical joker who came over at the weekend and overwrote my answerphone message with an "Oh f**k off!" Hardly a welcome for anyone approaching a new supplier and I dread to think of the business I've lost today.
Luckily a friend of mine had the decency to tell me this, on the same note as she invited me to be a school governor!
Naturally the practical joker friend is no more, teaching them a valuable lesson that practical jokes just aren't funny.
Braintree Women's Aid website launched
The
Braintree Women's Aid website has been launched this weekend.
The page includes a list of basic and associated services avialable at the Women's Refuge including a floating support service and basic legal and housing advice. There is also images of the refuge accommodation, details of facilities and basic security advice for clearing online browsing history.
Braintree Women's Aid website has been launched this weekend.
The page includes a list of basic and associated services avialable at the Women's Refuge including a floating support service and basic legal and housing advice. There is also images of the refuge accommodation, details of facilities and basic security advice for clearing online browsing history.
DVH Design can now been contacted via Skype
From this evening, DVH Design can also be contacted via the Skype service. Therefore if you already have a Skype account, you can simply click the button at DVH Design's contact page and contact us for free.
This service is to be used for genuine client enquiries only. For non-marketing calls, we have compiled an instruction page for marketing enquiries.
This service is to be used for genuine client enquiries only. For non-marketing calls, we have compiled an instruction page for marketing enquiries.
Online Business Women: A Step up from the Dark Ages?
I have no idea where this article is going to take me, but I have to share with you an incident that happened a few weeks ago.
Basically when I find myself working on a Saturday morning (pretty often) I find myself listening to BBC Radio Wales Saturday morning show with Rhod Gilbert (A VERY funny comedian) and his sidekick Chris Corcoran (The fellow that makes Doodle Do watchable).
One of the many features on their show is Listener Bingo where listeners are encouraged to contact the show when they are listening while doing something eg, listening to the podcast next Wednesday, listening while on a helicopter etc. The one a few weeks ago was listening to the show whilst Googling your own name. I contacted the show as my blog ranks 5th under the keyphrase Deb Harrison.
In hindsight, quoting my name on the show was a bad idea, but my logic was that a few listeners might also Google my name and either like my writing or look at my many services and hey presto, Business Lead or subscriber. Result!
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. A few evenings later, I got an anonymous phone call from someone trying to sound sexy, but sounded more like he had both a lisp and bronchitis. I thought it was one of my mates messing about so I persevered for a bit. When this guy da-daa'd the stripper music, he then proceeded to start a striptease on the phone (even I am still scratching my head on that one). I proceeded to put the phone down to put the poor soul out of his misery.
Now I can only assume someone listened to the show and followed the same path as me, but I do not hold the show responsible. It was my own silly fault. Even though I do see women as equals and just as capable as doing the same job as men, obviously there are still a few inbred members of mankind that don’t. The ones who still think women are mere baby machines and all working women are witches that should be burned at the stake in front of the entire village.
I have no idea if Jill Whalen of High Rankings.com or Martha Lane Fox ex-MD of lastminute.com have ever had to encounter stalkers or pervy phone calls, but for any business woman reading this, but please do share your stories as I would love to know.
The entire experience was actually quite amusing, but one last thing: please could the tele-stripper make themselves known: Just so I can seek closure (and point and laugh!).
Basically when I find myself working on a Saturday morning (pretty often) I find myself listening to BBC Radio Wales Saturday morning show with Rhod Gilbert (A VERY funny comedian) and his sidekick Chris Corcoran (The fellow that makes Doodle Do watchable).
One of the many features on their show is Listener Bingo where listeners are encouraged to contact the show when they are listening while doing something eg, listening to the podcast next Wednesday, listening while on a helicopter etc. The one a few weeks ago was listening to the show whilst Googling your own name. I contacted the show as my blog ranks 5th under the keyphrase Deb Harrison.
In hindsight, quoting my name on the show was a bad idea, but my logic was that a few listeners might also Google my name and either like my writing or look at my many services and hey presto, Business Lead or subscriber. Result!
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. A few evenings later, I got an anonymous phone call from someone trying to sound sexy, but sounded more like he had both a lisp and bronchitis. I thought it was one of my mates messing about so I persevered for a bit. When this guy da-daa'd the stripper music, he then proceeded to start a striptease on the phone (even I am still scratching my head on that one). I proceeded to put the phone down to put the poor soul out of his misery.
Now I can only assume someone listened to the show and followed the same path as me, but I do not hold the show responsible. It was my own silly fault. Even though I do see women as equals and just as capable as doing the same job as men, obviously there are still a few inbred members of mankind that don’t. The ones who still think women are mere baby machines and all working women are witches that should be burned at the stake in front of the entire village.
I have no idea if Jill Whalen of High Rankings.com or Martha Lane Fox ex-MD of lastminute.com have ever had to encounter stalkers or pervy phone calls, but for any business woman reading this, but please do share your stories as I would love to know.
The entire experience was actually quite amusing, but one last thing: please could the tele-stripper make themselves known: Just so I can seek closure (and point and laugh!).
Optical Character Recognition in Images: Have your say
The buzz in every major SEO news source over this last week has got to be the news that a patent that Google filed in June 2007 for optical character recognition (OCR) in static images and video has just become available.
For once, something that makes a SEO/web designer’s life easier! Up until this point, the web design community had 2 options when tackling headings: Opting for a font that is widespread on all/most PCs (very limited and very plain) and relying on stylesheets to spice it up a bit or creating a heading using any given font as an image and hoping that the search engines read the alternative text provided in the image tag.
With this new application, image headings can be read and indexed, as can videos, Flash presentations and even (and I dare to be bold) a whole web page consisting of 1 big image! Duncan Riley from Tech Crunch added further scope on the development:
With extreme technical advances also comes drawbacks. A Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) is a script that generates a random word in an image and uses a variety of methods to distort the image, eg an angled line or crowded symbols making it harder for bots to encrypt. This method is widely used by sites such as MySpace and Blogger to reduce the amount of spam posted.
If and when this scripting comes into use, this could leave the CAPTCHA with its days numbered. If this technology can be developed at Google Central, then what's to say the same software can’t be developed elsewhere? Once the spamming community get their mitts on this hot potato, it will be across the community quicker than nausea at a Mika concert.
I have seen the damage this minority of the underworld can do on a forum with no security measures: Using their shared scripts to automatically generate numerous fake users with their spammy web links for all to see. Fair to say, I lost the battle of keeping that forum rid of spammers. This could become more commonplace if forum/blog owners don't act quick enough to protect their fort.
Even if Google has the patent giving them exclusive rights to OCR, are they going to nail every spammer, scammer, splogger, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy in cyberspace? It would be great if they could (with a long-awaited revolution where spammers are placed in stocks and pelted with rancid fruit) but lets live in the real world for now and assume that that is not going to happen.
So what do you all think: OCR sweet or OCR sour?
Hello Liberated Web Design
For once, something that makes a SEO/web designer’s life easier! Up until this point, the web design community had 2 options when tackling headings: Opting for a font that is widespread on all/most PCs (very limited and very plain) and relying on stylesheets to spice it up a bit or creating a heading using any given font as an image and hoping that the search engines read the alternative text provided in the image tag.
With this new application, image headings can be read and indexed, as can videos, Flash presentations and even (and I dare to be bold) a whole web page consisting of 1 big image! Duncan Riley from Tech Crunch added further scope on the development:
"If Google has found a way to index text in static images and video this is a great leap forward in the progression of search technology. This will make every book in the Google Books database really searchable, with the next step being YouTube, Flickr (or Picasa Web) and more. The search capabilities of the future just became seriously advanced."
Goodbye CAPTCHA
With extreme technical advances also comes drawbacks. A Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) is a script that generates a random word in an image and uses a variety of methods to distort the image, eg an angled line or crowded symbols making it harder for bots to encrypt. This method is widely used by sites such as MySpace and Blogger to reduce the amount of spam posted.
If and when this scripting comes into use, this could leave the CAPTCHA with its days numbered. If this technology can be developed at Google Central, then what's to say the same software can’t be developed elsewhere? Once the spamming community get their mitts on this hot potato, it will be across the community quicker than nausea at a Mika concert.
I have seen the damage this minority of the underworld can do on a forum with no security measures: Using their shared scripts to automatically generate numerous fake users with their spammy web links for all to see. Fair to say, I lost the battle of keeping that forum rid of spammers. This could become more commonplace if forum/blog owners don't act quick enough to protect their fort.
Even if Google has the patent giving them exclusive rights to OCR, are they going to nail every spammer, scammer, splogger, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy in cyberspace? It would be great if they could (with a long-awaited revolution where spammers are placed in stocks and pelted with rancid fruit) but lets live in the real world for now and assume that that is not going to happen.
So what do you all think: OCR sweet or OCR sour?
Labels: captcha, google, ocr, optical character recognition
Getting Personal with Google
One of my new year's resolutions is to work smarter not harder. Yes it is the old BT slogan, but if I am able to save a bit of time (and stress) during the day, that has to be a good thing, right?
Basically my morning routine (30 minutes before the kids get up) goes something like this:
Now that's quite a few websites to visit isn't it? A surf session that is pretty much impossible to keep inside of 30 minutes. So wouldn't it be great if you could view all this information together on one web page without the need to go anywhere else?
I have been researching this over the Christmas period and basically you can. Google has got pretty sophisticated over the last couple of years: Not only has their search got sophisticated, including separate searches for video and image, but now with iGoogle you can keep all your favourites on one page.
First of all, you need to sign up for an account if you haven't already. Registration is free and surprisingly easy.
Once you are signed up and logged in, you can start adding widgets under the "Add Stuff" link. Well talk about a kid in a sweetshop! In this long list you can opt for the latest news headlines, eBay search, horoscopes. There is also games, jokes pictures and favourite Bush-isms. However rather than sift through the endless list, use the search function to narrow the list down. I am embarrassed to admit that I've looked, but there are also porn gizmos!
Now I have everything I listed earlier at a glance, along with a calendar and clock (not digital - one with hands), a widget that lists the latest scores and news for Norwich City (my team!) and a link to access my Google Analytics account. All it needs to do now is make the coffee and take the kids to school and that will be my mornings taken care of!
There is also a feature where you can ditch the familiar and very plain Google look altogether and opt for a new skin. At the moment there are about 13 skins under "Select Theme". There is however a downside as the box is constantly visible and cannot be moved or hidden.
However there is a workaround: iGoogle Skins v2.0 (Kudos to Bob Walsh at Web Worker Daily)is another little gizmo that can be added to your iGoogle page. It currently has about 50 custom skins and is growing. I say it growing because, there is also an option where users can create their own skins and share them with the rest of the community. As this is a widget, it can be reduced to save space.
I've opted for the Feeling Lucky option which changes skins every time you log into it
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to make their work/personal life a lot easier. I was surprised that Google was allowed to get away with calling their facility iGoogle. A bit cheeky that – and surprisingly lenient of Apple Inc.
Basically my morning routine (30 minutes before the kids get up) goes something like this:
- Check my diary for the next couple of days
- Check out emails at Hotmail
- Look at Sky News for latest news headlines, and weather
- Check my Starsign for the day (paper or online)
- Read through my RSS feeds at Bloglines
- Brief check of MySpace for messages
Now that's quite a few websites to visit isn't it? A surf session that is pretty much impossible to keep inside of 30 minutes. So wouldn't it be great if you could view all this information together on one web page without the need to go anywhere else?
I have been researching this over the Christmas period and basically you can. Google has got pretty sophisticated over the last couple of years: Not only has their search got sophisticated, including separate searches for video and image, but now with iGoogle you can keep all your favourites on one page.
First of all, you need to sign up for an account if you haven't already. Registration is free and surprisingly easy.
Once you are signed up and logged in, you can start adding widgets under the "Add Stuff" link. Well talk about a kid in a sweetshop! In this long list you can opt for the latest news headlines, eBay search, horoscopes. There is also games, jokes pictures and favourite Bush-isms. However rather than sift through the endless list, use the search function to narrow the list down. I am embarrassed to admit that I've looked, but there are also porn gizmos!
Now I have everything I listed earlier at a glance, along with a calendar and clock (not digital - one with hands), a widget that lists the latest scores and news for Norwich City (my team!) and a link to access my Google Analytics account. All it needs to do now is make the coffee and take the kids to school and that will be my mornings taken care of!
There is also a feature where you can ditch the familiar and very plain Google look altogether and opt for a new skin. At the moment there are about 13 skins under "Select Theme". There is however a downside as the box is constantly visible and cannot be moved or hidden.
However there is a workaround: iGoogle Skins v2.0 (Kudos to Bob Walsh at Web Worker Daily)is another little gizmo that can be added to your iGoogle page. It currently has about 50 custom skins and is growing. I say it growing because, there is also an option where users can create their own skins and share them with the rest of the community. As this is a widget, it can be reduced to save space.
I've opted for the Feeling Lucky option which changes skins every time you log into it
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to make their work/personal life a lot easier. I was surprised that Google was allowed to get away with calling their facility iGoogle. A bit cheeky that – and surprisingly lenient of Apple Inc.
Labels: iGoogle, working at home
Happy New Year from DVH Design
DVH Design wishes all of its readers and clients a very happy new 2008. May it be a great one and much better than 2007.
It is a little late, but still in the first week of the new year, so its still valid.
It is a little late, but still in the first week of the new year, so its still valid.
Labels: 2008 happy new year.
