Keith Shirley

The IIA has published the Social Media Working Groups (SMWG) guide to Blogging for Business. I’ve mentioned it a few times before – the working group is focusing on how various types of Social Media Tools (Blogs, Podcasts etc) can be used in a business environment. My work with them has focused on blogs – resulting in this whitepaper. Other guides will be published in the near future.

The guide is free for all until May 6th at which point it will be available to IIA Members only. You can doanload it from http://www.iia.ie/smwg along with the results of the survey we ran. There will also be weekly case studies available. You can see all the the blog postings for the SMWG on the IIA website.

The guide includes sections

• explaining the fundamentals of blogging;
• investigating why businesses are adding blogging to their communications and marketing strategies;
• analysing the results from a survey of Irish business bloggers about their motivations and objectives and how they measure those objectives;
• with key advice on managing blogging resources, comments and content;
• and numerous links to further information and recommended reading for those who wish to take it further.

Over the few weeks I will be trying out a service called Searchles Discovery. The idea for me is that is will automatically cross reference some of the previous posts that I have written and display links at the bottom of new blog posts.

Why?

It’s become clear to me that a lot of blog posts that are extremely well written and useful get lost over time as new community members seldom go back more than a few posts. I’m talking about all blogs – not just this one. If someone reads one of my posts and there is something related – I’d like them to know about it.

Initially the related content will be empty or not very good but over time I hope it can become a useful resource.

My current concern is that it might just make everything too busy.

Todays post was going to be about a non tech invention that I thought was a maximum of 10 years old. From the company website I find out it’s been around since the sixties and has sold over 200,000,000,000 units. Then why oh why don’t we know how to use it properly?

What am I talking about?

The simple Tetra Rex package is something we are all familiar with from milk and juice cartons. It’s much easier to use than the old cartons where you had to squeeze the “wings” just right to get it open. With this package you just unscrew the top and pour.

So what’s wrong with that?

Well – The milk goes glug when the air goes back into the package and regularly causes some to splash over the edge of the glass. The reason is we’re doing it wrong. Special thanks to PomeGreat for printing the correct way on their cartons. We need to turn it around so the pouring spout is on top / away from the glass. This allows the liquid to flow and the air to get into the carton. No glug. No mess. Happy people.

Why was I not taught this in school? Didn’t my teachers realise how much hardship and wasted paper towels this lack of knowledge has caused me?

My scientific study (I asked 3 people) shows me that I’m not the only person that did not know. So – for the sake of humanity as we know it – I wrote this post.

Below is a very rough sketch of what I mean about turning the carton around.

I can write an advance review because I know it’s going to be great. I so thoroughly enjoyed Podcamp and Barcamp last year (especially Pat Phelan’s lunchtime chat) that when talk of organising a Bizcamp came up I knew I had to help out.

(insert name here)Camps are very informal but productive conference type events. They’re referred to as unconferences because you’re not going to be lectured at or given sales pitches in the regular sense. A camp has a general theme to bind it together and everyone is free to give short (15 minute) seminars/chats/presentations about topics they feel are helpful.

Helpful is the magic word – the whole point is to get to know people, get some insight into a topic and be helpful. You can pickup a huge amount of info in small chunks and followup later. I promise – you’ll come home with stacks of notes.

Bizcamp is obviously themed around business. The potential topics could range from funding to how to handle the stress. Unlike a normal conference – the agenda is not fixed. Anyone can decide on the spur of the moment to do a session – you just grab a timeslot on the day. Is there something you wish you knew when you started? Now’s your chance to pass on some pearls of wisdom. You don’t need to do a session at all – just come along for the ride.

I’ll be helping to organise the Dublin Event which is on Sat 7 March 2009. There will be a second bizcamp in Limerick on 21 March 2009.

I’ll be writing about this again but if you need more info then call me ( 087 9112027 ) or Email me K.Shirley@Shercom.com.

Yes – That really is my phone number and mail address.

You can already sign-up to Bizcamp or you can see who is going to Bizcamp.  I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

Related articles by Zemanta

• BizCamp coming to Limerick (stephenkinsella.net)
• BizCamp(s) (web2ireland.org)

After my uncharacteristically negative comments about Webfusion – I wanted to highlight a shining example of good service that I’ve received.

A customer of mine has been using HelpDeskPilot for quite some time now. The are very happy with it and really missed it when their web server had problems. I was asked to help them restore the backup onto a new server.

The restore procedure and general setup of HelpDeskPilot is actually exceptionally easy. I had some issues with the hosting providers system and I can only say positive things about how helpful and patient the support at Helpdesk have been. They kept in regular contact and I knew they were working to fix it.

When I have problems – that’s what I want – to be able to trust that my supplier is really doing their best to get the problems solved and know that they will keep me updated.

Epson Inkjet printers sometimes just piss me off. It’s a pity – as the print quality is generally excellent.

Why do I get annoyed? If you don’t use the printer regularly then the jets get blocked. You then have to spend a half eternity running the cleaning routine to try and get it working again. If you are lucky it will work the next time you need it.

This happens across multiple models and on multiple sites – it’s nothing to do with general handling or environmental conditions. With ink costs potentially being higher than the initial cost of the printer I want to cry when I realise how much money is being wasted.

So what should you look for when buying a new printer?

Firstly you need to decide if you need an inkjet or laser printer.

The biggest advantage that inkjets have is that they are cheap to buy. They also print very good quality graphics (especially photos). They are, however, expensive to run if you are printing a lot (i.e. using lots of ink). Another disadvantage is that the ink can run if it gets wet – not ideal for address labels or engineering documents that will be needed outdoors.

Laser printers work with special powders (called toner) to put the colour on the page. They create excellent quality black and white documents as well as coloured text and logos. They are not suitable if high quality photos are required and the initial purchase cost can be high. Laser printers are faster than inkjets but the running cost for laser printers is less than inkjets if you do a lot of printing. The initial purchase price is dropping – colour laser printers are now available for under €300 but A3 colour lasers still cost well over €1000.

Top tips for choosing a printer

• Review how many black and white or colour printouts you are likely to be making. If you don’t need colour then go for a laser printer. If you do need colour – review if a colour laser is within the budget.
  
• Check out the cost of replacement ink/cartridges before buying the printer. If the cartridge fits multiple printer models then it should be available for longer and get cheaper.

• Check if cheap refills are available. They will void your warranty but the price difference can be large enough that you don’t care. Be aware however that these can fade much faster than the brand name inks. If you get a printer with the printhead attached you can buy original parts regularly to keep them in good shape (e.g. Buy an original then refill it a few times then buy another original).

• If quality photos are important – you will need to buy original photo paper and ink – It does make a difference.

• Get a printer with the colours in separate cartridges – that way if you print a lot of one colour you don’t need to dump the rest.

• If you need colour A3 size printing – buy an inkjet. The colour A3 laser printers are a crazy price.

• If you are buying a laser – check how long it takes before you can print the first page. You don’t want to wait ages for the printer to warm up first.

• Consider buying a multifunction device – these have fax, printer, copier and scanner all in one device.

• Try out Fineprint – It’s a great tool for saving ink and paper

• Check if your supplier can also service the printer. Some will provide a temporary replacement while your printer is being fixed.

Some time back: A dedicated server I maintain at Webfusion had problems rebooting. No big issue I thought – Webfusion have 24 hour support. What I didn’t realise is that it’s a very limited support.

When I called I was informed that while I could request a reboot – there was nothing else that could be done with the machine until the next work day. I guess they have a trained monkey that presses the reset button and that’s all. The annoying thing was – this had happened once before during the day. It was back so quickly that I’m sure only a key needed to be pressed.

3 Dec 2008: I receive notification that the servers are being moved to a new data centre. I have just one week to make sure my customer can live without their website as they are switching off the server for up to 9 hours. The mail does say that it will only be off for some of the time – maybe it won’t be so bad. Christ! What would have happened if I had been on holidays?

Tuesday 9 Dec 2008: I remembered the problems that I previously had and made a point of calling them to say there might be an issue when the system is restarted and they just need to do whatever they did the last 2 times. I was told – don’t worry, as soon as the technicians see that it does not respond to pings they will fix it. Looking back now I should have forced them to create a ticket or called again shortly before they turn it off.

Wednesday 10 Dec 2008: The server goes down as expected. I stay at my desk to wait for it to come back online so that the Asian users of the site will have access as soon as possible.

Thursday 11 Dec 2008:

3am: I start to get worried that something is wrong and decide to get some sleep in case I need to be alert the next day.

5am: Wake up and check the status. Still down. The firewall (a separate Cisco device) is online so I know they have done the move.

6am: Wake up and check the status. Still down

7am: The server is officially due back online but there is no sign of life.  I call them and am informed that they will work on it. I ask – what do you mean “will”. I had been told that this would happen automatically. No – a ticket has to be created. I’m still calm. I’m a saint.

8am: No news. I call. I ask explicitly – is there a bigger issue or a backlog that will cause a delay. No – They’re working on it and it will be back soon. I inform my customer that the server will be back soon – they inform their customers.

8:30am -> All day: Repeated calls by me. Repeated answers of “we are working on it”. I’m promised on 3 separate calls that they will email me an update – they are never sent. I’m completely blocked in my attempts to get any sort of info. I’m told there is no way to get the issue prioritised. I remind them that based on previous issues it should be something small. I ask again – is someone really working on it. I feel like an idiot having to keep asking.

Luckily I had the online backup (Note: I own Shercom) with all the config and files. After discussion with the customer we decided to setup an emergency site so their customers are not blocked. The basic site is up and running quickly but there are 8 gigabytes of additional files (about 3 million of them) to be restored. This takes a while.

Evening Time: Finally – after over 10 hours of asking I get a call from the Webfusion Sales Team (not support). They can’t get the system started and they will have to give me a replacement system and attach the old disk so the “files can be transferred”. Being a salesman he words it like I should consider myself lucky since the new system is faster and has more memory etc. He does apologise – for which I’m grateful. He also says I’m going to get the months fees credited. I’m also grateful for that. He then says they had 20 systems that would not restart. Now I’m pissed. I stay polite but give him a bit of a bollocking – they should have told me at the beginning that there were bigger issues. I was explicitly told at the beginning of the day that the move went well.

Like an idiot I believe him when he confirms that they will copy the files to a backup folder. At least that way I can configure the new server in the morning. I was wrong again.

Friday 12 Dec 2008: I get a call in the morning to tell me that they need my credit card details before they can start to setup the machine. Grrr. On top of that it will now be my job to copy the files across.I’m told I will receive an automated mail but I’m not to use it until the sales guy contacts me. I make a point of saying that it’s not to be a new contract but rather an extension of the old one.

Saturday 13 Dec 2008: Still no news on the availability of the new server. The killer is – I really wonder did they try and fix the old server? I could easily imagine that when it didn’t start it was just written off.

An email arrives later in the day. My initial hope is wasted: It’s an invoice for money that I was promised I would not have been charged AND it says the contract is for 12 months. I feel my saint status slipping away.

At least there is some light at the end of the tunnel – the emergency server is working well.

Monday 15 Dec 2008: I got a call at the end of the day to say that the caddy for the old hard disk is in use with another customer. On the bright side – at least I got the call. I was also told the invoice will be credited back – the one I received is part of the automated system. That I can understand.

Tuesday 16 Dec 2008: At 11:55 I received an email to say the server was connected. Now, after over 5 days of downtime, I can start to copy files and configure the server. At this stage it’s probably too late – I and my customer have lost confidence in the service and the emergency server will most likely become permanent.

Conclusions

• The value of good customer service can’t be overestimated. I’m not asking for a dedicated engineer here – but I should be kept up to date as to the status.
• System’s crash – you must have backups of the files AND the configuration settings
• If you rely on your website – you need to have a disaster plan in place.
• If you really really rely on your servers then you may need co-location services. This is what Shercom does for the Online Backups. If any of our systems goes down we can get our hands on it and swap out hardware. We’re not waiting for others.

Sometime in the near future I’ll put together a post reviewing the hosting companies I know personally and preparing tips on how to select the right one for you.