My Writings. My Thoughts.
My first tattoo
// June 2nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Life
Yesterday I got inked.
I have been thinking about getting a tattoo for a while and have gone through a few possible designs with the help of a crazy designer I know as I can’t really design for toffee.
One of the themes I was looking at was a totem pole design so I was researching what each head meant, what the creature stood for and how that would relate to me. While doing the research I started to see a style of artwork that caught my eye and I thought would make a good tattoo. This style was called Haida. It’s a very aboriginal or tribal style and was the style of North West American Native Indians.
There were various haida designs I could have chosen. I saw designs for various animals such as wolf, firebird, goose (was tempted with the goose as that’s my nickname at work) but the one that caught my eye was the Orca, or Killer Whale as most people know it.
Ever since my trip to Vancouver last year and going out to see Orca breeching, I have been in awe of these creatures and native indians also heald them in high regard as wise creatures. So, that sold me on the Orca design but which one.
There are several different styles of Haida Orca, some more realistic in shape than others, but the one that caught my eye was this one:
I liked the black and red colouring, and the shape and style would make a good tattoo design I thought.
So after making a few enquiries at a tattoo studio in Northwich, I got booked in and headed along yesterday. I will be honest to say that I was a bit nervous. Wondering if I was doing the right thing, would it look good, would everyone else like it etc etc, the usual doubts I assume. While waiting I suddenly thought to myself, “shut up, you like it, it will look good, stuff everyone else”. So my nerves went. Ace.
I had been told various things about the pain of getting a tattoo, and to be honest, it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be. The line work was just like something scratching the skin and wasn’t painful at all. The colour fill was a little more uncomfortable as it was covering a larger area, but as soon as the needles moved away what pain there was went. Now, I know it does depend on what part of the body is being tattooed, and I think the upper arm is one of the least painful, but it wasn’t bad. Certainly hasn’t put me off more, in fact I’ve got an idea for one already.
So, the tattoo was done, the cling film was put on it and I headed off to buy some nappy rash cream. Yep, nappy rash cream. Good for tattoos apparently and helps reduce scabbing.
I’m well happy with the result, and it looks like it’s healing well so in a few days time it will be sorted.
My thanks go to Lisa at Indigo Tattoo in Northwich for doing the tattoo. I will be back for more!
My Top 5 iPhone Apps
// October 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // iPhone
I’ve had an Apple iPhone 3G for a while now and have installed, tried and removed a fair few apps on it. There have been a few though that will be staying put. So here are my favourite 5 apps, in reverse order, that I have on my iPhone.
Number 5: Mobile Fotos
This is a great app if you have a Flickr account. I’ve been using Flickr for a while now and wanted to be able to add pictures I take with the iPhone camera to my Flickr account easily. I found Mobile Fotos to be really easy to use and it gave me all the functionality I needed. Flickr have since brought their own app out, but by all accounts it’s not as good as Mobile Fotos so I’m sticking with it.
Number 4: Labyrinth
This is an addictive game that makes use of the iPhone’s tilt sensor. You have to tilt the iPhone in order to get a ball through a maze to the finishing point. There are various holes to negotiate and the mazes are of varying difficulty. The best part is that you can create your own mazes through an app on your computer and submit them for anyone to download. If you have the odd 5 minutes to spare from time to time, Labyrinth is a great way to spend them.
Number 3: Weather Pro
The iPhone has it’s own weather app, but I wanted something a little better. Planning photography trips means I need to know what the weather will be doing. The satellite and radar views give me a good idea what weather might be in store and the search facility allows me to save my favourite locations for future reference.
Number 2: Lightsaber
OK, this app is not really useful, but it’s a lot of fun especially if you are a bit of Star Wars geek like me. This app gives you your own Lightsaber to wield and as you move the iPhone around the sound effects make it even more real. A bit sad and geeky I know, but hours… well minutes… of fun. Originally this was a basic lightsaber app but when the official Star Wars chaps got wind of it it was pulled from the App Store, but fortunately it was remade and became an official Star Wars App.
Number 1: Tweetie 2
I’ve been using twitter for ages and I wanted a decent twitter app for my iPhone. There were a few available at the time, but Tweetie was getting good reviews so I went for that one. Since then, Tweetie 2 has come out which is much better and allows me to get my twitter fix as and when I need to. The nearby search is excellent if a bit scary. You get a map of your location and anyone tweeting nearby will show up on the map. Very clever.
So there you go, my top 5 apps that I have installed on my iPhone 3G. Do you have a favourite app that you want to give a mention to? Are there any that I should be trying out? Just let me know.
Domains for sale on Sedo.co.uk
// October 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Domains
I have now put the following domains up for sale on Sedo.co.uk:
If you are interested in any of them, just get in contact.
I thought I was off to a good start with some interest in gearcable.com but it looks like it was a scam trying to get me to use their domain appraisal service. Ah well, it’s all good experience.
Domains for sale
// August 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Domains
Over the last few years I have built up a collection of domain names with the idea of building the next million pound making web site. Well, this never happened so I thought I would list some of the ones I would be willing to sell.
If you are interested in any of the domains below, please get in contact with me with an offer.
90mm.co.uk
bestdslr.com
bestdslr.co.uk
cockneygames.co.uk
cockneygames2012.co.uk
cueclubs.co.uk
figuremodel.co.uk
flashtrigger.com
flashtriggers.co.uk
gearcable.com
gearcable.co.uk
manchester-computers.co.uk
manchester-photography.co.uk
netbookapps.co.uk
oldham-computers.co.uk
oldham-photography.co.uk
oldhamphotos.co.uk
pettarantula.co.uk
photoxmascard.co.uk
photoxmascards.co.uk
pubquiztrivia.co.uk
radiotrigger.co.uk
radiotriggers.co.uk
radiotriggers.com
slrs.org.uk
sofaworker.com
tarantula.org.uk
wifidataservices.com
zooimages.co.uk
So a bit of a random collection. If I don’t get any interest via this web site then I’ll be putting them up for auction/sale in a few weeks or so.
Creating a minisite without writing any html
// July 12th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Wordpress
Over the last year or so I’ve been collecting a few domain names in the hope of making a few quid by either selling them on for a profit or developing them to try and earn some sort of regular income from them. I will be the first to admit that some of the domain names I have collected have been a total waste of money and I’ve also been a bit slow to produce sites for some of the better ones.
I’ve been reading more lately about domaining, buying and selling domain names, and one blog post got my attention and gave me the motivation to actually build a site for one of those domains that might work well. Elliot’s Blog is a blog all about domaining, and a post where he created a mini site and blogged about it’s development made me realise I should really be doing a similar thing.
As my day job is a web developer, I write a lot of html and css, so I didn’t really fancy spending all weekend writing more of it, so I thought I would see just how much of the site I could make by using Wordpress and various plugins to do all the mundane stuff for me.
Now, it’s a good time to point out here that I am no expert at this type of thing. I have one or two one page mini sites which bring in a few quid a week and I haven’t got a tried and tested technique. Most of it is common sense and tips I have picked up from reading how other people have done it.
So first of all, what was the domain. Well I picked bestdslr.com for this task. It is a theme I am interested in which is important, creating a site on a subject that bores you doesn’t really give you the motivation to follow it through.
I already had an adsense account and an amazon.co.uk affiliate account, so I thought I’d use them first of all as they give you all the code you need to add widgets and ads to your site, so no html writing was needed. All good.
Next I got Wordpress set up. I’m a big fan of wordpress as it lets you get a web site up and running very easily and as my web hosting account has it as a ready to go script there was no fuss with uploading files and creating the config files. So still no html required.
Now came the choice of theme for the wordpress site. I made a conscious decision to find a theme that was largely text based. This site was going to be purely for getting traffic to it, so the more space I had for content and ads, the better. I found the 1024px 2.7 theme by Andreus Vikland suited my needs perfectly so now was time to get a few useful plugins.
I needed a good SEO plugin to allow me to write custom meta content for each page, and I also needed a good plugin to manage my ads on the site. So the plugins I chose were All In One SEO Pack and Advertising Manager. With wordpress’ simple one click install process these plugins were installed, like the theme, via the wordpress dashboard. Nice.
So now I had the site, the theme and the plugins. Now all I needed to do was write some content, set up a few ads and away I could go.
It’s at this point that I fired up my google adwords account to use the keywords tool. When you write content for a site such as this, it’s important to make sure you are using keywords and key phrases that people are actually searching for to help people find your site. So my site was about dslrs, so I typed that keyword in and looked at the suggestions I was given. It was clear that terms like Canon DSLR, Nikon DSLR and Sony DSLR were popular terms so I decided that they would form the main sections of the web site. This meant that I could create sections of the site for each brand of camera and the page titles would match popular key phrase search terms. With wordpress sorting the urls for me, I knew the urls would be great for search engines.
So what about the content for those pages. Well as it’s a subject I am interested in, I knew I could write a few paragraphs on each brand without too much effort. All I had to do was make sure I used lots of good keywords and key phrases in it.
So that was the content written. I kept it to six pages to start with, a homepage and a page for each of the major manufacturers, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax and Olympus. Along with the content I added keywords taken from the adwords keyword tool to the All In One SEO plugin and some other custom meta content.
So all that was left now was some ads. Now some people get sick of ads all over a web site, I am too, but this was an experiment to try and get a few quid from the site so ads were a simple choice. For each manufacturer page I used an amazon widget that would display a selection of products relevant to some keywords I typed in so I could make sure the product were relevant to the brand on each page. I then created some adsense ad link strips and some ad blocks for the site. So hopefully the ads aren’t too over powering, but might help bring in a few quid over the next few months as I do a bit of link building to help get traffic to it.
I have, of course, added google analytics to the site to help me track how it’s being found and what I can do to improve the site.
So that’s a very brief over view of how I created bestdslr.com and just how easy it could be to do it yourself too without writing any html yourself. I’ll be working on it some more of the next few weeks and adding content for dslr accessories and possibly looking for some alternatives to adsense if it doesn’t perform.
Let me know what you think and if you have any tips I could use to improve the site further.
Bye bye windows, almost.
// June 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Web Development
I’ve recently got an ASUS EEE PC 1000 that came with a linux distro instead of Windows. Now, I’m not very techy when it comes to Linux so I thought it was going to be a steep learning curve and I’d get too frustrated with it.
The linux version that came with the netbook was Xandros, and was for netbooks and their small screens. It worked fine and I was impressed at just how usable it was. I will admit that I haven’t mastered the terminal yet, but thankfully you can do a lot without resorting to the command line interface.
It wasn’t long before I started looking at what other distros were available. Ubuntu looked like a good choice, and a version of it called Easy Peasy (sorry, but that’s a rubbish name) which was specifically for the ASUS EEE PC. So I gave that a go. Again it all worked and installed without a hitch.
Then I heard that Ubuntu had released 9.04 Jaunty Jacolope (great name) and a version for netbooks. Now Easy Peasy is a derivitive of Ubuntu with a few tweaks, but I wanted to get as close to the main stream Ubuntu as I could, so it got installed. Piece of cake, and worked without any issues.
I was beginning to become a fan of Ubuntu despite still not really knowing all the ins and outs of running linux.
I then thought that it could bring my knackered Acer laptop back to life after I’d stuck it in a cupboard after it became far too slow with windows on it. So today I downloaded the iso from ubuntu.com and wiped my windows laptop and got ubuntu up and running. I’m using it now and it’s great. So I now have a laptop again. The netbook is great of course, but the screen just isn’t big enough for development work. So I can now sit on my sofa with my feet up and do the things I need to do on my other web sites, including redesigning and rebranding my photography forum which is long overdue.
So that got me thinking, and gave me the idea for this post, just what do I need windows for? Can I get rid of windows on my desktop computer too?
So let’s think.
Email and web browsing. Well I run all my email through a google apps account, so it’s all online. So all I need is a web browser, and ubuntu comes with firefox, so no issues there.
Web development. Well all I really need is a text editor, so again no issues. I’ve found Bluefish to be pretty decent for ubuntu so that sorts that out. But hang on, what about graphics. Now, this is where I start to hit problems. I use Adobe Photoshop to produce graphics for my web sites, and it’s not available for linux. Bugger. But there is a decent graphics program for linux called GIMP (great name) which will do everything I need it to, just not quite in the same way as photoshop, so a little learning is needed, but that’s not a major issue.
Right, this next one is a problem. Microsoft SQL Server. I need this for when I work at home as it’s the database that powers the web sites I work on for my day job. With my current knowledge of linux, this is a problem. I believe there is a windows emulator where I could run SQL Server, but I don’t know how well that would fit in with the dev environment I need. So some research needed there.
Perhaps the main sticking point for me Adobe Lightroom. I am really into photography and I use this excellent piece of software to manage and work on my photos. I can’t do without it. I have seen similar software for linux but I haven’t really tried it and I’m sure it’s not going to be as good as Lightroom is.
Thinking more about it, it is only SQL Server and Adobe Lightroom that I need windows for. So if anyone knows a solution for those two, then I can finally get rid of windows all together which will be great!
Why do I hate windows so much. Well without being too rude, it’s a pain in the arse, clunky and all the software costs lots. Linux is now a viable alternative. The interface is very similar to windows so using it is very simple. Some things are done slightly differently. The file system is a lot more secure, no bad thing, there are loads of good, free applications for it which cover just about anything you need to do on a computer and best of all, it’s free. No stupid licensing, serial numbers or ways for microsoft to keep tabs on you.
So as soon as I can find a solution for the two sticking points, it will be bye bye windows and I shall drink many cups of tea to celebrate when that day comes.
Do you want to know another good thing about linux. By downloading the iso and putting it on a cd, you can run ubuntu on your windows machine without actually installing it. So you can try it and see what you think while keeping windows as it is. How good is that. Imagine running windows without having to install it…. I don’t think so.
That is all.
Don’t worry, it’s just a post
// April 2nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Life
I’ve just noticed how little I update this site, which is quite frankly, embarrassing.
So why the lack of updates? Well, laziness has to be up there as one of the reasons, but I do have some other reasons which I’ll try and make you believe.
In August last year I joined the design team at TheHut.com who along with running their own online store, also run sites for companies such as Tesco, WHSmith, ASDA, Lovefilm, Argos and Sendit. We also bought the zavvi brand a little while ago too and have relaunched the zavvi site too. So that keeps me busy and although I gave up the freelance life to get my evenings and weekends back, I seem to be working a lot of hours. Saying that though, I am enjoying it, and the hours don’t seem to be as bad as similar hours of freelance.
So what else is going on? Well I am currently working on rebranding, redesigning and moving my photography forum to a new domain which is a much better one in my opinion. The forum itself is growing at a steady pace now with nearly 1700 members and fortunately I have a great team of moderators and admins who keep it going when I’m not about. I’m not sure of the launch date yet, there is a still a fair bit to do yet.
I bought an iPhone too! The beginning of my assimilation into the fruit collective has started. I have to say though that it puts any previous phone I’ve had to shame. It’s corny but true, it just works! Everything is nice and simple and so far there is nothing to complain about. I tried to get the wordpress app for the iPhone but it didn’t want to play ball, but if I get it working (ok, some things don’t “just work”) then I shall be able to update this site a bit more frequently.
I’ve been twittering a lot too. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/gazraa if you want to hear my random mutterings. Twitter, when used well, is a great marketing and social tool. 140 characters at a time may not seem enough but celebrities like Stephen Fry seem to do ok with it, and considering his vast volcabulary of long words, that can’t be bad.
I’ve been trying to do a bit more photography too. I run one or two photography basics courses a month which seem to be going down well. No complaints so far anyway! I enjoy doing the courses but I just wish I was luckier with the weather. I have only run one course so far where it hasn’t rained! Hopefully that will improve as we head into spring and summer.
So there you go, a brief update on my life and why I haven’t updated this site in a while. 4 updates in 2008! Shocking. I’ll try and do better this year.
The A Team of design
// November 22nd, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Web Development
Ok, no one smokes a cigar, or has a crazy hair style.
I joined TheHut.com in August this year after being a freelancer for 3 years. Nearly 4 months later I thought it was about time I named and shamed the great team I work with. While I am still not sure the term ‘designer’ fits me too well, being a ‘Design Team Leader’ is great and I’m not regretting going back to the 9-5 (well, 8-8 lately) grind.
So who are these people that have to suffer working with me.
First of all there is Darth AppleMac, or Ross as some people call him. He’s the man in charge of us all and he has a worrying obsession with computers of the fruit variety. Nevermind eh.
Then in no particular order…. well ok, the order we sit round the desk… we have the Wheel aka Nealy Wheely aka Neal. King of the pack shot, master of automated scripts, wearer of hair gel, and drinker of not much before he wobbles. A big fan of pink too… the colour not the singer.
Then we have Deano or Dwayno as he’s known by some. Partial to running round with 10 other men in a field trying to score and maker of many brews.
Next is Michelle…. well there are packets of biccies that come next on the desk before we get to Michelle, but they seem to disappear pretty quick. Apart from being a slightly crazy scouser, Michelle is a bit of an artist and creates lots of weird and wonderful characters.
Then we have Stacey, hidden away behind a sea of macs. Stacey dreams about imovie and time lines and has been known to flash occasionally too…. that’s Adobe Flash, nothing rude!
Next is Nikki, the resident polo dealer and DIY expert. If you need minty floorboards then Nikki is the top choice.
Last and by no means least, we have Matt. A big fan of Motorhead and The Spice Girls and a drinker of pear cider. He has to suffer sitting next to me but does his best to ignore my by plugging himself into his ipod full of shouty metal music and talking to Nikki about poo……. don’t ask!
So that’s the design team I work with (although they might not want to after reading this) and it makes the hellish commute most mornings all worthwhile… awww.
Take a look at their sites too, we’ve just introduced most of them to wordpress and I think they are all convinced it’s the mutts nuts and are working hard to get their sites sorted.
“The rebel base will be in firing range in 7 minutes” 
The ignorance of people
// September 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // Life
OK, before I get into this, this is going to be a bit of a rant so I apologise in advance.
So here goes.
I was sitting in my car outside tescos in Oldham today and saw that there was a shopping trolley in the middle of the road and cars were having to drive around it. It was about 5ft from the edge of the road.
Now, I only sat in my car for 5 minutes, but in that time at least 6 people, of all ages, walked right past that trolley, within 6 inchs of it, and not one of them thought to move it out of the road. That pissed me off. Why are people so friggin up their own behinds (I’m trying not to be too rude hear) that they can’t just do something that will make someone elses life easier (the car drivers)? It wouldn’t even have taken any effort to move the bloody trolley!
So I got out my car to go into tescos and moved the trolley on the way in.
Then, on the way out, I noticed someone had just dumped a different trolley in the middle of the exit when the trolley park thingy was only 5ft away. Just bloody ignorant!
It’s just that mentality that really, really annoys me.
That is all.
Freelancer to Full Timer
// July 23rd, 2008 // 5 Comments » // Freelancing
I read lots of blogs about the freelance life and quitting the 9-5 job. My favourites are Freelance Switch and Self Made Minds, but there are plenty more. All of these give you great advice about going it alone, leaving the full time and how you can continue to make money.
I have now been freelance for coming up to 3 years and I have been in the fortunate position of not having to have looked for work, it all came to me through my large network of contacts I had built up before making the leap to freelance and word of mouth advertising. Two of the most useful ways to get work!
So you may be thinking, ok, this all sounds great so why is he going back to a full time job? What about the freedom of freelancing? What about the money, freelancers are all loaded aren’t they?
Well, the reasons are, in no particular order:
- I’ve been getting cabin fever working at home. It’s only in the last 8 or 9 months that the lack of the the social side of office work and lack of office banter has hit me, and I miss it!
- Working all hours. This last year has been busy for me, with a fair bit of work and working weekends and evenings as well as during the day has taken it’s toll and I’ve had enough of it. I haven’t had any time for my main hobby, photography, and have no social life and I want more time to spend doing what I want to rather than working on other people’s web sites.
- The bad times, financially. Even with a lot of work there have been times when I have been completely skint. Most of the time this has been caused by clients not paying on time, but I’m also not the luckiest person in the world and just when I think my bank balance is recovering, my car will break down or something will go wrong that puts me another step back. A regular salary will be a great help.
- Career progression. OK, working for yourself is great, being your own boss has a lot of benefits (although mine has been a slave driver) but in three years I am still working on the same sort of thing, nothing very high profile (in web terms) and want a bit more to show for my skills.
Now this all sounds quite negative, and most of it is down to me not being very good at selling myself, hence he type of work I’ve been doing, but also for financial reasons I have had to take on work just to pay the bills instead of taking on the more interesting projects.
So I guess what I wanted to do with this post is give you some advice from someone who has done it, enjoyed it, but decided it wasn’t quite what they wanted. So here you go 10 tips to be a successful freelancer (in no particular order):
- Have a backup fund for the bad times and keep it topped up when the times are good. Believe me you will need it! I didn’t have one and suffered because of it.
- Learn to say No. This has been my big problem, taking on too much at once.
- Get rid of problem clients quickly. If a client is failing to pay on time or anything else that means you are spending more time fire fighting them rather than working on the project then politely terminate working with them. Don’t let it drag on causing you stress and hassle.
- Network. Since starting freelancing I haven’t met many other freelancers or people in the industry. Make time to get out there and network.
- Work to live, don’t live to work. Another of my problems. Work took over and my life outside of work was non existent. So make sure you separate work from your life. Don’t work evenings unless you really have to. If you do it all the time, clients will expect it of you.
- If you don’t already wear glasses, you will probably need them soon. My eyesight went downhill quite quickly staring at the screen all the time. Take regular breaks, set your working environment up properly and get regular eye check ups.
- Get your fingers in lots of pies. If one aspect of your work slows down then you will have other options. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and other such sayings.
- Exercise. I used to be quite fit, regularly mountain biking, but 3 years on and I my bike has cobwebs on it and I have a beer belly. That’ll be changing when I get my evenings and weekends back.
- Prioritise and schedule and stick to it. If you have 5 jobs to do that day, prioritise them and don’t let anything else get in the way. Obviously sometimes things crop up, but be firm with clients. If you have a project to finish, don’t start doing small site amends for someone else and then miss your deadlines.
- Work always takes longer than you think! Add in extra fix and tweak time to all work and charge for it!
Well there you go. 10 tips to hopefully help you.
Don’t get me wrong though, freelancing has been great and I wouldn’t have changed it. For me though I think I’ve done enough of it. I am off to work for an online company as a senior designer/developer type person working on front end stuff as well as mentoring junior staff, which for me is great and I can’t wait to start.
Oh, the regular pay cheque is a bit of a good thing too. Money coming in each month is definitely a good thing!!
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