Category: Apps

includes software

The return of the notification – Android 4.4.2 upgrade

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 1 April, 2014
No Comments on The return of the notification – Android 4.4.2 upgrade

Darn it. A short while ago I upgraded the dog and bone to Android 4.4.2. Previously I had removed irritating notifications that kept me looking at the device to see if new messages had arrived.

Invariably they had so I was looking at stuff on the phone every hour of the day, including when I was asleep¹. I removed notifications from my life and began to get a better night’s sleep.

Now the doggone notifications have returned. How crap is that? I’ve had to back in to settings and untick the tick box again. For each application now notifying me where once there was none. Urgh. Uh?! Fnaagnn.

Btw you can see from the first screenshot that the name of my Phone is jacques (lower case j). I know you won’t tell anyone. Each new phone gets a different name for car mobile kit purposes. Hey…

You can see the screenshot with the checked notification box here.

C’mon Samsung. Not good enough. I’m assuming it’s your fault. Get your act together.

Broken Cashpoint/ATM #Bitcoin & the cashless society

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 1 April, 2014
1 Comment on Broken Cashpoint/ATM #Bitcoin & the cashless society

This morning on my way in to work I bumped into Tom, kid3’s piano teacher. He reassured me that kid3 was doing very well which is good. We chatted for a bit as we walked along and went our separate ways.

Had I had to drive to work I would not have bumped into Tom. Nor would I have seen this notice over the ~~ATM~~ cashpoint outside Lloyds Bank. Now the vandalised cashpoint was not any particular inconvenience. The dusty old fiver in my wallet will do me for some time yet.

This does make you think about how much life is left in the “real” money game. The only place I absolutely need cash now is London, where not many taxis take cards or the Morning Star pub where Ness the landlady has a shiver running down her spine every time someone mentions “plastic”.

The trefor.net offices are in Sparkhouse at the University of Lincoln, right next to the Tower Bar and the Engine Shed. Being a student gaff the beer is very cheap but you always have to queue because all the students use cards and pay for drinks individually – a real bummer if there are ten of them in the “round”. A quick and comprehensive poll of the family student¹ reveals that the breed typically only carries a fiver² around in their pocket/wallet/purse/wad.

I still haven’t got round to setting up that Bitcoin wallet. That’ll be my next job. Hopefully my fiver will last until then.

Acer C720 and Samsung XE303 Chromebooks – using different devices for personal and business

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 27 March, 2014
2 Comments on Acer C720 and Samsung XE303 Chromebooks – using different devices for personal and business

I bought the Acer C720 Chromebook for use at home and the Samsung XE303, which up until now was my only laptop is to be designated as my business machine. It is somewhat misleading to suggest that their respective uses are solely for personal and business. Reality is that in the modern always on world it is difficult to separate work and play but at least I would get a feel for the user issues in respect of each environment.

Switching between work and personal accounts is a fairly straightforward matter. You click on your image in the top right hand corner of the screen and can choose the relevant account you want to access. This seems to be true across all Google Applications, at least as far as I’ve been able to see. So for example I can easily switch between Drive, Gmail and Calendar for each of my Google accounts.

There is added complexity here because I actually have multiple Google Apps accounts for different businesses but to keep it simple I’m just going to talk about trefor.net.

One of the purposes of having a separate business identity is to

Apps End User gaming

Are we losing touch with reality?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 26 March, 2014
2 Comments on Are we losing touch with reality?

When I was a kid I used to read 3 books a week. The deal was when I finished one my dad would buy me another.

I read a lot. Now I read that Facebook have gone shopping again and are buying a virtual reality company called Oculus VR.

In one sense this dismays me. A signal that we are going to be sucked even more into a cyber life that bears little relation to the real world. Some might say that this is a good thing. We only ever hear bad things in the news for example. At least it feels that way. Whats wrong with a bit of escapism?

Escapism is after all what I ~~was~~ am up to when deep into my books. I don’t hear or see anything going on around me (much to the annoyance of my wife). So just a different form of virtual reality really.

Sometimes I think we are losing touch with real life. We need to hold on to reality. Reality might have lots of bad things associated with it: lost planes, mudslides, war and the threat of war. Reality however has lots of great things. Great things the sum of which easily compensate for the bad.

It’s spring in the northern hemisphere. Best time of year. Feel the sun on your face, hear the birds, smell the grass. Get that barbecue out. Get reality.

Apps End User mobile apps

Can’t uninstall Flipboard

Bit odd. I never use Flipboard but appear to have it installed on my droid and it occasionally attracts my attention somehow. I decided to uninstall the app but it doesn’t seem to want to let me. It offers me the opportunity to stop updating or disable it but not uninstall. Doesn’t seem right. Is it a core android feature or have Flipboard done z deal with Samsung?

Screenshot below:

Tags Flipboard

Business business applications mobile apps xaas

Using FreeAgent for personal expenses & discount referral code

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 20 March, 2014
No Comments on Using FreeAgent for personal expenses & discount referral code

Following on from my post on FreeAgent yesterday I got home to find the details of the online banking for trefor.net. Time to get the accounts sorted out.

All of the set up costs for the business have come out of my personal account. This includes a chunky legal bill as well as ad hoc events such as ~~champagne celebrations in the Savoy~~ a few pints of half and half in the British Legion. Now that the bank account is accessible and money is starting to come in it is time to square things up.

At lunchtime today I fired up FreeAgent.

ecommerce End User spam

London Book Fair 2014 – unsubscribe SPAM

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 11 March, 2014
No Comments on London Book Fair 2014 – unsubscribe SPAM

Yesterday I took delivery of a book: “History of the Welsh Baptists from the year 63 to 1770”. I had to refer to this post for the exact dates – I’m on my way to Manchester, the book is at home and the acknowledgement email cuts the title off at the number 6.

I’m happy enough with the book although the paper has a distinctive odour. Much of it is fictitious rubbish sourced from medieval tracts. It serves a purpose as I am interested in Welsh Baptists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries¹, particularly from the area between Caerfyrddin and Castell Newydd Emlyn 🙂

The book is a photocopy of an abbreviated English translation of an early Welsh text but it has done the job for me. It’s a print on demand job from India. The service was good.

This morning I woke up to an email from someone called

End User fun stuff mobile apps

The hazards of walking to and from work #runkeeper

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 11 March, 2014
No Comments on The hazards of walking to and from work #runkeeper

Took me an hour and a half to walk to work yesterday whereas it normally takes around 30 mins. Only kidding. Forgot to switch off Runkeeper:) The app seems to be intelligent enough to realise that I’d arrived and was just making a cup of tea, writing blog posts etc.

The other by product of walking to and from work, apart from inducing amnesia, is that it makes your glasses steam up when you get home. Last night I walked in to a warm kitchen and was blinded by the heat. See the header photo. It must be so.

I’m used to it. When I’m in the pool of a morning I usually have to ask an attendant what time it is despite there being a big clock on the wall. There is no point asking any of the other swimmers. After 8am they are all of an age and suffer from the same problem.

That’s all. See you later.

Other good reads
Working Time
Internet routing pedestrian style

Tags runkeeper

End User fun stuff mobile apps

The spare plinth – where Facebook used to tread

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 11 March, 2014
5 Comments on The spare plinth – where Facebook used to tread

Trafalgar Square has a spare plinth. So has my phone, since I ditched the Facebook app.

They let different people exhibit on the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square.

I’m proposing to do the same. Of course not as many people will see whatever is exhibited in my spare spot, perhaps.

You will note that there is no email icon on the front screen. Dont bother suggesting it. Email is relegated to the second division as a means of communication. It’s on the next screen along.

I don’t regularly use all of the apps on the front screen. Mostly Chrome, Camera, Twitter, Phone, Calendar and LinkedIn.

The others are pretty much ad hoc. I only occasionally need the alarm clock. The idea for this post came to me in bed so I drafted a post, title only, using the WordPress app. Oh and I use Runkeeper every day I am in the office.

So there you go. I wonder which app I should display on my spare plinth!?

More good reads:
Facebook intrusion continues with App upgrade
51 years old and still single? Yes and no Facebook.

bitcoin End User

How to buy a bitcoin in the UK – Part1, setting up a wallet

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 10 March, 2014
3 Comments on How to buy a bitcoin in the UK – Part1, setting up a wallet

Just began the process of buying a Bitcoin. Only the one. A small investment but an affordable investment or loss if it all goes tits up.

I’m working with Dan Hewitt of Coinative on this. Dan gave me a little job to do over lunch so that we could crack on when he got back.

The first step is to

bitcoin End User

Buying a Bitcoin next week

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 7 March, 2014
2 Comments on Buying a Bitcoin next week

Planning to buy a Bitcoin next week. The guys in the next room to us have a Bitcoin business. Dan Hewitt wrote a post a few days ago.

The process in the UK is not particularly straightforward as UK banks don’t currently support Bitcoin. All will be revealed next week.

Stay tuned…

How to buy a Bitcoin – Part1

Business business applications

How intelligent are your employees? Do they need managing? Shirley

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 4 March, 2014
No Comments on How intelligent are your employees? Do they need managing? Shirley

The question is whether this van belongs to a company that manages intelligent employees or is it into managing employees intelligently? I’m not sure. Were I the thinking man I could look it up on their website – address prominently displayed (and proudly no doubt) on their van. Nah.

There is a supplementary question and that is at which point does an employee rate as having sufficient intelligence to qualify ~~for~~ ~~management~~ ¹ to be managed. Or is this a red herring? Presumably all employees must have some degree of intelligence.

This could be a tool for HR departments to improve morale. If they were to tell everyone that they were intelligent and were therefore employing methods for managing intelligent employees it might give everyone a boost. Mightn’t it? Even those staff without PhDs. Yes even if the sum of proof of your intelligence is your Cubs Scout 25m swim badge (freestyle) you could start to feel good about it. Yes master.

One does hope that in the course of managing intelligent employees it is done

bitcoin Business

HMRC gives green light to Bitcoin business?

Post author By Dan Howitt
Post date Monday, 3 March, 2014
1 Comment on HMRC gives green light to Bitcoin business?

The Telegraph has reported that HMRC will announce that it is to remove the 20% VAT from the sale and trading of Bitcoin in the UK.

Until now Bitcoin has been classified as an electronically supplied service or electronic voucher (depending on which perimeter officer received the query) which meant buying from or trading with a business incurred VAT. This effectively made Bitcoin 20% more expensive in the UK than elsewhere, eliminating any chance for UK businesses to operate in this area.

UK businesses now have the ability to sell bitcoins directly to customers without passing on the 20% VAT charge, making the UK with its financial status probably the most advantageous jurisdiction in the EU to operate a Bitcoin related business. Unfortunately, UK banks have shown very little interest in operating with Bitcoin businesses without specific regulation. They are very risk averse and if the government doesn’t tackle the issue, it may mean the Bitcoin economy will flourish elsewhere at the expense of the UK.

For users of exchanges it is important to note that VAT is being scrapped on all aspects of Bitcoin trading. When you buy or sell Bitcoin on a UK exchange the exchange takes a small fee to facilitate the trade. These fees will now be VAT zero rated, meaning there should be a potential 20% saving on fees for customers and no VAT liability for UK businesses operating trading services.

As a Bitcoin startup we welcome this news and have been pushing for this for nearly 9 months. We met with our local MP Karl McCartney who raised our concerns on this issue in parliament and wrote to the Treasury and HMRC on our behalf. We have also written to members of the cabinet and directly to HMRC ourselves. Hopefully our input alongside the many others who have had similar contacts has raised this issue to the level it deserves.

In all this is great news for the Bitcoin community and we expect to see an influx of startups buying and selling Bitcoins in the UK. The recognition by a UK government agency is an important step towards mainstream adoption and we are now looking to the Financial Conduct Authority to provide UK banks with the regulatory comfort they need to support this fledgling industry.

Bitcoin in the news again – no VAT & school dinners

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 3 March, 2014
No Comments on Bitcoin in the news again – no VAT & school dinners

In the news again, Bitcoin. This time HMRC have decided not to charge VAT on transactions. Seems reasonable.

Made me think about coins. In our house when I get in I empty my pockets onto the kitchen worktop (near the radio). The next morning the pile of coins is substantially smaller, reduced by demands for bus fares and miscellaneous youthful expenses.

The kids no longer need dinner money. We pay that directly into an account each of them has at school and each day a relevant amount is debited at the point of sale. Not good to admit perhap but I have no idea how much cash they burn through in this way. I’m sure someone has a handle on it (will that be the usual lobster thermidor or are we going for the steak and chips today son?).

We also pay their pocket money by direct debit into their bank accounts.

What made me think about all this was the

Tags Bitcoin

ecommerce Engineer security

New Joules shop opens – queue remains calm, Bruce Schneier signs book

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 27 February, 2014
1 Comment on New Joules shop opens – queue remains calm, Bruce Schneier signs book

Could hardly contain my excitement walking to work this morning. A new shop has opened on Lincoln High Street!

I wouldn’t have notice were it not for the fact that a woman got in my way trying to take a photo of the queue. I too like to take photos (of queues) so I reversed in my tracks, whipped out my journalistic photo device and took two pics just to be on the safe side. David Bailey would have been confident with only taking one.

It’s unlikely I will be visiting this shop. It sells

bitcoin Business online safety piracy

Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
2 Comments on Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

Mt Gox is dead. Apparently. More than 750,000 Bitcoins missing, so they say. Rumour mill an’ all.

Careless that, or criminal. Either way someone has lost a lot of Bitcoin (Mt Gox has previous – see here from 2011).

Now could be a good time to invest in Bitcoin. The price has dropped considerably. Mind you anytime could be a bad time to invest in Bitcoin, unless you make a living being successful at roulette.

I’m thinking of buying one. Just the one. Just so’s I can feel part of the action. It won’t be a big investment. I once knew a bookie in my local pub. He had a pitch at Market Rasen races and at one race meet I put a two pound bet on a horse with him. He accused me of trying to manipulate the odds with heavy betting 🙂

Current price is £295 or so (it was earlier this pm – changed already by the time of publication – gotta move faster – see preev.com). That’s a new washing machine, or simlar. Mrs Davies would say that a new washing machine would be more useful and not depreciate quite as quickly as Bitcoin has over the last 24 hours.

Wives just don’t understand do they?

I’d like to bet that many of the readers of this blog are multi-millionaires thanks to Bitcoin and here’s me still trying to hack out a living writing blog posts. It could be the answer.

Mind you I do occasionally buy a lottery ticket and I honestly can’t remember the last time I got a single number right. I think there is something going on there. Must be.

I’ll keep you posted.

~~Mt Gox is dead. Long live Mt Gox.~~

PS I realise I’m taking a risk publishing a picture of a two pence piece but I think it is in the public interest to do so. The two pence photographed is worth two pence and will be used as part of a transaction to buy something – box of matches¹ etc. It may not be possible to do this with a bitcoin.

¹ can you actually buy anything for two pence anymore?

Tags Bitcoin

End User mobile apps

Google location incorrect since moving home?

Post author By Wayne Mills-Kidals
Post date Monday, 24 February, 2014
16 Comments on Google location incorrect since moving home?

Google location incorrect – what’s that all about?

So recently I’ve moved house and it’s been bugging me that my Google Now / Location keeps syncing me back to my old home address (I’m using a Samsung S4 for what its worth but this applies to all modern Android devices and possibly IOS if using google Maps). I find Google Now pretty useful because it tells me in the morning how long / far to my first meeting or any increased traffic levels on the roads before I set off. This sort of data is useful but only if it knows where you are right?

Example here is it showing my estimated time to home from work, normal traffic levels for this time of night which is a good 🙂

Business obsolescence

Yellow pages officially declared dead

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 23 February, 2014
1 Comment on Yellow pages officially declared dead

The powers that run the Davies household (ie Mrs Davies) have officially declared both the Yellow Pages and the BT Telephone Directory dead.

The two tomes, grown increasingly lightweight in recent years, now reside in the log basket next the fireplace in readiness for further processing as the scrunched up bits of paper you use to start lighting a fire.

No remorse, no wistful gazing over the shoulder as we leave the room. The publications served a purpose and enjoyed their long day. Now they are of no use to us. Technology has consigned the printing press to a museum curiosity. What would Gutenberg have to say? “Alle Dinge geschehen, eh?”.

Whomsoever decideth where to deliver these publications have my permission to remove the Davies’ from their list and save the trees. They are no longer required.

Read here about “Yellow Pages Shock“.

Thank you and goodnight… the sound of the telephone going dead at the other end of the line…

Engineer obsolescence

Now gather round people wherever you roam

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 4 February, 2014
No Comments on Now gather round people wherever you roam

This morning as I walked to work I passed the Lincoln City Council offices. My thoughts were “Lots of people work in those offices. I bet many of them could be replaced by software.”

It’s an interesting point. In one sense a City Council is very much a social business. Historically someone who was getting too old to work to work in private industry, a builder’s labourer for example, might have got a job on a council road gang once his fitness levels and usefulness on a building site waned. I’m sure there must be many other examples of this.

Also what would someone who has spent most of their life working for the council in the rigid structure of public service do if they weren’t doing that job? Is that my problem? I’d be quite happy if

Business mobile apps

Boring TV & better things to do – @CamCardIntSig

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 25 January, 2014
4 Comments on Boring TV & better things to do – @CamCardIntSig

What’s the most boring TV programme you have ever watched? It was probably on a Saturday night. Seems to be traditional to have boring TV on a Saturday night. I’d say it was pretty boring most other nights too but don’t let me put ideas in your head; thoughts.

You do have to ask yourself if the your most boring TV programme was that boring why did you watch it? You could have switched off and done something useful. I’ve just scanned in a hundred or so business cards using an App called CamCard. I bought the paid version for £1.90. It’s useful.

I’m gradually working my way through a thousand or so business cards I had tossed into a desk drawer over the years. Lots of them will now be out of date, especially those of sales people. I discard the obviously incorrect ones but scan everything else in. You never know when they will come in handy. Google contacts will probably provide me with updated data on people anyway. If you suddenly start getting emails from me you will now know why. Don’t worry there will be a fully functional unsubscribe button.

I’m checking out CRM and accounting packages this coming week. I want them all to hook up with Google Contacts. They also need APIs for interfacing with other platforms – MailChimp for example and WordPress, obvs. Not that I’m expecting to be doing many mass mailers though I can envisage a weekly digest of blog posts plus a bit of unique mail only content – for the busy executive who hasn’t got the few seconds to spare in the week to scan through a short blog post.

Ve shall see.

PS there is a TV in the breakout area down the corridor from my office. During the day people sit there watching daytime TV. Some people really need a life.

More TV related stuff:

Sony 4K Ultra HD TV

TV detector vans – the truth

BBC piles pressure on ISPS with Internet TV

Engineer mobile apps

Use of memory on phone by Applications #connectedlife

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 23 January, 2014
No Comments on Use of memory on phone by Applications #connectedlife

Was flicking through the apps on my droid this morning in bed, as you do, and I noticed that I was running low on available RAM, again as you do. I was down to something like 16%. Blimey I thought. Wonder what’s using all that memory up?

So I looked and saw that I had 11 Applications running even though I wasn’t using most of them. Now I didn’t notice that this slowed my phone down but taking it to the extreme it could have done.

I took some screenshots to illustrate how using Apps uses memory. The Apps screenshot is an approximate simulation as I already killed the ones when I originally looked.

Stopping the Apps releases a load of memory. You can see the available memory grow from 16% to 43%.

All obvious stuff but interesting to see in action nevertheless.

Just for interest I uploaded these screenshots from my droid to Google Drive when I was at home.

In the railway station waiting room I used my Chromebook to access pixlr.com via my EE 4G MiFi to size them and convert to jpg for use in the blog. They were still in Drive at this time.

As the train moved out of the station and with diminishing cellular signal I moved the pics from Drive to the media folder on trefor.net.

This process wasn’t heavy on cellular bandwidth as I was moving stuff from one cloud to another (more on the “other” cloud in due course).

It was all a bit of a race against time knowing that the precious resource of connectivity was going to dwindle and vanish.

Now as I head through the wilderness of Lincolnshire towards Nottinghamshire, London and notional civilisation I am forced to continue editing this post locally.

I’ll only need a tiny bit of bandwidth to finally publish it, in theory, because the heavy shifting has been done.

The only other thing to note is that I’m stretching this post out a bit because the photos are fairly tall and therefore use a fair bit of real estate.

I could have shrunk them a bit but then I find it difficult to read the text don’t you? 🙂

That’s all folks. Stay safe but make your life an exciting one.

#connectedlife 🙂

End User mobile apps

Facebook intrusion continues #privacy #sms #calendar

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 20 January, 2014
3 Comments on Facebook intrusion continues #privacy #sms #calendar

Normally when a droid asks me to let an App have permission to access specific functions on the phone I just blindly accept.

This was the subject of a Twitter conversation before Christmas. Some people said they declined. We were particularly discussing Facebook which I naturally distrust.

I woke up this morning to an offer of an App upgrade from Facebook. The first thing that jumped out of the page (screen) at me was the fact that they, actually it feels as if Mark Zuckerberg himself is involved, wanted access to my sms messages.

This was a step too far even though I’m sure I must have given this permission to other Apps. No doubt Google has it.

You only have to look at the list of permissions being asked for to get suspicious.

I like the idea that I have a tool that integrates all my media and connectivity. Salesforce.com is trying to head that way for businesses. I can see how trefor.net might want to integrate with the communities hosted on various 3rd party platforms. It’s a way of getting a lot of information about the people that you interact with and for a business that is valuable.

The trouble is that I don’t trust Facebook. Facebook’s approach seems to be tell everyone everything by default and maybe rein back in from there. I feel this even though it may not be true.

I don’t have the same level of distrust of other platforms. Google I think

Business google

Google Apps for business – xferring account from personal

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 17 January, 2014
4 Comments on Google Apps for business – xferring account from personal

The decision to use Google Apps for the new business has been a no brainer. The productivity tools such as document sharing are a real winner. It is also a bonus that I happened to sign up for Google Apps before they started charging so I get it free of charge, at the moment.

When I originally signed up for Google Apps I didn’t spend much time playing with the features. I couldn’t quite see what difference there was between Apps and my regular Google use – Gmail, Calendar etc. It’s only now, as a business that I’m starting to get some of it.

For example all of my Google use up until Christmas has been through what effectively is my personal account. Any trefor.net or philospoherontap.com emails have been channelled through Gmail. My personal calendar was a confused mix of the Samsung SPlanner on my SGS4 and Google Calendar via whatever my laptop was a the time. The SPlanner would feed off both Google and my work Exchange account plus whatever else I programmed in.

When it came to the new business I began to question the use of SPlanner when Google did it all for me so I dropped it.

Now that I have two Gmail accounts, one personal and one trefor.net I’ve started the process

Business google

email Gmail Google+

Following on from my previous comments re emailing to Google+ connections not working it now is. I’ve just sent someone an email. I already had their email address but presumably not in that Gmail Contacts list. So Gmail offered to send the email to the person’s Google+ account. Just made it quicker for me.

I’m starting to use contact details from multiple social platforms now. Earlier this afternoon sent someone an email to an address they had in their LinkedIn profile.

What’s not to like?

Ciao

bebe

Tags email, Gmail, google

Apps broken gear Cloud End User

Breaking news – Kodak Hero 7.1 printer is broken again – error code 3527

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 15 January, 2014
1 Comment on Breaking news – Kodak Hero 7.1 printer is broken again – error code 3527

My Kodak Hero 7.1 All in one printer is broken again! Printers have always been a bit tempermental haven’t they?

I bought this one on 21st January 2012. At the time Kodak were going into administration. The printer looked a good deal so I also bought the 3 year “Instant Replacement” warrantee as a bit of a guarantee against things going tits up with the printer manufacturing.

On 5th January 2013 I took it back to PC World. The print head carriage was jammed and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

Today I’m taking the replacement back to PC World. Identical problem. Kodak’s support pages unhelpfully suggest I remove anything that might be jamming the print head otherwise to get in touch with their support (presumably not free).

It’s OK. I can take this second Kodak Hero 7.1 back to PC world and swap it for another. I quite like it’s functionality. Cloud printing etc. Bit of a nuisance having to go through the whole registration process again but hey.

I paid £129 for the original printer and £32 for the extended WHATEVER HAPPENS warranty. £129 a year for a new printer is not good. £161 for a new printer every year for three years isn’t so bad I guess.

PS before anyone says anything trefor.net is a paperless business but my family isn’t – homework etc.

Business ecommerce mobile apps

The O2 Wallet is dead, long live Zapp – mobile payment App

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 15 January, 2014
5 Comments on The O2 Wallet is dead, long live Zapp – mobile payment App

The O2 wallet is dead. It disappointed from the start. I put a tenner in to have a play and found that I couldn’t use my phone to pay for anything. It had a mobile app but all that did was provide a web interface for the phone. It wasn’t a contactless payment tool. To use it seemed just as elaborate as my normal internet banking service, so not particularly easy then.

It might have been an article on the BBC about a new contactless payment system, Zapp, that made me think of the O2 Wallet again. When the O2 Wallet was launched I thought I would be a trailblazer (I’m sure I wrote a post about it at the time but am blowed if I can find it). I would be able to use my phone to pay for things. I signed up and downloaded the android app. Good start.

I started small by sticking ten quid in my newly opened account. The tenner sat in the account for I know not how long (actually must have been 18 months because that’s how long O2 is saying the project lasted). I found it impossible to spend that cash, like I said.

I was disappointed but hey, it was an experiment that cost a tenner. Though it did occasionally drift into mind I forgot about the O2 Wallet. I pretty much wrote off the tenner.

Last night I logged in to my O2 Wallet account. The miracle was that I could remember my password. I was greeted with the message shown in the pic.

Following the instructions I withdrew my £10. Put it back into my bank account. Lost out on 18 months of current account interest at 0.75% but who cares (as he rolls another cigarette in a fifty pound note)(not really, I don’t smoke).

I noted with bemusement a message saying that the service was free at the moment but that charges would be introduced in future.

O2 will be closing my account in March. I will uninstall the app today.

The O2 Wallet is dead. May Zapp succeed where O2 did not. I hope it does. I have on occssion nipped out to the shops and left my wallet at home but I rarely forget my phone.

I hope Zapp is easy whilst remaining secure because it is the future of payment systems.

That’s all. Written in bed on my droid.

Footnote. I just uninstalled the O2 Wallet app and looked for Zapp in the play store. No sign of it!!! Hmm. Not a great start.

Tags O2 Wallet, Zapp

Business ecommerce gadgets

Skimlinks – moneymaking machine #wonga #moolah #lolly

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 13 January, 2014
6 Comments on Skimlinks – moneymaking machine #wonga #moolah #lolly

A few weeks ago as a bit of an experiment I signed up with Skimlinks. Skimlinks is a means of making money via affiliate marketing on your website. Their plug in scans your site for words that they can associate with their affiliated merchants (Amazon etc) and they insert a link to a relevant product sales page on that site. I have it set on a fairly low level of intrusion as a) it was only an experiment and b) I didn’t want to annoy people with too much in the face advertising. Google can also take a dim view on this sort of stuff if it is over the top.

At the time it was before I had announced my plans to leave my previous employer and start anew. One or two of you did actually notice and made comments on Twitter. Nothing bad, Just “interesting, let us know how you get on“.

Well I am excited to announce that since signing on (looks as if it was early November) I have made a grand total of £57.34. In recognition of what is a huge rate of growth (zero to fifty seven quid = infinite rate of growth) I shall shortly be announcing the imminent flotation of this blog on the stock market.

It is worth taking a look at where this income has come from and at some of the stats so vibrantly driving the new economy.

I mentioned Amazon (etc). All the sales have in fact come through Amazon and the vast majority have been for the Google Chromecast for which I am making anything between £1.12 and £1.47 commission per sale achieved. For the unfamiliar amongst you a sale is recognised against my account by tracking the click through from trefor.net to the ultimate signing on the dotted line by the paying punter. I don’t get the money for around 60 days which are pretty generous terms in Amazon’s favour considering they will get the cash instantly because the customer will have paid by credit card.

Aside from the Chromecast there’s a fairly long list of other items bought after clicking on a link. The mix is wonderful. Wonderful because you wonder how on earth they got to this blog if they were actually looking for certain items. Click on the photo on the right for a larger view. The wonderful list includes a Breville Technique Digital Steam Iron, 2400 Watt, BRASS ALLIANCE QUINTET FROM ST. PETERSBURG (presumably a musical CD – I’d expect a fairly substantial commission if I’d managed to arrange a gig for them), Ramozz @ 5X Led Pcb Connector Cable For 5050 Led Rgb Strip and some MENS LONG COTTON SOCKS Comfy grip Size 6-11 Black 6pk (made 45 pence there – don’t laugh, it all adds up).

If you look at the statistics since the installation of Skimlinks the blog has had 62,605 visits and made £57.34 from 1,450 clicks – thats an average of 4 pence per click.

Ok so this isn’t going to pay for next summer’s holiday in Barbados, or even one in Skegness although I still have time before I need to book – will just have to accept that we might miss the January sales.

It is however interesting to see what kind of traffic you need to drive to the site in order to make money. If we assume that Barbados is going to cost ten grand – we will have to leave the kids behind, we have to be realistic about expectations – then my quick back of a google spreadsheet calc tells me we will need just under 11 million visitors between now and the end of May. This assumes Anne and I will be going at the start of the school holidays (wouldn’t want the headmaster to find out we had abandoned the kids for a couple of weeks) and recognising that it is going to take 2 months to get the cash off Skimlinks.

Half the battle in business is getting your objective setting right and making them realistically achievable. Also you do have to be sensible about these expectations. Clearly the blog isn’t going to go from the current visitor levels to around 2 – 2 1/2 million a month just like that. We must expect a ramp up. So in order to hit an average of around 2.5 million visitors a month over the next 5 months or so we probably need to be hitting a run rate of 4 1/2 million visits a month by the end of May. Ish.

There we go then.

Now this is all just a bit of fun but at the end of the day trefor.net is going to make money so what learnings can really be taken out of the Skimlinks numbers.

Well for one the blog is getting a lot of visits to the Chromecast review – 10,754 in the time period being covered here. This is almost certainly because we were one of the first to carry a review of the Chromecast in the UK – it was only available via import at the time. This has been noticeable over the years. Before FTTC (fibre broadband) was available I wrote some technical posts on it and for a long time, until the consumer ISP advertising machines got into gear, the blog ranked very highly for FTTC.

Also a search for Chromecast on this site brings up 7 results. I’d be surprised if was really that low but in any case there must clearly from Google’s perspective be some content regarding Chromecast worth ranking.

Once we are properly up and running trefor.net is going to specialise in certain aspects of the technology market. It isn’t hard to guess what the focus is going to be. It’s the kind of stuff that has been covered over the years – connectivity, hosting, mobile and so on.

The key is in generating content that will elevate the site up the rankings for specific subjects. For example a high end broadband bundle can yield up to £140 in commission for a sale achieved through an affiliate marketing click through. A few of those in a month and you can justifiably start applying for the passport and cancel the caravan booking in Skeggy.

It’s also important to understand who the blog readership is because getting the content right will also not only generate affiliate click through sales but also attract specialist advertising.

Anyway that’s enough for now. Gotta nip out for some suntan lotion – Poundland, January sales.

trefor.net is open up for guest posts so if you have anything you want to say in the technology area drop me a line and can chat about setting you up with an account.

Ciao

PS Only £7 of the Skimlinks money is so far available for collection because of the 60 days rule. I haven’t looked to see if it is there. I don’t get out of bed for less than a tenner.

Tags affiliate, sales, Skimlinks

Business engineering google social networking

Google Apps update – trefor.net is now working

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 8 January, 2014
2 Comments on Google Apps update – trefor.net is now working

Since Monday I’ve been trying to set up a Google Apps for Business account for trefor.net. I kept getting rejected with a message saying that “the domain trefor.net was already in use”.

I was using it via my personal gmail account – picking up trefor.net emails pulled from my Timico POP3 mailbox. Deleted any reference to trefor.net in my personal mailbox then when Google continued to reject my efforts to register a new apps account I discovered you have to wait 24 hours for “things to filter through the system”.

Over 24 hours later it still didn’t work and I made a comment to this effect on Twitter. Twitter is a truly powerful networking tool. @AndyCDoyle offered to help and this lunchtime, having started to raise a ticket with Google, he found that there was already a Google Apps account for trefor.net. Funnily enough it was one I registered meself years ago. I’d totally forgotten about it.

A password reset came through to the recovery email address, my own personal gmail account, and hey presto I was up and running. Ish. It does take time to learn how to navigate your way around and I can see why a business might want to contract the setup out to an IT consultant.

One thing that flummoxed me was that in all the help guides it says you have to verify that the domain is yours. None of the relevant fields appeared on my screen so either I had already done it (certainly don’t recall that which I’m beginning to find out perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise) or when I signed up for Google Apps you didn’t need to do that step. I suspect the former is true.

Setting up email was easy. I just had to modify the Timico hosted zone files so that the MX records pointed at 5 google servers. Once that was done it worked straight away. Simples. I can now add aliases to my heart’s content and because the account was set up before Google started charging it’s all free. Result!

It would appear that I can have up to ten users in the free account which is going to do me for the forseeable future. Not figured out how much storage I get yet but I have over 100GB in my other account thanks to me buying a Chromebook so that should be fine for a couple of years.

I’ve already set up some aliases including one for use in tradeshow registrations that is automatically filtered and archived 😉

Important to make a bit of progress every day and this is progress.

PS As you may have noticed at the top of this post I’m experimenting with new profile pics. Have managed to change my personal gmail pic but struggling with one for the new trefor.net account. Keeps telling me the jpg photo is an invalid file. Google Apps is great for many things but it ain’t perfect and seems to have plenty of bugs that need kluges to work around. Not figured out a kluge for the profile pic yet.

PPS big thanks to Andy Coyle. Was surprised to hear he has a broad Mancunian accent. Shouldn’t have been because he lives in Manchester but that’s Twitter for you. Andy there will be a beer waiting for you when I come up for UKNOF27. Also you might want to think about using his services especially if you are in the Manchester area. His website is here.

Ciao all.

Tags Google Apps, startup

Business google

New business bank accounts for startups and problem with Google Apps for Business domain

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 7 January, 2014
6 Comments on New business bank accounts for startups and problem with Google Apps for Business domain

Went to open a business bank account yesterday. It’s not opened yet. There are hoops to jump through, despite the fact that I have been with the same bank since I was a kid.

In fact the business bank manager was able to do nothing apart from record the details of the new business. Approval has to be gained by some examining committee or other. He couldn’t even look online to see what trefor.net was all about. There is no internet access at the bank. Quite a good thing really when you think about it.

It’s all about money laundering. I had the same issues in having to prove who I was at the accountant and the lawyers. In fact the lawyer, Helen, told me they had to reauthenticate my identity every three years. I guess a lot could change in three years. I might have a sex change. It isn’t without precedent in this industry.

My main concern in seeing the bank manager was the charges. As a start up it’s free for 18 months which is good. However preparing already for the future I had taken a quick skeet online to see what it would cost eighteen months hence. The numbers weren’t particularly attractive. Looking a bit closer whilst in at the bank I found that online banking was pretty much free. I don’t plan on doing much non online banking. It reaffirms that everything needs to be online and automated.

When starting Timico one of the first things we did was to take on an accountant, also coincidentally called Helen (highly efficient and top operator 😉 ). Pretty much everything is going to be outsourced at trefor.net so I’m intitially doing it all myeslf. I imagine the only skills we will really need will be editorial and web development (see ad – if you know anyone we are hiring).

Anyway the banking ball is rolling. Next up VAT number.

The other bit of “progress” yesterday was to get an advert up on the Lincoln University graduate jobs board. I like the idea of creating local jobs. A developer could in theory work from anywhere. Anywhere with a decent internet connection and as long as it was within reasonable reach of Greenwich Mean Time. I want the developer to be in the same room as me. Ideas grow when you can bounce them off people.

trefor.net is actually going to be a partnership. More about Matt, the other partner, later. Sometime over the Christmas break Matt and I met in a pub for lunch and to work on the spec for the forthcoming website refresh. We sat next to each other working on the same document on our own laptops. We chatted about the content we could see in front of us and each made changes to the doc in real time based on our discussion.

Now this is also doable remotely using hangouts and video conferencing but on that occasion it suited us to “do lunch”. Google Apps is looking like an invaluable set of tools for us and trefor.net will be using a Google Apps for Business account.

In theory this is straightforward to set up. However in practice it hasn’t been so. This is because I already had the trefor.net domain associated with my personal gmail account. After an initial flurry of investigation following a message that told me “this domain is already in use” I figured out a plan.

Stop mail forwarding from Timico’s mail servers & access mail via webmail interface, delete all references to trefor.net on my gmail account, set up domain in new Google Apps For Business Account and repoint Timico mail servers at that mailbox. Turns out Timico wasn’t forwarding the mail but Gmail was pulling it from the POP3 mailbox.

What’s more having done all this Google still wouldn’t let me set up the new account with that domain. Now I find I have to wait 24 hours. So tonight’s job will again be setting up the google Apps for Business account. In principle we could get away without a business account but I want the ability to manage multiple aliases from one gmail account.

One of the things that’s put me off email after nearly ten years at Timico is the amount of “legitimate” spam that comes through. With the new business I will be using a specific alias for all online registrations which I can then filter into a separate folder away from harms way and my line of sight. I know that some people use different specific email aliases for different registrations so that they can see who is selling the contact database. I’d be interested in hearing any results of doing this. Naming and shaming.

Got to go. VAT number to sort out. Ciao.

Tags bank, Google Apps