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competitions End User

Royal baby name competition winners

And the winner is… Well 27 of you got one of the names right and 4 of you got two of them. If nobody got it completely right I was going to pick one “innovative” winner but this doesn’t seem fair considering the 4 “2 namers” and I’m not about to buy 4 bottles of champagne. I’m going to give everyone a fabulous Timico mug (assuming we have enough otherwise it’s first come first serve)  and the top four will also get some other stuff that I can find in the marketing cabinet. You will have to let me have an address to send these things to (tref at trefor dot net).

Alternatively if the top four would like to write a guest post on a subject of their choosing then that would be perfectly acceptable – keep it clean – the editor’s (ie me) decision is final. Let me know.

I’m on holiday for two weeks after this Friday so delivery might be slightly delayed unless I can persuade someone do do the fulfilment for me in my absence.

It’s been a great competition and a big thanks to everyone for entering. Also it’s such a relief that we won’t have to worry about the royal succession for  long time now innit? 🙂 Old Henry VIII would be v jealous if he weren’t dead.

The list of people with at least one right guess is provided below. If you think your name should be on it by all means let me know. I’m only human you know:)

Dantiumpro: Alexander Harold George Windsor
The fishing Gardener: George , Philip, Louis, William,
paul h: Louis George Philip Arthur
Mike P: David George Richard Louis Wales
maggie fawcett: George
Matt Benson: Henry George James
harry singh: George Charles Windsor
Kate b: George Arthur
Phil Veale: Philip, George and Andrew.
Alistair: James George
Jayne: Henry George Edward
Victoria: Galbraith George William
craig: George
Sam Trendall: George Richard Samuel Windsor
Lucy Knighton: James George William Windsor
Emma H: George William Richard Windsor
Erica ward: Frederick Alexander
Rob Pickering: Louis Charles
Brian Sentance: Charles Louis
Gary Hough: George, Michael, Edward Windsor
hansk: George William Charles
chris: Arthur George Henry Philip Windsor
Andrew Ellis: George
Kate B: George Charles Edward James
Beverley: James Charles Louis William
Liz Cowley: Edward James George
Ewan: George Charles Mountbatten Windsor
Annette Sames: Peter Louis William. Windsor.
Faye: George, with Charles, Richard and James
Michael Green: George Reginald
Lee: George William Charles Windsor

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competitions End User Weekend

Royal baby name

tom graduationWent to our first born’s graduation yesterday (pic inset). It was a proud moment for us parents though I couldn’t quite reconcile the fact that most of the people in the audience were grey and must clearly have been a lot older than me and Anne (!? 🙂 ).

“Uhuh” I hear you say. “Okaay. I thought this post was about the royal baby? It’s the only reason I’m reading it!”

Well the point of this conversation is that when Tom was born, Boxing Day, 21 1/2 years ago Anne and I went out every night for a month before the due date. Anne in particular wanted to cram as much social life into her last days of freedom because she knew it was about to vanish, for a long time.

On one of those nights out we decided to have a sweepstake, pound in, to guess the arrival date of the baby. He or she (we didn’t know the sex then) was due on the 12th December. The only date that couldn’t be chosen was the 26th because had the baby not arrived by then Anne would be going in to have the birth induced. Blow me down if he didn’t arrive on the 26th which apart from blowing out Christmas night was fortuitous because on the way home we had blown the money on a curry.

Today is the due date for the royal baby and we are going to have a name the baby competition. I don’t think the sex is known. It certainly hasn’t been made public. You can have two guesses  – boy and girl (obv). The winner will be the closest to the actual name remembering that royal babies tend to have lots of names – Reginald William Arbuthnot George etc.

Get your entries in quick because it could arrive any time. Leave a comment. I’ll find a suitable prize for the winner.

PS our Tom has started working at the BBC, initially reading the travel reports on Radio Oxford. It’s a very competitive world out there. The royal baby is entering an uncertain world and will have to work hard to make sure his or her CV looks right for the job market of the future 🙂

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competitions End User

Short announcement on royal baby naming competition

Crown_thumbJust so that you can start thinking about it I will be posting a name the royal baby competition at the beginning of July. It’s due on 13th July according to the Daily Mail which presumably knows its stuff when it comes to such gossip.

The name the Beckham baby competition attracted a load of entries but I expect this one to get a lot more. Will probably have a few side bets going re weight etc

That’s all for now. Ciao…

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competitions End User

The trefor.net TGI Friday Megamug prize with pen and teabags Awards Entry Competition

I’m ploughing through some awards entries at the moment. Urgh its like wading through treacle especially if you are entering multiple categories. The problem is that they all have similar judging criteria designed to produce submissions from multiple entrants that must look fairly similar – “We bend over backwards to provide our customers with great service” etc.

There is even one criterion within a VoIP category that asks whether we support dial up! And you get about 350 words to cover:

Price and value for money
Differentiation from competitors
Level of customer care
Value Added Services
Scope of service
Security capabilities
Network and technology strengths
Service reach and capacity
Flexibility and scalability
Reliability and levels of service
Innovation
Entry level broadband package etc etc etc

It’s a challenge especially when most ISPs in the UK sell the same bland commoditised services (except for top B2B operators like Timico of course – we wrap ours up in funky business grade bundles with 24×7 support and throw in innovation, flexibility, security, scalability and all the rest of it – comes naturally, it’s in the DNA 🙂 )

So, bearing in mind this is Friday (TGI) and Friday is competition day I’m going to come up with an innovative competition that you can all enter. Also the prize this time is not just a fabulous Timico Megamug with terrific velvety smooth writing Timico pen. This time I’m going to throw in a box of teabags (brand TBC but it will be English breakfast – whatever is on offer in Tesco).

Gap while I try and think of a competition>

 

 

Ok got it.

All I need you to do is tell me why you deserve to win and what you would do with the prize. Get entering.

PS there are no judging criteria – write what you like, I’ll pick the winner I like.

PPS I like the idea of having a trefor.net Awards Night. Worth giving some thought to.

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competitions End User

Megamug Advent Prize Competition #3

Tomorrow I’m off to the Varsity match at Twickers with some lads and, I believe, a lass. Megamug Prize Competition number 3 is simple. What will the combined total of the scores of Oxford and Cambridge be at the end of the game.

In keeping with the rules laid down by my drinking buddies in the Tower in Lincoln when we watch internationals the nearest guess wins but not if the score is higher than your guess. In other words if you guess 33 points and the total is 34 then a person picking 40 points would be the winner. Also if the number has already been used you can’t have it. Entries close at kick-off. My game, my rules.

Good luck.

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competitions End User

Magical Megamug Advent competition #2

Timico Megamug has magical properties
It has been said that when drinking tea from a Timico Megamug you don’t need to add sugar. The drink always comes out perfectly to your taste. These mugs are ideal for having in the house in case you have builders around. Save you a fortune on Tate and Lyle. I don’t know if the same applies for coffee because I don’t drink the instant muck and I like a smaller cup with the percolated stuff.

It is also true that tea never goes cold when served in a Megamug. It’s a magical property that defies the Third Law of the Internet1 and is therefore invaluable for geeks, tweeters and general surfers who spend far too much of their time glued to one connected device or another.

Considering this, today’s competition is simple. To what magical use would you put a Timico Megamug? I refer you to comment #55 from yesterday’s competition for some other ideas. My decision is final though I am happy that people can praise others’ suggestions and so improve someone’s chances of winning.

There could be more than one prize here. If stocks run out we’ll get some more. Simples.

This competition is open to Timico staff and their families, subcontractors, occasional acquaintances, rear admirals, readers of this blog and anyone else that cares to enter including inhabitants of former British colonial territiories and Martians though I might struggle to deliver the mug if won by the latter. It would have to be “winner collects”.

Another great chance to win a Timico Megamug for Christmas. You know it makes sense…

1 The Third Law of the Internet states that a hot drink always goes cold before you have finished it when you are surfing the web

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competitions End User

Jordan Watson man of action

Jordan Watson - click to see full frontal photoTimico is a great place to work and although we work hard here we also like to have a bit of fun. Last night Jordan Watson was out with the boys and the conversation somehow came to dress down Fridays.

Through his beer tinted specs Jordan accepted a bet that he wouldn’t turn up to work this Friday in a romper suit, or his “onzer” as he calls it. Jordan, who works on the Timico tech support desk boldly took up the challenge and appeared this morning in a very nice (and very cozy by the looks of it) blue and white onzer.

Note the one piece fashion item, purchased for a tenner from Primark (a value for money high street department store I’m told) comes complete with penguin faces on his feet. A fun thing to wear for both work and play.

Jordan Watson, man of action.

I’ll finish off this Friday, fin de semaine, post with a couple of parting comments. One is that I recently upgraded my SG3 to Jelly Bean with no problems but without yet seeing what it can do for me. This morning I found out that I can take photos by just saying “smile” or “cheese” or “capture” or “shoot”. V cool. The header photo, which you can click to see the whole of Jordan, resplendent in his attire was taken by saying cheese. Note I found it has to be exactly “cheese”. “Say cheese” didn’t work. Impressive.

Secondly, because we haven’t had a competition for a while I’m offering a magnificent Timico mug as a prize for the best caption for the photo of Jordan. Timico staff may enter.

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Apps competitions End User

Mobile Phone #Photo #Competition Shortlist – some great pics – get voting

It’s been a tough one but boy have we got some great pics in the trefor.net phone photo competition. The standard of entries was very high and the judges have had to be brutal in the shortlisting process.

For total transparency the judges were myself and Scott Wroe – Timico’s head of graphic design. Neither of us entered the competition ourselves. We had around 150 entrants and although I did suggest that we would have a separate class for “edited” photos in reality most of the entries were straight off the camera so we have bundled them all into one single mega category. If you entered but have been left out of the short list I’m sorry about that but we have tried to be as objective as we can.

I did get a few suggestions for a polling process but to keep things simple and to allow you to give your views on the photos I’ve decided that voting will take place using the “comment” method. In other words chose a single winner and leave a comment telling me which picture you think that winner should be. By all means tell us what you think or how you went about chosing that particular photo as your winner.

You have until 5pm Lincolnshire time on Friday 27th July which is when the Olympic games start and when I go on holiday. I will count up the votes at that time and tell you who the winner is.

One vote per person please. A person is defined by a discrete email address. By all means get your friends to vote for you. Please don’t abuse the process by conjuring up multiple email accounts and voting for yourself many times. This is a white hat blog and its readers are trusted.

I will award as many prizes as looks right. If there are 5 photos that get far more votes than the rest then there will be 5 prizes – Timico mugs. The standard of the competition has been so high that it merits a better first prize than the mug. I will take the winner out for a curry or simlar provided that person is within sensible easy reach. Perhaps we can meet in London or somewhere.

We have had entries from as far afield as India, Indonesia and New Zealand.  A meal out won’t be practical in these cases so if you win you will have to settle for the mug and the deep satisfaction of knowing that you have won a major international photographic competition which will be forever visible as long as this blog remains on the world wide web.

My thanks to all of you who took the trouble to enter and good luck to all those on the shortlist. Get voting…

PS I’ll sort out the prizes when I get back from holiday.

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Categories
competitions End User phones

The name that Samsung Galaxy S3 phone competition

Samsung Galaxy S3 seen next to a Samsung Galaxy S2The guess the name of the Samsung Galaxy S3 phone competition from Monday was somewhat buried in the review. It is one of the least entered megaprize competitions I’ve run. This is possibly because it was buried in a long review of the Galaxy S3 or maybe the chances of winning were slim becasue there are lots and lots of names it could have been.

I’m going to assume both so this is a short post just to highlight the competition. Then I’m going to narrow down the possibilities as to what the name might be by telling you that it has biblical associations.

I’m not going to limit the number of prizes here. The competition is going to run all day and anyone who gets the name right gets a prize. There is also going to be a further prize for anyone who comes up with the most unusual biblical name (I’m the judge and my decision is final1).

This competition is also open to Timico staff. If they turn their noses at the mug then I’ll think of a different internal prize but it’s a mug for everyone else. Btw the one answer I did get on the previous post was “Tref’s phone”. Although it is the name displayed on the locked screen I am after the bluetooth name which is different.

Get guessing.

PS if you have already won a mug in a previous competition I can find a different prize for you.

1 though it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that I can be bribed on this one but the bribe is almost certainly going to have to be for a lot more than the prize is worth.

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Apps competitions End User

My camera keeps ringing – massive prize competition

Horseguards,Parade,changing,guard,Galaxy S2,Timico,competitionI had a full day of meetings in London on Wednesday. At 2.30pm I finished one and I needed to be in Westminster for the next one at 3.15. It was a beautiful sunny day so I decided to walk and made my way down through St James’ Park to Horseguards Parade.

We do have an impressive capital city and I happened to be there as they were changing the horseguards. With a few minutes to spare before the meeting I joined the tourists and got my Galaxy S2 camera out. As I was taking a photo the camera rang! Annoying huh? They will add phone functionality to useful personal gadgets.

That particular photo was lost but

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Business Cloud competitions

Announcing the Timico fairy cake champion

Timico fairy cake competition

At Timico we now have a champion fairy cake maker to add to the long list of other cake making honours within theTimico fairy cake competition company.

This time the winner is engineer Stephen Burdock who spends his days sorting out  customer problems and clearly must spend some of his evenings practising his baking skills.

As usual the standard of entries was top notch and the produce is available to purchase at £1 each – all moneys to charity.

Thanks to the judges, including Powernet’s marketing manager John Heritage and to all the other entrants who put so much effort into the competition.

The picture on the right is a cross section of the winning cake before being demolished by the judges. It’s nice to see blokes winning these competitions:)