We succumbed to the exercise generation and brought a reticulated excercycle the other day, way more comfortable compared to the upright veriosn I must say, will be interesting to see if we will actually use it more.
Anyway we decided that a Television in the vicinity of the exercycle will increase our usage in the evenings. The exercycle is in the same room as our PC, which has a 19 inch LCD monitor so logically I thought TV tuner card in the POC was the best option to go.
Price comparisons are favourable with a tuner card being in the $100-$200 range compared to a 20inch LCD TV in $750-$850 range, so one for the TV tuner card
But the TV is a pop into the shop and hang it on the wall option, versus the rip open the PC cover, insert card, install drivers, hope and pray option (buy a Mac I hear my Xero colleagues say), so one for the TV.
We currently have a Hard Disk recorder in the lounge (one of our most used toys) and love the on demand of pre-recordered programs, not to mention DVD movies. The TV tuner card can record to the PC Hard disk, the TV requires a seperate unit, one for the TV tuner card.
When we get to the usability arguement the TV wins hands down, push the remote and it goes. The PC will require eductation for the better half, mmmm. One for the TV.
So overall a decision between ease of use vs cost and functionality. The TV will win out, only because it will be less hassle that the PC. If it was just me using it the Tv tuner card would probably win.
Makes you think if somebody created a set-top style device for my PC they would solve both my problems and get my business.
One of the interesting things about working for Xero is the experience of working with a team of Interaction Designers (Usability experts). It certainly makes me look at websites from a different perspective.
The other day I needed to change my life insurance policy.I talked to my insurance broker (as you do) who recomended that we change all our policies to a new provider as it was (marginally) cheaper. However the media had done a good job of convincing me that this may have been due to a differrent commission structure rather than for my own benefit (whether the recomended changes was for his commission benefit I don’t acually know).
So I googled for an online insurance provider after remember hearing an ad somewhere earlier and found http://www.pinnaclelife.co.nz/
Things I liked:
- The site layout was simple and uncluttered
- The site made a great use of flash to make things interactive without going over the top
- They don;t hit you with all the medical quiestions till 1/2 through the process (after you have mentally signed up) and didit with a little bit of humour
- They had price comparisons with alternative offerings
- They allowed me to create a draft policy and gave me 14 days to think about it before it expired
- They sent me a friendly followup email a couple of days after I completed the draft policy
One of the preconceptions I had about Website Usability before joingin Xero is that it was all about site layout and images. As you can see from the list above it is more about ensuring the user has an experience that is succesfull for both them and you.
NetResults.2 - Best Practices for Web Marketing
Rick.E.Bruner, Leland Harden, Bob Heyman
ISBN-10: 0735710244, ISBN-13: 978-0735710245
This book covers a lot of areas that are fundemental to promotiong and monitoring a website.
It provides a good overview of a large number of areas around this including:
- Return on Investment planning
- Defingin your value proposition for the web
- Design Optimisation of your website
- Selecting your domain name
- Search Engine Strategties
- Refferal Strategies (eMail, Permission Marleting and Viral)
- Affiliate strategies and progarms
- Public Relations
- We b Advertiding
Based around case studies in 2000 so a little out of date and although the principles still apply the majority of the internet techniques/examples outlined have moved on in the last seven years.
Overall if you are new to the world of web marketing then it gives you a good overview of all the areas you need to consider, especially areas not usually coverered in SEO books, such as PR. If you have been dealing web marketing for a while then if you have some spare time (yeah right!) you will find the odd gem.
For sale on Amazon.com
There are all sorts of interesting start ups coming online all of a sudden, in restrospect a few years from now it will probably be coined dotcom 2.0.
One that caught my eye is Ponoko. An interesting model where you design something real and they will manufacture and sell it for you, sharing in the profits.
Kind of an extension to the CafePress idea for tea shirts.
To me there are three major types of dotcom 2.0 start ups around at the moment.
1) Capture the Eyeballs
Sites such as Youtube and Facebook, who are designed to capture eyeballs, operate at a loss and then when they are larger enough get sold to an advertsing centric company (such as google) who can convert the eyeballs into dollars.
2) Revolutionise current technology
Companies such as Salesforce.com , PlanHq and Xero who are changing software solutons from being expensive purchases you install on your PC/Server to being affordable subscriptions, with no maintennce efforts/nightmares.
3) Revoluionisecurrent business
Companies such as Ponoko who take a business process (for example, designing a products, getting short run manufacturing, creating a website and then selling your product) and automates the process using web based technology.
It will be interesting to see which model is still around 2 years from now.
Well National Bank has really pee’d me off today.
I have had my credit cards with BNZ for a long while, and in a fit of financial cleaning I decided to focus on reducing my bank fees. I contacted BNZ ato see what they could do on this front, given our rather generous expenditure on these cards. Nothing was the response so time to move.
After searching consumer and sorted I decided that National Bank had the best fees and a cash back rewards offer. So after signing up (and of course faxing paper proof of income and who I was because you can’t forge faxes like you can electronic details 
a nice shiny new card arrived in the mail.
After a month of spending I wanted to download my transactions so I went to sign up to internet banking.
Sorry sir but you have to have a savings account with us to use internet banking, the cheapest being $2 a month in fees. Oh and by the way sir you will have to pay $1 a month to use internet banking.
But dear National Bank I have my business accounts with you, and I already pay $1 a month to use Internet banking for those accounts. Can’t I just add my personal credit card to that?
No sir, sorry that is not possible.
So out of the green bank it was, across the road and into th blue bank (isn’t ANZ owned by National Bank or vice versa now).
ANZ said certainly sir, we ave the same low fee for credit cards (no cash back rewards though), you don’t need a savings account to use internet banking and internet banking is free.
Well at least ANZ National are wiorking hard at brand differentiatiion.
After waxing lyrical about the different types of start ups in Ponoko - You think it they build it
I found ONLINE BUSINESS TOOLBOX: 230+ Tools for Running a Business Online on mashables which outlined (as the title suggests) 230 Software as a Service start ups.
For those sales guys with nothng better to do than watch youtube …..
I originally started using Open Source SugarCrm software (version 3) as the CRM system to manage all the customer details for Portali.
A number of years ago a couple of Indian based developers forked the SugarCRM open source code and created a new version called vTiger. (there was some controversy between SugarCRM and vTiger as the latter claims the former sees them as a competitive threat and even threatened legal action)
SugarCRM provides a professional (licensed) version as well as the open source version and charges for addin-ons such as outlook integration. So when I was due to upgrade to SugarCRM 4 I moved to vTiger 4 instead as they provided free outlook integration.
I have been using vTiger for a couple of years and needed to move to vTiger 5, but instead I have ended up going back to use SugarCRM (version 4.5).
Here is why:
vTiger Pros
As I mentioend vTiger always had more free functionality, including:
- Outlook Integration
- Thunderbird Integration
- Invoicing
vTiger Cons
Unfortunatley one module that vTiger never included was a projects module. SugarCRM has a simple projects which always met my needs. I got around the lack of projects functionality in vTiger by using DotProject which was pretty good and met my needs, but it was alays a pain to use two systems, maintainig two sets of customer records etc.
The outlook and thunderbird modules didn’t work very well in vTiger 4. So I ended up not using it anyway which negated the man reason I moved to vTiger.
SugarCRM Cons
The latest 4.5 version of Sugar CRM requires PHP 5 and infact the installer won’t let you continue with the install on a lower version. My hosting company Webfarm provide PHP 4 as a default and all the other products I use such as Zencart are only certified on PHP 4, so SugarCRM was still really out of the picture.
So an upgrade to vTiger 5 it was.
Upgrade woes
After reading the vTiger forums it seemed that upgrading by installing over the top of version 4 was fraught with problems, so I thought I would do a fresh install of vTiger 5 and migrate my content.
All went well until I tried to add a new user record in the new verision which didn’t seem to do much, i.e. didn;t create a new record. Editing the admin user also seemed to delete a lot of the admin users details which resulted in not being able to login and a reinstall.
Trolling the vTiger forums it seemed to be either a problem with Firefox or a problem with PHP 4 and the recomended fix was, you guessed it, upgrade to PHP 5!
The return to Sugar
Well if I was going to have the hassle of moving to PHP 5 (by the way Webfarm can upgrade individual domains/.sites to PHP 5, so none of my other sites were affected, way cool!) I might as well go back to SugarCRm.
Which I did.
Migratng content wasn’t too bad as I just used the standard export to csv in vToger and the import wizard in SugarCrm and Graeme’s your uncle (or mine anyway).
Blue Ocean Strategies
W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne
ISBN: 1591396190 EAN: 9781591396192
This was a pivotal read for me.
It outlines a number of case studies where new companies have entered mature (and often stagnent) markets and have created uncontested market spaces which jave completely transformed that market.
For example they highlight the traditional Circus market Cirque du Soleil entered.
- Low customer price expectation (typically $10-$20 a seat)
- High costs (high staff costs, travel costs, setup of tents, care of animals)
- Effect of animal right activists on the customers perception of circus
Cirque du Soleil turned the experience into a theatrical show, provided theatre quality surroundings and content, charged theatre prices and are unlikely to be able to directly challenged.
Another example was Australian winemaker, Yellow Tail who wanted to enter the uS wine market. The US ,arket was awash with premium US and Imported wines all viaing for the wine connoisseur pallette.
Yellow Tail produced a single red and white wine blend that was aimed at the beer drinker, rather than the connoisseur.
A must read.
View this book for sale on Fishpond.co.nz
When I was young I remember going to my cousins house in Auckland.
He was a couple of years older than me and had jus got a Spectrum ZX 81 (at least I think it was a ZX81) for christmas.
I thought this thing was the coolest thing I had seen.
You could play games, write some code and it used a tape (cassette) drive. The even cooler thing was the tape drive was a standard cassette player so you could play music on it as well.
Well things haven’t really chnaged as I still keep finding othher people with cool technologies and toys, so I thought I might as well blub about them here.
Of course you will then ask why ZX84.com not ZX81.com, well after 25 odd years I couldn;t really remember the number after the ZX and of course I also just went ahead and brought the domain name rather than do any research, but then for those that know me they won’t be suprised by this.
