plugthegap

Are you starting?!?

2007-07-06T20:28:00.000+01:00

So on my new found Mac/PC rant I want to air another complaint. When ever I turn on my PC I immediately switch to work mode, this is something I have never debated as it makes perfect sense, the computer is after all simply a tool for me to do my work.

Then Henry (a developer friend) showed me his laptop - a mac - and it seemed different somehow. Now, I have owned many macs in my past, more macs than PC's in fact. But it was only when I saw Henry's laptop that I suddenly realised that I was looking at a desktop that did not ask anything of me. In fact this was a desktop that imbued calm. Apart from a couple of files, a photo of a Scottish mountain surrounded in mist was all that you could see on the screen. Whilst the photo was nice, it was not the photo that did it for me.

It was the fact that it was plain, the view was simple, no complications, no to do list. When you turn on your PC the first thing that you notice is the start bar....

start!
Get to it, Work, work harder, lash, lash

When you switch on a PC you are unwittingly activating a conspiracy theory. One designed to sublimely get you to carry out Bills bidding.

Alright, its not that bad. There's no need to start wearing tin foil on your head. But I do think that we should be able to turn on a computer without the work protocol kicking in. I would like to check in on my latest eBay item and not feel guilty about avoiding my Outlook inbox.

For this reason, I was imediately surprised by Henry's laptop. I now know you can turn on a computer and it not enlist a work ethic in you. I also know that you can now bury windows away in the dark recesses of your hardrive only to be used when you need to boot a PC only application.

Proof of life outside of my HP, XP on a mac......:

Oh dear, I am posting a mac positive post - again....

To Mac or not to Mac

2007-07-04T23:58:00.000+01:00

Of late I have found myself staring at the 'resuming windows' bar across my laptop whilst my coffee goes cold and wondering if there is more to life than waiting for windows to kick in. This subject has now been elevated in my conscious due to sporadic power failures as my laptop just turns off when forced to deal with Photoshop and Dreamweaver etc.

True I have a lot of music stuffed in my small hard drive and I do use it almost 24/7 - but then again it is a tool, something I use everyday. So my question is, should you have to endure such outages in your work life, or is there another way.

According to Apple there is. MacBook Pro. Made from spaceships, their laptops can survive extreme temperatures and were made for the memory hungery, 'arty' applications that I favour. But at a price! - Their basic laptop weights in at over a grand, that's twice what this one cost. Makes you think, long and hard.

OK, so you can do more on a shinny new Apple, it has wireless, bluetooth and even a camera built in as standard. It comes with 2gb memory and has the almighty (reason for buying) Intel Core 2 Duo There is even bootcamp, a place to keep windows (on the mac) should you need to test a website cross platform.....

All very tempting yes, but who on earth spends over a thousand pounds on a laptop??

By rights I should own one. I am a designer, I drive a scooter to work and have a tendency to wear surfing T-Shirts under a suit Jacket. But I am also a project manager, keeping my projects on time AND in budget. And then there is the fact that I am a responsible parent with a wife who gives me that look when ever she sees me looking at the porn that is the Apple web site.

Zach, my partner in crime recons that his productivity increased by 25% when he switched. For me that can be the only reason for such an expenditure as time is much harder to put a price on.

I genuinely have no idea...

Answers on a postcard please.

Blog by day, blog by night

2007-06-02T20:07:00.000+01:00

In truth I blog when I can, but now I have two directions in which to post. Flowers...uncut, the Arena Flowers Blog was born just a few short days ago and I am ashamed to say that it has seen more activity than my own blog which has been here for several months now.

That said to date the main contributor to Flowers...uncut is our man Will who lets face it does not sleep and when he does he probably blog's. So I have some defense to my tardiness :)

The new blog (still in its infancy) has already seen acclaim from some established internet movers and shakers. Alex Schultz (known to me as the SEO guy from San Fran when we were starting the Arena ball rolling) just posted all the way from the States. Adrian Sevitz who being a guru amongst bloggers was pivotal in the decision to go with Word Press, and even comments from a certain grand fromage at eBay.

So I expect it to follow the current path, not only growing but continuing to make for a good read.

youtube - wehire

2007-05-18T21:58:00.000+01:00

Wearing the white hat

2007-05-18T20:12:00.000+01:00

Today is the first day of the rest of our seo campaign.

A flurry of recent adwords mining by ww has inspired an analysis of our natural search to further understand Googles nuances. Whilst we have enjoyed sales from natural search these sales have declined slightly, penalised, we think by our outbound links. This is not something an ecommerce site can ignore and a cull has been issued.

Google owns so much of the marketplace that we trade in so it is imperative that we understand every method it uses to asses us. We know we make a good product and people who have used us will gladly tell you this. However, it's not as simple as being good at what you do. You have to also understand Google.

I have decided that this is like having faith in God. You have to give yourself over to a deity that you can read about but not meet face to face. The worse part is that what you read is written by someone else and the rules are murky at best, guessed at by those with a position of power. In the old testament it was Emperor Constantine, today (and in this context) it is anyone with decent PR who will be first to describe these rules.

Rightly or wrongly we are forced to use Google to search for possible answers to our problem knowing that we can't simply ask the governor. Our god provides a seemly limitless number of tools to further worship at its alter, sitemaps, trends, analytics, link: etc the list goes on. But there is no Google bible, no ten commandments, no 0800 number. Just a collection of rules guessed at by those who Google moves to the top of the list.

We will cull our links we will optimise our pages and improve our site in the best we know how. But ultimately, we will have to wear the white hat until the storm is over.

iDid it!

2007-04-19T23:14:00.000+01:00

iJust fixed my iPod - well replaced my dearly departed battery. Amazing really I ran out and bought my iPod (3G) thinking that they would have got them sorted by the third generation, but noooo. The battery life was poor from get go and then rendered my iPod basically useless - UNTIL NOW!

£14.99 bought me a tiny battery and two large plastic tooth pics - thank you iPod Doctor.... iThink?? Hell, it was worth it just to see the inside of one :)

Arena - perfecting the message

2007-04-18T23:34:00.000+01:00

It is always exciting releasing new development on to the site. But today's addition was special. The new toy has been in Mantis (our development ticket system) for some time, since launch really and only just realised. It allows the customer to upload a digital photo from their desktop or url and then crop & preview the image before adding it to their basket.

We get a lot of people from abroad sending flowers to family in the UK, the ability to include an image with their message makes for quite an improvement on the overall experience for everyone.

The best part about a new feature like this is waiting for the first order - not one placed by the MD 1min after launch to claim the prize - but a real order, where someone has stumbled upon are new gadget and decide it is for them. Oh how I wish I could post the first real image - such a corker :)

If you want to try it out visit www.arenaflowers.com and enter greetings into the discount code box on the checkout to get a free greetings card and photo upload. The code ends 30th April.

Usability testing went on into the wee hours - see what Sevitz had to say

I'm not three but I can ski!

2007-04-17T08:56:00.000+01:00

We have seen the hottest days of the year here in England, but in California its business as usual, sun on the beach and snow in the mountains. It may be mid April but if you have skies and can get to Tahoe, then I suggest you do!
Yesterday, Phoebe skied for the first time. She is only 2 3/4 but in this game it would seem that all you need is confidence. She took the chair lift to the top of her run escorted by Andy, who is not only her grandfather but also the director the Sugar Bowl ski patrol in Tahoe. She couldn’t have been in safer hands. Once at the top she skied in between his skies and apparently shouting "faster, faster".

I of course am in England, a place that stands still when we get snow and miles away from my daughter’s first experience on skies :( I am told that my mother-in-law filmed this debut, although Cleia did mention something about a technical hitch... watch this space.

The one million pound email

2007-03-17T16:18:00.000Z

It just happened! Not six months in and we hit the one million pound mark! Below is a shot of the automated email that got sent out to all of us. Amazon had a bell, we hired Dr Evil :)

More mothers than lovers

2007-03-17T14:22:00.000Z

It is the day before 'M' Day and we are all set to take more orders than we did for Valentine's Day just a month ago. It is a simple fact I suppose, there are more mothers than lovers and so of course we should be busier.

In hindsight it is easy to see that we shouldn't be surprised, its just that in the six months that the site has been live our attention has been focused on Valentine's Day as the benchmark. I remember Steve casually saying in the dying hours of Feb 14th that it was just 30 days until Mother's Day and that it would be the same. A little hard to imagine when sleep had become optional for most of the florists!

Mother's Day presented another fact, that a majority of mothers live outside of London. Meaning that we would not require the same 30 vans to deliver across London on the day in question. We would have to instead ensure we have enough boxes to send our flowers across all over the UK.

Mass of pink roses

Getting ready to be packed

Steve taking boxes to the Parcel Force lorry

Steve stretching his legs inside the lorry

Alina chosing to join Steve in the lorry ;)

It's all made of sand

2007-03-08T22:21:00.000Z

Phoebe, like any child loves sand. These photos were taken in August 2006, she was just over 2 with a passion for sand like no other.

To get to the beach we took my dad's boat out to Blakeney spit which includes a Seal colony. Other than the seals and ourselves there were perhaps two other people - amazing!

Arena - Valentines Day

2007-03-08T21:47:00.000Z

So, this is a little late. My only excuse is that I didn't have a blog before now and so could not post during the most important day for an online florist.

I joined Arena as a full time employee in the beginning of January 2007 (the site went live in September 2006 but that is another story) and from day one we were gearing up for V day. Valentine's day is always a busy day for anyone with flowers, but we had exploded onto the market place and were expecting a busy week :)

The night before we worked until 2am packing and organising - we had over 3000 orders to deliver, an awesome responsibility when you consider you are assisting someones relationship.

The day was a complete sucess and even included an interview with the BBC!

Below are relevant links to photos and youtube!

Photos: Click here

Video (BBC Clip) : Click Here

The first post!

2007-03-07T09:46:00.000Z

An upgrade from bBlog to blogger - second time is most certainly lucky as this is a vast improvement. The add image icon is currently teasing me, to say nothing of the edit html tab...

Ah yes, the blog a thing of joy, something that is truly justifiable now that I have a decent UI :)