Just over a week ago the graphics card on my Mac Book Pro gave up - it is a known issue with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor so even though the laptop was not under warranty Apple replaced the graphics processor free of charge. When the problem occurred I was dreading the thoughts of getting setup on my old windows machine to get back to work but thanks to the excellent Mozy Backup I was able to get setup within a few hours. We use Subversion for all our projects so there was no risk that project work would be lost but I was surprised how many files outside of projects I would have lost without Mozy.
On a separate note Galmac Computers here in Galway replaced the graphics processor and I found their service to be excellent so thanks to them.
I would highly recommend that developers working on any javascript or ajax projects should view the following videos by Douglas Crockford:
Kampyle is a powerful on-demand solution to collect, analyze and manage your website visitors’ feedback
Kampyle allows users of your site to give you feedback on any bugs or features they would like to see on your site or application. The key to improving your service is to listen to your customers and make sure to deliver the service they want - kamplye helps you do this.
I have noticed recently that O2 have added kampyle to their site - they have improved their efforts to engage with customers over the last few months.
Many tools have emerged over the last few months and years including http://uservoice.com/ and http://getsatisfaction.com/.
If you would like to give your customers the opportunity to review your products within your website Loudervoice are an Irish company that offer this service.
This class was about writing your business plan. It was a little advanced and I felt we could have done with two classes for doing this. The goals of the course are to ultimately fulfill the following: get the FETAC award while writing your own business plan & eventually start you own business. In my case, for my business, I don’t need a business plan at the moment… so I feel my time is better spent on not generating a document that is going to sit of a shelf.
The writing of a business plan is very beneficial for various reasons. It is good to map out the goals of the business (estimates, profits, structure etc) early on, it helps you create a strategy for your business and you quickly learn if you have a viable business or not also it is always good to have the business plan on standby should you decide or need to grow you business in the future as you will have the bones of it completed.
The majority of people on the course were trying to answer questions on the business plan which they felt they were not at an advanced enough stage to answer properly. The best part of the class I felt was coming up with your elevator pitches. Most of the people you meet that are “pitching”come across very bad, either overloading with information or trying to sell themselves too much. It is really good exercise for anyone to write up a couple of sentences about themselves and their idea / business. The best thing to do is to be almost probing your audience as you talk to them, not everyone wants to buy…. but your lasting impression if it is good and not pushy might open a door further down the line.
Looking back it would have been good if we had two classes for this part of the course and everyone was required to write parts of their business plan and present their elevator pitch. It would have made for some interesting responses from the class…
