I spent a chunk of my lunch yesterday trying to organise e-registration (or whatever its called) over at the Skandia website (they’re not getting a link but you can find them @ skandia.co.uk). And time and again I got an error thrown up. So I contacted them by their online form to find out how it was best to get this issue sorted - as I want to see how my pension’s doing.
Today I get my response from Skandia which reads thus:
Thank you for contacting Skandia’s E-Commerce Helpdesk with regards to the error message you received at the end of the registration process.
Could you please ensure that you are using Internet Explorer as your web browser because if you are using a different web browser then you will be unable to register online.
We currently only support Internet Explorer 6 and above as a web browser.
Please also ensure that you are using a PC and not an Apple Mac as PC is the only format that we currently support.
I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause you.
It’s 2008 and they cant make a website that’s accessible to Firefox or anyone with an Apple Mac. What is the world coming to when a company offers a service and you can’t access it because they failed to pay any attention to making sure that their website is useable by as much of their target market as possible.
One fo the dudes upstairs just sent me this microsite he’s been working on. I think its kinda cool - esp as its in Russian and I have no idea what it says.
The HTC Cruise, I’m away to get hypnotised by the big floating hand.
I’ve been pleased to see that McDonalds have been hopelessly flogging dead horses with ‘new’ partners and have relaunched this years Mcdonalds Monopoly. This time they’ve partnered with HMV - god knows how they got suckered into this but hey there is one born every minute.
On an even more pleasing note across in the East, not Edinburgh I was thinking further east, there is a chain of takeaway food joints that are sporting an art print style image of Bruce Lee as their emblem.
Who would win the fight?
My first thought is would cartoon Bruce beat the living daylights out of Ronald McDonald or would Bruce live up to his billing and rip the red nosed dude into pieces and then dance about wearing his clown shoes.
Who do you think will win the battle between Bruce and Big Red Ron?
February 29, 2008 – 3:03 pm
In the modern day and age everything in indie music has changed. No longer do bands seem to have to trawl through waves of gigs, supporting people they don’t like in venues they’ve never heard of. Every indie stormtrooper seems to think that all they need now is a digital 8 track (DIGITAL - when I was a lad…) and a MySpace page.
Please god let the pain stop.
MySpace is full of bands who make records no one wants to hear.
Take glasgow alone you have:
- Dead City Radio - rubbish
- Hey Princess - yep another group of lads and lasses who would be better off investing in getting a job rather than a new guitar.
My mate made some songs up for a laugh, when he was drunk, put them on a MySpace page and people listened to them - and then used them in online radio shows! I’m trying to find it but can’t - it probably got kicked but as I avoid MySpace like the plague it could be why. But for some, strange reason, it seems that many people like it. Go figure. Next I’ll be buying a record by the Ninja Death Monkeys painting my shoes yellow and adorning them with stickers.
February 25, 2008 – 6:25 pm
In some of my spare time I am a bit of a noisemonger. I know I’m getting old but rattling the hell out of a guitar induces a state of zen like calm in me.
I’ve always had a strange love of anything a little bit strange sounding - hence my love of flying saucer attack and much of this stuff which I’ve recently found voer at LastFm tagged as being dream pop.
Anyway to the echobender effects unit. I have no idea what it does or how it sounds but it looks lovely. It would appear to be made by a company called Casper Electronics. And it is a special limited edition of ten - I used to build limited editions of one using old schematics in magazines but not done it for years.
Click here for more info on the EchoBender effects unit.
February 22, 2008 – 2:49 pm
I was just reading some of the other blogs on Equatorlive and saw that none of us really talked about what we do here at Equator. So I thought I’d do some stuff on what us Search Engine Optimisers are upto here at Equator.
If you’ve not heard of Search Engine Optimisation, or are scared by it, don’t worry. Its not a black art - and those who tell you that SEO is are lying. All SEO entails is ensuring that you give search engine evidence that your website is relevant for a users query.
In simple terms we make sure your web pages use the relevant words in the appropriate ways and get other people to talk about you and show search engines why your website is relevant for a query. As our SEO is focussed around generating sales for clients all these query are business related and designed to drive traffic which is likely to convert into a sale.
SEO folk are geeky - but the good ones will help you understand the whole process without getting into horrendous language such as “keyword co-occurance theory” (which I find interesting but know that only a few others do) or Link Velocity tracking.
Its you SEO companies job to monitor these - and keep you abreast of developments without bombarding you with ‘geek speak’.
At the moment here at Equator we’re doing some cool work, and driving great results, for a number of companies throughout the UK including:
- De Vere Hotels
- Ramada Jarvis Hotels
- Scottish Hydro
- Southern Electric
- Swalec
Over the next couple of months we’re kicking off more work for some great UK based brands from our Glasgow based HQ which has got us all really excited.
If you’d like to find out more give us a call on 0141 299 1800.
February 21, 2008 – 10:54 am
On Monday I watched a Panorama documentary on BBC 1 which was about the environmental impact of consuming bottled water. And for once I found Panorama to not really be giving me the facts.
In the first half they went through statistics and figures about how bottled water was affecting the environment, all of which were supported by figures and statistics. And then folowing this the second half descended into what seemed to be based on tenuous linkage and some causal relationships that seemed to be over simplified.
- Paying £21 for a bottle of water does seem excessive - but if idiots will pay for it who gives a damn
- The claim that London tap water is drinkable - no it’s not! - its vile.
- Plastic bottles litter the UKs coast and are causing environmental damage. Seems reasonable - they float and coasts are surrounded by seas and coeans that contain currents which pushes anything that floats toward the coast. Find the idiots who throw the bottles away and give them a slap or put them in jail
- The guy presenting it goes to Fiji - whilst earlier having highlighted the Carbon Footprint of bottled water. what was his carbon footprint in getting him and his crew to and from Fiji?
- Dirty water causes infection - yep seems reasonable. Water factory opens and people still get water bourne infections and illnesses. Hmm - is that not a governmental issue - and what did the Fijian government spend the money from this internationally available water - maybe improving the quality of the water supply would be a good start.
God - I’ve just ranted against Panorama. One of the greatest series of programmes that the BBC, who I love, have produced. The main reason being that I can’t agree with dodgy reporting that makes inference rather than having something factual to report. It was the equivalent to the BBC making a blog post…
February 20, 2008 – 6:45 pm
Over the last couples of days I’ve had the pleasure of encountering too much 1337. It seems to be re-surfacing at a rate of knots I’ve not seen since Google search was available in 1337.
For some reason 1337, or leet, whatever you call it has resurfaced into the office lexicon. I implore the world to react against this deviance and speak plain English and not send messages in 1337.
February 19, 2008 – 3:28 pm
I was just running about the Internet as I wait for the DNS on a server to upload so I can start hacking together a finished WordPress theme for a blog. And I had a sudden urge to make a plugin for it.
Having asked Google for some stuff about building WordPress plugins. the best I’ve found so far is Asymptomatic.net. I’m not exactly renowned for my PHP skills - most programs I write work (eventually) so if anyone has any other cool wordpress plugin tutorials I’d be grateful if you could stick them in the comments.
February 18, 2008 – 1:29 pm
For a long time I resisted the urge to buy Arab Strap records. Maybe its because they come from Falkirk, maybe its because they were always at the same clubs as me, maybe its because Aidan used to give me grief about the bands I liked as a kid. Anyway for whatever reason I may have been wrong about Arab Strap.
I’ve always liked Malcolm Middletons solo stuff, for some reason I could accept buying the solo records. But I recently bought a couple of Arab Strap albums and I’m convereted. I did see them live a couple of times but I was so pissed on each occassion I can’t remember much about it.
So here’s to Arab Strap - I’m still of the opinion that Rabid Lettuce should reform : dont know if they do but I hope they still want to rip someones face off with a fridge!!!
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