Is this the demise of Facebook?

Facebook is many things to many people. When it first hit our shores, to me it was one of the coolest things out -mainly because I lost track with a fair number of people that I wanted to get in touch with. No doubt like many others I found looking at other people's photos fairly addictive and lost countless hours seeing what others were up to.

More recently however I've not made the time for Facebook -much to the annoyance of certain friends who still live on the website. To me Facebook has become boring and stagnant, because now I've caught up with most people I lost touch with -and I don't have enough time to play all the games-, what's left?

For quite some time now Stacey has voiced concern over the fact that Facebook encourages people to live in the past -which I agree with. It's not a bad thing catching up with friends you've lost track of but after that what value is there really in Facebook?

Her point really hit home the other day when a particularly unpleasant person from school joined, I suspect they have been a member of Facebook for quite some time but nobody bothered looking them up. I know some people consider Facebook as a competition of "who knows the most people" but to me I've only really ever added friends, admittedly there are one or two loose "friend" connections in my list of friends but I'd happily enjoy a pint with any of them. So when this particular person added me I decided not to accept, since then I've been bombarded with repeat requests and messages asking me to add them.

It sounds silly but I find it a little hypocritical adding someone to my "friend" list who I have no affiliation with or desire to get to know. My reasoning is not that unjustified as I and a few other people I know have met up with the person in question since leaving school in the hope they've changed and sadly everyone agrees that they've not changed in the slightest. So why would I want to appease their conscious?

Why the demise of Facebook? Well for me I don't see any point in re-visiting the site other than once a month or so to check my messages etc so have they reached their visitor ceiling? I'm sure there are other untapped markets globally for them but once you've caught up with people and sent them a few messages, what other use is Facebook?

Google gets the lurve bug

We've started to use Google Docs to manage the workload of our remote workers -which I have to say works pretty well, logging on today I was really impressed to see that Google Docs had gone all out to pimp out their interface.

I think it's really nice so for those of you who don't use Google Docs click the image to see the results :)

It's little things like the heart instead of the star...

Ok, back to managing peoples time :P

Stacey's first day and the company is incorporated

Today is Stacey's second day and change is already abreast, Monday was somewhat quiet on the business front with Gym, Hair Cuts, Lunch, Shopping and numerous phone calls but today things have really started moving -the first port of call was going Ltd:

Congratulations...

We are pleased to advise you that your company, THE SITE DOCTOR LTD has been accepted for incorporation by Companies House

To my foreign readers this means that my West Midlands based web design company The Site Doctor is now officially listed with Companies House -we've got a certificate 'n everything...

Although it was a "real" company, now the main benefit is If The Site Doctor Ltd was to go bankrupt, each shareholder is responsible only for the amount they have invested in the company -so if The Site Doctor Ltd was to go bankrupt (which I hope it doesn't!) I won't lose our house!

Watch this space as The Site Doctor Ltd and it's new branding will be launched later this month...

Random images in Umbraco

Following on from a recent post of mine about how to setup changeable headers using the media picker in Umbraco a new site I have been working on required something a little extra -they wanted the headers to simply be chosen at random. from a given media folder.

First, create  a new (blank) XSLT file and add the following:

What this does is it uses the StartNode (a media folder) passed in from the macro to loop through any valid files (in this case jpg/gif/png and pull out the image if it's valid. I was thinking about replacing the for-each loop and simply using the index but I'm not sure if there would be any performance improvement except for if there were a lot of header images in the folder.

You'll then need to create a new macro and add a parameter with the name "StartNode" and select "mediaCurrent" as the Type. That's it :)

I'd like to build on this and have a "valid" headers selector which would use a Multiple Media picker and would allow for banner ads to be selected at random but that can wait for a client that needs it ;)

The turnover challenge 2008

I'm always up for a laugh and a challenge -especially where business is concerned, without pushing yourself I think your company will just shrivel up and die. This time however I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew -which may very well result in public humiliation, women's clothing and the most bizarre gym session ever!

While "playing" squash the other day with a mate of mine -Ian- who runs Avant Garde - a hair salon based in my local gym Next Generation and I jested about challenging each other to increasing our turnover to (for me anyway) ridiculous heights for the tax return 08/09 and so began the turnover challenge 2008.

The aim of the game is simple -we have to turnover more than £x00,000 in the next tax year. For a little more fun we decided to add in a forfeit for the company who earned the least. What's the forfeit I hear you cry! Well that's what's up for debate at the moment but basically it should be:

• Fun!
• Suitably humiliating to make sure you don't want to lose!
• Non-financial
• Non-harmful to us (i.e. no tattoos, piercing's etc)
• Non-harmful to the businesses
• Non-harmful to others
• Legal!

We've come up with a few ideas but I thought I'd throw it out there for other ideas as I'm sure something amusing will come up! My fav's so far:

1. A gym session in women's clothing: miniskirt, sports top and high heels (knowing Ian he'll wear the panties too!)
2. Do a parachute -though I think that's something I want to try anyhow...
3. Paragliding/Snowboarding/Other etc in the nuddy
4. (Me) -become a hairdresser (Ian) -learn to code

The thing I like about the gym session is that it's scaleable i.e. "for every £10k difference in turnover, the other has to run for another minute on the treadmill..."

If you don't think that's a hard challenge, put it this way, to meet the target we've both got to more than double our turnover. If neither of us make it I suggest you get a weeks pass at my local gym -Next Generation April 2009!

You've got until April 1st 2008 to get the forfeit ideas in...

Issues with sensitivity of Links Crossbow training on a huge projector screen

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know we were lucky enough to get a projector a while ago but it's not without problems. As silly as it sounds, playing the Wii on a 98" screen is sometimes pretty hard!

The main issue I've found is that it's expecting a screen at most 42" and so you only need to move the end of the controller a tiny distance for it to go from one side of the screen to the other. In the case of Links Crossbow Training we found it made getting bigger scores really darn hard.

Last night though I was fiddling with some of the settings and have found if you reduce all the settings to a minimum (the screen you're first shown asking you to point at the center) it really helps, I've set the crosshairs to move more slowly and I also increased the Wii's sensitivity in the main settings so I could sit futher away and check out the results - Big Points on a Big Screen!

FWIW if you're into the arcade shooters this is a great game to play -certainly worth the £20 price tag...

Is Google taking the P? How should I know, it's all gibberish to me...

I recently signed up for a new Google account for client related stuff and ever since have found that the entire user interface has changed into another language -I would guess Greek or Polish but I don't really have a clue. I don't know why it started like this as I sure as damn-it chose English but it makes me laugh every-time I see it.

I've even tried changing all my settings to English but Google just doesn't want me to read what it's saying -luckily I'm familiar enough with the interface that I can navigate around it without needing to know what it's saying ;)