s a b b i e t a g e

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Shit Marketing

Earlier I was looking for something in particular and 2 marketing things companies do really irritate me!

First of all is buying a keyword for something they don't sell!

So for example if I am searching for blue jeans and click on a link for a site which has Blue Jeans as its Keywords in titles but only sells yellow skirts .. If I wanted a yellow skirt I would of searched for a 'Yellow Skirt'!! Grrr!!

The second thing that really pisses me off is when somebody buys a well known companies domain name and they are nothing to do with them or don't link to them .. I am not even talking about competitors who sell the same kinda thing ..

The Internet is supposed to make things faster, so companies who slow me up just seriously irritate me.

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Friday, 3 April 2009

Google Street View

What is wrong with people? .. Google street view isn't doing anything that anyone with any determination couldn't go and do anyway.

The Google Street View vehicle was spotted in a village in the UK this week and the locals made a right fuss about it and tried to justify it by saying burglars would use it. The guy who is really concerned that burglars are going to want to use street view to plan to burgal his house .. hes basically just gone public at the fact that he could potentially have something worth stealing if you're that way inclined.

Just to quick side track I had wondered what the vehicles look like and its just an ordinary car with a large tripod on top with a large camera on it. What a top job being the driver! (where do I apply?)

Anyway back to my moaning about the people who moan! The guy who was going in to a sex shop in Amsterdam - seriously man its only a sex shop .. you would only need to feel embarrassed if you were going there to stock up on your bestiality DVDs which google street view can't of picked up on anyway ..

The person who was being sick asking for their image to be removed .. wtf .. was it really worth the effort .. Personally if I was out and about while the google camera was about and ended up on Google street view I would link everyone as a 5 Min's of stardom kinda thing!

For me Google Street View and even Google Maps Satellite View has bought my hours worth of entertainment .. I drooled at the houses around New York and then when you move down to Florida and browse around the coast there are jaw dropping houses. Huge houses with huge boats parked at the end of their garden on their own private jetty. How lucky are some people!
I did try to browse over Disney world but the maps were not available at that time. Then of course anywhere you have ever visited you go and look over ..

My only complaints about Google Street View is the images around Hollywood are a bit dicey and need updating to make them clearer !!
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Thursday, 26 March 2009

Fern Britton

I am so happy to hear that Fern Britton is leaving 'This Morning'. I used to watch Sky News for a majority of the day but I went off of that because it's all so depressing. I watched BBC 1 for a while but got pretty sick of the programs on there and then switched to ITV 1.

When I sit and watch Fern Britton I feel really irritated by her.. She sits there with a fake grin on her face, laughs at things which are just not funny, has a really obviously fake sympathetic tone to her voice and looks bloody awful since having her stomach stapled.

When she had her stomach done I felt then that she interviews people with real life stories and is so vain that she didn't suit her role anymore.

Since her stomach stapling her sense of dress has become awful - they do a make over section of the show and I think she needs to go on it. The other week my mate text me with 'OMG what the hell is Fern Britton wearing today?'. I turned to 'This Morning' to see her sat there looking like Princess Leah.

My Dad is visiting at the moment and buys The Sun Newspaper so I had a quick read this morning. It was in there I saw the story about Fern Britton.

It said she was not happy with her salary and was quitting the show after being quite frustrated that Philip Scofield earns much more money than her.

My thoughts on the above ..

Firstly, in a recession to get paid £750,000 a year is pretty damn good going!! So stop moaning you greedy cow!
Secondly, in my opinion Philip Scofield is more of a house hold name for people of my age due to the fact we grew up with him. I remember when he was really young on Kids TV. Fern Britton what history does she have on her CV other than being able to quick jump in for the woman who she replaced on this morning.

I hope the woman who replaces her on a Friday gets her job - Ruth Langsford

Something funny I noticed in 'Google' if you search Fern Britton (to spell check) the top sponsored link is for a Gastric Band

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Tuesday, 24 February 2009

Disabled Kids TV Presenter












Cerrie Burnell on CBeebies

Today I felt shocked and angry when I heard on the news that some parents had complained about kids TV presenter Cerrie Burnell because of her disability.

I am aware of this TV presenter because I watch C Beebies .. OK when I say I watch - I must clarify - technically it's my daughter who watches!

The other day I was sat with her and after In The Night Garden had finished she was still amused by the channel so we watched some more - this is when I first noticed Cerrie Burnell had part of her arm missing from the elbow down.

My initial thoughts were not the fact she was on TV but wondered if she had always been missing her hand and then led me to think about simple tasks like doing the washing up, putting on a pair of jeans, changing a baby etc being quite hard work .. but then I figured she prolly has just adapted to this and to her its what she knows. Then I wondered if she has a fake hand (Prosthesis) and then I went off on another line of thought about how they got them to work and how it was all quite clever stuff.

After thinking about that for some time I then thought about how it was nice to see a woman on TV not trying to hide her disability and how kids who watched this would then discuss with their parents about disability and hopefully grow up not being phased by people who are different to them.

Then another TV show came on CBeebies called Ballamory and there was a woman in a wheel chair - I notice people in wheel chairs because I had a friend who had to use one and he wanted an all singing all dancing model - he was quite amusing talking about how he might ask 'Pimp my ride' to mod his 'wheels'.

Today when I heard the news and I was utterly disgusted at the fact anyone could be so shallow as to complain! The people complaining are missing a great opportunity to educate their children in the comfort of their own home.

I think it's a great thing and when my daughter asks me about this I will enjoy explaining to her about different types of people on this earth. I will tell her the funny stories about my good friend who passed away this year after living with cerebral palsy. I will also tell her about when he was having a bad day and how being different could sometimes be quite upsetting for him because of other peoples reactions to his disability.

Full article on the BBC news website

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Saturday, 21 February 2009

Gordon Brown Disturbs Me

I've always felt that Gordon Brown kind of blagged his spot as Britains PM. The country didn't vote for him to get his seat .. So I always kinda felt I didn't really dig his situation and was waiting for a new general election.

Watching the news yesterday and Gordon Brown was speaking about Jade Goody and got her name wrong !!

Ok you would have to of had your head buried in sand for the last 8 years to not know who Jade Goody is !!

I find this terribley disturbing to think that our prime minister who is in charge and represents our county could get her name wrong .. Don't misunderstand me, it's not the fact that he doesn't know her name in particular .. It's the fact if you watch tv, read the papers, listen to the radio etc you know who she is .. This indicates to me he can't do any of the above and therefore has no idea where this country is at right now ..

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Tuesday, 17 February 2009

New Canabis Advert



Woo.. scary stuff .. wtf? ..

The sad thing is somebody somewhere got paid shed loads of dosh to come up with the crappiest advert ever!

How is that advert supposed to put children off of smoking cannabis?

Then there has been all the programs about it with examples of people who have gone mental because they smoked cannabis ..

Ooooook .. Seriously the people I saw on these programs I would not say they are your 'average' cannabis user.

This one guy heard voices in his head and while watching coronation street (seriously.. right there!!) the characters were telling him to kill himself. Then it went to his parents - Now I do not by any means mean any disrespect to them but UH-OH!!.. The guy really had the odds stacked against him from birth.

Then this other guy was going on about how he was addicted to cannabis like he was addicted to heroin or something and the thing that really had me in stitches was he was on TV OK not pixalated out or anything but they disguised his name! Again .. they hit the nail on the head right there ..

So all this discussion around cannabis use and you can still go in to a shop and get a packet of cigarettes..

I swear to god people are not addicted to smoking cannabis its the nicotine in the tobacco they use to mix with what ever they are smoking ..

Last of all is the argument that people who smoke cannabis vs people who drink .. we don't need to go there, you get the point ..

So back to point of post - somebody has got paid a shat load of dosh to come up with an ultra crap idea .. where do I apply please ..
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Thursday, 12 February 2009

Galapagos Islands

I was watching BBC news today and they were reporting on the fact that the human race is serioulsy messing with the wild life on the Galapagos Islands. They were saying in so many words, 'Don't go there because you will be adding to the problem' .. then they went live to their reporter there .. go figure ..

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Wednesday, 11 February 2009

Universal Phone Charger

So I am sat here with 3 Nokia phones right .. so thats all Nokia .. but they all have different sized chargers!! Seriously why on earth do Nokia feel the need to make phones all with different chargers. Where is the sense in that?

Why can't all these companies create a unviersal charger .. then in my house we would just need one charger instead of having a basket full of 30 of them for all the different gadgets we have or have had.

The worst charger I have ever had was on a motorola phone with little notches. A few of these charges died before the phone .. so on that principle I don't buy motorola anymore.

In the good old days .. Nokia did the male connection .. and the phones I had which use that still work .. then they switched to a really thin male connector and now the latest one I have is a (similar to) usb looking type of one.

If computer psu can all use the same connection from all the different companies why cant smaller gadget companies not do the same instead of letting some idiot design a new one!

Rant over ..

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Monday, 9 February 2009

Search Engine Optimization

Today I was checking the spelling on above 'phrase'.

I always just google a word I want to check spelling of so I googled 'Search Engine Optimization' and felt amused by the paid links .. Surely if you are any good at what you do .. you would have a top ten ranking for the choosen search term and not need the paid links? ..
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Monday, 26 January 2009

Cool flash

My mate who abso hates spiders sent me this link 'Spider' I was that impressed with it I thought I would add a link here ..

Whilst I am posting links, a couple of other bits of flash animations worth a visit are 'Creep' and 'Laid off'..
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Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Credit Crunch

The credit crunch is well and truly on us and everyone is worried about the future.

I work in an environment where my income depends on marketing budgets and right now companies are starting to look at them and make seriously bad choices to cut them. I think right now everyone who takes thier business seriously needs to look at how they can get thier brand out there.. One day the credit crunch is going to hit rock bottom and the only way out of it will be up as confidence slowly comes back knowing its turning around.

Right now I think the biggest problem is people do not know if they will hold on to their job so they are holding on to their spare cash.

I feel that some of the companies who have or are going under are companies that didn't grasp the digital age with both hands!!

When I heard Woolworths had gone bust I wasn't really surprised .. I do almost all of my shopping online and in the past visited Woolworths website to see what they had on there. The website was rubbish! I decided it was probably new and a few months later I visited and realised they had employed a really bad website dev team.

When I went to a town that had a Woolworths and I popped in I always seemed to buy a load of junk I didn't really need but wanted because I felt it would make my life easier in some way.. It's a bit like a Betterware catalogue - its full of complete junk but you find things that once you seen them you feel you need one.

Woolworth’s website seemed to lack a lot of what they had in store on the website. I remember looking through Xbox games and there were about 14. The navigation was one of those which you can't be bothered to work out. A bit like theirs stores with items sometimes being in complete random places .. They lacked a logical pattern to their website and stores ..

Another company which has reported on the edge of going under is Land of Leather .. Again in the past when I wanted a leather sofa I visited the website and the company logo was enough to put me off .. Admittedly they have changed their website since - but it was one of those sites which wasn't worth a second look.

I think we take websites on face value these days and unless we can get to the information we want straight away its much easier to go back to the search engine and continue to search.

I guess the other thing that killed Land of Leather was bad press on watch dog .. I guess once your product / brand has been on that show and had a lot of negative publicity, you're on to a loser.

Then the news came that Zavvi was going under - WHO ? .. I had never heard of them .. I don't buy news papers - occasionally I will buy a computer magazine .. I watch the TV and surf lots of websites but never in all my surfing / tv watching had I come across the name .. So their going down - bad advertising should be on their list of reasons  ..I took a look at the webiste and it seemed nice to use - I wonder if they were like Game and Game Station and generally were a bit over priced when compared to Amazon or Play?

Adams kids clothes store - well I thought they had already gone under years ago when they disappeared from my local high street. When I had young kids I remember that shop being quite good value for money .. But then I guess when you can go to your local supermarket and pick up every day kids clothes with your shopping to the same kind of standard as Adams - I guess that didn't help their case ..

So with the exmaples I have thought about above - I think some bad marketing is to blame ..

I think once the credit crunch starts to turn around if you have given up on your website and slashed your marketing budget when people are ready to start spending again you are not going to benefit from it .. There will be other websites who rank higher with better navigation .. and they will take your potential business ..
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Saturday, 3 January 2009

How to stop red eye

I have been taking alot of photo's of late and suffer from red eye in alot of them although I have red eye reduction turned on .. I am using a Canon Powershot G9 ..

This evening I did a bit of a search to try and find ideas to stop this

I found a website with this tip .. The easy way to stop red eye is to photograph only object that don’t have eyes -  No shit sherlock! Then they went on to say, "Another trick is to suddenly turn on all the lights in a room." So instead of red eye all your subjects will have thier eyes closed !

I am quite disapointed at the results from my G9 - I thought the inbuilt reduction would be of better standard .. I have since read though that people with grey / blue eyes are more prone to red eye ..

When I find a solution I will share it here - or if you have one please let me know :)
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Friday, 19 September 2008

Warhammer - Age of Reckoning

I got Warhammer Age Of Reckoning yesterday and had problems installing it to start off with - but this turned out to be due to my DVD Drive ..

Then I eventually got it installed and then had problems running it .. It patched ok then when I loaded the game it would crash with a message saying

Authentication Failed -- application will now terminate.

I wondered if it was my account which had a problem but it wasn't. The error was due to the fact I am running Vista with direct x 10 - You need direct x 9.xxx which was released in August 08.

Go here for it

Get that installed and you will be able to run Warhammer ok :)
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Saturday, 30 August 2008

Uninstall Internet Explorer 8 Vista

Why is everything so upside down in Vista ..

I wanted to try the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 but it wouldn't let me install unless I uninstalled IE8 Beta 1 - an easy task right ? ..

I went to add remove .. oh wait its not called add remove programs anymore is it .. Ok I went to Porgrams and Features and couldn't see an option to uninstall IE8 ..

I went to the dir where it was installed and no option there ..

I went to windows features .. not there ..

It appears Microsoft decided when they made Vista they would move / rename everything so busy people could waste time looking for stuff ..

How to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) in Vista

Go to Start > Control Panel > Programs and features - Left hand menu choose updates - It's listed there ..

So simple when you know where Microsoft have hidden things ..

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