jason white

Get your PC Repaired while you buy your meat & vegetables

I hear through the grape vine that Tesco are soon to be offering in house PC Repair, this is something that as a Small Business owner in the same industry, I’m sure I’m supposed to be worried about. I’m not!

You see, this time, I don’t think “they” can compete. If I had a quid for every customer that came to my shop instead of PC World, pledging they will never go back “there” again; well, I’d have more money. I suspect Tesco will suffer the same fate, whether the big guys like it or not, they can’t do personal. They are devoid of the human touch. Let’s face it, do you really think Tesco realised that people were having problems with their personal computers and then thought to themselves, “We can help these people” or is it more likely they saw a potential area to expend into, with each customer being another tick on a spread-sheet rather than a “person” with a problem to solve. I doubt it!

It’s one thing to want a competitive price on your “Granny smiths” and your “Freshly baked bread” and quite another when you have 10 years of family photos and the business accounts stuck in your failed machine. “Every little” might help but in this case you’re going to want a lot more! That’s what the independent specialists can offer, a boutique service with value, a service that “they” simply cannot replicate in store.

Thanks for reading, be good!

I keep hearing folk talking about not re-inventing the wheel. It got me wondering what would happen if we didnt, the image below i put together in 5 minutes to see what if…

It kinda looks better than i expected it to,  im guessing the traction would be shocking. Cornering would be a nightmare i imagine. How long do you think those wheels would last?

I have been working on the same section of a site now for around a week including some long days of around 12-13 hours, i’m sure im not alone here but i swear the problems are getting harder and more confusing. Even more frustrating is the in point of fact they would be simple on their own at any given time, there must be a scientific way to measure this “fatigue” at how it rleates to project/ time/ complexity there must be a driect relationship to the amount of time your working on a specific project to the percieved diffculty and the increased possibility of error. I DUNNO, of course im speculating. right now im not sure this makes any sense. Cya

Let me add some context before I begin. Recently developing a site on a shoestring budget, I built the prototype proof of concept which was not really built from a solid specification more add-hoc per specification. Quickly the time came for the Directors to seek investment to fund future growth, i assume emails went to and throw between director and investor ideas a plenty; you can imagine one person saying “this” and another person saying “that”. To cut a long bit and make it shorter, the prototype site become the live site and more things than i can count on both hands and feet needed updating and changing.  like yesterday!

With no time to plan and without question i set about making the ideas real, some things simply wouldn’t work with other things and so had to be twisted and pushed. Many other things worked just fine. of course this way of working isn’t easy, without the planning it didn’t take long for us to realise we had introduced bugs, areas that worked fine before no longer functioned as they should. each change had a knock on effect.

I would love for this to be a story of morality, a tale of woe that by seeing the error of our ways we went forward into the light and for ever and day all was good. it’s not. I simply wanted to share a moment. I will not plan like the plan is everything if the client does not have the funds to support such antics. It may not be good for the client to go to the investor with only a plan, the plan alone will probably get them nowhere. For a plan on its own is just an idea and ideas are everywhere. Everyone has one, even me.

The client needs a prototype “a beta” if you will, with a prototype they have proof of concept and users too. They have what is needed now to acquire funding, maybe for a plan. Be it bank or brother someone will get excited and hold out a hand.

Bottom line given the choice if the client has limited funds go for the build, build like you have never built before, yes things will break and things will go wrong but they can be fixed and put right. Right now the client needs funding and you know what to do! when the funds are in you can plan because the client can afford you to, and plan well. its going to be fun and you will be proud.

Thanks

Call me pedantic if you wish, however; I really think that an applications mainform and its descendant’s state should be persistent. that is if i open a wizard or new form from an application option any configurable item such as window size, splitter position or other should remain as I set them upon the next use. Don’t agree? are you mad? try the new version of Navicat 8, play with the “Query Editor” set everything to a comfortable position and size for your screen, close the form and do it again! argh now you have to do it all again before getting on with the sql task at hand.

Very annoying Navicat, please I beg of you release a patch update or something to prevent me from ripping all of my hair out. It’s one of those things that begin to grate, I almost don’t want to use this feature anymore just because of this.

Don’t get me wrong, I recommend the software to everyone i encounter, I have recently upgraded from version 7 and look forward to version 9. Thanks for reading