Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5
20th Feb
I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.
Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:
ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com
I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.
If you need, you can FTP files to:
ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk
Log in with:
gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n
Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?
I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension
19th Feb
I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;
Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.
Cheers,
Greg.
Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.
Feb 11th -13th
Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I had even less money then I thought I did and ended up needing money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.
Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5
20th Feb
I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.
Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:
ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com
I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.
If you need, you can FTP files to:
ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk
Log in with:
gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n
Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?
I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension
19th Feb
I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;
Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.
Cheers,
Greg.
Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.
Feb 11th -13th
Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I had even less money then I thought I did and ended up needing money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.
Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5
20th Feb
I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.
Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:
ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com
I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.
If you need, you can FTP files to:
ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk
Log in with:
gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n
Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?
I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension
19th Feb
I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;
Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.
Cheers,
Greg.
Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.
Feb 11th -13th
Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I needed money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.
Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 4
20th Feb
I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.
Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:
ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com
I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.
If you need, you can FTP files to:
ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk
Log in with:
gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n
Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?
I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension
19th Feb
I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;
Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.
Cheers,
Greg.
Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.
Feb 11th -13th
Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I needed money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.
E&PP Motivation
I was inspired to create my personal training software by the frustrations I had encountered in my many years weightlifting I had wondered for some time whether there was a way to solve some of the problems that I had encountered time and again. I was certain that it wasn’t just me who forgot that new exercise they had read about in a magazine back at home or struggled to remember which weight to use for each particular exercise and how many repetitions they did last week. My brainwave was realizing that these problems could be quite easily solved, the technology exists, but no-one else seemed to have spotted the gap in the market for a specialised application for the weightlifting/bodybuilding market. I am less motivated by dreams of massive sales and instant fame for my product and more excited by the idea of changing people’s lives. I want to empower all those insecure young guys who never get proper tuition and get fed spurious misinformation at every turn. They’ll waste their time and money and the unhappiness resulting from their misdirected efforts leads many to steroid use. If I could make a difference, it’d mean a lot to me.
Another business idea inspired by personal experience was recently awarded Startup Company of the Year 2006. Jennie Johnson had had enough of struggling to find reputable, good quality nurseries She had a clear vision of a better kind of nursery and the her business plan impressed the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme so much that she secured the maximum £250,000 enabling her create the first branch of ‘Kids Allowed’. The nursery was built from scratch to accommodate all her innovative ideas; age specific rooms, a sensory theatre and a restaurant amongst others which required the backing of an equity part partner, a property developer who poured a further 4.5 million into the project. Her business was formed in 2003 but the ‘Kids Allowed’ didn’t open its doors to the public until 2005. A successful marketing strategy including hiring of a design company to produce a promotional DVD and brochure and a PR company to raise the companies profile paid off amazingly well and the nursery was fully booked from day one. Two more branches quickly followed and Jennie Johnson found herself at the head of a company employing 130 staff with an annual turnover of 1.8 million. Looking at the case of ‘Kids Allowed’ in relation to my own work I am interested by the arc of progression from initial concept to securing the money to realise your dream to finally employing outside expertise to manage its emergence into the world. Jennie Johnson had a background in marketing that must’ve helped in that crucial last stage but I imagine other good ideas trip at that last hurdle.
Progress Blog - Professional Practice Module Pt. 3
9th Feb
Paul emailed me last night to ok the name www.csad-ssl.co.uk so I can buy that today. Still no reply from Greg Turner though so I've researched an alternative, www.swifthost.co.uk which have reasonable prices but I wouldn't be able to get the same level of personal support or as much space that I would've done with Greg. I also got paid today so I actually have money to use to buy the space which I think I should do asap, whoever I buy it from.
8th Feb
Recieved an email from Paul who was very impressed with my mockup of the site and has also secured the £50 I need for the site, which is great news. All I have to do is take a receipt to the School Office once I have bought it myself. I emailed Paul back suggesting www.csad-ssl.co.uk for the site name as its the shortest, most memorable one I could think of for it. No reply from Greg Turner yet however.
Hi Nick,
The mock up looks great, well done!
I understand what you mean about the name being unwieldy. However, it is difficult to think of a shorter name that is appropriate. Do you have any suggestions?
By the way I have secured funding for the £50 site registration fee. If you take the reciept to Mary Wiseman in the school office she will arrange for the cost to be reimbursed.
Paul7th Feb
I emailed Greg Turner to arrange the purchase of the web space and Stuart Neil who I should have contacted days ago to discuss the funding problems I have had. If a project is going to run over, which it is in the fact that i am producing this work for Stuart as much as I am for my 'client' Paul maintaining good communications is of huge importance and I realise I haven't been tight enough on this.
6th Feb
Today I researched a couple of different ways to customise Wordpress sites. Customisation by coding was touted as being relatively simple compared to other blogging sites but having spent a couple of hours looking at it I realise it is beyond my capabilities. The code is similar to HTML, but acknowledged to be more complicated and I know very little about HTML. The other alternative was far more exciting, templates. I was able to browse about a hundred templates with grey backgrounds and found one called ‘Slined 1’ which fits perfectly with the contemporary feel of my identity design. I produced a mockup of the site with my header and more relevant imagery and emailed it to Paul for him to ok. I also asked for his opinion on the domain name as I am ready to buy it from 123reg.com which was the cheapest I could find on the net.
5th Feb
Received the following email back from Paul regarding my 3 scamps;
Hi Nick,
It looks like we all agree that scamp1 is the design to go for!
Keep up the good work,
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Kavanagh, Gaynor
Sent: 05 February 2007 08:57
To: Wilgeroth, Paul
Subject: RE: Staff / Student Liaison Website
Paul
This is great. I prefer Scamp 1 too.....
Gaynor
I had expressed my belief that that was the best of the designs so I’m glad they liked it and now I can start assembling the site.
3rd Feb
I imagine this kind of frustration with projects on hold as funding issues are resolved must be common in industry so I suppose I should be glad of the experience! My parents have agreed to send me the money to host the site so I now have to wait for the money to clear before buying the host space from Greg Turner.
1st Feb
As I had expected getting the extra funding from the University wouldn’t arrive quickly, if at all. Paul has promised to look into funding for the site but reading between the lines, I’m not overly optimistic. He suggested a couple of alternatives including setting up a Myspace account for students to link to and gauge the popularity of a site of this nature before money is actually spent which is a good idea but I would be a lot happier achieving my initial aim of creating a standalone website. I didn’t see this coming, a sort of tension between the university wanting a free site and me wanting a particular result for my portfolio. The only sensible resolution I can think of is to buy the webspace myself, something I will need to do over the next few months as I am working on a self promotion website anyway. The problem of funding still remains though as I am living on a shoestring. The email from Paul was as follows;
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your continuing efforts in trying to get this web site set up.
I must admit that I'm not entirely surprised that the university servers are unable to support the necessary script as they have to be ultra secure.
I will of course investigate the availability of funds to support the alternative website that you propose.
In the mean time is it worth considering some alternatives?
One suggestion that I have received is that myspace.com might be a suitable means of getting the project started. I realise that this proposal isn't suitable for massive amounts of traffic but it might be a good way of testing the water to see if the web site is likely to be popular or not.
What do you think?
Paul
E&PP - Design Partners
Of the UK design industry’s 4.6 billion pound turn over in 2005 0.5 billion was generated by overseas income. The statistics are quite startling but maybe, given Britain’s history of exporting innovations and ideas; from William Morris to the telephone today’s designers are just following in a proud tradition. The UK government is certainly aware of the success and huge potential for growth in this area. Through the UK Trade and Investment Department they set up ‘Design Partners’ in 1999, an organisation dedicated to coordinating efforts to sell British design abroad. Design Partners have a wide ranging set of plans to maximize export potential and provide as much assistance as they can to new and established exporters. They research foreign markets and share that information with UK industry, help to forge partnerships with relevant companies abroad, offer long and short term programmes of support and provide an opportunity for liaison between government and industry where new legislation or support may be required. They support two fields of UK design, described on their website as ‘Design Makers’ which covers product design in all its forms and ‘Design Consultants’ which includes print and new media. An example given of the a successful design export transaction was in Bionic Media’s winning of a contract to provide a complete branding strategy and range of graphics for ‘The Pepsi Chart Show’ which was intended to be shown across Latin America. They worked with the production team in Miami and the producer of the channel set to air the show.
Digging a little deeper I found a discussion on merits of Design Partners on the Design Council’s website as it had arisen during one of their meetings. The consensus was that the sheer breadth of the organisation was as much a strength as a weakness, in that while bringing together such a broad range of different companies has been very beneficial for the profile of UK design abroad there had been difficulties in reconciling the priorities of Design Partners and those of the actual design companies. For example some of the regions and markets identified by the organisation as important for British design to move into were unattractive to the companies who would actually have to work there. They also criticized Design Partners for being unrepresentative of the whole industry as ‘in-house’ design teams were not represented by the group. The point was raised that Design Partners is only one of fourty similar ‘UK Trade Partners’ and greater collaboration with these other organisations could reap rich rewards for all concerned.
