Canary Dwarf

05/01/2022

First day back at work (officially) and we have an order in for a new website for a seven-day turnaround. We spec four weeks by default but will negotiate for different timelines

This is possible when copy deadlines are already met. Some of you may remember our one-day SiteBuilder courses.

24/11/2021

GoDaddy is one of the largest web hosts in the country and is consistently buying up smaller operations.

They're popular with people who DIY because they advertise heavily. When people come to us with GoDaddy hosting, we're not shy of steering them away.

The news that more than a million users' details have been exposed is shocking.

For those of you who remember our wholesale move of hosting services just over a year ago, this was directly related to the discovery that GoDaddy had taken over two of our upstream providers.

This was a case of us 'seeing the writing on the wall' and making a preventative move to protect our customers. If we had not done this, their details may well have en exposed in this breach.

That's you if you are a customer of ours. But don't worry, we've got your back.

Data breach intrusion discovered at six more web hosts in addition to GoDaddy. Incident exposed sFTP and database credentials for two months undetected

01/11/2021

Don't be fooled by bogus awards – I wrote about getting five fake awards from this company, and in less than a week since then, I've received two more emails, one to pester me to spend money on trophies and another to say they're in the final stages of deliberating the winners of their next award.

Have a read, and let me know if this sounds familiar: https://marchindley.media/five-awards-in-two-years-just-how-gullible-do-these-people-think-we-really-are/

05/03/2021

This is an excellent example of how little guys like us can thrash the Goliaths of the internet. This website was hosted with one of the biggest names on the web, but we have beaten them on price, performance and customer care. Thanks, Kevin for the opportunity to fix your website.

17/02/2021

People rarely come to us asking if we can optimise their pictures for search engines, but it's a great way to get ranked if you have stand-out pictures, and if done properly can drive a decent amount of traffic, as this screenshot shows.

This is a client's account that we set up for a one-off cost more than a year ago, and it gets more and more views every month..

12/02/2021

Another WordPress victory this week.

A plugin I used once for a huge database task required a large spreadsheet to be cut up into eleven smaller documents and uploaded, with the whole operation taking a couple of days to execute, and frequent attention.

A rewritten plug-in now does the task in four hours unattended from one document.

That's just one of the outstanding benefits of the WordPress community. Not just to be able to manage the website, but to be able to modify the tools that make difficult tasks easier.

25/01/2021

Laughter is the best medicine, and making this video with Lloyd from the Cluny Bank - Restaurant and Rooms was a laugh a minute, as you'll see from the outtakes.

But it's not just about having fun. It's brought the hotel into the spotlight, even though it's in lockdown. We made two teasers leading up to this, now seen by more than 40,000 people, and shared 100s of times, it's been featured in the news and launched in time for Burns Night.

Thanks to Jock Gibson from Macbeth's for being a good sport, providing us with access to his haggis patch and his vast knowledge of the chieftain o' the puddin' race.

02/09/2020

Want better search rankings with an inexpensive tried and trusted technique?

Our customers have been having some remarkable wins with SEO recently without doing the whole SEO thing. This has resulted in page one listings for relevant search terms. It's a long-term approach that will only improve with time and it won't break the bank.

What's our secret? Well, it's not a secret, we're just doing what we've always done, and that's high quality, ethical groundwork.

It's true that competitive terms are more difficult to rank, but often there are quick wins to be had for a reasonable outlay that will work long into the future.

24/06/2020

Does your property look squeaky clean? Get new pictures of your accommodation before you open on 15 July, and show your customers you've taken cleaning to a new level.

Call Marc on 01309 255055 to book an appointment. It takes around one hour and pictures can be used on your website, social media, brochures, advertising, etc.

23/06/2020

Are you getting ready to re-open your business? Will there be an influx of visitors to your website looking for info?

As you can imagine, we have been busy helping our customers make changes to their websites during lockdown and as we come out of it.

And as we move into phase two, we are focussing on existing customers first. However, if you need help with any of the following:

✅ Online check-in
✅ Video and explainers
✅ Content writing (guest safety measures)
✅ SEO, PR and link building
✅ Pay-per-click advertising

Get in touch and we'll do our best to fit you in. Call 01309 255055 or email [email protected]

15/05/2020

Parlez-vous Français? – two enquiries for French translations on separate websites in two days, one confirmed and the other looking very likely. Better dust off my phrasebook, it's the nearest i'll get to a boulangerie this year!

08/05/2020

This blows my mind. It's what I love about the internet, my work, my customers, and the people in my network.

Today's tale is a little convoluted but stick with it...

Long before Zoom was popular or even built, me and my techy friends used a tool called TeamViewer (and before that, VNC), and we still do, but Zoom has caught the public eye, and while TeamViewer was good, Zoom is my new go-to tool for remote controlling customers computers simply because they're not scared of it, and that's what I was doing this afternoon when I needed extra help from my techie friend.

He doesn't have Zoom yet (because he's a techie and he prefers techie tools), and so he asked if he could log on to the customer's computer with TeamViewer.

I didn't think that was a good idea. He admits he's not very tech-savvy, and I've only just introduced him to Zoom.

Anyway, I was already remotely connected to customer's PC with Zoom and I didn't want to bamboozle him with another one.

Can you see what's coming next?

So I got my pal to log into MY computer with TeamViewer and in turn control my customer's PC with Zoom. And neither of us knew whether it would work or not, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

But it did. And job done.

So we formed this isolated triangle of technical support spanning Europe (ok, maybe getting a little too excited now).

Let's say I am talking the rest of the day off!