Thursday 11 August 2011

New designs and world domination

As well as keeping you all informed and generally ranting on this blog, we also like to try and keep you all informed about the latest goings on within our own company. After all, we care about you. We love you all.

As you may or may not know, we have been slowly re-designing our Securio server behind the scenes (oh that’s where you go to use all your apps and website administration by the way!)

As nice as the current dashboard is, it no longer bears any resemblance to our current branding. It’s just one of those things that we have never been bothered to update. However, it’s really annoying me now so I’ve made a concerted effort to do something about it.

Anyway, we are currently re-designing not only the main Securio dashboard but also all the app dashboards. They will all carry a more uniformed look and will match our website much more.

As part of this overhaul, we are also re-developing some of the apps. Mailermatic and Clickmachine are both being slightly revised (and when I say revised I mean improved) and Mailermatic in particular will feature more…err… features. Alliteration aside, it will be good. There will be a choice of templates, the ability to suggest new templates through your Wishlist and a generally better navigation.

Our improvements go deeper than that as well. In the long term, we are also expanding the Securio dashboard to incorporate everything else. Ultimately, this will be the place you go to view invoices, statements, payments, quotes, jobs and basically everything relating to your account with us. That is a much longer-term plan and will be a phase 2 job.

Once we have done that, we will set into motion phase 3, which is our plan for the takeover of the country. Once we have laid the groundwork for that, we will set about taking over the world.

Back to reality and phase 1 (which is the re-designing of the dashboards and apps) will hopefully be finished this side of Christmas. Hopefully the new Mailermatic and Clickmachine apps will be ready early in the New Year. The rest of the administration features will come at a much later date and will largely depend on how hard it is for us to move all the archived gubbins from our old clanky Intranet to the new system and the even more difficult task of convincing our staff not to be scared of new things. We haven’t yet got a fixed date for world domination but we have almost mastered the evil laugh so it’s only a matter of time.

The new look:




Tuesday 9 August 2011

Don't get looted by cowboys

With half the country on fire at the moment and the whole world about to disappear into a financial black hole thanks to America being trillions in debt, it probably isn't the right time to be plugging products and services because no one has any money.

What I will do instead is give a few bits of advice. Firstly, don't go into London at the moment. It's full of idiots who have no moral values. Secondly, be careful in this delicate financial period when looking for cheaper web deals.

It is natural to want to cut back on spending. We are doing it; everybody is doing it. However, when looking for a cheaper deal for websites you have to be very careful. Cowboys don't just exist in the building trade. They are very much in action in the Internet industry too.

If someone offers you a free website or one for peanuts, ask yourself why. Are they really doing it out of the goodness of their own heart? Of course they're not. They are doing it to make a quick buck. Usually in this industry you get what you pay for. If you are on a free hosting site, the chances are it will be slow, unreliable and the service will be worse than Network Rail.

We recently had someone move away from our Webshop app and it broke our hearts. Not just because we lost a valued customer but because it was obvious that their new supplier didn't have a clue what they were doing, had made promises they would never be able to deliver on, and simply saw an opportunity to make a bit of cash. It's sad to see but it happens all the time.

In these troubling times, the World Wide Web is coming into its own. Not only is it the biggest means of networking and getting your message out to the world, it is also one of the cheapest mediums. With well over a decade in the business, we are very experienced in most aspects of the industry, which is why we are still going strong and in a good position, even in this difficult period.

Just be aware that not everyone is as nice or as honest as us. There are some thieving scum out there, not only in London but everywhere in the Internet Industry.

Play it safe and speak to us at Datapartners. We rock!