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Pondering Ponderousness

I’ve been wondering what to do with this blog for a while, mostly because I have a proper site (that happens to be being rebuilt) as well.

I’m thinking I might start using this blog for general rants, whilst keeping my main site as a more professional gubbins. I’m also thinking I could use it to highlight any cool stuff I spy my company selling. We sell all sorts of cool action figures, statues and comics, some of which look pretty cool – even if I can’t actually afford any of it myself :(

I’ve been trying to push the idea of a more community-oriented section of our site for over 2 years now. The main argument being that by providing valuable content, you are going to encourage a lot more inbound links as well as a positive attitude towards the company. When you compare this with sending our numerous newsletters per week which just list products, and have a site with over 20,000 products but no opinion… the benefits are obvious. In this day and age, transparency and a human face are going to do a lot more for boosting traffic than wearing out your existing customers.

My previous 2 posts here were largely to prove a point (though the results are obviously skewed due to the obscenely high scoring that Google seems to give .ac.uk domains). Permitting for different Google servers (each server has different rankings for pages because changes take a long time to propogate across them all), I’ve managed to boost us from page 4 to 1 of UK searches and from virtually unranked to page 1 of worldwide. Obviously this is only for a very specific set of keywords and I had to write some very targetted content (and links), but I hope it’s proved my point – inbound links are everything, and if you provide content that people want to link to, you’re on to a winner.

So I’m tempted to keep using this blog to push certain parts of the site, but only to the stuff I genuinely think is cool. I have no intention of turning this into a marketing portal and I would kind of like to return to the entertaining kind of posts that used to be so common across Warwick Blogs.

BYE THEN.

Andrew Ingram : 17 Jul 2009 12:42 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Valentines

Dear You,

Happy Valentines Day!

From Andrew.

(Image obtained from VGCats.com)

Andrew Ingram : 14 Feb 2007 01:48 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Public Service Announcement 2

I still hate snow, it’s still rubbish.

Andrew Ingram : 08 Feb 2007 14:29 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

World Also Needs Graphs

Graphs allow us to see how properties vary as other properties change, magic!

Andrew Ingram : 04 Feb 2007 21:27 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

World Needs Diagrams

The world needs more diagrams, here’s an example of a diagram. As you can see, the diagram makes the process much easier to understand.

Andrew Ingram : 04 Feb 2007 17:42 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Public Transport

Public Transport is a little bit expensive.

Last week I went for a job interview in Hatfield, that’s just north of London. Initially I thought to get a train because I don’t have much experience driving long distances.

It would have cost me £75 to buy the train tickets at the station, plus another couple of quid to get a bus from Hatfield station to the business park.

If i’d booked tickets in advance it would have been £35. Somewhat better.

In the end I drove, I filled the tank immediately before and after the journey (i’d actually driven the 1/2 mile to and from ASDA once before refilling, so knock 50p off or something). It cost me £17.

The journey each way also took an hour and a half as opposed to 3 hours.

I would love to be environmentally friendly and use public transport, but quite frankly I can’t afford it.

Andrew Ingram : 29 Jan 2007 18:13 |  Comments (6) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Really Good Couriers (Part 1)

This is a work in progress, I expect masters of comedy like Dean Love to help me make it awesome.

Interior RGCHQ, Evan Bunkerweiner’s Office

Alan Twiddleclud has just begun his first day at Really Good Couriers and is really excited about learning the trade. He’s currently in a meeting with his superior Evan Bunkerweiner who is explaining what he’ll be doing today. Evan Bunkerweiner is some sort of fatherly boss figure, Alan is an eager but naive newbie and Clive talks like someone who went to Eton and Cambridge but is also an idiot.

Evan: Your first day is fairly straightforward, you’ll just be shadowing one of our seasoned drivers and learning the ropes.
Alan: Ok, but when do I get to go out on my own?
Evan: Steady son, there’s a more to being a Really Good Courier than just driving around picking up and dropping off parcels, much more! Ah, here he is, meet Clive.

Clive extends his hand to Alan

Clive: Clive Shuntrunkbag at your service.

Alan shakes Clive’s hand

Alan: Alan, Alan Twiddleclud. Nice to meet you Clive.
Clive: BRILLIANT! Let’s get this old hedgehog roasting!

Interior: Package Room

It’s the room where the drivers pick up the packages and load their vans. Clive and Alan are just loading the last few packages, there are a few other drivers in the room.

Clive: Right, we’ve picked up the goods, or “contraband”. Little joke that, keeps me sane!
Alan: Good one.
Clive: BRILLIANT! We’re going to get along like a ferret in heat!

A random staff member comes across to talk to Clive

Staff Member: Hold up Clive, we’ve got a late package for Bumcorp.
Clive: Another one for Bumcorp? CHRIST! That means we’ll have to do a CONSIGNMENT MERGE!
Random Driver: a CONSIGNMENT MERGE?! You bastard, I haven’t had one of those for weeks!
Alan: What’s a consignment merge?
Clive: Man, it’s times like this that i’m glad to be training the newbies. Ok Alan, a consignment merge happens when multiple orders from the same source are to be delivered to the same place at the same time, a little trick we do is to put them all under the same delivery. It saves us having to drive away from the recipient, turn around and then drop off the second order. Clever eh?

Alan looks confused for a moment, looks like he’s about to say something then wisely decides to keep quiet. Alan is learning.

Alan: Right.
Clive: BRILLIANT! Let’s go poach some eggs!

Clive and Alan get in their van and drive away

Andrew Ingram : 12 Jan 2007 14:41 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Redesign

I redesigned my blog, it’s not exactly finished but I wanted to get it online so that I can focus on other things.

Grungy Times

Andrew Ingram : 17 Dec 2006 02:21 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Televisions

Everyone loves televisions, even if they don’t. Crazy!

This year there are some new televisions that are pretty good.

Heroes

Follows the stories of a number of people with emerging special powers, their paths cross in seemingly coincidental ways but so far they haven’t realised it. There’s a few scary people too. It’s an interesting series so far, a bit Unbreakable-esque, the good thing is that despite having these powers, the makers of the show aren’t rushing to get them using them (though fear not, it’s not as slow as Clark’s discovery of new powers in Smallville). Compelling times.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

A long-running comedy show that’s a bit SNL is getting a bit too safe with it’s content and the guy in charge gets angry live on tv and gets fired. Enter sexy new station boss who rehires two ex-members of the team to make it all awesome again, one of these dudes is Matt Perry (aka Chandler) and he’s doing a pretty good job of it. Amusing times.

Shark

Crack defense lawyer develops a conscience after one of the dudes he defends goes on to murder someone. He gets hired by the government people to work for the DA as a prosecutor. It’s good because even though he’s on the other team he still fights dirty. Good times.

Andrew Ingram : 14 Oct 2006 20:35 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pondering Exercise

I’m a pretty fast runner, and by runner I mean sprinter. I played 3 days of Ultimate Frisbee last weekend, constantly sprinting the full length of the pitch to outrun discs, there was at least one sonic boom. The problem is that I don’t have much long-distance endurance so i’m limited to standing around and then bursting into full-sprint for a few seconds. As satisfying as it is to be able outrun anybody on the pitch and make some otherwise impossible catches, it’s a fairly repetitive style of play, so i’m pondering whether I should do some exercise to build up stamina.

I’m moving into Sydenham fairly shortly and their are is a fairly obvious running route I can think of:
– Leave Granny Bungalow
– Follow X12 route to railway bridge
– Turn left up brunswick street
– Rejoin X12 route at St. Helens and proceed back to Granny Bungalow

I found a fancy use of Google Maps which lets you plot running routes and work out distances and calorie burnage, turns out that this route is pretty much exactly 3 miles which I feel is a nice starting point.

Whether I actually do any of this is of course an entirely seperate matter.

The website address is http://www.mapmyrun.com/

I should probably do something about my left shoulder which I have a tendancy to pop out whilst doing my immense backhand throws.

Andrew Ingram : 02 Sep 2006 00:09 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem