(Flickr image from mar00ned)

You know how there are those blogs that are updated regularly, and they have wonderful tutorials on everything? They keep you up to date with the latest trends. They have lots of regular commenters and a community of followers and evangelists?

Yeah. This isn’t one of those blogs. I barely have time to brush my teeth in the morning, and I certainly don’t have time to log in every evening and write something mega-awesome and valuable. Besides, there are plenty of those blogs out there and I encourage you to find them.

No, this is just a sporadic catch up with what’s going on with me. If I stumble across something I find useful then I’ll drop in a piece about it, and if you leave a comment or a question I’ll try to get back to you.

For a current run down on my brain, check out my Tumblog.

If you want a stream of my nonsense, I’m on Twitter.

If you want to read something useful, check out my articles for Think Vitamin.

And if you’re wondering about this lovely theme, it’s from WooThemes.

So hang around and enjoy yourself, but if this place is pointless then don’t blame me :)

rich

Yeah yeah, it’s easy to say “it’s just a big iPhone” and moan about how let down you are about the technology. But you want one. Even if only out of curiosity.

I mean, look at it for goodness sake…

It’s beautiful. Sleek, shiny, sexy. And thin. Nice and thin.

“But you can’t run multiple applications.” I  know, I know, but you will by version 2 or 3. In fact, by version 3 you’ll be queuing outside your local Apple Store for one.

It has faults, sure, but it is still a game-changer. As Steve Jobs said, it’s not a phone and it’s not a netbook – there is a gap for a recretional tablet, and Apple haved filled it first.

We all know that browsing the web on an iPhone (or other smart phone) is difficult because of the screen size. And as much as I love my MacBook my legs get uncomfortably warm if I use it for much more than 30 mins.

The iPad is not for Photoshop. It’s not for productivity. Its for casual use, entertainment even.

And I think we all underestimate the fundamental changes the iPad will make to the experience of browsing the web. Jobs talked about this, but I don’t think he did a great job explaining the feeling of browsing the web with your fingers on the screen. It will be radically different, and it will draw you into a site in a way a mouse or touchpad simply can’t.

That my friends is the difference. The game changer. The iPhone changed our expectations of mobile phones. The iPad will change the experience of browsing the web.

So rather than spending (or wasting) time pulling apart the tech specs of this gorgeous bit of kit, let’s wait until it’s in our sweaty palms as we lie on the couch browsing our favouite news sites. I know it’ll be worth the wait.

Why? Lots of reasons, but mainly because you’re going to see a huge upgrade over the coming weeks and I wanted to be with a host with a great reputation. (mt) is it!

The start of spring means brand new stock for our Travel Store, with new lines of outdoor clothing and travel gear from many of our suppliers. It’s easy enough to put this new stock in a prominent place in our physical shop, but how do we let our online customers know that there are new products available? We can put these new items on our fortnightly mailshot, but of course that’s limited to existing subscribers.

Our shop is increasingly turning to Twitter (@talkontravel) and our blog (www.talkontravel.com) to promote new stock, as well as competitions and travel updates.

Our use of Twitter, like many companies, is still in its infancy. We are slowly building up ‘followers’ as we ‘tweet’ (send out an instant message) about new products, blog updates and, most recently, competitions.

Let’s say we want to tweet the following:

A brand new mailshot has been posted at http://shop.packyourbags.com/Mailshots/2009/pybts-April-3-2009/index.html and includes a chance for you to win a set of Surfanic Thermals!

There are plenty of ways we can improve this tweet. Firstly, we need to shorten it. At 157 characters it’s too long for Twitters 140 character limit.

Next, we can embed tracking code which allows us to monitor how successful a link is. And with URL shorteners like bit.ly, a mouthful like http://shop.packyourbags.com/Mailshots/2009/pybts-April-3-2009/index.html?utm_source=twitter-06-04-09 (notice the tracking code for Index Tools) becomes a much more manageable http://bit.ly/2YJXX.

Let’s take this one step further. When we send this tweet you have to be following @talkontravel to see it – and at the moment this is a rather narrow audience. Enter ‘hashtags’, the frequent tweeters friend. Hashtags are a way to group twitter messages together according to subject matter, similar to the concept of tagging in blogs. Head on over to search.twitter.com, search for #G20, and you’ll find a bunch of tweets about the G20 Summit. You could try #formula1 or even #britneyspears.

So if we tag, or hashtag our tweet there’s a much larger chance it’ll reach a wider audience searching through (amongst other sources) Twitter Search and Monitter. Hashtags aren’t set in stone, and you may need to search around for the most relevant ones for your tweet. This is time well spent, because you’ll be using them again and again.

#outdoorclothing seems to have no interest out there in the Twittersphere, but #travel and #competition are popular hashtags so let’s use them.

Our final Tweet might look something like this:

Our brand new #travel #newsletter includes a #competition where you can win a set of Surfanic Thermals! http://bit.ly/2YJXX

At just 106 characters we can even add in ‘Good Luck!’ and stay under the limit.

We now have a bright and tight tweet which links to our mailshot (with a link we can track) and includes three hashtags which will help expose it to a wider audience.

There are no guarantees with Twitter, but this might just grab you a few extra followers and perhaps a few extra sales too.

Happy Tweeting!

Richard Shepherd
Online Marketing Manager
PackYourBags Travel Store

• Morning all. The Google has been kind to us today, so I’ll repay the favour by not using eXcite. Hold on a cotton pickin’ minute…! #
• Here’s a trip down memory lane… http://www.excite.com. Makes me feel sad, and kinda old :( #
• 37 Places To Get Free Stock Images http://bit.ly/VZUQm #
• Hey, Twitter – show my friggin’ picture already! #
• How did I not know about this?!? http://www.iconfinder.net/ – Hit and miss, but still a great resource. #
• Morning all. More exciting PSD to XHTML/CSS/JS fun today. Who wants in? #
• Is there a ‘fold’ on web pages? A very well known design mag said there was today, so what’s your view? http://twtpoll.com/kztunm #twtpoll #
• Batman Icon’s Mutation – http://bit.ly/JfAGE If you’re into that sort of thing… #
• Settling in for the footie with a pizza and a beer. Jealous? You should be :) #
• Early design rejected for being too controversial: http://twitpic.com/63tdg Back to the drawing board then… #
• Why is all that online marketing crap, the ebooks sold on EXTREMELY LONG web pages with lots of ‘testimonials’, always $97 or $47 ?? #
• FancyBox. My favourite jQuery lightbox window thingy. http://bit.ly/46TYT #
• Microsoft launches Bing.com as its new search engine: http://bit.ly/TXrAl #
• Microsoft launches Bing.com as its new search engine via @latitude_group http://bit.ly/TXrAl #
• Oooh, a Bing screenshot. Looks purty… http://bit.ly/67JRG #
• FFS… “Family see Jesus image in Marmite” http://twurl.nl/h7rjxq #
• If you told me Bing was an elaborate April Fool’s joke by Microsoft, I’d believe you. #
• Who wants to be my 100th follower? You get a signed picture of me eating a chocolate bar of your choice! Don’t be shy now… #selfpromotion #
• Whatever happened to the humble GuestBook? There was a day when every site would have one. I’m considering starting a revival movement… #

Sound familiar? Well never fear, with this tried and trusted list of  seventeen “How to look busy at work” tips !!

1. Always have multiple projects going. That way if your boss starts to wonder why you’re falling behind on one project, you can tell him that you’ve been catching up on another.
2. Create the illusion of furious activity whenever possible. Never have a clean desk. Fill your work area with several projects that you are in the process of doing (or not doing, as the case may be). Cover your desk with open binders, highlighted reports, and sticky notes all over the place—make your workspace look like a war zone. Remember to keep your wastebasket full, too, preferably with work-related debris.
3. Emphasize the tremendous amount of work you’re accomplishing. Talk about your work in dramatic, but plausible terms. Rather than referring to something as “that small project”, call it “the epic quest” or “the gargantuan struggle.” Preempt unfavorable discussion of your progress by reporting every little advance you make as though it were a large step. Never miss a chance to communicate how busy you are.
4. Ask a lot of questions. Think up complex questions about tasks you have to do and ask them of your boss or coworkers. Ask questions frequently enough and everyone will think you’re really wrapped up in whatever task your asking about. Be careful what questions you ask, though: you don’t want to sound incompetent.
5. Fabricate major obstacles or developments that require you to go back to the drawing board. Every once in a while report to your boss that you had nearly finished a whole project, but then you realized that you had to scrap all that you had done because you figured out a better way to do it. This gives the impression that you’re constantly thinking about ways to enhance your productivity in the long run. It also shows that you can overcome any obstacle. Both of these are preferable to saying that you spent too much time writing personal emails.
6. Open several of the applications you normally use for work and have them visible on your computer’s desktop. The applications, of course, vary depending on the nature of your work. For example, if your task is data entry, you should have one or more databases up and running.
7. Be alert. Not working is like playing a sport or game. You’ve got to always be on your toes and ready for anything. Try to anticipate your opponent’s next move—for instance, does your boss always stop by at certain times?—and pay attention to clues (if you hear footsteps approaching, a chair creaking, or a flourish of activity nearby, it could mean trouble).
8. Watch out for Big Brother. Most large companies now monitor their employees’ computer usage. Learn about your company’s policies on internet usage, and learn about their monitoring efforts (it helps to make friends with someone in the IT department). If you can’t run afoul of the company’s policies without making sure you won’t get caught, don’t risk it.
9. Trick the watchers. There are a variety of tricks you can use to fool those who might be monitoring your computer usage. On the frontline, there are free programs you can install that will allow you to have two active desktops on your computer (one for work, one for play) that you can switch between at the touch of a key when you hear the pitter-patter of supervisory feet. You can also defeat this sort of monitoring by positioning your computer in such a way as to block someone else’s view of the screen (blame the unusual positioning on glare or ergonomics, if you need to explain it). Sneakier IT personnel, who monitor usage on the backend, are harder to fool. Use proxies to surf the web, or use cached Google pages of a website instead of going directly to the site. There are also a variety of programs you can get (many for free) specifically designed to help you avoid detection. Search for them on the internet, or check out the external links.
10. Slack off a little bit at a time. If you spend one whole day a week doing nothing, you’ll get caught. But you may be able to waste the same amount of time without getting caught by spreading out your “leisure time.” Take a few minutes here and there to write emails, check the football scores, or surf the net, and then get back to work for several minutes. Rinse, repeat.
11. Place a pencil or pen behind your ear to give the impression that you are writing down so much important information that if it were possible, your hand itself would be a writing instrument. Remember, if your boss walks by your desk on the left side, place the pencil behind your left ear or the effect is lost.
12. Take a stack of industry magazines with you to the bathroom. Mark them up with sticky notes and wrinkle the pages. Once in private, stick a mobile video player (with earphones, of course) in between the pages and watch something more fun. The low-tech version of this trick—hiding your favorite magazine in the pages of a work-related publication—is a schoolboy classic and can work effectively even at your desk.
13. Visit friends in different departments, leaving your workspace very “busy” looking. However, make sure that you have a work-related topic to initiate the conversation and return to if a supervisor walks by. For instance, tell the person next to you that you are going to double check something with someone from a different department. What you’re really doing is providing yourself with an excuse if your boss wonders where you were for a little while. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wanted to double check and make sure both of our departments were on the same page about the new ad campaign, I know it’s an important issue and I would hate to have any mix-ups.”
14. Drink lots of water. Not only is water good for your health and can combat certain types of cancer, it makes you have to use the bathroom a lot. Bathroom trips can take up a lot of time and are a legitimate way to waste time while still looking busy.
15. Create meetings in Outlook with realistic sounding names. These can buy you a good chunk of time, and if your boss asks, you can say you went all the way to the meeting and no one showed, so you just worked on some paperwork since you had the conference room.
16. For a good catch-all, open a couple programs that you use daily. Make sure that all are visible and fill up your screen so you look busy. Then, take a screen shot using the “Print Scrn” button, open MS Paint, paste the image in, then save and set that image as your desktop background. You may also want to hide most of your desktop icons, as this could be a dead giveaway. Even if your computer is on the desktop, it’ll look as if you are deep into work!
17. Always, always carry a backup prop. If you’re going to be away from your desk doing something other than work, carry a document you might have been reading with you. It’s best if it’s a “long term project” that you can convincingly say you were finally getting to.

If you have any more then share them with the rest of the class by leaving a comment.

Ranger, out.

Welcome to Growling Ranger Design, home of needless php, WordPress and Javascript stuff. And general rubbish from inside the head of Richard Shepherd.

You may wonder where on earth you are, because you were after www.richardshepherd.com. Well Zed’s dead baby, Zed’s dead. Everything you need to find, or were probably looking for, is right here under the roof of The Ranger.

Things of note are the WordPress Widget tutorials, FlickrBox, and isMobile.

Next up… tutorials to build a Twitter widget, just like you see here in the top right. The Ranger keeps it simple, and then points you in the direction of further reading.

Ha-teeeeeen-SHUN! Ranger. Out.

In fact, are you a charity or do you work for one?

I’m looking to do some pro-bono work, which basically means a free website (re)design for a non-profit organisation. I’m more likely to devote my time to a smaller organisation who perhaps can’t afford a whizz-bang web agency’s fees, so if you (or anyone you know) fits the bill then please get in touch.

You can reach me at mail@richardshepherd.com.

In the words of the somewhat bizarre Ringo Starr, “Peace and love”.

Still, just because I don’t own a mac doesn’t mean to say that I can’t live the mac dream. In fact, with Huey Lewis ably assisted by The News anything is possible. ‘The Power of Love’ really doesn’t age, much like Michael J Fox.

We’re just hours away from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hitting stores. Excited? I wonder if it was written on a mac? I’m guessing so. The New York Times has ruined things by printing an early review. It made the rather good point that it reviews books when they are on sale (which it has been in certain scrupulous places) and that it is not in the business of supporting book publishers marketing campaigns. But that’s a load of Hogwarts. Scholastic really doesn’t have to do anything to market the book other than publicise the date. Children and adults will buy it in droves. I applaud the efforts to keep the plot a secret, so that everyone can have their own magic moment as they read the opening lines of chapter one. Why ruin that? It’s like printing a front page article about Santa Claus’s true identity. There is very little real magic left in the world, so why ruin it? Let those that love the Harry Potter books discover it on their own terms. I can hardly believe a review of this final Potter book will affect its sales in any way whatsoever.

So, whether you read Potter or not, reclaim that magic. The magic of the first chapter of a new book. The magic of opening your favourite chocolate bar at the movies. The magic of wearing a new item of clothing for the first time. The simple pleasures in life. Here’s to yours!