So, to pre-empt this tech defining moment in history I thought I’d write down my top ten must have list of features  the the Apple iTablet (or iSlate), so here they are (in no particular order):

1. Design Style – It is hard to dispute the fact that (Historically) whenever Apple have launched a new product they have done so with a fair amount of fanfare and flag waving. Obviously, a lot of this is all part of Apple’s marketing hoopla, however, I also think it generally does this because a lot of the time it develops and launches products that have the “wow” factor. Apple is known not only for its attention to function but also because of its attention to form. The iSlate, if it is to be a sucess, must not disappoint in this regard.

2. Awesome UI – In the way that we all love Apple for the effort it undeniably puts into the design of its products, we are all similarly used to its exceptional ability to produce products that are so intuitive  that this “ease of use” supplants the need for a complicated manual. For the iSlate to be a market defining piece of technology it must not forget all the lessons it has learned in UI design over the past 33 years.

3. Light enough to be portable - This is quite straightforward. We are going to want to carry the iSlate  in our briefcases, rucksacks, handbags, carrier bags and suitcases and although we want it to be big enough to keep zooming and scrolling to a minimum, it also has to be small enough (or thin enough) for us not to think twice about if we carry it with us or not.

4. Big enough to read a whole web-page - The iSlate has to be designed to read websites and e-books easily. The whole point of the device (unless I am mistaken) is to create something which takes the concept of an e-reader to the next level by integrating ease of use and portability with all that is good with current web standards. If the screen is too small then I will have to spend too much time scrolling and zooming to read text and that surely misses the point.

5. Rugged - Apple, please make the iSlate rugged enough not to make me worried about it too much. Obviously, I am not planning to run over it in my car or spill hot coffee over it but I know for a fact that my children will (at some stage) get hold of it and that it will (at some stage) find itself in a state of freefall towards my lounge carpet. I’d also not like to have to purchase plastic screen guards or expensive cases and I’d also like to be able to take it to the beach in order to read the latest John Grisham or Dan Brown blockbuster where it will invariably see a bit of sand.

6. Excellent Battery Life – Let’s be honest. For all of us who love the iPhone the one thing we have to admit to our Blackberry waving peers is that the battery life is shockingly bad. For it to be a sucess the iSlate must address the issue of battery life head-on. It needs to provide at least a 8-hour battery life if it is to compete with the likes of the Kindle and Nook for a slice of the e-book pie, saving the requirement of having to carry around a bulky PSU and hunt around for a power socket to use.

7. Flash Support – Again (sorry to be pernickety Mr Jobs) but apart from the battery life, the one thing currently missing on the iPhone is support for Adobe Flash. Now I have read all the reasons why the iPhone will never support Flash and also reports (more recently) that maybe the iPhone will have some kind of Flash support albeit in a drastically cut down format. However, for the iSlate to be truly unbeatable it must offer seemless integration with web technologies that are in use on a lot of sites out there. Flash is one of these technologies.

8. Wi-fi & 3G – Obviously these things go without saying.

9. Zero boot-up – OK “zero” boot-up might be a little too much to expect, but if the iSlate is to stand head and shoulders above the competition which invariably will come, it needs that almost instantaneous “power-up” feel of the iPhone. If we have to wait for the thing to boot-up (even if only for a few seconds) then we may think twice about switching it on before getting on the train or leaving the house and this may then make it less likely for the iSlate to become an indispensible part of our tech-kit.

10. Affordable - This is a difficult one. You see, I know the iSlate will be more than an e-book reader and I also know that the iSlate will be less than a fully featured laptop, but just how much would I / we be willing to pay for it. Internet rumours currently waver between $399 and $1000 respectively, which (given Apple’s usual pricing technique) will mean it will cost between £399 and £1000 in the UK. As a guess, I think the iSlate will be no more than $599 and will probably come out slightly lower, would I buy one at this price? Probably.

So to this end I would like to throw some bold ranking goals out there for BeSupported in 2010 and this post will serve as a reminder as to what we set out to achieve!

A few months after joining BeSupported I did some SEO and link building work on our site specifically around the terms SEO Surrey, Search Engine Surrey etc and as Google does, they pushed us up the rankings pretty quickly then we stopped working on this (paid work comes first) and guess what….after a month or so those first page rankings had all but disappeared!

For a great explanation of what happened and things you can do to get around this see Rand’s SEOmoz video on Link Growth Patterns below:

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Link Growth Patterns from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

So what are we going to be doing this year….

1. Be consistent with our search engine marketing
2. Attain and maintain first page rankings for the local terms such as searching engine marketing, Surrey, Hampshire etc BUT more specifically focus on the ones that actually convert to business (more on this in future posts)
3. Get a higher percentage of new business via our website and social media
4. Use more video and audio &
5. Be honest, ethical and have fun – as per usual!

Here’s to a productive and prosperous 2010!

Alarm bells started to ring when on calling the number I reached (what appeared to be) an answerphone for a specific lady (not very professional). After leaving my message, the lady phoned me back within the hour (a little better).  However, she then proceeded to tell me that although she received my order she hadn’t received payment from Paypal and because of this hadn’t shipped my order…aargh. A few problems with this (other budding e-commerce entrepreneurs please note):

1. It is not the customers responsibility? – why should the customer not be able to accept that an order confirmation from the company is a guarantee that all is well. Apparently, I should have received 2 confirmations, one from PayPal and one from the company. Obviously, if I had have thought about this in a little more detail maybe I should (with my experience) have expected this  but really, a normal customer..I don’t think so.
2. The customer is always King – Accepted, a lot of e-commerce vendors out there are small (sometimes just one person) with aspirations of being and appearing bigger. However, no matter how small you are customer service is paramount. This begins with the “after-sales” follow-up, i.e. if you don’t receive the normal confirmations, why not contact the customer just to check all is OK? This committment to customer then continues through to how calls are answered. Clearly my experience shows that many vendors have a long way to go.
3. Mistakes happen – deal with it – Obviously, I understand that mistakes happen. I certainly have made enough in my time and probably will continue to do so. However, when they do, isn’t it better to try to placate with an aplogy and an offer of compensation? Taking a defensive stand is never a good option and I have sometimes ended a difficult call with a better relationship purely because of the way i have handled it.

So there you go. I love e-commerce and if i could think of something I’d really like to sell I’d have a go myself. But the same basic rules of customer service apply. Shortcuts not allowed. Rant over. Now where did I put that Argos catalogue…

So, if I am not ever going to actually own a swimming pool why am I telling you about them (I hear you ask). Well I suppose with my “Ethical” and “Environmental” head on it is nice to know that there are companies out there trying to make even life’s luxuries a little better for the planet. Also another reason for telling you about Clear Water Revival is that a local Surrey-based garden landscaping company (that I have recently done a small amount of work for) that I also respect and admire called Transform Landscapes is one of the local representatives for this system.

Take a look at their website (and Transform’s while you are at it) and if you happen to know anyone that is in line for a new pool or garden (or both) or is looking to convert their old pool or garden (or both)…you know where to point them.

As well as the public engagements he is involved in a number of other activities such as being a director of Prison Fellowship International, executive director of The Trinity Forum in Europe; and Honorary President of Christian Solidarity Worldwide. In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Centre for Social Justice’s policy study group on Prison Reform.

Personally, I have the utmost admiration and respect for the man. Why don’t you take a look at his site. Read his blog and make your own mind up.

Over the past few years I have noticed that the amount of spam has been steadily increasing in my inbox. This includes the obvious “viagra” and “cialis” stuff which in itself (as long as you don’t open any attachments or click on any links) is pretty harmless, but also the amount of other “junk” has also been increasing. This includes emails pretending to be my bank, emails sent under the guise of “subscribed” newsletters with no noticeable means of “unsubscribing” and lastly (but not least) emails I term “urban legend” mailings. These emails are generally sent by friends who are taken in by a request to pass on a shoking story to their entire address book in order to inform people as a kind of public service.

To this effect I have started to use an email “pre-filtering” service called Bopspam. Bopspam collects your email from your server, performs some filtering of your email messages keeping those it considers spam and then allowing you to download the genuine messages to your inbox. Although there is a certain amount of set-up and learning to get this working, I have to say that it is pretty good. All emails classified as “junk” are retained until deleted from their server by you and mail which is wrongly identified can be re-classified by you via a simple user interface.

Give it a go. In the words of Del Boy…”You know it makes sense”.

Anyway, the three weeks spent setting up large machines, cleaning large machines, watching large machines and sweeping up after large machines didn’t really make me a printing fan. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t harbour any major deep-rooted (lie down on the couch and tell me about it) hatred for the process either, I just regarded it as a process. And quite a boring one at that.

Recently however, I have started using moo.com. Moo is a new kind of printing company which tries to inject a slice of creativity and fun into the whole printing process. Moo.com allows ordinary people (like you and me) to get creative with printing on a relatively small and inexpensive scale. What makes moo.com special is that it Integrates with a lot of the current social networking sites such as Facebook and Flickr, making it really easy to get your creative efforts into print.

Since discovering moo.com, I have found myself trying to find new ways to use the service they provide. Their packaging is superb and they are moving in the right environmentally-friendly direction. Why not give them a go. Printing has just got funky!

Although (as I said) predominantly used to track the stock on our major retailers shelves, RFID technology has come in for some major scrutiny recently as its use to track not objects but people have been discussed, either through the direct placement of RFID tags on passports for instance or because (by their very nature) many RFID tags applied to products still remain functional after they have left the shop.

Whatever the long term implications of this technology, it wasn’t going to be long before RFID technology was packaged to the general public as a new gadget to exploit in a whole host of situations. Tikitag is the first (as far as I am aware) of these products. Consisting of a set of “tikitags” and a “reader”. Users can add the sticky tags to a whole host of objects and in essence use these in conjunction with the reader to perform a number of different actions on the computer. These can range from tags which are programmed to automatically open a webpage which can be placed on hi-tech business cards to tags which automatically send an SMS message when scanned by the reader.

Although fascinating, the site looks to me as though it is a solution looking for a problem. To be of long-term use, tikitag readers have to be ubiquitous otherwise the person receiving the business card with the tikitag on it will not have the technology to exploit your nifty gizmo. It is also clear from the site that they are sort of looking to us to provide the problems, which in a way is quite exciting. So, are you interested? Do you want to become an early adopter of this technology? According to tikitag the technology “is only limted by your imagination.” So what is the limit of yours…

I thought I’d start by pointing you in the direction of a new website I have just found. It is called “a good place for a cup of tea and a think.” This site sort of encompasses everything I like about the internet as it provides us with useful information on the aforementioned subject in a very easily accessible, understated way.

None of your flashy graphics here, just down to earth, honest information about places where you can get a decent cuppa and be left alone to ponder the deep things of life. Why don’t you have a look? Although the site may contain places that you can’t physically get to for a cup of tea, the very essence of this site challenges the modern convention for faceless coffee shops and shows us that the ordinary things of life can be celebrated!