Colin attended the event and received our very shiny award… next time we’ll send him with a bag so that he doesn’t have to carry it half way across London – it’s actually very heavy!

It is absolutely critical when developing a form that must convert well to accept pretty much anything in the form. For example if I want to write “15,000? or even “£15,000? in the amount box for my insurance, then let me! Don’t tell me it’s wrong, because it isn’t.

So here’s a big hint to form developers on business-critical forms that must convert well: don’t be lazy – let the customer enter whatever they like, and try and interpret the data the best you can. Even better – if you can’t truly determine what the user has entered, provide some feedback.

The issue here is that automated handling of data is never going to be as accurate as a real person checking over things. When validating form fields, we need to do the best job we can to make what the user has entered into something that we understand, and not just throw a wobbly if we can’t understand it – as I say in the original article, provide some useful feedback to the customer and help them out as much as possible!

Click here to read the original article.

Power couldn’t make it (and so neither could I), Kelvin’s not allowed and Chris lives in Brighton so he said he’d only go if Sii were to give him a lift home afterwards – he’s done it before, and it’s not that far really!

I then said, “well, if you’re going all the way to Brighton, you could just drop me off in Wantage on your way back so I can go and see my sister for the weekend, rather than spending 2 and a half hours on the train.”

Sii said “No, I have to be home for 9 when my mate Rich arrives”. “He lives in Richmond, doesn’t he?” I note “that’s on the way from Brighton to Wantage. Ish. – You could pick him up too and you’ll be back by 9 anyway!”

Doubting my skillful directions and win geography, Sii asked me to plan his route on Google and see what would happen…

Ok, so it’s 237 miles, and he’d be home 11 rather than 9, but still… my weekend would have had a great start!

Meh.

If I was looking for a reason to switch to a mac…
I think I would have just found it.

Well done James!!

Look at the incredible commitment of this Netbasic employee. He saw no need to spend time ironing on an ironing board, and decided instead to iron the collar of his shirt while wearing it – is there no limit to his passion?!

The whole move was done within a few hours and was a little bit hectic, but our shiny new VOIP phones kept our spirits up with their handy built in motivational tactics!

Nevertheless, we are happy to be back together as you can see, and I can finally become part of the “bat” display we have going on…

Me: “Chris, give me two million quid.”

Chris: “Only if you give me four.”

Unfortunately, I only have 30p on me, but Jon and Sii managed to put together a loan of £4 for me. I’m ready to do the exchange – £4 for £2 million, but for some reason Chris seems hesitant…

Anyway, it’s official that Chris owes me £2,000,000, and I have Sii and Jon as witnesses.

Almost every morning someone makes toast in the office, and when one person has some everybody ends up being lured to the kitchen by the smell.

I’m not a big toast person but every now and then I’ll make a toasted cheese and marmite sandwich instead, and today was one of those days. At least it was until I found out that Sii had eaten all the bread!

So what was I to do? I had cheese, but no toast and that’s just not right! So like most inventive people I improvised and made a cheese sandwich with a difference…

I had cheese, and all I needed was some crunchy carb’s to go with it.

Luckily, earlier in the day I nicked the marketing department’s box of crisps and as a result, happened to have a pack of  Ready Salted Walkers to hand.

So, I put two and two together and present the amazing, the spectacular, breadless cheese and crisp sandwich

Dr. Atkins would be proud!!!

Roll on heart disease…

In fact, over the past year, I haven’t really suffered much A3 stress. Sure, it’s a long trip, but mostly, it’s been trouble-free. So, to celebrate my imminent third (and even more sensible) move next month, I present my final A3 rant: Hammer Lane access to the A3 southbound is a joke (as of this morning).

When I first moved to Haslemere, I used the red route to get to the A3; easy-peasy 2 minutes. Then about 2 months ago, they closed my little cut-through and I had to revert to the blue route; still pretty easy, just a couple of minutes longer because of the sharp left turn.

However today, when I started off on the blue route as usual, I noticed that the southbound traffic had been diverted over to the other side of the dual carriageway. OK, cool – “I’ve got my own private road”, I thought, and made my way down the open road towards the point where the two southbound lanes would obviously converge.

Except, they didn’t.
The road just ends. With a hotel.

So I pulled into the hotel car park and turned around, at the exact same moment, 3 other cars arrived and the confusion on their faces said it all. “What the hell is going on?” “How do I get to the A3!?”

We all turned around and set off back up my ‘private road’, back onto Hammer Lane and then followed the signs (that we’d all missed when we’d turned into Hammer Lane the first time because they were facing the wrong way) “A3 traffic Portsmouth / London”. They took us under the A3 and made us join the incredibly slow-moving northbound traffic!

All I said to myself while I was heading round the slip road was “I don’t want to go to Hindhead!!”. It would take forever!

So, I took a right at the next opportunity, spun a u-turn and then queued to rejoin the A3 southbound. So about 15 minutes after I joined the A3, I passed the same point again, but this time on a road that would not ‘run out’.

The A3 fails. But hopefully, for me – for the last time.

http://www.answers.com/efficacy

n.
Power or capacity to produce a desired effect; effectiveness.

[Latin effic?cia, from effic?x, effic?c-, efficacious. See efficacious.]

The more we learn about people, and how our brains process information, the more we learn the truth of that phrase: form and function aren’t separate items. If we believe that style somehow exists independent of functionality, that we can treat aesthetics and function as two separate pieces, then we ignore the evidence that beauty is much more than decoration. Our brains can’t help but agree.

Just 5 minutes after I read the article I opened up Safari to test one of our sites in, and saw a great big shiny blue button advertising the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 software on the apple startpage.

Ok, yes, the graphics are quite cool, but what drew my attention was the list of new features Apple will be adding to the iPhone/iPod Touch, including:

* Search your iPhone
* Cut, copy, and paste
* Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS*
* Read and compose email and text messages in landscape

Apparently, “For iPhone owners, it just keeps getting better” – that’s right – it’s getting so much better that after a year and a half, iPhone users will finally be able to do things other phones/PDAs have been already been doing for years!

I’m thinking someone at Apple should read Anderson’s articles and get them to spend a little less time faffing around with flashy graphics, and a little more time on functionality…

Come on Apple, sort it aaaaht.

James and I would like to thank everyone at Netbasic for the fantastic gifts for her – admittedly, I want the teddy for myself, but I suppose Freyja can have it *Hmph*

James will be returning to work in a week – I don’t know how I’ll cope changing all the nappies on my own – it will be interesting to say the least, and I daresay James will be returning home to a very smelly warzone, but tough.

She’s beginning to stir – I guess I should get on with feeding the poor mite. I think her last feed is all over my knee being dribbled out of her soggy nappy.

Happy Easter everyone!

Wishful thinking maybe?

Anyway, if you notice any problems with the website, just get in touch and I’ll check them out!

04:05:06 07/08/09

This will not happen again for a thousand years. I wonder who will decide to work out whether or not that last statement is true.

Help Secure Jacks Place @ Naomi House

Once again Sii is running everywhere in an effort to make himself fit enough for another sponsored marathon.

This time, he’s trying to raise money for jacksplace@naomihouse. Naomi House provide respite care, terminal care and bereavement support for children, young people and their families. Netbasic organised a trip last year to visit the hospice, and it’s really good to see what a fantastic job they are doing there.

Jack’s Place is a multi-million pound project to create an entire new building to provide support for young people. Because of the financial crisis, Naomi house, like many charities, are currently going through a really hard time – they have a huge amount of funds at risk in the bank – and are campaigning to secure the funds that the hospice rely on to keep giving support for children with life-limiting and terminal illnesses.

Radio 4 will be airing a programme called Seven Days tonight at 8pm, which I hope will raise awareness for Naomi House’s campaign.

In the mean time you can help right now by sponsoring Sii’s run – it’s for a really good cause and your donation really will be appreciated, and will go towards buying a door that will allow the young people to go where they please, see their friends, or pop out in the garden for some fresh air – just like you and I can whenever we want.

Help Secure Jacks Place @ Naomi House

If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Why is a man who invests all your money called a broker?

When cheese gets it picture taken, what does it say?

What hair colour do they put on the drivers licence of bald men?

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but the person who drives a racing car not called a racist?

Why isn’t the number 11 pronounced onety one?

and finally

If a convenience store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the door?

Hospice has something to cheer after bank troubles

Followed of course by that good ‘ol victorian favourite – the ergonomic keyboard!

If you go to a lawyer they’ll charge you a fee to do some trademark searches, because with the level of complication of the Trademark Search Engine you’d need to have done a course to use it! Surely if the search engine wasn’t as complicated we could do it ourselves and save a fee? Try it for yourself now!

Apologies for the photo quality, the iphone’s camera isn’t great. It’s an awesome piece of kit with moving pistons, a limited slip differential and even gull wing doors that use pistons to open up on their own.

My birthday’s since have involved a multiple choice questionnaire to see whether I qualify for a birthday present, and of course each time I have failed. Here’s hoping November 2009 will get the present flow back on track.

Don’t come to us though, first you’ll need to speak to Jo Curtis at Hays Recruitment – find out more about the role here.

A SENIOR MOMENT

A 98 year old woman in the UK wrote this to her bank. The bank manager thought it sufficiently amusing to have it published in
the Times. Lets hope he also did the right thing by his customer…

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I
endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three
‘nanoseconds’ must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and
the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of
course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement,
which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years. You are
to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also
for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience
caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has
caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I
personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to
contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging,
pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on,
I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.

My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be
automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally
and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.
Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person
to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact
Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it
runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her
as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that
all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a
Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation
(income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by
documented proof.

In due course, I will issue your employee with PIN number which he/she
must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than
28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses
required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.
As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press
buttons as follows:

1 – To make an appointment to see me.

2 – To query a missing payment.

3 – To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4 – To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5 – To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6 – To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7 – To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer
is required. A password will be communicated to you at a later date to
the Authorized Contact.)

8 – To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through to 8.

9 – To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put
on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While
this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play
for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an
establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client

(Remember: This was written by a 98 year old woman;
DOESN’T SHE MAKE YOU PROUD!)

As the rest of the company were away on the annual skiing holiday we arranged for various members of staff and volunteers from Naomi House Children’s Hospice and our bank manager to attend as our guests. The awards are run by The News, with various local companies sponsoring each category, Sally Taylor – the face of BBC South Today – was the compare.

Netbasic received three nominations: Business of the Year, Small Business of the Year and Achiever of the Year. Luke was the overall winner of Achiever of the Year 2008 and Netbasic won Highly Commended Small Business of the Year 2008.

To say I was nervous about the possibility of going on stage in front of nearly 500 people to receive the awards would be an understatement! Sii produced this video from the ski slopes of Meribel, France to be shown when Luke’s award was announced.

Netbasic was the only company to have received 3 nominations and to win 2 awards – didn’t we do well. Congratulations all round!

Here I am in my throne with Maurice while the peoples are worshipping me!

What a mug! May he rest in pieces.

However, I am taking solace in the fact that we’re departing for our ski trip in just 15 days… that, and it’s Friday today, and that means tomorrow Hannah is having her 4D bonding scan so that we can actually see our little baby in 3D! I’ll get a picture up on Monday hopefully.

Anyway – it’s a new year, and at Netbasic we’ve got loads of work to do as always. I’m sure the year will be packed full of fun and joy (and Sii beating me up…), so I think I speak on behalf of everyone in wishing everyone reading this a happy and prosperous new year!

Check out this Christmas card from our friends at MNC. It’s made by one of their clients Moonpig.com, and I’m sure most of you have now seen at least one of their TV adverts for Moonpig. I’m singing their catchy / annoying theme tune as I write!

Anyway, thanks to the team at MNC – it made me chuckle!

This year as everyone in the office seems to be on a Curly Wurly binge I decided to try and make a Curly Wurly vodka for Christmas. So, one lunch time we went to Sainsbury’s and I bought a bottle of cheap vodka (well vodkat – whatever that is) and a pack of 5 Curly Wurlys.

When we got back I cut the Curly Wurlys into pieces, put them into the bottle of vodkat and then left it for a good 3-4 weeks to dissolve – niiiice.

The result is something that smells like Baileys and looks like vomit, but with a bit of straining I’m sure we’ll have a knockout product to consume… more on this once I’ve found some filter papers!

If you can sell, are a graduate and have been working for over a year then we need you. As an Account Manager in the commercial team at Netbasic you will be trained to manage one of our websites. A good understanding of the Internet or all-things-techy would be a useful quality – but we’ll give you full online marketing training, so don’t worry about lack of experience in online business in your working life so far.

Are you the sales team member who always beats their targets and the team around them? Do you want to feel like you’re running your own business, but with all the benefits of working for a company? At Netbasic each member of the commercial team is given their own website to manage – and it could be you!

All this includes a basic of £25k per year with a £40k per year OTE. Benefits include pension, life cover, private medical and of course our annual ski trip. As I’ve been a young parent myself we also have a very flexible attitude to childcare.

So does this all sound good? Well get writing… send a covering letter or email plus your CV to me at luke@netbasic.co.uk now!

The trip is now only 5 weeks away, but for snow junkies like myself that’s far to long. Fortunately, the guys at Merinet help pass the time by publishing regular snow updates and photos of the valleys.

One of my favorites photos so far this season is this one, taken yesterday at the peak of Mount Saulire:

You can find more photos of Meribel here

It’s literally the fuel behind what we do everyday, a great screen-breaker and soother of stresses, but determining who makes the tea is quite another story…

Lacking an official tea boy (or girl for that matter) or an on tap supply/drip, we have to take turns making the tea for everyone, and this can lead to what amounts to all out war in the office, usually resulting in something like this (with varying levels of ‘language‘):

Who did it last?
I made it last!
No you didn’t, I made it last!
Yes I Did!
No You Didn’t!
It’s YOUR turn!
Just Do It!

And then silence until someone actually decides they need a cuppa and does it for everyone

Thankfully though, this should no longer be the case thanks to good ol‘ web 2.0 and makethetea.com

We now have an independent way of logging the tea making, fairly deciding who should make it and publicly naming and shaming the slackers via our group’s stats page: http://www.makethetea.com/#/group/1179/statistics/

Not only that, but it works like a league table and as of the time of writing we’re 600th in the Global Brew Rankings!

So no more arguments, no more indecision, just make a brew request and let the web do its magic!

We’ll be at No. 1 in no time

Thanks very much to Hamish and his team at Fasttrack for a great evening – and hope some of the contacts we made there help us to continue with the success we have experienced before.

$out = number_format($val,0);
$out = (int) @floor($val);

Interestingly, we ran a real-world test case of 10 million iterations of doing each of these, and it turns out that method #2 is approximately 0.5 seconds quicker. So there you have it, if you want to be 0.5 seconds quicker when removing decimal places from a number 10 million times.. then use the second method.

• F for Freddy
• U for Uncle
• N for November
• T for T

I personally think this should replace the NATO phonetic alphabet. Bravo, Kelvin.

Today was the day of my latest scan, and at 20 weeks, I’m half way through. It seems to have flown by – James and I are still waiting for it to actually sink in properly – we are going to be parents in 4 months!

And, with the latest revelation that our baby has no evidence of a winky – and therefore may in fact be a girl, despite being told it was a boy a few weeks ago – it looks like we need to think of some girl’s names that we can actually agree on, else she may be called Baby Girl for the rest of her days. Either way, we are not far away from being very proud parents. Can’t wait!

For anyone that doesn’t know, Naomi House is a charity that supports kids who have got life-limiting illnesses, helping their families during the hard times too.  As their website says, they’re there for “the good days, difficult days and last days” and taking a trip to a place like this really does make you appreciate how lucky you are. It’s an unbelievable place and Netbasic donate a considerable amount of money to the cause every year, so we figured it was about time to go along and see how it all helps. 

Before the visit, I thought Naomi House sounded like a good cause but actually going there, meeting some of the children and seeing what a great job the charity does, I think a few of us realised that Naomi House is more than just a good cause.  It’s amazing, truly amazing, and I for one am incredibly proud that I work for a company that gives something back to an enormously deserving and worthy place like Naomi House.

You can find out more about Naomi House by visiting their website.

As a warm-up before the seafood starter, a variation of the Higher/Lower game was played, with Jon making it into the final few onstage. He made it to the semi-finals, but unfortunately he didn’t know the exchange rate for the Zimbabwean dollar well enough. A nice fishy meal, an uplifting performance from the ACM Gospel Choir, and rich dessert with a star-shaped chocolate morsel followed, accompanied by a number of glasses of wine. There was then an extremely moving video about a girl called Courtney (pictured above), who battled with cancer for some time and unfortunately passed away at the tender age of 7. After this, there was the charity auction that included a signed guitar by Sting, signed Harry Potter DVD & Book, and loads more – all in a good cause! The silent auction was presented by flamboyant interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, which was followed by the Tony Hadley band. During this, I decided to get us some cigars, but the only cigars the hotel had were nice expensive £10… so we had four of them. Unfortunately this got me into trouble as I told Hannah they were £1… oops…

New Chris was celebrating, after passing his 3 months probation, while the rest of us were drowning our sorrows at being stuck with the big man for the foreseeable future

James was blithering on about some film I should watch before The Great South Run on Sunday, and going on and on about ‘Hitting the wall’ and ‘Getting through the wall’ and ‘Being the wall’, while Jon was starting to feel more and more sleepy.

Sarah was still trying to figure out if she actually did need some new windows after all, while Jake was deciding how many times he needed to look like he was leaving, before it was actually OK to leave.

So, we eventually left the pub and dropped Old Chris at the station ahead of his long journey home. Then Jon and I went and bought our Winza (a pizza made of win) so that we could just shove it in the oven after our game of tennis.

Now tennis, to re-cap, Jon was 5-2 up in the 3rd set and about to win the match. Which, despite all my efforts, he did. Then we got the 4th set underway with some great rallies, some terrible serves and shots with so much time to plan, that we inevitably failed to deliver.

But then something strange happened…. it was 2 games each in the 4th, and we were playing some great tennis. This was a real competition. After being 40-love down, Jon fought his way back to deuce. He’d worked really hard to pull it back and there was no way he was going to let that winning ball land in.

At least, in his mind, there was ‘no way’.

Three things got in his way; gravity, a wall, and the undeniable fact that Jon isn’t actually Super.

1) A paramedic 2) Nasty head-wound 3) Obligatory swearing 4) Skirt.

Jon One, 26 and born 18th June 1987, was attended to by paramedics court-side at about half eight on Tuesday evening.

“Running for tennis ball. Collided into wall. Not KO’d”

Jon Two, 26 and born 18th May 1982, was attended to by a paramedic in his front room at about 10pm on Tuesday evening.

“This PM, while playing tennis, accidentally fell into a wall hitting his head and elbow. Not KO’d”

Two different Jons got to the ball.
The point still counted.
I won the game.

In not very much time from now, I’m going to be running the 10 mile Bupa Great South Run in my old town of Portsmouth. If you’d like to come and support me, I’d love to see you there (for a pint afterwards, or maybe just to help me back to my car!!)

I’ve set up a handy fundraising page. I know it’s quite late in the day – but I’ve been busy! … ahem…. training. Yes, training. Well I’ve done 3 runs and I was planning to run this evening, but it was miserable and gloomy outside and I’m a wuss – but don’t let that put you off making a donation!

Don’t forget http://www.justgiving.com/siicockerill

PS. Those 3 runs do total almost 18 miles!

UPDATE: For how I got on, read here.

We all thought that was bad, but then arrived this morning and saw this gem:

How much of a rush do you have to be in to have to park abandon your car like that?! I mean seriously, you could park 3 of those things in one spot!

Fail.

I’m not the only one who is ill though, Chris was the originator, and he’s passed it onto Sii, Jon and myself. In turn I’ve passed it onto Hannah, and its likely Jon has passed it onto Jake has he had a lift this morning. What makes this worse, in a matter of minutes, we’ll all be going into our weekly meeting and spreading the lung death throat destroying illness even further.

It appears that either Chris has a kindred spirit or he has been moo-nlighting over in America at the weekend…

From Metro.co.uk News:

“A US woman will spend the next month in prison after chasing terrified children through an Ohio town dressed as a cow.
Michele Allen was hired to wear the outfit to promote a local “haunted trail” theme park in Middletown, but got drunk at work on the Saturday evening and caused chaos, chasing kids and bringing traffic to a halt.

She also urinated in a nearby yard during her rampage, police said.

Allen refused to calm down once taken to the local police station and according to police was yelling and challenging people to ’suck her udders’.

Visit the Metro to read the full unbelievable story!

Quinny in action:

Is Netbasic really getting fit? There seems to be a lot of talk about tennis, running, gym sessions, swimming and personal training and I do believe quite a few are having a go at one or more of these sports. I have decided after 17 months of no exercise that it is certainly time to do something about my lack of fitness. Quinny and I are going to go swimming every Tuesday lunchtime. Anyone wanna join us?

On a positive note it is good to see that we aren’t getting obsessed with getting fit as there is also a lot of eating of biscuits, crisps and by the look of it, McDonalds.

Looks like we have the balance just right!

Bit odd for half nine on a Monday morning you’d be forgiven for thinking, but the silly smirks are more than justified as we’ve just discovered we’ve been placed at the dizzy heights of number three in the prestigious The Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100!

This illustrious league table is published annually and ranks Britain’s fasting growing private tech companies over the last three years. And with sales that have rocketed 235% a year, from £255,000 in 2004 to £9.6 million in 2007, Netbasic definitely deserves its place in the top three.

So a big fat well done to everyone who played a part in Netbasic’s success and here’s to many more years of the same. Cheers!

Today Hannah and I decided as it is a nice day and it’s sunny, that we’d have McDonalds (other fast food brands available) for lunch. Unfortunately, everyone else cottoned on to that, and wanted a piece of the action, resulting in a car full… eep! We eat healthily normally, promise! …Actually, Chris was just very hungry and wanted a BIG lunch!!!

Lord help me.

The site contains much more search functionality across a range of loan and loan types, provides customers with their own credit score and gives an insight into the rating of their local neighbourhood.

There’s still a fair bit to do to polish the site off, with loads more functionality still to put in. But for now we’re very proud of her, and hope you like her too!

Caroline, Sarah and I also just got our full-sized WeeMees presented to us (I believe the girls have been waiting for some time for theirs!), so we feel even more at home here at Netbasic. Anyway, despite the rest of the guys being busy, it doesn’t mean that I’m not busy, so I must get on with my work!!

So, we’ve been busy busy over the last few days weeks months, working our little socks off, trying to build the next best thing, and you know what? It shows.

Read this.

How long ago was that?

Now, I’ve been in the ‘white beast’ on numerous occasions, as have many of the team here, making the daily trip to Sainsbury’s (other supermarkets are available) to purchase lovely and ‘hyper’-inducing food stuffs that help us through the hard graft of the after lunch hours…. but where’s the reveal? When will we find out what lurks beyond the ’stripy blur’ that vanishes from the car park at the end of each day?

Come on mate, sort it out.

We’re waiting.

I’m a little upset as that stuff is expensive, and there’s no water. Not only that, they did a botch job and it’s just very weak pink stuff… I think the water cooler man is going to have a fit…

We also say “Au Revoir!” to Sam, who is taking a travelling sabbatical until next March in Australia. She has worked incredibly hard for us on Accepted.co.uk, and we look forward to welcoming her back next year with even more of a sickening tan than she usually has! See you next year Sam!

The guys at Splash recently found a pork scratching that they reckon looked like a real pig! Pfft!

While you can just about make out the snout on their scratching, I think you’ll agree, however, that my crisp is an almost entirely accurate scale model of an F-117 bomber!

It’s not had it’s maiden voyage yet – I’m waiting for it to go stale so that it’ll bounce on landing rather than shatter! Stay tuned for more!

It started off with a few drinks at Walkabout to warm up. Actually no, it started off, for Jake and Jon at least, on the drive to Southampton with several cans of Cider and some abusive comments aimed at Southampton Football Club, Southampton City and anyone living in Southampton!

With a quick stop to the local chippie to fill up on chips, sausages and a rather odd looking chicken burger we were ready to face the evening.

A 3 hour wait and a dodgy rock band later, Bon Jovi came on. Most of us, suitably drunk, believed we knew the words to every song, and sang along tunefully at the top of our voices. As our pile of empty beer bottles increased so did our enthusiasm and with our air guitars at the ready we rocked out to Living on a Prayer, You give love a bad name and Always.

Bon Jovi put on a great show and even the drizzle didn’t dampen our spirits. The evening ended with more chips and us trying to dissuade Jake from pulling out his hayfever itching eyes with the wooden chip fork!

I’m already looking forward to the next Netbasic outing!!

From a design perspective, the most interesting idea I’ve read about is ‘Epicenter Design’ – Start from the core of the page and build outward – and it makes so much sense. If we were manufacturing a car, we wouldn’t craft a sexy outer shell and then try and mount the engine inside. That would force us to limit the performance of the car. Or hack a nasty hole in the bonnet and patch it up later. We’d decide which engine we were going to need, then design the sexy outer shell around it. So that means two jobs done in the right order and three jobs if not. Proof that designing the engine first is the right thing. But in a website, what is the engine?

It could be two things. To a developer, the engine could be the database or even the framework. But to a designer perhaps, the part of the page that people use the most is the engine. Not the header or navigation (though these would be used a lot), but the bit of the page that is the reason the page is there. The bit that if missing would render the page useless. The car stationary. And no-one getting anywhere fast.

Mrs Mary Cornelius-Reed, who is the lady that Naomi House rent the land from, provided a marquee on her front lawn as well as a wonderful lunch. The rent paid to Mary is quite substantial – one dozen red roses payable annually on mid-summer’s day.

The new building is to be called Jacks Place after Jack Whitham, a Southampton businessman who left £6 million to Naomi House in his will. They still need a further £6 million to complete the build, equip and run the new building which will provide hospice care for young adults.

To all my readers I would like to say – come on everyone dig deep into your pockets, wallets, purses, get out your cheque books etc and to make it easier for you I have even included a link to their online donations page .

Please also check out their website – http://www.naomihouse.org.uk/

The person we are looking for could be described by the following:

Person Specification
- IT and web literate
- Strong team player
- Excellent analytical skills
- Proficient in Excel
- Ability to learn new software packages with ease
- Ability to prioritise and multi-task
- Excellent communication skills both written and verbal
- Sense of humour

Qualifications / Experience
- 1-2 years online marketing experience
- Knowledge of the finance industry would be an advantage
- Familiarity with the principles of search engine optimisation

For more information on this role please email me at samantha@netbasic.co.uk

More congratulations go to James and Hannah, who got engaged on Saturday! It’s the first ever Netbasic engagement, so I’m feeling all lovely about it and wish them all the best for their future together.

In just 2 days, 22 hours, 47 minutes and 48 seconds I‘ll be stood at Wembley singing my heart out as my beloved Pompey take to the pitch to do battle in the FA Cup Final.

It‘s no exaggeration to say that I‘ve been waiting for this moment my entire footballing life. From my very first match as a giddy seven-year-old stood on the Fratton Park terraces on an old beer crate (I was too short to see over the crowd) way back in October ‘89, Portsmouth winning the FA Cup is the one thing that I‘ve always dreamed of.

And now, nearly 20 years on, it‘s so close that I can almost reach out and touch it. But not yet, not quite.

Of course, it could all be snatched away if Cardiff lift the trophy instead of us, and that‘s why I‘m making sure that I do everything I can to tip the odds in our favour. I‘m going to be wearing exactly the same boxer shorts that I had on for the semi-final because they‘re quite obviously lucky, I‘ll have in my pocket a paper bag of the cola cubes that Grandpa used to buy me before every Pompey game, around my neck will be wrapped Dad‘s 1986/87 promotion scarf and on my chin will be a load of trampy-looking stubble because I‘ve somehow got it into my head that if I shave then it‘s all going to end in tears.

This week I haven‘t been able to stop grinning and, as Cup Final day draws closer, it‘s getting worse. Last night I couldn‘t sleep, I‘m finding it hard to eat and not a minute goes by when I don‘t picture that perfect image of Wembley Stadium all decked out in blue and white.

I really don‘t know if I‘m going to be able to last until Saturday afternoon, I’ll be a complete mess by then…

At least that finally explains the need for an off-roader!

Like last year I took myself off skiing again, instead on Meribel I went to Les Get this time, almost with the luck of the Irish there was a 4 day blizzard which made for amazing conditions, but I’ll save the details of that for a later post.

In the past couple of years Netbasic has gone through a lot of changes, from 3 members of staff to 13, if this continues we’ll soon need more office space – which is amazing, but it’s only when you stop and look back that you truly appreciate how awesome something is.

As is the case with my RX8, I’m sure its only been a few months since I was handed the keys, but its actually almost 3 years and in several weeks it will be handed back to the dealership. Its certainly been a joy to drive, but only now have I begun to appreciate how good it really is.

Sii and Jon often jibe about how “spatially challenged” (to put it politely) the RX8 is, it’s impossible to fit a suit case into the boot and the back seats are a squeeze (they shouldn’t be so tall!), I try to argue the point but they are right, so it’s a losing battle. Still, it’s a dream car which is well built and none of the competition comes close.

What next? I considered getting another RX8, but the current model has been available since 2003/04 and it would be just my luck if a new version was released shortly after, I have decided on another car which will be revealed once it’s been delivered.

The pinnacle of the war has happened today when I went out for some “fresh air” and came back to find a message from my girlfriend on MSN claming that Jon had stolen my handset. Luckily, she saw the entire stunt on my webcam which I have set up, so he was caught red-handed. I just hope this doesn’t elevate into a full-scale phone war.

They argued with the bouncers and the manager for a bit but bot nowhere and decided to go home, so we all played an extra game in Georgia’s honour – turns out she’s pretty good – beating James and his girlfriend Hannah, and finishing just behind Sarah!

Colin aka “The Power” tried to get some revenge on the bowling alley for Georgia by attempting to break the lane in half with some spectacular “bowling”!

Some mad skillz were on display from Jake and James – check out some clips.

Jake flukes a strike with a limp-wristed, bouncing ball:

James is made of skill:

We left the alley and headed off to Jongleurs to get seen off by the bouncers. It’s quite a nice little scam they have going there – you pay a fiver on the Bar Risa door to get into Jongleurs, but once your in the bar, you have to queue again to get through into the club. By the time we got there, the queue had at least 100 people in it, and it was a one-in-one-out type of place. So actually, we’d paid a fiver to stand in a queue in a filthy bar. Awesome.

Also congrats to Chris, who has now been promoted to Projects Manager. How on earth he’s going to plan out everything we want to do I have no idea, but I’m glad I’m not the one that has to do it. Good luck Chris!

http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/thebigknit/

Fantastic!

For way too long Jon has been king of the skittles dispenser (it is his after all), and taking all our hard earned change for just 4 miserly skittles at the every turn of the handle – but now we can strike back!

Yes Jon, I can get skittles out of the machine without cash and without undoing the top! A slight turn of the handle, a short sharp shake at the right angle and out they come, one by one.

Winner!

So what does this mean for office politics from this point forwards? Well, Jon’s power has certainly been undermined as the Sultan of sweets, but beyond that I don’t really know. I’d like to think this is somewhat akin to the demolition of the Berlin wall, and the ensuing freedom that resulted, just with me in the Hasslehoff role!

So there you are, one in the eye for the design – tech triumphs again! Now where’s my Baywatch outfit…?

She already has a good knowledge of us here, so I doubt it will take her long to get up to speed. I am reliably informed that her weemee is designed, so – in what seems like standard form for the company now – she should have her own web page to allow her a proper introduction within days of joining. Welcome Caroline!

We all met up at the Mountbatten Centre about 12pm where the first lot of runners were finishing their miles. At 1pm we had to line up on the track and do a group warm up – this was not good as I was worn out by the time this had finished. The start gun fired and we were off… Jon and I ran a mile, Jake ran three miles and Sii went all out and ran the whole six miles.

We all managed our target miles and Jon and I even managed a “sprint” run to the finish line on the last section – check out the video below, Good race Jon!!

All in all it was a fun morning and to top it all off we managed to raise just over £1000 for the charity! We did well!!!!

Another reminder… The Netbasic team consisting of Colin, Sam, Jake, Jon and Sii will be running for Sport Relief on Sunday morning at the Mountbatten Centre in Portsmouth. If you can lend any support at all it starts at 1pm.

I’m rather more concerned about their plans to organise a night out the night before – these days with old age setting in it’s rare for me to have a night out where I’ve been able to run the next week, let alone the next day!

They are very close now to their sponsorship goal of £1000, so don’t put it off – sponsor them now!

Anyway, I hadn’t seen my dad for a while so we decided to have a long weekend on the slopes in Switzerland, as it’s not all that far from where he lives.

Well, we arrived on Friday in the early afternoon and hired me some boots, but the weather was not looking all that great, so we just skied around on the secondary slopes for a couple of hours. On the second day, the weather got even worse – so much so that all but one of the lifts in the area were closed down!

We hopped on the bus which took us to the only place that was left open – Engstligenalp – and tried to ski in the blizzards there for the day! I don’t speak Swiss, but I do speak German, and I’m pretty sure “Engstligenalp” must translate roughly as “Scary as hell Alps”! The “slightly windy” conditions meant that by the time we got to the top of the lifts the snow was hitting us in the face like hail stones! We somehow got stuck in the middle of a blue run/road with visibility of about 3 yards and I, of course, managed to stack it again and land on the same shoulder I crippled on the last skiing trip! Go Jon!

When we woke up on Sunday and looked out off our balconies, the tops of the mountains were entirely shrouded in dense fog. We ate our breakfast and got on the gondola preparing for more of what the previous days were like. An hour after we got off the lift, the sun appeared out of nowhere and burnt all the fog away, followed by my face. I really wish I’d worn more suncream!!

What with the sun and all the rain from the previous days, the snow rapidly turned to slush and became almost impossible to ski on in my BigFeet and my dad’s Snow Blades, so we decided to hire us some Carver skis on the last day! After skiing exclusively on BigFeet for the last 10 years or so, it was well strange getting back on normal skis, so guess where I landed when I fell over again!!

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend, and now I can’t wait until next year to go again! In the mean time, check out a 360 degree panorama from half way down a red run at Adelboden:

It’s a 5mb file, so don’t click unless you have broadband!

 My first run was a route I’ve run many times before, but using handy Google Maps I was able to calculate that the route covered 2.8 miles and it took me just less than 25 minutes to complete. That’s pretty poor when I compare it to the me of half my current age, who could run 3.5 miles in 23 minutes during a school lunchtime as part of the cross-country team. Well, gone are those days of youth… anyway, I did the first run a week last Sunday and I was aching Monday morning through Tuesday night, so I feel last nights effort has been an improvement (as I’m not hurting right now).

 The second run took me 3.3 miles and took about 35 mins, and I’ve got one final training run planned for next week for a big 4.5 miles, leaving the main challenge well and truly for the day of the event. I’m going to be knackered – thankfully, my trusty iPod will keep me going through the hard bits! I wish they did the Nike+ sport kit for the Shuffle, but it doesn’t sound like they ever will – it would be quite cool to simply upload the runs I’ve done straight through iTunes – I bet a lot of people are using Nike+ for their Sport Relief training right now.

So you can see, I’m putting in the work and (irrespective of the weather) it promises to be an eventful day on the 16th. So please, pop down and give us all some support!

You can sponsor me at my sport relief web page and help us reach our fundraising goal.

Fresh back from the skiing trip and obviously in the mood for a bit more exercise, everybody here (well, almost everybody) has signed up to do their bit for charity by taking part in this year’s BBC Sport Relief Mile.

Swapping the jaw-dropping Alpine scenery for the equally jaw-dropping Pompey landscape, we’ll be pounding the pavements on March 16th to try and raise a few pennies for those less fortunate.

Too many doughnuts, crippled bodies and a pure inability to run mean we won’t all be tackling the six-mile course, so Netbasic will be represented in the one-mile and three-mile events too.

If you fancy a laugh, come on down to Portsmouth’s Mountbatten Centre on March 16th, or why not sponsor the Netbasic team by checking out our very own Sport Relief webpage?

It’s all for a fantastic cause and, being the uber generous chap that he is, boss Luke has promised that the Netbasic coffers will double whatever we raise.

So, if you can, sponsor us a quid or two and make a real difference to somebody’s life. If not, come along and watch anyway; it’s sure to be a sight to remember…

We have missed you in the office, Chris – if only you were here: you might have stopped this from happening…

That was easy!

The tone for the holiday was set on the Friday night when Glyn accused Sii of “touching his cider up” instead of drinking it – 4 hours of pool and about 20 “cheeky nightcap” cans later the minibus picked us up at Luke’s and dropped us off at the airport bar – just in time for a safety pint at 5am!

We stayed in the same place we did last year. Ome and Regan had moved on to one of the other Ski Cuisine chalets in the area, but we were very well looked after by Dom and Simon!

The skiing was going really well on the first day until we missed the last chair-lift and had to make our way up a bunny slope using perhaps the worst drag-lift in the world. The lift was basically just a rope that you had to hold on to as it pulled you up the slope! The rope was quite taut, and for some reason I thought it would be a reasonable idea to just sit on it rather than hold on. Stack #1. Upon standing up I found myself on the wrong side of the rope with the top fast approaching, so I tried to limbo under it while still being pulled up the hill. Stack #2 and a sore shoulder. 10 minutes and a dizzy spell later we were almost back at the chalet and I was already thinking of afternoon tea and a nice hot bubble-bath. Stack #3 and out!

Unlike my last Superman attempt, no-one was there to film it, and Luke was the only witness, but apparently it was pretty spectacular! I got up and ran it off initially, but I obviously did more damage than I thought as I still well hurt now! My Big Feet got caught up in some slushy snow that I didn’t see and I just took off, landing a few yards further down the hill on my face and [other] shoulder! Everything seemed ok until 2 days later when I could hardly move my right arm at all and a massive lump had appeared on my forehead. I could live with that, but what really worried me was when my eye swelled up like I’d been punched just after I blew my nose one evening [check out the gallery for a rather comical picture of my eyes!]

Face-planting in the snow apparently isn’t all that good for your sinuses!

The holiday was generally a lot more relaxed than it was last year – we discovered that if we didn’t go out and get really drunk every night that we’d enjoy the following morning’s skiing [and the following lunch time's beer] a lot more! That still didn’t completely stop us going out though – on Monday night, Colin “The Power” Simmonds practically dragged us out for a pint or two, and then left early! What was that about winners and not coming 2nd, Colin??

Then on the Tuesday night there was a Silent Disco in one of the bars that Dom and Simon managed to scrounge up some extra tickets for.

Knowing full well we’d be bundled when the guys got back in, Sii set up some motion sensing software on his mac to record the bundle as soon as our door was barged open. The resulting video is pretty hilarious and showed us that Georgia doesn’t need a snowboard or even any snow to stack it! 20 mins later, Sam strolled back into our room, woke us up and quite unfairly blamed the theft of her jacket that night on The Power: “I put my jacket where everyone else did; even Power got his jacket back” and “The Power is a fieth!”

Wednesday was our host’s day off, so we hit the Rond Point for a spot of apres ski, got in and realised that no-one had the energy to go to the restaurant Ski Cuisine had booked for us, so instead found the phonebook and ordered a mountain of pizza from Pizza Express and just chilled while watching the footy!

Thursday was the only time we had the entire group on the same slopes all week – we headed over to one of the other valleys to do a really nice red/blue run in the sunshine where Ad “The Turtle” twice stood at one side of the slope and completely accidentally, although seemingly intentionally, picked out a target on the other side [first Glyn then the Power] and set off making a bee-line for them! We somehow happened to catch the chaos on camera in the background when he took the Power down – skis and poles everywhere – brilliant!

Well anyway, we’ll get round to uploading some photos and videos of the trip at some point, but right now we’ve got plenty of proper work to be doing to ensure that we get to go back next year as well! In the mean time, here’s a rather cool panorama we put together from 6 photos using “photomerge” in Photoshop CS3! Best. Software. Ever.

With yet another cracking 5-1 win over Wandsworth at the weekend, the Netbasic sponsored Fareham 1st XI are storming ahead this season.

They have performed so well this season, they’re now a full eight points ahead of their nearest rivals with a cracking goal difference of 55 – keep it up lads!

Check out the latest league table here.

I’m however going through a big recruitment drive at the moment – we’re looking for another Online Marketing Executive, an SEO and Copywriting Manager, an Online Marketing Assistant, another Techie and a Financial Controller.

This now poses a number of problems, one of which is how will we now get everyone’s weemee in at the top of our website pages – you see the kind of problems we’re faced with daily here?!

I’m still absolutely convinced that – just like the dinosaurs – the human race will be wiped out with a virus. I swear these bugs are getting more and more evil each year, but my wife reminded me at the weekend that maybe it was just my old age. “You are 30 this year honey”, she says lovingly. Isn’t love honest eh?

But we’ve got a company to build before the virus wipes us out or old age finally gets us – so let’s get cracking with 2008!

PS I can’t take credit for the lateral humour of the blog title. Yes. Who else? Who else but Sii!

That’s not to say that Anne is the only one embracing the festive spirit.

I got back to the office on Wednesday to find the office had received some new arrivals. Chris and Jon had found a ‘job lot’ of ‘paint your own reindeer trees’ at a ‘bargain price’ and decided to treat the upstairs office to a little sprucing. So of course, I obliged and added my own painted reindeer to the flock. Is it a flock or a herd? Who knows…

We’ve got Dave the Deer:

And Saddle Back:

Now young children beware…

We’ve also got Hot Stuff:

And last but not least, Oh My God – Run for your Life!

And that’s about it. Well apart from Chris decided to make an uber straw out of many many other ‘less-uber’ straws. I’m sure we can find a video of that somewhere.

In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I have though enjoyed my first few weeks and had a great introduction into the world of online marketing and am also pleased to have joined a fun and ambitious company – though it does scare me a little to be the only guy on the middle floor!

Also, a big welcome to Colin who has just started with us yesterday. He was greeted at first by a fire alarm and evacuation caused by builders next door. He must be the first person here to do the fire drill without going through it first in induction!

We have experienced extreme turbulence in both the loans and IVA markets throughout 2007. But everyone here has done a tremendous job through umpteen battles – what a warzone – and we’re still here fighting so well done everyone! We still continue in our drive to provide the best quality service to our customers in a range of financial areas.

Team-wise, we say goodbye this month to our contractor John who has done a sterling job in helping Kelvin and Chris to push through some big technical changes to our backend systems. Thanks very much for your help John! On a positive note Sam, our new online marketing executive, has settled in well so far and she is to be joined by two more recruits. Colin is due next week, and then Natasha in January.

We also have a new non-exec director Ian Henderson-Londono pops in regularly to keep a check on Luke and the rest of the team. Ian came down for dinner not so long ago on an evening when they had conveniently closed the local motorway to hinder his way home – but he got Luke back by inviting him to London on the day of the State Opening of Parliament. I feel a travel time battle looming!

The technical team are about to move to a new floor with more room for their weird and wonderful experiments. So from December onwards the area now known as the “technical creche” will be on the top floor rather than the bottom – God help us if they continue to launch strange experiments from that height next year…

The plans for January’s skiing trip our now well underway. It has become a regular feature on the calendar now and if this visit is as alcohol-fuelled as last year, Netbasic may well be investing in liver insurance in 2008!

Our sister company Splash.co.uk is also doing well – they’re currently helping to organise the Round Britain Powerboat Championships 2008, and are taking bookings for corporate days across a range of watersports for next year already.

Well that’s it for now – and I’ll keep you posted on more developments soon.

It took us both at least 15 seconds to work out what the word actually said after reading it over in a number of different ways! 

We just could not believe that Whatchamacallit is actually in the dictionary! Click here for the online definition!  http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/whatchamacallit

I thought I would settle into the job for a few weeks and then begin the “Stop Smoking Campaign”. 

I have not smoked now for 10 days, with the help of patches,Chubba Chup lollies and especially Anne who is constantly showing me images of smokers lungs and working out on a daily basis how much money I am saving!

Wish me luck!

Naomi House was first opened in 1997 – on land that was leased to the Trust by Mrs Mary Cornelius-Reid. The building is named after her youngest daughter. Their rent per annum is one dozen red roses, payable on mid-summer’s day.

It costs £2 million a year to provide support for the children and their families, that’s £6,000 per day. They receive no support from the government, they are 100% charitable. One way you can help is by joining the Naomi House lottery, it cost £1 per week, that’s £4.34 per month by standing order, 1st prize of £1,000, 2nd prize £100, 3rd prize £50, 4th prize £20 and 16 prizes of £5, no roll-overs, all prizes won every week.

My thanks go to Jill Livingstone who took time out from her busy schedule to show me around, it was a pleasure and a privilege to meet Jill, members of staff and the volunteers. They are an amazing group of people and deserve medals for all they do. One place that really touched me and brought it home to me the work they do was the Butterfly room, what a beautiful, quiet room it is, see their website – www.naomihouse.org.uk

I think that everyone at some point should visit a place like this, if for no other reason than to bring it home to each of us just how lucky we are. I don’t mind admitting it – I did shed a few tears. I left there feeling very humble.

My girlfriend and I both worked worked really hard on the video and on the 10th November this year, we’re finally going to enjoy our special reward – cos I’ve booked it! Hooray! Aston Martins and 4×4s everywhere (or at least in Stafford) get ready to be afraid… very afraid.

I’ll be sure to get some video (courtesy of my spectating folks) and get Jon to youtube it for me and the nation to see posted right here.

Hopefully it’ll be hot and sunny by then. Fingers crossed.

Still, enough about my antics, this was the second golf outing for one member of our team and we made a little video to celebrate his entrance into the erm, well ’sport’

A will is a dead giveaway.

Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.

A calendar’s days are numbered

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.

A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

When you’ve seen one shopping centre you’ve seen a mall.

If you jump off a bridge in Paris, you are in Seine.

Acupuncture: a jab well done.

and finally

Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.

Needless to say, I was quite nervous when Chris picked up my shiny [and dented - thanks, Sii] newish driver and swung through about a foot above the ball! Some 50 balls later he seemed a bit more confident and was hitting the ball quite well!

Once it got a bit quieter, someone had the bright idea to tell Chris it might be a good idea to tee off with a run-up – well, you can imagine how that turned out! After a few swing and misses, he realised that “it’s just like hockey, innit!?” “No,” we said. Undeterred he grabbed the 3 wood and, well, words don’t do it justice – luckily, we filmed it!

As you can see, Sii took to it like a duck to water – shouldn’t be long before he’s out on the 18 – and I’m sure there’ll be a few things to blog about afterwards. Most likely the horrified look on Nick’s face as Sii’s tee shot sails over his own!

In some regards it’s not as advanced as ecto (or the free w.Bloggar) for interfacing with and editing raw blog content but in others it really is.

For example I have a lot of old word based science essays that I thought I’d like to publish on my personal blog and as such these contain a large quantity of things like this:

When word saves a page as html for example it can convert all these math-type/equation editor plug-in objects to images which is fine if you JUST want the page as a web page.

Invariably though, if anything is saved as a webpage from word it is bloated with excess styles (hence the need for Dreamweaver’s clean up word html command) and you’ll generally want to edit it in some way to make it look more presentable, as the presentation offered by word is usually somewhat lacking.

So when you save an essay with a lot of equation objects in it, that leads to tonnes of files which are a pain to copy back into a blog manually or edit along with the page content in Dreamweaver – literally hours can be spent reformatting the document.

Word 07’s publish to blog function though cuts out all of this rubbish and generally does an excellent job in maintaining formatting (possibly because it may be restricted to sending data for the post in some predetermined minimal format or it doesn’t have to ‘worry’ about styles or html page structure so much) and also uploading the images with the correct paths/associations – which is AMAZING!

Secondly today, I’d like to introduce you to the easy button (Staples, £2.50) a fantastic little device for helping you get the point across, worryingly though it seems to have the same voice as Luke! I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of this little fellah in the office and on the blog!

I was recently talking with Anne and Sam about summer holidays and it got me thinking – If asked 99% of people would probably say that summer was their favourite season, its a time of year often portrayed with a more serene pace of life and the promise of fun holidays. But is this an honest image or simply the promise of a bygone era? To me summer promises the rush hour traffic is worse than ever, children are bored, tempers are on edge and theres no escape from the stifling heat.

Personally I prefer January through to May, why? 2 reasons 1) theres nothing more refreshing and relaxing than crisp air of a sunny winter day 2) Its SKI season. Since Netbasic started the annual Ski trip I’ve grown a real passion for it, so much in fact that I’ll even take myself off, like I did in April and went back to Meribel. The conditions were fantastic and I made every effort to torment the poors souls I had left back in the office.

Given the choice for a tropical or alpine paradise, what would you prefer?

This is a picture I took on our visit in January, the helicopter had just dropped us in Le Plagne

So summer or winter? its a personal choice, but for me the above photo says it all with the alpine resort, snow, perfect blue sky’s – What more could a person ask for?!

Back in April this year, the Highways Agency erected some signs “Work starts here for 18 months” and got on and dug up the central reservation, whilst also shrinking the driveable part of the road with lines and lines of pretty-to-look-at cones. Luckily it hasn’t made too much of a difference to my journey times.

A few weeks ago, however, the Higways Agency erected a new sign:

So much did I laugh. The funniest thing for me is how they’ve obviously made that “opening summer 2011″ bit a plug-n-play component – so that they can swap it over for a new one when they inevitably realise there was a ‘deadline-typo’ in 2011!

Still, it should be good – the underpass looks pretty impressive and has the potential to reduce my journey time by 10 or 15 minutes, which is awesome… shame it’s gonna take 4 years!

http://www.a3tunnel.co.uk/

http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/3832.aspx

Due to not thinking too much about what goes on chemically when a bottle of coke meets a mento, and not wanting to get too sticky or destroy the nice cars of the people that work here, we decided to try the experiment with bottles of fizzy water and a selection of cheap mints – at least if it went wrong the most we’d get is a refreshing minty shower!

So, Jon and myself bought a 2 litre bottle of Sainsbury’s 17p cheap fizzy water, and Kelvin bought some premium fizzy tonic water in a bottle I can only describe as shaped like a volcano. I had Sainsbury’s economy extra sugary mints, Jon had a roll of polo’s and Kelvin had tic-tac’s.

As you can see from the following video of my try, the experiment was an utter shambles!

I don’t know if the design of the bottles for Jon and I were to blame (rounded tops over straight reducing the pressure towards the opening) or if the mints were not of good enough quality to break down quickly and cause a fast release of gas, but something was up as Kelvin won the day!

It seems that, for this experiment at least, tonic water and tic tacs were the best combination, but if any of our readers out there have any other suggestions please leave them below.

This contest isn’t over yet!

Check out the championship table online here. It looks like Stuart Holloway will be the one to beat this season – but with Mark’s experience we’ll be sure to give Stuart a real run for his money!

We turned up at the stadium 2 and a half hours before kick-off [dressed in shirt & tie on what felt like the hottest day of the year!] and were taken on a guided tour of the ground, including the home-team’s locker room and a stroll onto the [not entirely level!] pitch before sitting down to a delicious three course meal with a dozen or so other Barclays invitees.

David James was given an award from Barclays and one from the club [presented by Harry Redknapp], both for his impressive new clean sheet record just before the teams made their way onto the field. Kick-off was preceded by a standing applause observed by the whole stadium for the passing of Alan Ball.

I’m actually a Newcastle fan, but it wasn’t hard to be ever so slightly biased towards the home team, what with the deafening Fratton End fans just 40 yards to our left. Although Pompey scored twice without reply the first half wasn’t great – Liverpool didn’t really seem interested and neither did their fans: that might have something to do with being stood in the Milton End stand in the baking sun with no roof for the best part of the afternoon.

The second half was a bit more entertaining as Liverpool decided to make a game of it, scoring once and coming close a couple of times [including an impressive strike from Zenden that nearly broke the crossbar!] but it was too late, Pompey won and the crowd erupted.

We then went back to the lounge area for the Man of the Match presentation to Linvoy Primus where we all had our photos taken [will post them when we get them,] and were plied with alcohol by Howard [our Corporate Relationship Manager from Barclays] for a good few hours before heading off home to meet some friends and…erm…celebrate in Tiger Tiger!

Pretty good day out really! If only Luke went off round the world more often…

A few of the guys are interested of course – business trips to Oz seemed to be quite a popular option when discussed not so long ago . I’m getting back on my flight shortly so will sign off now. But I’ll keep you posted with any updates once I’m out there.

And just in case anyone doesn’t know yet, our very own Claire Lewis finished the London Marathon on Sunday. I’m sure one of the guys will get a blog post up shortly, but well done Claire! And go and sponsor her now, because the company is going to double anything you give her. Sponsor Claire here.

(More news to follow on why we've called the team "spoiled duck"!)

After having threatened to bring in equipment for making lemon and potato powered clocks, Chris finally managed to dig up an old science kit of his full of all the goodies needed for such a vegetarian timepiece.

All was good as we tore the box open only to realise that the good doctor had neglected to bring anything harnessing nature’s electricity with him.

Stumped, we went to the shop for lunch and saw something that might possibly rescue the experiment – a tin of minced meat with onions it, reduced to 30p. I was sceptical at first, but Chris’s confidence in the experiment reassured me that all would be fine!

Back in the office, we opened the can of “mince” that smelled more like dog meat and began wiring the electrodes together. After 10 minutes of fiddling and rewiring [after having laughed so much that we broke all the connections,] we finally had the electrodes connected in sequence! The moment of truth was upon us – all that was left to do was place the electrodes in the minced-beef filled containers, sit back and watch the fireworks. Or not.

Perhaps surprisingly, the impressive looking experiment was nothing more than a spectacular failure.

Oh well, nothing to do now but try and sell it on eBay! On to the next experiment!

Quiet it may have been, but there was a very good reason for this – it was steep!

But not being a group to complain, we got the job underway and all got to the bottom without much hassle. Then along came Jon to liven things up a little…

We’re only just getting round to posting about it now [two months on] because we’ve been working ever so hard since then to ensure that we get to do it again next year! Honestly, we have, it’s not like we’re just lazy or anything!!

We spent the week living in luxury in an amazing chalet provided by Ski Cuisine [who I would recommend to everybody] where we were waited on hand and foot by our chalet-host Ome and gourmet chef Regan [who, by the way, is insane on a snowboard!]

After leaving Luke’s house at 3 in the morning, we arrived in Meribel at around lunch time and headed straight for the hire shop. An hour and a half later and Kelvin finally had his boots sorted but there was still plenty of time for the by-then very frustrated [but very friendly] assistant to kit the rest of us out.

Unfortunately [for Regan], choosing boots wasn’t the only thing Kelvin was pernickety about! While we were all enjoying some of the most wonderful meals from brazed duck to lamb chops, Kelvin was happily tucking into his staple diet of pizzas, pasta, burgers and chips – all of which, of course, meant plenty of ribbing for him! Joking aside though, the week wouldn’t even have happened had it not been for Kelvin having everything planned from the minute we left Luke’s house to the minute we got back! Cheers Kelvin!

All in all the holiday was awesome–as you can see from some of the many many photos we all took–and had everything from minor injuries [Claire's "arse bone"] to alcohol-induced pavement-pizza to helicopter rides and 59 bone-crunching seconds on the Olympic bobsleigh run in La Plagne.

Kelvin enjoyed himself that much, he’s gone back out there for another [probably slightly more relaxing] week!

Be sure to check out some of the video clips we took on the slopes as well – there’s everything from Driving Miss Lewis to Luke and I racing over each other’s skis to Regan disappearing over huge jumps! There’s even Sii’s valiant attempt at filming from inside the bobsleigh – not for the faint of heart!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200094396207

"Shall we go bowling as well?" ask the neon soldiers tooled up to the brim in laser quest gear… "you bet – and then to a club!"

So that's what we did.

First, we shot the beer-laden stuffin out of each other with 4 modes of gun-handling havoc (and a grenade). Second, we drank till we could start bowling and drank till we couldn't finish, before finding ourselves at a club drinking champagne.

'Diva of the Disco' award was presented to Kelvin for his outstanding generosity and curious club-antics. Even after the taxi home at the end of the night, he refused to call it a day… he tried to get into the post-club casino a second time, when we'd been rejected once already!

Chris the Magician drank like a fish, then disappeared from the club only to appear again later having re-fueled on a portion of Scampi and Chips (in the casino we couldn't get in to).

That's me, to the right, looking like an elf… and if I get any award, it's for not remembering half the night and getting moody.

Jon McNab ruled the laser waves over 2 games of what he thought was Battlefront 2.

Claire, well she's only half our size and doesn't like it when I turn her upside down.

And finally, Luke 'like a lamb to the slaughter' Ashworth, may he rest in peace.

In the past this has lead to me ruining my Mum's kitchen ceiling, various housemates kitchen-wares, and more recently working for the Vega Science Trust (www.vega.org.uk) both as a web developer and Educational Researcher, teaching children about science in the classroom and via the internet.

One day at lunch we were discussing this over a Sainsbury's Mega-brunch, and we decided that we'd start doing some office science, and forthwith came the Great Netbasic Crystal Growing Contest.

Each department (design, technical, marketing and administration) were given a pint glass, some sea salt, a pencil, a length of thread and just under a pint of (repeatedly) boiled hot mineral water.

Excitement was in the air as each team frantically tried to dissolve as much salt in to the water as quickly as possible and much frustration was felt as they tried to tie a knot around a single seed crystal, but eventually we all got there.

Now, the aim for this experiment really is to grow the largest single crystal possible starting from the seed at the end of the thread dangling in the salt water liquor, and this should take a few weeks to come about properly as experience has shown me.

However the design team, being the design team already have a large somewhat planar crystal cluster growing from the end of their thread, after just one evening and although very pretty isn't quite what would be expected at such an early stage.

The reason for this is uncertain at present but they, wanting to be different, also decided to try and grow a crystal in the bottom of one of the cut-down mineral water bottles, and it is in this bottle that the cluster has appeared.

So the reason may be that this bottle being cheap plastic, and obviously showing the ability to produce quite a bit of static during the afternoon may have affected the dense electrolytic salty water, causing the cluster to grow, but as yet I don't know, and this is something which will be checked upon in due course.

Maybe one of these crystals in their cluster will grow into a large single crystal beating the rest of us, who knows?

The only certainty is that the game is afoot…

Gemma Asagba – Accounts / Admin Assistant
Jon Wigham – Junior Developer / Designer (working with Sii)
Chris Dean – Web Developer (working with Kelvin)
Claire Lewis – Head of Marketing (attempting to work with Luke)

All seem to have settled in very well so far – so it looks like we need to book a bigger Chalet for next year's skiing trip now!

Now excuse the website name, but once you have a look at the videos of this beast you'll realise why they had no other option!

http://www.shithotfast.com/

Thanks to Paul and his son Matt for taking us out that day. The noise was akin to concorde and the acceleration – especially in the mid range – was out of this world. I want one!

Without doubt there will be a day coming soon, when the big buzzing lights come on for fear of tripping over one another, but in the meantime, we'll stand fast, sitting in the quiet (sometimes) dull depths, illuminated only by the clicker of letters arriving on our screens…. and stuff like that.

Spent four days drinking copious amounts of beer, losing my voice singing England chants through a megaphone and watching a sprinkling of football for good measure. We also managed to get tickets for the Trinidad game.

Was it worth it to be behind on work? Sorry to say this as the company owner, but by god it was!

Much as I've heard the reports of all the trouble back here, I saw absolutely no trouble at all while we were out there. Such an amazing experience being out there with millions of people from thousands of places!

If anyone has even a remote chance of going, please go. Even if you don't get to see a game it's still worth it for the atmosphere.

And anyone that isn't going, I hope you all know where to be on Tuesday at 8pm!

And once you've done that, go here for a nice satirical comic (or is it comical satire?)

Find out more here…

Sorry, but we're no longer looking for applicants for this position.

That aside, it's really interesting trying to replicate our online methods within the TV arena without stepping on toes. With TV having been around for so long, there are so many more "standards" that have been developed, and with the budgets involved it's not best to storm straight in and challenge them all in the first attempt.

That said if all goes to plan our first ads should air on the 17th April.