Murmurs

Code in your browser with PHPanywhere. Theres also a techcrunch article about it.

If you think a website might be infected with the Gumblar virus? Try out this free tool and read this blog post on how to remove it.

Is this the video of the future? 360 degree video.

DesignFellow are giving away a free CodeIgniter Cheat sheet. I have mine printed out and stuck on the wall.

An excellent tutorial from Nettuts, develop an app in CodeIgniter and then developing the exact same app using Ruby on Rails. From CodeIgniter to Ruby on Rails: A Conversion

Speed Dial is a Firefox extension developed by uWorks that allows you to create shortcuts to your favourite websites. It takes a screenshot of the site and shows it in a little window, visible each time you open Firefox.

Its not a new concept, Opera and Chrome have very similar shortcuts to your favourites or most visited sites when you open the browser. I think Opera were the first to do this.

Its a very handy extension that I’ve been using for a few weeks now with shortcuts to some of the apps I’m developing.

I had the idea to use it for a slightly different reason the other day. To watch the websites of some competitors. Rather than taking the time to periodically visit each competitors website, I’ve set each of them up as a tab in Speed Dial. Each of them is visible to me each time I open a Firefox or a new tab.

By default, the screen shots that Speed Dial takes are updated every 24 hours. This can be changed to take new screen shots every 2 seconds if you like.

Its handy for motivation too if you keep seeing the other businesses updating their sites. It could be used too to see if a favourite blog has been updated.

Heres a screen shot of Speed Dial keeping an eye some Search Engines

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I created a survey using Polldaddy about 3 weeks ago to get a rough idea of peoples attitudes to some of the questions I have about newsletters.

32 people took the survey. I promoted it mainly using Twitter and thank you to a good few people who retweeted the message. I wouldn’t have received the responses without your retweets.

I also promoted the survey a little using a Wordpress plugin called ‘What would Seth Godin do?‘. This plugin allows you to display a short message to new and returning visitors to your blog. I updated the message to ask new users to this blog if they could spare a few seconds to take the survey.

It got 3 people to take the survey as a direct result of this plugin so it was worth the couple of minutes to set it up

Now to the actual newsletter survey results

How many newsletters do you subscribe to?

53% subscribe to 1 – 5 newsletters
40% subscribe to more than 5 newsletters
6% associate newsletters with spam

How long do you spend reading a newsletter?

50% take just a quick glance
43% read for less than a minute
6% read for a few minutes

Does it bother you if the links clicked in an email are recorded?

53% say not at all
34% say it bothers me but I click them anyway
12% are bothered by tracking links and don’t click links for that reason

Do you use a webmail client like Gmail or a client like Outlook?

65% use a webmail solution such as Gmail
34% use an email client such as MS Outlook

Do you preview your emails or read them based on their subject?

This was 50:50 between previewing and reading based on Subject

Do you forward newsletters to someone that might be interested?

68% have never forwarded an interesting newsletter
31% have forwarded a newsletter to someone else in the past

Do you trust an Unsubscribe option?

75% trust a newsletters unsubscribe option
25% believe an unsubscribe option could pass their email address on to another party

- - -

The main question in the survey that I was looking forward to seeing the result of was the last question about trusting the unsubscribe option. I must admit, any time I go to unsubscribe from some email list, I worry that I’ll soon see some new unsolicited emails flying in. There seems to be a healthy trust in the Unsubscribe so I’ll breathe a little easier.

My ongoing research

Rather than close this survey I’ve decided to leave it open for a few months. I’d like to see if a few people will take the survey over time and to see if attitudes change any little bit over time.

I have a couple of other ongoing information gathering projects going on too. I’ve added a link to each of them on the sidebar on the right under the heading ‘My Ongoing Research’.

IKEA in Dublin opens this morning. More importantly than that, a new site developed by Brightspark Consulting in Dublin launched today to help buyers assemble their IKEA purchases, Aptly titled SimpleAssemblyMeHole.com

Flatpack furniture assembly including the complete IKEA flatpack furniture range.

I set it up for people like me. I’d be just the one to go in for a milk jug and come out with a sofa, wardrobe, and a new set of pots and pans… but I’d hate having to face the assembly nightmare back home

- Maryrose Lyons, Brightspark Consulting.

Simple Assembly Me Hole offers the following services

• Delivery - we’ll deliver next day for all orders before noon. People may find they’ll have to wait 7 days for Ikea to deliver
• Assembly of Ikea furniture - at a very reasonable rate.
• Installation of Ikea kitchens - again at very reasonable rates.

Anton Mannering wrote about Simple Assembly me Hole too on his blog. A commenter mentions that there are plenty of other assembly outfits out there. With a team of 21 carpenters, cabinet makers, and fitters dotted all around the city with next-day delivery its hard to beat the professional service that Simple Assembly are offering.

Simple Assembly is also on Facebook and Twitter. If you’d like to keep updated on progress there will be regular updates to the Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter.

I wonder will they deliver and assemble in Cork?!

An excellent computer hardware chart.

DigiGuide, a TV guide app for tv show reminders. It can give you all sorts of info about upcoming TV shows, including reminders via email and text. It can even tell you what season or episode a show is on.

O2 is looking for innovative iPhone apps. £10,000 up for grabs.

I compared a short list of online payment providers recently and as a result found out about Webpayments.ie. They have an excellent and very detailed breakdown of  payment service providers for Irish merchants. Definitely worth a look.

From Gmail, Subscribing made easy. Gmail will now attempt to unsubscribe you from newsletters if you no longer want them.  For email senders, make sure you have the ‘List-Unsubscribe‘ header in your emails. More bulk email sending guidelines from Google.

Anthony has found the best link ever on the net.

As a start up new business, I’m doing everything on a pretty tight budget. A few weeks ago I got a logo designed for Murrion Software by Ion Ltd in Dublin.

This week I got some business cards made up on the lowest budget ever… my father printed them out.

My father is a fantastic photographer (though I may be biased) and in the past few years has been what he would refer to as ‘messing’ with various digital cameras and printers to make prints, moving over from developing them in his dark-room.

His office has a half a dozen printers and often prints out the same shots on different pictures to compare the shade of black that comes out. He leaves these images out on the counter to surprise us and get our opinions when we call in home.

As well as the printers he has various types of paper and inks. A couple of weeks ago I asked him if he would have a good type of paper and a printer that could print business cards. Turns out he does.

The paper/card he used is Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. The ink is HP Ink, Vivera pigment (Good for 200 years) and he used a HP 9180 Printer.

The cards look excellent. I was worried the paper would be too light but its not the case. The card is a good weight and feel and the logo and text is crisp. Im very happy with the cards and im even pretty happy with the close-up photo I took of them too.

Thanks Dad!

See how search engines see your site with SEO browser

Stuck for ideas for a great new web app? Find ideas for new apps, services & software to create based on Twitter requests.

A list of official Google Twitter accounts.

A study of over 300 people about how Irish people use social media.

€15k ad prize for start-up competition from 4FM.

World Class Solutions are holding a workshop in Cork on the 29th July for business owners who want to kick-start their sales.

Participants will learn new sales and marketing techniques. They can also bring their promotional materials and website address and get individual help to improve them.

The workshop will run from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm in the Regus Centre the City Gate in Mahon. (Directions and map to City Gate here)

Places are limited. For more details including a course overview PDF, visit the World Class Solutions website or contact Bridie on 021-4373283

Follow World Class Solutions on Twitter and ask Pat about 27%

Price comparison Chart (Click to enlarge)

As an example of how the different service providers stand up, I’ve put together a break down of each provider for a sample sum of transactions.

If you were to receive 10 transactions through your website in a month from another country, with each transaction worth €100, here is how much you would have electronically transferred to your account at the end of that month.

The following assumes the Setup fee has already been paid and all values are in Euro.

Paypal http://www.paypal.com

You receive : €1000 (10 purchases * €100)
You pay : €42.50 (€4.25 per transaction * 10 + free transfer)
Bottom lime, you receive : €957.50 (€1000 - €42.50)

Realex http://www.realexpayments.com/

You receive: €1000 (10 purchases * €100)
You pay : €29 (€29 Monthly fee  + free transfer)
Bottom line, you receive : €971 (€1000 - €29)

2Checkout http://www.2checkout.com/community/

You receive : €1000 (10 purchases * €100)
You pay : €58.20 (€5.82 per transaction * 10  + free transfer)
Bottom line, you receive : €941.80 (€1000 – €58.20)

MoneyBookers (No website payment options) http://www.moneybookers.com/

You receive : €1000 (10 purchases * €100)
You pay : €1.80 (€1.80 to transfer electronically)
Bottom line, you receive : €998.20

NoChex http://www.nochex.com/

You receive : €1000 (10 purchases * €100)
You pay : €31.30 ( €3.13 * 10 + “Negotiable” transfer fee)
Bottom line, you receive : €968.70 - “Negotiable” transfer fee

RBS Worldpay http://www.rbsworldpay.com/

You receive : €1000 (10 purchases * €100)
You pay : €39.50 (€3.95 per transaction * 10) + €20 (Monthly fee) + €4.50 (Withdrawal fee) = €64
Bottom line, you receive : €936 (€1000 - €64)

An interesting note about Paypal is that Guest buyers (those without a Paypal account and buying with their Credit Card without logging in) is limited to €1740 (£1500 GBP) per year, regardless of who’s website they are buying products or services from. So if a buyer spent €1000 combined on a couple of other websites using Paypal, the most they’d be able to spend on your site is €500 for the remainder of the year.

Also, if a buyer collectively spends €580 (£500 GBP) on your Paypal enabled website, they will be forced to register and get verified.

If you have some customers that use Paypal on their website and their customers suddenly start complaining of issues when purchasing, one of these last two points is probably the cause.

I had it in my head for a long time that Realex were too expensive. After taking the time to look into the options I’ll be using Realex for anything purchase related in future. Not only because of their better and more transparent costs but that they are also contactable via email and even Twitter!

- Update 21 July -

Take a look at a very detailed list of Payment Service Providers for Irish Merchants from Webpayments.ie.

Nearly every day I bookmark stuff to go back to later. I don’t always go back to them as I should but I do look back over the posts here  so I’ve decided to list a few interesting things I see during a week here in the hopes of catching my own attention and that they might be of interest to others.

Damien has Fluffy links, Alexia has Red links and Joe has Little links so I’d decied to do it aswell.. murmurs.

Slides from the it@corks iphone event on Wednesday in the Airport hotel.

Look and taste being featured on the apple store favourites.

If you were online at all this week you’ll have heard Google are launching an OS,  some guy appears to have early info and first pics of it

A cool site listing Irish radio stations online

Litmusapp have a great feedback form to vote for new features

I’m interested in word clouds at the moment, I came across tagcrowd.com which lets you create tag clouds from web pages, files or copy & pasted text.

And finally, if you have 30 seconds can you do a newsletter survey