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