tjstead.co.uk

eBay – Spring Loaded

A few months back I dabbled with my own eBay store and although I found that it didn’t work for me, I’m happy to say that I know of at least one success story. I undertook some work for my client, Tim at spring-loaded.co.uk, to convert his existing e-commerce website to work with PayPal Pro and SSL… we got talking about his existing eBay store which used the standard eBay template, and his intention of transforming it to look like the main Spring Loaded website. Tim kindly offered me the work and not being one to turn down a challenge, I got started.

I didn’t design the Spring-Loaded website, so had to set about transforming the eBay shop without the original artwork, simply adapting the images to fit. There were a few hurdles to overcome, such as identifying the CSS elements to alter to achieve the right look, but I got there and overall I’m happy with the outcome.

Take a look and see what you think. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Spring-Loaded-Kits

Language and grammar checking… provided by humans

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend about an idea that I’d had for a website business. He said, “I often get reports, C.Vs and letters from people asking for jobs, but I put them straight in the bin as the grammar and spelling are so bad”.

We live in an age where the English language is being adapted for laziness and style. I’m not saying that an individual isn’t entitled to talk in txt spk… they’re obviously comfortable with sounding like a plonker and that’s no business of mine. What I find troublesome is that there are people out there who genuinely struggle with English and the construction of written texts, and they’re penalised, rather than nurtured.

I’ve created a website which I hope will help to guide people towards their goal, whether it be to improve their understanding of a language, write a well constructed letter to ask for work, or simply have another pair of eyes look over an assignment. Whatever your background, whatever your career, I believe that this website could help you. I have a team of teachers, journalists, translators and language enthusiasts on board, waiting to cast a confidential and impartial eye over whatever comes their way!

Please take a look and tell me what you think http://www.checkmy.org

To eBay or not to eBay?

A relative had to close her shop recently due to bad health and ever increasing rates; this was the perfect opportunity to jump on the eBay bandwagon and see what I could shift, something which has always had me wondering. Firstly I set up a shop, something which seems like a good deal at £14.99 per month and was quick and easy to do; then I customised the shop front using html and was off and running.

That should be the difficult bit over… I downloaded eBay’s Turbo Lister application and set about writing descriptions for the items, taking photographs and finding out postage costs. The way the mail services are incorporated via PayPal is quite user friendly, but it doesn’t hide from the fact that it all takes time.

I ended up listing 20 items, with various auction starting prices, or fixed ‘buy it now’ prices and they all sat there happily ticking down to their ending date. All looked promising and I had 40 people watching my items within a few days.

Now, here’s the really annoying part and the point that caused me to close the shop after one month. eBay choose to charge for pretty much everything… insertion fee, reserve price fee, buy it now fee, additional picture fee, final value fee… the list goes on and the possible profit margins go down and down.

I can see the benefit of an eBay shop if you only intend to sell the same items again and again, so can cut out the time required to write about, photograph and work out postage costs; but if you’re only selling one, or a few of each item, then personally, I don’t think it’s worth it. Add time needed to pack items, chase non payers and request feedback and you’ll soon ask yourself… why bother?

Learning to speak

I can’t believe that Hazel is nearly nine months old… here she is practising her vocals

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana” – Groucho Marx – possibly

It’s all too true that time flies when you’re having fun. I never thought I’d be saying that about the first two weeks of fatherhood, but it seems that we’ve been pretty lucky so far; of course it helps if you don’t have boobs and you’re deaf in one ear. It’s been great only doing the things that Hazel has demanded of us, but tomorrow sees my return to the big wide working world.

Better go iron a shirt, make my lunch and cross fingers for an uneventful night…

First line for a book #1

“It wasn’t the first time that Aidan had wet himself in class, but he knew that he had to change if he was to remain a respected member of the teaching staff”

Bundle of joy

Although there were good and bad points, 2009 was one of those years that I’ll look back on and think “thank **** that’s over”.

2010 unfortunately has the ingredients to be very similar but at least there’s one extra special twist… at 2.12pm on 2nd February, a tiny little Hazel Elizabeth shot forth into this world.
Plans for a water birth sadly went awry due to the speed that the little sexually transmitted alien decided that she was going to appear; instead we arrived at the hospital to hear the midwives say “sorry, there’s no time for any pain relief… you just need to push”. It turns out that my incredible wife has the pain threshold of Rambo and it was less than twelve minutes later that our beautiful daughter emerged kicking and screaming. (I gloss over the 18 hours of contractions at home… well done Shells.. love you)

Becoming a father is as scary a prospect as I’d imagined it to be; that said though, I couldn’t estimate the amount of times I’ve uttered the word beautiful in the last ten days. I’ve often found myself waking from a daze, only to realise that I’ve been lost in Hazel’s wide eyes with no concept of the time that’s passed.

Welcome to the world Hazel. It can be a difficult and unforgiving place, but we’ll do our best to point you in the right direction.

Lots of love, Mummy and Daddy