At the end of the one day workshop each attendee will have built their own web shop and be ready to take orders online.

The workshop is aimed at anyone running a business who has some experience of using the internet and email and is ready to take the next step to trading on-line.

The workshop is to be held on
Monday 22 June 2009 10am to 4pm
£25.00 per person cheques payable to Calstock Development Trust
The price includes 30 days hosting.

Book at the Oasis Centre
or by phoning
Mike at Amcho Computer Services Ltd
on 01822 833 690

For anyone who wishes to start early or cannot attend the workshop we will be running an online version using email - sign up atBxB.biz

Example live webshops:

• Hand Crafted Decorative Porcelain Vessels
• Teddy Bear online Shop

Sometimes number 1 on google is not all it is cracked up to be!

Try it yourself in different browsers by putting UK style dates at www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_parse.asp

If you want to check it out yourself the PHP code is included below:

Function FindDate($sDate,$iDirection,$sTarget) {
// $sDate format YYYY-MM-DD from MySQL table
// $idirection to go forward or back in time
// $sTarget day of week we want to find
list($yyyy,$mm,$dd)=preg_split('/\W/',$sDate);
$i=0;
do {
	$timestamp=mktime(0, 0, 0, $mm, $dd+$i, $yyyy);
	$i=$i+$iDirection;
	$w=date('D',$timestamp);  // gives Mon - Sun
	echo ($i." ".$sDate." ".$w);
	echo (date('Y-m-d',$timestamp)."\n");
    } while ($w!=$sTarget && abs($i<7));

$r= date('Y-m-d',$timestamp);
echo ($r."\n");
return $r;

}

Similar in someways to the concept of sending the next tax demand back with a note along the lines of ‘Thank you for your offer but just at the moment , due to other financial commitments, we regret that we must decline your request“.

I was clearing out my spam folder and noticed a message with the above header, sometimes even spam can be interesting! The contents were less so; it was some sort of scheme to make lots of money returning phone calls….

Warning - When doing screenshots switch off any browser toolbars. Close all other windows. Check what else is visible on your screen. The toolbars may show what you last searched for - information you may rather keep private from the general public or your boss. You do not want to discover that your account statement is visible in the background in the middle of doing a presentation!

On Monday Tamar Embroideries had the bright idea to expand into the custom workwear market, and so we built a brand new website based on the well knows oscommerce shopping cart with a totally new range of goods and have just gone live today at embroideries.co.uk

I am quite happy with the four standard channels, but for the sake of domestic harmony I needed to sort out something before the switchover or our resident teenager has threatened to leave home.

Given the choice of no TV or no teenager I decided on the no teenager option,  but then ’she who must be obeyed’ intervened,
so it looks like we are going digital!

So for any one faced with a similar dilemma,
here are the fruits of my research:

FREEVIEW
This is the cheapest - just buy a freeview box and plug it in.
in theory it should work but as we have lousy reception anyway,
and freeview is not currently available this option was shelved.

FREESAT
The cold war had a couple of good results - we now have loads of satellites zooming around the planet with nothing better to do than tell us where we are and broadcast television programmes!

To get freesat you need a satalite dish connected to a box of electronics
that then connects to your existing TV.

There are two different offerings on freesat:

FREESAT from Sky - 240 channels plus lots of sky packages.

FREESAT from the BBC and ITV - 140 channels including HD

a standard installation starts from around £80,
while a freesat+ install (to allow recording) costs an extra £20 because it need two feeds from your satellite dish.

Each additional room also costs extra.

If you want lots of different programmes, telephone services, and
broadband then the offerings from sky should be considered.

At the moment Sky are doing a promotion: Sky Prepay - Pay Once, Watch Forever
for around £75 - you get your sky mini dish plus installation plus 4 months of sky packages.
After the four months trial period you can continue with your subscription or cancel.
If you cancel you keep the equipment and can continue viewing the free channels.

LINKS:
www.freesat.co.uk
www.freesatfromsky.co.uk
Sky Pay Once and Watch Forever
Currys digital TV Services