Web Design - the value of learning as you go

It would be somewhat churlish to describe myself as a web designer, however over the years I have put together a variety of websites both with other people and myself and they have generally been pretty well laid out and done the job. I enjoy this work and would like to do more both recreationally and for money (!).

In this vein I have been doing some web design for a medico legal client over the last couple of weeks and although I use a template system to create the basic layout and design the client needed some bespoke html elements building into the site.

I am, as they say completely 'self taught' and this has been an enormous challenge for me but quite rewarding - things are going well and this morning I managed to overcome a problem with inserting a coloured text button and then a link into the button itself to another part of the site I am designing- only took me 20 minutes to figure out how to input the text and then target it towards the right bit of the site - very satisfying although granted this is really simple html programming.

Essentially with a bit of patience and access to You Tube tutorials I suspect you can pretty much do anything.

New sponsor for this blog and the PMICast podcast

Above this post at the top of the Localventure site (just under the title) you will find a banner advertising the Sonos wireless hifi system.

This is not random ad placed by google but rather our new affiliate sponsor - the blog and podcast receive a small commission on each sale made via our link and this is a good way for us to cover the costs of the free content.

If you are interested in creating a really cool and effective wireless music playing network at home fro ma state of the art, cutting edge tech company then Sonos is the answer.

Their system works from your smart phone and enables you to seamlessly play music, radio and even audio books around your home with total control - their base systems start from $ 349 and the quality and control is excellent.

Please click on the link to see more, make sure you do some research on the system that suits you and then if you do decide to make a purchase make sure you do so via our link - it would be of immense help.

Thanks !

Petrol Vouchers

Whilst I was away on holiday I spent £60 at Sainsburys and received a voucher for 6p discount off each litre of fuel at their petrol station. I claimed this saving easily with no problems at my next visit to buy fuel. 

Today I received the same voucher deal from Morrisons so took the voucher to the forecourt this evening. Unfortunately they required the actual shopping receipt to offer the discount. Obviously I don't carry all my shopping receipts with me and therefore couldn't use the discount voucher.

The attendant was also a bit of a prick about it I'm sorry to say.

Now that's customer service - it also begs the question, why not just use the receipt as a voucher instead of procuring an, effectively useless, second bit of voucher paper.

I'd say I will never use Morrisons Petrol station again but the two local petrol stations are both of the Morrisons variety and they effectively have a local monopoly.

Last two weeks of the School Holidays - Yay or Nay ?

Today marks the beginning of the penultimate week of the long summer holidays.

As a home worker I have obviously been in charge of childcare for my 7 and 13 year olds during this period and the racket coming from my daughters bedroom this morning (also called the pit or as it is at the moment the X-Box/really loud home cinema room) got me thinking about how having kids here affects my work.

Obviously it's harder to organise appointments as childcare needs to be arranged - I have a back up plan (Grandma usually) but of course this makes planning essential.

There's also the aforementioned noise - although now they're older this is less of a problem. More of an issue is the constant need for stimulation required by a 7 year old - if he comes into my office once a day stating he's bored then he does it a dozen times - that's a distraction for me as I am a 'focused' worker not a 'stop and do something else whilst I entertain my child' kind of worker.

However I am going to miss them when they go back - having them around changes the vibe at home and in my office making it more like a real workplace - there's more of a hum and obviously more going on. Also it is nice occasionally to be able to bounce an idea off a real live person even if they don't necessarily 'get' what I'm discussing with them.

Lastly, as I don't have to drop any one at school at the moment I have more time in a morning to prep for the day and to be honest that hour first thing in the morning is actually one of the most precious times of the day to get into the right frame of mind for the day to come.

So kids at home - Yay on balance. That might change if their ratio of arguing to playing nicely increases markedly as it can towards the end of the holidays !

Golf ... aaarrgghhhhh !!!

I have not played actual golf in around 15 years and cannot claim to have ever been anything more than a totally ungifted hacker.

As the old joke goes, my handicap was my golf sticks !

Mrs Localventure and I wanted to come up with a physical activity the whole family could do together so we've decided to take the kids to a driving range and get us all competent enough to manage a family round of golf together.

So this morning I took the kids to scope out our local driving range near Esholt (legendary former home of Emmerdale village) and have a quick go.

Kids both took to it fairly well, Ryan is 7 so the clubs are a bit big and it's hard for him but he had good go and can hit the ball (not far) but consistently. Meg (13) actually has quite a nice stance and swing - can't hit the ball straight for toffee but this is literally the first time she's played anything other than crazy golf.

But I hear you asking, what about me ?

See picture below :

Frankly, I'm still crap ....

You Tube Channel

Some weeks ago I launched my You Tube channel and the videos there cover a range of tech and medical insurance issues.

One of the main things I might suggest you look at there is the video version of my audio podcast (www.pmicast.podbean.com and on iTunes) at the moment there are three PMICast episodes on the channel - here's the first one embedded for you to look over :

If you're interested click here to visit the channel and have a look at what's on offer.

Private Medical Insurance website

I wanted to use my blog post today to highlight my business website. It's something that I don't mention particularly often on the blog as I assume (probably wrongly) that interested parties will just find their way there is they are interested.

I'm an independent healthcare consultant and I work with a range of clients across the UK both individual and corporate clients. As you can see the site is succinct, gives an overview of key areas of benefits I can offer you advice on, some information on me (although you'll find much more here and on Linkedin plus there's the option to contact me directly at the bottom of the page.

If you do need help with any aspect of new or existing medical insurance please visit the site and get in touch. Click here to visit the site

__________

If you're interested in a free review of your medical insurance cover (family or company paid) please get in touch :

Tel - 07792 075748 or 0113 3474395

E - philknight@pch.uk.com

Follow my Talk Health blog at : www.talkhealthpartnership.com/blog/author/phil-knight/

& my articles for Premier Choice at : www.pch.uk.com/latest-health-insurance-news.php

Twitter - localventure1 and philknightpch

Video Podcast - You Tube Channel : pkn439

Audio Podcast - www.pmicast.podbean.com & www.whereswilson.podbean.com - both available on iTunes

Linkedin Profile : uk.linkedin.com/pub/philip-knight/1a/b47/58b/

Google Plus : https://plus.google.com/116316601747539224729/posts

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/philip.knight.775

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant

I'm a totally independent healthcare intermediary with 20 years market experience, not tied to any insurer, fully FCA regulated and part of the Premier Choice Healthcare Group. FCA Number 312878.

My You Tube Channel : www.youtube.com/user/pkn439

iCloud Beta

The beta website for iCloud is now up and running at www.beta.icloud.com and as you can see below it now shares the graphic stylings of soon to be launched IOS 7 probably September 10th of 11th in line with the launch of the new iPhone 5S and (maybe) 5C.

Of course, this is an on-line web based service so it isn't going to be remotely connected to IOS and in fact at the moment you cannot access the iCloud website on an IOS device (probably because most of the functions : Pages, mail, notifications etc are in-built into the iPhone and iPad). The rebranding to IOS style then seems a little pointless. The interesting thing however is that this sees the launch (admittedly in beta) of the Apple iWorks apps : Keynote, Pages and 123 on line. Essentially I suppose they are competing with google drive (docs as was) and having had a quick play it seems to work OK - it is a direct replication of how the iWorks suite works on Mac (you have the option when pressing CMD and 'O' to open up on-line cloud docs or search from Finder or just open docs on the tool bar - pretty efficient and useful (although as the service is now totally web based the on-line doc access isn't massively fast as it accesses the cloud servers at Apple). It now enables users to work on their documents from any work station - although I'm not a PC user currently (PC Lap top died yesterday!) I assume the on-line elements will work on any PC browser. Lastly and importantly, according to tutorials that appear when you first log in it is possible to drag and drop word, pages, excel, 123 etc docs from your desktop into the cloud browser - this facility kind of makes iCloud a much more useful multi machine resource to me and will assist in work flow and accessibility which sits at the core of what I do massively.

It's worth noting that although the iWorks apps are also now in the main 'old' iCloud site as beta's I couldn't make them work on this version so I've now moved across to the iCloud Beta site permanently - remember this is still a beta though and it's likely that as more people locate it and switch it will slow down and crash.

Plus as an aside, make sure you check out the latest episode of my medical insurance podcast. PMICast Season 2 Episode 1 is now on iTunes and streamable from www.pmicast.podbean.com

I'm on Instagram please check me out and like my stuff

I've recently begun to post some pictures on Instagram and am now having some success driving business using a daily video blog in the I'Gram 15 second format.

You can find me at www.instagram.com/pkn4395 - please visit, see my stuff and if you like what you see, like the content.

Thanks

P

PMICast - Season 2 now available

We're now back in our podcasting upload schedule. The first full episode of season 2 of PMICast (search under the name on iTunes or stream from www.pmicast.podbean.com - we're also on most podcatching services like Stitcher and others - if we're not on your preferred one just drop me a line and we will join up to help out).

Please download the 'cast and enjoy - lots of new features including a masterclass on the moratorium method of underwriting.

I'm looking for interview subjects for a new segment for the 'cast too.If you're an industry professional, interested party and have anything to say about medical insurance or healthcare please get in touch at pmicast@gmail.com.

Season Two will run to Christmas 2013 so please subscribe and tell your friends and colleagues. Also, if you get chance leave us an iTunes review - full info on how to do this are on this weeks podcast.