WorldWidePR.net

Grays of Westminster Invitations

2011-12-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

This year, I was very pleased to be invited to two highly prestigious events by the exclusive Nikon dealer, Grays of Westminster.

In July at a luncheon at the Goring Hotel, London, Nikon UK awarded Grays of Westminster a crystal trophy for 25 years of outstanding contribution to Nikon users. It was quite an honour to be invited to this highly prestigious event.

Earlier this month, I was also invited to the Grays of Westminster Grand Christmas Dinner at the IoD with guest speaker, royal photographer Julian Calder.

My ticket

The royal menu

Models of Diversity’s 'Curves in Couture' in Aid of Advance Centre was a Smashing Success

2011-12-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

left to right: Miss Trinidad & Tobago, top British designer Zandra Rhodes, host of the event and founder of Models of Diversity, Angel Sinclair and Velvet d’Amour.
Photo by maxpictures.co.uk

This was the first plus-size catwalk show of such prestige to have ever taken place in the UK

London – Models of Diversity’s history-making catwalk show Curves in Couture of healthy, curvy models - all in aid of Advance Centre for The Scotson Technique - on 17 November 2011 at Tabernacle W11 in Notting Hill was a great success. Celeb presenters Natalie Cassidy and Pamela Stephenson wowed the crowd with their wit, beauty and support of the campaign. VIP guests such as CEO of the British Fashion Council Caroline Rush, top British designer Zandra Rhodes, America’s Next Top Model winner Whitney Thompson and the dance group Flawless were knocked out by the designs and the models.

Pamela Stephenson - one of the two MCs of the show.
Photo by maxpictures.co.uk

Major media partners were The Dish Network in North America and fantastic German plus-size clothing company navabi. Press who covered the event include Sky TV, The Dish Network and Positive TV; Grazia, Hello, More, OK, We Are HQ, Slink, Beautiful, Evolve, Flynet, The Aspen Business Journal, Fresh Fashion Faces, Just As Beautiful, Prima, Lela London, Women’s Views on News, Fab and Heat magazines; Vogue Curvy, Big Pictures; and newspapers The Mail, The Daily Mail and The Voice.

EastEnders star, Natalie Cassidy - one of the two MCs of the show - with the Catwalk Professor.Photo by maxpictures.co.uk

Celebs and VIPs who attended include Zandra Rhodes, John Swannell, the dance group Flawless, Nick Ede, Equalities MP Lynne Featherstone, Eve Pollard, the Countess Sondes, Velvet d’Amour, Whitney Thompson, CEO of the BFC Caroline Rush and her guests, Em McCleave, Eve Pollard, Leee John, Mark Summers, Brenda Edwards, Miss Trinidad & Tobago, Catwalk Professor, Stuart Phillips, reps from the London Diplomat Association, and brand managers from Harrods, Marina Rinaldi, Evans and Debenhams.

Founder of Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique, Linda Scotson, with Cllr Liz Bennett, deputy mayor of East Grinstead.Photo by maxpictures.co.uk

First came The Diversity Show featuring MoD’s professional models of diverse sizes, shapes, heights, ability levels and races, sporting the latest in ready-to-wear fashion from different retail lines as well as independent designers. Debbie van der Putten, star of BBC 3’s Britain's Missing Top Model walked in the show, which featured designers like Eve Pollard, Jose Hendo, Tina LoBondi, Ramil Makinano, Scarlett Black, Aaron Ray Dowie, and Pepe Jeans.

The highlight of the event was Curves in Couture, with top international curvy plus models such as Sophie Sheppard, Lizzie Miller, Robyn Lawley, fresh off the cover of Vogue Italia, and Toccara Jones, in sizes 14-18. The models sported couture, from both up and coming designers like Danielle Liane and Miss Lacy, and established design houses such as Anna Scholz, Carolyn de la Drapiere, Jill Alexander, Ilda Di Vico Couture Milliner, and The House of Scarlet. Kelly Knox, winner of BBC 3’s Britain's Missing Top Model, wearing Renaissance Couture Brighton closed the high-fashion show. A fantastic After Party was donated by Luigi Consoli of Queensberry Club in South Kensington. A full list of sponsors, designers and media partners can be found at http://www.modelsofdiversity.org/curvesincouture

All proceeds from the show benefit East Grinstead-based Advance Centre for The Scotson Technique, a unique charity that teaches parents of brain-injured children how to deliver The Scotson Technique (TST), a drug-free respiratory-based exercise to help nourish the brain with extra oxygen that it needs for more normal development. The technique, developed by Linda Scotson after 15 years of research into breathing and recovery of function after brain injury, helps children diagnosed with cerebral palsy, autism and other neurological conditions. The charity was founded in 1996 by Linda Scotson who is the pioneer of The Scotson Technique. http://www.advancecentres.com Registered Charity 1026049

Thanks to The Advance Centre for The Scotson Technique, 18-year-old Tatijana Hall-Roberts from Thurston in Suffolk, whose life was previously restricted by epilepsy and other neurological problems, is now a talented student of fashion design. Tatijana was present at the event, as was Cllr Liz Bennett, East Grinstead's deputy mayor.

In the middle of the proceedings, in between the catwalk shows, Linda Scotson said a few words about her charity and played a short video on the wonderful work it does. It showed that some children with cerebral palsy who are unable to sit at age 2 can still gain full walking ability as a result of The Scotson Technique. This was illustrated by footage of Alex Newton's first independent steps, aged 6, and Linda's son Doran, who now runs half marathons. It also showed Sam Perkins who has hemiplegia, using his affected arm and leg with increasing ease and normality.

"I am enormously grateful to Angel Sinclair for her passionate support of Advance, which is helping to raise the charity into the public eye and to bring hope and encouragement to so many more families with disabled children," said Linda Scotson.

Advance would also like to thank the family of Sebastian Burger whose company L'Isola Buona in Brighton donated their delicious Mediterranean-style sandwiches for the models. Sebastian, who has cerebral palsy, has also greatly benefited The Scotson Technique.

Models of Diversity, founded by former model Angel Sinclair (also the founder of Sinclair Management) is a London-based non-profit organization which advocates for more diversity in models, and demands that the fashion and marketing industries recognise the beauty in women and men of all races, ages, shapes, sizes, abilities, genders and sexual orientations. Their mission is to change the face of fashion and modelling! Their campaign was founded to stand for equal rights and opportunities within the modelling and fashion industry. MoD is officially backed by the British Fashion Council and has joined with Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone for the government’s campaign on body confidence. http://www.modelsofdiversity.org http://www.sinclairmanagement.co.uk

For more information, please contact:
Linda Scotson
Founder
Advance Centre
..for The Scotson Technique
The Bradbury House
6 Station Road
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 1DJ
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1342 311137
info@advancecentres.com
http://www.advancecentres.com

See additional coverage by:

Congratulations to Nick Robertson, CEO of ASOS.com, on his OBE

2011-12-05T01:58:00.001-08:00

.
One-time client, ASOS.com, used to take advantage of WorldWidePR.net's online press release service. As far as I understand, the company has now taken this service in house.

"Gap to Launch on ASOS.com": one of the many online press releases submitted by WorldWidePR.net on behalf of ASOS.com, 10 May 2009

So we would like to congratulate Nick Robertson, ASOS.com's CEO, on receiving his well-deserved OBE from the Queen last month, and for the astonishing success of ASOS over the last 11 years. We are very proud to be able to include ASOS in our client list.

Daily Telegraph, 15 Nov 2011

Many congratulations Nick Robertson, "one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the Twentieth century" - not bad!

School Play: Greenfields Theatre Company 2011 Presents 'The 39 Steps'

2011-07-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

GTC (Greenfield Theatre Company) is dashed pleased to announce that this summer we will producing a bally exciting adaption of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller, based on John Buchan’s gripping whodunnit, The 39 Steps.

The show follows the incredible adventures of our handsome hero, complete with stiff upper lip, British gung-ho and pencil moustache as he encounters dastardly murders, double-crossing secret agents, and of course, devastatingly beautiful women in a bid to clear his name and solve a murder he did not commit.

Production for this fast-paced and thrilling comedy is now well underway with costumes being made, sets designed, computer animations and of course, actors' rehearsals – all organised by the children themselves in liaison with the teachers.

Costume making in full swing

The pictures show Richard Hanny (the star) played by Alex Gramman, and various other actors along with Mrs Bird, Head of Drama, during a read through.

Alex Gramman rehersing the lead role, Richard Hanny

Directions from Mrs Maria Bird, Head of Drama

Actors running through the scenes

Stay tuned for updates soon….

TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE!

Call 01342 822189 or 07905 189165 or email: gfboxoffice@gmail.com

Been told that you don’t need to defragment when adding a SAN environment into your network estate?

2011-05-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

With massive electronic data growth occurring today, there is now a much greater need for storage. SAN is at the forefront for most storage solutions and providers such as HP, IBM and NetApp, to name a few, are providing the necessary platforms to cater to this. Virtualisation and cloud solutions are promising less hardware in this respect, but data storage if held locally, will inevitably mean acquiring more hardware. This additional hardware is where the problem will lie in terms of cost for many companies today.

Diagram of Disk I/O as it travels from Operating System to SAN LUN

It stands to reason then that making full use of your SAN potential is vital. A common misconception related to SAN storage environments is that they don’t suffer from fragmentation related issues. This is the “party line” being handed out by many of the storage providers. There are plausibly a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, that each SAN provider will have their own propriety logic when it comes to arranging blocks within the SAN environment, and secondly, which is more likely, is that they get to sell more hardware to their customers.

To understand this a little better, every file system is a "virtual" disk, stacking one virtual component over another (i.e. one file system on top of another). What the vendor of a SAN file system does at their SAN file system level is irrelevant to what the Windows file system does underneath ― all Windows file systems fragment, regardless.

SANs typically employ a clustered/SAN file system to pool disk arrays into a virtualized storage volume. This is not Windows NTFS, but rather the proprietary software, provided by a SAN hardware or software vendor. Claims that "you do not need to defragment" may be misunderstood and incorrectly implied to mean "Windows NTFS"― NTFS always needs to be defragmented. It is very possible that you do not need to defragment the "SAN file system". Tips, best practices and SAN I/O optimization methodologies should always be gotten from the respective SAN vendor.

SANs are only ever block-level storage, they do not know what I/Os relate to what files. Therefore they cannot intelligently spread the fragments of a file across multiple disks. A whole mass of separate I/Os writes/reads for fragmented files (which will most certainly be interspersed with other simultaneous data writes/reads) will non-optimally be spread across the disks in the SAN storage pool.

As for NTFS, it still fragments and causes the Windows OS to "split" I/O requests for files sent into the SAN, creating a performance penalty. You can measure this using the Window's built-in PerfMon tool and watch the split I/O counter. You can also use the Average Queued Disk I/O, given that you account for the number of physical spindles.

The only solution offered by SAN vendors to address the split I/O problem is adding more spindles. This solution would mask the problem by dispersing the I/Os across the additional disks. This would mean you will need to add more disks as the I/O bottle neck increases, which would, over a period of time.
The actual problem lies at the NTFS level, for every fragment of a file is a separate I/O that has to be generated to access it. The less fragmented a file is, the less I/Os are required to access the file, compared to when it is heavily fragmented.

For more information see Windows IT Pro whitepaper entitled “Maximize the Performance of your Windows SAN Infrastructure”.

The Secret to Maintaining SSD Performance

2011-05-09T01:58:00.001-07:00

HyperFast SSD Optimizer

Why your Solid State Drive is not as fast as it used to be

By: Mandeep Birdi, Technical Consultant

Diskeeper Corporation Europe

SSD hard drives are becoming increasingly more popular. Many portable devices such as laptops, PDA's, Tablet PC's and Netbooks are being used with SSDs. Although prices are still astronomically high - a 1TB SSD setting you back a mere £3000 - sooner or later the prices will fall into a more accessible range and they will become far more widely used.

Of course solid state drives have several distinctive advantages. Faster access times, lower power usage and rather pleasingly, run completely silent. The main disadvantage, although possibly undetectable at first, is over time you'll probably start to notice the write speed slowing down - even slower than those of conventional hard drives.

Solid state drives can access any location on the drive in the same amount of time. This is one of the key features over hard drives. So there is no fragmentation problem with SDDs regard to "reading" files.

There is however still a problem with the fragmentation of the free space that will seriously affect the performance of SSDs. These drives have actually been designed to write data evenly in all sectors of the drive which the industry is calling "Wear Leveling". Each sector of a solid state drive has a limited number of writes before it cannot be overwritten anymore.

Unlike a magnetic storage device which can record new data directly on top of old data, an SSD must first erase the contents of a previously used memory cell to zero out its contents before the new data can be written. This slows down the speed and is what prompted both Microsoft and SSD manufactures to create the solutions known as TRIM and Garbage Collection. These functions can perform these types of clean up tasks in the background when certain conditions are met.

Unfortunately, TRIM and Garbage Collection doesn't have anything to do with addressing how the free space is allocated by the NTFS file system and most SSDs suffer from free space fragmentation due to inherent NAND flash limitations. This is where you need a method to optimize the SSD. By ensuring that the small sections of free space are better managed, you can cause files to be written in their optimum condition requiring the least number of I/O operations. This also benefits subsequent reads of these files and improves the overall access times across the board. SSD are without question extremely fast, but you will never get the full potential of the speed over time as promised unless you keep it optimized.

Optimizing your SSD - HyperFast Technology

HyperFast® technology only concerns itself with the fragmentation of files and free space caused by the NTFS file system and not that of the physical placement of data on the SSD. HyperFast reduces the amount of writing and as a result improves the write times and the life span of SSDs - therefore quite complimentary to the purpose behind wear-leveling strategies.

The HyperFast product (an add-on to Diskeeper) is designed to consolidate free space when it is needed, without "over" doing it. HyperFast is unique as you do not ever need to manually analyze or manually run, or even schedule it. It is smart enough to automatically know what to do and when. More information at http://www.diskeeper.com/hyperfast

The Jive Aces at London's World-Renowned 100 Club

2011-05-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

The "Bring Me Sunshine" video and interview with Ian Clarkson to hopefully appear in a forthcoming episode of On the Mike with Mike Sherman.

While The Jive Aces were setting up for their gig at London's famous 100 Club on 25 Apr 2011 (part of the band's never-ending world tour), trumpeter and lead singer of the band, Ian, was interviewed by Adam Hoffman for the prime-time Miami-based TV show "On the Mike with Mike Sherman" about the runaway success their new single "Bring Me Sunshine" which has had over half a million views in a little over a month, about their forthcoming album "King of the Swingers", and about their longterm involvement with the "Say No To Drugs, Say Yes To Life" campaign, supported by the Church of Scientology.

A poster by the front door of the club

Down to the auditorium (if you can call it that)

Setting up

The famous 100 Club stage

John Fordham and his 1952 saxophone

Getting ready for the interview

Ian Clarkson with co-host Adam Hoffman

The interviewee's POV

The interview for real

Here are a few photos of some of the many acts who have performed at the 100 Club. I can just make out Lemmy of Motorhead, top right. The Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, Buzzcocks, Stranglers, The Damned and even The Rolling Stones are a few of the many other acts which have performed here.

More photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150170504209014.321614.517774013&l=c85f5ac7d1

Bring Me Sunshine:

The Jive Aces present: Bring Me Sunshine from Alex Douglas on Vimeo.

On the Mike with Mike Sherman promo video:

On The Mike with Mike Sherman, the prime-time music/celebrity-driven lifestyle weekly TV show from OnTheMikeTV on Vimeo.

Film crew: Stafford Wheaton, Nitsan Simantov, Serg Abramenkov

“On The Mike with Mike Sherman” is produced by On The Mike Productions Inc, a leading provider in celebrity/music driven content for TV, Smartphones and the world wide web. The “On The Mike” TV show is syndicated nationwide on Direct TV and internationally all over the world on selected television networks. The show brings Miami, Las Vegas, NY and Los Angeles markets closer to exclusive interviews, VIP events, music, red carpets, concerts, and A-list celebrities to a worldwide audience. Creator/producer: Mike Sherman. Executive producer: Matthew Brenowitz

Styled and Frocked Fashion Show in aid of the Tree of Hope

2011-05-02T23:40:00.001-07:00

Amazon Eve with Doran Scotson

On 28th April 2011, a fashion show with a difference was held at JuJu in the Kings Road, London to raise funds for specialist medical treatment and therapy for sick UK children.

The Tree of Hope Children’s Charity joined forces with JuJu and Models of Diversity to create a unique experience for all who attended.

Hosted by Sally Farmiloe-Neville, the guest list included:

Amazon Eve - the World's Tallest Supermodel

Cerrie Burnell - TV Presenter

Emmanuel Ray - Britain's first It Boy

Catherine Balavager

Ben Duncan (Big Brother)

Leee John (Imagination)

Mike Hollingsworth (TV Executive)

From Advance Centres: Linda Scotson and Doran Scotson who was one of the models

The Fashion Show featured creations by:

Bo Carter

Hoss Intropia

Toni Pickles of Get Waisted

Najlaa Jabri was the stylist for the evening and make up was by BellViso Global

Entertainment included:

Comedy duo Teakshow

Crooner Don Wilson

Lipstick Bandits Burlesque

Leee John with Jeremy Marris of the Tree of Hope charity (photo © Mark Gibson)

Cerrie Burnell (photo © Mark Gibson)

One of Tony Pickles' corsets, modeled by Candice (photo © Mark Gibson)

Leee John with Linda Scotson (photo © Mark Gibson)

Linda Scotson with Angel Sinclair, founder of Models of Diversity (photo © Mark Gibson)

John Wood of WorldWidePR.net being pleasantly 'squashed' by Amazon Eve!

One of the models (photo © Mark Gibson)

One of the Tree of Hope hostesses (photo © Mark Gibson)

Leee John with John Wood

Doran Scotson, the model (photo © Mark Gibson)

More photos by Mark Gibson:
http://gallery.me.com/kilts#100519&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=4

Make a Donation here:
http://www.justgiving.com/treeofhope/Donate

Porsche and the Legacy of Genius by Laurence Meredith

2011-05-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

When Ferdinand Porsche was born, Europe was peaceful, developing, capitalist and largely feudal. Britain was the world's only true 'superpower', and America would not emerge as an economic giant for at least forty-five years. Motor cars, aircraft, television, computers, ballpoint pens and other modern conveniences didn't exist.

Ninety-five years after Porsche's arrival in the world, cars bearing his name were in action at Le Mans, their 4.5-litre 12-cylinder air-cooled engines propelling them to speeds of 240mph.

Conventional wisdom dictated that air-cooling was unsuited to high-speeds. Under the inspired leadership of three generations of the family, Porsche proved, and continues to prove, that traditional rules are there to be broken.

With more than a score of books to his credit on the great German marques, Laurence Meredith brings a unique authority to this, his eighth Porsche-related work, and the first to examine the prime movers and master engineers behind this most hallowed of motoring icons.

Porsche and the Legacy of Genius is written by Laurence Meredith and published by Bank House Books.

http://www.bankhousebooks.com/porsche-and-the-legacy-of-genius.html

Price: £ 20.00

Diana Ross, Queen of Motown

2011-04-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

.

Diana Ross Queen of Motown, written by Ian Phillips and published by Bank House Books, is not simply an homage to the Queen of Motown; the book delves into every album she made and charts her career to date.

It contains a complete examination of her work and exclusive colour photographs, so the devoted fan of Diana will definitely want this book in their collection.

The collector's edition is exclusively available from the Bank House website, so get your copy ordered now and it will be shipped on publication.

http://www.bankhousebooks.com/diana-ross-queen-of-motown.html

Foreword by Sharon Davis.

Price: £ 25.00 in Hardback

Royal Wedding Memorabilia

2011-04-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

Limited Edition Commemorative Coins:

Royal Wedding commemorative silver plated coin.
Available in a beautiful gift box.
4cm in diameter, weighs approximately 1 oz.
The front bears an image of HRH Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.
The back features the HRH Prince Williams Coats of Arms.
RRP £7.99 (Inc. Vat).

Also available is the Gold Royal Wedding Commemorative Coin.

Royal Wedding commemorative gold plated coin.
Available in a beautiful gift box.
4cm in diameter, weighs approximately 1 oz.
The front bears an image of HRH Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.
The back features the HRH Prince Williams Coats of Arms.
RRP £9.99 (Inc. Vat).

Also available is the Silver Royal Wedding Commemorative Coin.

Prince William is the elder son of The Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. He was born on 21 June 1982, at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London.

Catherine Middleton is the oldest of three children born to Carole Elizabeth and Michael Francis Middleton. She was born at on 9 January 1982 at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, Berkshire.

GOLD COIN

Royal Wedding commemorative gold plated coin.
Available in a beautiful gift box.
4cm in diameter, weighs approximately 1 oz.
The front bears an image of HRH Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.
The back features the HRH Prince Williams Coats of Arms.
RRP £9.99 (Inc. Vat).

SILVER COIN

Royal Wedding commemorative silver plated coin.
Available in a beautiful gift box.
4cm in diameter, weighs approximately 1 oz.
The front bears an image of HRH Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton.
The back features the HRH Prince Williams Coats of Arms.
RRP £7.99 (Inc. Vat).

http://bit.ly/theroyalwedding

Buzz Local Networking and Chocolate

2011-04-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

Emily Smith addressing the group, holding one of her revolutionary hot chocolate dunking devices. That's @suzymiller, host and founder of Buzz Local Networking (and, let's face it, local celebrity) in the far right of the picture with @candidandy (Andrew Downing) in the background centre of pic. Other attendees included Mlke Grenville, Rebecca Lawrence of Innocent Vitamins, Dale Bulbrook of Village Cow and Matthew Knights of wiredthing.

Emily with her basket of chocolate wares (with @candidandy in the background)

Had a good time today at this month's Buzz Local Networking event at the Swan in Forest Row.

On this occasion, it was all about chocolate. Very good timing, what with Easter just around the corner. Emily Smith enlightened us on her yet-to-be-named chocolate company that specialises in hot chocolate with a difference. Instead of powder or syrup, her company sells chocolate on a stick that is dunked into hot milk. She told us the idea was inspired from the way she happened to be served hot chocolate when in Luxembourg.

Buzz Local Networking events are fun local business networking opportunities that I would recommend for all businesses in the Forest Row/East Grinstead area, and beyond. Often with business networking innitiatives such as this, one tends to bump into the same faces each time, but I am happy to report that every time I've turned up (I think I've been to all of them), I've met new people.

See you at the next one...

GT Recycling: A unique combination of green initiatives and human rights

2011-04-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the Aylesbury-based firm, GT Recycling, by its founder William Souvatzoglou last Friday (1 April). The company's history and its activities are literally awe-inspiring. Not only is it of great benefit to the environment by preventing books, DVDs, clothes, metals and other item from going it landfill, but it is also of great benefit to the community with its numerous and generous donations to local charities. In addition, it has a heart-warming human rights success story to tell, as described very well in the 22/11/10 edition of the Business Herald, excerpted here:

"Most of the staff come from the same town of Slovakia, called Levoca. According to William, they were being exploited by an unscrupulous employer based in Berkshire, until he took them under his wing. He said his staff are now fitting in well into the Aylesbury community and are embracing British culture.

“Some of these people had been over here quite some time and had not been encouraged to learn the language and they were getting exploited because they did not know what their rights were. “They now have language lessons and are repatriating into the UK side of things. They are establishing bases here, providing an income for the tenancy market and strengthening the retail sector as they have money to spend. “I have also helped a couple of them get mortgages.”

He went on: “They work very well together as a team, they are from the same towns and we have a lot of families here, mothers, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. “They work very hard for the company and are equally rewarded for their hard work.”

Here are some photos from my visit:

Some of GT Recycling's warehouses

Textile sorting

Books ready for sale on Amazon, ebay and other sites

William in front of the book scanning station

More books!

Yet more books!

One of a growing number of GT Recycling-managed high street shops that sell the items collected by the company

Most of the items have never been used, yet were destined for landfill

Just a few of the cheque presentations to charities that William has made on behalf of GT Recycling

Nikon and Grays of Westminster Win AP and What Digital Camera Awards

2011-02-08T04:19:00.000-08:00

Grays of Westminster wins
The What Digital Camera/Amateur Photographer
Good Service Award 2011

We are delighted to announce that our client, Grays of Westminster, recently received the What Digital Camera/Amateur Photographer Good Service Award 2011 as voted for by What Digital Camera readers and website visitors.

This special award was presented to Grays of Westminster at the prestigious Amateur Photographer Annual Awards ceremony on 20th January in London.

You Taking Advantage of The New Social Media Marketing?

2010-12-02T02:51:00.000-08:00

.
image: directory.ac

The rules of promoting your business have changed – Facebook Marketing and Twitter Marketing are here to stay.

With the advent of Social Media everything has changed. An online community of Twitter or Facebook users can make or break your business with their iPhones. Your company or service may be getting hundreds or thousands of good or bad reviews on the new mobile sites like Gowalla or Foursquare, either building up your reputation or tearing it down without you even knowing it. Social Networking sites are growing exponentially. A Social Media Manager can help you build a positive presence and increase your customer base.

Facebook markting – in 2009, the population of Facebook surpassed that of the U.S.A. If Facebook were a nation, they would have 100 million more people than the U.S’s 300 million. The impact of this on marketing through Social Media is staggering. Big corporations are quickly catching on to the power of Social Media Marketing, which includes Twitter marketing. For the first time, in 2010, ending a 23 year run, Pepsi Cola pulled out of advertising in the Super Bowl ditching it for Social Media. The phenomenal growth of Social Media (texting, blogging, networking) has the attention of every major company. Social Media Management has become an essential component in today’s business.

Are you taking advantage of the new Social Media, which is in many ways free or much less expensive than traditional advertising methods?

You Need Social Media Marketing

Are you up to speed on the new Social Media or are you overwhelmed by all the Social Media offered online today?

Social Media is changing all the time with new services and new technology appearing at a blinding pace.

Social Media Marketing must be approached very differently than traditional marketing. You are not selling your business, you are creating relationships through communities. If people feel you are part of their community, they will support you and recommend you to their friends. It is truly word-of-mouth marketing at its best. Do you have a Social Media Management plan and strategy?

Do you understand the do’s and the don’ts of Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing has its own rules that are very different than traditional marketing. It is very important to know how to structure and manage a Social Media Marketing campaign as your company’s reputation depends on it. Marketing on Facebook and marketing on Twitter are very different, for example, yet both are necessary for a complete campaign.

Exceprted from: 'You Taking Advantage of The New Social Media Marketing?' by socialmediapathways.com

Social media

2010-06-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

Source: businesslink.gov.uk

Digital marketing is reaching a tipping point - some 17 per cent of companies surveyed by the Chartered Institute of Marketing say that online advertising spend has now overtaken offline spend.

Computer company Dell claims it made US $3.5 million in less than six months from Twitter using a viral system. Discount offers are posted daily for its followers, who then frequently re-tweet the offers, so attracting new followers.

A recent survey from Performics and ROI Research found that '44 per cent of Twitter users are happy to be alerted about promotions and special offers by the site'. Forty-eight per cent had responded to an advert they'd seen, and, perhaps most startlingly of all, some 44 per cent of those surveyed had themselves become an endorser by recommending products they'd seen to other users.
.

Marketing Buzz: The Twitter Kool-Aid Is Much More Than Just Sugar Water

2010-06-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

.

Two-way exchanges are by no means the greatest source of information on Twitter. The biggest source is the entire Twittersphere, which is a real-time reflection of the activities, interests, actions, thoughts, sentiments and sometimes flight schedules of between 15 million and 70 million human souls. In other words: data. In other words.

Let me try to frame the significance for you. Decision-makers actually rely on focus groups, which consist of eight to 12 random nimrods blathering on subjects about which they may not even have interest, much less knowledge, much less insight. That is not data; that is noise. A billion tweets a month, by contrast is a data mine. A data goldmine. Furthermore, each "data point" is a live human being. You can tweet back.

not all information is merely gossip-licious. Twitter has been a crucial lifeline amid chaos in Moldova, Iran and, most recently, Haiti. An episode involving Ann Curry of NBC News at the Port au Prince airport comes to light.

"She had noticed that Doctors without Borders had a plane with some supplies and the U.S. Air Force wasn't letting it land," he said. "So she put out a tweet: '@U.S. Air Force, help Doctors without Borders land their plane.' I saw that, so I simply re-tweeted @U.S. Air Force, help Doctors without Borders land their plane.' And the crazy thing was, a minute after I tweeted it, the @U.S. Air Force tweets me back, 'We're on it!' I was like, 'Hmm, OK. When was the last time a government agency responded to you?'"

Extracted from http://www.thinkgroupnewsletter.com/ with thanks.
.

Social Media in Business 2010

2010-05-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

.
Some things are meant to be, and my attending smib10 - Social Media in Business 2010 - yesterday was one of them. It was so spot on!

I've been working in social media for years now but am so busy looking after clients, I've never found time to meet people in my own industry or find out about the issues we all face. Lo and behold, pretty much everything I've ever agonised over, came up yesterday, either in one of the excellent talks, or when chatting to other attendees in a break.

I must say the whole day was excellent in every way and I have to hand it to the smib team. Great venue (ebay's offices, Richmond, right by the river - so idyllic, and what fantastic weather we had!); wonderful array of speakers who, collectively, covered so much ground; relaxed informal friendly atmosphere; lovely food; a wide range of attendees from most disciplines; and great MCing by Jamie Riddell.

Thank you so much to Chris Hambly for the invite and to the whole smib team for a really great day.

The speakers

Photos by Philip Campbell

Twitter hashtags: #smib #smib10 #smib10music (asking the speakers for their favourite album was a great idea Jamie!)

More info: @social-media-in-business Facebook socialmediainbusiness.co.uk

Mentions: ijeanes blog Philip Campbell

John Wood
.

Doing All The Small Things Right

2010-02-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

Marc Lyne, co-founder of Brownbook.net

Extracted from 4 Feb 2010 article in SearchEngineLand.com by Marc Lyne

Many small businesses ask me, ‘how can I get found more online?’ Or, ‘I have a web site but I rank so low that I never get found so I get little traffic’.

So you may expect me to answer: ”just list your business on Brownbook.net (the global wiki style directory site that I founded with @daveingram) and you will be fine,” but that’s NOT where I start.

I start like a teacher in a classroom, ‘have you read the Google webmaster guidelines?’ Even as a person fearful of technology, the basics are listed, they clearly explain many areas that are blown out of proportion by some developers and SEO experts. Sitting down with your webmaster and going through them one by one would be time very well spent, it prevents you from making elementary mistakes and highlights areas that you will need to make a decision on, or test out to see which works best.

And there is more; do you subscribe to the Youtube Webmaster Help channel? You may not hear anything for weeks, but then there will be one question that Matt Cutts (from Google) answers that either saves you a fortune in development time or highlights something you are doing that may adversely affect your site.

On the same channel, you also get Matt elaborating on developments or changes and videos like this one covering last year and giving a few hints of what may be happening this year. If you watch this video, you can start at the web developers part, at 8:36 into the video. In this video, he mentions that speed may factor in search for 2010… my betting is that’s a subtle hint saying ‘we are coding speed in to the algorithms right now, so it is coming and will be a factor some time in 2010’…

Then there are posts like this one from Adam Ostrow, Editor-in-Chief at Mashable that keep reminding me that rather than running around trying to find the pot of gold at the bottom of the rainbow, the SEO golden nugget, or the one thing that will catapult your online business presence, doing the small things well will pay dividends time and time again,

With the experience that I have; taking an honest ‘white hat’ approach to SEO and doing all the small things right will make the biggest difference. Having a strategy that you can fit in to your schedule, one that you can keep on-top of, keep active and maintain over time will pay dividends.

Your strategy will certainly include good SEO, it may include elements of social networking like Facebook, but it may not as this takes time to upkeep and the question you really have to ask yourself is; ‘is it really giving value to you customers and potential customers, are you using it well so that your investment of time is being rewarded?’. Listing on business directories may or may not be part of your strategy, but especially with directories, you need to set time aside to upkeep and improve your listing so the search engines get to see that its being updated.

So in summary, don’t lose sight of the basics, set the strategy, have a plan, assign the time, follow the plan and then evaluate the results quarterly or half yearly. Don’t spend all your time looking for the quick fix (the SEO golden nugget), or adopt magpie tendencies where you go for everything new and shiny. Having said that, my next article will be on the impending mobile tidal-wave that is about to hit us. If we thought the web evolved and re-shaped industry quickly in the past 12 years, we haven’t seen anything yet…

Marc Lyne is co-founder of Brownbook.net, a free directory that anyone can edit. Follow @Marc_Lyne on Twitter.
.

Teen girl interviews pop sensation Justin Bieber at the Pepsi Super Bowl fan jam

2010-02-05T17:10:00.000-08:00

.
Mike Sherman's 13 year old niece, Alexa Bronder Teper, interviews Justin Bieber just before his performance of "Baby" at the Pepsi Super Bowl fan jam in front of 40,000 people which was broadcast, live, on VH1.

Alexa: Are you going to be on High School Icon?

Justin: I don't know what that is.

Alexa: It's the newest hottest teen talent show in the country

Justin: OK. I don't know yet.

On the Mike with Mike Sherman.
Directed & Edited by Matt Bodi Brenowitz.

A peach of an opportunity

2010-02-02T03:55:00.000-08:00

Illustration by Ian Whadcock

Small businesses are using networks to become bigger

“HEY first peaches of the season are here. Come and get your peach pie @10am.” Simple tweets like that have helped Mission Pie, a small shop in San Francisco, drum up interest in its mouth-watering array of sweet and savoury pies. As well as twittering about its wares, the store also alerts customers to poetry readings and other events it organises. Krystin Rubin, a co-owner of Mission Pie, says the business had just 150 or so followers for a while after one of its bakers started sending out tweets almost a year ago. Then that number suddenly shot up to over 1,000. Over the past few months business has been very brisk and Ms Rubin reckons Twitter deserves part of the credit. “It has a sort of street credibility that’s not there with traditional media,” she says.

Other companies have discovered the same thing. Kogi BBQ, which has several trucks serving Korean food in Los Angeles, now has over 52,000 followers on Twitter and uses the service to tell customers where they can find its vans each day. Sprinkles, a cupcake bakery with stores all over America and nearly 94,000 fans of its Facebook page, posts a password to that page each day which can be redeemed for a free cake by a certain number of visitors to its shops. Such offers can attract a lot of attention. A survey of 1,000 heavy users of social networks and other digital media conducted in August 2009 by Razorfish, an advertising agency, found that 44% of those following brands on Twitter said they did so because of the exclusive deals the firms offered to users.

As Kogi BBQ and Sprinkles show, social networks are arguably having an even greater impact on small businesses than on the big league. By giving entrepreneurs free access to their audience, services such as Twitter and Facebook are putting corporate tiddlers on a par with behemoths such as Starbucks and Dell when it comes to broadcasting messages to a mass market. They have also created what Steve Hasker of Nielsen calls “the world’s biggest, fastest and most dynamic focus groups”, which can be a boon to entrepreneurs without fat research budgets.

Some small businesses are already using social networks to generate new ideas. After spending time on Twitter, employees at Cordarounds.com, a small American clothing company, noticed that many folk twittering in their area were using bicycles to get to work. So the firm produced a new line of trousers, dubbed “bike-to-work pants”, with built-in reflective materials that make wearers more visible to traffic while cycling at night. And of course it used tweets to get the word out about its new creations.

“Follow me on Twitter” signs are appearing on the doors and windows of small businesses in other countries too. A survey last year by O2, a mobile-phone operator, found that some 17% of Britain’s small businesses were using Twitter. Many of the firms that responded said they were doing this to attract new customers. Some reckoned they had been able to save up to £5,000 (over $8,000) a year by cutting out other forms of marketing in favour of the networking service.

Charging for batteries

The connections made possible by social networks are helping to create new businesses as well as promote existing ones. When Henk van Ess, a Dutch technology consultant, posted a complaint about the short lifespan of his iPhone’s battery on LinkedIn a couple of years ago, one respondent suggested that he contact China BAK Battery, which produces a small, plug-in battery for the iPhone. Impressed with the product, Mr Van Ess told members of his online network about it and was soon handling orders for them. After a while he formed his own company, 3GJUICE, to produce a plug-in unit for the iPhone that incorporates the Chinese firm’s battery.

Mr Van Ess’s firm is tiny, but social networks such as Facebook and MySpace have also served as launching pads for much bigger outfits. Among the largest of these are companies such as Zynga, Playfish and Playdom, whose popular online games run on the big networks’ platforms. Some of these games, such as Zynga’s “FarmVille”, have attracted millions of players and produced mountains of money for their creators. Zynga says it has been profitable almost since it opened in 2007, and last month the business attracted an investment of $180m from a bunch of prominent financiers convinced of its potential. Many of the social-games companies are on a hiring binge, creating hundreds of new jobs at a time when the economy around them is in the doldrums. Their experience provides an insight into how social networks can help propel small businesses to much bigger things.

Like most games, the ones produced by Zynga and its peers appeal to people’s natural competitive instincts. Leader boards and a host of other features allow players to show off their status within a game to their friends. But the games also encourage lots of co-operation among players, who can build rapport by, say, sending virtual gifts to each other or handing virtual currency to new players when they join a game. “The best virtual goods have real currency,” says Mark Pincus, Zynga’s boss. He reckons that the games have become so popular because they combine fun with the various ways to strengthen relationships that Facebook and other networks have brought online.
Better than the real thing

Social games have also become extraordinarily popular because they cleverly exploit those relationships. Once someone has signed up for, say, “Mafia Wars”, another Zynga invention, they are urged to invite their friends to join too. And players’ gruesome successes in such games are regularly posted to their personal page on Facebook, which can be seen by all of their friends. Thanks to such wheezes, online games benefit from a powerful network effect. “Café World”, which gives users the opportunity to run their own virtual restaurant, launched on Facebook at the end of September and within a week had attracted a mind-boggling 10m players.

This astonishing growth has been helped by the fact that social games are free to play. The companies make their money by selling digital goods in the games, by carrying advertising and by getting players to sign up for marketing promotions. Surprising though this may seem to some, virtual goods such as swords, tractors and even digital boyfriends are much in demand. After users of its “Sorority Life” game complained in an online forum that the game lacked virtual men they could date, Playdom quickly introduced some last November. Over 10m of the boyfriends were promptly snapped up, with a few players buying as many as 500 each. Some paid for their digital darlings with virtual credits won in the game, but others stumped up over $5 a time for their beaux.

The rise of the social-gaming firms has not been without controversy. Last year Zynga came under fire from TechCrunch, a Silicon Valley blog, for allowing misleading marketing offers to run on its site. The firm subsequently removed them. But such hiccups have not dented interest in social gaming: last November Playfish was snapped up by Electronic Arts, a big video-game publisher that thinks the business is going to be huge. It may well be right. ThinkEquity, an investment bank, reckons that revenues in America from social games could hit $2.2 billion by 2012, a big leap from last year’s $375m.

Admittedly this is an extreme example of the benefits social networks can bring to small businesses. Rewards for outfits such as Mission Pie will be far more modest. But if they were added up across an entire economy, they could have a significant effect on growth. What a pity, then, that many small firms are reluctant to take the plunge into the social-networking world. A survey of 500 small businesses in America conducted by Citibank last October found that most of them had not used online networks at all because they thought they would be a waste of time.

From The Economist print edition of 28 Jan 10 with thanks to Paul Brown

The Importance of Business Blogging

2010-01-28T16:38:00.000-08:00

Business Blogging: More important than ever

by Peter Hollier of SeoWizardry

If your business has not been actively Blogging, the recent and upcoming changes at Google indicate this is now the time to seriously consider implementing a Blog for your business.

The Search Algorithm

In the past, the two primary principles of Google’s Search Algorithm have been Web Site Authority, which is primarily based on the number of inbound links to a web site, and the number of years the web site’s Domain has been registered.

The other part of the Google equation has traditionally been the Relevancy of the content to a Searcher’s request, which is determined by matching and integrating key words which Searchers are likely to use in their search query.

Although these principles are firmly embedded in Google’s algorithm and are unlikely to change in the near future, the Algorithm is constantly evolving, and with this evolution should come change in how web site owners mange their web site performance and content creation.

The Changes

Google has modified their search algorithm to enable Search Engine users to receive Real Time content updates in the primary search results which include; Blog Updates, Micro Blogging (Tweets/Facebook) and the latest news items.

In the very near future, Google will be integrating additional ranking criteria into their Search Algorithm under the name of Google Caffeine, which is obviously meant to provide faster more hyped up search results.

One aspect of the Algorithm which has come to light is the fact that web pages which have been relying on antiquated content to achieve Search Engine visibility will no longer enjoy the results they have in the past. The freshness of relevant content is likely to be given greater importance within the updated Search Algorithm.

Why These Changes Make Blogging Important

These recent and upcoming changes are highly focused on fresh relevant content; developing and publishing fresh relevant content is one of the primary advantages of Blogging.

By utilizing Keyword Research to determine the words and phrases being used by Searchers to find the products and services your business provides, and integrating these terms into content will improve the ability of your business to achieve visibility in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) under the new criteria for freshness and relevancy.

Where the new Search Engine criteria really benefits Business Bloggers, is the ability to create fresh relevant content which utilizes high volume keywords which in the past have often been out of reach of smaller or new web sites and therefore, lack the required Domain Authority and inbound links which older more established web site have obtained.

Although the length of time a Blog Post remains in the spot light is likely to be determined by the popularity of the term, and how often others utilize the phrase in Blogs and other Social Media Tools, the use of high volume keywords and phrases has the potential to drive additional targeted traffic to the web site.

SEO no longer takes time to become affective

So often it has been stated the affects of Search Engine Optimization take time to be beneficial. However, the updated Search Engine criteria ensures a Blog post will be picked up quickly by the Search Engines. I have recently seen Blog Posts indexed by Search Engines in under a hour. Although Blogs have historically performed well in Search, the updated Algorithm is a vast improvement on past results.

The Last Word

The latest and future changes to Google’s Search Algorithm will definitely be advantageous to the Business Blogger, however it must be remembered that these are not the only benefits Blogging provides for businesses.

Blogs provide the ability to connect with clients on a less formal basis, one of the primary drivers of Social Media. In addition to this, Blogs are also very useful from a traditional Search Optimization perspective, the ability to write on various topics related to the business is an ideal method to increase the number of potential linking partners, and therefore build the web site Authority factor over time.

Yes, 2010 will be the year to implement the Business Blog.
.

Grays of Westminster: an SEO success story

2010-01-27T18:01:00.000-08:00

.
Grays of Westminster's blog - http://graysofwestminster.blogspot.com - which was created in Sept 09, is performing exceedingly well for these particular keyword strings:

"nikon special offer" and "nikon special offers"

Try them out for yourself - you'll see that both terms usually appear within the top 10 results out of a total of between 1/2 million to 1 million.

No other Grays-owned site appears within the results for these search terms, so without their blog, they would not have been represented in the results at all!

Blogging and tweeting

As a result of managing Grays' blog and Grays' Twitter account, @NikonatGrays, there has been a marked improvement on the company's overall Alexa rankings and backlinks:

Grays' website: Alexa has jumped from 751,891 to its current figure of 556,449, whilst its Sites Linking In figure went from 70 to 111.

Grays' blog: Its Alexa figure was over 5 million at the start but is now 492,202.

Nikon Owner Magazine: Its Alexa ranking started at over 3 million but is now 1,610,023 as a result of the site being mentioned and linked to from Grays' blog and Twitter account. Imagine what would happen if the magazine had its own blog and Twitter account (watch this space ;) )!

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the immediate benefits of blogging and tweeting! The fact that every business owner should be blogging and tweeting is a no-brainer, IMHO.
.

Completed projects for January 2010

2010-01-27T15:23:00.000-08:00

.
Online Directories, submitted

Blogs, created

Penthouse Holidays

Blogs, managed

Press Releases, submitted

Beanprint.com: Low-Run High-Quality Web-Based Printing Service Beanprint.com Goes Live
On the Mike with Mike Sherman: Christina Aguilera and Gloria Estefan are On the Mike with Mike Sherman
Software Shelf: Print Manager Plus 2010 Cuts Office Printing Costs Up to 75%

Twitter, created

Twitter, managed

Special Projects

Brownbook.net - media watching and general social media marketing
On the Mike with Mike Sherman - managing the onthemiketv YouTube channel

Completed projects for December 2009

2009-12-27T13:28:00.000-08:00

.
Online Directories, submitted

Merrehill Marketing: Google results, Yahoo results, Bing results

Blogs, Created

Safepoint Trust

Blogs, Managed

Twitter, created

Safepoint Trust - @SafePointTrust

Twitter, managed

Special Projects

Brownbook.net - media watching and general social media marketing
On the Mike with Mike Sherman - created and now manage the onthemiketv YouTube channel

Translations can be a funny thing!

2009-11-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

.
How robotic and unprofessional translations can really get you in trouble!

The written word is a funny thing. It's a symbol of the sound you make with your voice. Different countries obviously have different sounds for the same object and actions - and that's tough enough, but you can really get into trouble if you only translate robotically (such as with translation machines) or without a proper (and especially professional) understanding of the language you are translating into.

If you are looking to approach foreign markets and need to communicate in a foreign language, then you would do well to take into account the hundreds of hours that you have spend on your marketing campaigns, or the literature describing your product or service. To have this wasted with a poor translation can be an expensive mistake.

Here are some mistranslations which are funny to read, but in a professional context you would not want to be on the other end of your enraged (or perhaps if you are lucky - bemused) boss' or client's response.

Take this one: When Coca-Cola first shipped to China, they named the product something that when pronounced sounded like "Coca-Cola." The only problem was that the characters used meant "Bite the wax tadpole". They later changed to a set of characters that mean "Happiness in the mouth." Pepsi didn't do any better when they translated their "Come alive with Pepsi" campaign into German and it ended up as "Come out of the grave with Pepsi."

No field is immune to mistranslation. Scandinavian manufacturer Electrolux translated their slogan into 'American' and came out with the rather ambiguous "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux." I think we have all read or come across poorly translated instructions in hotels and public places. In one hotel "The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid." - Although in Japan "You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid." If you want to have a good time, then go to a Rome laundry where, in true Italian style, it offers "Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time." Though in Zurich a rather primmer hotel directs clients, "Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose."

All these, and many more, are the job of the translator to steer around. Certainly, when translating a technical or legal document, precision is vital. Translations have to be done by a professional who has a true understanding of the subject to which he or she is translating into.

In the worst-case scenario, what is at stake (and these have happened) is a mistranslation that has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. Even if it is not of such proportions, certainly you do not sell your services or products well when even simple explanations come over garbled or in poorly constructed sentences.

In a foreign market where you are already at a disadvantage, it is vital to have presentations, texts and instructions all clearly and appropriately translated.

ETLS International is one of the newest members of CADIA. They have established a network of several hundred professional translators all around the world. Their translations, into all languages and most technical areas, are always done by specialists who have an intimate knowledge of the subject they are translating.

First published in Cadia Update, August 2009

ETLS International provides a fast and accurate translation service into all languages and technical areas. Their translations are always done by professionals who have specific knowledge of the specialist field of expertise required. In this way they ensure quality work is provided to their clients.

http://www.etlsint.com

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&num=100&q=%22translations+can+be+a+funny+thing%22&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22translations+can+be+a+funny+thing%22&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22translations+can+be+a+funny+thing%22&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Print Manager Plus - Academic Presentation

2009-11-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

Print Manager Plus - Academic Presentation

http://www.softwareshelf.com/products/print_manager_plus_academic.htm

This is a recorded presentation of Software Shelf's Print Manager Plus Academic Edition. The video was recorded through a GoTo Meeting session. The presentation fully shows the ability and print management features of Print Manager Plus. The product is a Print Monitor software package for Windows Server and Workstation. The print audit capabilities of the product with its powerful quota and restriction policies allows schools, universities, and non-profit organizations to save money on their printing expenses.

View full length video here: http://www.softwareshelf.com/products/presentations/pmp_academic_video.html

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&q=%22Print+Manager+Plus+-+Academic+Presentation%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&ie=UTF-8

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22Print+Manager+Plus+-+Academic+Presentation%22&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Print+Manager+Plus+-+Academic+Presentation%22&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Completed projects: ETLS International

2009-11-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

.
Submitted ETLS International to Online Directories:
(please click the links below to see the results for yourself)

Google Web Results for: "ETLS International"

Yahoo Web Results for: "ETLS International"

Bing Web Results for: "ETLS International"

Blog posts for October 2009

2009-10-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

.
Created http://factorygenerators.blogspot.com and http://graysofwestminster.blogspot.com and blogged on behalf of Advance Centres, Onedrywash, Rowing Against Slavery, Michael Huggan and Grays of Westminster:

http://advancecentres.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

http://onedrywash.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

http://rowingagainstslavery.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

http://michaelhuggan.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

http://graysofwestminster.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

Completed projects: Michael Todd Hairdressing

2009-10-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted Michael Todd Hairdressing to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&q=%22Michael+Todd+Hairdressing%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&ie=UTF-8

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22Michael+Todd+Hairdressing%22&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22michael+todd+hair+dressing%22&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Blog posts for September 2009

2009-09-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

.
Blogged on behalf of Advance Centres, Onedrywash and Rowing Against Slavery:

http://advancecentres.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

http://onedrywash.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

http://rowingagainstslavery.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

Twitter accounts for August 2009

2009-08-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

.
Twitter account set up for Rowing Against Slavery, On the Mike with Mike Sherman, Factory Generators, Grays of Westminster and Greenfields School:

http://www.twitter.com/grnflds

http://www.twitter.com/lowcostgensets

http://www.twitter.com/nikonatgrays

http://www.twitter.com/onthemiketv

http://www.twitter.com/advancecentres

http://www.twitter.com/onedrywash

http://www.twitter.com/ragainstslavery

Blog posts for August 2009

2009-08-31T15:37:00.000-07:00

.
Created http://grnflds.blogspot.com and blogged on behalf of Advance Centres and Onedrywash:

http://onedrywash.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

http://advancecentres.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

Sales person required for UK-based online PR and marketing company

2009-08-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

.

WorldWidePR.net is an expanding UK-based online PR and marketing company.

We are looking for an English-speaking confident internet-aware person to find small - medium sized businesses and sell to them our online PR and marketing services.

Work from home (which, in theory, could be anywhere in the world) but with as much support as you need. Build and maintain your own client base. Commission only.

To apply, please send your CV and why you think you fit the bill to: jw@worldwidepr.net

This job ad also appears in The RazzLine and on Twitter.
.

Completed projects: Grays of Westminster

2009-08-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted Grays of Westminster to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&num=100&q=%22graysofwestminster%22&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22graysofwestminster%22&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22graysofwestminster%22&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Completed projects: Nikon Owner Magazine

2009-08-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted Nikon Owner Magazine to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&q=nikonownermagazine&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&ie=UTF-8

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=nikonownermagazine&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=nikonownermagazine&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Media Switchboards Top 10

2009-08-20T01:39:00.000-07:00

image source: rosenblumtv.wordpress.com

I've called a few newspaper, radio and TV switchboards over the years, and I thought it was about time I shared my experiences, praised the best and criticized (constructively of course) the worst, by compiling this table.

Plus points warded for: human, friendly, helpful, efficient

Minus points awarded for: human unfriendly, human unhelpful, human smarmy, human bored, automated (push button 1, 2 3 etc), automated stupid, use of paid-for non-geographic numbers (0845, 0870 etc), inefficient, excessive ring or on hold times

1. Guardian - score: 20

Human: Friendly, helpful with old-fashioned values, refusing to modernize to the detriment of personal service with, unbelievably, "Thank you for calling The Guardian and Observer" and, when putting you through, "Connecting you now." (Is it 1968?). They also answer immediately, within the first few rings.

2. BBC - score: 15

Human: Very helpful and not at all snotty, and backed up with their information line (03700 100222) so a double-whammy of helpfulness.

=3. Financial Times - score: 13

Human: Almost as good as The Guardian but without the flourish.

=3. Independent - score: 13

Human: Almost as good as The Guardian but without the flourish.

4. Daily Mail - score: 10

Human: Bored switchboard operators seem to take great delight in making you feel stupid for not knowing that the number you dialed is also the switchboard for the Mail on Sunday, the London Evening Standard and London Lite, so just they love it when they can look down their nose at you and say, "Which paper?"

5. Daily Telegraph - score: 8

Human: Bored, "you are stupid" attitude, putting you though before you've finished your sentence so you have to call again. At least they are human.

=6. New York Times - score: 6

Automated: clever automated. If UK newspapers feel compelled to utilize automated switchboards, why don't they use something like this? You can just tell the machine the name of the person you want to speak to and it puts you through without any fuss. However, I'm sure it was the New York Times the other week that was suffering from a hearing problem. Actually it was really quite funny. You said "Kermit Pattison" and it tried to put you through to "Jim Schachter" or similar! It seems to have sorted itself out now.

=6. Wall Street Journal - score: 6

Automated: clever automated. You can just tell the machine the name of the person you want and it puts you straight through without any fuss. Really very clever and painless (but not human).

=7. The Sun - score: -6

Automated: Stupid automated. They have, all of a sudden, got the same condescending woman as The Times who I have wanted to strangle for a long time!

- I AM LISTENING CAREFULLY!
- W h y...do...y o u...s p e a k...s o...s l o w l y,...w i t h...s u c h...b i g...p a u s e s...b e t w e e n...w o r d s?
- I am not a child!

=7. The Times - score: -6

Automated: Stupid automated. I AM LISTENING CAREFULLY! Why do you have to keep telling me that each time? Aarrgghh!

Completed projects: Claire Morgan Photography

2009-08-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted Claire Morgan Photography to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&num=100&q=%22claire-morgan.com%22&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22claire-morgan.com%22&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22claire-morgan.com%22&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Completed projects: TECNET

2009-08-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted TECNET to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&num=100&q=tecnetLONDON&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=TECNETLONDON&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=tecnetlondon&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Completed projects: Shield Service Group

2009-08-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted Shield Service Group to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&num=100&q=%22Shield+Service+Group%22+CR3&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22Shield+Service+Group%22+CR3&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Shield+Service+Group%22+CR3&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Blog posts for July 2009

2009-07-31T15:37:00.000-07:00

.
Blogged on behalf of Advance Centres and Miracledrywash:

http://onedrywash.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

http://advancecentres.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

Heather Angel Wildlife & Natural History Photography Workshop, Day 2

2009-07-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

Click here for a larger image size slide show

Some shots of Day 2 of the Heather Angel wildlife photography workshop at Saint Hill Manor, sponsored by Grays of Westminster. Hope you like the slide show.

The workshop, featuring Nikon and ThinkTank, was completely sold out so if you wanted to attend but couldn't, better luck next year.

[The slide show was previously done in Stupeflix.com but, although very easy to use, it was too low res (maybe I just never saw the HD button) so I changed it to a slide.com slide show.]
.

Heather Angel wildlife photography workshop

2009-07-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

.
Some photos from yesterday's workshop

The weather turned out fine for yesterday's workshop at Saint Hill Manor, hosted by Grays of Westminster.

It looks like it's going to be a nice day for today's workshop too. I've been invited to pop in for tea later this morning so I'll see if I can bring back a few shots and will post here any that are worthy.

Latest press releases etc

2009-07-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Just been writing, distributing and tweeting this press release for "On The Mike with Mike Sherman":Beyoncé Live in Concert On The Mike with Mike Sherman

I'm also looking forward to paying a visit to this weekend's Heather Angel wildlife photography workshop which is completely sold out for both Saturday and Sunday. It is hosted by the Nikon-only dealer, Grays of Westminster.

I hope to submit, very soon, the official name-change press release for Onedrywash and, as ever, there's some exciting news just around the corner for Brownbook.net.

Watch this space!

(Better still, watch this space http://wwprpressreleases.blogspot.com) and follow us on Twitter too @WorldWidePR

Completed projects: Created Space Ltd

2009-07-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

.
Submitted Created Space Ltd to Online Directories:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&q=%22Created+Space+Ltd%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_en-GB___GB345&ie=UTF-8

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?rd=r1&p=%22created+space+ltd%22&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22Created+Space+ltd%22&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n

Never a dull moment

2009-07-03T02:52:00.000-07:00

Been really busy sending press releases left, right and centre recently! What with Sunrise Senior Living to Launch Largest Ever Dementia Awareness Week Campaign, Mike Sherman Pays Tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, ASOS.com & LCF LTD 100 Collection Launches 1pm 3 July 2009, and before that On the Mike with Mike Sherman Features the 2009 Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant, there's certainly never a dull moment round here.

"And what's in the pipeline?" I hear you ask. Well, companies planning to send a press release in the near future are: Brownbook.net, Grays of Westminster and Onedrywash (finally making their name change from Miracle Drywash to Onedrywash official. I'm sure it won't be long, too, for asos.com and Mike Sherman to have something else, major, to announce.

ASOS.com & LCF LTD 100 Collection Launches 1pm 3 July 2009

2009-06-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

LTD 100 - Winning designers announced

Just releasing this over at http://wwprpressreleases.blogspot.com/2009/06/asoscom-lcf-ltd-100-collection-launches.html

Had to wait to release it because it was embargoed until now.

Blog posts for June 2009

2009-06-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

.
Blogged on behalf of Advance Centres and Miracledrywash:

http://onedrywash.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

http://advancecentres.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

New beginning

2009-06-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new WorldWidePR.net blog where we will keep you informed of our day-to-day goings on.

Our press release log can be seen here: http://wwprpressreleases.blogspot.com

Our site's about to go live and it's all very exciting.