All posts in Work

2010 – It’s all happening at once

by Chris M on January 11, 2010 in Cape Town, Cape Town Flat, Cars, My Life, Photographs, Work with 8 Comments

Wow, this year has really started off on a busy note! Fortunately, it’s all positive, but it’s still quite overwhelming.

The first change is that I’m taking ownership of a new car as of lunch time tomorrow. My time with the Fiesta ST has been incredible, I’ve loved getting into that car every single day and not a single moment of negative energy has come from it, but unfortunately it’s reached the 60,000km mark and my small knowledge of motor vehicles tells me that this depreciating asset is going to start depreciating more rapidly any day now. So, I guess you’re keen to know what I’m replacing the ST with, well, let me not stall you, I’m going for the Audi A3 1.8T, possibly the smoothest car I’ve ever driven in my life. Initially I ordered the VW Golf 6 Comfortline, but their service let me down and quite frankly, when I was told to put my foot down and experience the turbo, I laughed inside and wondered whether they were confused about the difference between a turbo and an air filter ;) Here’s what my new baby will look like – Fair well STorm, I’m sure ICE will live up to my expectations:

audi-a3-1

For those of you who are interested in specs, it puts out a lovely 118kw and as far as optional extras, it’s got leather interior, center arm rest and a multi-function steering wheel.

Another thing changing in the next 6 weeks is that I will no longer be living in A Cape Town Flat by Chris M, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my stay here, but it’s honestly just too noisy, the people aren’t friendly and it’s a bit too far from work (the wind is crazy!). I’m a Southern Suburbs kinda guy, this town thing isn’t for me. I’ve found myself a secure 2 bedroom place in Rondebosch near Rondebosch Boys’ Junior School, it needs a little work, but I’ll handle that, there’s a tennis court (I can’t wait), secure parking bays, a swimming pool and a laundry, so it sounds like a winner. If all goes to plan, I’ll terminate my contract here immediately and aim to move at the end of February. I’ll be sad to leave this place, the beautiful views and the trendy upmarket living, but all good things come to an end and hopefully I can turn the move into a good thing – Fortunately, and technically, I will still be in a “Cape Town” Flat by Chris M ;)

capetown-panorama
Photo taken from my flat by Mulletized three weeks ago.

On an emotional note, you all know that I’m now engaged, and although that feel in 2009, it was close enough to say that it was 2010, after all, the main experience only kicked in once we took our post-engagement trip to Botswana. I’m truly blessed to have such an awesome and gorgeous fiance.

Career wise, I’m still employed and still working my butt off at The Forge Web Creations – I tell you, I’m one of those people who gets butterflies in their stomach before the first day of work or the first day before school, but last night I didn’t feel worried or depressed at all, I was quite keen to get into work to see the wonderful team that I work with – I’m so happy. There are going to be quite a few changes this year in the way that we do things amongst other exciting changes, which I’ll reveal at a later date, but all in all, I feel that 2010 is going to be a big year, work wise, and I’m ready and amped for it!

A lot of people have asked me whether I’ve got any New Year resolutions and to be honest, I don’t really do resolutions, but there are a few things I have in my mind:

  • I’m going to try and go away for a weekend away from all technology at least once every 2 months.
  • I’m going to try and go fishing at least twice a month, whether it’s on my ace or with a mate/s.
  • I’m going to budget more this year, I did so all of 2008 and 2009, but spent a great deal of money during the last few months of 2009, so I want to make up the deficit.
  • I’m going to teach myself how to be more picky about clients and realise that I can’t help everyone for any price – I struggle with this, but I’m going to make a huge effort to get it right.
  • I’m going to save up enough money to have a deposit for a place in the Southern Suburbs by the end of 2010.
  • I’m going to spend a lot less time on my personal computer and when I do spend time on it, it’s going to be more constructive.
  • I’m going to spend more time with my family, I’ve been really good the last few months and I want to maintain this, I feel that I play a strong role in holding the family together and I refuse to let this slip.
  • I’m going to blog a bit more about my personal life.
  • I’m going to buy a lotto ticket once a week (this is of least importance, but I think I should)

I guess while we’re on this note, these are a few things that should be on the list, but perhaps next year:

  • I’m going to be less pretentious, although I don’t feel that my friends would say that I am, I think I focus on financial things more than I should.
  • I’m going to quit smoking (haha, next year I hope – *waits for the comments*)

Yup, so those 2 things are really deep compared to the others, but they’re in my conscious and I won’t neglect them, too much ;)

So there we go, 2009 was an epic year, very much a planning and settling down year, but epic none-the-less, now it’s time to capitalize and make 2010 the year!

Love to all of you :)

SEO Facts clients can’t understand

by Chris M on December 19, 2009 in Search Engine Optimization, Work with 3 Comments

For those of you who work with SEO and have a number of clients, you’ll know that in some cases it’s really difficult to communicate certain things accurately. Here’s a great presentation outlining some of the most common things ..

The end of a powerful work year

by Chris M on December 19, 2009 in My Life, Photographs, Work with No comments

Today was a rather special day for me, it’s the first time in my life that I’ve worked for a complete year – I know it sounds strange, but it’s the truth. It’s been a really fantastic year at The Forge Web Creations, we’ve worked our butts off on forming a team that understands each other and has the ability to pull off anything. We’ve put out a number of really beautiful websites of which justBcoz and Mulletized, amongst others, were featured on tens of design showcase galleries; We’ve run successul SEO campaigns and we’ve even released our own free premium WordPress theme. So all in all, fantastic year, which was ended off with a delightful lunch and some cocktails at Forries.

strawberry-dacquaire

After lunch I headed back to the CBD to meet up with the fiance (sounds so weird to say that and not girlfriend!), who was in heaven – She was having a foot massage, pedicure and haircut at the same time, so not fair! We then went through to Canal Walk in search of a fibre optic Christmas tree and managed to get one, although it’s not white, I am still pleased:

This evening we decided to celebrate by going through to 221 at the Waterfront for some champers and sushi – the sushi was out of this world good tonight!

moet-champagn

champagne-waterfront

Really awesome way to end off the year of work, I’m pumped for 2010!!!

WordPress search in one category

by Chris M on December 14, 2009 in Blogging, Code, Work with No comments

If you’ve worked with WordPress, you’ll know that the search functionality isn’t the best and probably deserves a good look at to bring it up to speed with the amazing system that WordPress is! Anyway, today Brendon and I were finishing up on a project we’ve been working on and one requirement was to get the site search working, but to only return results from one category and we found an awesome way to do it:

You standard search form code looks like this in WordPress:

<form method=”get” id=”searchform” action=”<?php bloginfo(‘home’); ?>/”>
<div><input type=”text” value=”<?php echo wp_specialchars($s, 1); ?>” name=”s” id=”s” />
<input type=”submit” id=”searchsubmit” value=”Search” />
</div>
</form>

Now, in order to return results from just one category, there’s a quick fix by adding just 1 line of code, here’s the reworked code:

<form method=”get” id=”searchform” action=”<?php bloginfo(‘home’); ?>/”>
<div><input type=”text” value=”<?php echo wp_specialchars($s, 1); ?>” name=”s” id=”s” />
<input type=”hidden” name=”cat” value=”4″ />
<input type=”submit” id=”searchsubmit” value=”Search” />
</div>
</form>

What we are doing here is simply passing a hidden variable along with the search string so that your search would take the format of this:

http://www.imod.co.za/?s=Keyword&cat=4

What this does is perform a search on the search term, “Keyword”, within category 4. Naturally you can change category 4 to whichever category you wish.

Pretty nifty innet?

A little gambling at Grand West

by Chris M on December 12, 2009 in My Life, Work with 4 Comments

Yesterday, we headed to Grand West Casino to celebrate Dee‘s Birthday and it was so much fun! I managed to catch a tiny snippet of one of my lucky runs:

I’m sooo heading back soon!

My Smashing Magazine book has been shipped!

by Chris M on December 2, 2009 in My Life, Work with 19 Comments

I ordered a Smashing Magazine book a long time ago and I’ve just received a fantastic email from them telling me that my book has been shipped. You know what’s cool? They even included proof ;)

smashing-book-warehouse-006

smashing-book-warehouse-014

I can’t wait to get it!!!

Clients from hell!

by Chris M on November 26, 2009 in Humour, Work with No comments

Clients From Hell is a website all about, well, clients from hell. I often pop in to have a read, take a look at this beauty ..

clients-from-hell

Sooooo true! :D

Quick trip to Camps Bay

by Chris M on November 3, 2009 in My Life, Photographs, Work with 2 Comments

After work today I had a meeting with a client in Camps Bay and boy oh boy was it my treat, just take a look at these snaps..

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03112009354

The sun was a little higher during our meeting, so we chilled on the deck and watched it set, truly stunning!

Share your Google Doc Folders

by Chris M on October 13, 2009 in Equipment, Work with No comments

Google has just announced that you’re now able to share folders with Google Docs. What this means, simply, is that a team of people can easily collaborate on projects that require multiple documents, spreadsheets or presentations.

google-folder-share

Naturally, when you share a folder, you can set up permissions such as read only or edit mode, just like you do for normal documents.

via

GTD – Turn off those notifications

by Chris M on September 17, 2009 in Networking, Work with 18 Comments

We live in a day and age, where a great deal of our time is consumed by things being brought to our attention constantly. Notifications are useful, but they interupt what you’re busy with – Remaining focused is difficult and with notifications popping up constantly, you’re going to find yourself spread too thinly to achieve anything great.

social media clutter

That said, I’ve compiled a list of notifications I’ve disabled and perhaps you can relate or share which ones bug you:

  1. New GMail messages – If you’re a GMail user and you use Google Talk, you’ll know that each time you receive an email, a little toaster will appear at your system tray alerting you.
  2. Twitter – Most Twitter clients, such as twhirl use toasters and sounds to alert you of new tweets, regardless of whether the tweet is directed at you or not. If you’re following more than 100 people, you’ll constantly receive tweets. Another thing about Twitter is that each time someone follows you, you will receive an email – this can easily be disabled via the settings in your account on their website.
  3. Blogs – Most blogging platforms, such as WordPress, send out notifications (emails) when you receive a comment on your blog. Once your blog gets busy, you could face a huge number of emails constantly pouring in – this can be disabled quite easily via the WordPress Dashboard (Settings > Discussion).
  4. Instant Messaging – I’ve removed MSN completely and normally avoid Google Talk, with the aim of sticking only to Skype. The new Skype is fantastic, there are very few notifications or toasters, yet it’s still easy to tell if there are new messages thanks to the systray icon which presents you with a conversation count.
  5. Outlook – Outlook works in a similiar manner to GMail, each time you receive an email, you’re notified. Once again, this can easily be removed.
  6. Facebook – Facebook is an awful contributer to this whole situation – if you don’t setup your account correctly, you could easily receive hundreds of emails daily! Log into your Facebook account and click here to see a list of notifications you’re signed up for. Please note: Facebook add things to this list constantly, so be sure to check back from time to time.

Now you’ll probably ask the same question I did – But how will you know when you receive something? Well, it’s quite simple, you set up certain times to check your email accounts or social accounts, schedule checking in and control the situation rather than being controlled – I can promise you that you’ll start to get things done a lot quicker and more efficiently than usual if you turn these notifications off and check your accounts on a schedule.

As you leave comments or I think of other annoying notifications I’m going to built onto the points above.

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