Since I got my business number I've had more called for Natwest's Stockbrokers (one of the leading UK banks) than I have business calls. This is because my number is the same as theirs except that I have an extra zero in the middle of it. I guess it's a fairly simple mistake to make, dialling two zeros instead of one. However, since the set up of our switchboard I'd hoped that we wouldn't get any more of these calls.

After listening to around 45 seconds of my enthusiastic voice saying 'Welcome to Blah and Blah, Press 1 for Hosting and Domain Support, Press 2 for Invoicing Enquiries, Press 3 for Blah and Press 4 for Blah' (you get the picture) you'd imagine that most people would have realised they'd dialled wrongly and hang up. Most do and life has become so much more peaceful without having to constantly answer the phone. Some still get through, mainly through to the invoice enquiries (It's actually Accounts and Invoice enquiries so I can understand the connection), however if no button is pressed then it comes through to me.

This week I had an unknown number call me and after saying hello the first words I heard were 'the file you sent me doesn't work'. Of course this is clearly not how most people greet each other, especially perfect strangers, over the telephone! After asking who was calling I got a long speech about how some guy (who I'd never heard of) had sent him a PDF and he had tried to open the file after downloading and installing Acrobat Reader and it didn't work. When I told him that I thought he had the wrong number as no one of that name worked here he replied 'Oh is that not Natwest Stockbrokers'. I replied telling him who I/we are and that we were a Web Design and Development agency, and this got the response of 'I'm sure that's not who you are *muffled comment*' and put the phone down on me!! I'm used to getting hung up on, well I was before the switchboard was in place. Plus most wrong callers do apologise before hanging up. But this… to be told I was lying to him really wound me up.

I have caller line ID on my telephone, I prefer to know who's calling before I answer. So I redialled this guy's number. On answering I informed him how rude he was, that we were not Natwest Stockbrokers and that perhaps he should dial the number correctly in the future. Of course he hung up again but I think he got a shed load of my anger from what he did hear.

I have to say, what a rude and arrogant man! Just because he couldn't comprehend that he may have dialled the number incorrectly, calling me a liar (who on earth would inform a true customer that they'd called a completely different business?!) and being so rude to just hang up like that. It's time like this that I hate having to use telephones at all. I'd much prefer just emails. I also wish my calls were recorded as I'd happily find out who this guy was and send him a copy so that he can maybe just hear how much of an arrogant idiot he sounded.

I know, it's not worth it, but there's my rant for the day

Confused you? Okay, let me explain. Here in the UK there is a television programme called Dragon's Den. Simply put, the Dragons are very rich business owners who like investing in up and coming businesses, and each week they show a handful of people with ideas or small businesses going before the Dragons, giving a speech about their idea or product and asking for investment for X% in return. Usually on each program about one person/business gets their investment.

There are a lot of wierd and wacky ideas and products seen on this program and most usually get shot down in flames. However this week's show had one product on that was shot down when it really shouldn't have been. Shuc is a portable shower holder, doesn't require drilling or nails, it simply grips (via suction) to the tiles on your wall and allows you to put a shower head up to any height that it can manage.

The Dragons, at first, were impressed by the owner's presentation but none of them could understand why anyone would want one. The minute I heard what it was I sat there running through the amount of times I could have done with one!! My comment was however, the Dragons wouldn't see the need for one as they'd probably never stayed in a cheap hotel or bed and breakfast, or had to rent a flat or house with no shower! Afterall, why would they? I'm sure they live in the Hilton when away from their mansions

It's such a shame that they didn't offer any investment and to be honest gave comments such as 'this product is a waste of time'. Perhaps the projected figures and the expense already laid out were not good, but to reject the investment due to the project was a daft move. I certainly hope that this business gets some or all of the investment it needs or perhaps it already has (who knows how long ago these programmes were filmed). It's definitely a worthwhile product to have regardless of whether you rent or not (think about sitting in the bath and being able to bring the shower head down to the right height to wash your hair properly), or whether you stay in the Hilton or a cheap bed and breakfast

And yes, I'll be buying one at some point I'm sure!

The other day Deron wrote about how web developer's are treated when it comes to payment and essentially respect for the work you do. His main point was how so many clients want to pay very little for their web presence. A few good points were raised about how you usually (not always) get what you pay for, and how can web designers and developers prove that they're worth what they are charging. Sure, it's not always easy, especially for a developer such as myself.

A designer can show off their skills by showing designs of sites and work they've created. It's very hard for me to say "here's some PHP code and it does this" and for a client to understand and realise whether my code is any good or not! Sure I can show an end product of a working website, doesn't mean the code is any good, it just means it works

So how else can you sell yourself and your business as the one to hire? With so much competition going on these days, be it good or bad, you need to try and ensure that you can prove to clients that you are the best person for the job. Luckily I get most of my work through word of mouth so people are coming to me because I've given a good service to someone they know. However there's still the job of ensuring the client is aware of what they're paying for, why they're paying for it and why they shouldn't go to their 13 year old nephew to do the same job!

Today we were in London for a meeting to, in part, do this with a new client. Besides the 2 hour meeting discussing what he needed to do and think about for improving his website, we spent time explaining all the various methods of marketing and exposing the site to a wider audience. Information on how we would set the site up, why we would ensure the site would conform to accessibility rules and the legalities of this, and how best for them to present their information and content on the site.

I think not only attending a meeting in person can go a long way to make a good impression, attending a meeting in a place 4-5 hours away from where you live makes a very good impression! Also having the confidence in what you do and what you are talking about will definitely shine through. Giving answers by using examples of other jobs or sites you work on is also great as the client can get an understanding of how much work you actually deal with and the type of companies you already work with.

These days, UK Business sites need to ensure compliancy to the Disability Discrimination Act which recommends that your site conforms to WAI Priority level II. Whilst no cases have been brought to court yet in the UK, the Royal National Institute for the Blind are active in contacting site owners when their site fails the guidelines (and it's been brought to their attention). To be honest, we do need a couple of court cases happening here (in my opinion!) so that UK business owners can actually appreciate the importance that who they hire can reflect on them and their legal obligations.

However, I'm deviating Making a good impression with a client is the point here. Taking your time to meet in person, actually explain the work involved (without getting too technical), offering advice and information when asked for it. All of these make that good impression, shows your professionalism and puts you in a good light with your potential new client.

Of course, if I had my way I'd rather not meet any clients, not have to talk to them on the telephone and just be left to write PHP code all day! But for the time being I can't do that, so I will go out of my way to go the extra distance when it's needed.

Last week I was working on a site where the client wanted to have the option of targeting content by the user's location around the world. At first I panicked as I'd never done anything of the sort before! But after a brief chat with a friend and a few searches, I came across IP2Country Mapping Database which comes with 2 database tables, one with literally thousands of records covering the IPs used around the world, plus a country database which the IPs are mapped to, giving both the country and the region.

After finally getting the tables online (the IP one kept timing out so had to be entered in 3000 records at a time!), I tidied up the regions under the country table. Unfortunately they hadn't been set up exceptionally well, putting Iceland under the Arctic (I know it's north, but it's north Europe!), and some countries under 'The World' which wasn't helpful! However I narrowed the regions down to just 10 which was perfect.

This now allows the client to target certain content (in this case, advertising) to a selection of one or more regions. Perfect to create a more efficient advertising service. Afterall, there's no point advertising to the world when the advert is only ideal for one particular region.

The database is updated monthly and costs less than $15/£7.50 a month for upgrades. The site even gives you the PHP and ASP code you need to convert an IP address to an IP number and determine the country or region from it.

There is a free demo version that you can download and try out too, however this was last updated in 2003.

I got a call this evening off our landlady to inform us that her boyfriend was on his way to give us our notice. Long story clearly, we weren't told much. Suffice to say he never appeared and she called soon after and it seemed that they'd been arguing, on the brink of splitting up etc. etc. So despite no one officially coming round to tell us to move out, I'm not about to sit here and get a bombshell dropped on me. Annoying to be honest as our housemate is moving out to live with his girlfriend and we had a few plans on reorganising the rooms and the house. Now of course that's all out the window and instead I've just spent the last 3 hours looking at house and flat rentals. Luckily Lord of the Rings was on TV so I wasn't really interested in that

I don't know if it's just the sites I happen to look at but 99% of the Estate Agent websites I look at are so badly designed it's depressing. It's bad enough having to look through them under the circumstances, but they are either something out of the 90s or has some really cheap bad flash animation as a splash page on them. I've set up a couple of estate agent sites in the past, and I know that they do all seem to like their flash! Thankfully there are sites like Right Move and Find A Property which are fairly okay when it comes to design so you rarely need to get to an actual Estate Agent's site. Which is lucky, as these days when you search for "Area Estate Agents" the first 10+ results are for directories or accumulated sites (such as Right Move). On a search for "Wirral Letting Agents" I didn't get one direct link to an actual estate agent! Perhaps this is the niche to get into for SEO? Estate Agents!

So, I've found a handful of places that we can afford and will hopefully be a reasonable enough size for us to live in. I'm going to have to say goodbye to my garden and almost everything in it Next job is to start looking round these places. Well that'll be home number 31. Not bad eh, on average I've move more than once a year for my whole life…