Interim Management Training Assistance Scheme

If your business has fewer than 50 full-time employees, you may be eligible for financial assistance from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) to partially cover the costs of management training courses completed between 1 July 2010 and 30 September 2010.

This is an interim scheme to continue helping business owners and managers to improve their management capabilities while a new network of regional partners and capability voucher system are established by NZTE.

Details about the NZTE Management Training Assistance Scheme are available at www.nzte.govt.nz/training.

Posted in Soapbox, Web Design | No Comments »

New and Updated Clients

Welcome on board to those new clients of Deepweb, here are some of the work that has been done recently for new and existing clients.

• Forestwalks – Updated template and system to use WordPress.
• Triton Suites – Russell Boutique Motel.
• Cooks Lookout – Updated design for this motel with an Amazing view.
• Emergency Nurses Conference – Being held in Whangarei this year.
• Kerikeri Netball Centre – WordPress driven site to allow the Centre to process results and fixtures
• Sunset Cornish Rex – Cat Breeder in Kerikeri

Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

iPhone 4′s Reception Problems

As a company who has high expectation about design and usability of it’s products. Apple really seem to have gotten it wrong this time, if reports of the difficulties with the iPhone 4′s signal reception bear out to be true.

I can’t believe that a product can reach production without an issue like this being known.

Was the leak of the iPhone prototype the cause of rushing the product before it was ready?

Reports of Class Action lawsuits and leaks of instructions call centre staff are to give disgruntled users are surfacing showing that the issue is real and that Apple are moving to, at least at this stage, play down the issue.

One of the responses has been to hold the phone a different way. I wonder if there is a specific Apple way to hold the phone, maybe like a secret handshake that they have forgotten to tell their followers?

I would expect that the design will be changed, quietly, but with over 1.7 Million units sold in the first few days, there are plenty of people out there with a potential handling issue.

Is this a case of aesthetic design overpowering functional design? Trying to be ahead of the other smartphones?

Steve Jobs runs a pretty closed shop, part of the reason why Apples reaction to the leaked prototype was so intense. A flaw like this would be a real dent in the PR armour of Apple.

Posted in Hardware | No Comments »

Bruce Clay on Search

I love the Webpronews Videos, a great source of info, especially from presenters of Search and Marketing conferences.

This one with Bruce Clay, at 18 minutes long, is a great discussion around search, how it has grown, broadened in it’s nature to include Interactive Marketing and Optimisation on many levels.

He makes a few key points:

1. The new first page is actually the top three, especially as results are continually refined and made more personal
2. The distinction between Search and Find, Search being research based, looking for overall information, whereas Find is all about what is around me know, especially on Mobile
3. How Google’s Caffeine update has made the “accidental long tail”, ie those pages that are found for a phrase when that page is not about that phrase, less findable while improving the rankings for intended long tail pages.

Check out the video for some interesting information

More WebProNews Videos

Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engines, Social, Video | No Comments »

Will Adidas pay for their failed Jabulani Ball?

There have been plenty of criticisms of the Adidas Jabulani ball, to the point where FIFA have said they will look into the concerns about the ball.

Seems to me like it is a bit too late.

We are in the middle of their show-piece tournament and that FIFA have made this admission now (given their reluctance to even acknowledge the discussion on technology) shows they are not happy.

Adidas have a contract with FIFA to supply the ball for the next World Cup in 2014. They paid over USD300 million for the right to do so.

I think one of the key reasons for the problems with this ball is the significant change from previous models. There seems to be a complete change is feel to the ball and the way players are describing how it acts will mean that they have some getting used to it.

The fact that the first free kick to be scored from came in the last round of the group stages again highlights how long it has taken to get used to the new ball.

The Jabulani has been available to national teams for months before the finals, but given most leagues (Especially, the English Premier League, La Liga and Serie A) use Nike balls, they could not be used consistently to gain experience.

Ironically, Germany’s Bundesliga was the only major European league to use the Jabulani in normal domestic matches.

I expect for the next games to play better as teams are coming to grips with it. But it shouldn’t take this long.

I would hope that Adidas are put on notice for 2014, to either provide a ball similar in characteristics to what is being used throughout the world or provide it much earlier for teams to practise with.

Unfortunately, with Nike’s domestic league dominance, if Adidas decide to push the boundaries again, we could have the same problem in four years time.

Posted in Football, Soapbox | No Comments »