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Friends The observant follower will have noticed that I have not made a post for around a week and a half. Well I have not been on holiday putting my feet up, but rather the opposite, sorting out two self-catering holiday opportunities and their related websites. It was decided that there would be three websites, a general one and two specific ones. The brief for the websites was to have a style that was separate but also distinctive as being linked together. The colours were to be simple and expressing of their environment. Ie one related to the land, the second to the sea and the third some form of combination of the two. Initially we went down the line of exploring icons and having the two specific sites as subsets of the generic one, but this was ditched for the style we came up with. Probably a lot simpler, than the original idea. What we came up with was a colour palette that was significant reduced/restricted and the sites were based around having a base css style that was modified for the sites are required.  The Spinney Home Page The colour palette for www.thespinneycottage.co.uk was a couple of shades of blue, a red outline to highlight a link (this followed on from feedback saying they were not obvious) and a green to say that a booking date was available. This was originally a shade of blue but was changed on feedback. The shades of blue reflect the sea, as it is a seaside property.  The Shieling @ Trostrie Cottage Home Page The colour palette for www.trostriecottage.co.uk was a couple of shades of green, but again following on from feedback the links were changed to a golden colour. To make them stand out a little more. Off white was also used rather than plain white so as not to stand out too much. The green colours of course reflect the environment around the property.  Galloway Getaways Home Page The final colour palette was for www.gallowaygetaways.co.uk . Here the neutral grey finally became the main colour set on a blue for the sky. The background image reflects the two ideas of the sea and the land. Having sorted out the style and the colour palette, the next thing is the images of the properties and their surroundings. A mixture of scrolling images and static ones are used on all three sites. As the saying a picture does say a thousand words is so true. Trostrie also has the added bonus of a changing background image, hopefully portraying the idea of some of the fantastic views available from the site.
The end result is hopefully three nice clear crisp sites that give an impression of a lovely holiday in South West Scotland. If you would like your website updated, or like one like this then do drop me a line info@fullersweb.co.uk
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For this blog article on the story behind the image, we will be considering the amazing spiders webs I was able to capture the other week.  Spiders Web Vibrating on Car Door This one in the car door handle, is amazing  Spiders Web on Wooden Fence On one of the few and far between days, when it was sunny and fine in the morning during September, we were able to capture these images. The midges were still around and evidently the spiders were having their pre-winter feasting as they had managed to build webs everywhere.  Water droplets on Spiders Web Not only had they built webs between the fence posts,  Water Droplets on Spiders Web they also had built them on the gate  Spiders Webs around Gutter and all around the guttering. Though the most amazing ones were those on the car. We did not notice the one shown above on the passenger handle until moving off, which then gave this amazing image as the threads of the web vibrate due to the cars engine. Spiders do have quite amazing building skills and strength of materials.
 Sunset #4 This is a post on the process I have gone through to catalogue and tag my images. Instead of focusing on a few specific images I thought it would be good to reflect on how the cataloguing of the images has been changed on our site over the last 6 months. Initially the images were catalogued by name, but when we came to having a series of sunsets calling them sunset and sunset #1 etc .. sunset #5 etc things began to get a bit confusing. So we changed to giving the images reference numbers. Initially the reference number was allocated randomly, as they were added to the system. This is fine for a computer, but not really much good for humans.  Sunset #5 Say the images have ref 100 (Landscape Collection), 101 (Plants Collection), 102 (Human Collection), 103 (Plants Collection) .. 159 (Landscape Collection), 160.. etc. The trouble with this was that now a human has no idea that image 159 comes after image 100 and rapidly caused considerable confusion.  Sunset #6 So it was decided to allocate 1000 values to the left of the decimal and 9999 to the right to each collection type, as a reference. Potentially allowing 19999 images per collection!! This should more than cover future needs. Having worked out a reference system that was fit for purpose as the saying goes. The aim was to add this to the system. Rather than having it in a data base, it was decided to use an XML data file, as it is lightweight and easy to store and handle data. Each web page reads the small XML data file and extracts all the relevant data required about that specific image, or image collection, or tag, location, date taken etc. In fact anything relevant can be stored against the reference in the XML file and read by the web page so long as it knows what it is looking for.  Scottish Flag in the Sky Whilst doing this at the same time I was committed to having a certain number of pages up and running by a specific date. This lead to a dilemma as it was quicker to put up the simple pages that did not need all the XML data, for example the tag and location data. So in the end around 140 pages went up without the complete XML data. Having met the deadline, all the new pages from then on have full XML data and I am now going back and adding the extra data for the pages that went up without it.  Sycamore Gap Hadrians Wall Now as around a third of the images have a full data compliment added we have made live the page where they can be selected by tag
Of course this now raises a further dilemma as I need to go back and add the extra data for all the images that did not get the full deal first time round, and offset that against adding new images, like these latest images, which is a far more enjoyable activity. I have set myself a task of doing so many each week, with the aim of trying to be complete by the end of the year. We shall see if I make it. (Also this could well mean that my sunset names change, but we will have to wait and see until I get to them)  Mountain Goat Over the last few months we have been walking across the moors and have come across some amazing mountain goats. I suppose in the past there were large wild herds roaming around, and these ones we found are few and far between.  One herd was found on the southern tip of the Isle of Islay, where the land was probably just used for hunting and shooting. It had been a couple of hours walking past old abandoned villages and hamlets to get to the point on the sea cliff. Then we came across the herd. The other herd was in the Galloway forest park.  Goat Resting The lovely thing with the goats is that they seemed totally fearless, in fact we were probably more worried about their horns than they were about us. Especially the ones with the baby kids.  Goat Patrol The good thing was that we were able to take these shots when the weather was not too bad. A circumstance that has been few and far between so far this year. As you can see we left baby goat on patrol
 Sun and shade Recently we were walking in Galloway, on one of the few days when it has not been raining, and the sky cleared up and the sun came out. It seemed so very bright, maybe because we have not been used to the sunshine due to all the rain and grey skies, or maybe due to the extensive tree cover over our path. This meant that initially we could not make out what was beyond the table. It seemed to be forming a junction between the dark and the light. Our eyes just like the camera having problems coping with the contrast, as you can see in the image  Rigg Bay in the sunshine As we got nearer the beautiful sandy bay was revealed, glistening in the sunshine. This enabled us to sit at the table, take in the view and enjoy the rays, as the table was at the junction between the shade and the sun. (The fact that the people on the beach were wearing thick warm clothes does really say it all for mid July, when the image was taken).  August 2012 Free Wallpapers Sitting in the sun enjoying the view really cheered us and we thought that this would make a good image as our August wallpaper at fullersfolio.
We are offering two versions of this - one with a months calendar on it and one without, in varying different sizes. More details can be found on the fullersfolio freebie page and we hope you like them. This is the final milestone in preparing our Business (Ad)venture for lift off - Part 9 (step 12) of the process I have recorded for starting up my business. The previous steps and posts are given below. Step 1 – Draw up a list rough list of what needs to be done Step 2 – Identify any knowledge gaps Step 3 – Identify a suitable training course Step 4 – Attend the course T-8 – notes can be found here Step 5 – Learning all about business accounts T-7 – notes can be found here Step 6 – Finishing and passing the course T-6 – notes can be found here Step 7 – Deciding the format of how the business will trade T-5 – notes can be found here Step 8 – Finishing the Business Plan T-4 Step 9 -– Getting the Bank Account sorted T-3 Step 10 – Agreeing Business Designs T-2 Step 11 - Grant Application T-1  Sun rise over Kielder Water Actually starting trading does seem to be a slightly vague term. I took it to be the day when I actually got round to registering with HMRC http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/register.htm#4 . They take it as the day that the partnership was formed, though I do think that is a bit optimistic as one can't really do that much until the banking is all in place. What ever - we are now in business and looking towards the future. So now got to work hard to get our business Hungry Giraffe up and trading and not enjoying the country side, and celebrating as we have our first sales lead – just need to turn it into a sale..It is a good job that the sun has gone in and the rain come back again. 
This is part 8 (step 11) Grant Application results - (not all the steps have blog entries against them) of my blog recording the count down to setting up my own business. With any project it is good to have a set of milestones, and these blog entries record some of these milestones Step 1 – Draw up a list rough list of what needs to be done Step 2 – Identify any knowledge gaps Step 3 – Identify a suitable training course Step 4 – Attend the course T-8 Step 5 – Learning all about business accounts T-7 Step 6 – Finishing and passing the course T-6 Step 7 – Deciding the format of how the business will trade T-5 Step 8 – Finishing the Business Plan T-4 Step 9 -– Getting the Bank Account sorted T-3 Step 10 – Agreeing Business Designs T-2 This leave one final entry - Step 12 – Start Trading  Spring Lamb Two months ago it seemed a good idea to apply for an Action Area grant from Northumberland national park as we live within one of their Action Areas towards our start up costs. More details on grants can be found here Colin Earnshaw, Community Enterprise Officer gave me some good advice and help with completing the form, and the application was duly submitted mid April.  After a 27 day wait and having to provide some supporting documents including my business plan, I hear that a small grant has been awarded towards the start up costs, and providing samples. So now got to work hard to get our business Hungry Giraffe up and trading and not enjoying the country side
This is part 7 (step 10) (not all the steps have blog entries against them) of my blog recording the count down to setting up my own business. With any project it is good to have a set of milestones, and these blog entries record some of these milestones
 Hungry Giraffe Logo Initially we were going to have a series of separate businesses but on advice we decided to merge them all into one, and as such wanted a catchy name, that would allow various different brands. Also a name that would tie in with one of our wild-scape images. So we came up with the name Hungry Giraffe  fullers FOLIO Website As we had already come up with a series of interrelated names for the various now brands within Hungry Giraffe  fullers WEB Website We choose a palette of colours based on the colours being used to make the Hungry Giraffe logo mainly yellows, browns and green.  fullers IT Website Originally the Hungry Giraffe site was also going to follow this colour collection, but probably due to the enormous amount of rain (and snow) that there has been recently, it has shifted slightly.  Hungry Giraffe Website The main home page has three images that reflect the three brands then blue for water, green grass and the dark night skies predominate the rest of the site. Hopefully giving a stunning clean clear look to it, which can be easily merged with our existing documentation.
This is part 6 (not all the steps have blog entries against them) of my blog recording the count down to setting up my own business. With any project it is good to have a set of milestones, and these blog entries record some of these milestones
Number 1 – It is probably a good idea to have a different bank for ones business to that which you use for your home banking. It makes it easier to differentiate between them both for you and for the bank. Form comments made some banks seem much worse than others at this Number 2 – It is a good idea to have a bank that has a real person, who you can talk to across a table as your business advisor, not just a random person at the end of the phone.  Padlock Number 3 – Bank charges – different banks charge varying amounts for different things, and it is good to try and choose one that will give you an account that minimises these charges. Ideally you will have already worked out where your sales are coming from and how the sales will be made as part of the business plan so you can work out how the money is going to come in and in what form. Put this into a simple spreadsheet along with the potential charges and see what comes out. You may be surprised at the result. Over the medium term say 5 years an account with low charges but a short free period may well work out less than an account with slightly longer free period but steeper charges. The thing to check is that you are not locked in and cannot escape.  Supporting Link Number 4 – Location and opening times of nearest branch – Yes you can do lots over the phone and via the internet, but sometime you will need to go into a branch (putting cheques into an envelope and putting it into the post does not seem the most reliable way of handling income)
Number 5 – Your view on how it has behaved with regard to the banking crisis over the last few years. (Maybe you think this is not relevant, but another way of looking at it is the ethics of the bank) So having done all these things, the next thing to do is to draw up a short list, and visit them. It does no harm in visiting your personal bank and asking them what they will offer. You will have to tell them anyway that you are starting out in business and you can then use their offering as a reference point and all other ones should be better than that. All in all this process took us about a month, but once we had found an account that we liked and signed all the relevant bits of paper, amazingly the account is up and running within the 5 working days promised. Hopefully over time the bank we have chosen will act as a support to our business, and perform better than expected. This is part 5 of my blog recording the count down to setting up my own business. With any project it is good to have a set of milestones, and these blog entries record some of these milestones
 Lamb Recently this has all been about numbers. My word processing package gives details of revisions and total time spent working on the document. I was amazed to find that it had had 122 revisions and I had spent just under 32 hours writing this 29 page document. It is a bit of a false claim to say that the business plan is finished as it is a living document, and will be updated very regularly especially the section on finance.  Twelve This is all about the numbers and trying to work out what will happen with them over the next twelve months. Fortunately our plans are not that grand so the numbers are reasonably small, so if we have got them wrong there should be wriggle room. Roughly twenty years ago I was involved in a project that was dealing with millions and the gearing ratio was fairly high. It seemed that everyone and their aunt wanted to see the monthly sales (& profit) figures. When they weren't quite up to mark the invoices were Factored out to generate short term better figures. Fortunately for that business things improved and the numbers went back on track.  Relaxing Goat I am sure once we do get to the point of starting trading then we will be comparing the real figures with those we have in the Business Plan. Lets hope they are better than we have got written down. What we must not do is sit back and rest, but strive on to get to the point where we start trading.
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Tim Fuller
Dyslexic doodles on photography, food (growing, cooking & of course eating), faith and other fascinating things. This is a personal blog expressing my views. Archives
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