Congratulations to the three of you from all at Slightly Different! Well done.

[* To make the headline really work, Alan would also have needed to be the midwife as well, but we don't think he'd look good in one of those midwife outfits.]

Amidst much talk of “Double Bogeys”, “Eagles” and despairing cries of “Where did that tree come from?”, the Slightly Different team achieved a commendable 8^th place, receiving a trophy for the best score on the back nine.

“It was a game of two halves, and the team looked and played like the champions that they have often described themselves as. The wind was in their hair, and they addressed the ball sternly, with passion and determination in every shot.” So said a non-golfing spectator, watching from the sidelines as the team kicked off on the first tee.

Another spokesman was overheard to say “If this were a different course, and they were three different golfers, their performance would be worthy of televising.” High praise indeed.

The event raised in excess of £3600 which was split between the Cornwall Blind Association, Marie Curie Cancer Care, and a number of local Rotary sponsored charities, and everyone had an enjoyable time so it was a good result all round.

We would like to congratulate the Slightly Different team – Mervyn Spencer (Non-Executive Director, Slightly Different), Julien Payne (Managing Director, Titleworth Healthcare Group) and Steve Edwards (IT Manager, Business Link) – for braving the weather and helping to make the day a huge success.

Unfortunately, very little in life is free, aside from the best things obviously. Assuming that Sinatra telling you that the best things in life are free isn’t good enough, if you are going to ignore ‘Ol Blue Eyes and you are like many millions out there endlessly searching for more, you’re going to pay for it with advertising.

An increasing trend for the web is making the entire browsing experience more personal. Google’s latest algorithm changes are a major change where they are now factoring into your search results what your friends are recommending. Filtering your search results so that the results are based on your location is another, and sure if you’re web savvy you can turn this off, but most people don’t.

What you may have noticed much more recently though is contextual advertising where your browsing activity is monitored – yes, even that activity – and adverts appear contextually on other sites based on what you’ve been looking at previously. This is not a new technology, but it is certainly being used a lot more and this will become something to behold as, just like any statistics based information, the more data there is, the more accurate the statistics become. In the context of online advertising, the results will get smarter and smarter the more data the system knows about what you are doing.

It doesn’t always work though, which often leads to amusing results. I use the Internet to browse a whole range of different topics, some of which interest me personally, and some which I look up for work undertaking online research, or perhaps looking for information on behalf of others.

Recently I spotted a good campaign for recruitment for Royal Marines officers which has been done as an interactive video – good work WCRS – and the video plays and you get a second or two to make decisions which then play out as the success or failure of the mission. I qualified and my team achieved the objective, but I guess being aged 42 I wouldn’t get too far with the selection process these days despite my being invited to apply at the end of the film. It would be a bit like the scene in Apocalypse Now where the dossier said that Kurtz completed airborne training at the age of 38 when he was twice the age of the other recruits, except in real life this kind of thing doesn’t happen.

Some time later I was doing some research for a client involved in selling a cosmetic product – the name is still under wraps unfortunately, but it’s a new and exciting product that women (and some men!) are going to love – and I was looking at a parenting website to see if it would be an appropriate forum for advertising. Sure enough, contextual advertising kicked in, and it was emblazoned with the Royal Marines Officer ad that you can see on the right. In context with the parenting information on the left it didn’t seem to fit somehow!

While the ad displayed was entirely out of context in this example with the website it was displayed upon, the one point that was consistent and made it contextually relevant was me. We’re going to see a lot more in the way of personalised adverts in the future. These will be delivered to you in all forms, not just on the web. Imagine walking down the road and being greeted personally by a digital billboard ad, or walking past a crowded bar at lunchtime and having an advert with a discount code appear on your mobile phone for lunch in that location.

I heard of an edgy ad campaign for a website which utilised the data provided by some web services where a user ‘checks in’ to a real world location to identify if there are any other people nearby that they might know. The agency behind this campaign used this information to phone the bar or restaurant where the person had checked in and they asked to speak with the person. Naturally the person picked up the phone intrigued to know who was calling them, only to be told that ‘Death could find them anywhere’ and asked to visit the website which was a tongue-in-cheek site dedicated to leaving messages to be transmitted in the event of the user’s death! The controversy surrounding this led to $1.5m of free advertising as various news media throughout the US reported on the story and the reactions that the message provoked.

While this is an extreme example, it does indicate that we’re only just started with personalised advertising messages. One thing’s for sure – if you think an ad that you’re seeing is a coincidence, you can be pretty sure that it won’t be. Big Brother is watching.

It is assumed that you’ve got the fastest PC that you can afford with the most memory and the largest hard drive. If not, you’ll need one of those, and try not to compromise on the motherboard or the memory as these are essentials. You don’t need a floppy drive, or a blueray player, or a see through case, or LED lighting, you just need something that works very, very quickly. I’m running an augmented Dell Studio XPS system which works for me. Also, one thing everyone forgets is the power pack – if it’s underpowered, everything will slow down, so it’s worth taking a little longer to make sure you’ve got a good one with the right power output. You’d be surprised what difference this can make.

Even if you’re not a hardcore gamer, the software within the games market today is amongst the most demanding software on the market, so unless you’re into video editing in a big way, you’ll be well served by these recommendations for pretty much anything else for some time to come.

[NB - While cloud based gaming as a service is with us, so technically you shouldn't need that massive hard drive for all your gaming software, in most places (in the UK certainly) the broadband consistency and speed aren't here yet. In my opinion this makes cloud services like OnLive a little too ahead of their time, although things are changing. You should be aware that today it's a serious etiquette failing when you're on a US server and you're the one ruining the game for everyone else because your ping is too high. That, and you won't last two seconds when the rest of the opposing team appear to be playing from within their ISPs building. To avoid you being pwned, subjected to flaming, and at worst being kicked, in short you'll need the big hard drive to install the software so that only the smallest data packets need to pass between you and the game server, which even if you've got 'Internet from Africa' as I was accused of having recently - thanks Eclipse - means that you should have a reasonable ping for a reasonable amount of the time. Anyway, I digress...]

There’s loads of advice and guidance on the Internet, so everyone will have a different take on this, but for my money you can’t beat NVidia when it comes to graphics performance for games. Many of the top games are actually optimised for use with the NVidia chipset and without spending a king’s ransom on it, there are a few pretty good cards which are available for less than £200. The GeForce 560Ti is pretty good value, it supports DirectX11 and has been optimised specifically for several top games including Skyrim and Battlefield 3 which should mean that it can run almost anything else on today’s games wish list and it should last for at least the next 6 months before the next Crysis is released which will no doubt require liquid cooled madness to run in safe mode.

From a monitor perspective, they all do much the same thing, unlike graphics cards which are actually worth spending the money on. I didn’t bother upgrading my monitor when I upgraded my gaming rig, so I’m still using a fairly old 19″ Iiyama ProLite which works for me. That said, if you want something awesome then there’s a load of newer ones on the market, although from a brand perspective I’ve stuck with Iiyama who I think make some really good kit.

There’s a good article at Tripwire Magazine about which monitor is the right one for you which is worth a read, and this contains some recommendations if you desperately feel the need to upgrade your monitor. You can read this here – Gaming Monitor Guide.

I don’t really care about viewing angles as it’s only me that uses my machine, meaning that I’m generally directly in front of the monitor as you are most likely to be. If you’re anything like me, watching someone else repeatedly being killed when fighting back the zombie hordes on the hardest difficulty level rapidly becomes a non-spectator sport once the first 24 hour marathon session concludes (what do you mean after the first five minutes? – Ed), so viewing angles really won’t be a problem.

What is important to spend the money on is getting the biggest screen with the highest refresh rate at the highest resolution that you can a) afford, and b) have space to put on your desk!

As they point out in the TripWire Magazine article, response times are critical – if you’re up against a hardcore gamer you’ve got to be fast and accurate and the higher the screen resolution and refresh rate combination the better. A high screen resolution is mandatory so you can see them from a distance and you can target almost at a pixel based level, and the second so you can fire the instant they pop their heads around a corner before they duck back into cover – it’s quite satisfying being able to take your opponent’s head off at a distance with a non-scoped rifle. A few rounds of something like Day of Defeat:Source will demonstrate this point adequately, and also show you how hardcore your skills actually are! Decent kit will definitely help. Decent kit and skills will dominate most other non-clan players. Clan level skills need to be earned.

I would suggest avoiding monitors with built in speakers – they’re all rubbish and they just end up compromising on the monitor quality. You need to be able to hear the enemy sneaking up behind you, or the just thrown grenade fizzing quietly at your feet, so I’d suggest getting a decent sound setup, particularly if you’re into FPS games where things explode. This also helps to double your PC as a home cinema system if you invest in a projector later on and have a blank wall to project your movies onto. [This works really well, and with the lights off it's like you're actually in the cinema. Popcorn and shadow hand puppets are optional.]

Going back to the topic – if you are a gamer, a sub-woofer is a must. There’s nothing like the first time you play a familiar game and you blow up the petrol station on that level and you’ve got the bass setting too high on your new sub-woofer and you’re teeth nearly fall out. You’ll never, ever use those tinny plastic desktop speakers again, I promise you. You’ll also need some really tolerant neighbours.

Alternatively, if you’re really minted, a decent set of headphones will do the trick. It might sound odd, but there’s more money involved with good headphones than there is in getting a reasonable 4.1 sound system so that needs to be considered.

Also, a good microphone is essential. Hardcore gamers taunt their enemies before killing them…

Finally, if you’re unsure what all the fuss is about, and you haven’t seen the graphics quality of some of the latest games, here’s the trailer for The Elders Scrolls – Skyrim. It’s borderline cinematic quality when full screen in high definition and is an example of graphic design at its finest. If you’ve got any questions, our Marketing Manager, Alan Law, is battling his way through this at the moment!

To illustrate my point (and if you are an economist you can start cringing now) here’s how I see it. In simple terms, the economy is like a merry go round. Let’s take three fictitious companies and an ultra-simplified scenario:

Company A – Steel PLC – a large company that sells steel.

Company B – Tongs Ltd – a small company that sells tongs made from steel.

Company C – Fireplaces Ltd – a small company that sells fireplaces made from steel.

Steel PLC sells steel to Tongs Ltd. They do good trade between them, because Tongs Ltd needs the steel to make its tongs, and Steel PLC needs the tongs as part of its steel manufacturing process. The two businesses are mutually supportive.

Fireplaces Ltd buys from Steel PLC to make its fireplaces. In order to beat its only competitor in the fireplaces market, it also buys from Tongs Ltd to provide fireplaces with tongs, which is a significant added value which its competitor cannot match.

In a positive economy, this market model would work well, with other companies and services fitting around the three companies mentioned.

The problem comes when Tongs Ltd reads the headlines about the economy and panics, worried that Fireplaces Ltd is going to stop buying tongs. Tongs Ltd therefore preemptively reduces its monthly order from Steel PLC, putting the cash away just in case it needs it. The system was working fine up until that point, as people need fireplaces (they do in this community anyway!) and there was no need for Tongs Ltd to panic, but they did.

Steel PLC sees a subsequent reduction in orders, and after a while is forced to scale back production to avoid being left with an excess of steel on its balance sheet tying up its resources. It slows down purchases from other suppliers as a result, and lays off some staff. Many of these staff were planning to buy a fireplace, so Fireplaces Ltd finds that it too experiences a drop in orders, which in turn affects Tongs Ltd because Fireplaces Ltd doesn’t need as many tongs as before because its not selling as many fireplaces. Tongs Ltd therefore further reduces its orders to Steel PLC and is pleased with itself for spotting the looming slowdown in orders from Fireplaces Ltd oblivious to the fact that by panicking a few months previously, it helped to cause the trade slowdown.

After some months, Steel PLC has slowed production and has laid off two thirds of its staff, to the point where it just ticks over, keeping production running at a very basic level with just a third of the output of the plant from previously. Fireplaces Ltd have few customers left, as the staff remaining at Steel PLC are worried about their jobs and they have stopped buying quality fireplaces altogether, preferring the really cheap ones imported from overseas. Tongs Ltd, reliant on Fireplaces Ltd for orders, and now seeing the reduction in orders from Steel PLC looks at the dwindling cash reserves and decides to call it a day before it gets into trouble. A few months later Fireplaces Ltd loses its last customer to the cheap import company because it is no longer is able to supply tongs with its fireplaces. Steel PLC is left with no customers and seeks a Government subsidy to avoid closure, being forced to buy tongs from a more expensive supplier.

While a highly simplified model, this is a microcosmic view of the current market conditions across many countries around the world. Companies like Tongs Ltd are panicking and are putting money under the mattress, thus creating their own problem down the line. As a result companies like Fireplaces Ltd are going out of business on a daily basis, not because of poor working practices or an inferior product, but because they simply cannot afford to continue to trade.

In the above example, with only one company left in the fireplaces market, the cheap importer can suddenly increase their prices without fear of losing any trade because they have no competition left. The major PLC will ultimately fail because nobody is left to buy their product, as evidenced by the demise of the UK steel industry, because the cheap importer from overseas buys his product from a company in China who uses a local steel company that can take advantage of cheaper labour costs and lower overheads.

The creative industry is a little like this. We speak to many smaller companies than us, often providing advice and support for those who are leaving university and trying to find their feet on the professional ladder. Many of these agencies are struggling at the moment, and good talented people are finding work in non related fields purely to make ends meet. Many of these will be lost from the creative sector altogether, and we know of other companies who are finding the going particularly tough at the moment, especially those who don’t have a national presence. The upshot of this just in the creative sector is that this is going to come home to roost in the next decade or two when we are looking for the next batch of visionary leaders with serious industry experience to maintain our key global positioning at the forefront of the sector, but I’m pretty confident that we’re not the only industry that’s going to suffer in this way.

When I met with the Bank of England recently and was advised that the economic situation is likely to continue until at least the end of the current administration, I wonder how many companies like the three fictional ones described earlier were going to be left when the dust settles. Protesting about the situation by sitting in a tent outside St Paul’s Cathedral or throwing rocks at the police isn’t going to make any positive difference at all. Indeed, all this is doing is to cause the various Government’s around the world to clamp down on civil liberties even further.

I fondly recall Dads Army which was on re-runs when I was a boy, and the words of Clive Dunn in his role as Corporal Jones “Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring” are as apt for the UK economy now as they were when Dads Army was set. Ironically, Mr Mainwaring was also a bank manager as well as a Captain in the Home Defence Force, and he had to put up with chaos within his organisation, not helped by Private Frazer played by the late John Laurie going round saying “We’re doomed, I say. Doomed.” to whomever would listen – a bit like the media today. They never were doomed, of course, and somehow they always came through whatever trials and tribulations they were up against.

If you really do want to do something about the economy, draw your money out of the bank – it’s doing you no good in there anyway – and buy a UK product from a UK company. If we all did this it would re-energise the market for products, kick start retail, which in turn would breathe life into the manufacturing industry, and as a result would create new jobs in all sectors which will allow more people to spend more money, and so the engine of the UK economy would wheeze back into life, and the money go round will keep on spinning regardless what they do in Europe.

You may recall Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs saying “Let’s go to work”. Let’s hit the ground running in 2012.

1. World Economy – The economy will continue to falter with commodities being stockpiled by wealthy nations causing prices to rise exponentially. China refuses to trade with anyone else, requiring its natural resources for its own wellbeing and the West is forced to initiate compulsory purchase measures from its own citizens. The price of gold reaches record highs.

2. Oil – A new oilfield will be found in Antarctica large enough to sustain the world for another 100 years. This will cause a major problem with environmentalists who will seek to stop oil exploration, but a new world oil committee will force through a bill allowing slant oil drilling to take place in approved areas only in order to bolster a faltering global economy. China will be excluded from this agreement until it agrees to join the world oil committee.

3. Middle East – Regime change in Syria causes a ripple effect throughout the Middle East, with US commercial interests further reducing in the region. Saudi Arabia reduces its diplomatic connections with the US. Iran is found guilty of repeated incursions into neighbouring countries and global sanctions are imposed against them with stiff penalties for any countries that breach sanctions. US and UK stealth operations within Iran are exposed when a drone spyplane is captured. Million Person March 2 happens simultaneously in London, Paris, and Washington.

4. Far East – Kim Jong Un, the new leader of North Korea, signs partnership agreement with South Korea, in exchange for open borders and increased trade opportunities with the West. Japan opposes this move. A new leader is elected in Japan. An earthquake in the Phillipines creates a new island with unusual plants.

5. Olympics – Britain wins more gold medals in the Olympics than ever before. The US win most medals, although France also does surprisingly well. A new 100m world record is set by Usain Bolt with a superhuman time of 9.39 seconds, prompting a scandal where unbelievers declare that the time is impossible to be set by a human being and eliciting an investigation where Usain Bolt is cleared of any wrongdoing. The opening ceremony is marred by anti-Government protests.

6. Space – Definitive evidence that there was once life on Mars is uncovered, prompting questions about its origin which would only be plausible if the life came from another planet outside our solar system. This prompts renewed international fervour in space exploration. An amateur astronomer receives a faint electronic signal from outer space. A second attempt to position a Chinese satellite in space fails, and foul play is suspected. The first commercial voyages around the moon are advertised.

7. Entertainment – A new television sensation is broadcast simultaneously in multiple countries where one person stands a chance to win £1m per year for life. The largest television audience in history watches the weekly show. Holographic televisions are demonstrated for the first time by Google. A reality show public voting scandal causes several shows to be taken off air.

8. Business – Commercial sponsorship of the military is made possible, with corporate webcams attached to each soldier in the field broadcasting live images of combat situations. The gambling industry capitalises on this. Walmart announces record profits and moves into the pharmaceutical business by buying a major drugs company in the US, selling off a number of retail assets in the process. The first commercial advertisement appears in space that is visible with the naked eye by the world’s population. Global trading tax incentives are increased, prompting a surge in globalisation and expansion into different countries by SMEs. A new invention promises to revolutionise the way we work. Recycling becomes the new boom industry.

9. Internet – A new battle between Facebook and Google causes Google to lose stock value when Microsoft buys Facebook and launches a credible service. Yahoo forms a partnership with Baidu, but rapidly fades into the background, with Baidu reaching market dominance within the first year. Google is hacked and its latest search ranking algorithm is stolen and released on the Internet. Twitter is taken over by the US Government in a secret deal worth several billion dollars.

10. Technology – A computer is taught how to create its own code to solve problems. The first domestic robots are released at an affordable level to the general public capable of domestic chores, and with various modular upgrades for different activities. A new electric car is released commercially by Google that can drive itself. Evidence comes to light that the first self aware computer has evolved. Will Smith buys a dog.

That’s about it. Any of this stuff could happen, and it might be interesting to look back in a year’s time and see how I did. I’ve been kind of generous to myself though, as some of it will probably happen, but if any men in black are reading this, I don’t know which parts!

Happy New Year to you all. May all your hopes and dreams come true, and may good things happen to you all. Above all, keep smiling.

Cowslip workshops very own Jo Colwill, is appearing on Kirstie Allsopp’s TV programme, Home for Christmas on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm.

Jo is so completely unassuming and so I’m sure she won’t be shouting about this too much, but all the team at SD would like to wish her good luck anyway! We’ll be watching

Cowslip workshops have been providing courses and workshops for over 12 years on their idylic  farm in Cornwall, and Jo herself has been working with textiles all her life.  The team at Cowslip are completely focussed on providing a easy, relaxing and inspiring environment for people to learn, and from the worhsops to the cafe and the shop, they achieve this with great ease.  People come from all over the world to attend the workshops and courses..and for good reason too.

You have to see the work that is produced to appreciate how truely lovely it is, so for any of you budding crafts people out there, who fancy signing up for a course, or attending a workshop or  if you need any last minute Christmas Present ideas….

Cowslip Workshops are one of our longest standing clients, are an absolute pleasure to work with, and just for info, we are also just about to launch a new Cowslip website… watch this space..

You won’t catch us playing any of these games or tracking Santa, or having a laugh at our suppliers dancing! of course, although we’ve had to try them out for you… just to make sure, you understand.. Merry Christmas all!

The guys down at Rackspace have been busy again this year, maintaining world class data centre’s, providing Fanatical Support and having dance offs! This is good fun, check out Patrick and Alastair for some moves!

13 Amusing Christmas images from Alice Audrey

A cool, ‘angry birds’-esque Christmas flash game

It just wouldn’t feel liek Christmas without a sprout game now would it!, This is good fun.. if   not a bit strange…it’s the teeth!!

Office Hours

London Office

Our London office hours over the holidays are:

Closing on Thursday 22nd December at 5pm

Re-opening on Tuesday 3rd January at 9am

Head Office – Cornwall

Our Head Office in Cornwall usually closes between Christmas and New Year, and this year we close at 5pm on Friday 23rd December, then from the 28th – 30th we will be operating with a small team where we will be available to deal with any emergencies.  We’re back to full power on January 3rd at 9am.

If you have any serious website problems over this period, please use the following email address to contact us:

Christmas related emergencies relating to Turkeys, sprouts or other culinary disasters are best directed to here:

www.britishturkey.co.uk ………………….They have a Turkey hotline!

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total – 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second – a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that “flying reindeer” (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload – not even counting the weight of the sleigh – to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison – this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

Now, there are two para 5s depending on the age of the person reading this. If you’re sensitive and under 10 years old, you can stop reading now. Alternatively you can read both and make your own mind up whether you prefer the Stamford University version or the Slightly Different version. As with all science, it’s only a theory.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. In conclusion – If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

Or the Slightly Different version:

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. Rudolph, the lead reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Any normal reindeer would burst into flame almost instantaneously, but because Rudolph is a magic reindeer he can cope with the heat, and this protects all the other reindeer from getting their fur singed. And that’s why Rudolph’s nose glows red.

There, that’s much better. Have a great Christmas everyone!