Andrew often know to friends as Andi. Is a Geek at heart and loves all things technology related. His interests included online business, web applications, the SaaS model, social media and marketing.
The T-Mobile Welcome Back video is a brilliant example of Flash Mob Marketing filmed at Heathrow's Terminal 5 back in October 2010. The T-Mobile Welcome Back... The Public Reaction... Flash Mob Marketing is one of the many different types of...
I am very excited that Balsamiq Mockups 2.0 should be released hopefully next Tuesday. It adds a few features that were missing which I consider essential after my experiences with using the product. These issues were, one, editing items in a way...
You may have noticed that many sites such as Twitter and Facebook use the Hash character '#', also known as the Sharp character, in there URLs. Have you ever wondered why? Well basically, its a SEO trick based on the fact that many search engines...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45688888@N08/5083459783/ Picture by P i c t u r e Y o u t h on Flickr As you may have read recently Google has been in some hot water over accentually collecting passwords and other sensitive data, some of which from...
I recently listened to a podcast from Internet marketer Ed Dale something he said stood out to me. He mentioned that very few people that he met in markets had websites, however, a growing number had FaceBook Fan Pages. I have also been reading many...
As a volunteer I look after the website and IT for a local social club , its what you would have called a "working mens club" in the dark ages. Recently I have been looking at how we can use the clubs website to increase membership and the usage...
200 Oxfordshire homes in the small town of Didcot, not far from myself, are the first in what could be Britain's poo power revolution. Of course, I am referring to biomethane production from sewage which not a new idea, however, it is only until...
As usual I have bitten off more than I can chew. I have decided to stop blogging on some of my other sites, remodel them and only use this site as my flagship blog. This means that there will be more material posted on this blog and that it will be...
I recently made a comment to TweetSmarter, a self-proclaimed expert in all things twitter, regarding the new Twitter.com web interface. They claimed that the new twitter interface could cause a backlash from its users. To which my reply was why...
Sorry no Friday Follows this week I have been preoccupied by certain events. I hope to resume next week. Perhaps I will see you on twitter my nick is @andicrook Happy bank holidays! Permalink | Leave a comment »
I have been playing around with Aptana recently which is a great development IDE for HTML, JavaScript, JavaScript frameworks such as jQuery and also PHP. Although the PHP support isn't as great as it was in previous versions, currently it relies on...
Okay so I haven't been on Twitter as much this week so there aren't as many Friday Follows (#FF) as last week. So here they are in no particular order. @stevenhealey is a great guy to know, he is a brilliant networker. I have known Steven in a...
I just had to share this really cool feature of Googles Picasa 3.8. Its called Face Movie and allows you to group photos via face recognition and produce a move sideshow with a difference. Basically, it uses various transitional effects to overlay...
Today I had a really good clear out of my home office and it now looks really neat. Recently I have replaced my old desktop with a new laptop, which I may cover in another post, I have set it up with stand for when I am using it with a desktop...
So it’s Friday again! that can mean only one thing in the twittersphere its Follow Friday #ff. If I have missed you off the following list then I apologise, perhaps we should chat a little more so I know more about you and so I can include...
Third parties have been providing "retweet buttons" for over more than a year the most popular been Tweetmeme, which can be seen on most websites today. TweetMeme, a British start-up which curates Twitter’s data has deepend its alliance with...
I recently read a blog post from Openattitude, a blog promoting free software, unlocked phones and other things that are open, who is giving the commenting system Disqus another try. When I was reading through his original reasons for moving away...
I am currently starting up a SaaS based company. I used to be in IT support.
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NETWORKING
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I try to spend a few hours a week networking. This allows me to connect and meet interesting people from around the world that share common interests from a variety of backgrounds .
I am a open networker so please feel free to connect with me!
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My IT Support History
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* Had a part-time computer repair business.
* Offered technical director position of computer shop business at 18, declined so i could continue my education.
* Senior Technician for small PC shop whilst at college.
* Started repairing computers for homes users at the age of 14.
* Started building PC's at 10 years old.
* First computer (ZX81) at 6 years old.
From citizens advice bureaux to teaching IT skills to disadvantaged and elderly.
* Procurement.
* Setting up networks.
* Administrating large windows domains.
* Teaching.
* Hardware repair.
Looked after the membership database for the club duties include handling correspondence, membership applications, yearly subscription payments, keeping the membership database up-to-date and creating reports for the committee. Extended duties included the procurement of a new database and PVC card printing system, also calling on programing skills to transfer data from an old membership system by using ODBC with VBScript. During this time also looked after all aspects of IT including website, email newsletter and backups.
Business was built from originally from receiving work from local businesses and home users whilst at secondary School, using the reputation built within the local area I became full time in 2001. The business took many forms over the years including some freelancing and contract work. Originally the main business was built around offering general technical support to home users including hardware and software issues, upgrades, system builds and the implementation of networks, however, this extended to include businesses after being increasingly approached by local small businesses seeking my help.
Halarose provide electoral registration and elections management products to local government organisations across the UK covering 1 in 6 UK electors. Duties included looking after in-house backup, network and PC’s. Main role was database development using Visual Data Flex. My project was to integrate Microsoft Office into a Visual Data Flex database application adding mail merge functionality.
Took over from the technical director working part-time including evenings after college and weekends The business mainly carried out PC repairs for home users and some small businesses, however, also built systems to order from a small retail outlet. I left the businesses to pursue further education.