Hold the front page! (Or at least Page 14)

Posted by mark on July 7, 2016 | No Comments

Well, we finally got our 15 minutes of fame! I made a little speech about running a small business in these current times, and the Richmond & Twickenham Times seemed to like it! Have a look at the article below:

RT&T Feature 1st July 2016

Taking Card Payments

Posted by mark on October 14, 2014 | No Comments

Looking for a simple and easy form of card-payments using your iPhone or mobile? Heard about iZettle, Square or Paypal

and looking to use one in your business? Well now there’s a new player about to enter the already competitive game; Amazon, with the ‘Amazon Local Register’.

It looks as though Amazon’s eye for closing in and profiting on every market is unstoppable as they now promise a payment product likely to challenge all other competitors’ price with a fee of 1.75% per swipe – lower than any of the competitors listed above.

Amazon are selling the card reader at $9.99 (£5.89) compared to iZettle’s much greater price of £49. It’s US-only at the moment, but let’s hope they’re looking for a UK launch soon.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/
jul/28/amazon-credit-card-reader-paypal-square-izettle

The Apple Watch

Posted by mark on October 14, 2014 | No Comments

Following on from the much anticipated iPhone 6, Apple announced their new ‘Apple watch’ (as opposed to ‘iWatch’). It may be a wonderful gadget, but is it a useful business tool?

Previously, smart watches have not taken off in the sense that they have failed to be regarded as an essential accessory up there with the smart phone. One notable smart watch is the Moto360 which has previously been labelled as ‘trying to do too much’.

Does this mean that Apple could enter and dominate the market with their brand? Well, the biggest selling point for the Apple Watch seems to be its ability to monitor your health and personal fitness, and notifying you of e-mails (although it’s not recommended you try to read them on there). The major criticism of it is that it needs an iPhone to work in conjunction with, rather than as a stand-alone accessory.

If you’re still keen to get your hands on the Apple Watch however, you won’t be looking at getting it any sooner than early 2015. We’ll keep you posted.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/09/
apple-watch-iwatch-wearable-device-smartwatch

Becoming a Paperless Office

Posted by mark on September 29, 2014 | No Comments

The ‘Paperless Office’ has been the ideal for businesses since the 70’s, however, people’s reluctance to stop using paper altogether has still a long way to go.

Despite the environmental benefits of going ‘paperless’ and the obvious cost saving effects of reduced paper consumption the embedded office culture still obstructs these advantages. The habit of writing things down to be typed up, or stored digitally to be printed out is inherent in the majority of working environments.

Although we are moving in the right direction as we move from servers to online storage in “the cloud”, according to The Economist a paperless office is still a long way off in the future. We can be more hopeful of such a way of life as the younger generations become more involved in their own careers with their experience of a lifetime online.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/09/
difference-engine-2

Google Glass arrives – but what’s the point of it?

Posted by mark on May 24, 2013 | No Comments

Google Glass is now being launched – a pair of spectacles that feeds a continuous data update into your line of vision. But how does that affect you, the small business owner? And will wearable computing ever achieve mass acceptance?

The onward march of the integration of computers into our lives continues. For anybody who hasn’t heard of Google’s latest innovation, Google Glass presents the user with a pair of spectacles that will give the user a heads-up feed of whatever they need to know.

But will people take to it? From first impressions, it does look a bit geeky wearing strange spectacles, and people have reported annoyed feelings of losing that eye to eye contact when someone checks their e-mail half-way through a conversation, but it’s less intrusive than checking your mobile phone for e-mails whilst someone is talking to you.

From a small business-owner perspective, it does bring home the need to be ‘out there’, to be listed and ranked with Google, on whatever medium comes next. And that’s perhaps why they’re doing it.