Haydon Rouse

Social Media Manager, SEO Consultant and Internet Marketer

Hello and welcome to the blog of Haydon Rouse. I'm an internet marketing expert and operate a company called Saxon Internet Solutions. I work with small local businesses and large internet based companies to improve their internet marketing strategies.

3 August 2006 0 Comments

Technorati

You can ignore this post.  All to do with getting my blog listed on Technorati.

Technorati Profile

3 August 2006 0 Comments

Phone rings….

I sigh and stop trying to manually install a classified adverts script on a clients server that just doesn’t want to play.

Me: Hello

Caller: *Silence*

Me: Hello? (a little louder)

Caller: *Silence*  (I’m guessing now it’s a sales call as these call centres always seem to have this silence)

Me: *waiting for some damn idiot to actually speak* ( I wait for what seems like 10 secs)
Caller: Hellooo (in some stupid ultra friendly tone)
Me: Hellooo! (mimic of same ridiculous tone)
Caller: Good morning and how are you today?

Me: Yeah fine thanks. (in “get on with it” tone)
Caller: Is that Mrs ?
Me: Do I sound like Mrs !? (now I’m getting really annoyed)

Caller: Pardon?

Me: Do I sound like a Mrs to you? (said in my deepest voice)
Caller: No, sorry.  Can I speak to Mrs please?

Me: No, who’s calling?

Caller: MBNA Finance.  When will she be available?

Me:  Maybe sometime tomorrow.

Caller: ok thank you.

Me: phone goes down
Grrrr…. I hate these sales call people.  Particularly MBNA Finance.  They are always phoning up offering loans.  Disturbing my work.  What’s with the long silence before they say anything?  Watch this space for some MBNA phone wind up next time they ring.

1 August 2006 0 Comments

Seagulls

Last year we had to get someone to get rid of some seagulls that were nesting on our roof, between the chimneys.  They had become really aggresive and would swoop down on people as they walked down the road.  They had attacked some workmen who repaired some loose tiles next door.  They’d also dive bombed us whilst we were out in the garden, so we decided they had to go.  Paid a fortune to have them removed and have a wooden box with spikes made.  Well, they aren’t nesting up there this year (apparently seagulls come back to the same nesting spot year after year) but they are still in the area, and boy, are they noisy buggers!
For the last week we have been woken up by their screeching at about 5 am.  The amount of noise they make is incredible.  They sit on the roof screeching and then all their mates turn up and start up as well.  The sound they make sounds almost prehistoric sometimes.  Damn things!  I hate seagulls.
1 August 2006 0 Comments

SO’s Revamp

I’ve been researching CMS’s (content management systems) some more as I think SO (survivor-online.co.uk) should really have one.  I’ve always liked Joomla, but had to check to see if anything new was around.  Had a look at Drupal, but thought the number of templates was limited.  Read that Drupal is quite difficult to skin as well, so that has put me off.  Also it just didn’t seem to have the addons.  I’ve seen and heard that some blogs can be pushed to be a CMS, but again there aren’t the addons.  So I’ve more or less decided that it’s going to be Joomla.
There is meant to be a new version of Joomla coming out which is quite a step up and there is talk that updating to the new version might be difficult.  I’m therefore holding fire for a bit till the new version comes out.
Then I’ve got the task of trying to integrate Joomla with VBulletin (the forums) so that there is only one log in for users.  Read about some hacks that enable you to do it but they look scary.  I’ve come across a site that offers an integration service and it’s not too expensive (something like $40) so I’ll probably go for that.
Got bored the other day and started playing around with a new logo for SO….
Survivor online new logo
25 July 2006 0 Comments

SO in line for a makeover?

Survivor-online.co.uk (SO) is a site that I created way back in May of 2001.  It was designed as a fan site all about the ITV reality tv show Survivor.  At that time Survivor was already on it’s second (I think) series in the US.  It was a huge success and several US fan web sites were proving to be very popular.  I therefore thought it would be a good show to create a fan site about with not much competition here in the UK.

SO was therefore born.  It quickly became very popular with the messageboards (yes we used to call ‘em that) being particularly busy.  The official site had a messageboard, but it wasn’t instanteous posting and your thread had to go into a queue for moderation.
Despite the show being shelved, SO continued as the community discussed other reality shows.  The site is still going with about 800 unique visitors a day.  However, I’m thinking that the site could do with a major overhaul.  I’d like to redesign it completely, introduce a CMS and intergrate the forums more. Some members on the site have suggested a new name, but with the search engines preferring older domains I’m not so sure.
So once I get my prediction market project off the ground I’ll turn my attention to SO.  Any suggestions as to the focus of the site and what should be included in the new design would be much appreciated!

22 July 2006 0 Comments

Hello peeps!

Welcome to my personal blog.  Everyone else seems to have a blog these days, so here is mine!  Hope you enjoy reading my ramblings.  The plan is to blog all sorts here.  Stuff about my personal life, my businesses, making money online and probably the odd rant.

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