Head Rambles

Grandad April 12th, 2007

I have heard in the past about ‘hostile takeovers’ and often wondered about them.

I had pictures in my mind of boardrooms and people shouting at each other and solicitors sending nasty letters to each other.

The reality is far worse.

Last night, I was sitting minding my own business [that is a pun-to-be as you will see], when there was a knock on the door.

“Are you the owner of Silver Hair Internet Technology?” asks a bloke with a hat and dark glasses [even though it was night-time].

“I am” says I, thinking this might be a secret approach for a massive contract from an international organisation.

“We are taking it over.” I couldn’t say whether or not he batted an eyelid because of the dark glasses.

“F*ck off” says I in my politest tone.

He pulled a gun on me.

I was a little surprised as people in the countryside are usually quite friendly. People have take pot shots at me in the past but not at my front door.

Herself was inside doing her knitting, but when she realised what was going on she let Tiddles loose.

There was mayhem. Tiddles found one of them [there were quite a few of them apparently] and started playing with him. Bullets started ricocheting off the walls. The dog took cover as she hates loud noises and Herself started firing off the sawn-off. She nearly hit me a couple of times, but that was accidental. I think.

Then they started on the heavy stuff. When a mortar round blew the neighbour’s house to bits, I tought it was time to call a halt.

“What exactly do you want?” says I when the dust had settled a bit and Tiddles was back in the garage.

“We want Silver Hair Internet Technologies. We are prepared to pay a good price”

“Why didn’t you say so?” says I. I had grown bored of the web design business anyway and would be glad to be shot of it.

It transpired that he represented a company called “Hosting Online Technology” and they wanted to merge the two. So he gave me a very reasonable cheque [considering I had done little or no work] and I signed the papers, and gave them all a cup of tea.

In retrospect, I realised that I had been the victim of a hostile takeover, but I didn’t mind. They could have handled it better, and I’m a bit annoyed at having to apologise to the neighbour’s relatives.

So if you see a web design company called ’shithot.ie’ don’t go to them. Ron’s company is much better anyway.

But God help us if Ryanair launch a proper hostile takeover of Aer Lingus.

Stealth bombers over Dublin?

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Grandad February 9th, 2007

At last I have a real job!

I have been having some problems setting up Silver Hair Internet Technology.

Firstly I need a domain name apparently for my website, but they won’t register it for me.

I tried to buy shit.com and shit.net and shit.org but they are all used up.

I phoned the nice people who look after the IE thingies and they were very rude. They refused point blank. I can’t think why.

Anyway, I have been having some problems getting people to send me money so I can design their websites. The cash just hasn’t been arriving. I had no idea that running a business would be this hard.

So Ron as asked me to help him. He is designing a site and has all the pictures done, So he has asked me to set up the page to hold all the graphics. This apparently is the HTML bit.

He said that as I was a beginner, I should use a table. Now this is confusing. What difference does it make where I work? I prefer the armchair with the laptop on my lap. It’s more comfortable that way. So he can forget about that.

He gave me a brief lesson and I took lots of notes so I know the way to put an image into a web page is to type (image source=”image.gif”). That’s easy enough. I just have to remember what all the images are called.

He also told me to spell ‘colour’ as ‘color’. But that is going too far. I refuse to go the American way so I am going to stick with ‘colour’. The site probably won’t work in America but that’s their tough luck for not being able to spell. The rest of the world will see my colours as they should be.

We had some hard bargaining over price. I asked for only €5,000 because he’s a friend. He offered €5, which seemed a bit of an insult. We spent half the night bargaining, as I’m very tough when it comes to things like that. We eventually settled on €10. He is going to pay cash, so there shouldn’t be any problems with tax or VAT.

Part of the negotiation was that I wanted “This is a S.H.I.T. site” written at the bottom of the page, but Ron refused point blank. The bastard is going to take the credit for all my work.

So I’m now a sub-contactor. I suppose it’s a start. I’ll be very busy over the next three months or so writing this page, so I may not be able to pay so much attention to Head Rambles. I’m sorry about that. Business must come first.

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Grandad February 1st, 2007

My web design company [Silver Hair Internet Technology] is going from strength to strength.

I haven’t actually received any money yet, and I’m still waiting for my first order to arrive, but I know they are both coming.

I’m playing amongst the big boys now. I have tendered for a new contract, and it is big.

I can’t say too much about it because there is a secrecy clause in there, but if I say you’ll soon find it a lot easier to file your tax returns on line, you might get an idea.

They are looking for all sorts of fancy stuff on the site, but that should be no problem, because I just bought “HTML for Dummies” which Ron says is just my level.

They also want databases, so I have to dust off my copy of Works 2.0 which Ron gave me years ago. I think that does databases, so I’ll be all right there too.

They went on a lot about security and secure servers. That is easy, because I always lock up my laptop at night, and our dog is a very good watchdog. So I told them about this in my tender, so that they can sleep at night.

They also mention encryption, which baffled me a bit. Then I remembered a code we used to use in school where you replace each letter with the next one up. So “Silver Hair” becomes “Tjmwfs Ibjs”. Isn’t that clever? No one will be able to read that.

So, I think I’m ready to take on the task.

I’m a bit concerned about the amount I should charge. I know I said I’d keep my prices down a bit to start with, but this is the government after all. A few years ago they spent about sixty million Euro on an electronic voting system that didn’t even work, so I think they will be quite happy to spend big money on a site that will. So I quoted fifty million Euro. I won’t be greedy. Anyway, that should impress them and show them I’m serious.

This is really going to put my company on the map. All the papers will be full of it. I might even be interviewed. And I know the work will pour in.

I can’t wait to get the job. I’m all excited. I’ve told Herself that she won’t be able to disturb me for at least three weeks.

But most of all, I’ll be so proud to think of all those people using MY site, with my proud slogan at the bottom -

“This is a S.H.I.T. site”

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Grandad January 25th, 2007

Well, my web design company seems to be going from strength to strength.

I have already had a lot of interest, and one firm contract.

Now Blacknight seem to be showing an interest. They want to buy me a domain name. That seems fair enough. I’ll need one.

I’m in with the Big Boys! And I’m only in business two days.

To Michele: Thank you for your interest. I would like a domain name please. If you could let me know how much it is I will post a cheque. You can post me back the domain name and I’ll stick it on my laptop, so people know where to find my site.

It’s only fair that I do business with Michele, because I know Ron who works for Dick who knows Michele. Conversely, I know the prospective-mother-in-law of one of his employees. So either way, that should be a good enough reference.

In the meantime, I have been pursuing my quest to learn Java or Javascript or whatever it’s called. I pestered Ron all yesterday to give me a lesson. He was a bit frazzled because he was trying to write out a tender for a big contract [I'll be doing that a lot soon..!!].

In the end I think he got a bit annoyed, but he gave me some code to try.

I put it on a page but it does strange things.

Maybe there is someone out there who can help me. Ron says that web designers are great for helping each other out. Maybe there is a forum I could join?

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Grandad January 23rd, 2007

I have mentioned Ron and Dick quite a few times in the past.

Ron works for Dick who owns his own web design company.

They make pots of money, and I decided it was time I got in on the action.

I annoyed them for a while and eventually they gave me a loan of a book on web design. It’s easy. I have already made my own web page. It needs a little tidying here and there and for some reason the photograph I put up doesn’t work, but it’s a start. You can see it HERE.

So what do you think? Not bad!

If I had known it was this easy, I would have started a long time ago.

I asked Dick what I should learn about next, and he suggested Javascript, so I rang the library but they don’t have any books on Java. Only Thailand. So maybe I’ll teach myself all about databases tomorrow. I’m not sure what they are but Dick says they are handy.

I am going to join up on a few fora and throw modern buzzwords around like HTML and FONT and TAG, just to show them I know all about it. And I am goint to learn Microsoft Paint so that I can put lovely graphics in. Unfortunately I have to learn to spell colour as ‘color’ [bloody Americans], but I’ll get there.

I will need my own domain name. I’ve decided to call my new company Silver Hair Internet Technology, but silverhairinternettechnology.ie is a little long to type in, so Ron suggested I use just the initials, which seems a good idea.

Now I have to decide how much to charge for a website. I have heard that companies pay hundreds of thousands for websites, but I will start small, so I don’t think I’ll charge more than €10,000 for my first few sites, until I really get the hang of it.

So I want you all to look at my page and tell me what you think. Would you pay me €10,000 for a really good site? I think it would be good value compared to what some companies are charging.

Give me a call. My books are open for appointments.

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