I have to admit, like most others, we thought QR codes were pretty much unused and had never “taken off”. But according to one of our clients they are widely used by Chinese visitors.
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Articles: Technical things
QR codes – who uses them?
Email Etiquette
When we are emailing businesses (including when making travel bookings) we are surprised by the number of people who do not bother to respond appropriately, or at all.
eg:
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Update on .nz Domain Names
In March 2015 you were able to register or reserve the new .nz domain names. At that stage you had until 30 September 2016 to register these fully if you only reserved them . Due to some ambiguous wording, the domain name commissioner has now extended this until 31 March 2017.
If you do not register any name that you have reserved by then, it becomes available to anyone on a first come first served basis. Continue reading
Internet of Insecure things
Some time ago we talked about the Internet of Things. That means devices like fridges, air conditioners and heat pumps and other devices that are now wifi and internet enabled. CCTV cameras also fall into this category and there are millions of them around. Greater London has around 500,000 and the whole of the UK is estimated to have 4,200,000! 9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_Kingdom)
These devices may make your life easier and more secure but the proliferation of these is also assisting hackers as they are not secured or using any anti virus or firewall type software.
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Update on Google Glass
We were in the USA and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen anyone wearing and using Google Glasses (remember how Google told us how great they were about 3-4 years ago). So I looked them up to see if they were still being used or sold
It seems they haven’t really gone “mainstream” and been adopted by everyone in the street for daily use.
But they are actually being used for some pretty useful things. Continue reading
Travelling with Technology
We have recently been travelling overseas so it was a good chance for us to see how we would use various technologies while on the road. Sorry Apple users, you have lots of different clever things you can do with Iphones, Ipads etc that we haven’t discussed here.
We travelled with
A small laptop / tablet computer (Windows)
A Samsung S5 mini Phone (Android)
A Kindle Fire 7
What we found is: Continue reading
Booking.com crashes Apple Devices
The Booking.com app has been blamed for crashes on iPhones and iPads that have been recently upgraded to iOS 9.3
Apple is apparently in the process of correcting this
https://www.tnooz.com/article/booking-com-app-blamed-for-widespread-apple-device-crash/
Why Don’t Users Complete Sales (Bookings) on Web Sites?
It has been shown many times that a large number of people who get to booking engines on web sites, do not complete the sale. This article suggests that 81% do not complete the sale. That’s a huge drop off rate.
Why Not? That is what you need to know and fix.
Essentially the reasons include: Continue reading
Apps – Can they make you rich?
How much do Apps cost and earn for the developer?
Lots of people like the idea of building an App and selling it to millions of users. So how realistic is that if you have an idea? Seem like a quick way to make a buck? Here’s the reality check!
One survey suggests the average development cost is around $US270,000 and 7 months to a year of development.
Another calculator suggests a basic App can be built for around $20,000. Or a very small one for $3000-$8000.
If you are thinking about building an App to get rich, read the article at http://www.bluecloudsolutions.com/blog/cost-develop-app/
That suggests between $3000 and $250,000 depending on complexity.
But then if you get it right, and find a market, there is money to be made. The makers of Angry Bird made over $1 billion from it – bet that was nice surprise! But there are also loads of Apps that have virtually no downloads (or are offered for free). One article suggested the average return per download was about $0.18 or less. Do the sums! OK if you get millions of downloads. If!
Don’t start till you have a very clear idea of what the App will do, who will buy it and how you will market it to them. And if you want to share some of your wealth with someone who helped you in the process – call me!
Superfast Internet
Now that we have ultra fast fibre optic broadband in New Zealand, those of you who have it may think you are well off.
But what happens as more and more streaming movie and television services, and more complex gaming sites are used is that eventually your Internet connection slows down – too many people using the pipe available. And our expectation of what is good also changes – remember dial up – most of us thought we were lucky to even have that! We always want faster.
So what happens when things slow down again. What next?
Well the good news is that there is faster technology out there that will likely be next step, or part of it. Researchers in London have tested the limits of fibre optic technology and managed to transmit data at a rate 50,000 times faster than our current “fast broadband” (considered at around 24Mbps)
So when needed, we can expect someone to adopt faster technologies to keep up with our hunger for speed. No need to panic just yet! Technology is well ahead of the Telecos adopting it.