Clarihon blog

• Welcome to Clarihon Web Service’s blog

Painless Practice and Painless Business are two consultancies run by a client that I now consider as a friend – albeit a long distance one!

They were both started by James Butler shortly after the beginning of the new millenium. Both are business coaching consultancies, one general and the other specialising in complementary healthcare practitioners.

Recently James was joined by Celia Champion as a co-partner.   Aside from running a growing business (there are now 5 coaches plus an administrator), James writes a sparkling monthly newsletter. Whether you’re a complimentary therapy practitioner, in need of general business coaching or just like an inspiring read, you should try one. Recent editions can be seen here: www.painlesspractice.com/newsletters/.

James and Celia realised that the existing Painless Practice web site was in need of a facelift and re-organisation so they (naturally) came to us. We’re currently building the new site and are likely to be adding a blog soon.   Until then, you can read more about Painless Practice on their existing site here: www.painlesspractice.com.

How reliable is your home e-mail?  Do you know?

You might have some sort of SPAM filter in place on your PC but your mail provider might be doing some mail fitering on your behalf.

That’s great when it stops the Viagra sales messages and many of the other offensive or nuisance mails getting through but did you know that some free e-mail providers are a wee bit too ‘enthisiastic’ when blocking suspect mail.

You might not think that this is a big deal but you could be missing mail from colleagues, clients or friends that you don’t know about. They might get a rejection message saying their e-mail wasn’t delivered, but, more likely, they won’t. They’ll think you know what they e-mailed you about and just assume you ignored it or didn’t like what you read. That’s not good is it?

Microsoft Live and Hotmail sysytems are usually a bit quick to block mail from any address they think even the slightest bit dodgy. Yahoo go even further and aside from blocking mail, they also slow delivery but 24, 48 or 72 hours if they think it’s just the tiniest bit suspect. Since Yahoo handle all e-mail for BTinternet too (did you know that?) BT e-mail users will suffer the same problems.

We found this out when several of our clients started reporting that mail to Yahoo wasn’t getting through. We suffered the same problems ourselves.

It seems that Yahoo are now blocking all mail from one of the largest and most respected web hosting and e-mail providing company in the UK. That company is HeartInternet. If they’re doing for Heart, they’ll be doing it for others so it’s very likely you’ll be missing e-mail you should be receiving.

OK, so it’s easy and great that you can have a free e-mail address for personal use – but what use is it if you can’t rely on it? I think you need to be an AOL, Virgin or Talk Talk user to have one of their e-mail addresses so apart from Yahoo and Microsoft, that leaves Google as the only other big e-mail provider. So far it seems that Gogglemail is a bit more forgiving and sensible about general e-mail but sometime they’ll also start arbitrarily blocking decent, genuine e-mails simply because they fail an automated test.

What’s the solution?

Get you own e-mail address and mailbox(es). The bonus of this is that when you move house or broadband/Internet provider, you don’t have to lose your e-mail address. You can take it with you, it’s yours!

There are plenty of companies who provide domain names (web addresses) and the associated e-mail addresses. 123-Reg, Fasthosts and HeartInternet are just 3 of the biggest. There are plenty more you could use.

If you don’t want the hassle of signing up with them to register (and administer) your domain/web address and then create the mailbox(es), we can do it for you.

We charge £10/year to register and maintain an address. That could be something like nigelday.co.uk or nigelday.org.uk or somehting a little more generic like smithsinliskeard.co.uk/smithsinliskeard.org.uk.

Once the domain/web address has been registered we can create any number of e-mail addresses you want, like nigel@nigelday.co.uk or nigel.smith@smithsinliskeard.org.uk etc. Each e-mail address or mailbox costs only £10/year and you can have 5 for £30.

If you want independance and reliability for your home e-mail and would like to know more, please call us on 01579-342360 or e-mail us at enquiry@clarihon.co.uk

Our latest web site is for a client called Integrated Health Solutions (IHS).

IHS provide, amongst other things, military locums, education for health professionals and management of GP practices.

The company had an existing web site but a change in name and emphasis within the company meant that it needed to be refreshed and updated. We were asked to provide the replacement web site.

As much of the administration and secretarial work within the business is done remotely it was essential for the management of the company to be able to share documents and other material centrally, via the web. We sourced the activecollab application and ‘skinned’ (made it look like the rest of the web site) , installed and configured it.

Doctors applying to be locums for the company apply on-line and have to complete and/or provide a number of documents. We provided an easy download and upload facility. The locum doctors managed by the company use a central diary/calendar facility. Again, we sourced this, ‘skinned it’ and fitted it within the web site.

You can see the web site here: www.ih-solutions.co.uk

Well, it’s official, we’re out of recession.

I know that because I heard it from a local Lloyds TSB Manager at an event yesterday.

This event was just one of 11 networking opportunities or events I’ll have attended this month (April).

As a member of 2 Business League clubs, in Saltash and Liskeard, I’ll have attended 7 breakfast meetings. As a member of the Plymouth Chamber of Commerce, The Federation of Small Business (FSB) and Callington Business Connections, I’ll have attended three more. With my connections to a couple of Lloyds TSB managers I’ve attended one more.

Mainly by attending these kind of events I’ve built up a network of over 550 business contacts, many of whom will be reading our bi-monthly newsletter.

I don’t expect to get business as a direct result of attending these events (sometimes it happens) but work is steadily building because of requests and referrals from people I meet at them.

Many Web (and IT) people don’t feel comfortable meeting lots of people in a semi-social context. That’s great because it gives people like us an advantage!

Get out there and meet people. You can only gain by meeting more people and the increased exposure for your ‘brand’ it will bring.

From the day we arrived to live in Cornwall we felt privileged.

We’re fortunate to live in one of the most open and civilised countries in the world (yes, we do!) but living here in Cornwall truly brings home how lucky we are.

When my ‘pocket money’ account had risen to nearly £500 I wondered what to spend it on. As I’m a Humanist, a fully paid-up, card-carrying member of the British Humanist Society, the answer was clear – give it to someone who needs it more than me.

With the number of earthquake disasters we’ve had lately and a great charity organisation here in Cornwall, ShelterBox seemed the ideal solution.

ShelterBox provide disaster survival kits in a box. They contain a tent, basic cooking equipment and a number of tools suitable for providing the basics for living outdoors for a while. The average cost of each box is £490 – so that’s what I donated.

Apparently each donor gets to know the number of the box they’ve contributed to so they can track it’s progress and location. My details aren’t on the site yet and I haven’t got that number but when I do, I’ll post it here for those that might be interested.

Any donation is welcome and it wouldn’t take that many to provide a whole box. If you live in Cornwall (or even Devon) and are grateful for the fact, why not check ShelterBox out?