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So sorry, but just too ill to blog at the moment

It only leaves me to say Happy Christmas everybody.

There is something rather magnificent about London at Christmas time. The lights that are illuminating all the incredible shopping streets of London and the atmosphere that purvades everywhere are just 2 of the things that makes an annual trip to the capital essential.

Normally we go to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park but decided to give it a miss this year, no particular reason but just trying to vary what we do. So this year it was a browse around Harrods to be amazed by the cuddly toys that included life size Pandas, Giraffes, Bears and Camels. A visit to the sound and vision department now called Technology at Harrods to see a 100" Sony television a true bargain at a mere £70,000, I've actually been to a cinema with a smaller screen than that! Speaker systems that are in the form of Bulldogs that have a bone shaped remote control and other things that you only see at Harrods all making it a thgoroughly entertaining trip. 

Once we had bought the few things that we actually came for it was on to Harvey Nicols for a well earned glass of champagne and a good people watch in the 5th floor bar. All finished off with a meal in the Burger and Lobster restaurant that is a new addition to the place since I last visited. All in all a very pleasant day that signals the start of Christmas proper for me. Already looking forawrd to next year!!

The only thing to talk about today is the funny white stuff that appears to be falling out of the sky. According to the news reports schools in the midlands are closed and even a Christmas market was closed due to snow. I ask you just how ridiculous is this country getting. Police have apparently been called to the Business Class lounge at Heathrow because some flights have been cancelled. Once again the level of snow that would be regarded as nothing in an awful lot of countries brings vast parts of ours to a standstill. Clearly it is not worth our councils investing many millions of pounds in dedicated snow clearing machines that would only get used on a few occasions each year but surely the ability to put a plough and some chains onto some existing bin lorries or the like is not beyond the realms of possibility? Or is it, maybe I'm missing an important point but I dont think so.

I was reminded today of a phenomenon that I first encountered in Chatel, a small skiing village on the Porte du Soleil ski area of France. There is always something called the 'Snowline' a height at which above it falls snow and below it is rain. When you looked out the window of the Chalet at breakfast up the mountainside there was a very clear, exactly horizontal line where the trees were completely white above it and completely green below it, quite an amazing sight the first time. This is a video outside the window of my office today:

 and this is a picture outside a house in Purley which is probably about 400 feet lower than Caterham on the Hill where the video was taken.

Meaning that somewhere between Caterham on the Hill and Purley is the snowline and I suspect its just as you start going down the hill, I am just about to go and find out.

Good morning 

Part 2 of my VLOG on General Data Protection Regulation compliance. Back to normal blogging next week.

GDPR Part 2 from Roger Oxford on Vimeo.

This is my first vlog rather than blog in an attempt to make this subject interesting. I will continue the saga next week!

Rogers 1st vlog from Roger Oxford on Vimeo.

Wireless charging of devices has been around for some time now. The technology makes plugs and adapters obsolete The only thing you need is a Qi charging station (transmitter) and a phone with wtreless charging capabilities (receiver). As soon as your battery runs out of power, you place the device on the station and your phone immediately starts charging.

The number of public Qi (pronounced Chi) charging stations currently totals just 5000 worldwide but just watch this space!! With the just launched iPhone 8 and iPhone X Apple have embraced this technology. Game changing' products don't come along all that often for our industry Looking back over the years we have seen many gadgets come and go and last for different time penods mouse mats. modem cables. memory sticks. digital photo frames. and more recently portable power banks and charging cables (see previous blog regarding quality issues). Apple's decision to enter the market elevates Qi very much to game changer status.

Research has shown that up to 76% of consumers are eagerly awaiting wireless charging. There are expected to be 300 million phones with this feature by the end of 2018 and 1 billion devices by the end of 2020 all because Apple has come on board. Wireless charging is becoming widely available and growing rapidly with major automotive brands (Kia. BMW. Ford) including it in their cars, coffee shops (Starbucks, Costa), fast food outlets (McDonald's) and even brands such as Ikea offering wireless charging.

All the above makes this an ideal premium gift for those really special customers at the festive season.

Good morning

I'm afraid that this blog is going to be very short andf hopefully sweet. I will be making my way back from a really enjoyable boys trip to Blaymont in France just north west of Toulouse. A fairly regular occurance that allows me to get away from artwork and accounts and be able to exercise my I.T. skills usually quite fully. Tood much food and wine is of course a given on these trips and ad added to that is watching a Grand Prix with similar minded individuals. To top it all below is a video of one of my favourite things in the whole wide world!

Log fire from Roger Oxford on Vimeo.

I've always been keen to celebrate Christmas by having extensive decorations both inside the house and outside. Unfortunately as I'm getting older the physical exertions of putting up lots of outdoor decorations is becoming harder and harder. Plus of course taking them all down again by twelfth night. Last year I thought I had solved this ever growing problem when I purchased an outdoor laser light. As I was hoping that this would allow me to leave the light up all year long and just attach it to a timer during the month of December I went to the trouble of mounting it onto a tree in front of my house. High enough up to be out of reach and wired permanently to the eaves of teh house and into the garage. Alas I had only bought a single colour laser light that provided a display that was dissapointing to say the least! Added to the poor display where I had mounted it onto the tree it only really shone on to one corner of the house. 

This year I decided that the principle was still valid and I just needed to be a bit more careful about the light I bought this time. Fortunately a friend of mine had bought a 3 laser light and was delighted with the show it put on. I managed to acquire exactly the same type of light and when I tried it inside I was very much impressed. The other problem though was where to put it this time. I had chosen high up on a tree last year so that any delightful person or persons, maybe a bit too full of the Christmas spirit, would not be able to relieve me of it, at least very easily. The ideal position for the new light is on top of a stump that is fairly dead centre in the front garden. The trouble with this is that it will be very tempting for any persons as previously described. Having thought long and hard about this problem a quick trip to the garden centre provided the solution.

Maybe not a perfect answer but at least it will deter a casual attempt to purloin it. Once December is here I will take a little video of the fruits of my labours and let you see if you think it has all been worth it.

I was out shopping on Friday just gone to purchase some things for my brother in law's 50th birthday party that we were hosting at the weekend and several things struck me. No 1 was that the northern end of the Purley Way must be avoided at all costs even midday on a Friday during half-term. Secondly, PC World really should change it's name now as there seemed to be precious few PC's in it and a lot more toasters and televisions. Clearly a sign that the internet is the place that the vast majority of anyhting to do with computers is bought now. Lastly was that all of the shops have already stated to gear up for Christmas with decorations being some of teh first items for sale as you walk through the door.

We too have added our Christmas goods slider image to our homepage with a relevant message on it even if I do say so myself.

The clocks have gone back this weekend and so with the days turning to night much earlier all our attention must turn to Christmas because it is a matter of just a few weeks away now. Presenting your customers with little gifts to show them how much they are appreciated is never a wrong thing to do. Admittedly it is extremely difficult to quantify the positive impact on sales against the negative impact on cash-flow of giving gifts at Christmas but in a time where the very notion of customer loyalty is very much on the decline a handy reminder of your generosity staring at them from their desks cannot possibly hurt.

The other thing that is now a very good idea is to send them a good old fashioned Christmas card through the post, Ten years ago your card would probably have just got lost amongst all of the other cards they received but now a physical card stands out from the crowd and if you are clever and get the cards to land on their desks within the first few days of December your companies name will be on show right up to and into the first day back in the new year. 

Attrracting new customers is most businesses primary focus and where they aim all of their marketing but keeping existing customers is just as if not more important. If the total cost of a card is around £2.00 including the postage but it keeps a client for another year that sounds like £2.00 well spent to me. It's time to stop thinking about about what you're going to do and start doing it.