Fuel Price Raising

This morning, when I went out to my office, I found the most of petrol stations in Eight Mile Plains and Sunnybank. The price is jumped up to 149 cents per litre. So far, I only found Calamvale Woothworth sell the fuel at 125 cents per litre.

SO many admin works!

Recently, I found I got more and more admin work, I have to spend my first half hour at work for paying bills, salary and reply emails everyday. They are very annoying, well, that may be the life of your own small business.

Websites need to be maintained!

 A lot of people expected after a website released,they need to spend anytime on that. Actually, especially, you have a content management system, you really need some one to maintain your website.  A content management system is a piece software, it has bugs or security holes. That is really to need someone to keep it updated.
If you have not time or skills to do, I suggest you should some cloud websites. The cloud service providers look after that for you!

Simple UI, light, not fat

The android app we built is using a very basic layout, which is very similar with the default theme. We are building apps for everyone, not just for those high end users. Thus, we are more focused to make the apk file as small as possible, and loading time is as short as possible too!

Busy with building Mobile app

After Android released 4.0, that is a brand new world for us. We need to rebuild all UI. This week, finally, we released our first android 4.x app, AdvGen Notes. Moreover, I got a lot of feedback to improve our UI and features request. I am so happy about that, now, we are working on the next version now!

Setup your work email in your personal mobile

I setup work email in their personal mobile for my friends, family members, workmate and even clients. They found this is very convenient. They can do their work outside of office. But the downside is you cannot get away from work. Even you are dinner with your family, you will have temptation to check your work emails.  Your work life is mixed with your personal and family life. Well, whether the technologies can help us or bring more pains to us?

Happy New Year

2015 is comming. I wish to say happy new year to every one. I wish your guys having a wonderful 2015!!!

Fuel price is dropped

I went to Hong Kong. A few days ago, I went back Brisbane. I found the fuel price is more reasonable. Today is only 136 cents per L. I think that is because of the dropping crude oil price.

IT support service is essential for you

A lot of people don't feel your IT infrastructure is essential for your job. That is not worth to spend on IT support service. They may say the business was running as usual in the time without computers.
However, imagine one day, your computer is out of order. You cannot use words and email. Maybe, your financial data is lost. Yes, you may get all important data from your paper based archive. You can use typewriters for writing letters to your clients. You can call your clients via phone lines instead of emails. You can go back to use paper and pen for tasks which used to be done by computers.
Well, in this scenario, you need to spend months for converting everything back paper based system. In addition, the paper based system is running less efficiency than computerized system.  This can cost hundreds times more than IT support service!

Beware the cheapest option

I am happy to choose the lowest cost solution, if it can fulfil my requirements.  That is no points to waste my money. 

However, I found the most of time the cheapest option cannot delivery a good enough quality. If it cannot do the jobs, that is useless to have that, even it cost less.

For example, I can use Voice on IP software on my mobile, if I use it, that is cheaper than a mobile phone call. But voice quality is not very good.Thus, I never use it to make some important phone calls. I need other side to heard every word I say clearly, I need to heard every word he/she say clearly. No misunderstanding between us! That is more valuable than the cost of a mobile call!

 I think you find out what you need to do, then finding which options cost the lowest and can do the job!

Does it look good?

This is my new work for Faithful Dental. Does it look good? I like it  a lot, that is very simple and clean! I can do creative tasks too, just about programming.

Lower Cost Option can cost you more

A lot of people believe the cheapest option is always able to delivery the best value.  This option can always save money! I cannot agree with them. The vendors can mark their price tags higher with grounds! They costed more, because they can delivery some extra values.
For example, I used a low cost internet provider before, the service is not very reliable. It could be out of services for a few hours. To end up, I need to find a 4G modem as a backup connection. Moreover, during the period of "internet back out", I cannot work from home. I went to an internet cafe for checking and replying emails. I wasted at least 3 man hours for that each times. That is not fun.
I believe lower cost options did not cost you money in their price tags, however, you need to pay the cost in other ways!

Tablet is a helpful tool for salesperson

Recently, I did some sales work for my company. I found Tablet is very useful. It is very handy. I can easily bring it to my client's office without a large carry bag. Although it has a keyboard, I cannot show some complex operations to my client, that is enough to show some website layouts and presentations to my client. I think nowadays tablet is a essential tool for a salesperson.

Fuel Price, 134.9 cents per L, that is very cheap

I just fueled up my car this afternoon. That was 134.9 cents per L and I chose to use E10 , that is 132.9 cents per L. The whole tank is about $49. That is so cheap! We have not used the fuel for this price for a few months!

Alliance of technology partners

Some one asked myself whether we can provide computer hardware. Yes, we can. However, that is not our core business. We will get the hardware from our trustworthy partners.
We are not big enough to have everything. We prefer to put our efforts on the areas we already are serving in. On other hand,
We have other technologies partners are very good at those areas.  Moreover we have some long term relationship with them. We can still ensure the quality.  Finally we have a win win solution. They can get the business from us and we can get the services or products.

We still cannot get away from Search Engines

"Social Media" has became a hot topic during these recent years. A lot of people believe that is the way for online market. I believe that is very useful too. However, search engines is still the most helpful way to search for the information. We need to submit the websites to the search engines

Learning from the failures

I cannot do everythings right, even I tried my best to recover my fault. That may not work every times.
The most important part is learning from those failures. I know there may be some environment factor which we cannot control. However, there are still parts we could do better next times. Thus, we need to sit down and review our failures every times!

Multi income streams

I think that is important to have multi income streams as a startup business. That is too high risk to generate the income from a single area. We have diversity of client base. In case, one industry is going a tough time. We can get enough income from other businesses. That is the reason my company builds mobile apps, custom applications and websites  for clients. Even we do technical support for clients  too! That is hard to do time management for doing well in those areas. But that is the way to have a stable business .

Corporate Culture

Recently, I met some graduates. I had some discussions with them about their first job. I found they are very focus on profession training, salary and the size of companies. I think they should think about Corporate Culture. They should think about whether they can fit in the team and whether their work style is similar with the company they are going to apply. I really wish them can enjoy their first job!

Social Network is not very helpful for internet marketing

We, AdvGen, are managing a lot of local and IT news portals. I found the most of traffic are coming from the search engines, the traditional way. Yes, the segment of Social Network traffic is getting more comparing 3 years ago. That is not as powerful as some internet marketing said. They said the social network can get your website to be well known.
If you ask me, whether that is a good idea to use Social Networks for internet marketing. I must say "Yes". That is a good tool to bring some traffic and get other people to know your website. But you need to do SEO. You cannot only rely on Social Networks.