Tall Dark and Handy – Vancouver best handyman

“TallDarkAndHandy.net” – The fIrst time saw this site URL, I chuckled a bit… the owner of the company had added a great sense of humor to his business operations. Later, when I had a chance to meet with the owner, James Schmidt, a local handyman/carpenter from the Vancouver False Creek area, I was delighted to find that he had a great, humorous personality.

Asking James questions about home improvement, or anything to do with home renovations, is a pleasant experience. He doesn’t cut short when it comes to the suggestions. Instead, he would analyze your situation and give professional opinions on how to achieve your goal – within your budget.

With James’ honesty and “perfectionist” attitude, he is in the favor of many of his customers. One time, he came to fix my laundry door. My door was very old and it looked as if it would fall apart any minute. He could have simply told me to buy a set of new doors, and have them installed, to make his job easier. However, as I didn’t have much of a budget at that time, he spent some time taking the doors apart, studied the structure, and then reassembled it and made sure it was going to stand the test of time. As well, he didn’t leave a mess, once he’s finished his job. To James, it was a small job. I really appreciated his effort fixing my door, instead of making me spend more money on buying new door. He took good care of my place, as if it was his own and I’ve also saved the money and kept the doors a little while longer.

I’ve dealt with a few other handymen, in the past, and I’ve seen their work. Most of them did an OK job, but the leftover mess was the part that disgusted me. I only wish that they’d finish the job with a more professional approach by checking the work area one last time before leaving the premises. Another thing that has bothered me was when the handymen were too busy to bother even giving me a call to let you know about the progress. I feel that customers end up spending hours chasing after the handymen and have waited without any specific time manner.

James would never leave a mess like that wherever he works. He always communicates to his customers well and he makes sure that they understand what to expect. One time, I had a chance to interview him for a school project and I’ve observed his work. I was quite impressed to find that he always strives for 110%. You would often find him going the extra mile to make the job picture perfect. Because he prefers to have a satisfied customer that would bring him more opportunities in the future, rather than re-visiting the same customer just to fix the same problem. Sometimes, he has even spotted a few small problems here and there that needed to be fixed. He would just go ahead and do it, as a courtesy to show his appreciation to his customers. That’s why he gets very good referrals from his existing customers, like me, to other friends and family members.

I’m glad that Tall Dark And Handy is a good business based on real customer service. It’s delightful to see James continue his honest, small business practice. If all of the small businessmen are working with a good conscience, wouldn’t that be wonderful to all of us?

To read more of Vancouver best handyman services, please visit James’ site.

www.talldarkandhandy.net

 

You design it. We can build it!

Finally, it’s over!

After one year of studying New Media Design at BCIT in its famous boot-camp training style, we’ve finally reached the finish line. It has been a long, hard year. Although we all knew BCIT is well known for its heavy training, this was one bite that was quite difficult to swallow.

It was funny when the last day of class came; some of us actually felt a sense of loss in a bittersweet twist. I guess it was then, we started to see what we had achieved. It made us realize that we were actually walking away with something precious and valuable – which possibly will result great opportunities!

I’m especially thankful to my dear family. Without their support, I couldn’t possibly make it this far. Friends that have allowed me to ignore them for such a long time, and still cared about my well-being, are the keepers.

For this reason, our grad show has become something very special to us. Please, come visit us if you’re in the area of Vancouver, BC. There are students from Design Essentials, 3D Animation, and New Media Design participating in BCIT’s Digital Arts 2008 Industry Night. Check out the link below and see some of our students’ work.

BCIT Digital Arts 2008 Industry Night

 

Cyber weddings

Since dating online has become popular and part of the culture, online weddings will soon seem logical for people who can’t be at their actual wedding.

You may wonder, “Why would I want a wedding over the web?” For one thing, it saves time, money, and requires less planning. You could have your wedding anywhere in the world as long you have an Internet access. Anyone, including your annoying relatives or friends would be welcome to witness your wedding online without any disturbances. For modern couples, they don’t even need to be with their future spouse during the wedding ceremony. For most people they just love the idea being able to have a wedding in a designated location without much hassle or effort. The guests can always recapture the moment by watching the video or DVDs again if they miss it.

The fun part about having a cyber wedding is that it is viewed via live broadcast. It is also cheap (about $500 per ceremony), easy and cool. If you have all the equipment: a computer or a laptop, a high-speed Internet connection, a digital video camera, in addition to reserving your web space and setting time of broadcast, you can just about do it yourself. Of course I would suggest letting the professionals take care of it. So relax and enjoy your wedding.

One thing you may want to keep in mind is that you need to have an internet connection active during the entire wedding. Your guests viewing your wedding over the internet also need to have a high-speed connection in order to view the live web cast without running into trouble. The only thing you can’t get is probably the traditional group wedding photos and in some cases the real kiss for the bride and groom.

Well, for some people they probably would really miss the plans of preparation and the big celebrations with their loved ones and friends. I also think when people rush into having a quick romantic wedding usually the divorce rate for these couples will more than likely be higher. Any decision that is not based on well thought out and serious planning usually would not be able to weather through the difficulties of marriage.

This fast growing Internet business may also cause some illegal activities internationally. Since there are no obvious laws in some places there will be people who use it to setup false marriages for purposes of immigration.

Our culture has certainly changed to a cyber driven society. Ordinary people could rock the whole world by broadcasting their very own personal episodes and perhaps generate more income for theses dot com companies as well.

Being web smart

It was during the research of my assignment that I found a few sites containing information that were interesting.

First is this Self SEO site that promotes services to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Basically they want to sell you their templates for web sites, or provide services to build up your page ranking. They also provide some tools for you to check out your site’s status. This is where I learned about how a search engine spider reads a site. “Search engine ranking report” and “Free website speed checker” are also good tools for research purposes.

Although it’s mostly based on Google and Alexa’s information, it is still worth checking out. It gives you some good ideas on what to watch out for when you build a web site. You want to get the right Meta key words and descriptions, etc. This ensures that the search engines are collecting your information continually. In other words, your clients find your sites easily and effectively.

Another site is called Smorty. This site basically provides the SEO solutions through advertising on blogs to build inbound links to supplier’s sites. The suppliers pay the bloggers to write a review and to link back to their advertising campaign page.

Smorty gave me some ideas on how to write a good blog page, providing valuable links guiding readers to my desired sites. The audience not only reads what I write, they also read what I connect to. I’ve realized more and more how important it is to be a good writer, and make good use of my network resources.

Here are other sites for reference:http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php http://www.seo.webarticles.dk/Social_Bookmarking.shtmlhttp://www.herbulletin.com/ (Sample blog with many links) http://www.instasnow.com/ (Sample advertisement)

Free ice cream, everyone?

My son has been checking out for a green screen for his video project. He found this guy, Perry Jenkins, on YouTube — who’s video was 2nd on the rank today — giving a very interesting demonstration on how to setup your own green screen at home. He teaches you what color of paint to select and how to set proper lighting, etc. From there we got very interested in buying a green screen. We watched another guy, Mark Apsolon‘s video, he later recommended the audience where to shop a green screen.

I liked the first presentation very much because it was fun to watch, well produced, and also very educational. Most of all, it was effective. it stirred up our mood to shop for a green screen immediately. Too bad Perry didn’t have a connection with any suppliers. Otherwise we would like to give him the business. After my son confirmed with the supplier about the shipment that would be arranged by USPS, not by UPS. The decision came down to me, “Are we going to buy it?”. Yes, definitely.

This is a very good example for me to consider using YouTube for generating sales online. It’s like some web sites offer free ebook or great tips on how to produce or how to fix something. Any useful or practical information will definitely attract its own audience. People are most likely to buy into what you’re actually selling behind the freebies.

We all know that there is no actual free lunch in any business promotion. There is always a catch, isn’t it? The smart entrepreneurs today know how buyers think, so they come up with a better strategy. And yes, there’s a free lunch now. And you don’t need to buy anything to get it. The only catch is that you have a CHOICE to accept the offer or walk away from it. This sounds much better then “buy one get one free” or “50% off”. Because you have a choice of BUYING or NOT TO BUY now!

What people want is to make their own decisions on everything they do. They don’t like to make any commitment in order to get a sweet deal. (Perhaps the divorce rate has also been an inspiration to this observation.) It’s almost like giving a free ice cream to a teenage boy and offer him a $5 coupon if he would spend $50 on the coolest, fancy iPod case which all his friends have been dieing to have it. You could simply sell him that iPod case 20% off — which is equivalent to your expense on ice cream and the $5 coupon. Or you could guarentee your sales with a very happy customer who will advertise for your free ice cream deal, and very likely to be a repeat customer! Another thing is that people tend to go where you lay the easy path for them. After all, shopping experience supposed to be fun and easy!

Of course there will be people who only want the free ice cream and choose not to buy anything from you. Since you did the market survey and knowing that you have a hot item to sell at the right time, a little investment will not hurt your business at all. In fact, you’ve already made the profit from all of the buyers who chose to buy from you. Another import thing is that, free ice cream does causes people to advertise for you more effectively. The ones who choose not to buy are also your potential customers who are watching out for your next free sweet deal from now on!

So, knowing your audience and knowing what they want is the key to any business even non-profit organizations, or simply to parents. If you want them to notice you and pay attention to you, you need to make your audience think that they need it more then you do. And you’re there only to help them to make that choice on their own.

I think if I remember this simple concept all the time I may be a much more successful mom! Anyway, I believe it’s a good practice and it makes people feel better with what they choose to buy or listen to.

Something to think about

Our Vancouver buses have been labeled with all kinds of billboard-sized ads since someone decided to use our moving transit vehicles as an advertising agent. Although some of us haven’t been appreciated much of these giant ads running around the city — especially my mother (she thought our buses lost their beautiful uniform look) — we couldn’t help knowing that the messages do get looked at, and some of it works. It grabs our attention and we read them as they are passing by. I complained about the bad ads ruining the look of our public transit and our beautiful city. But when there’s an interesting or an attractive ad, I can’t help, but to read the rest of the message when the buses drive by.

The other day I drove behind a bus and saw this huge collision mark behind a bus with a brief text message “Do not tailgate”. This was the second time I saw this ad, but my reaction was almost the same as the first time — except not as shocked as the first time. I thought to myself, “Did I make that mark? No, not me. Who did it then?” And I quickly realized that I was reacting to an ad that got stuck in my mind. Whoever designed the ad had a very cleaver mind. It spoke to the audience. It also created an immediate response and awareness from its audience.

Therefore my conclusion is that, no matter how annoying the ads can be, it works. It communicates to the public very well. But won’t work if the ads are designed to force people to take in the messages. Instead, it should allow people to respond to the message spontaneously. Good ads are creative and make sense to the audience. People tend to be more positive in their response to these. However, the bad ads are just disturbing and people end up hating the products or the companies who try to sell these messages.

I found an article about the bus ads. (See the links below). It can be interesting to any designers who would like to get their ads or web sites to be look at and actually fulfill the audience’ needs.

http://www.columbusing.com/?p=450