Very long lockdown hair

Communication Platform Discord – https://discord.com

Communities of people with specific interests

Some people didn’t want to sign up to Facebook or Slack

Taylor uses it for web development

Channels for different topics

Voice Chat & Screen Chat

Discord Servers are the main topic, with sub-channels

Originally a gaming platform. Integrates with Steam and Spotify

The core system is free to use. There are “boost” extras which cost a monthly or annual fee

New website launched – long time coming

https://www.pipkennedy.co.uk

Gordon’s adult magician performing stage name

Over 1 year in the planning

Needing to be done for many years

The original was limited by the technology available

Lockdown was the catalyst to making this a priority

We used Oxygen to build this site, and it took a while for Gordon to build as it was a new builder for him

Testing on hundreds of devices is just not possible so tweaks are always needed

After putting it live, added image compressor, pre-loading pages, CDN, sitemaps

Had some comments back after posting the link on Facebook

Entertainer friend said it didn’t have enough “Pizazz” although for the target market I was also told it was perfect – very corporate and professional

Please take a look and leave your comments below

Take away is to get feedback and look at it in context.

Make sure you respect the views of the people giving the feedback, and whether they are your target audience

Also – don’t be precious on your work, have an open mind and be prepared to change things and ideas if there are good reasons to do so.

May need to split test the site – but we need traffic first which isn’t going to happen during lockdown

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

We rebuilt the entire website

https://season-3.thisweekwith.co.uk

Moved from Divi to Oxygen

Reasons for the rebuild:

We didn’t know how long we would be doing This Week With, so didn’t really plan for the future

Being able to search for content was impossible

The design was a pre-designed template

Decided to build a custom design

Looked on Pinterest and Dribbble for inspiration

Mocked it up on Figma as a collaborative process

Created three-page designs – home page, archive page (all episodes) and the individual page (single episode)

Built with Oxygen Builder

Convert all data from old site to new site:

Change all episode names to new format S2E38

Changed all show notes from a list to paragraphs

Converted all m4a audio episodes to mp3 format for the new site audio player

Link up all the new audio files to the correct episode

Changed every episode image to show the season, as well as the youtube episode thumbnail images

Then went through and linked up all the new graphics everywhere

Edited all youtube videos by removing the countdown timer

Updated the image of Gordon everywhere, so the cut out was much better

New techniques and skills learnt

Now you can:

Search for content, filter episodes by length, season or date using Ajax (immediate updates without reloading the page)

You can then sort by Latest, Oldest, Longest and Shortest episodes

Tooltips show you what an icon is for

Easter eggs (hidden surprises) in the website (watch episode for full details)

Compare with the old website: Home Page – All Episodes – Individual Episode

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Working late at night

Getting work done without distractions

Taylor had an interview with college alumni

Gordon is on the radio with his magic – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7pEEdbdk0

New Episode naming S2E37

Crowdfunding

Kickstarter – http://kickstarter.com

Indigogo – https://www.indiegogo.com

Great way to get your projects funded ahead of time

Tiers offering different rewards

Only if the target is reached, does the project get funded

Do your due diligence before buying as you can lose your money

You can also get a bargain

Collaborating with another developer

Offering ideas and sharing with the community

Prefer to find solutions to problems over creating tutorials

Website CSS mobile phone with interactive content inside – all using code

Watch the tutorial – https://permaslug.com/device-mockups-in-oxygen-builder/

Quiver – great for code snippets – similar to Notion or Evernote – https://happenapps.com

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Our new numbering format for This Week With

New graphics for each episode, colour coded for each season

Rebuilding my main computer due to it restarting on it’s own

Cleaning out all the garbage saving 700GB of space

Saving the data, reformating and bringing back useful data

The taking a full backup

Archiving on Evernote

Keeping data in Dropbox

Limited storage capacity of laptops

Savvycal – personalised booking system – https://savvycal.com

iCal integration is on the roadmap

GPT-3 Artificial Intelligence technology

Giving a few details and have the AI create clever and smart content

Creating ideas for blog posts, ads, social media posts etc.

Rewrite or create brand new content, landing pages, headlines

Read more at: https://openai.com/projects/

Creating custom images from your suggestion – not finding, but creating

This could become a game changer

See the examples here: https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

The Start of Season 2

We’re back after the Christmas break

New Microphone stand to replace the one that wasn’t working so well

How’s the audio for you?

Tax Returns are due

See if you can reduce your payments on account

New Year – New Projects

1st Step – Onboarding Session

Learning about the business so we can best serve them

Breakthrough this week – Contact form with dynamic hidden content

Track conversions by seeing which call to action a visitor has clicked on

Using the same technique to build an event website

Validation prevents people hacking the code of the site to change the price they pay

Same goes for selling tickets and keeping track of availability if limited numbers

Product Hunt – https://producthunt.com

Keeping up with the latest tools and software

Upvoting brings interesting products to the top

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy (and better) New Year for 2021. See you all in January.

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

New Purchases…

Elgato Stream Deck – https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/stream-deck

15 hotkeys to do whatever you need

Each key has a little screen behind it so you can show whatever you like

Moom – windows positioning app for Mac – https://manytricks.com/moom/

Great for setting up your screen with the apps where you want them

Replacement for Magnet App

Stream Deck is great for OBS and Zoom

Load web pages on a button…

Changing the mounting for our camera

Gorilla Pod with a tripod ball head adaptor and a mobile phone holder

Microphone attacking Gordon !!

Password Managers

1Password – https://1password.com

Last Past – http://lastpass.com

Keeper – https://www.keepersecurity.com

Never use the same password more than once

Browser plugins

Sync across multiple devices

Sharing logins & license codes using a shared “vault”

Having more than one “vault” active at the same time

Making sure that any changes sync to all machines

1Password also stores bank details / secure notes etc.

Extra features – compromised passwords – reminding you to update the venerable password

Tells you about duplicated passwords and when credit cards are expiring

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

New GFX

Working from home means lockdown doesn’t affect us as much

Meetings happen on Zoom instead of in person

Wayback Machine – https://web.archive.org

See what websites looked like in the past

Do business website research – see where they came from

Grab assets that aren’t available anymore from a previous site

The service creates snapshots in time of websites

Timeline interface

Check out what MySpace used to look like

Go check previous iterations of disbelieving.com

Staying organised

Hiring a VA to keep you organised

Colour code emails

Put client contents together in a folder

Clean desk helps you to create better work

Check if your computer desktop is organised or if it is a dumping ground

Systems help you organise – onboarding etc.

Get a VA to do the things you don’t enjoy

An idea on how to create a compelling VA homepage

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Keeping busy as always

Thank you for sharing our video and podcast

Websites with Malware issues

Website software needs constant updates for security and new functionality

Large userbases are the main target for hackers

Plugins, themes, and any code that is part of your website is at risk

Keeping your software up-to-date helps to prevent malware

Have different passwords for every service and use, never use the same

Insecure passwords – most popular is 123456

Anyone visiting the website can be sent to other websites

Hackers may want to steal data

They may want to send out malicious emails, or attack other websites, protecting the hacker

Defacing websites is the most common issue – replacing content with messages or advertising

To solve this you need to clean the malware and then find the security issue and fix it

We have packages that clean and protect websites as it is a specialist job

Prevention is better than a cure

Malware can affect SEO and traffic

Employing a professional to copywrite website content

Much better to get a professional that you trust

Building the website first, then passing it over to the copywriter

This allows me to build the look and feel for the site and then have the placeholder text replaced

Giving real-world experience to a new copywriter first, then have it tweaked by the professional

Always good to get another professional to look over the work to fine-tune

Update photos on your website over time to keep it looking up to date

Refreshing your website will allow it to portray your business as it is at that time

Repeat customers are the most important part of my business

Large agencies can’t offer the same experience as a smaller, personal business

The new MacBook Pro arrived

New ultra-widescreen monitor also arrived – 34″

The new screen allows many resources to be open and viewable at the same time

Invest in equipment and people

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Taking the weekend off and feeling guilty

Working towards giving yourself time to relax

Pip Kennedy – why a different name?

Stage name when performing to primarily adult audiences

Separating marketing to focus them better

Getting the right message to the right people

Different websites – different marketing campaigns – different company name even

Be a specialist not a jack of all trades

Upgrading to Big Sur, the new Apple OS

Apple’s new M1 Mac Book Pro (16GB)

It’s a real speed demon

Speed will increase productivity

Waiting for your computer to complete a task adds up to many hours a month

Lack of RAM will prevent you having important apps open together

Upgrading to an ultrawide 21:9 second display

Helps to reduce bottlenecks

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook