It didn’t take long…

Last year on this day I wrote a post on the 5 things I want to do in the next year, I thought it seemed like a prime idea to take a look back and see if I actually achieved any of them and try to figure out what I want from the next year of my life.

1. Blogging and Social Media, I wanted to up my game with blogging and try to boost my social media profile and build readership.

I’d consider this a partial success, this year I launched GeekTechBlog.com which is aimed at being a Technology blog with numerous bloggers and much more focused on tech news and goings on than Dan’s Tech Blog (this one) which is often more personal.

GeekTechBlog.com has been and is a lot of fun and is growing in readership month by month to thousands of readers, gaining not only international interest from some of the exclusives we’ve been able to get, such as a hands on look at the Nokia Lumia 900 and our exclusive first interview with the new owners of TinyGrab.com. As well as attracting advertiser interest and ending the year with a few people offering to buy the blog, it’s a good start but I hope it will get so much better over the coming years.

I’d love to keep growing this blog and can see it going far, I hope I can keep building it and get more bloggers on board (if you’re interested, get in touch:- dan@geektechblog.com) with more content, more fun and hopefully more invites to those fun free bars & press events.

2. Focusing on projects, I wanted to focus more on my coding projects and sites and get more of them off the ground… This I completely failed at. In fact, I’ve added a few more on the pile of sites I need to finish. Hopefully I’ll have better luck over the coming year…

3. Learn a higher language, I wanted to learn a higher language and in particularly C# so could get into developing on the Windows Platform and developing Windows Phone 7 apps, this I have dabbled with and have started learning C with my University course and have also begun work on a Windows Phone 7 app in C# which I hope to eventually get finished, have many ideas for apps and programs I want to develop so with any luck will get some of these done over the next year and add get some solid Windows & Windows Phone development experience under my belt!

4. Get more involved in the tech scene, I wanted to dive in and meet more people, go to more events and just get myself out there on the scene a bit more. I’ve been to a few great events over the past year including the WebDevConf which was a great experience as got to see some fantastic people speak live.

Another fun little tech night was when I went to Unruly Media’s London base and made a cool little robot bug and had the opportunity to chat with a few other bloggers and the Unruly guys who create some of the kick-ass video ads on the blog.

The Imagine Cup UK Finals at Microsoft HQ also stand out as a particularly great tech event in which I met some great people in the web & tech industry, some of which have become good friends.

5. Building my business(es), as I’m sure anyone running a business hopes the next year will be better, and well it has things are moving forward and it’s great to see everything I’ve been working on growing and this past year has seen some exciting changes with hundreds of additional domain extensions now available, and hundreds yet to come as well as improving existing product lines,. It’s been a good year and I hope can continue to build on what’s been done here in 2012.

Looking forward…

Writing this I am forced to consider what I want from 2012, it’s largely the same as what I was looking for from 2011, however now that I am at university I do need to look at how that will change things, and how my perspective and aspirations have also changed with the past years events. I value things differently, and find myself being drawn towards different areas within the Web & Technology industries and I see the next year as an exciting period where things will really begin to take shape, and my career and business paths for the future will begin to really take hold, it’s going to be fun, exciting and scary. I can’t wait.

After rushing back on Friday to get home for Christmas I’ve had great fun checking out the Sky TV offering on the XBOX, which on a cheap £15 subscription offers some great features. With a great variety of entertainment channels, which you can watch live streamed as well as some great On Demand content. I particularly enjoyed a funny little selection of funny shorts from comedians and celebrities from Sky 1 called “Little Crackers” which was very entertaining to watch!

This seems like a great way to enjoy Sky TV without the hassle or expense of getting a Sky box or dish installed. Not to mention the massive flexibility of a monthly ticket and no need for long 12 month contracts, its great TV without the hassle.

The more I am using my XBOX with the new functionality and entertainment the more value I get. A great example of this can be shown in just the past couple of days where I have come home from University. I hang out at a friends and can simply login and bang, Sky TV, LOVEFiLM the lot. Entertainment wherever I am, it’s awesome.

As I mentioned last week when I spoke about the Movie offerings on the new XBOX 360 dashboard I am a XBOX Ambassador, I have an awesome discount code which will score all of you guys 50% off your XBOX Gold Membership for 3 months. How to get it? Just comment on here and/or give me a follow @dansgalaxy on Twitter and tweet at me!

Pretty funny sketch with Bert and Ernie recording his voice for TomTom – well worth a quick watch and a laugh!

On October 19th I headed off to London for a Tech night with Unruly Media, one of the advertising distributors I work with to bring some of the funkier ads to the blog.

I love attending any tech event and particularly love meeting people I work with online and it was a great opportunity to meet some of the Unruly guys and gals over some beers and nibbles before the main event – Building a cool bug!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done anything remotely arts ‘n’ crafts like, so was different… NOTE: hot glue guns are rather hot. Particularly when you get the hot glue all over your fingers…. OUCH!

After a lot of fiddling and fun I finally made my awesome little bug.

Was great fun and certainly different evening, and I now have a cool little bug bot on my desk… shame he lost a leg on the train home… need to find some glue!

It occurred to me as I sit in the 2nd Starbucks of the day that almost all of my day and indeed my entire life is now powered by the Web. Everything I do is connected, funded and enhanced by technology and the power the internet has given, and continues to give me.

Today I came to London for a meeting with a potential employer, the meeting was arranged over email, the ticket was booked & paid online and I found my way across the East-end to the office using my phone & Google Maps walking directions so I didn’t get lost.

Because my super-duper off-peak ticket means I technically can’t get on a train until 7.15 I’ve resorted to sitting in Starbucks all day, enjoying the free WiFi and catching up with months of missed Security Now podcasts on my phone.

On a deeper level the internet has completely changed my life, and without it I wouldn’t be where I am now, through the internet and all the wonderful things which I have learnt from it I now run a successful online business, run successful tech blogs and in the past month I have been offered 3 jobs, most of which have better pay than the average 19 year old can expect.

But, me being me that’s not enough, I want more and I want to enjoy it. I’m heading off to the University of Reading soon again, something which never would have, happened if it wasn’t for the web, and the people I have met through it.

The story behind why I am attending University, and indeed Reading University is all because of the people I have met online, and what they have inspired me to do, and how that has shaped everything.

In an indirect way, me going to University, becoming a Microsoft Student Partner and indeed choosing Reading University in an odd kind of way all comes down to 1 person, who I’ve only met once or twice in person. I met him many years ago on a webmaster forum, moving forward a few years we both follow each other and I notice he was getting involved with Microsoft and the Student Partner program. It seemed cool, and I wanted in too through that I was able to become a MSP and my online social circle exploded.

I met lots of awesome people, both those involved with Microsoft and other geeks on Twitter in Reading. This lead to me attending a few of the Reading Tweetups (#rdgtweetup). Again, I met a lot more people and fell in love with the Town of Reading, I love it and there are some great people there.

All this, from being the fat geek who sits in front of a computer all day…Awesome Job offers, awesome friends, and an even more exciting future. Not bad eh?

Intel’s Museum of Me is a cool app which I came across a little while ago, and is something which is definitely worth checking out.

Check it out at: MuseumOfMe.Intel.com

Discovered via @Philcr & @MsUkStudents

It seems like a great little project, which from the about page, it’s only a small part of a larger “top secret” project the developer is working on, but after getting the tweets on a map working, felt he had to share.

The site uses the browsers Geo API to find your location, with most browsers this will just be dependant on your IP address it seems, so as with me you get placed dead centre of the town/city your in.

It’s worth a look, and it’s cool to see those who are tweeting around you.

This is a continuation from Why Webhosting.uk.com Sucks – Part 1

In this post I will be discussing and reviewing my biggest grievance with Webhosting UK Com Ltd.

When it came to cancelling my services with them I put in a request to cancel it and expected to have the remaining time (25 days out of 30 which had been pre-paid) to be refunded on a prorated basis. As per their terms of service.

Their terms state:

Refund requests after 30 days will be refunded on a prorated basis of any unused time.

 

I thoroughly checked terms and there is NO limitation on VPS services or any other clause. So I expected that I would have been able to get the remaining time refunded with no problem, particularly considering I was leaving due to their poor service.

However this ended up turning into a lengthy dispute with the company, directly with Jenna Strong (Company Sectary) and John Strong (Managing Director).

They argue that they only provide refunds on a monthly basis, and because I didn’t have a full month remaining I couldn’t get it refunded. This seemed very unfair and a break of the terms which I agreed to, and which was a key reason to why I initially signed up.

After numerous tickets back and forth with Jenna, I emailed John Strong the MD in an attempt for someone to recognise the error in judgement on their part, his response:

Hello Dan,
Thank you for your e-mail.
I was already aware of this matter and it was me who informed Jenna when this was brought up.
Our packages are sold on a monthly, semi-annually and annual basis. We don’t sell packages on a daily or weekly basis and we therefore don’t issue refunds for unused weeks or days. We don’t classify weeks or days as an unused period and we never have done. We apply the same policy to all customers and I’m unaware of any other previous complaints. Webhosting UK COM Ltd is one of the most flexible webhosting companies when it comes to terms and conditions, particularly refunds. We offer an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee within the first 30 days of purchase on all plans other than Dedicated Servers. If a customer has paid on an annual basis for any hosting plan, we will always refund the remaining months should a customer request to cancel.
To be perfectly honest, I think you are being very unreasonable. However, should you wish to forward your complaint and our subsequent communication to Trading Standards, you may feel free to do so. I’m very satisfied that our Terms & Conditions are amongst the fairest in the industry and I don’t feel the need to change our policy or make a special exception for you.
Kind Regards,
John Strong
Managing Director
Webhosting UK COM Ltd

I naturally responded to this pointing out the issues with the stance, such as the fact that there is NO limitations mentioned on the website or Terms of the monthly clause, and that the recognised business & legal definition of pro-rated is normally by day, not month unless otherwise stated (which is wasn’t).

It is also worth noting that the Bodhost Terms state VERY clearly the monthly limitation which they are also applying to Webhosting UK – which kind of disputes the fact the webhosting uk terms are satisfactory don’t you think? Why make it clear on one but not the other?

I also made an enquiry with Consumer Direct (Part of the Office of Fair Trading) who after reviewing my complaint & webhosting UK Com Ltd’s terms of service concluded:

Having viewed the companies website it does appear that they should offer a refund for any unused time according to section 8.1 of their terms of service.

The complaint was also forwarded to Trading Standards for their own information & investigative purposes. It should also be noted that it was advised if direct communication with them was unsuccessful in reaching a resolution (which it obviously wasn’t) I can take the issue to court, where I would likely win.

Unfortunately as satisfying it would be to take a dishonest company such as Webhosting UK Com Ltd to court, it is currently not worth the time and costs. After all, I do have a honest business to run…

Please take this as a warning, anyone looking to use Webhosting UK Ltd should be aware of the dishonest ways they do business. A company which cannot honour their terms of service, provide decent, honest support is not someone worth spending your hard earned time and money on.