Direction

Credit Crunch?

Ray Gordon — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:37:00 GMT

British graphic design, advertising, and internal communications specialist, Braden Threadgold, are taking a positive spin on current economic circumstances by sending out a highly unique mailer to prospective clients: Credit Crunch

Definitely a mailshot that's not going to be ignored. And you can eat it too!

Although unclear in this photo, the text is a clever and amusing pitch in the style of a breakfast cereal packet - right down to the ingredients.

They also have one of the most unique web sites I have seen - so we employed them to design our own.

No Need to Visit Vermont

Ray Gordon — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:48:00 GMT

Amazing colours this year! Taken from my bedroom window.

Scene Double Employs New Credit Controller!

Ray Gordon — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:03:00 GMT

Electric Launch on the Great Ouse

Ray Gordon — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:10:00 GMT

In Felix Dennis' excellent business book (title & poetry aside) he states "if it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it..it's cheaper in the long run."

So, ignoring his advice, I decided to buy a boat to use at our house by the river.....

Well OK, it's not exactly a gin palace, but it is environmentally friendly! We've got a whole 9'4" of unsinkable bathtub, and the exciting part is the high efficiency Minn Kota Maxxum electric outboard. We can now quietly enjoy the river without fumes, whilst travelling at up to twice walking pace (until the 100AH battery runs out after 2.5hrs).

P.S My seven year old son likes to take the helm. If you spot a white dinghy on the Great Ouse of uncertain heading, give it a wide berth!

Can we have some quality control - Please!

Ray Gordon — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:44:00 GMT

Why is it that nearly every non-electronic item I have purchased recently is faulty or has bits missing?
My list for just the couple of weeks includes:

A designer BBQ with one one grill that wasn't welded correctly, whilst the other grill was on a slant.
Cover sold to fit the same BBQ - it didn't.
Car racing simulator seat that arrived without an additional part I ordered.
Child's high sleeper/futon supplied without the futon frame (still waiting...)
Pair of fake Sennheiser headphones received from an Amazon Marketplace seller.

Now I have had a good chance to test on-line customer service - except I don't want to.
Why can't distributors and importers just do some QC on the products they sell?

Pointless Digital Signage?

Ray Gordon — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:53:00 GMT

Although interested in signage as a means of information distribution, I wonder if in a lot of cases the systems deployed are fashionable technology in search of an application? This is a cause for concern because of the power consumed by all these screens/processors which are appearing everywhere...

This cylindrical screen has popped-up overnight in the car park of our local shopping centre. It does not appear to be particularly effective, and if you stand close by you can really hear the fans whirring! Probably costs more to run than indirect sales gained.

I'll Never be a Racing Driver

Ray Gordon — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:32:00 GMT

Over the last few years a group of us have enjoyed Track Days in our Caterham Sevens. So far we have been to Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Donnington, Spa, Oulton Park, Rockingham and Bedford. Although this hobby appeals to men of a certain age and disposable income, it's a great stress buster (and obviously recaptures your youth...). I'm not that fast but still in one piece.

Yesterday I went to Bruntingthorpe, a proving ground in Northamptonshire, with Nick from TechSport who does a superb job of running our cars (yes - we do track days in style!). I wanted Nick to help me understand more about car handling in my bid for Formula 40+ domination. And so we started working on power sliding around in a circle......20 minutes, one half-baked clutch, and several mm less rubber later I was forced to quit - with all that spinning I was feeling nauseous. After all this we decided to give Nick's vomit comet go-kart a twirl following which Nick didn't look too great either. I'll stick to conventional tracks in future and try not to slide too much (right!).

Digital Signage - An Alternative Approach

Ray Gordon — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:45:00 GMT

At Scene Double we started out (in 1991) making video splitter products. Perhaps we should have stuck with it now that Digital Signage is such a growth industry? Most current on-site signage distribution systems are in reality glorified video splitters using twisted pair cable.

I have always felt that for many information display applications delivery should be via a network. This enables a powerful and flexible signage solution that could be centrally managed. In this model think of signage as information placement, and displays as a canvas allowing this content to be placed anywhere.

And so I have invested in Cambridge Visual Networks, a start-up company whose first product, CODA, is enabling this vision.....

USB MSD Bootloader for PIC Microcontrollers

Ray Gordon — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:30:00 GMT

In some of our newer products we have included a facility to upgrade firmware via USB. However, we went one step further and got rid of the need to install any application - making upgrades OS independent and simpler for the user.

I think this is a useful project and have decided to release a cut-down version into the public domain. Hopefully it can be improved by the community! I look forward to your feedback...

The USB Bootloader is designed for Microchip PIC microcontrollers and has the following features:

- Emulates a USB Mass Storage Device (MSD) i.e. a flash drive

- Enables drag and drop firmware upgrades (using pre-formatted files) on any OS
- Facility to save/restore application data

Changes:
17/7/08: Revised documentation