David Thorne’s blog is an absolute favorite of WDGF. Below is one of his best. Enjoy!!

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From: Jane Gilles
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,

Our records indicate that your account is overdue by the amount of $233.95. If you have already made this payment please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

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From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.37pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,

I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter.

Regards, David. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have problems training new staff members?

Do you forget how to do those little tasks that only need to be done every 6 months?

Do you have complex processes that you need to write down so you can refine them?

Do you want to be able to establish that your business has valuable intellectual property?

One of the most amazing, and under-discussed, ideas to come out on the internet over the last decade is the concept of “Wikis”.  Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever tried to start your car with your house keys? How about using your office key to unlock the front door of Westpac afterhours? You’d never think of it right… or would you? Don’t answer that.

Surprisingly, the same concept holds true for your White Dog Green Frog passwords. You are provided with different logins for different areas. This is not to confuse you or make your life difficult for our own personal amusement, but because well, they are different. Not only that but if one area is compromised, you aren’t affecting the other areas and more importantly the other accounts on the server.

So to break it down, here are a few of the main login details for White Dog services that you may have:

Billing System -  Here you will find information such as: Read the rest of this entry »

An important word of caution – White Dog Green Frog will never send you a mailed letter about your domain renewal. Our customers have been getting a fair amount of these letters lately from other organizations such as Domain Renewal Group or one received just the other day from Domain Name Group.

Domain Renewal Group (DRG)  is an outright scam. I say again – Domain Renewal Group is an outright S-C-A-M! DRG (should be renamed to Dodgy Renewal Group) also trades as Domain Registry of America (DROA) which is an organization that has had its own fair share of scamming issues. How DRG/DROA are still in “business” perplexes me, though if you change your name often enough, you are able to be a bit elusive! They trick you into thinking Read the rest of this entry »

Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking space.

Looking up to heaven he said, “Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking space, I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!”

Miraculously, a parking space appeared.

Paddy looked up again and said, “Never mind, I found one.”

Choosing the right domain name for your business is really important, and it’s something you should be checking constantly while you’re looking for a suitable name for your business.  Several times people have come to us with new businesses to get their website developed, and it’s been very hard or impossible to find a domain name sounding anything like their business name and they’ve had to settle for an ugly compromise! Read the rest of this entry »

Dear customers,

Recently we have received many support calls which relate to people’s Internet connections, their speed or being unable to connect to services such as Google or their email.

We feel it is important to clarify the role we play and the services we offer. We are not your ISP (Internet Service Provider).  We host your website, yes, but we do not provide you with Internet access. That would be Telstra, Optus, iiNet, Internode, TPG etc.

We also do not know your ISP account details; that would be a privacy breach on your ISP’s behalf.

If your Internet doesn’t work, you will not be able to get email or see your website, but both your website and email will be there waiting for you when your Internet starts working again – others will be able to see your website and email you, but you will not receive the email until your Internet connection is working again. When this occurs, please ring your ISP and not White Dog Green Frog as we are not the service provider and are unable to assist.

The quick way to test this is to visit a big website or two and press your “Refresh” button in your web browser – if www.google.com is down then you know your internet is not working!

Love,
Your friendly techs at White Dog Green Frog

Have you been to Google in the past few days? Of course you have. But! Have you noticed anything different about Google?

Google has just substantially changed the way they index websites. Here’s the official announcement from Google:

Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve probably heard so much about Social Media lately that your eyes are glazing over every time you hear about it. You may also be thinking, yes, it’s probably something I need to do for my business, but who has the time? Indeed, who has the time to sit on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn all day connecting with people?

Well guess what? You need to make the time, and here’s why…
Like it or not Social Media is the future and the future is already here, and your customers and competitors are already savvy. Some futurists are even saying that Social Media will eventually take over from email – in fact, it’s been shown that many Generation Y’s are not using email at all – they do all of their connecting, and eventually all of their business, over social media.

Here’s the skinny from a recent Fast Company article about why should you care about Social Media for your business:

“The Nielsen-Community Engine 2010 Social Media Business Benchmark Study released last month found a total of 63.5% respondents agree businesses should no longer ask “if” they should enter social media, and should instead be asking “how”.
- Read the rest of the article here.

Here’s how to get started in Social Media for less than 15 minutes per day:
It really doesn’t take too much time to get your Social Media groove on – about 15 minutes a day over your morning coffee. Maybe take one of the following steps per day over a 7-day period? So by the end of the week you’ll be up and running.
Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most important things when designing a new website is to be clear about what the website is for, and who it is aimed at.  This might sound like fairly basic stuff, but it’s absolutely foundational and often doesn’t get thought about too much.  I’d like to take a moment to address why this is so important, and why getting really clear about these two things can save you an enormous amount of both time and money in getting your new website up and running.

In our first few meetings with clients, where we define the project, we ask a series of questions.

Website goals

The first and most basic question we ask is – what are the goals of the website?  Without being clear on what you want to do, it’s very hard to achieve it.  Mostly, you will know the answer to this, but writing it down can bring a new degree of clarity.  Here are some of the questions that can help you think about that:

• What do I want the website to do, in general terms?
• What is/are the goal(s) of the website?
• What are the major functions that the website will achieve?
• How do you prioritize those goals and functions, especially if they compete in any way?

Target Audience for the website

The second major question we ask is – who is the website audience?  Without knowing who the audience is, it’s impossible to get the right mix of ease-of-use, technology, and visual appearance right.  Some more detailed questions to help you work this out are: Read the rest of this entry »