October 5, 2008 | Category: Web | 5 Comments »

Hello and welcome to Yink.net Autumn/Winter 2008 edition. This new skin is called Artist Journal its a modified version of Notepad Chaos original by Evan Eckard you can get the original skin from here.

I modified and tried to change as many elements as possible. The core code is as is I have done very little to it. I have added more textures and given it a darker feel. This is to reflect the shorter days we will experience. The core change to Yink is attributed to two reasons, 1. is the shift in the direction of Yink (as always : ) 2. is a gift I received which was a beautiful journal type book I received which I haven’t as yet used (silly I know). As for the Autumn Winter edition I hope to change the skin with the season, so its always fresh and new.

I explain a little more than I usually do as I was looking back at my old skins and thinking, ‘oh I don’t have a picture of such and such a skin which I did a while ago’. Which is sad as there has been many skins to this blog. I still had the last two skins saved so I created images of them to keep as a record here, so from oldest to newest:

The Love4U skin, by far my most favourite skin. The large image at the front was changed every month.

Beautify is my last skin before Artist Journal. The day of the week was written in Japenese and French.

Artist Journal my current skin. The style of this was done in a way which later flash sites began to use with real textures and objects before video made it big in flash. It does have some borrowed elements from Beautify. Thanks to Flo for reminding me its good enough isn’t actually good enough!

I still have other parts of the blog to neaten up and finish as is always the case, enjoy : )

September 16, 2008 | Category: Web, Work | 4 Comments »

The scenario is this, some guy at head office had been informed that one of the shirts on the website had the wrong picture. It was showing as a white shirt but the ordering code behind it related back to a blue shirt. So when customers were placing orders against a particular white shirt what was actually getting sent out was a blue shirt. Completely not what the customer ordered.

Worst part about it was these shirts can be customised to the customers needs. Quite a few of these shirts had been sent to be altered and then shipped out to the customer. Its only when they arrived back saying not what we ordered did we figure out that picture on the website is completely wrong.

What happened next is what interested me. The guys who work on the website even though they knew about this issue over a week ago, couldn’t ‘do anything to fix it’ in a reasonable amount of time. So I was asked to put a block on these shirts via our system. For me it was a case of 30 mins of work. I could have updated the site myself in 5 mins if I had the access.

I went to inform some of the staff in the department. An older lady who has been with the company for many many years nearing her retirement, she had been swapping the shirts for the correct ones.

I said no you guys can’t just swap the shirts, as the orders are coming in for blue shirts.
“No, the customer ordered white shirts.” She said to me.
I corrected her, “No the customer thinks they are ordering white shirts but they are in fact ordering blue shirts”.

I explained that changing the shirts from the actual ordered ruins the stock levels and also its not traceable what actually happened, the system won’t be showing we sent out white shirts but blue shirts. Which is the correct line.

“I just think that’s ludicrous, when we have plenty of white shirts we can send them.” She retaliated.

I explained a little that head office need accountability of each line of shirt so they know how well they are selling and how much profit they are making from it. Also if someone is sending out something else instead of what the system is saying it will throw their profit figures out for styles of shirts.

And then I took a moment as it struck me that if you’re not sending the item the customer wants, you’re not getting any money. Which makes profits per style completely pointless. Its then it struck me how inflexible and stupid the setup and system actually is.

Anyway I put a block on the shirts so they automatically get removed from the website. I have seen them in the past take months to correct very simple issues. However if I had a say, the web team would be the first to go, replacing her with this old lady who actually understands more how systems should be run.

September 13, 2008 | Category: Funny, Life | 3 Comments »

I’m not sure what was up, it happened a few months back and it had been happening all week. What made it worse was when someone was around. This time it just happened to be worse. Previously I had managed with the aid of deep breathing to let things go. But on this occasion with my weener out I was trying to relax and the big boss walked in. I tried, but I just couldn’t pee. I had to withdraw and come back at a later time. I’ve not suffered from the same issue since, still not sure what it was.