For some reason the impetus that was picked up at the end of last week is still with me, but it also has rubbed off on some others, yielding the following.

Groove Armada, perennial favourites of mine, relaunched their website yesterday with demos from their new 12” and the upcoming album. I’m really looking forward to this; Andy and Tom never fail to impress and after rumours a couple of years ago that Lovebox might be the last album I was dismayed. Anyway, they switched label and are back on track. Of course I could pick the website to pieces, but I’m not going to.

Jumping on the redesign bandwagon, I got all excited to see Halifax bank had launched a new site this morning. Brimming with anticipation until the moment I pressed the Sign In button, I was sorely disappointed to find they still haven’t implemented the long awaited updates to online banking. If they made the whole process just a little bit simpler it would be great, and the banner saying changes coming soon has been there for over a year. In fact it was just a rebrand of the point-of-sale aspect of the site. I guess we’ll just have to wait a but longer for anything of any substance.

I dug my A3 printer out yesterday, and was pleased to find that only the red had dried out (being that it’s been over six months since I last used it, that’s pretty good). Unfortunately being that it’s such an unwieldy object, the rest of my office space had to be adjusted so it would fit in. Until now, all my files-for-print would stack up until I had time to batch print on the laser in the next room, but it just got annoying and inconvenient, plus I realised £40s worth of ink was evaporating away, so it became necessary. If I’ve learnt one lesson from the experience, it’s don’t work in a room with one corner that’s cut off at 45 degrees for no apparent reason… it makes rearranging furniture virtually impossible.

I had feedback from two clients yesterday that was tantamount to being awarded a knighthood. That cheered me up too.

In other news, I’m playing with some very sophisticated PNG techniques at the moment, which I’ll probably document soon as I haven’t seen anyone else doing similar at the moment.

I also tried to iSync my phone yesterday, and for the first time ever, it threw an error. Upon checking the error message I discovered my SonyEricsson wouldn’t take the calendar task “Buy a new phone”, which might be considered quite amusing if there isn’t much else going on.

Looks like they’ve recruited Mitchell & Webb to do some UK versions of the Apple Get A Mac Ads .

I’ve got a ridiculous pile of things to deal with today.

This week, according to someone or other, it meant to be the dreariest of the year. It’s meant to be the best time for suicidal urges and feeling down about things, but I’m hoping that this is setting a good precedent for what my 2007 is going to be like. If this was my dreariest week of the year, then things are looking up for a good 12 months.

On Monday it could have been summer. In fact, I had the window open it was so hot while I was working. Clear blue skies and bright sunlight made it feel like June, and I was more than happy to be basking in summertime.

I’ve also managed to get a fair whack of driving in – Sister One coming back from uni and a few runarounds means more time on the road and with my test not so far away, any extra practice is welcome.

And today working on projects that appear to be gliding along. Not so often does everything tie itself up on a Friday morning, but I’m feeling optimistic that by 5pm things are going to be well and truly straightened out just in time for the weekend.

As an aside, I was going to mention that Google managed to get up my nose this week when they suddenly went all javascripty with their image search , but managed to miss the target and blow up usability by accident. Anyway, my plans to have a rant were scuppered when Gaz blogged it before me – but my sentiments are the same as his – so if you want to know how Google have cocked it up, read this .

If you’re a Ross Noble fan, you maybe interested to know his standup at various places is currently back on BBC Radio (Listen Again) and being a 2 hour show condensed into 30 minutes, it’s all the best bits.

One of the interesting side affects of being a webdesigner and working with other companies for a period of time is the evolution of not only your own business, but also the evolution of theirs.

Today I tried to contact a long-standing client about an email I sent last week. It was just a request for a domain renewal, but I hadn’t heard anything so I gave them a ring. The number was dead. I tried the mobile, the same again.

The client is Echos nightclub in Loughborough. A staple of student life; when I was in my fresher year, this was the only place to be on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. After I designed the Towers Hall website in 2004, Echos soon approached me to do the same for them.

Not being able to make contact with the boss, I enquired at the Font of all Loughborough Knowledge (Nick) and was shocked to discover that Echos is no more. The club closed for a small repair/refurbishment last week, but after discovering the initial problem was more serious than first thought, the landlord pulled the plug and club became non-viable.

And so that is the rather pitiful end of Echos. No more are the days of sticky shoes and sticky bars. Gone are house ‘tequila’, ‘whiskey’ and ‘vodka’ shots for a quid. Gone are nights and nights of free entry and queue jumps.

I’m sad that ‘Chos has gone. It may have been the fading starlet of Loughborough town nightlife, but most people will still hopefully look back and remember it in it’s heyday – the good times, the fun times and most of all the sticky-and-smelling-of-cheap-spirits times.

I’m currently working for a small business who are building their first web presence, a simple piece of brochure-ware, so nothing fancy, quite a small job.

As anyone familiar with this will know, buying your own domain is usually a pain free, inexpensive experience, but I have just discovered how badly one firm is behaving and I am really annoyed for the client’s sake.

Firstly, when I got the information about the domain from the client (he had already bought it) he told me that he only had a certificate of ownership and no username or password to make changes. Originally I thought he must have mislaid it, but after checking the registrar out via Nominet, I found they don’t operate a web based control panel, they only have an 0870 number. I emailed them but had no response, so called today and told them I was acting on behalf of a client. With no security or confirmation of my client’s name (just the name of the domain) they changed the nameservers across to mine.

I was intrigued by this lack of security, and asked how much they charged for hosting/domain purchase. The guy told me that they don’t offer any hosting service at the moment, but to register a .co.uk name for two years (as my client had done) costs £88.33. I repeated it back to them, “So, £18.33 for two years then, yes?” and the reply came back, “No, £88.33 for two years.”

It turns out they had cold called my client and sold him the name he wanted.

Cowboys or what?

(Pending project completion I will name the offending company.)

And I’ve booked it. I’m going to be flying from here to Milan, Milan to Delhi, Delhi to Kathmandu, and then return from Delhi a month later. Cracking, although I think my bank might be wondering what hit them. Actually the price wasn’t too bad, probably between £100 and £150 cheaper than I might have guessed so I’m quite pleased.

Despite clearing this up, my list of things to do is not shrinking and despite my best attempt to fall asleep last night, I didn’t actually nod off until about 4am, so it’s likely that I will be feeling rubbish by sometime mid afternoon.

This week holds all the excitement of being that time of year when my contract expires and I have the intense pleasure of looking at all the sparkly new handsets. This isn’t going to be an expensive exercise though, not if I can help it. I’m quite prepared to dodge networks in order to get the best deal and I don’t particularly want to be spending more than I already am already; I’m saving any extra pennies for my trip to patch up some of the damage Jade Goody has done to international relations.

Today’s word of the day is Perk, for no other reason than it’s a really rather good word.

Goodnight.