I really didn’t pay any attention to it. I mean, why would you? We all get them daily, “Attention, your site has been compromised”, “Warning, you may have illegal access on your server” etc etc. I get very few into my actual inbox, as my spam filter picks them all up automatically. This one for some reason came to my inbox.

No problem, I thought, had a quick scan of it with my eyes, just to check, but no – all looked quite spammy to me. So, I did what I normally do and just hit delete. It was written in the style of making it look professional to make people read it, (which is why I did), but it all seemed too unlikely that I paid it no attention.

However, being cautious, I loaded up my site straight away and went through every page, just to see if there were any potential changes that I didn’t make, and wording out of place, weird formatting changes etc. Nope, all looked fine. Phew. False alarm, as predicted.

That is, until I received a text message on Sunday night from the guy that hosts my site, saying that it’s been hacked and has been shut down! ‘Oh dear’, I thought, or words similar in meaning. This isn’t good. He said he’d been contacted by the technical team at my hosts, they’ve detected things that shouldn’t be on there, and for safety, have shut down my site so nothing else could be done.

For most of Monday, I was on skype with my host and my web guy, in a three-way chat window, whilst we were trying to figure out what things had been uploaded to my server, and how quickly we could get rid of it. It took him some digging, but found 3 or 4 pages that had been uploaded last Friday which were made too look like bank login pages. The cheeky scamps. I’ve no idea if they were indeed successful for the hackers in question, but they were removed immediately, as well as some dodgy ‘scripts’ that were causing more trouble, including an additional Trojan horse virus in one of the parts of my site.

That last bit was quite scary to me, as horses are quite sinister at the best of times. Luckily my web guy, Mick, managed to remove everything malicious, de-bug everything, protect the place where they managed to gain entry from, and updated everything that needed updating.

Absolute lesson learned, to make sure everything in the back end of your site is as up to date as can possibly be. My CMS was apparently a version behind, and that was enough for this canny hacker to find the weakness and gain entry. So, if you’re not sure if your site is as secure as can be, I highly recommend you check, or get your web person to do it on your behalf.

So, by around 3pm on Monday, everything was back to normal and my site was back online. It had been down for approximately 16 hours, but that could have been a lot worse, or meant building it again from scratch. My now-learned advice – back up everything, and keep it all up to date. Big Brother is apparently always watching!

Richard Heathcote

Voice Over Artist

So recently, Google announced that it’s going to be launching Google Instant; a new version of it’s search engine that will provide real-time results, as you type. No longer will you have to type the whole search word or phrase, results will, as you type, display results it thinks you may want.

Some have credited it being fairly loopy and pointless, whilst others have said that it could be a whole new way of searching for things. Others have even said that they fear it will cripple their already successful pay-per-click campaigns if results are going to be generated in an all-new way. They feared are they now going to have to optimise their strategies to incorporate the 1st and 2nd letter of their search terms, so ‘v’ and ‘vo’ for someone searching ‘voice over artist’, for instance!

I’ve since been told by techies that this will not be the case at all, and the new instant search will far from kill off traditional SEO, it will merely enhance and refine it. Honestly, the techiness of this topic is far more than what my head can cope with, so these are merely my findings with it. My own stance is that I imagine it will make a difference, for the better, and make searching quicker if you find things that are relevant by clicking fewer keys.

I’ll just have to try it on my favourite search term…..Scarlett Johansson…..

/3,2,1, back in the room.

Go and try it for yourself, and have a look at Google Instant.

Richard Heathcote

Voice Over Artist & Audio Marketing

There are many things, as singular business people, that we can do ourselves, to save time and money. We do our own marketing, sales, answering phones, doing the actual job we do, as well as all the other stuff. There are other things though, that paying a professional to do, really pays off far better in the long run.

Recently, I’d decided that my blog was simply too bland in design, so needed some imagery on the background. Naturally, my first port of call was my designer chappie, Gareth Coxon from Dot Design; he’s THE guy I go to for design, after he did a superb job on my logo (on my main site, click here), and my pop-up banner I use at networking events and exhibitions, plus other online digital signature items he’s created for me. He understands me, my brand, what I do, and knows exactly how to capture it. He’s created this fab background image that is on this blog, which certainly jazzes it up a bit from being plain white! So, kudos to Gareth, top bloke. Highly recommend him.

Secondly, I found it a tad confusing to install into WordPress, so I tweeted about it, and a friend and colleague of mine I know through 4Networking popped up on Skype, and mentioned that he could sort it out for me, as it needed a bit of code tweaking. It took mere moments for him to put it right, and get it all set correctly…….so, many thanks indeed go to Ant Hodges from ToInfinity!

See, if I had been left to my own devices, things would have gone very wrong indeed. There are times where we can do stuff ourselves. When it comes to the material you push out into the big wide world, I would only ever use professionals.

Gareth’s website – http://www.dot-design.co.uk/

Ant’s website – http://www.toinfinity.co.uk/

Richard Heathcote

Voice Over Artist

It’s 6 days to go until the iPhone 4 will be in my hands. I’ve been thinking today about how it will change my existing user experience, new features that I will start to use, how it will change or enhance the functions I already enjoy using the iPhone for. Just how different is it likely to be?

I suppose really, the first question would be, when are you getting yours? I’ve seen today that o2 have stated that only existing o2 customers will be able to buy the new iPhone 4 at launch, as they have priority, with new customers coming to o2 not being able to purchase until at least the end of July. That’s great news for me, as I’m an existing customer; hopefully it means that they WILL have some handsets in my local o2 store next Thursday, so I can walk away a very happy customer!

With all the new features that Apple have crammed into this new unit, what do you think you will use the most? Has it really enhanced what you already use it for? I know I for one am looking forward to the built in HD camcorder, with the ability to publish immediately to youtube; instant video blogging! It doesn’t get much more powerful than that in my opinion!

Taking photos on my existing iPhone has always been a drag, with there only being a 2MP camera on the 3G unit. Pics are ok, but any movement, or anything less than bright sunshine and they look hideous. a 5MP camera is a very welcome addition for me.

Facetime, the video calling functionality between iPhone 4-iPhone 4 calls, is an absolute revolution. The picture quality seems much higher than anything I’ve seen with other 3G phones offering similar functionality. Of course, this is only enabled via a wifi network, but I’m sure as the carriers progress, we’ll be able to see it appear on 3G signals in the future. (Eventually). Of course, this isn’t anything that I’m expecting to utilise all the time, just a nice feature for when the need/want arrives.

The battery. Oh….the battery. Yes I’ve had some very long love affairs with my power cable of recent. I’ve been using it quite a bit, so have often had to top it up whilst I’ve been working at my Mac. I’m told by a friend of mine who has a 3GS currently, that the battery was significantly better in that unit – plus now in the new iPhone 4, allegedly 40% increase in battery storage, I should have a very nice surprise by the time I come to get mine! Hopefully I won’t have to spend as much time plugged in as I have been so far. The phone, that is.

So what about you? How will this change things for you? Bring on your specifics!

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

**PRICING UPDATE** – o2 have now finally released all their pricing for the new unit, as of today at 14:15.

As any Apple follower will know by now, we have the imminent release (June 24th) of the much-anticipated iPhone 4, the fourth generation iPhone (not 4G as many people have been stating, as it still runs on 3G technology, carriers can’t currently handle 4G).

I, for those that know me, will know that I’ll without question be buying my iPhone4 on launch day (not that I’m counting down the days!) With the new hardware and software included in this new unit, it’s a phenomenal device. As Steve Jobs in his keynote speech said, this is the biggest leap in technology since the original iPhone.

However, I have a bit of a quibble. Apple today have released the price of the sim-free device, £499 for the 16GB and £599 for the 32GB version. That’s all fine, and it’s the pricing for people that want a sim-free unit to use on whatever network they want, especially if they’re already in a contract they can’t get out of.

I’m not one of these people. I’ve been a customer of o2 since the launch of the original iPhone. I’ve always had good service from them, and overall have no complaints. I’m one of those people that want the new iPhone as an upgrade unit, therefore I’ll just start a new 18 month contract with o2, and get the unit for a lower price as it’s part subsidised by the carrier. I remember when I had the new iPhone 3G, I had the free upgrade to the 8GB unit, or I could have paid for the 16GB model. I’m more than happy to pay for the new unit, given the amount of technology packed within it – the trouble is, the pricing hasn’t been released yet. How will I know what to do? Whether to change providers? To see what pricing all the networks are offering.

Back at the point of the 3GS release, all the figures I seem to remember were all released at the same time, giving people all the information, all the options available. I still don’t know how much I’m going to have to fork out on June 24th. I like to know these things in advance! Is it just all the carriers holding on seeing what the competition are going to offer it for?

Am I the only one that’s infuriated by this? Please say I’m not! Come on o2/Orange/Vodafone et al, give us a clue what the pricing will be so we’re all informed in good time!

Come on o2, your comments here would be much appreciated!

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

Episode 5 – May 2010 - “Audio Marketing, a Podcast Special Edition” (24m 14s)

This is a recording of a talk I recently made at a 4Networking event in Sutton Coldfield. I talk about the importance of businesses utilising audio in their marketing strategies, how it can open up massive new avenues of audience, for the people that are auditory learners, i.e. they absorb information better in audio form. I talk about podcasting, the power of the human voice, branding your company with audio, the immense reach of the iTunes podcast directory, and how businesses can easily implement audio in their current marketing plan.

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

I’m fairly certain you can’t have escaped the news that Apple and Adobe are having a fairly big spat, over Apple’s refusal to incorporate Adobe’s Flash technology within their mobile devices, most notably the iPhone and new iPad, plus the iPod Touch. Currently, if you come across a Flash video on the iPhone or iPad, you’ll just get a little ‘can’t display this video’ icon where the video should be.

There’s lots of debate either side of this argument, a lot of it I barely understand. For the most part, I believe Apple refused it based on Flash’s processor needs, which are unrealistic in mobile devices, it’s just too hungry for processors and battery life etc. This is where things like HTML5 I imagine are improving things, making it a more even playing field when it comes to online video.

All that said, Adobe recently launched a campaign expressing how they feel. And here it is:

An Apple fan somewhere in the world has come back with their own rebuttal. Quite amusingly, this:

Nuff said!

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

Recently I watched the BBC series “The Virtual Revolution”. Being a bit of a techie geek on the quiet, it’s stuff that very much interests me, all things internet, social media and beyond.

I have to say, it was an absolutely fantastic series that explored the origins of the internet and how it’s changed our lives whether we want it to or not, and the revolution of how it’s affected business globally too. For many of us who are small businesses, (and big businesses for that matter), the uses within the internet today for marketing ourselves is just inspiring; something we could never have imagined 20, 15, 10 or even 5 years ago. The revolution in social media networking for personal and business, blogging, video and audio multimedia on our websites and social networks, viral videos through YouTube – there really is no limit to what we can achieve. If you set your mind to it, and target it in the right way, your message can reach hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands or even potentially millions, for very little effort or money.

This, to me, is just staggering, and gives me so many ideas of what I can do to further market myself online, as currently, I don’t pay for any advertising whatsoever. I just don’t think it works at all well in my industry; all of my clients come through the web and word of mouth recommendation – and I know this is the case for many people I’ve been speaking to of recent.

So, to get your brain thinking about the virtual revolution, I suggest you check out their page on the BBC site, and look out for a repeat!

And, if you hadn’t guessed what my opinion is – the revolution is definitely GOOD!

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

I do at times stop and think about how far technology has come on in the last 10 years or so. Now we’re in 2010, being able to receive up to the minute news and information via mobile handsets seems perfectly normal, but certainly wasn’t the case with me using one of my old Nokia’s from 2000!

I remember when I had my first WAP enabled phone; it was desperately slow, but it kind of worked. It was I guess the Teletext equivalent for the mobile revolution. How far things have moved on with Blackberrys and iPhones. (You cannot understand how much I love my iPhone).

Here’s Patrick Stewart talking tech:

Rather exciting news was announced this week, with Google taking on the challenge of creating an operating system to rival Mac OS and Windows. They’ve stated that they will release an open source version later this year for developers to modify and play with it, and potentially improve it, with a finished version set to launch next year.

It’s planned that it’ll be designed for netbooks in its early stages, with plans to move it into the desktop world as well. Now, with me being a staunch supporter of all things Mac, you wouldn’t have thought I’d particularly welcome this news. But you’d be wrong. For one I’m very pleased that there’ll be another contender to hopefully bring down some of Microsoft’s dominance in the marketplace, and have the software arena back to being as fair game as possible. Maybe it will force Microsoft to stop being so sloppy in its developing and create a piece of software that isn’t bug-ridden and crash-happy.

The other reason is portability, when it comes to netbooks. As things stand right now, I wouldn’t dream of owning a netbook with Windows on it, as I totally dislike Windows and all it stands for. I do however like the functionality that some netbooks bring, size wise. So if there was the opportunity of having a low cost mini-laptop available that can run Google Chrome OS, I’d be tempted to have one as a secondary laptop.

Which leaves me to ask the questions – do you welcome this new addition to the OS market? Will you be running it yourself on your laptop/netbook? Do you think having a new contender is a good idea, or will it just fall on it’s face as a bit of a fad?

You decide….