VIS-à-VIDEO edits for 36 hours flat …. then goes Tango Dancing

I cant believe that Ines did a straight 36 hours in the editing studio on Tuesday and then when straight out and danced Tango for 3 hours in Guildford. Ines wanted to deliver a client’s wedding video to her before the weekend, and in a final push to meet the customer’s requirement pushed on for 36 hours. This is absolutely amazing as if I don’t get 8 hours sleep per night I am totally wasted the following day.

I sat and watched some of the wedding video with her and I am truly amazed at how artistic and stylish her wedding videos get. She did a great film sequence of Great Fosters, and I have suggested she contact Great Fosters to see if she can become their recommended wedding videographer, or at least have her wedding show reel on their website.

I have been busy with work projects and have finally finished upgrading some of the AIX servers at work, so a couple days break and then I start another AIX upgrade project.

This week saw me visiting the knee consultant to discuss my injured knees, and I have to admit the consultants on the NHS have very little interest in either your well being or injuries, guess if you were a private patient things would be different. He advised me he could not see any issues with the ligaments or cartilage but the issue was behind my kneecap. Current recommendation 6 weeks physiotherapy and then review if keyhole surgery is required.

I can at least keep up the gym work, but no more rowing or stepper, so I will be focusing more on the mountain biking around Box hill and Dorking for the foreseeable future.

Saturday I am trail riding with friends in Hampshire and will try and take the still and video camera with me… until next time

Pro-Tel gives BlogIt a go…………..

Trying to find away of only ever having to write on one blog but having the business and personal blogs, plus twitter and facebook updated. While Googling today I read about BlogIt , which I have now installed as one of my FaceBook applications. I have added my blogs and twitter account and over the next few days I will test to see if this is the Daddy… I will keep you posted

Pro-Tel gives BlogIt a go…………..

Trying to find away of only ever having to write on one blog but having the business and personal blogs, plus twitter and facebook updated. While Googling today I read about BlogIt , which I have now installed as one of my FaceBook applications. I have added my blogs and twitter account and over the next few days I will test to see if this is the Daddy… I will keep you posted

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

VIS-à-VIDEO goes aboutus.org……..

Been a very week for myself both work wise and business wise. On the work front I have been very busy working late hours  doing software upgrades on the IBM AIX severs ,  on the business front I have added some content about the Company into abouts.org. I have just finished Dave Vineys book “Get to the top on Google” so I am now putting some of his key points into practice.

Last weekend saw Mark , Mike , Moby , Hobbies and myself enter into the Surrey Police Enduro over at Bagshot. I have been to this particular track 3 times . First time was the RAF enduro last year and this year was to do the REME 2 day training days. However after the first lap Mike got a puncture and I was suffering badly from forearm pump, the engine on the KTM was cutting out ever time I banged on the power and spent the first lap feathering the clutch so much that I could not feel my fingers .

In the end I had to retire and suggested to Mike he take my bike and see how he got on , after lap two he reported back the same engine and clutch issues I was suffering. I am going to get a new ht cap and lead this week and see if that helps.

This weekend Mike and I did a 4 hour mountain bike ride from Epsom to Box Hill , I did invite a friend from work but he only lasted 15 minutes and returned home. I was hoping it would be a gentle day as I had down 80 mins in the gym on Friday , so between the 2 days I did burnt up nearly 3000 calories  which is equal to 1 lb of body ft … cool … just got to keep doing that and the weight should hopefully shift

Monday I am off to see the consultant about possible knee surgery so I will keep you posted…….

Fighting SPAM

Over the last couple of weeks , I have noticed that the amount of SPAM hitting our mail servers has increased, after a bit of googling I found a great site that helped with the configuration of Spamassassin. This is the bit of software we run on our mail servers to help fight the spam.

Having made some changes to the user_prefs I have now noticed that most SPAM is being picked up , here is the link to use so you can configure your own file ,

I have however changed the following line to 2.1

# How many hits before a message is considered spam.
required_score           5.0

I have also decided not to auto delete the SPAM but rather have a wrapper placed around it and then placed in a holding area , I have made a folder called SPAM where once a day I can quickly check the folder and see if any customers have got caught in the net. I did find leaving the default of 5 was rather high and over a few weeks slowly lowered it to 2.1 where I have now left it .

I am currently reading more on SEO and have recently purchased the book “Get to the top of Google” by David Viney which is a very interesting book , so over the next few months I will be making more tweaks to our website

Monitoring Google Trends over the last few weeks the wedding video business is taking a bit of a slow turn through the United Kingdom, so it vital we maintain all aspects of business including good marketing and sales via the web site.

On the mountain bike front we have found more local routes in and around Surrey and will be looking to explore another new route on Saturday

VIS-à-VIDEO off to film wedding | Pro-Tel Hits the hills

Yesterday Ines was filming a wedding near Chiddingfold called Ramster which when I saw her at midnight last night said she had a great day. A lovely venue , beautiful  couple , music was great and all in a wonderful day.

I on the other hand was in work fixing postfx issues on several Linux servers. As it is the Bank holiday weekend , I opted for an early escape from work, which was a super idea , as my 3 the car park ( M25 ) was full and static.

I meet up with Mike at 4:30 and we head off on another mountain bike adventure , choosing a different route today , we found another lane from Epsom Downs Race Course up to Walton on the Hill. From there we cycled a lovely lane up to Headley Heath and followed the top of the ridge to Box Hill.

At the top of Box Hill we found a bridle path which we had not noticed before and headed down the path … very steep in paces which led all the way to Brockham.

We found a path from Brockham to Dorking and the by road to Ryker Cafe for a well deserved coffee and cake. Problem was after a 20 minute break we had to then get the get up and go to cycle up the hill . We headed out to Headley Road to do the route on , and then found another lane we had not seen before and followed this.

This was a great lane, steep in places and very tiring , but it followed the Surrey cycle route back to Headley , Langley Vale and Epsom Downs where we finished at Tattenham Corner.

Today is a day of rest , but working on the KTM ready for the race on Sunday, 5 of us are entering , and I hope my knees last at least one lap. So today I am cleaning the rear wheel and bearing unit , and tomorrow Mike and I will do an oil and filter chnage and probably ride the local lanes for an hour or so to check the bikes over.

Ines had a phone call yesterday for a wedding inquiry at Great Fosters next Saturday, so fingers crossed she gets that.. until next …….

Pro-Tel goes off road ……………….

Saturday started off being overcast and wet , but come lunch time the weather over Surrey was beautiful sun and hardly any clouds, which made for the perfect day to go mountain bike riding. Mike and I set off from Epsom Downs and headed up through Langley Vale following some local foot paths up and over to Headley Golf course. Crossing the road we ventured onto a By way that lead up to the top of Box Hill.

We decided to cut off this route and head down to West Mumble …. and what a steep drop it was, we ended up carrying the bikes down to the bottom of the hill.

Steep drop off to West Mumble

Once we crossed the metal road we had a very long and tiring climb up to the top of Box Hill .. it was so steep we had to get off and walk up it, the goal is re-visit this hill and cycle all the way up it ….

Totally exhausted we meet a group of German hikers who pointed us to the cafe where Mike and I had a coffee and cake stop while enjoying the views over Dorking

Views over to Dorking from the top of Box Hill

After our break we headed back through Box Hill and cut away to Headley Heath to see if we could find the “hairy cows with the big horns” , but we later found out they are only brought over to the Heath in November , however we did bump into these characters

After fitting a puncture , it was back to Tattenham Corner via Walton on the Hill from a pint of shandy over looking the race course … we think we covered about 20 miles and we were out for around 4 hours….

While Mike and I were enjoying ourselves , Ines was in the studio editing another wedding video.

Sunday was also another glorious day, but we stayed very local with me watching World Super Bikes and tidying up in the garden , while Ines was busy in the studio working on the web site.

Pro-Tel goes Hard rock and VIS-à-VIDEO does Ramster

I decided that this year I was going to treat myself to a nice mountain bike and build up my stamina and endurance out on the local lanes rather than sitting in a gym 3 days a week. Having spoken to a friend of mine who has really got into mountain biking in a bike big way ….. i.e. £3000 for a push bike, I got my self a Specialized Hardrock with Disc.

Earlier last week 3 of us went out and I got chance to test a 17 inch, 18 inch and 19 inch frame to see what was best for the back and knee injuries, having ridden all 3 I have opted for the 17 inch frame.

We did a gentle 2 hours out by Epsom Downs and I must admit it really was great fun, having spent most of my spare time screaming round the back lanes on either a KTM Supermoto or a KTM Enduro bike it was really very enjoyable to spend a few hours with mates chatting and getting fit at the same time.

On the KTM front, I have got the Enduro bike road registered with a MOT and tax, but need to get a new front tyre, the sprockets are all starting to loose their teeth plus I am going to see if a new set of clutch springs will help get rid of forearm pump on the next enduro.

Mike and I went out for a few hours on the MTB and having lived in this part of Surrey since 2001 I did not realise how beautiful the back lanes and footpaths are until you get out and explore them. Last night we cycled from Epsom Downs to Headley Heath and back via Walton on the Hill.

Friendly folk you may meet on mountain bike trips in Surrey

Saturday we are planning a full day out on the MTB’s so I will update you on the day’s events.

On the business front we have been very busy with Ines doing some work filming at the Melville Clinic and has a wedding next week at Chiddingfold at a beautiful; venue called Ramster. She has not filmed there before so she is really excited about that, plus she is getting the chance to work with some local photographers Laurence and Ella Bulaitis, from Epsom at the wedding

No doubt she will keep you updated via her blog

VIS-à-VIDEO update links

Busy few days on the VIS-à-VIDEO front we have made a few changes to our links page and have now included some of the venues Ines has worked at and considers being some of her favourite
I have to say her web site is really looking very good these days, and considering she has never had any formal web design training, she does a tremendous job at maintaining it .
I guess I have the easier job of maintaining the hardware and software side of the business , with my responsibilities being SEO , sitemaps and ensuring the web site and mail servers are up and running.
I think  if you run your own business these days , you really need to take control of the web site and ensure you have access to updating the site pages , you have Word Press installed and keep at least a weekly blog running on the companies events.
Think what has helped me a lot is having access to the raw logs which we never had before when we hosted the Company site on another provider.
However saying all that, it does mean it is down to you ensure you properly maintain your site , and that generally means a few hours a week tweaking content on the site.

On the social side I had invested in a new mountain bike to try and get bike fit for the enduro racing and plus give a break from racing to try and get the injuries to recover. I have had the MRI scan on the knees and will get together with the consultant on the 28 of April to discuss options…
I will keep you posted