In the week where the battle for D4hotels.com reached the courts its worth a pause to see if in fact you do own your own domain.  In the Fáilte Ireland WebCheck scheme all five service providers are finding this a potential issue, especially for .com domains – as many as half of our own clients in this scheme may have issues as .com domains are registered in the names of web designers, some of whom have disappeared off the face of the earth and cannot be tracked down.

A simple check of whois data can reveal if there is a problem, its a no brainer to make sure that the admin contact is in your own name with a valid contact email.  Expiry dates can be checked too – the longer the period of registration the more likely it is you will forget to renew the domain or that the email is no longer in use so reminders are not received.

And yes folks I admit it.  www.sitestogo.biz expired for a whole  day last month… so the pot is definitely calling the kettle black here!

The second of our SFA Shortlist prizes was two day a Strategic Management Masterclass at Hodson Bay.  An amazing prize for a mere finalist!  And a great opportunity to network with the other finalists – a humbling experience! This is really what awards should be about and I cannot speak highly enough about the organisation and contributors.

Trisha Murphy (fresh from her sponsored head shave) got us into networking mode with her inimitable style. Fellow Going for Growth participant Sandra Lawlor of Alternatives gave practical advice on marketing on a shoestring.  Gerry Moan of Constructive Intervention , SFA’s own Patricia Callinan , John McQuillan and Yann Harrison gave us an hour’s snapshot in each of their areas.  The finale was the memorable Michael Comyn showing us just how our brains do or do not work. Catch this guy if you can – you will leave breathing deeply!  His morning show on Saturdays starts on the new radio station 4fm in February (but Michael where is the website!?)

Those white dangly things that miraculously pick up 3g broadband are called Dongles. Thats a fact. Just like those storage things you stick in your USB are called Jimmy Dogs are they not? And its also a fact we are dependent on our Three Ireland Dongles as we troupe around the country sorting out the websites of the tourism world for Failte Ireland.

So when RTE’s The Business asked us to compete for broadband speed tests we were keen to participate and it was great. Listen to the podcast here. We took bronze – but only because I sought out the signal from the Three map (which incidentally does not print!), below are the results of the speed tests over the three days previous:

Connolly station 6pm 14 January – 364kbps – got to be joking guys can’t even access the VPN

14 Jan Ostan Loch Altan Donegal - OK guys just want to pick up email no bother – no damn signal

15 Jan Falcarragh Arasain Bhalor Apartments, Donegal – Nowt! – needed to access client’s broadaband

15 Jan Carrickfinn Cottages, Donegal – perfect 1,290kbps – client very impressed and no time wasted getting to sorting her website.

15 Jan Ostan Loch Altan Donegal – same again but happy out- their own broadband not working either so free to enjoy the Celidh this evening rather than pick up emails

16 Jan Donegal Holidays – great speeds but not quite as good as Mountain Top (guys I was right under the mast!!)

16 Jan HillCrest B&B and Cookery School - not a client – just a great night’s sleep and a good connection enough for email, nice foodie discussion and a breakfast fit for the Bridgestone Guides

17 Jan Willow Farm – Milford - not bad folks but I can see Mountain Top aerial on far horizon

Just completed a day’s media communications training with the excellent Communications Clinic. Now (I hear several of you saying) I am not backwards in coming forward…but this was a great opportunity to be forward in the right way. Like all those shortlisted for the SFA awards this year we were offered a day’s media training culminating in an interview for Newstalk’s Down to Business.

Now we have been shortlisted for, and even won a few awards over the last decade but I have to say I am well impressed with the SFA policy of treating shortlisted clients (I get a strategy workshop this weekend too – watch this space!). Never mind the award (and I see the excellent 3Q catering is up for our category and deserves to win it more than us – good on you Cora please win and let us work on your web one day!) the results of being shortlisted are just great.

You can hear interviews from all the finalists in Down to Business on Saturday mornings and ours will appear soon, but they are all compulsive listening and the one common question is how are you dealing with (the R word!) good listening.

Now to those of you within easy reach of Howth or up in Donegal this will mean nothing but the best news I had this year so far is that I can by proper fresh fish from a new shop just opened in Tullamore.  Up til now I had to work out where to find the various fish vans that come in once a week with a limited and sometimes rather uninspiring selection. or worse still brave the supermarket floppies or ‘cod on Friday butchers’. Now I can call up Brendan at Cunninghams in Market Square (0873820930) and he will fetch anything really special to order or put me by another batch of really amazing turbot to tickle the taste buds.

Tullamore is about as far from the sea as you can get in Ireland.  Brendan started this enterprise on 16 December (amid  doom and gloom) with careful planning of logistics – he reckons it’s easy for him to go to the Howth market at crack of dawn and get back in time to open up for a days trading. He closes Sunday and Monday when fish is not freshly caught, presumably to catch up on sleep.

I suppose we are all working harder for success these days and he is no exception.  You can be sure I will be beating a path to his door along with fellow Midland foodies.

I confess I just returned from a shopping spree in the UK.  Wouldn’t go there just to shop but once over there the temptation to save tends to overpower patriotism. The spree included a vehicle from Van Monster – at about half the Irish price these guys are doing great trade over the water apparently, especially as their 6 month warranty applies in ireland and they will do the intra European VAT thing. It included filling the aforesaid van at Ikea (who have still to adjust their sterling prices) and Morrisons who have a great wine buyer at the moment – and then of course rather more clothes than anyone needs to buy in a week…

But meanwhile back in Ireland the first question of the New Year to the increasingly fascinating Enterprise Ireland forum sets the tone for the New Year – relating to an apparently genuine enquiry as to what gadgets people got for Christmas. This produced a riveting discussion on a failed two year old Sony Vaio and the perils of buying abroad. The theme is set folks!

Where can you buy a pink china cabinet? Well the new Deanery Furniture site puts one centre stage on their home page. These guys can spray their wonderfully jointed timber bespoke furniture all colours of the rainbow. And all manner of natural wood finishes are available too. Tucked away in Shinrone near Birr they are open 7 days and a great place to visit.  Their website owes its great photography to their in house ‘studio’ – they photograph everything they make for the records, and pop them up on the website through the content management system

I loved working on the Holiday World Show website. I trundled around with mountains of brochures in my car boot for weeks, hunting perfect photos for the banner changes. Like Bréifne these change randomly as a much more effective substitute for Flash. The curiosity factor appears to dramatically increases page views. With the shows happening in January and three week booking slot this was not one to miss the deadlines on and almost everyone had a hand in progress the week before Christmas.

Sandra Hennessy then spent all Christmas tweaking the AdWords – capitalising on the holiday search trends for this particular period each year is a fine art in itself. Once the shows are over the site then switches target completely to start the exhibitor booking process for 2010.

So if like me you simply don’t know where to go this year have a virtual browse and get along to Dublin RDS 23-25 January, Belfast Kings Hall 16-18 January to get the expert advice.