Author Archive

It may surprise some people on Lanzarote and the Canary Islands (given how common Coyright Infringement is in the region), but International Copyright Law (see the Berne Convention) still applies as much here as it does anywhere else in the world. We constantly monitor the Internet  to protect our Copyrighted text, images and other intellectual property, on ours and our clients sites, to ensure it is not being used without our authority by other websites.

Only yesterday we had three instances of this…

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Ever wondered how you can get cheaper calls from the UK to Lanzarote using a regular phone rather than Skype or similar on-line services?

We can now help using numbers diverted from the UK and obtaining your number is FREE!

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Every now and then we outsource some of the specialist skills needed in our work. We do this either when we might have a learning curve involved – one instance of this was when we used Maxim Support to install Ffmpeg on a server we were working on. It saved us a heap of time, and in turn our client money. To say their service was excellent is selling them short. The service was perfect – fast, and cost-effective.

Maxim Support’s services include

• Initial Server Setup
• Keeping your server Optimized
• Keeping your server secure
• Securely keeping your server software up to date
• Instillation of most popular scripts and tools

If you need assistance with your dedicated Linux Server why not drop Maxim Support an email. You won’t be disappointed

We came across The Tapas Lunch Company recently, who have an established site selling Spanish produce and brands in the UK. We thought it a great idea.

Even though the food here for me personally doesn’t cut it and I’d give my eye teeth to have an Asda around the corner – it’s easy to see the possibilities for the market amongst the British public who might love their Spanish food after holidays or living as ex-pats.

It’s a great link for just about any Spanish themed website or blog. From a site owners point of view as well as providing useful content you can link through their affiliate scheme and make 10% on any sales you generate.

Click here to sign up for The Tapas Lunch Company affiliate scheme.

Interested in finding out about other affiliate programs? Take a look at the affiliate marketing category.

Thanks to my son for this one…! He recently bought a laptop on the island with the Spanish version of Vista installed. Before he bought it he did a bit of research and found ‘Vistalizator’ – a pretty nifty tool for switching to an English language pack.

So many people on the island seem a bit wary of buying locally because of the language. No need with this – it was installed in a few minutes and seems to work perfectly…. Even better than that – it’s free!

As with anything do read the instructions and requirements on the website before you think about installing.

Click on the link to visit the Vistalizator website and change Vista from Spanish to English.

As web designers, and marketing professionals we don’t rest on our laurels. It’s important to us to prove to our clients that we can deliver the kind of results they are looking for. How better to do this than to establish some decent web properties of our own. Since moving to Lanzarote we have established a couple of hugely successful sites. Without divulging our statistics it is safe to say that both sites generate a lot of hits.

Canary Nightlife (launched in February 06) – is a site promoting bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants in the Canary Islands. It’s a very busy site (hits are measured in the many hundreds of thousands every month) which we have proven delivers business to our clients at a very reasonable cost. It also includes a busy forum.

Lanzarote Relocation (launched September 07) – is our guide to moving to Lanzarote. It’s simply a blog of our own experiences of emigrating, our musings about life on the  on the island and other general Lanzarote information, including guest articles. As far as we know this is the only independent site of its type. Again this is a very busy website and features well in Google searches.

As we have written about elsewhere both sites have been imitated – more than once  – as is so often the case with many businesses on Lanzarote. But, we’re confident in our ability to stay ahead of the game – after all this is what we do for a living, we’re not doing this as a hobby or as an after thought!

Cue more insults from our friend “Bob in Cyprus”!

We currently have a number of other projects in the making – watch this space!

I went into the newly opened computer shop in Playa Blanca – Beep. Not expecting much as walking in they didn’t appear to have much stock.

We were looking for a joystick, when I asked  – there were none in stock. However, the girl at the desk was extremely helpful and  showed us the available range on her screen and said it could be ordered in fairly quickly. I was impressed.

Though not really looking like much – the range available on the Beep website is excellent. It might look a little unassuming as you pass by – but to all intents and purpose we now have access to the kind of range of products you’d expect from the likes of PC World in the UK.

The shop is on the back road between the German supermarket and Correos.

We found this summary on how people are searching on the three main resorts of Lanzarote quite interesting. Does it reflect the popularity of the respective resorts in general terms?

The following relates to searches on Google through the month of November 2008.

Playa Blanca Lanzarote – 27,100
Costa Teguise Lanzarote – 14,800
Puerto del Carmen Lanzarote 12,100

We’ve been big fans of Skype for a long time since back in the have a found it an absolute must have since living in Lanzarote, for both work and keeping in touch with family and friends.

Skype to Skype calls and video calls are free, as is the messaging, but what we like most about it is the cheap phone calls.  At the time of writing this we currently pay é0.17 to call landlines in the UK and US on pay-as-you-go.

Also, just recently Skype has introduced a flat monthly rate of €3.95 for unlimited calls to landlines within Europe which seems like a damned good deal to us!

If you don’t already have a Skype installed you can download the free software.

As well as viewing some of the work of 360Turismo – one of our  – on their website, they have recently set up a virtual tour of Lanzarote on viewAt.org it really is well worth a look at. As well as giving an idea of their capabilities – it is a very impressive way to see the island if your interest is more general.