Teimlo

Cool Stuff #45 PhotoScape

Cool Stuff is Teimlo's blog series is to help you out by telling you about useful websites and applications that can help you and your business.

Yet another great image manipulation piece of software that has been of great use to Teimlo. PhotoScape is a free piece of software with a suite of image manipulation tools from batch conversion to screen capture. But two of the tools we found really interesting were the ‘AniGif’ tool and the ‘Combine’ tool.

The ‘AniGif’ tool allows you to easily create an animated .gif without the need to use Photoshop. This is the ideal tool for anyone who needs to create a simple animation using several images, without requiring the more advanced tools in Photoshop. All you have to do is drag and drop the images into the animator, then use the set of simple tools to adjust rotation and transition effects. This is simple to use and easy to understand, ideal for knocking something up quickly using existing images.

The ‘Combine’ tool is also useful as it allows you to drag and drop images in any order to make one large image. You are then able to tweak dimensions as you see fit. Again this is ideal if you need to make something quickly without the need for extensive tweaking.

Therefore our recommendation here at Teimlo is that if you work with images on a large scale, or with web content management, this tool would be ideal to keep handy for ease of use with animations and combining images.

To get this product to free, and to view all its capabilities, go to www.photoscape.org

Teimlo derives no financial benefit from featuring PhotoScape in this series. If PhotoScape is useful to you please comment and/or share this entry.

Cool Stuff #44 FastStone Image Viewer

Cool Stuff is Teimlo's blog series is to help you out by telling you about useful websites and applications that can help you and your business.

If you’re looking for a tool to make image conversion or image resizing on a large scale easy, then FastStone’s Image Viewer can help. As digital cameras are improving the resolution of images are also improving, resulting in larger file sizes. A problem we found here at Teimlo was that if you have say 200 images you need to upload to a website, the current file size/resolution would be too large and result in a lengthy process to correct each individual image. Through using FastStone Image Viewer we found that you can alter these factors quickly and easily, for as many images as you wish, which is much easier than manually re-sizing each one!

With this tool you can also reduce the file size to a percentage that would be suitable for a web upload, and also to the format needed.

Please be aware that the batch convert tool is only one of FastStone’s many features. Other features include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, colour adjustments, musical slideshows and much more.

In summary, this is a great time-saving tool which is easy to use and can be a great addition to the arsenal of tools for any web content manager. And of course, saving the best till last, this software is totally free to download, so enjoy!

Download it from www.faststone.org

Teimlo derives no financial benefit from featuring FastStone Image Viewer in this series. If FastStone Image Viewer is useful to you please comment and/or share this entry.

Creativity at Teimlo Flowing as Fast and as Free as the River Usk

It has been all over the news that Wales has been hit by some of the worst of the weather this week. But fear not, creativity  at Teimlo is still flowing as freely as the river Usk next to our office!

Take a look at our short clip below to see just how high the river is today!

Book Reviews #17 Conscious Business

Book reviews from Teimlo is our blog series devised to recommend marketing and networking books that could help with your business.

Conscious Business – How to build value through values

Fred Kofman

ISBN 1-59179-517-6

Conscious Business is a book that attempts to apply business psychological theory to practical situations. It combines personal experiences with practical examples in an attempt to give the reader a more informed description of both the problem and the solution.

It is quite clear from the start that Kofman would like to beyond the usual realm of superficial and self evident truths frequently found in business literature. Kofman injects a philosophical element into his solutions which draws heavily on his interest in spiritual beliefs. The examples also show that Kofman, as an experienced consultant, is able to provide clear procedures on how people can take a look at their behaviours and make a conscious effort to change them.

Starting on page 17, Kofman draws a contrast between unconscious and conscious behaviours, breaking them down into subheadings and then explaining them in a business sense. He then uses this framework to provide the chapters for the rest of the book, including practical examples of each behaviour and procedures that can be taken to change them.

This book may begin in the way a journal article or academic paper would, but as you get into the book it is clear that Kofman has attempted to make academia practical and in a sense combining many psychological concepts with his real life experience as a consultant. Therefore patience is needed with this book as the abstract nature of the first few pages may daunt readers looking for realistic advice, but at around page 42 the book becomes far more focussed on the real changes that can be made in business.

If you are looking for a book that makes you think twice about how you interact with people day-to-day, more specifically your employees, employers, colleagues and clients, then this book is a must read. Also if you’re a business student struggling to find the link between academic business psychology terms and what it will mean in real life, then this book can provide a useful alternative viewpoint.

If you have read Conscious Business and would like to leave comment please feel free to do so. If you would like to contribute a book review please contact us.

A great weekend at New Start Wales

Teimlo had a fantastic weekend meeting new people at the New Start Wales Exhibition in Cardiff. This was a great chance for businesses both established and up and coming to learn more about services available to them in Wales.

During the exhibition we ran a competition on both days for the chance to win a free fixed cost mobile portal. This prize gave the winner the opportunity to obtain a free web and wap optimized page, along with a suite of SMS tools that can help them communicate directly with their customers. More specifically they were given up to 300 free text messages towards their first campaign, and free marketing guidelines of how to use their new portal.

We are pleased to announce that on Friday our winner was Rees Services and on Saturday our winner was Helen Murdoch. Congratulations to both our winners, we’re sure they will be equally delighted with their prize.

Alongside our own competition during the exhibition, we also contributed to the prize fund for the Bright Business Idea competition that was held over the two days. The winner from this event also received a free mobile portal. There were many promising candidates who pitched in front of the dragons, but there could only be one winner. All of us here at Teimlo offer our congratulations to John Chichester from T Box Solutions who won the event with his novel idea of eco friendly shopping crates. I am sure he will make good use of the portal and we can’t wait to get him set up and using it!

What was most important is that we got a chance to speak to some smaller businesses that are looking for new and cost-effective ways of both building and contacting a database of those directly interested in their company. We met a diverse range of businesses, from the already established to those looking to launch a new business in the future.

We would like to say a big thank you to the organisers of New Start Wales, along with both the exhibitors and visitors who made our two days in Cardiff so much fun!!

If you have any other stories or what you particularly liked about the exhibition we would love to hear about it, so leave a comment below.

Or if you would like any further information on any of our services that we told you about during the show, please don’t hesitate to contact us or check out our website.

Come and see us at the New Start Wales Exhibition

From the 13th-14th November, Teimlo will be appearing at stand G39 the New Start Wales Exhibition at the Cardiff International Arena.

The New Start Wales Exhibition is the ideal place for anyone with a business idea that they want to get up and running, but also anyone looking for any ideas of how to grow their business in such a difficult commercial environment. The exhibition will contain free seminars, live features and workshops all deigned to help you and your business. With companies such as Teimlo exhibiting, there will be opportunities for all business owners both potential and current to see what new and exciting opportunities are out there.

Alongside exhibiting at the event, Teimlo are proud to announce that they are working with New Start by providing the text messaging communication to all attendees. Look out for the messages!!

Teimlo's stand is located by the feature area at G39 and will be present on both days, with a happy and friendly team ready to answer any questions you may have.

Teimlo is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Third Stage group, an organisation that offers websites, surveys and consultancy. Teimlo itself specialises in mobile content provision, and harnessing the power of communication through mobile media. What is important is that if you need help to communicate with your audience directly, we have a suite of tools that can help your business.

A service such as this is an important tool for young and developing businesses that need an economically viable means to communicate directly with their target audience. This service also allows an organisation to communicate directly with their audience, and only target those who want to know more about the organisation.

Alongside this we will have several special offers from our existing portfolio of services which will be exclusive to exhibition visitors, along with a daily prize draw to win a free custom mobile portal for the winner.

Visit our team during the exhibition; we would be delighted to hear from you. If you would like any more information regarding any of our products or services, don’t hesitate to contact us directly to book an appointment or look around our site.

For more information on any services offered by Teimlo, please visit www.teimlo.com or contact us directly by clicking here.