[00:00:10.550] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:10.940] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:11.420] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:13.440] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:15.780] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses in the last seven days. Welcome back.
[00:00:26.690] - Taylor
Welcome back.
[00:00:27.490] - Gordon
Yeah, it's been a busy week, as always, and we've only got about a week or so left before we go away. So we are currently doing all sorts of preparations for that, packing and making sure we've got everything that we need ready. One of the things that we realized we needed in time, luckily, was both of us needed new passports. We did that about a month or so ago, but if we hadn't have checked just to make sure, we would have realized at this point when it's really too late, that our passports weren't valid, which is not good. So we've done that. And yeah, things are getting exciting.
[00:01:12.300] - Taylor
Yeah. Insurance is all done. So now you need to get the dollars.
[00:01:16.760] - Gordon
Yes. We need to order some dollars. And if you don't know what we're talking about, go and watch last week's episode and that will tell you everything you need to know.
[00:01:25.070] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:01:25.680] - Gordon
Right. Do you want to start this week?
[00:01:27.830] - Taylor
Yeah, I'll start this week.
[00:01:29.787] - Gordon
Go for it.
[00:01:29.940] - Taylor
So just a small thing this week from me is, I found a bug, not one of the physical bugs or the ones that you see crawling across the kitchen, a software bug. So I had a problem with one of the software's that I use, and it's one of those things that you kind of go, "is this me just being stupid, or is this something that is not working how it's supposed to?" And it can be really annoying or tricky because you don't know which one it is until either someone else confirms that they've had the same issue, or you talk to their support and say, "this isn't working," and they will either confirm it's a bug or say, "no, actually this is what you're supposed to be doing," or it's just a limitation. It may not be a bug, it may just be a limitation of the software. And I was wanting to launch a new website, and the core functionality for it was, well part of the software for the core functionality had a bug in it. And I didn't know this and I was banging my head against the wall for quite a long time going, "is this me or? This should be working and this is how they explain it to work and how they explain it to be used." I just couldn't get it working. And after talking to the developers and explaining "this is what I've tried, this is what I'm trying to do." They go, "yeah, it's a bug. We're working on it." And I know the developer for the software. He actually sent me the beta to kind of test and say, "look, we've fixed it." And they had fixed it, well, they fixed one of the bugs, there was another bug. And again, I thought it was something I was doing. I tried different installs, different hostings to see is it's something like that, still had the same issue. And then they released the new version with one of the fixed bugs and one of them was still there. And then they released another small update of a hot fix and they'd fixed the other one, which was amazing. So it means now I can kind of finish that site and get that launched which should be really good. And yeah, I'll tell you more about that once I've launched it.
[00:03:45.650] - Gordon
That's great. So two things from that. One is we had our dog trying to help you with your description of the bug and how it was solved. The second thing is, finding a bug is actually a really time consuming thing because you assume it's you and not them. But if you do test after test after test and you're getting the same result and it's not the right result, it means that you're normally doing something that no one else has done before.
[00:04:16.000] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:04:16.380] - Gordon
Otherwise this bug would have been found before. So it's a really time consuming thing to do it. And it's really nice when you have a developer who is actually very responsive, comes back to you within a few days or maybe a week and says, "right, this is a fix. Go and have a look, see if it works." Because sometimes a fix could take months and months. And if you've planned on using this feature that you can't actually use until it's fixed, your whole project gets delayed and it's back to the time consuming thing again.
[00:04:56.360] - Taylor
And from a developer's perspective or company that builds software, finding bugs in regards to fixing them, again, can be a very very time consuming task and issue, because sometimes they're not global bugs, but they are bugs that only appear in certain browsers, certain machines or computers, certain hostings that you use, if we're talking about people using on their own websites, for example. And so there are tons of; or even plug-ins that people have on their website. And so there are tons and tons of things that could cause the issue. And you think, "okay, well, I need to try and track it down to what is the actual cause." And sometimes people have bugs that you just can't reproduce because of a certain thing; like I said, the type of computer, the type of browser, whatever it may be, especially if you've got a Mac only or a Windows only bug. If you don't have one of those platforms, it's very hard to actually test. A lot of the time when I get a Windows only bug, I have to ask friends and say, "can you check this on your computer?" Because I just don't own a Windows computer. And same for people that don't own Mac, I have people say, "can you check this on Safari," because obviously I have a Mac computer. And so things like that, again, can be very very time consuming, just trying to track down what the main culprit is and going, "okay, we've got two people that have suggested or told us about one bug. What are the similarities between them?" Sometimes they're very obscure to actually find what it is. Sometimes it could be a plug-in conflict. And that's, if you've got the same plug-in, that normally means that they've got the same because of that. Sometimes it could just be coincidence.
[00:06:45.270] - Gordon
Yeah, it is difficult, but it does help everyone in the long run because the developer gets the bugs fixed and the users don't come across the bug if they try and do the same thing.
[00:06:55.090] - Taylor
And then you've also got the other issue of fixing that bug, but then breaking something else that causes another bug. And so it goes on. It's annoying for everyone really.
[00:07:06.420] - Gordon
But it is life in the software world. So that is how things are. Interesting.
[00:07:11.900] - Taylor
So, yeah, that was my experience with a bug. And just the whole kind of, the journey of finding it. Having it fixed, partly.
[00:07:21.750] - Gordon
And being able to move on with your project.
[00:07:23.760] - Taylor
Exactly.
[00:07:23.760] - Gordon
Which is great. Fantastic. So my topic for this week is closing down your baby.
[00:07:33.510] - Taylor
You closed down a baby?
[00:07:35.670] - Gordon
Closing down a baby, yeah. So what do I mean by that? Well, if you've got something that's very close to your heart because it's maybe a passion project or something you've worked on for an enormous amount of time, something you believe in, and you find that it just doesn't work or people don't use it or it just sits there and nothing happens with it.
[00:08:02.480] - Taylor
It was a good idea, but sometimes the wrong time, wrong place.
[00:08:06.330] - Gordon
Then don't be afraid to shut it down. So the reason I say that is because it is going to be draining you in some way at some point. So it's either going to be draining you with time and effort to keep the website running. On this occasion we're talking about websites. It might cost you money to host it or to have it running. There might be other drains on your...
[00:08:38.280] - Taylor
Emotional.
[00:08:39.010] - Gordon
Emotional drain.
[00:08:41.610] - Taylor
Or mental. No, because if you think "I've got this website, I need to do something about it." It's going to mentally affect you because you're going to always have it on your mind going, "I need to sort that; I need to fix it; I need to get this working..." And things like that. It can just, in the back of your mind always just be there.
[00:08:58.350] - Gordon
Yeah, so it is emotionally draining as well, you're right. And so yes. It's not a bad thing to count your losses and move on. And this is something I've come to at the moment. This is something I've come across at the moment. I have a website that I really like.
[00:09:18.350] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:09:18.860] - Gordon
It's a nice website. It's something I built a while ago and it's been running quietly in the background. And it's a site that has content on it that I've created. There's about three video courses on there. And it sells magic online. And the way I've done that is I've linked it through to Amazon so that it can be used as an affiliate, and I've linked it through to some products that I sell myself. And over the last sort of 12/24 months it's sold nothing, nothing at all. And so it's not doing its job for me. It is taking a drain from me and it's time that I moved on. So the domain name came up for renewal, and I looked at it and I thought about it and I said, "I'll come back to that." And I came back to it and I thought about it some more and I came back to it again, and I eventually decided not to renew it. And that's a really difficult thing to do.
[00:10:31.330] - Taylor
Especially when you have people that hoard domains, they have the same exact thing. Do I renew it? I might want it in the future, just in case. Even if you are going to close it down, it doesn't make sense to renew it.
[00:10:45.320] - Gordon
But the other thing is, now that I have decided not to renew the domain, the domain name has now expired, which means at some point in the near future, maybe a week or two, the website will go down. And so what I need to do is to put it onto a sort of a holding domain just so that I can scavenge what I need from the site so that I can put it elsewhere, or at least have a copy of it so it's ready to be put elsewhere.
[00:11:18.520] - Taylor
Would it not be salvage, not scavenge?
[00:11:23.380] - Gordon
Scavenge is when I'm going to go looking into the site to see if there's anything there that's worth saving, basically. Whether that be video files, or graphics, or turns of phrases in text, that sort of content. I do have a backup of the site. It's automatically backed up, but it's backed up in a WordPress format so it's not easy to get the content that I need out if it happens to be text, for example, which is normally kept in the database. So that is a job that I need to do. It's a job I don't have time to do, currently, because I'm getting ready to go. So what I might try and do is save the site out as an HTML site. That way I'm going to save all of the text, all of the graphics. I'll have the backup of the WordPress site should I need to put it back online again to get something else. But then the time pressure isn't there for me as much as it would be if I just left it and came back to it and found that I couldn't access it anymore.
[00:12:34.990] - Taylor
One thing that I do like to do for things that maybe a fail in some regards, what have you learned? You will have gained at least something, whether that be learning something.
[00:12:47.080] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:12:47.390] - Taylor
From it. So what have you learned from it?
[00:12:48.830] - Gordon
I've learnt that, I decided this would be a good idea and I didn't test the market to see if anyone else thought it would be a good idea. So I just went ahead and did it. I put hundreds of hours into it, and nobody actually wanted to use it. I thought it might be something that people would find interesting and useful, and it wasn't. So even if you have a fantastic idea, there's two schools of thought here: one is that if you build it, people will come. Well, that's not always true, as this particular project proved. The more important lesson here is to find a gap in the market and fulfill that need. So what do I mean? I mean, have a look and see what is actually required and do that, because you know that there are customers for that. You know that there is a need for that. And it may not be the most exciting thing to begin with, but it might become the most exciting thing. But the more important thing is that because people will need it, they will hopefully start using it, providing you've done a good enough job. And you won't have to go looking for the customer because the customer is what you have found right at the beginning, before you even started, and that's a really important lesson.
[00:14:22.040] - Taylor
Yeah. Glad you took something positive away from it.
[00:14:25.420] - Gordon
Always. Always take something positive.
[00:14:28.090] - Taylor
But you found something positive.
[00:14:29.930] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:14:30.290] - Taylor
That's something I would say for everybody, is try and find something positive, even if it is a fail, because if you failed, you would have learnt something.
[00:14:39.550] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:14:39.550] - Taylor
You would have learnt something that you can take into the future for other business projects or whatever it may be.
[00:14:45.190] - Gordon
It's always good to be positive, except if it's in a lateral flow respect, then we don't want it to be positive.
[00:14:52.870] - Taylor
Depends if you want to stay at home and not have to work.
[00:14:54.750] - Gordon
Yes, but it's not nice because you could end up suffering, and we don't want anyone to suffer. So that's it from me.
[00:15:02.870] - Taylor
And me as well.
[00:15:03.990] - Gordon
Thank you very much for watching. As always, we can be found on Facebook and on YouTube. Please like, share, subscribe; give us a little thumbs up; click that little bell icon so that you'll be alerted when we have a new episode.
[00:15:18.260] - Taylor
Which script are you reading?
[00:15:19.530] - Gordon
I know, I've added to it.
[00:15:21.610] - Taylor
And you can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes and anything we may have spoken about in the past.
[00:15:28.890] - Gordon
So thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next week at 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:15:37.490] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:15:40.350] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:15:41.020] - Taylor
Bye.
