[00:00:09.340] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:10.420] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:10.840] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:12.700] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:14.920] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected us as self employed business owners in the last seven days. And welcome back.
[00:00:27.490] - Taylor
Welcome back.
[00:00:28.150] - Gordon
It's been an interesting week, hasn't it? We started the week on Monday with, and I'm sure a lot of you will know this already, Facebook and...
[00:00:40.260] - Taylor
Instagram and WhatsApp.
[00:00:41.280] - Gordon
Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook Business all going offline.
[00:00:46.630] - Taylor
Wasn't just that, I found that I think it wasn't just Facebook or terms of their servers, because I had a couple of other client sites that went down that were, you know, out of my control and seemed to be related I believe.
[00:01:00.430] - Gordon
So, from what I understand, from Facebook making an announcement, somebody executed a command that was supposed to be for a diagnostic and the system shouldn't have allowed the command to be executed. And what it did is it took away their backbone, their Internet backbone, so they no longer had access to any of their servers. And, part of the cause, not the cause, part of the result of that is it took down their DNS servers as well, which meant that they no longer were able to access remotely their servers. And the reason it took about 5 hours to fix this issue is because they had to have people physically go down to the servers, which is not an easy thing to do because they've made it really difficult for anybody to get into their server farm, which makes sense.
[00:02:02.060] - Taylor
Yep.
[00:02:02.060] - Gordon
And then once you're in there, they've made it really difficult for you to actually do anything on any of the servers. They've made it really, really, really locked down. And so that caused an awful lot of problems. And as far as I understand, even Facebook couldn't access any of their internal tools to be able to help or even to the point where their key cards weren't opening doors in the building because they're all connected to the servers. So, you know, even the big companies can make big mistakes. And this has cost Facebook an awful lot of money. On the Monday when this all happened, I think it was 50 million, 50 billion? Let's say billion, was wiped off their shares because of this.
[00:02:55.540] - Taylor
Wow.
[00:02:55.540] - Gordon
Because of this one command that took Facebook and all the other services offline for about 5 hours. In the UK, it was sort of five o'clock-ish, just before five o'clock in the evening, which is sort of when a lot of people are sort of settling down for the evening and, you know, checking what their friends have been doing, having come back from a day at work. So, you know, it was the worst time for the UK. In America, different places had different times.
[00:03:27.410] - Taylor
About twelve o'clock.
[00:03:28.040] - Gordon
It was about, sort of, well it depends. So when we watch Apple things, that's ten o'clock in Pacific Standard Time, I think it is. So five o'clock would have been sort of 9 am for them.
[00:03:43.320] - Taylor
I've got my friends in the East Side are 5 hours behind.
[00:03:46.720] - Gordon
Okay.
[00:03:47.160] - Taylor
Between five and six hours.
[00:03:48.540] - Gordon
So it's different. But it would have been during the daytime for them, basically.
[00:03:51.580] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:03:52.280] - Gordon
Again, not ideal. You know, if this had happened at night, I don't think many people would have even known about it, but the fact that it happened at such a busy time just meant that it was such a big, big problem. And, you know, they've learnt from it. They're going to take it that they do a lot of sort of post meeting, working out what went wrong and fixing it so that it doesn't happen again. So, all a learning experience, it's just a very expensive mistake.
[00:04:26.340] - Taylor
It is indeed yes.
[00:04:26.340] - Gordon
I have a feeling someone may have lost their job. Do you think?
[00:04:30.700] - Taylor
Maybe.
[00:04:31.700] - Gordon
Yeah. Any news from you?
[00:04:33.040] - Taylor
There was some news earlier in the week about Twitch. A lot of, like a data breach, really. Where a lot of people's usernames, passwords, earnings. So Twitch partners and stuff, earnings were released, and just all round kind of just bad for Twitch really. Lots of stuff happening on Twitter.
[00:04:58.220] - Gordon
Not been a good week for tech really, has it?
[00:05:01.100] - Taylor
No, not really.
[00:05:02.040] - Gordon
No. And of course, if you have a data breach like that, then there are now fines in place. So you have to deal with it in a certain way. You have to let all your customers know. You have to offer them credit search facilities to see if there's any financial data that's been taken, so that people can check to see if their rating has been affected in any way. There's so many things that people have to do these days. So yeah, really bad week for tech.
[00:05:35.860] - Taylor
Yeah it is really.
[00:05:37.050] - Gordon
Yeah. How was your week for tech? Was it okay?
[00:05:41.110] - Taylor
Yeah. My week was good. I had a good week and yeah, got lots done.
[00:05:45.540] - Gordon
Funnily enough, my week was taken up with sort of the Drayson Design side, but the print side of it.
[00:05:52.140] - Taylor
Okay.
[00:05:52.710] - Gordon
So I was doing lots of print work, so finishing off designs and sending them to the printer. They're all at the printer. Actually, they're all coming to me. They're already in the shipping system. So they'll be with me very soon. So my customers will then be able to have all their lovely print.
[00:06:14.050] - Taylor
Sounds wonderful.
[00:06:15.160] - Gordon
Right. Let's get on to today's topics. Would you like to start?
[00:06:19.600] - Taylor
I don't mind.
[00:06:20.590] - Gordon
Okay, well, you can start then.
[00:06:23.520] - Taylor
Okay. So on a stream last week, I built, well started building a front end for our SodaStream spreadsheet. So if you're not aware, we have a spreadsheet where we track every time we use the SodaStream and also other things. So whenever someone fills up their SodaStream, or their soda bottle, they use a Siri shortcut that I created on their phone or on the computer, I've got one. And it says, what SodaStream syrup did you use? How many pushes?
[00:07:01.790] - Gordon
How many pushes of CO2 that is. They've got a little button on the top and you have a certain number presses depending on how fizzy you want it.
[00:07:09.120] - Taylor
That will then send a, with a web hook, send the data to Integromat, which then fills it into the spreadsheet on a new entry. And because I've done it per device. We've got it on my device, your device, my mum's device. It already has the name of the person and then it just logs the date as well that it was added.
[00:07:29.620] - Gordon
So, just before you carry on. I should explain that the reason we're doing this is not because we are, we think it's of any use to anything or anyone. I mean, we quite like it from a statistical point of view because we've got that sort of mind. The reason for doing it, though, is so that we can learn different techniques that we can then use in our work and it's on a project that doesn't really matter, you know, if it goes down and stops working, well you know, it's not the end of the world.
[00:07:59.510] - Taylor
It is only a spreadsheet at the moment.
[00:08:01.200] - Gordon
It's only a spreadsheet, and we can learn from things that happen so that when we do, you know, client work, we can put all of the things we've learnt into practise, and if there's any sort of things that we didn't know or expect were going to happen, we've learnt about that as well. That's reason for doing it okay.
[00:08:20.000] - Taylor
We also wanted to compare the costs. So we used to purchase, like twelve packs of cans of Coke and we wanted to compare to see is it cheaper in the long run, depending on...
[00:08:32.600] - Gordon
That's the claim.
[00:08:33.900] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:08:35.090] - Gordon
SodaStream have claimed it's cheaper. So we're putting that to the test and seeing how long it's going to take.
[00:08:39.240] - Taylor
Yeah. And we also have things like every time we use a new CO2 canister, each time we fill it up, and things like that. And so we can track every time we finish a bottle and start a new one. And what it allows us to do is just have some really interesting data and create some really nice graphs and see who's using it the most and stuff like that. And on Stream I started a front end for this, purely just to see what I could do. I found a website that allowed me to create a rest API that basically just gave me all of the data in a JSON format that I can then just query and pull into the vanilla site that I was creating, or page. And it got me thinking you know, is there a better way to be able to not only organise it and show it on the front end, but also a way to implement the system? So the way we have it at the moment is, whenever we use a new bottle, we have to go through a massive list of all of our inventory essentially, and find the next bottle of that flavour that we've replaced and put a tick next to it. It did automatically put the date in for when it's filled up, but it's not working. And that's because it uses a Google Sheets script. And I'm not fluent in that or don't understand it as much. And that was done by a friend of ours called Paul.
[00:10:08.520] - Gordon
Who's been on this show, actually.
[00:10:11.340] - Taylor
So I was thinking, is there a more robust way that allows me, I have the knowledge or a better knowledge of in terms of the scripts, but also a better way to handle it so that it's kind of more future proof. And so I was thinking, can I build a sort of app which has a nice dashboard.
[00:10:31.280] - Gordon
Web app.
[00:10:31.660] - Taylor
Yeah, a nice web app in WordPress, because that's what I'm kind of familiar with. And yeah, just make it so that it's easy to update; anyone could update it in the family. But also just a better user experience for us. Not that it will help us that much in terms of, or change you know, what the data outcome is, but in terms of inputting it, managing it and also just learning new skills on, you know, building apps. So something that I've been looking at recently is doing more development work. So I do a lot of Dev work for other companies and people. They basically hire me and say, "can you build this functionality?" Whether it be like an API integration that I did the other day with a form, to a CRM or, you know, whether it be building events functions so that, you know, you have the right data going to the right place. So it's kind of a way, can I build like an app style, within WordPress? So it's a challenge, because WordPress is conventionally a blog or a brochure site, although it's now a lot more than that. And it was just trying to test out my skills and see what's possible and you know, essentially, if I got something working and it worked well, I could potentially sell the packaged up site or app, and just sell it for a small fee that other people have a SodaStream would like to be able to have the same type of tracking and just, you know, in general just see how their usage is, they can just install it on a very basic hosting site they probably already have, and yeah, just use it for themselves for personal use.
[00:12:20.100] - Gordon
So now you've got this idea that you want to do this, what's the next step? And can people follow and watch you do it? Are you going to do it on Twitch?
[00:12:27.330] - Taylor
Yes. So I'll probably get a design sorted and kind of come up with a nice design that looks good. You know, get a couple of the dashboard pages done, any other information that needs to be kind of made, and then I'll probably stream it on Twitch. And yeah, you can follow along if you follow me on Twitch.
[00:12:46.610] - Gordon
Yeah. So if you didn't hear about that, I think it was the last episode, or the episode before?
[00:12:52.660] - Taylor
I think it was last episode.
[00:12:53.770] - Gordon
Okay. So that's episode 69. You can go and have a look at that episode, and there'll be a link in that, in the show notes to find Taylor's Twitch account. And then you can just follow him, and when he goes live, you'll be told.
[00:13:08.380] - Taylor
Yeah. I'm really enjoying streaming and also using WordPress because it's very unconventional in terms of people using it, or streaming with it. And I'm really curious, actually, just how far can I go with WordPress?
[00:13:23.700] - Gordon
And the nice thing about streaming is you can also talk to people who are watching, quite a few of whom are quite knowledgeable.
[00:13:30.060] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:13:30.060] - Gordon
And you can sort of ask questions, or sort of people can see things that maybe you've missed and just type it up. And it's a nice sort of semi collaborative way of working.
[00:13:42.270] - Taylor
Yeah exactly. They can give you ideas, you can get feedback and just in general, just having a chat like you having a chat with one on one with a friend, but one to many. It's a lot of fun. I really enjoy it. It's a nice way for me to practise my skills and just have a bit of fun.
[00:13:59.380] - Gordon
Perfect.
[00:14:00.700] - Taylor
So yeah, that will be next on my list, once I finish some of the other streaming projects I'm currently working on.
[00:14:06.500] - Gordon
Okay. Very good. So my topic this week is, we are on episode 70...70!
[00:14:16.080] - Taylor
Wow.
[00:14:16.080] - Gordon
Of This Week With. For those who've watched all 70, Congratulations! You deserve a prize. You're not going to get one from us, but you deserve one definitely, for sitting and watching them all or listening to them. But the little thumbnails that we have, we have two different thumbnails in fact. We have a YouTube thumbnail, which is a sort of a wide rectangle, and we have a podcast thumbnail, which is square.
[00:14:47.700] - Taylor
Or Artwork as they call it.
[00:14:49.190] - Gordon
Artwork, yeah exactly. And every time we have a new episode, the number on the episode on the graphic has to change. And so many, many episodes ago, about 40 episodes ago, I said that I was going to find a way to do it on Photoshop, and I found a way of doing it. And it's got to the point when I did 40, and number 70 is the last one I created graphics for.
[00:15:19.850] - Taylor
I remember you saying I'll only create, I'll only go up to 70 cause, you know, we might not be doing it still.
[00:15:24.380] - Gordon
We might not be doing it. And here we are still going really strong.
[00:15:28.000] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:15:28.580] - Gordon
Yeah. So it does mean that this episode is the last episode where I have pre-made graphics. So I need to now create graphics for the next 40. And that means I have to remind myself how to do it. Now, it's an interesting thing because Photoshop is primarily a graphics sort of tool. It's for creating and drawing and painting, but it does have other tools. It has 3D tools, for example, which I've never used, never needed to. But it also has variables which allow you to put in a placeholder. So it's a bit like mail merge. If you ever do that with Word or you know anything along those lines, Mailchimp, that sort of thing. You put in a little place holder and that place holder gets replaced by data in a CSV file, or a spreadsheet, or something like that. And you can have more than one place holder. We only actually need one because we just need the episode number, but the episode number needs to be one up from the previous one and increment by one each time. And so I need to go and remind myself how to do that. And I need to make sure I do it before next week. Now, if I remember rightly, I just need to have a CSV file, which is a 'Comma Separated' file with the numbers of... What?
[00:17:03.880] - Taylor
You said CSV file, Comma Separated...
[00:17:07.180] - Gordon
Yeah, I don't know what the V stands for.
[00:17:08.900] - Taylor
Value.
[00:17:09.460] - Gordon
Value is it?
[00:17:10.420] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:17:10.420] - Gordon
"Comma Separated Values,"
[00:17:12.300] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:17:12.300] - Gordon
I think there's an S, isn't it? Thank you, Taylor.
[00:17:14.970] - Taylor
You're welcome.
[00:17:14.970] - Gordon
Thank you for making sure that I got that right.
[00:17:20.260] - Taylor
Correcting.
[00:17:20.260] - Gordon
Yeah. So I think I just need a simple text file which has the numbers in on a new line for each one because I've only got one data source, or one data item for each of the graphics. And then in the graphic, I place the data, which I should already have; I should already have the graphics already pre-done. However, I just thought of something else, when we get to season three, which starts in January, the graphic will change colour.
[00:17:50.500] - Taylor
Yep.
[00:17:50.500] - Gordon
Because we have a different colour for each season. So therefore I need to work out what episodes we're going to have up to a particular point, and then change the colour and then do more going forward. So I need to make sure I do that as well. I'm glad I spoke about this today because it means that when I get round to doing it next week, that will remind me that I have these change of colours to sort out as well.
[00:18:19.500] - Taylor
One idea would be to screen record yourself doing it. And so then when you come back to it next time, you have a video that you can watch.
[00:18:27.600] - Gordon
Good plan. That's a very good plan. And I can keep a note and put it in Evernote or something like that so that when it comes around to doing more, I'll remember exactly what to do and I won't have to go and research it again. I don't think it's that difficult. I think it's just a matter of hooking up the graphic with the data source and saying, "export all of those images," and then when they've all been exported, there'll be one file for each episode.
[00:18:54.140] - Taylor
Hamsters running around trying to put their, put the new number on every single image.
[00:19:00.450] - Gordon
Yes, that's how Photoshop works, it has hamsters in wheels doing, how do the hamsters go?
[00:19:05.500] - Taylor
Like that.
[00:19:05.500] - Gordon
Okay. So, for those of you listening, definitely watch this episode just to see Taylor doing hamster in a wheel impression. But yeah, I think that's all I need to do. But then once I have the graphic to be able to upload them to the website, they need compressing. And for that, I'm using a software called "Pichi."
[00:19:25.220] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:19:25.580] - Gordon
I think that's how you pronounce it.
[00:19:26.780] - Taylor
I showed you that didn't I?
[00:19:27.590] - Gordon
You did. P-I-C-H-I. And that's again, a bulk compressor of graphics. So you basically grab as many graphics as you want; you drop them into the app; it then knows the size and the quality you want; and it will then just go through each individual graphic and export a version of it that's been compressed, ready to be used on the internet.
[00:19:51.290] - Taylor
It works really well. I use it for websites a lot. So I've got, you know, lots of images to upload or you can do it on single images as well. It's just really nice to compress, and you can, they've got quite a lot of presets. So if you've got a YouTube thumbnail, for example, or you've got a Facebook or Instagram image that needs to be done, you can compress it and it will choose the best settings.
[00:20:15.380] - Gordon
Yeah. So we'll put a link to Pichi in the show notes so that if that's something that you are interested in, you can go and download it yourself. This is a Mac version. I don't think they do a Windows version?
[00:20:31.270] - Taylor
No, it's Mac only.
[00:20:32.400] - Gordon
I think it's Mac only. So if you're on a Mac, you're in luck. If you're on Windows, I'm sure there's something out there that will do something very similar. And so yeah, wish me luck. If on episode 71, you see a graphic, it means I succeeded. Yay! Otherwise I'll still be struggling with it. So yes, that's my topic I do have, hopefully coming in the post before the next episode, a new tool. A new toy/tool. And I may talk about that next week, if it arrives in time.
[00:21:08.760] - Taylor
That sounds exciting. So definitely come back and watch us next week and you can see it. If not, still come back next week and watch.
[00:21:17.280] - Gordon
Yeah, I'm sure we'll have something interesting to say. Yeah. So, that's it from me.
[00:21:21.660] - Taylor
That's also it from me.
[00:21:23.020] - Gordon
So as always, thank you very much for joining us. Please like, share and subscribe. We're on YouTube and on Facebook.
[00:21:30.780] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes, transcriptions and anything else you want to find out.
[00:21:39.100] - Gordon
Yeah, that's it. So join us again next week at 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name's Gordon, I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:21:46.500] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:21:49.140] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:21:49.460] - Taylor
Bye.
