Today I was officially invited to attend the community Cabinet Official Luncheon held in the Fraser Room at the Hervey Bay Boat Club with the Hon Anna Bligh MP Premier of Queensland and the Cabinet.
Finger food and light refreshments were served as the guests mingled with the politicians asking questions of relevance and raising suggestions and issues of concerns within our area.
Anna seemed in high spirits and on the mend from her fall / recent injury. Anna was very articulated and interesting speaking confidently in front of the crowd.
Two local Police officers were presented medals of honour from Judy Spence Minister for Police, Corrective Services and Sport for their long service within the Queensland Police department and the local community.
The Premier presented Fraser Coast Regional Mayor Mr Mick Kruger with a cheque for 4.9 million from the government to go towards the proposed Waterpark. We were able to view the actual plans of the Waterpark that will be located at the end of Main Street next to the seafront oval.
The Mayor was also presented a beautiful photograph of the harbour area in Hervey Bay taken in 1973.
Nancy Bates editor of the Fraser Coast Chronicle was congratulated for her 20 years service to the area. The longest period a woman has been an editor in Australia.
Anna also personally autographed my official invite stating, “You go Girlfriend!”
I also met and shook hands with Mr Kerry Shine the Attorney-General and Justice and caught up with our local politicians Andrew McNamara MP, Chris Foley MP and Fraser Coast Mayor Mick Kruger.
Today we launched the website for local Discount variety store, Flash Harrys. The Flash Harrys website serves a number of purposes. It details the locations of their three stores, along with phone numbers, trading hours, and maps to find the store.
The Flash Harrys Website includes a online shopping cart, whether you’re after something for around the house, or a gift, the Flash Harrys online store offers a wide range of great items!
Click here to visit Flash Harrys, and check out the online store for some great discounts!
If you’re reading this, then you’re using a computer and I have a feeling, reading the Design House Blog is not the only thing you do on your computer. We all use our computers every day for all kinds of important tasks.
A couple of days ago I noticed a clunking noise coming from on of the servers. Naturally I wanted to investigate and get ride of the noise. I pulled the side off the server and took a closer look. As it sounded, it was a power supply fan failing. Lucky I invested in commercial grade power supplies, with redundant cooling fans running, so no damage would come of this. Never the less, it was time to swap over the power supplies and get the server back up asap.
Ironically, two months ago I performed maintenance on all three servers, and replaced power supplies in the other two servers, and didn’t think it was required to replace this one.
However, while I was down working on this server, and had the afternoon free, I decided to test out our disaster recovery plan and backup systems. I had other people using the other servers so it wasn’t a full test of our disaster recovery plan, but I still went ahead testing on the secondary mail server, database and web development server.
After restoring from one of the terabyte backup drives, I was fortunate enough to be able to successfully create and repopulate about 200 MySQL databases and load back up about 95 websites, and all of which operated fine.
Hopefully, all of us backup these days, with external Hard drives being so affordable, but how often do you test your backup is working?
You might plug your drive in every day and backup, but is it actually doing that? It may be having errors, partially copying things, all kinds of errors.
You need to be prepared, or have in place sufficient plans for when your computer dies and looses everything.
by Jeanette Maynes
A professional contact / business card can be successfully created by Design House tailored to your persona and local area.
Here we have captured Ted Sorensen’s professionalism and admired status within our community through the use of a professional portrait photograph, simple & clear details plus a dramatic local photograph. (courtesy of local photographer Judy Calvert)
The combination of these three techniques & mediums creates a sharp and powerful look for our respected former Mayor of Hervey Bay.
To preview other business card ideas please click here
Design House designed and developed the logo and website with the client to establish a professional and modern brand. The solicitors now have a sharp new form of advertising which allows potential clients to research their business, services and to make direct contact.
You can view their website and services by clicking here; lmlaw.com.au
This Year I travelled to Sydney for the largest annual ICT show in Australia, known as CeBit.
Now, what is CeBit you might say? Well I wasn’t all that sure either when I signed up, I knew it was IT based and really, that’s all I needed to justify a work trip. CeBit is primarily a trade show for CEOs, CTOs, IT managers and the like to come along and discover what is out there and how they can go back home and optimise to stay at the fore front of the technology arena .
CeBit accommodated for members of the IT industry, from those just starting out to the CTO (Cheif Technology Officers). There were small talks on things like how to utilise the power of Plesk or cPanel and how to maintain a Joomla website plus expert researchers explained what the new Government is trying to do with Broadband and what they need to do.
Apart from these free talks happening everywhere there were also conferences in a lot of web based industries, Web 2.0 in Small business, e-Marketing, SEO and things like DSL discussions plus hearing from Federal members on what they are doing with ICT in Australia.
There was so much new technology out there it was fascinating to learn of some of the products that are in the market and how some can help the smaller business streamline their IT and save money. VOIP seemed to be one of the strongest presences in the expo, along with Wireless transmitters and web hosting.
Speaking of hosting I was fortunate enough to meet the Design House dedicated server & domain name provider, AussieHQ Pty Ltd. I met and socialised with the CEO of the company, my account rep and other techs.
On Saturday Night I attended the Forget Me Not Orphanage Fundraising Ball at Kingfisher Bay Resort on Fraser Island. Design House Fraser Coast donated numerous hours design time to develop artwork including; event posters, tickets, invites and paper ads for the ball. What a sensational night; the atmosphere was electric, the food was delicious, the swing band was going off and the donations were enormous (40K+)! Fraser Coast Regional Council Mayor, Mr Mick Kruger and State MP for Burnett, Mr Rob Messenger were among the many illustrious guests.
Naomi Wood, Mick Kruger and Jeanette Maynes, photographed at the ball.
Congratulations to Rob Garland and Lynda for taking out the best dressed couple award at the ball from our “Jail House Rock” table.
“The Ball last Saturday, May 17th, altogether raised over $40,000 for the Forget Me Not Children’s Home! Enormous appreciation to all who attended and the many businesses and sponsors who contributed in a variety of ways. Huge thanks also to Deb Haigh who worked incredible hours for months as the Ball co-ordinator and to her hard-working planning group.”
There were a few tears in the crowd for what was a moving fundraiser for the orphanage; helping with the provision of shelter, education and most importantly, love to orphans in Nepal.
I’m positive every year will be even more successful with the can do team behind this event and orphanage!
I found this quite amusing, and as a Design Firm, we relate to this every day.
Everyone wants their website, logo and business card to look how they see it in their mind / head and as graphic and website designers - we decipher and transform those thoughts into powerful visual designs concepts.
You probably know that a website is one of the most cost effective and useful advertising tools a business can have. It’s something that is open 24/7 and lasts all year - unlike basically any other medium plus it can have as little or as much information as you want on it…. pretty much unlimited.
Once you have your website - how do people view it? There is definitely a market of people who are searching for the services or products online and would find your site if it is optimised for search engines or discovered through online ads such as Google Adsense. But there is most likely an even larger amount of people who still trawl through traditional mediums, such as the newspaper, billboards, flyer’s, radio and TV.
If you have a website, and employ additional marketing mediums for your business, you should always advertise your website. What you can’t say or do on your tv, radio or paper ad, you can more likely do on your website. You can sell your products in more detail, track visitors, complete online sales and more. If you have invested in a website you should definitely be taking your visitors through to it!
Your website has additional powers that no other marketing medium has…. you know who has actually looked at your site, in accuracy. You can also track how many people have visited your website from watching TV or reading the Newspaper, or hearing your ad on the radio. Your website can help you partition your marketing budget into what is working the best for you.
At Design House, we can help you use your website to its greatest advantage. We know all the tips and tricks of the trade, that can help you market your business more effectively.
I received a phone call from a client recently who had signed up for their website and was about to go somewhere else for some other print media, like business cards.
A lot of people don’t know that Design House can design and print everything you need! From business cards, letter heads, flyer’s, stubbie coolers, right up to car / shop signage and newspaper ads. We don’t only just create outstanding websites, we also design print and promotional media keeping the clients branding and theme the same throughout all mediums.
Welcome to the Design House Blog! A Blog is an online news delivery system, here you will be able to read what staff members at Design House are thinking about or what is going on at Design House!
by Jeanette Maynes
Corrective Services and Sport for their long service within the Queensland Police department and the local community.
of the Waterpark that will be located at the end of Main Street next to the seafront oval.
service to the area. The longest period a woman has been an editor in Australia.
Today we launched the website for local Discount variety store, 
This Year I travelled to Sydney for the largest annual ICT show in Australia, known as 
dressed couple award at the ball from our “Jail House Rock” table.
