This Week with Taylor & Gordon

Busy performing for Christmas

New 3d printer delivered, which was better than my last delivery

Tracking information wasn’t great but the delivery was fine

44kg in weight – need to make sure I was in

Heavy even after packing taken off

Taylor helped me carry it upstairs and checked that it worked

Bambu H2C – 2 print heads and 7 nozzles

Scraper was the first print, followed by a poop chute (which was a great design)

Third print was an accessories box, which I am really...

Another new location – which do you prefer?

Discovering an empty room, since Taylor moved out

Best use of the new room

Upgraded guest room to a larger room and a double bed

Removed single bed and put up shelving to make a storage room

Solid surface needed for new 3D printer, along with places for filament

Visit to Ikea – asked Taylor to help in return for helping him

Lots of other house upgrades

Robovac and mop – new front door

Knock on effect...

Busy season – lots of projects to finish

The Budget was this week

Managing expectations – Yodel delivery company

Two different delivery times on two different days missed – not even attempted

They hung up on me when I called them

Web chat was as useful as a chocolate spanner

Knock on effect for expectations

Looking at if I am not setting correct expectations in my company

Amazon are very good at failed deliveries

In the future I will probably pay slightly more to choose...

Back at Gordon’s Home

New Bambu Lab 3d Printer

Talking about the H range of 3d printers

How to deal with filament purging

H2C introduced to combat this

Purge towers and induction heating

Duel heads, 6 swappable nozzles

Automatic Material System (AMS) requirements

Nozzle sizes

Pricing and features

Ordered TPU for the first time

Taylors first weeks living alone

New responsibilities, cooking, cleaning, washing, budgeting

Unexpected purchases

Saving goals

...

A week off due to Taylor moving into his first flat.

Taylor bought his own flat after a six-month process and had to purchase and assemble nearly all new furniture.

The move temporarily reduced Taylor’s work output as he prioritised making the flat livable.

Taylor is debating whether to keep his office space versus working from home, balancing cost and social benefits.

Working at the David Lloyd gym has become harder for deep work due to social distractions.

Living alone adds responsibilities like cooking, cleaning, and maintenance that br...

Most episode in this season so far?

Wispr Flow – speech transcription – https://wisprflow.ai

Easier to speak than to type – works better than Siri

Removes Ums and Ahhs, and is context aware

Smart by including people that have been mentioned (in Slack for example)

Apple Intelligence should be at this point by now, but isn’t

Microphone from the laptop doesn’t work when in clamshell mode, need an external mic

Elgato Wave Link – https://www.elgato.com/uk/en/s/wave-link

Wispr Flow has a f...

Putting Your Life on Hold

When other things happen

Shut down for a week long show

Resting for months at a time due to health issues

Income Protection and Critical Cover

Insurance for Income if you are unable to work

Cover for customers

We are able to take over each others customers if needed

Plan ahead if you know you have a break coming up

Plan ahead for unexpected breaks

Statamic CMS – built on Laravel

Scope of a...

Only Newcomer’s Award at the local magic club

3D printed plate stand for Taylor Squash Plate award

SEO and the changes that are happening

A brief history of how SEO has worked in the past

Search engine results are now showing an AI summary first in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages)

Learning how to optimise for the AI is something to learn right now

Jump ahead of your competitors

Indexing all the content on your website and used as an answer in the AI...

Origins of our podcast

Home Assistant – https://www.home-assistant.io/

Using recent experience to make the experience better

Creating a universal notification hub

Using ChatGPT to create automations

Creating a list of entities for use with AI

AI can then use the correct entities in scripts and automations

Creating another list so AI can suggest automations

Creating a list and alerts to let me know when batteries need changing or recharging

Short term gratification is what everyone wants when they first st...

Project design signed off after lots of work

Revisiting – organising and hosting our local community day

QR code would show them a live schedule, which could be changed on the day

Software that powers it has changed since last year and isn’t as user-friendly as it could be

Previously used https://Frontly.ai

Revisit software you don’t use very often and see what has changed and added

Update apps on your computer, especially ones you don’t use very often

Updating apps as a develo...

Perspective

Training plan at the gym – restarting

Giving yourself a forfeit if you fail

Give yourself a motivation

“I only have an hour and a half”, or “I have an hour and a half”

Looking at the situation with a different perspective

Forfeit instead of reward

The monetary amount of the forfeit is all relative

Updating Software

iPhone OS updates are likely to work with all apps that are current

Backup first

Have enough free space on your devic...

Another week has passed

Stingers – after credits on a film

Wednesday night cinema trip

Automating the timings for leaving, travel, time to eat and then time to enter the screen to miss the adverts

Bonus extra content during and after credits – https://aftercredits.com

No API available but it does run on WordPress

That means there is a REST API

The request returns the information and that is then added to the automation calendar content so we know whether to wait at the end of the...

Essentialism – The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Stop saying yes to please people

Setting core values to allow you to make decisions

Do you have the bandwidth to do things?

Declutter projects

Delete projects, no archiving

Saying yes to help people

Doing things you want, and enjoy doing

Family and Friends are possible exceptions

If you say no, then offer some alternatives – someone else for example

Admin – a tedious and boring job

Not the things you got into busine...

Back from holidays

Renovating my Gordon’s Magic box of tricks

Jezo Bond took on the project, vinyl graphics printed by Rob Gaffney

Went to see Jezo perform at a holiday park in front of a real audience

Can be a difficult audience, need to grab their attention

When collecting, the box was amazing

Brand new rubber wheels, with locks on the back ones

Painted, sanded, painted and repeat

Felt fabled on the inside of the box as well as on the top

Last episode before holiday

How Gordon research’s

Look at what I use a product for and what I want to use one for in the lifetime of a future upgraded version

What is the product capable of, what do competitors versions have, what features are the most important to me.

Mid range is normally a good place to start

YouTube is a great way to research, brands and models

Reviews are also useful from people you trust

Learning everything you can about your new pr...

Voicepal (phone app) – Ghostwriter in your pocket

Helps to rid yourself of writers block

Transcribes your verbal thoughts and then asks questions using AI

Learns from examples of your writing style

How strict or free do you want it to be

Creating blog posts to your website is great for the search engines

Getting ideas down and in a usable form

Making the most of downtime

Banners replaced recently

Box needs to be refurbished

Sanded down, filled and then pa...

Planting seeds in the minds of your customers

Busy week performing as it is the end of the school year

Moved from December to Summer over the last few years

Sowing the seed for another show next year – pointing out the positives

Performing at one child’s birthday, 4 years running

Making a suggestion of what we could do next year that is different and exciting

Making sure the last day of term is a good one

Not a hard sell, but a seed they can thin...

Visiting Jake Woods in Ireland

Main platform is WordPress, but also a little bit of Shopify

WordPress is open source and easier to work with

Which is better – depends on what you are selling

Shopify allows only 3 variants of a product

Started in Hospitality, but saw the possibilities of the Internet

Self Taught – and built a simple website which got some attention

Moved into marketing and found WordPress

Worked for an agency and then went self employed

Taking the leap of fait...

Taking Time Off

Watching F1 at Silverstone

Laptop hardly got used, no work was done

First time podium for Hülkenberg

Great infrastructure for getting people in and out

Systems in place for emergencies

Feeding huge numbers of people

Celebrities attended including YouTuber Colin Furze

Staying Curious

New 3D Printer – Bambu X1C

Improvements in technology, speed, software, materials, accuracy

Connect 4 – with spirals that auto-separate themselves

Replacing a prop that has got really tatty for a tri...

New 3D printer accessories arrived

Printing infill patterns

Tidying Up Loose Ends – last 20% of a project takes 80% of the time

New systems in place to track and complete projects

Checklists to make sure everything is done

New workflow with new projects

Brand Image update

Changed from Magical Entertainment to Gordon’s Party Piece to Gordon’s Magic

Changing to new flyers is a slow process when you have 10k printed

Updating flyers, stickers, banners, videos etc. is difficult in a short period...

A very expensive week

New roller banners – replacing with good quality ones

New bunny hutch to replace one that is nearly falling to bits

New MacBook Pro M4 – rewarding himself for working hard

Raycast – https://www.raycast.com/ – your shortcut to everything

A really useful application for finding things and information quickly

Adding your own modules that pull information from anywhere

Installing apps on a fresh install of MacOS instead of migrating

Run both computers for a couple of weeks to make sure you have...

WordCamp Europe 2025

Showing off WP Extended

Putting faces to names from forums

Mini celebrity in a small niche

Talking to vendors

Site Mait – WordPress AI Voice Agent – https://sitemait.com/

WP Umbrella – manage multiple websites themes, plugins and so much more – https://wp-umbrella.com/

Integration with Patch Stack – https://patchstack.com/

Drunk nerdy people

The Admin Bar – https://theadminbar.com/

Building up the group of friends – thank you to all those we met

Next year is on June 4-6th Jun...

Our episode recorded in Basel, Switzerland (no mic so sound is not as good)

WordCamp EU 2025 – largest of the WordCamps in the world

Networking and meeting up with friends

WP Entended – https://wpextended.io/

Functionality that should be in core – No conflicts between modules

Free and Pro versions available

Conventions are really tiring, but you do so much in that time

Visited The Dreiländereck monument, standing at the exact point where Switzerland, France and Germany meet

Worked out the public transpor...

Bank Holiday Weekend setting up Home Assistant Automations

Lights on and off in office

Playing Apple TV will dim the lights and turn them back up on pause

Wordcamp Europe 2025 – Basel, Switzerland – https://europe.wordcamp.org/2025/

Talks, workshops, networking, looking around Basal and the Alps

Might pre-record an episode next week at Wordcamp

Looking forward to talks and seeing how people use WordPress

Talking to developers of plugins and themes

Lots of drama in the WordPress world in the last year

Let...

Home Assistant – Home Automation

Discussion on Home Assistant and its relevance for Taylor’s flat

Purchasing and setting up the Home Assistant Yellow

Details about the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5

Experience with the component issue and customer service from Pi Hut – http://thepihut.com

Cost analysis of setting up the Home Assistant system

Hardware and software setup for Home Assistant

Comparison between Home Assistant Yellow and Green

Exploring Home Assistant’s local privacy-first voice assistance

Integration of Home Assistant with existing smart ho...

Trix – Children’s Entertainer Convention

Meeting and networking with other professionals

I was in Stoke on Trent from Sunday through to Wednesday

Seeing people you only see once a year – stopping and chatting

Lectures, Talks and Shops

Chatting is what I find the most useful and interesting – Brainstorming

4 hour drive each way plus late nights and early mornings means very little sleep

Uploaded a new FACE the Podcast episode for people to listen to on their way to the convention

Wordcamp Europe – https://europe.wor...

Gordon performed in a VE Day performance at The Magic Circle this week

Wordsearch Game Creation

Generate a wordsearch that is customised with certain words like a birthday childs name

AI Code Creation using an app called Cursor – http://cursor.com

WordPress Local, creates a local install of WordPress so you can built quickly without needing the internet – https://localwp.com

Edit code locally and the refresh the page to instantly see the changes

The AI will accept prompts to build software

You don’t need t...

Frustrating Things…

Very annoying especially when you have no control

Waiting for a new battery pack for devices like my phone

Found it cheaper elsewhere after the order so cancelled the order and re-ordered

Lost in the post TWICE

Royal Mail appears to have been the culprit by losing or not tracking the packages correctly

I ended up having to do about 6 hours worth of calls, emails and investigation to find out what has happened

Plan for things that might go wrong, outside of your co...

5 year anniversary for This Week With

News: The chatbot on the website will now show you which episode content is in.

Expense Tracking – looking to move out and getting finances sorted

Subscriptions that get forgotten

Figuring out existing subscriptions and new subscriptions / monthly expenses that are coming soon

Annual payments, like TV License, add them up, divide by 12 and save monthly in a separate account, the money will be waiting for you when you need to pay the lump sum

Finding the best way to collate the fi...

Special Guests: Marc P Summers & Leo Summers

Travel with family

Tracking flights with Jet Lovers app

Training Leo to find his way around an airport

Maths – using numbers for anything you want

Fibonacci as a middle name

No limit to Maths

Problem solving is the fun part

The Hedgehog Principal – https://worldofwork.io/2019/07/the-hedgehog-concept/

Anything other than operators Leo enjoys

Maths problem live on the podcast

Fibonacci is found everywhere in nature

First 5 numbers of the...

EPISODE 200

Special Guests – Marc P Summers and Caroline Ainslie

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for a second time at the age of 64 in January 2026

Looking for more people to join Caroline’s team

Using your skills to achieve success

20th anniversary of Bubbly Maths

Oldest person to climb Kilimanjaro was 89

Success mentality – Aiming to climb for her 90th

Fundraising for Alzheimer’s and there will be a mathematical resource available

If you think you can, or you think you can’t – you are going to be...

Special Episode leading up to our 200th episode next week

We have guests, Marc P Summers, Automated Marketing Agency and Caroline Ainslie, Bubbly Maths

AI in Business – The Portrait Agency – looking for high value customers using AI to check an estimate of their home address house value

Then checks with AI to see what position they hold in a business on Linkedin if possible

Using info as a guideline

If they can’t afford it then you can use AI to create a canvas printed image

Automate as muc...

Embracing the Unusual

Magic Show and Magic Workshop

Surprise Birthday Party – he was blindfolded

Working with another entertainer

Also a party in a marquee in a scouting field

1.5 hours straight with no break

Used my EcoFlow power for sound and electrics – Use link for 10% off – https://www.ecoflow.com/uk/referral-rewards?inviteCode=ALLJXEKDBP

If you think you can do the unusual to a high standard, then go do it

Adding a new format to my parties makes me more bookable

Taking Time f...

Next Steps when hitting a brick wall

Stepping away to think about things

Or breaking down the problem into smaller chunks

Projects taking longer than they should because you have to think and decide on the way forward

Making notes about processes that you don’t do very often

Keeping in contact with customers

Difficult when there is no progress to see

Under Promise and Over Deliver

Souvenirs instead of rubbish

Signed Playing Cards – making an experience unique

Taking out...

UI Design – Building a booking system

Adding in travel time as a buffer

Making it easy for customers to see what is available

Making it into a plugin to make it easy to maintain

Having the power to say No…

Not capacity at the moment, so I have to say no

Kyle Van Deusen – The Admin Bar Newsletter – https://theadminbar.com/friday-chaser/

Answering the statement “Oh, thats expensive”

Natural reaction is to justify it or bring the price down

Agreeing with the customer...

Trouble waking up with an alarm…

Habit of turning the alarm off with your voice without realising

Alarmy App – challenges to solve before the alarm will turn off

Scan a barcode, take 20 steps, submit a photo, memorise the pattern of dots etc.

Another alert a few minutes later – making sure you are actually up

Finding things to be productive when awake

Heading to Blackpool for a magic convention

Largest industry convention in the world

Keep up with trends

If you get a few...

Deepseek has been causing waves – https://www.deepseek.com/

Self Assessment Tax Submission

Digital Tax – talked about for many years, not implemented yet

Pro’s and Con’s to the new system

Making sure you get your accounts in early

You need time to save for the payment, so submitting it early is in your best interest

Submitting in August-October

Save 25% of all income in a Tax Bill account

Two things in life are certain – Taxes and Death

Every other year is submitt...

Splitting up projects into manageable tasks – quite time consuming to do

Action Hub – a web app designed to do this automatically

Paste specs and notes and return in JSON format the various tasks which are then added to Motion via the API

Ability to set time and bulk edit as required before exporting to the project manager

Using tool – https://bolt.new/

Uses AI to build a native web app with the UI you specify which can then be moved to your own hosting

Work with React, NextJS...

Busy week with Pantomime. Robin Hood – https://www.sdclub.org.uk

Filming the pantomime

Two cameras – fixed wide shot and a close up

Technical issues on the first night of recording

Two groups of children on alternate nights so the footage was very important

Master and then second video with other groups performances

Setting it up and then passing over to an operator

Do everything you can and manage when things go wrong after that

Oura Ring feedback after a couple of weeks

New Season – Season 6 started last week

New colour – Yellow, for this season.

All graphics for the podcasts, vidcasts and website have been updated with the new colour

Manage Your Focus – creating tasks that need to be done

Getting work, writing a project list, create the tasks and then do them

Context switching – and cutting it down as much as possible

Book – How To Be a Productivity Ninja – https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Productivity-Ninja-2019-UPDATED/dp/1785784617/

Wear one “hat” at a time – working in sprints

Breaking big tas...

Happy New Year

New Season, New Colour

Formula 1 Exhibition and Guys and Dolls

Oura Ring – https://ouraring.com/

Track heart rate, Activity, Sleep and more

Tracking while watch is charging

API available for personal website content

75 Day Challenge update

New Years Resolutions !!

Finish personal projects that have been started

More reading this year

Making time…

Other Podcast – Face The Podcast – editing and releasing

Elevate status to that of an expert – and use this for market...

Our seasonal video to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com
The Creative Tinker Website – https://www.thecreativetinker.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook
Youtube: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/youtube

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

This Week With – Season 5, going on Season 6

Reflection on last 5 years

Why we started This Week With

Keeping a record of what has happened

Transcription and languages

If you get anything from our episodes, let us know

New Highlight Colour – leave a comment with your suggestions

Thank you to Taylor for collaborating

Taylor’s Week

Squash Tournament winner x2

Upgraded from Co-Working to Fixed Desk due to a new cafe being built

Secure room so keyboard, mouse and mo...

Subscriptions

Meal Prep to eat healthier

Sent to you once a week on a Sunday

Using subscriptions to save you time or do a job you don’t enjoy

Car cleaned once a month

Audit subscriptions every now and then – check you still need or want them

December is quieter this year than it was a few years ago

School bookings have moved to end of school year

Big company parties aren’t really happening as much these days

A show on a w...

Winter has definately arrived

Christmas Cards – branded for The Creative Tinker – sending them to clients

Keep the company in the minds of the clients

Quite expensive to do – but a nice thing to do

Cost of postage is huge at the moment

Sending them through a service to make it easier to do

Top clients got lumpy mail a while back

75 Day Challenge update

Sad news – one of my bunny rabbits passed away this week

Decided to get two bunnies a long tim...

Back again after a week off

Final Cut Pro update v11

Accounting – a necessary evil

HMRC bringing everyone in line to the tax year

Digital tax due soon – submitting tax every three months?

It is really difficult and not clear – I had two, two hour calls to HMRC to find out where my figures needed to go

Setting aside money to pay my tax bill monthly

Bank statement is my balance sheet

It will affect all self employed people, to different degrees

The...

FACE The Podcast – for Family and Children’s Entertainers

Round Table works really well

Asked the question “What is the best thing about conventions”

Chatting with like minded people was the biggest answer

Talking to other business owners, who are not your competition is very beneficial

Bounce ideas off them, get inspiration, how to deal with situations

Website Meet Up – https://www.meetup.com/

Find a way to chat with a group on a regular basis

Not Giving Up – sleeping through the alarm

75 Day...

Big week for Apple Announcements

Three in total – first was iMac with M4 chip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaB7nCdId0Y

Next was Mac mini M4 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtFm9n3NVzE

Then last there was the new MacBook Pro with M4 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0cmfY7qdmY

New minimum memory of 16GB on all these new machine

iOS 18.1 and Mac OS 15.1 (along with other updates) released on Monday to give you the first installment of Apple Intelligence (which so far is reall...

75 Day Challenge

Slightly modified to suit Taylor

If you miss an activity or a day then you start over

Physical and Mental Discipline

Not about getting fit, but more about making yourself better

We will come back to this and see how Taylor did

Setting yourself a challenge will always improve you

Use things that you have…

Filming in portrait for publicity on certain social media channels

Using filming equipment that I have, to their full potential

Using my Os...

Busy week as always – drama teaching, migrating sites to xcloud.host, clearing emails

UPS using difficult to get to shops as a hub if you are not in

Trying something new…

Mango Tango – something new

Food for the dog – cutting the food into quarters from factory

Getting feedback on whether your customers like it

Research and try new things / product variations and see if they work better or not

Iterating Processes

Adding things into the starter site if it is needed more than once

Making Notes to remember what was spoken about

Write out action points

Legal reasons

Make sure they make sense when going back in a few months time

Making notes when you think of them

Expanding on the notes while you remember the details

Using Apple Watch Voice Memo for this

Record call and transcribe with Apple Intelligence

Trigger reminders to write them up

MacWhisper for transcribing on device – https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper

ChatGPT voice chats

Ch...

iPhone 16 Pro arrived safely

Protecting Your Investment

Buying a bag for Ecoflow River 2 Pro to prevent damage

Looking after equipment to prolong their usefulness

2 year old iPhone was pretty much spotless

Padded camera bags

Not lending cables to people

Putting things in pouches when travelling

Good quality bags – they are not all made well

Peak Design bags are great – https://uk.peakdesign.com/

Lifetime Product Warranty: If any part of your Peak Design product becomes non-functioning or defective, we will...

Gordon went on holiday

WordPress drama

AI Moving forward

Appsumo – https://www.appsumo.com

Pismo – https://pismo.ai/

Similar but different to Apple Intelligence which is built into the Apple product OS’s

Pismo – Desktop app to select text in any application and perform AI functions with it

For example, translate, improve writing, fix spelling and grammar issues, shorten, summarise, set friendly or professional tone etc.

You can also add your own prompts, which is the big difference

IKI – https://iki.ai

...

iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence information, new watches and AirPods

Exploring Your Industry

Showing starter sites to other professional

We all live in our own bubble, not knowing much about what’s outside of it

Other people using different tools and plugins that we don’t know about

This is what makes the industry exciting and interesting

Finding new communities

Different workflows for different people

List of AI tools

A New Job for Gordon

In addition to the jobs Gordon alre...

Audacity update – https://www.audacityteam.org/

Word of Mouth advertising

Best form of advertising for Gordon

People like to recommend you if you do a good job

40th birthday party – led to a children’s summer school show 3 days later, booked on the morning of the show

Website Design recommendations

People trust their friends

Recommendation between companies for business

Reinforcing the good decision

Can you get Word of Mouth referrals work for you?

Workflow Templates – pre-defined template

Lists of...

Comparing Products

Missing a feature that Taylor wanted in his email client

Ranking Mail apps with pro’s and con’s

Action, Waiting and Read Folders, to get down to inbox zero

Using Actionscripts

Mailbutler as an add-on

Canary or Spark are the alternatives

Snooze emails to hide them

Apple iPhone event is September 9th

Mac OS may be released at the same time as the iPhone

Contacting people for the last quarter – seasonal outreach

Missing the best t...

Business Focus – finding out what you enjoy doing

Taking off Graphic Design as a service which Taylor didn’t enjoy doing

Adding services means you could possibly become a business that doesn’t specialise

Downside is if your niche goes away or has a problem you can have no business

Look at different scenarios to make sure you have plans in place

Niching down can be a particular service or a type of business

Take on the work you want to do

Managing your resources

...

AI Updates

ChatGPT and Midjourney were the kings

Claude, Gemini and Flex and up and coming and over-taking ChatGPT

Chatbase.co chatbot on the website

Moved over to Claude

Check it out by clicking on the chatbot on the bottom right of the website

Search will find content, but won’t summarise like AI will

Getting ideas from GPT

Keeping up with AI is difficult as it is moving so fast

Framing Questions to your clients

A really clever wa...

Out of sync issue with last weeks episode

Powerpack – portable battery

My lead acid battery not working correctly

Previously bought from Halfords, who no longer stock these devices

Replacing the battery was an option, but they are also no longer made

Working out the requirements – take your devices and see what wattage they require, then multiple the totals by the number of hour you need  and that is the Wh you will require.

Ecoflow – sign up for a 10% discount – https://www.ecoflow.com/uk/referral-rewards?inviteCode=APOM2NQY

Strange week for weather

New version of WPExtended.io released

Making space for 60 bags of salt

Finding things that I knew I had but didn’t know where they were

Selling Photography – set up a website using WooCommerce

Bulk import using a csv file (which ChatGPT helped create)

Set up a deal, so that for every 4 photos you buy, the cheapest is free

Then added in Digital copies as an option after requests from customers

Anyone who bought prints got the digital versions as w...

Qualatex Balloons are no more

Parent company have gone bust

No more twisting balloons which will affect entertainers and balloon decorators

Buying in bulk while they are still available

Rubber and latex do deteriorate over time

Looking for a new manufacturer

Thicker latex, can I blow them up by mouth?

A part of my live show involves balloon twisting, and inflating by mouth

Do you have any supplies that you would be in trouble if they went bust?

Have a look...

Strange weather this week

WP Extended – wpextended.io

Taylor is now part of the team behind the plugin, along with Dan Barrett and Sumit Singh

Lots of modules – duplicating posts, re-order posts, SMTP, blocking admin user names, admin customiser and so on

Free and pro versions available

Watch Kyle and Jonathan go through the plugin and discuss it –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72I2rlS1Pk

Maintaining your Equipment

Annual use of certain equipment – Portable battery to power amplification

They nee...

Long weekend taking photos

Tech Rehearsal, then portrait photos, next group and so on

Then I took photos during the show

Then everything started all over for the next show.

3 shows on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday

Then a week of editing over 2000 photos – cropping and colour balancing

Workflow for editing included adding custom actions to save time before specific edits

Photos came out great

Added them in bulk into a WordPress website using WooCommerce, thanks to Taylor

Watermarked, small si...

New workplace – feels like more is getting done, but food bills have gone up!

Daily Standup – tell others what you did yesterday and what you plan to do today

Finding a friend if you are self-employed

Making a tick list between the two of you and tick them off as the day goes on

Good way to keep up daily accountability

Bigger companies do this, but big groups can be quite boring

Friend of the podcast Marc Summers had a system where employees posted to Slack what they...

Splitting up your environments

Work, exercise and relaxing places

Difficult to get things done when the location isn’t conducive

Co-Working office nearby – trialing for 6 months

Gym, Office and then relaxing at home

Look after your best customers

80/20 rule

80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers

Deal with requests from the 20% as quickly as you can

Repeat booking for birthday parties

Make your customer raving fans

Sending a gift to someone who gave you referrals

Ma...

No episode last week as we were away

Wordcamp Europe 2024

A conference for WordPress users, developers, etc.

This year was in Turin, Italy

Contributors day – around 700 people working on making WordPress better

Themes, new pattern, and accessibility checking, design inspiration

First day, opening remarks, open source talk, workshops

Replays available (see if you can see us in the audience):

Talking to sponsors

Lots of swag available

Spending time with other professionals wa...

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Going to the gym means it’s going to be a good day

Routine will be affected when away

Taking gym stuff and using a local gym when away

Wordcamp 2024 – Turin, Italy

Meeting people I know for the first time

Keynote at the end of the event possibly

Exhibition floor will be interesting

Meeting up with the WP Manage Ninja team – https://wpmanageninja.com/

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson...

Outside help for your own business

Personal projects designs (Thank you Jake)

No budget put aside, or time to do certain things

Objective viewpoint – plus it will get done as it’s customer work for the outside help

Investment in your business

Collaboration works really well

Talking through magic acts and web design with outside help

New personal website coming soon, as well as a customer website – watch this space

Your Workspace

Office is important for a home business

Clear...

Children’s Entertainer’s Convention in Stoke on Trent

Alarms that didn’t go off, phone and Alexa

Lost confidence – re-evaluate the process

Phones with no battery charge will also not go off…

Check to make sure your systems are working

Check backups, make sure they are working

Fail to plan, or plan to fail

Alton Towers on a day off (very wet day)

Better understanding of people of days out

Out of office processes

The business still needs to run eve...

Hi to Luke from Japan

Chat GPT-4o has been released – https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/

Responds to video and photos as well as audio chat

It will chat to you in a very realistic and nateral way

Lots of video examples on the link – like AI talking to AI

Interacting with the world around it

4o is faster, cheaper and give better responses

Will Apple announce AI functionality for their devices at WWDC – https://developer.apple.com/wwdc24/

Downloadable ChatGPT app for th...

New version of GenerateBlocks – Classes system added

New Starter Site build needed

Creating default pages, and setting up default styles

Much easier to build new websites once this is complete

Great to prevent “missing” things like a 404 page

Get professionals to do the job

Time consuming when creating but will save time in the future

Always check to see if there are better ways of doing things

Talking to your customers in language they will understand

Don’t use jargon to people w...

Facebook end groups API access

This allowed us to post our videos automatically on our Facebook Group using Restream – and now we need a workaround.

We now have to create a Facebook event, which gives us a streaming key which we can then use in Restream

It does allow us to embed our live videos on our website should we wish to do so

Stream issues last week with the Facebook Group workaround – missed the beginning of the video

Frontly.ai – No Code website builder – all content comes from Google S...

Visit to Budapest – the end of 12 Months of Coffee

The Starbucks mug collection is still growing

Future Planning – creating a new starter site

Generate Blocks now has classes

The starter site needs to be flexible for different types of websites and tech stacks

Lots of work to create – but it’s a one off task with ongoing tweaks

It’s very individual, but could be used as a basis for others

Does this apply to you with any repetitive tasks

Documenting is really useful

Time Management

Set Daily Goals / Todo lists

Work expands to fit the time available

Set your own deadlines  so tasks don’t drag on

Use your time wisely

Do the things that are important first

Make sure to have down time

Prioritise your tasks

Decide what you are doing tomorrow, this evening

Give jobs to busy people

Scheduling

Getting ready for the next day, the night before

Set yourself up to succeed

Your ene...

No Such Thing as a Fish – great podcast – check it out – https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/

3D Printing – printing objects

PLA+ is our choice of material

Adhesion had been a problem in the past

Slower first layer and a higher temp fixed it

Remote holder – designed and printed

Very useful for creating replacement parts, and useful objects

AirTag holder – Toothpaste holder

Making gifts and presents for customers

Artillery Sidewinder – https://www.artillery3d.com/

Data Visualisation

Display flight arcs on a map<...

Clocks went forward – we lost an hour.

Day off on Sunday at Thorpe Park

WordPress 6.5 released

Updating is normally a good plan – however you need to be aware that things can break with updates

Make sure you have time set aside “just in case”

I had a few issues that needed fixing and it took a whole day to do so

Add website monitors to both front end and back end so you know immediately when things break

Check your sites on a regular basis – make sure...

Mobbin – https://mobbin.com/

Screenshots for each step taken on websites and apps

Thousands of screenshots available – paid plan required.

See how companies are designing and take inspiration from them

How are visitors being trained by other websites?

Using Professionals to do jobs that you don’t have the skills for

Their experience is worth paying for rather than doing it badly yourself

It could work out more expensive by time or money by not using a professional

Asking yourself questions – Do I have the...

Travelling for 12 Months of Coffee, this time in Lisbon, Portugal

You Are Here, Starbucks Mug collection

Dashcam thoughts – Protect your assets, my car in this case

Wolfbox G900, Rearview mirror replacement – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GErdXMITK6c

Touchscreen, SD recording, Front and Rear camera

Recording while parked as well

Making sure other people don’t affect my business

A clean car in good condition, looks good when you turn up at customers venues

Coat-hangers !!!

Consistency matters

You know w...

We have both been away, but we are now back…

Trip to Las Vegas, helping on a booth, then went to Texas to spend time with a friend

Trip to Blackpool Magic Convention – 4,500 magicians take over the whole of Blackpool

Hotels and B&B’s everywhere you look

Industry event – talking with other professionals, learning and watching them

Mac King’s full Las Vegas show – https://www.mackingshow.com/

Fantastic comedy show – catch it next time you are in Las Vegas

Cube Off when Taylor was younger Duration: 00:19:21

Restream – https://restream.io/

Stream a video signal to more than one platform at the same time

YouTube and Facebook Group for example

Other platforms that are available include X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, Amazon Live

Downside is that it takes a short period to connect to the platforms and you lose the first few seconds

You can embed a stream on your website before going live using the studio option

Schedule Live Streams and also recorded videos

Stream feed can come from OBS – https://obsp...

Chrome Incognito Mode isn’t secret – https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/01/18/new-google-chrome-update-warning-for-windows-iphone-and-android/

Trip to Barcelona for January

Beautiful City – added to Starbucks Mug collection

Google calendar Integration has been done – working on this for a friend for a while

Issues with Authentication with Google

Solution to allow the website visitor to see dynamic availability for making a booking – had to take into account travel time, setting up time, packing time, a buffer time, and traffic!

Looking at adding in Apple Calendar to this solution, but it’s not easy d...

It’s been cold !!!!

Finishing off the Panto Video Editing – Issues with video capture

2024 Goals

Life Slots – imaginary slots that you fill with things from your life

Prevents you starting new things without finishing previous things

Once the slots are full you then have to make space before adding something new

Different Slots – Business, Health, Personal

Tracking and measuring using “Notion”

Using 90% completion is a success for that month

Raspberry Pi – tiny little computer board

Loads of accessories available

Retropie...

Full On Pantomime this week – Dick Whittington 2024

Notion App – https://www.notion.so/

A Workspace for Wiki, Docs and Projects

All connected together

Ultimate Brain – https://thomasjfrank.com/brain/

Quick Capture – brain dump for ideas

Filtering of tests is very good

Very powerful – check it out

Free account available with limits – subscription also available

Resources – Hard Drives in particular

Managing drives that aren’t in constant use

Filming Pantomime and storing / editing footage – lots of data to manage

Arch...

New Season – Season 5

New colour is Red…

Goals for 2024 – Reflecting on goals from last year

Goal 1 – Improve Work / Life Balance

Goal 2 – Scaling up the business – make once, sell many times

The audience dictated the product sales method

Building trust

Continue 12 Months of Coffee – looking forward to adding 12 cities this year

Wordcamp Europe 2024 – we will both be there – https://europe.wordcamp.org/2024/ – come and say hello

Pantomime starts tomorrow (Oh no it doesn’t)

Building the purchasing process for videos on the new video syste...

Just wishing you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year

Thank you for joining us during 2023

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com
The Creative Tinker Website – https://www.thecreativetinker.com

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Youtube: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/youtube

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Trip to a very snowy Prague

Pacing Yourself At Christmas

Lots more shows booked during the weekdays at Christmas

Make sure to leave time between appointments to give yourself breathing time

Setting boundaries to take time off if you work for yourself

Training your customers by managing expectations

Don’t burn yourself out

Rize.io

Tag and categorise what you do on your device

Gives you advice on when to take a breather and coach builder to stop getting distracted

...

Back after 2 weeks of no shows

Visit to Belfast – slower pace of life

What do you think the next accent colour for Season 5 will be?

Hazel Mac App – https://www.noodlesoft.com/

Organise your downloads folder – or indeed any folder on your computer

Run Automations based on file types – rename files etc.

Cineworld email will automatically add an entry to the diary, taking off the adverts time

Debt in your business

Taking out a loan to expand

Pitfall – growing too fast without ge...

Accessability Colour Matrix

Colour Ratios that can be used together

Dynamically created pulling in the colours being used by Generate Press

Tutorial available to members of Snippetclub – https://snippetclub.com/dynamic-accessibility-colour-matrix-with-generatepress/

Showing the custoemrs a grid means you can show why certain colour choices don’t work together

DJI Pocket Osmo 3 Purchase – https://store.dji.com/uk/product/osmo-pocket-3

Great for low light filming

Researching the options and deciding on the Creator Combo

Purchasing decision was made for me as it was out of sto...

Apple surprise announcement, releasing the M3 chip and new Mac Book Pro’s

Accessibility – for websites

Check your website to make sure it is accessible for all users

Link descriptions – image alt. text – checking colour contrast

Wave – Checker – https://wave.webaim.org/

Auto-create Alternative Image Text – alttext.ai

Accessibility YouTube Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILkXz-PYJxM

Informed Purchase Decisions

DJI Pocket Osmo 3 – Great little camera- https://www.dji.com/uk/osmo-pocket-3

Vertical Video Syndrome is no more – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

PTSN is being shut down in December 2025

Copper lines will no longer work

ChessICT – https://chessict.co.uk/ – Suggested SOGEA – Single Order Generic Ethernet Access

Broadband without a telephone line

VOIP telephone lines

Promises huge speed increases 80 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up

5 year contract !! – who knows what will happen in that time

So many unknowns at this time

Influx of New Leads

Adding clauses if a project stalls

Sending good proposals that make sense, in easy to understand terminology

Es...

Taylor’s Trip to Macedonia

12 Months of Coffee

Differences in working over there

Not a lot of English speaking Macedonians

Spending time with colleagues

Balloon Twisting website – https://www.balloontwisting.co.uk

Drop-shipping Balloons

Problems areas are – no stock for an extended period – having to pack orders myself

If your supplier goes away, then you have to either shut the shop down or packing orders myself

It’s not very efficient and takes up time

Saves losing SEO benefits though

Brand new set !!!

Taking Time Off – we are in Alton Towers

Don’t go Groundhog Day…

Working 7 days a week isn’t a great way to be productive

Spent time in the Water Park, and 9 Hole, 18 Hold Mini Golf

Rollercoaster Restaurant for dinner

Giving yourself some time and space you can think over things easier

Book your tickets for Dick Whittington – https://www.sdclub.org.uk/box-office

Getting Up Early

More productive for some people – less distractions

Feeling More Superior

2024 Child Theme

Updating WordPress starter site

Speeds up development by setting lots of defaults, plugins etc.

Also keeps you consistent by re-using settings through sites

Makes it easier to change things in the future with this consistency

Starter site is updated throughout the year

Updated to Sonoma

Hosted and arranged the local community day

Creating a digital version of the schedule

PDF file was the first thought

Frontly – front end onto a Google Sheet – frontly.ai

Making the...

LMS – Learning Management System

Software for running websites offering for sale or for free, courses, video, audio or written

Just like Udemy – https://www.udemy.com/

Moving courses from one website and LMS to a different website and LMS

Tutor LMS – https://www.themeum.com/product/tutor-lms/

Giving a free course as a bonus for my deluxe party package

Online courses are everywhere now

Not quite finished at the time of going live – https://magic.disbelieving.com

All the little jobs – context switching

Webh...

Lots of rain this week

New Tutorial – for snippet club as a one off – https://snippetclub.com/products/dynamic-template-tags/#checkout

Dynamic Template Tags

Watch Kyle’s video on the tutorial – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLvmzcxSo70

Supports Options pages, query params, hooks, etc.

Listening to customers opinions so you can make informed business decisions

Not wanting to sabotage subscription customers

Striking at the right time and not missing out

Kidology Convention – for Children’s Entertainers

Catching up with colleagues and friends

London for shows, Grease and Mrs Doubtfire

Apple Announcements – new iPhone 15 and Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2

USB connectors, including AirPods cases – watches are carbon neutral

Easier to repair iPhone 15 back screen

Trip to Amsterdam – 12 Months of Coffee

Visited “Coffee” shops and outside of Anne Frank’s house

The road layout is designed for bicycles

Kanarie Club and of course Starbucks

New Little project – Slideshow sub domain website

Moved from main website

I used to make new pages every time by duplicating...

Selling things on Facebook marketplace

Delivering Designs

Recording a video for explanation purposes

Be specific on what feedback you want

Customers can get in your own way when they look at designs

Link to the newsletter – https://designbread.com/mockup-mistakes/

Accounts

The more you do the cheaper it will be, so create a process

Planning ahead to allow you to know ahead of time what the payments will be

Do your own book-keeping to give you the information you need to ma...

Trip to Berlin – great transport system

Trip to Rhodes in Greece

Grasping Opportunities when they happen

Take them through the stages – interest, by showing them what you do, and leading them to desire – taking your contact details

Making balloon animals for the children of my car cleaners (who are very good) – https://www.community-clean.co.uk/

Turning strangers into Big Fans

You never know where these opportunities will lead

Make sure you subscribe on YouTube – This Week With Taylor & Gordon

Marketing – flyers and in-person ev...

New Photoshoot this week

Up-to-date photos for publicity so they look like you

ScanSnap by Richoh – https://www.scansnapit.com/uk/

Replacing an iX500 with an iX1600

Scan to PDF as a searchable, indexed file

Scan direct to the cloud (Evernote) using WiFi

Send to different locations, devices and applications – for example Photoshop and email on a set computer

Different users with their own settings

Template Solution

Custom Taxonomy – category or tag in the back end

Hook into the conten...

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Business Telephone Numbers

Separate work from friends and family

Prioritising calls depending on if you are working at that time

Close the number down if it isn’t needed anymore

Telecoms World – https://www.telecomsworld.com/

Duel sims – physical and an eSim

A good use would be to have a number from a different country coming in to your phone

Routing to different numbers if needed

VOIP –...