Indonesia Woodcraft

Copper, Aluminium & Stone Products from Indonesia Export

Sean — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:36:29 +0000

New products uploaded at Indonesia Export — Here’s a copy of the update article:

“We haven’t made many updates over the past few weeks — Spring Cleaning… that’s our excuse and we’re going to stick to that story… like glue.

Here’s a new range of vases, candleholders and decorative dishes.

This stuff is mainly from Java — not a Balinese product line — but a very pleasing, slightly more modern range of items made from copper, aluminium or stone. We’re not absolutely sure what type of stone is being used — the maker calls it “fossil stone” but that seems a bit of a misnomer to me… let’s just call it really old, polished stone — looks like marble.

See the whole line by going to:

http://www.indonesiaexport.com/frame.php?category=Stone%2C+Copper+%26+Aluminium

Enjoy,

Sean”

Bali Tiki Wood and Bamboo Products from Indonesia Export

Sean — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:41:15 +0000

Another rainy day in Bali — grey, miserable and surprisingly cold.

Also, not a day of particularly good news…

We’re in process of wading through news articles about yesterday’s earthquake in Sumatra and this morning’s Garuda Indonesia crash in Yogjakarta.

You can follow up on the airline crash articles at Yahoo News by clicking here:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=garuda+indonesia&c=

I have family living in Solo (about an hour away from Yogja) and was at that airport just a few months ago with my wife. Actually, Yogja is a fairly busy little hub — we’ve got friends and family through there all the time.

Got a couple of emails this morning from clients worried about the earthquake but we’re really miles away and heard about it from the news like everyone else. You can follow the earthquake stories by clicking here:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=indonesia+earthquake&c=

All unpleasant stuff but, so far, no-one we know has been involved.

Into all of this bad news, it does feel a little odd to introduce a presentation of Tiki, Hawaiian themed products so I’ll make this as short as I can — I’ve put up a very rough presentation of the products over on Indonesia Export — please check out:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=indonesia+earthquake&c=

And that’s the news for today.

Sean

Bali Metal Candle Lanterns, Salty Air and Rust

Sean — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:45:01 +0000

We’ve been asked what our Metal Lanterns are made from and how well they might stand up to outside weather conditons (particularly when close to the ocean.

Here’s a short summary of what we know:

The Metal Lanterns are made from Iron (Fe) mixed with Zink (Zn).

The metals are mixed together at high temperature and then molded as a plate — the plate can be anywhere from 0.3 mm to 1.2 mm thick. (Our metal lanterns are usually between 0.35 & 0.4 mm thick.)

There should be little or no problem using the lanterns outdoors even in a salty climate because…

Each lantern is cleaned inside and out with Phosphoric Acid (H3PO4), base coat is then applied followed by the top coat (usually an antique finish).

Long story short: as long as the paint / coat is still there (meaning it doesn’t get scratched off to reveal the iron underneath), these products shouldn’t give you any rust problems.

You can see the stuff I’m talking about by going to:

Indonesia Export - Metal Candle Lanterns

By the way, Bali has a very salt rich climate and, so far, we haven’t had any problem with these products.

Afternoon,

Sean

Havoc and Handicrafts on the Island of the Gods, Bali - Indonesia

Sean — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:19:34 +0000

Another day in Paradise…

…started out with one of my key people missing and a bunch of tasks backed up as a result. I guess that comes from lack of discipline on my part — I’ve neglected making sure that people take the time to hand work over to their colleagues or, at least, leave their desks accessible enough that other people can quickly take over when necessary.

A minor hiccup, however, nothing major and pretty much all sorted by ten o’clock. Just long enough of an interruption that I didn’t get around to really answering my morning’s mail ’till 10:30 and that means not updating the day’s task list and revising priorities. That one small delay means I’m already beginning to stress while answering the letters and not taking enough time.

You wouldn’t imagine Bali as a stressful place, would you? And, most likely it’s not — I’m sure it’s me supplying the stress in each situation. I could be stressed anywhere for any reason.

As I go about the process of slowing down in order to pay each question the attention it deserves, a bunch of cheques arrives on my desk (I have to sign them all myself).

I take care of that and then turn back to the computer and start to reply to one email when a friend walks in to get one of his domain transfers sorted out.

Important Note:

Never admit to anyone that you can help with anything (especially computers) if you’re not willing to keep helping. Websites and domains are a perfect example. Just because I did everything on Indonesia Export myself, I’ve now gotten locked into helping friends with their sites… these days, when someone new asks me how to do something, I simply stare at them blankly: “Dunno, we had a guy for that.”

Don’t knock it, it works.

Finished the domain parts, prepared a sheet of logon instructions and mail account information (with pics) and got back to my email just in time for a local painter to show up with samples of paintings.

Took care of that.

Then started helping out to repack a shipment that’s gotten a little too hefty to fit perfectly inside a container.

Then remembered I had some Albesia Wood Carvings (see below) to sort out from yesterday.

Then had lunch.

Then answered my email (while everyone else was still eating).

And now I’m done with everything apart from the 874 tasks that are planned for this afternoon.

Ho hum.

Here’s that update on the carvings:

Uploaded today: fifty or so new models of the Antique Finish Wood Carvings — handcrafted horses, geckoes, angels, cats, dogs and a couple of baskets. All made from Albesia wood and all handfinished in kind of rustic, craquelere or antique coat.

Click here to visit the category:

http://www.indonesiaexport.com/frame.php?category=Antique+Finish+Wood+Carvings

As usual, the newest items are at the top.

Enjoy,

Sean

Seemed like a mad, stressful kind of day in Bali

Sean — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:08:13 +0000

Well, maybe not as bad as all that.

Busy, certainly.

The business processing and planning started, as usual, with the second cup of coffee. I’m out of the decent Toraja Kalosi (from Excelso) so it was the local “bubuk-in-a-bag” stuff. Bubuk is powder; looks like instant coffee but it isn’t — more like very fine ground (bashed, probably). I call it cowboy coffee because when you get to the bottom of the cup, you’ve got gritty sludge and that’s what I imagine the cowboys drank… I’m probably way off base with that.

The problem: we’re busy. Not a bad thing, certainly, but when you’re only mid-way through February and people are starting to look strained and stressed, it’s worth paying attention to systems and how the new people are integrating.

By the time I arrived at the office, I hadn’t come with any specific plan but at least I had an idea of how to approach the situation — a combination of redefining job descriptions (cut and paste responsibilities); a dab of sympathy and some rearranging of furniture.

A quick phone conversation with one of our American clients.

On to the email (30 real messages — a couple hundred junk mails).

Talk to the bank.

Hold.

Call the bank back.

Shout at the bank.

Listen to dial tone.

Call the bank back, apologize, finish.

Shout about the bank.

Upload some new bamboo containers — a small update because my database was acting tricky. Details of those below.

Take some photos of jewellery with the new G7.

More photographs of an order we’re about to pack and ship (I want the client to get a better look at the pieces before they get to the port).

Rejecting some lousy paintings.

Meet a Swiss guy who’s here in Bali building his own client base back home.

Check on a domain I switched over for a friend yesterday.

Off to the airport to pick up my wife’s sister.

Take the scenic route home and then kicked myself for being so bloody stupid… Bali + Scenic Route = Traffic(RoadWorks-Squared).

Home, to pull out the laptop and pop a short blog article for the Indonesia Export News & Updates page drawing attention to the containers we just uploaded.

Walk the dog, drink my tea, smoke ten cigarettes and watch Arsenal make mincemeat out of Hamburger… irresistable, isn’t it?

Update my diary.

Good enough.

Another Day in Paradise… Life’s a Beach and all that.

– Here’s that little update on the Bamboo Containers —

Here are some more of the colorful woven bamboo containers — you’ll find these in use in most of the local restaurants around Bali to keep flies off food and so on.

http://www.indonesiaexport.com/frame.php?category=Bamboo+%26+Wood+Containers

Enjoy,

Sean

Canon G7

Sean — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:37:40 +0000

Just bought a Canon G7 to back up our aging Fuji camera (which has been failing bit-by-bit over the past few months).

First impressions:

Well, a bit of new kit is rarely as exciting as the hype makes out but I like it.

First, the bad news:

No RAW format. Well, for Indonesia Export this is not such a bad thing… as much as I like the idea, our approach to product photos just doesn’t allow us to spend too long on each photo or overcomplicate the production / editing stage. In other words, we shoot a few pics, check it on the monitor (never, never ever on the built in LCD) and if there’s a problem, we adjust and then take a few hundred photos.

We’re strictly for the web and, on that level, the G7 probably represents overkill.

I did however want to play around with RAW format just for the hell of it so it is a little disappointing.

Also, no power adaptor with the package — I mean, you can’t plug it in.

Odd that: it’s got a hotshoe (mount for external flash) and the little screw-hole for a tripod… suggestive of studio work but no adaptor for mains. Goofy, really. And, over here, to get the adaptor, we need to order from Jakarta… a pain in the butt and expensive (nearly US$100.00 just for the adaptor).

Good things:

Image stabilisation is something I’ve wanted in a camera since I found out about cameras. Brilliant. I’ve been drinking coffee all day but I can still zoom in from a few meters away and get off a decent shot.

Not much noise. I had a 5mp Fuji snapshot thingie (not for the office, it was a birthday present for my wife) and I expected it to take fab photos right out of the box — it never did. The images were always speckled or noisy. What a pain and what a waste of money. Presumably, the genius at Fujifilm had decided we all want print while, in fact, most of us are keeping the images on our computers because even though memory costs and storage costs and laptops and desktops and high speed cpus are price dropping like wounded buffalo, print costs keep going up. So for an ordinary Joseph like myself, seeing noisy images on screen are a complete no-no. The G7 is fine, just fine.

Color fidelity is good… maybe right on the money or so it seems.

Heft is perfect, feels like it’s made of steel so if I end up being chased down the street for taking photos, I should be able to turn around at some point and fetch my pursuer a decent clip about the ear. More importantly, I don’t have to worry about it falling apart in my hands. A real concern when I take into account the sheer number of photos being taken and the camera is not just in my hands but passed person to person.

Also, although I’ve seen a few moans about the flimsy lens, I love the fact that it contracts completely — when it’s switched off there’s no problem with scratches, etc. In other words, I just stop worrying about it.

That’s about it. I may follow up when I’ve taken a few hundred more shots with it but for now, I like it.

3rd & final follow-up to the weird search engine results article

Sean — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:55:20 +0000

And, following up again on my ealier rant on weird search engine results… this, I promise, is absolutely the last time I’m going to talk about this:

Indonesia Woodcraft has completely dropped out of the Google results. Bugger, damn & blast.

I give up.

Sean

Weird Results from Google

Sean — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 02:50:41 +0000

I’m summarising this story right at the top because it turned into a long, rambling, ranting kind of thing… who’s got the time to read it?

One of my blogs — Bali Belly — has yet to show up properly indexed in Google even though it’s been there a couple of years. And, believe me, I followed all the right steps at the start… content is king, friendly urls, pinging updates, technorati… all of that jazz. What do I get. Nada in Google and a decent indexing in Yahoo (if you pick the correct combination of twenty or so words to build up a complex search phrase with quotes around it).

So here I am, this morning, trying to organise my new server (I just moved away from my old host) and setting up a play domain where I can try stuff out — Indonesia Woodcraft — without ruining my business and, just for the heck of it, I searched indonesia woodcraft in Yahoo — nothing except an obscure reference towards one of the test pages on Indonesia Export but the same phrase in Google… first place. It’s actually indexed. Even the phrasing is indexed.

WTF?

I don’t know whether to jump for joy or just toss my laptop out the window.

[Here’s the full article]

I’ve got a few websites to my name… nothing strange about that — I’ve been consistently online since Netscape 1.1 was the bee’s knees and Fetch was fading into a distant memory.

For the past ten years or so, most of my time has been taken up with one domain in particular — Indonesia Export. If she was a lady, she’d be my main squeeze but, truthfully, she’s no lady… she’s my business and behind the (even if I do say so myself) glossy blue veneer, there lies a sprawling building, staff sitting at computers, team of guys in the warehouse and network of carvers all across Indonesia.

So, this domain, Indonesia Export, is my company. The dot com aspect is my lead generator, my forum, my 24/7 tv ad.

I’ve been running the ad for ten years and, during that time, the site has changed and grown.

I started on a Mac (Powerbook 5300 with a crappy screen); I made the HTML with BBEdit (I wonder if that’s still around… probably is) and the uploaded the static pages via FTP — at that time, in Bali, a painfully slow process: 14.4 kb if you were damned lucky.

Then I switched to Homesite.

Then Dreamweaver which I still use.

Along the way, I ditched static for dynamic (no more copy & paste) and jumped into MySql.

And, the site was always there in the search engines. Yahoo first… I don’t remember Google at all in the early days. Just Yahoo and maybe AltaVista.

As the years went by, the site grew in size (2 Gigs+ of images; BIG database) and competitors arrived.

The competition changed from just one or two websites in the Yahoo index to, well, many…

Then the arms race began.

At first, it was fairly easy to control — there were only a few sites and the competition was about who had the most products, the best pictures, the most frequent updates and the best prices. Tough but not impossible. Fair, you might say.

We watched what our competitors did. Held meetings. Compared pricing. Tried to keep everything in line. We didn’t go out there to beat every price but just checked regularly to ensure we didn’t look silly.

More domains and companies arrived. More price checks. Different presentations, different concepts. We adapted and we stayed towards the top of the search engines.

Then, we dropped out completely. Gone. Business slowed to a crawl (at least from the website end). I scratched my head (boy, I wish I hadn’t — I’m 36 now and there’s nothing left on top) and did a little research…

…META TAGS — damn meta tags — does anyone else remember that unholy mess? Ok, the idea was straight-forward… you bury a bunch of data into the code of a standard HTML page. This buried data tells the search engine spider (why do they call them spiders?) who made the page, what it is about, what the key words are… etc.

Problem for me, at that point, was that if you didn’t have meta tags there already, you had to go back, edit your pages and re-upload (on a 14.4 connection).

Then people started abusing the system and everybody threw up their hands to say, “Damn these people for abusing the system.” I also threw up my hands at the same time but, if I remember correctly, it was to say, “Finally, people are abusing the system — took them long enough.” I mean, is there any system in history that hasn’t been abused?

I guess the biggest irritation with the MetaTag system was that people and businesses with little or no experience could reach the top of the engines almost immediately. All that time I’d spent… all those hours; all those images… and then back to square one. Well, whatever: business is partly about adaptation. Not a crisis but an opportunity. We did our tags and reappeared in the engines. Excellent.

Shortly after that, we dropped out again.

Turns out the rules had changed and our tags were not good enough.

Re-did the tags and reappeared in the engines. Excellent.

And dropped out again — tags were no longer a factor.

New terms appeared… word density and blah, blah, blah and then I found out Google wouldn’t follow into frames or past question marks (this has since changed) but did I have at that particular time? Right: a 2 gigabyte website based on mysql and php (question marks everywhere you look) in a framed format. Bollocks.

Then came Pay-per-click and blogging. So, we switched to pay-per-click and blogging. That means, I pay x hundred bucks a month to talk with 3 or 4 people and my blogs rarely if ever show up close to the top in a search engine where I want them.

Why? Abuse. We’ve all come full circle to trying every trick we can to put ourselves at the top and the whole system has turned full circle so that the usual suspects end up on top of the pile but legitimate businesses end up wasting considerably more money and time to compete with them.

Brilliant. Thank you Google. Thank you Yahoo. Kisses.

So, I bought a few more domains, set up a few more blogs, wasted one hell of a lot more time (on search engines rather than new products) just so people can find our handicrafts when they’re looking for them.

Meanwhile, every day, I see yet another website domain coming online (usually using our pictures, our text or some part of what we do) and coming up ahead of us. Enough to make a grown man tear out his hair in frustration (been there, done that, got the Google t-shirt).

One of my blogs — Bali Belly — has yet to show up properly indexed in Google even though it’s been there a couple of years. And, believe me, I followed all the right steps at the start… content is king, friendly urls, pinging updates, technorati… all of that jazz. What do I get. Nada in Google and a decent indexing in Yahoo (if you pick the correct combination of twenty or so words to build up a complex search phrase with quotes around it).

WTF?

I don’t know whether to jump for joy or just toss my laptop out the window.

checking fonts from live writer…

Sean — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:35:58 +0000

And…

…another category…

And more fonts:

FontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsF

ontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFo

ntsFon

tsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsFo

ntsFontsFontsFontsFontsFontsF

ontsFontsFontsFont

sFontsFontsF

ontsFontsFontsFontsFonts

Testing one more category…

Sean — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:27:55 +0000

Here’s a different category.

HERE’S SOME BOLD TEXT

Here’s some FONT PLAY

Sean