Thanks to everyone who have been writing me encouraging comments. I´ve had to be discouraged about so far, and the first official “day” was an incredible disappointment.

First, it´s stinking hot here. If you think it´s hot and humid in Cairns, that´s nothing compared to Iquitos. It´s been 35C in the day, and 80% humidty. Being inside at all leaves you extremely sweaty, and outside you need to keep out of the sun, or risk being frito.

Some of you might have heard about about my luggage fiasco already from Kaj. This will be my 5th day without luggage, and while it´d be great to go and buy new things, it´s actually not that easy. I can find Tshirts without any problems, because any street hawker sells them. They have souvenir crap all over them, but I can live with that. I can buy socks here too. But everything else is impossible. Coral is a size 10 and she´s having problems! She couldn´t find a bra big enough to fit her, so I´m certainly having issues.

So, wearing the same bra for 5 days that gets entirely saturated with sweat is about as disgusting an experience as they come. Coupled with it taking FOREVER to dry, due to no dryers, and overactive humity, and you have a very discouraged Nicky. My pants are getting a bit whiffy too - they´re quite thick so I haven´t bothered. With this kind of humdity it´s a bad idea to wear them wet.

I´m going into the jungle tomorrow, and although I was considering staying in Iquitos until my luggage arrived I´ve decided that would mean I miss out on one the great experiences I´m looking forward too. Drying any of my clothes in the jungle is going to be a much greater drama than here, so I´m very worried.

I had also prepared to go into the jungle with no electricity by stocking up on camera batteries and memory cards. I have just one battery in my camera, and it might last two cards.

I only have one more day´s worth of malaria tablets with me too, the rest are packed in my luggage. I´ll need to buy a different type of malaria tab, the only one that is sold here, and it has lesser protection and nasty side effects like runny poo, nausea and yeast infections. Ick. Not looking forward to any of those. And the protection for malaria is nowhere near as good. *sigh* I´m getting sad thinking about all this again.

Today we went to La Isla de Maños and I was able to play with monkeys. Well, they sort of play with you. Wesaw 6 different types of monkeys, and they´re like kittens constantly playing and being rather mischievious. Amazingly intelligent critters, and really interactive. They use you like a tree to jump to places too.

The trip to Monkey Island was a 2h boat ride on an amazingly dodgy boat, but it floated and the driver waited for us without issue, so that was awesome.

After that we headed to an animal orphanage which was sad and exciting. Lots of theanimals had a sad story of how they got to the orphanage, and one monkey there was a trained pickpocket. We had to leave all of our belongings in a monkey proof house, and empty our pockets. We saw a jaguar, tapir, sloths and lots of butterflies and monkeys. A few macaws and parakeets, but not too much action on the close-up bird front yet.

The day really lifted my spirits, which had just about died, and I really hope my luggage comes in on the first plane to Iquitos tomorrow.

Special thanks goes to Kaj who rescued Coral´s luggage from Australia - and a savage complaint goes to Lan´s South American staff who are useless.

Got to Auckland about an hour late and things were looking up. Coral was waiting for me at th lounge, so I was pleased to see she too had arrived as we’d had no contact since getting off the bus from the hotel.

We headed to the transit lounge to inform them we’d arrived and get details of our next flight, but instead informed our plane was not leaving until 3am the next day and were given a form which had overnight accommodation in Auckland at the Centra Hotel, return airport transfers and lunch and dinner in the restaurant. Although we were less than impressed at another delay, we were relieved to have somewhere to rest properly.

Unfortunately it took 5 hours to discover our luggage would not be available to us in Auckland and we missed our free lunch.

Tired, hungry and a bit grotty we stumbled into our hotel to be pleasantly surprised that it was modern, comfortable and had hot chocolate.

I begged the hotel to let us have dinner early and we were treated to a big buffet dinner with some awesome New Zealand oysters and a huge array of desserts and cheeses.

We caught a 1am bus to the airport and we’re now waiting in a lengthy customs queue with 300 displaced passengers, many red eyes and shortening tempers.

Our connections to Lima and Iquitos are now cancelled and and we will be provided with overnight accommodation in Santiago. Hopefully too, our baggage will be available there, because you can only wear the same clothes for so long before others treat you like you’re a grot.

Despite losing a day in Iquitos I’m relatively upbeat because we were otherwise going to be spending 11 hours waiting in various airports and that’s now been replaced with 2 free hotel stays and food and phone calls included.

Coral has been quite stressed at times and says this has been a test of her patience. I’m doing most of the talking and negotiation with various authorities as she tends to get a bit aggressive when they’re useless or don’t know things. Compared to work stress, I’m coping really well.

We haven’t left the country yet but Coral and I have already encountered great difficulties.

Tomorrow morning we were supposed to fly at 10:45am from Sydney, Australia to Santiago, Chile with a quick stopover in Auckland, New Zealand. Unfortunately for us the plane is having issues, and our Sydney - Auckland leg was cancelled.

I was rescheduled onto an earlier Syd - Akl Qantas flight, leaving at an evil and ungodly hour of 7:35am, which means I have to be at the airport at 5:35am. I am immensely unhappy about this, however can live with it.

Coral however was scheduled on an Air New Zealand Syd - Akl flight which doesn’t leave Sydney until AFTER our flight was due to fly from Auckland to Santiago.

So… our day today consisted of the following:

•  Panic
• Stress
• Worry
• Talk to Qantas
• Call Flight Centre
• Get grumpy because Flight Centre’s entire system was down
• Get on plane to Sydney, very worried
• Get off plane in Sydney, call Flight Centre
• Got a bimbo, no help
• Call Air NZ, can’t reschedule
• Call Lan Chile (in the USA from a mobile) who rescedules
• Go to Sydney International to pick up new tickets

It does indeed appear I may be leaving Australia at 7:35am. But at this stage, we’ll see.

What should you do if your website goes down?

Website downtime happens frequently, and for a large number of reasons. Here’s what you should do if your website goes down.

1. Test Internet Connection

First thing you should do is go to Google and do a search for something completely random that you have never searched for before. Try ‘orange scissors‘.

If you are not able to search Google the problem is not your web host, it’s your internet service provider (ISP). You need to call them for further information.

The reasoning behind this is that Google never goes down, so if you can successfully search, you can be reasonably certain your internet connection isn’t the issue. Therefore, so to step 2.

2. Contact Hosting Provider

Check the contact page of your web host’s website and see if they have a phone number you can call. If there is an answering machine, be sure to leave a message that indicates the nature of the problem. Something like this should do the trick:

This is Nicky Jurd calling from cityofcairns.com. I am currently unable to access my website, www.cityofcairns.com. Could someone please urgently look into this issue and return my call on 07 4041 6853. That number again is 07 4041 6853.

Important features of this message are:

• Your name
• Your business name
• Your website address (or URL)
• Your phone number - say it slowly
• Repeat your phone number

Repeating your phone number is particularly important if you are on a mobile phone connection, as service dropouts can hinder the clarity of a message.

If your host does not offer phone support, they will usually have a support form on their website in which you can indicate you have an urgent problem.

Be aware that from a hosting provider’s perspective, your website being down is the hosting provider’s most important issue and they will treat it as extremely urgent.

Long Downtime

If your website is down for 24h or more and you have not been able to reach anyone at your web hosting provider, you should immediately consider swapping hosts to a reputable web hosting firm who offer strong phone support.

If you’re stuck for a web host with strong support, try local Cairns firm Get Web Services.

An essential piece of viral marketing equipment for businesses who take the internet seriously, Facebook’s newly released Facebook Pages show a direct competitive attack on MySpace’s social stranglehold.

Bands, businesses, bars, clubs and attractions are among the organisations targeted to create a business presence and engage their customers through Facebook.

So, cityofcairns.com have officially joined Facebook.

There’s a lot of chatter among businesses about the cost of IT services and their affordability, and because of the increasing dependence upon websites, this is begrudgingly becoming a cost centre. The good news is that as well as costing more, websites are also delivering more profit. More people and businesses rely on websites to research product information, and to make vital purchasing decisions.

Lots of businesses make poor decisions relating to their website because they’ve never taken the time to learn about the medium, and instead, try to cut corners that end up being expensive to fix. Here’s how to avoid some of these mistakes and save money on your website bill.

Have Clear Goals

Most websites are built for two reasons; credibility or profit.

Most service-based businesses need a website to prove their credibility to potential and existing clients. Service-based businesses include lawyers, accountants, public relations firms, graphic designers, advertising agencies and web developers. Their websites should provide extensive information about the services they provide, why a client should choose them, an up-to-date portfolio and an easy method of contact. These websites tend to be smaller, but require cleaver dynamic content to be effective.

Retail and event organisation businesses must turn a profit from their websites. Their focus should be on product information and strong photography to encourage purchasing. Retail websites are naturally large because of the number of products most shops carry. They also tend to be more expensive due to the need for businesses to frequently update their prices and product range. Most retail websites therefore have a database and easy management interface.

Clarify your website goals before engaging a web developer. If you expect to make money from your website, you should treat it like any other business expansion and write a plan.

Research Online Competition

You can save a lot of money by checking out the mistakes your competitors have made online and avoid them. Don’t just check the local competition, either; research similar companies in other regions of Australia and around the world to gauge your opinion.

Watch your own habits when researching products; pay attention to what grabs your eye, where you click on the page, what you searched for and how easy it is to find essential information like contact details and prices.

Keep a list of the things you think work well and the parts of websites you dislike. Be especially careful of gimmicks which might catch your attention but distract you from the message or purpose of the website.

Seasoned web developer Greg Slapp from Port Douglas Internet Services says, “If you want to play the game, you need to know the rules.”

Take the internet seriously and get to know the players.

Get Organised

The major reason budgets blow out in the web design industry is because businesses are not organised. You can be several thousand out of pocket if you do not get this right.

Be aware that most web development companies charge by the hour, which means if you are disorganised, you’ll be paying by the hour for someone to get your materials in order.

Collect all your branding and marketing materials. This should include your logo, corporate colour scheme, business cards, brochures, letterheads and print advertisements recently in circulation. Ensure you have vector copies from your graphic designer of at least your logo, but preferably all these materials. These materials are more essential to the web design process than anything else and leaving it up to your developer to recreate digital files from business cards or printed material can incur hours of unnecessary extra work.

Consider providing a written brief. A clear and articulate design brief is crucial to the design process and if you don’t write one, your web developer will need to spend extra time putting one together. A good design brief will include extensive details about your company, the aims of your website, your target audiences, your budget and time frame, and examples of designs you like.

Be clear about how you wish your business to be portrayed. This doesn’t mean providing a layout for how you want your website to look — that’s what you’re hiring a web designer for — but be confident about what your business does, its target market and the image you wish you project. Are you looking for something professional and clean or modern and funky? Do not leave the guess work to your web designer; otherwise you may be up for extra design costs when the visuals don’t match your expectations.

Deliver the final version of your text, not drafts. Many web developers will not start work on any part of your website without having the final text, and any changes to this text require manual changes by your developer and will incur an extra charge. Deliver the text digitally (for example, as Microsoft Word documents,) rather than as physical printouts to avoid the need for retyping.

Hiring a Professional

Consider at which point you need to engage a professional and carefully consider the type of web development company you are looking for.

If you have just an idea or a concept, you will need to pay a web developer in a consulting capacity to transform this into a realistic project. This requires planning, experience and industry research.

Working with a local company in Far North Queensland will be considerably cheaper than hiring a capital city firm — you’re likely to be paying less than half by keeping your business here. You’ll also have the added advantage of working with someone who is familiar with your industry and readily available for face-to-face meetings.

Many businesses try to save money by hiring a whiz-kid or “friend of a friend”. Sometimes this can be an effective way of saving money, but ensure you have seen examples of their work before committing. You should be proud to show off your website.

Cutting corners here will be expensive later.

How Much Should it Cost?

Websites are custom built, so the costs here will provide you a ballpark figure of how much you should be prepared to invest.

Service-based businesses: $2500 – $3500 for a new website, and allow $500 per year if you make minor changes once a month.

Online shop: $5000 – $7000 for a new website.

(These prices are indicative of the local market in Cairns, Australia)

Top Tips

• Have clear and realistic goals
• Check out the competition
• Collect your branding
• Write a design brief
• Be clear about your expectations
• Deliver final text, not drafts
• Hire a professional

As with all goods and services, you get what you pay for in web development; but careful consideration of your business goals and expectations coupled with thorough planning and preparation will ensure every dollar is well-spent.

This article was originally published in the November 2007 edition of In Touch In Business magazine. You may also download the Websites: Costs Vs. Results Article article as it was printed.