Bird Control using Falconry

Nuisance pigeons are a very common problem and one that is particularly acute in London where pigeon populations are high.  There are several methods available to prevent pigeons from roosting, landing and nesting at a particular site but one of the more humane and innovative techniques is using Falconry.

Bird Control using Falconry is where highly trained birds of prey, guided by their handler, fly around a location be that a business premises, government building or public space to scare the pigeons.  With frequent visits from the bird of prey, often a Harris Hawk, and their handler the Hawk makes itself well known and pigeons are forced to move on elsewhere.

Very rarely are pigeons actually killed or injured by the Hawks as that's not the aim but rather to upset the normal roosting and nesting habits of the pigeons so they seek another place to call home.

Bird Control using Falconry is used at many high profile business and government premises in London as it often offsets the cost of the expensive and specialist cleaning that is required when nuisance pigeons are left unchecked.

This article has a summary of several bird control methods that are available.

The Benefits of Theatre Training for Children and Young Adults

Theatre training has many benefits for children and young adults beyond the obvious ones such as improving and broadening their skills and technique and their readiness for live theatre performances. Theatre training includes acting, singing and dance classes.

Theatre training provides an unparalleled platform from which young performers can explore their own creativity in an environment where their creativity is encouraged and celebrated. This relaxed and supportive environment enables many students to tap into their own hidden talents which have never before been given the opportunity of expression. Students reading and presentation skills are often improved as a consequence of their theatre training.

An open and inclusive teaching environment, a world away from the “classroom” helps to build performers confidence over time which cascades down to benefit all areas of their school, family and personal life. During even short periods of attendance students often form strong friendships with staff and pupils alike and that is one of the many factors that keep students returning.

Many of our courses culminate with an end of term theatre performance in front of a live audience of family and friends. This is often the most rewarding part of the process for students (and parents too) as students are able put into action the new skills and techniques they have gained during the course and enjoy the unique “buzz” and sense of achievement that comes from a successful live theatre performance.

Curtain Call Academy is a stage academy based in Essex (UK) for children and young adults. The academy encourages young performers to have fun, be creative and let their talents shine.

Why Outsourcing IT Support is Right for Your Business

For any small/medium sized enterprise (SME) IT is crucial to your day-to-day operations yet it is difficult to justify the expense of a dedicated IT person or persons in order to give you the level of IT support and back-up you require. Even if you did have a dedicated IT person what would happen on days they are ill or on holiday if an emergency were to occur? How would you ensure that person was kept up to date with the latest technology and best practice? How would you evaluate prospective candidate’s knowledge at the interview stage?

For almost all SMEs outsourcing your IT support and IT consultancy is the right option for the business. It allows you to benefit from the same high level of knowledge and expertise that would usually only be reserved for large corporations and multinationals. Without the burden of a full-time staff member’s salary you can often benefit from significant costs savings as well. The flexibility of only paying for the expertise and time you require helps to make your IT budget go further too.

Members of staff come and go but you can retain an IT support agency for as long as you wish. So you benefit from that continuity by having a team who always have an up-to-date knowledge of your business, the challenges you face and the IT systems, software and configuration you already have in place.

While your IT support agency is working on other clients IT systems they might deploy a new hardware or software solution that could solve a similar problem in your organisation. It’s this shared expertise and know-how that you are able to benefit from without having to invest in expensive training programmes and courses were you to consider an in-house IT support person.

The range of services offered by an IT agency is likely to cover every possible need you may have now and in the future, it would be impossible to find a similar breadth of expertise from a single member of staff. Last but not least an IT Support agency is able to offer you complete peace of mind in terms of 24 hours a day 7 days a week support coverage which would be impossible to find in even the most dedicated of staff members.

PDQ Computers Ltd have been providing IT Support and Consultancy from their Essex headquarters since 1995, serving SME and corporate clients in London and mainland UK.

Is your sales team performing to their full potential?

That's a question that most business leaders would probably answer with "no". Often sales teams perform well below their best and even with good sales people there is always room for improvement as sales processes and sales training tend to develop over time if at all. One of the challenges for Sales Managers is that they are often too busy with the day-to-day tasks of management (producing forecasts, dealing with personnel issues, developing sales leads, writing proposals, etc.) to be able to stand back and take an objective view of how their sales people are performing. This means it is very difficult for them or the business to evaluate their people, their processes or the direction and consistency of the sales function in a truly objective way.

That's where The Boardroom Assessment Centre can help. Essentially, The Boardroom provides businesses with the tools and framework to develop real sales leaders. They work with you to deliver sales training and assessment programmes that identity the areas where your sales process is failing your business or where your sales people are not maximising their potential. From the outcomes of these assessments, The Boardroom then put together bespoke sales training in Essex or sales management training and development programmes designed to improve sales performance. They do this by using their considerable experience of high value sales from a broad range of industries along with a real understanding of what constitutes ‘best practice’ in sales and sales management.

This is a task that can only be performed by a team who are external to your business, who can take the time to review how your sales people operate from the outside in and make objective comparisons with other high performing sales teams from yours or other sectors. This means that they can determine performance benchmarks and highlight the areas where improvements can be made; improvements that can make a huge difference to sales performance; ultimately delivering real return on investment for your business.

IIS6 using an SSL certificate on more than one site on one IP

This is the command to run:

C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts>cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set /w3svc//SecureBindings ":443:"

Site indentifier - Is the site ID assigned by IIS
Host name - Is the site URL e.g. something.domain.com, www.domain.com

This command is useful if you have a wildcard or unified communications certificate.

Original article is here:

http://www.sslshopper.com/article-how-to-configure-ssl-host-headers-in-iis-6.html

MODx "$rs not set! New variable not saved!" Error

After upgrading MySQL on a new server I noticed an issue with MODx not being able to add Template Variables. I managed to find a workaround by setting the sort order to "0" which allowed the new Template Variable (TV) to be saved. The problem wasn't solved though as the TV would not store any content. The solution was to change the MySQL configuration to remove "STRICT_ALL_TABLES" or "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES" from the "sql-mode" in the MySQL ini file.

MODx Ditto Error

Just had this error after I upgraded a site from 0.9.6.2 to 0.9.6.3:

PHP error debug
Error: Missing argument 18 for ditto::determineIDs(), called in D:\inetpub\vhosts\tcp.eu.com\httpdocs\manager\includes\document.parser.class.inc.php(769) : eval()'d code on line 792 and defined
Error type/ Nr.: Warning - 2
File: D:\inetpub\vhosts\tcp.eu.com\httpdocs\assets\snippets\ditto\classes\ditto.class.inc.php
Line: 571
Line 571 source: function determineIDs($IDs, $IDType, $TVs, $orderBy, $depth, $showPublishedOnly, $seeThruUnpub, $hideFolders, $hidePrivate, $showInMenuOnly, $myWhere, $keywords, $dateSource, $limit, $summarize, $filter, $paginate, $randomize) {

The solution was to overwrite the "assets/snippets/ditto" folder with the version from the previous MODx install. Or the other option would be to update the snippet calls as there must be a change in the new version of ditto.