Sam Kidd's thoughts on business

Yes I am still alive and well. It's just been a crazy summer. I have been meaning to update the blog for quite sometime now but just never manage to get around to it. The days are just flying by, I can't believe it's nearly September already, bloody crazy!

Digital Crew has been eating most of my time lately, we are just up the walls at the moment which is great, but is also stressful. We have a new member joining the Crew next month, I'm sure Dan and Topper can't wait, he's another programmer to help us with our workload.

Teamworkpm is going well now and we have had a lot of new signup as well. The guys have been working on getting the API up and running as soon as possible. We hope to have it good to go during September.

Sam&Dan's is now over a month old as well. Things are going well there, the Donuts have been the big hit there so far. We have also added topped ones to our menu now. (so tasty)

AREA51 is still rocking away as well, been back in there for the Tuesday night gaming the last few weeks and had a good laugh. Nothing beats kicking your customers asses in a game of Call of Duty 4.

The next thing on my list is to give this blog a face lift. It's pretty old at this stage and it was a template I stole from Dan to save time.

Well thats the story so far not the most exciting blog post in the world but at least it proves if still alive and kicking.

If you're around from 6pm-8pm any week day call into Sam&Dan's some time for a coffee and a dog. I'm working there most evenings. Dan and I were talking today over coffee, saying we must hold an open coffee morning there one day as well as start to get to the others held round Cork. It's another thing I need to add to my list of things to do as well.  I was sorry to miss Techludd yesterday, I would like to start to meet up with all the guys in Cork that I'm now following on Twitter. There's a good bunch of Tech heads around in Cork, to be sure! (I'm so Irish now!)

How do you change you name in Team Fortress 2. Still seems to be a problem that a lot of people are coming up against. To change your name in Team Fortress 2 is really easy to sort out.

I wrote about this here before but people can't find the post. So I will write it out again.
I had been having this problem down in AREA51 and it was a pain playing a LAN with about 30 unknowns running around. Still made life for the spy easier. The work around is really easy to fix. In fairness Valve have done a great job with their Steam client. I used to hate Steam but I have to say I'm really starting to love steam as a content delivery system.

Any how back to the problem people have been having with changing their name in Team Fortress 2.

Go into console then type:
setinfo name Kiwi 
Just change kiwi to what you want your player name to be. Sorted
 
If you ever round AREA51 on a Tuesay night call in for a LAN of Team Fortress 2. It normally kicks off at about 7pm and runs to about 11ish.

Myself and Dan were sitting down having our morning coffee, when we got talking about the fact that there are casino's popping up everywhere in Cork City. There is the Macau club, and a few doors up from that there is the VIC. There is also a casino at the top of Winthrop street, which has been given a face lift, and now there is the new one the on Father Matthew St, The Bank. I know there are a few more around the city as well.

They are now the new type of business to set up by the looks of it. Hopefully it's taken over from the "lets set up an Internet shop" craze that's been going on since we set up AREA51. Cork must have some amount of Internet cafés now. They all open, need customers fast so offer crazy low prices, and this in turn ends up making them no cash at all in the long term. I'm never quite sure why people want to set up a business,  drop the price so much to try get customers and end up killing off their business.

As we have found out, the price doesn't seem to be as important for most people as you would think. So long as you're not too much more, and if you offer a great service, and you build up a good loyal customer base that's the most important thing.  

Looking after your customers, going beyond what they expect is the most important thing.  I believe whole heartily in 'the customer is always right' mentality.  A good experience for a customer is just worth so much to a business. Because a happy customer is the best sales person you can have. (And they work for free)
 I'm sure people just aren't doing the maths on how much a place costs to run these days. Rent, rates,repairs and power all add up fast once you're up and running. If I look back at our business plan that we had for AREA51, we would have died a death so fast if we had only brought in what we had put down in that.  It's amazing how much you actually have to pull in to survive.

Still this happens in every business type I imagine. I haven't been into the casino's here but I bet there is a load of price wars and bitching of other casinos happening here at the moment. I wonder how they are all doing, and if there are the amount of people around to keep them all going.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  I must one of these days actually go into one for a look.

There is a problem with trying to change yourname in Team Fortress 2. To Change your name in Team Fortress 2 you just need to enable the console. I have been having this problem down in AREA51 and in the end its really easy to fix.  Valve has tied the whole name change thing into the Steam friends section which sucks. Anyone who knows Steam Friends, especially if you’re a Steam Cafe owner,knows how painful it is. The Steam friends login just doesn’t seem to work.

A quick work around for this is to go into console and type:

setinfo name Kiwi 

Just replace Kiwi with whatever your gaming name is. I think you will have to do this at the start of each level change, but hey it’s better than been called ‘unknown’

Just finished our first ever AREA51 Cork CS Fest. I'm still wrecked after it.
It was a 24 gaming competition held in AREA51. We teamed up with the guys at -=VIA=- to hold it.
It was the first time we held an international gaming event, and I have to say it went really well.
All the guys that turned up were top class and we had no trouble at all.

All the computers held up during the event which was a mini miracle, as it gets so hot in AREA51 that the machines can crash every now and then. I have uploaded all the photos from the event to flickr so you can check it out for yourself.

Me (front right) and Chris (in the green) with the winning team.

This is something that we have had someone working on now for I would say a good 6 months. It is a Counter Strike Source Map of a real world location. It is based on the street where my shop AREA51 is based in Cork City.

The map is made up of hundreds of real world photo textures and the street has been made pretty close to scale as we could get it, while still making it playable. 

We have just got the first working version of it working today and now we are in the process on loading it on to all the comps inside to see how it plays and what people think of it.
I'm dying to give it a go and blast up all the comps in the shop. We have made it a rescue map with 4 hostages which are in AREA51. I know people are going to name them as us (Dan Topper and myself) the owners of AREA51 and shoot them. Hell I would!

It's been getting a lot of interest inside all ready so will let you know what people think of it. I have a few photos of it on flickr so just click on it on the left hand side af the page and look at the folder CS map. I will get photos in the next day or so of it in real life so you who don't know the place can compare it.