Royal Mail Postal Strike

After much wrangling the workers of Royal Mail have decided to strike. As a business it's going to hurt us, there's no doubt about that. We're a mail order business and Royal Mail is our lifeblood.

We do however understand that strikes are a last resort. It seems that the media, the management and the government are against the workers on this one. We are not.

Although the strikes aren't good for us, we understand that they are necessary. They are due to start on the 22nd of October.

This is an edit: just been onto the bbc and I'm shocked at the lack of empathy for Royal Mail workers. Comments like "we never have the same postman anymore", "they closed our local post office" and "they leave the while you were out card when I was in". The decisions behind these changes are not from the workers on the ground, who are striking but the management they are against. The Royal Mail service has been run down over the last decade with an eye on privatisation. That is without a doubt what modernisation means. It will mean a service where Royal Mail is only the "last mile" courier. Anything that makes a profit will be sold off and the public will be saddled with the pensions deficit.

Rollercoaster Year

Well it's nearly a year since phenoptix stopped being a hobby and turned into a full time job.
Lots has changed, including our product range and website. We're about to move offices too, which is long overdue. We're custom building which sounds rather grand.

Where phenoptix starts and Ben ends.

Having been phenoptix, the name of my LED business, on all manner of forums for about 6 years now it feels like my business identity is also my own. phenoptix (always lower case) has a number of online outlets for my opinions but as phenoptix, the legal business entity, grows I (Ben) feel that I should actually use some of these same outlets for my own personal feelings rather than channel them through phenoptix.
Firstly phenoptix doesn't have an opinion on Lily Allen's recent outbursts on filesharing, I on the other hand think that she cunningly advertised in her early days that her work was available on limewire, and nowadays she's against the whole thing along with Darth Mandleson. A bit two faced methinks.
Anyway phenoptix needs to write a blog now.

The Silent Strikes

It seems all of Royal Mail are taking it in turns to have the day off. It's what they call rolling "wildcat" strikes and the effect is crippling the postal service. However it seems they are not getting national coverage.
The net result is that lots of people are not getting their items, and we're getting it in the neck.
Have a look here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213283/Postal-strike-chaos-Post-Office-managers-forced-sort-mail-pavement.html

Two Websites

We now have two fully functioning websites. The plan was to keep them both running for a month or so as we smooth out the service on the new site. However it will probably take a fair while for www.phenoptix.com to get the google ranking of the old site.

The new website already has more products than the old site, most of which can be found in the prewired LEDs category.

Come along and have a look, let us know what you think!

Website Woes

Our new website is ready to launch on Monday! The only thing is that when we transferred to new servers our providers didn't update the DNS, they just put a redirect on the old server!
Our old server was taken down yesterday, leaving the new one anonymous. The result is that we now have no phenoptix.com emails or website for another 48 hours.
If you're reading this then please be assured, we are still here!

Mid July Blog

Another while between Blogs!

Partially down to impending parenthood meaning that more "spare" time has to be created for all those niggling jobs around the house and garden. The last significant niggling job being 25 meters of 6 foot fence panelling down one side of the garden!
Another "spare" time hog has been jolly old ebay who have insisted on "free" shipping on many listings. To enforce their policy they've cancelled a couple of hundred listings, which all need to be relisted with free (included!) shipping. I've also decided to add a bit more detail to some of them to save time answering the same questions over and over again. So relisting is taking up a fair chunk of time!

Plans for the phenoptix future will involve a new website as we've found our current provider to be pain for integrating credit cards. They also host us on an oversubscribed server in the US, meaning UK customers experience delays in service. We have complained but they deny the problem. Volusion, take note - We are not happy!
Along with the new website we will be relaunching our forums, but with more wholehearted support and a few features to draw people in.
That's just a potted view of where we are I suppose.
Thanks for reading!