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August Newsletter
Dear Newsletter Subscriber
Welcome to the UKFast newsletter!
It's the end of August so the end of summer. Where was it exactly? Not to worry, hopefully our August newsletter will bring a beam of metaphorical sunshine to your day!
Once again we have packed our periodical with all of the latest UKFast news, including our new multi-million pound data centre alliance, tech and marketing tips and a spotlight on one of our clients.
This month find out about online server rebooting, the need for accurate html coding of online content and why Fleet Risk Profiler is a must use service for global business giants like Shire plc.
As always we look forward to your comments. The next edition will be in September, when the weather is bad - so no change there then!
In this month's issue
August@UKFast
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It has been an incredibly busy summer for UKFast. Fortunately the economic slow down has not affected our business and we have continued to grow significantly. We have welcomed Nokia, Universal Studios and Barclays as new clients and staff numbers continue to swell with yet another influx of eager new recruits.
However, our biggest news of the month has been the completion of a partnership deal with UK Grid to significantly expand our data centre capacity. In early August we finalised the £9.6m agreement that will add 350% to our server rack space. For more information we have included a video about the data centre tie-up in this month's newsletter.
Avid viewers among you of dedicated Manchester TV station channel M will have seen our MD Lawrence Jones make his second appearance on the breakfast show in as many months. Lawrence was invited back to debate the value of a university education. Watch the debate here.
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Finally, we would all like to say good luck to UKFast business development manager Graeme Hastings for his upcoming Ironman challenge. Graeme has been training extremely hard for the notoriously gruelling triathlon, which takes place in early September and involves a 2.5 miles swim, 112 mile bike ride and 26 mile run.
In addition to taking on the event as a personal challenge, Graeme will also be raising money for Factor50, a charity dedicated to combating melanoma. For more information about Factor50 and to make a donation, visit their website www.factor50.org.uk .
Online Rebooting
Did you know you can reboot your server online? We added the ability for clients to request automatic reboots on all of our UKFast Core range of servers a while ago and this has been working perfectly with great feedback from our clients.
Because of this we are now extending this capability to all servers supplied by us from the start of September. Have a look at your client area under Services -> Servers to find details on any servers that you have hosted with us.
If you would like further information on this subject please feel free to contact the UKFast Communications Team on 0870 421 1585 or stephen.mcnamara@ukfast.net
The importance of validating your HTML
An alarmingly large number of websites across the internet are riddled with programming errors which cause them to be invalidated. Could yours be one of this group? Your site may look great in Internet Explorer and Firefox but if all HTML is not correct you may be missing out on potential custom from users of less well popular browsers.
Website validation is vital to ensure that your site is universally accessible across all browser platforms and this includes mobile platforms. Invalid HTML code often causes mobile phone Web browsers to display distorted versions of websites, which are impossible to navigate and leave users feeling frustrated. And angry customers are considerably less likely to buy from your site.
Here are a few common mistakes to watch out for:
- All HTML must be in lower case to be read properly.
- Search engines differentiate paragraphs with <p> </p>. Don't not use </ br> as this simply signifies a line break.
- Ampersands can cause issues with HTML readers. So if you need to use one write & in its place.
- Similarly, for a pound sign, write £pound;.
You need your site to perform to its optimum potential at all times to give your users the best customer experience possible.
Online tools - Get your Risk Right
Effective risk management is important to all companies at all times. Inadequate cover can come back to haunt you, so it is important to get the right level of cover for your unique requirements. Never is this more true than at a time of economic down turn, when the need for cost effective and water tight cover is at its greatest.
This is where Fleet Risk Profiler comes in. Fleet Risk Profiler is a comprehensive online tool that businesses can use to accurately evaluate their risk management requirements.
Fleet Risk Profiler assesses an organisation's risk profile using 16 different risk factors including vehicles, drivers, management support, site, loads, journey and delivery. Risk managing status is then identified using a unique method of analysing responses to a large number of data sets around risk factors affecting individual business. A series of risk rating and management reports are then provided.
The reports deliver a comprehensive review of the user's risk management issues and provide detailed guidance on how to best meet those requirements. And all of this is done using an easy-to-use online interface that allows access as and when a business needs it.
Fleet Risk Profiler can name Shire plc, one of the world's biggest biopharmaceutical companies, among its growing list of clients. Shire is using the system to totally review it risk management for its 1,000 strong global fleet.
What excites us at UKFast about Fleet Risk Profiler is how it showcases the versatility of the internet. Through a website interface, Fleet Risk Profiler can offer a completely interactive experience that delivers a bespoke service for each client.
To find out more, take a look at their website at www.fleetriskprofiler.com.
Please get in touch with us if you would like more information on any of the articles mentioned above.
Until next time, we hope you enjoy the last days of summer and we look forward to speaking to you at some point soon!
Best wishes,
The UKFast Communications team
For more information on the range of UKFast products and services go to http://www.ukfast.net
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