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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber
@jackbarber.co.uk
390 followers 940 following 430 posts
Designer & web developer living in Whitby, UK. Husband, dad of 5, part of Grace Church, Loftus. Runner & reader (should do more of both). hellotechnology.co.uk
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · 11d
Just moved my desk and chair into my new office. I officially become a tenant at Church House tomorrow. Looking forward to having some space to call my own again after 18 months working from home.
Office with window, desk and chair.
jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Sep 8
I'm running a full-funded 5 week course called 'Digital Transformation in Tourism' for businesses working in the tourism industry across North Yorkshire.

Find out more and sign up here:

ynygrowthhub.com/events/whitb...

Places are limited, so sign up early to secure your slot.

#tourism #marketing
Whitby Workshop Series: Digital Tools for your Tourism Business - Y&NY Growth Hub
🟢 First Step into Digital This engaging workshop series delivered by Hello Technology is designed to help tourism and hospitality businesses harness the power of digital tools to grow their brand, att...
ynygrowthhub.com
jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Sep 5
Turned out it was a dodgy #MySQL query in a cron job. It had worked fine with my staging data - but the real-world data caused issues.

A friendly reminder to test with real data, people.

And a reminder to myself to double check my MySQL queries and always presume they're badly optimised 🤓
jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Sep 5
Have been chasing a bottle neck on my server for weeks. Something was causing high load, but none of the usual suspects. High traffic sites were all cached. Bots were mostly being kept out via firewall.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 17
At £19 MRR I'm not so sure, but it's a start 🤓
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 16
My web app just got used by a real person (who I do not know), to send emails to lots of other real people (who I do not know).

That means it's a real thing, right?

🥳

#webapp #indiedev #indiehacker #saas #web #software
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
Also, you might get to see the most amazing views (the photo is from Simon's back door), and meet really interesting people.

#customerservice
Glaisdale Dale
jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
Don't get precious about your job title. Don't pigeonhole yourself too soon. Be accommodating, flexible and customer-focussed. Be empathetic and listen well.

You never know where these connections will take you.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
In these days of AI customer service bots, actually turning up at someone's house, solving their problem and making a real, human connection is worth its weight in gold.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
But when I started working in IT with Dave and Phil, nearly twenty years ago, I immediately recognised the importance of a rural business actually serving the local community.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
"Don't you have enough web work?"

Yes, plenty.

"Don't you find IT support boring and frustrating?"

Yes, sometimes.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
A few weeks ago I installed a Ring doorbell for another retiree whose children were concerned about her wellbeing, and to avoid her having to navigate the stairs too often.

When I mention this kind of work to people who only know about my web development work they're often surprised.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
In the end it was a matter of finding the right combination of capital letters and numbers in one of the many passwords which had been written down years ago. No technical wizardry there, just trial and error.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 15
This morning I had the pleasure of meeting a new customer, Simon. Well into his 90s, Simon had been locked out of his iMac for nearly two years.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
If you want to chat about customer journeys, SEO, content architecture, or some other aspect of e-commerce web development please get in touch.

#ecommerce #sales #marketing #seo
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
For context, on this project I'm working alongside a marketing agency, supporting their work by providing SEO and content architecture support to a B2B business within a Shopify website.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
My advice to other freelancers? Read widely, understand the value your work adds to other people's businesses and demonstrate it by communicating clearly. Talk to people in different fields. Learn. Connect.

Employees? Do the same, and don't be afraid to step out of your lane from time to time.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
Web developers are a vital cog in the world of e-commerce, but those who're solely focused on the nuts and bolts of development often fail to understand the impact they could have on customer journey by approaching their work differently.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
On the other hand, employees sometimes have limited scope and a lack of business experience. This isn't a bad thing, but it needs managing carefully in order to ensure their potential is being maximised.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
As a freelancer I've learned to connect the dots in other peoples' businesses. I understand who my clients' ideal customers are, what they are looking for and how to communicate the value offered by my clients through web design, structure and content in a way that builds trust and converts.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
"You've imparted more value in an hour than we got from years of employing a full-time web developer."

This is what I was told after an hour's Zoom call this morning.

Why did was my input valued? Why had their employee failed to impress?

Here are two observations:
Hot air balloons in the sky
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
If you're building some software (especially as a solo founder) then let people use it as soon as you're able, and ideally real users (not just your mum). You'll smash through the bugs so much quicker.
jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
There's nothing like having real users checking out your app to work out where the problems are. I'm fortunate that this user works in tech support, so he knows how to communicate the issues he's seeing in language we both understand.
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jackbarber.co.uk
Jack Barber @jackbarber.co.uk · Aug 13
This week I've been on-boarding a new church who're starting to use my #SaaS tool (churchplanner.co.uk). They've been working through every feature, adding their data, reporting bugs and recommending improvements all week long. What a joy!
Screenshot of web app
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Reposted by Jack Barber
churchplanner.co.uk
Church Planner @churchplanner.co.uk · Aug 11
This week I've added a few new fields to Contacts:

- Preferred name
- Secondary email

And I've added the option to use #markdown when editing emails. This makes it easy to add some simple formatting and highlighting inline. Some HTML tags can also be used, for further flexibility.
Markdown in a textarea
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