Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7
My Dad repaired most of our shoes believe it or not, I can hardly believe it myself now. With 7 pairs of shoes always needing repairs I think he was quite clever to learn how to “Keep us in shoe Leather” to coin a phrase!

He bought several different sizes of cast iron cobbler’s “lasts”. Last, the old English “Laest” meaning footprint. Lasts were holding devices shaped like a human foot. I have no idea where he would have bought the shoe leather. Only that it was a beautiful creamy, shiny colour and the smell was lovely.

But I do remember our shoes turned upside down on and fitted into these lasts, my Dad cutting the leather around the shape of the shoe, and then hammering nails, into the leather shape. Sometimes we’d feel one or 2 of those nails poking through the insides of our shoes, but our dad always fixed it.

Hiking and Swimming Galas
Dad was a very outdoorsy type, unlike my mother, who was probably too busy indoors. She also enjoyed the peace and quiet when he took us off for the day!

Anyway, he often took us hiking in the mountains where we’d have a picnic of sandwiches and flasks of tea. And more often than not we went by steam train.

We loved poking our heads out of the window until our eyes hurt like mad from a blast of soot blowing back from the engine. But sore, bloodshot eyes never dampened our enthusiasm.

Dad was an avid swimmer and water polo player, and he used to take us to swimming galas, as they were called back then. He often took part in these galas. And again we always travelled by steam train.

Rowing Over To Ireland’s Eye
That’s what we did back then, we had to go by rowboat, the only way to get to Ireland’s eye, which is 15 minutes from mainland Howth. From there we could see Malahide, Lambay Island and Howth Head of course. These days you can take a Round Trip Cruise on a small cruise ship!

But we thoroughly enjoyed rowing and once there we couldn’t wait to climb the rocks, and have a swim. We picnicked and watched the friendly seals doing their thing and showing off.

Not to mention all kinds of birdlife including the Puffin.The Martello Tower was also interesting but a bit dangerous to attempt entering. I’m getting lost in the past as I write, and have to drag myself back to the present.

Fun Outings with The camera Club
Dad was also a very keen amateur photographer, and was a member of a camera Club. There were many Sunday photography outings and along with us came other kids of the members of the club.

And we always had great fun while the adults busied themselves taking photos of everything and anything, it seemed to us. Dad was so serious about his photography that he set up a dark room where he developed and printed his photographs.

All black and white at the time. He and his camera club entered many of their favourites in exhibitions throughout Europe. I’m quite proud to say that many cups and medals were won by Dad. They have been shared amongst all his grandchildren which I find quite special.

He liked taking portraits of us kids too, mostly when we were in a state of untidiness, usually during play. Dad always preferred the natural look of messy hair and clothes in the photos of his children.

News is an obsession for many people, whether it’s via newspapers, the internet, mobile phone, TV or radio, most of us devour regular news content throughout the day.

Because of this desire to read news content, many outdoor news screens are being installed in many different types of locations to entertain, inform customers. These news feeds are often intermixed with advertising content to provide a revenue source that can pay for the screens and news content.

Most news screens receive direct feeds from over the internet from news agencies like Reuters, Association Press (AP) or Press Association (PA), but local and more targeted news is offered by many local news organisations.

Weather and sporting news are also provided on these types of screen and provides a reason for people to look out for the screen, hence creating a captivated audience for advertisers.

Most news screens are placed in quite hostile locations, however, such as draughty bus stations or even ferry terminals where spray and excessive temperatures can be a potential problem. Many of these outdoor news screens are in outdoor locations too so they need to be protected from the weather and other outdoor elements.

The TV screens used for providing these news feeds tend to be standard commercial grade screens commonly used for digital signage and other out of home use, few of these screens are designed for outdoor use so they are protected using outdoor LCD enclosures.

Designed to accommodate nearly all major sizes of screen, the LCD enclosure provides all the outdoor protection these screens require to allow them to function outside. They ensure the screen is waterproof whilst also ensuring the internal temperatures of the enclosure are never too high or too low from the optimum for the device-regardless of the ambient conditions.

Richard N Williams is a technical author and a specialist in the digital signage industry helping to develop outdoor digital signage and protection for plasmas. Please visit us for more information about LCD Enclosures or other digital signage solutions.

Small businesses are the heart of every country. Almost every one of us has a tendency to buy your car from the same car dealer as your parents or your friends even if it a local retailer you know of or to shop at the same neighborhood store every week. Consequently, most of the jobs in our economy come from these small business owners. However, there are some cases wherein many of these business owners fail within their first year of business. The major reason for this is the lack of proper advertising and marketing strategies.It is quite obvious that small business owners do not have a budget to launch a large scale advertising campaign. However, internet is a cheap and effective method of advertising since it can reach to a huge audience and thus can help in increasing your business to a large extent. Just like advertising in newspapers of your region to attract local consumers, even in internet you have to find out the websites and search engines that are mostly used by the people in your locality and region. This can be a bit time consuming but there are some websites that are aimed at a particular geographical area. Thus if you aim at such websites your work is greatly reduced.Just like newspaper, there are classifies ads even on the internet. These are one of the cheapest ways to advertise online. For effective small business online advertising, you have to be a good copywriter in order to create effective and attractive ads that will be noticed by the users. Another very effective method is to send personal emails.You can rent email lists from various companies and select the recipients according the geographical area and other demographics. However, you need to supply an attractive headline which will cause the recipient to open your mail and read your advertisement.There are different ways in which online advertisements are paid. There are some banner ads that are put up in popular blogs and other websites. These ads are paid for each time they are clicked and viewed. Clicking on the banner will lead the user to the website of the product. Sometimes depending on the keyword these advertisements are placed on websites that are related to the keyword. For instance if you are florist and are advertising for your shop you can place your ad in websites that are related to flowers and buying flowers. However, there are some advertisements that are paid for each time they are simply put up online.Unlike big and established companies, small business owners are mostly new to the area of online advertising. There are some companies that are specialized in small business online advertising. You can take help from these services in the beginning in order to understand the advertising and marketing strategies in online market.They might even help you in drafting your advertisements in an attractive way that will definitely attract online users. It is necessary to create advertisements that have bright colors and graphics which can be easily seen among all the other ads.