Ed Henderson

(Guest post by my House)

I am sad, my family are moving away and while I would love to go with them, they can’t take me as its very far and I am too big to go on the plane.

I am looking for a new family to live here with me and enjoy my quiet street, huge back garden, generous bedrooms and lots of storage space.

What will it cost? The Hendersons would be looking for a very competitive price, £199,995, in return, I would love you as much as I love them. Plus Ed will leave a case of beer in the garden shed.

I am a new build, in Prestonpans, East Lothian (very close to Port Seton & Cockenzie). I am only 5 years old and The Hendersons are the only owners I have ever had, so everything is snagged and nicely setup for a brilliant new family to come and live here.

Downstairs

• Hall
• Toilet (WC)
• Livingroom / Lounge with a big bay window
• Dining room / family room
• Kitchen/breakfast room with French doors to garden (and door to Garage)

Upstairs

• Landing (woo hoo, landings rock!)
• Big Master bedroom with en-suite shower room (double shower)
• Three further double bedrooms with storage space a plenty
• Family bathroom

Oops, forgot to mention…

• Gas central heating
• Double glazing
• Attic
• Large, enclosed rear garden (large lawn, deck, kids play area, trampoline and large shed)
• Big Garage (with door to Kitchen)
• Double monobloc drive (room for 4 cars, party!)

Nearby to me

• I am also close to a variety of Primary Schools and Preston Lodge High School is just up the road.
• Prestonpans train station is just up the hill, 10 minutes away
• The bus link to Edinburgh is at the bottom of the road (5 minutes away)
• It only takes 5 minutes to get onto the A1 and 10 minutes to the City Bypass
• Port Seton, Cockenzie and the sea

Wait, don’t go, I have more…

The fitted carpets, blinds, most curtains, in addition to the oven, hob, cooker hood, washing machine, dishwasher, fridge and garden shed are included.

There is even a trampoline which my family say could stay if you really want it!

You likey?

If you like what you see, have any questions, contact my owners, Ed & Rose who can arrange a viewing.

Some further Estate Agent related information…

• Property at Warners Estate Agents
• Property at ESPC

This is Noah, he is my 2 year old, football and running mad son. He goes to Socatots (kids football class) and is always outside running and kicking a ball. He is very excited that the Olympics are coming in the summertime so he can watch and cheer. Even more so that some of the football games are going to be at Hampden (Glasgow, Scotland, near us).

His favourite colour is blue (yes I know its a French strip, but its blue). The reason the picture is blurry is because he never stands still long enough.

This is the Team GB Replica football kit for the London 2012 Olympics made by Adidas. Its a football jersey, its blue and its for the London 2012 Olympics GB football team.

Noah will be 3 at the end of May and what better present to get him than this strip. Its blue, its for the Olympics and its a football jumper. Easier said than done.

We can’t. They don’t make them in his size. In fact, unless you are age 7 and up (or a large kid), you can’t get one.

I emailed the London 2012 shop to get an answer, find out why:

Hi

I was wondering why the Team GB Football Kit for kids only starts at age 7-8, surely there will be hundreds of kids younger than that wanting to get a hold of the strip (including my football mad 2 year old)? Can you tell me the reason for this when many other football clubs/countries supply strips for sale for newborns and young toddlers right up to age 7?

I look forward to your response.

Regards

E.

Two days on, I have yet to receive an answer.

I am genuinely confused as to why this jumper is not available in kids sizes, most football clubs and countries sell shirts from size newborn up. With a sponsor such as Adidas and designers like Stella McCartney involved, how did this happen? How did they forget about the kids?

Surely with the Olympics in Great Britain we want EVERYONE behind the team and as has been proven with football (soccer), a strip goes a long way in uniting a team, a country.

I genuinely hope this is an oversight on the Organising Committee’s part and that kids sizes can be brought out as soon as production allows otherwise we’ll have not just one sad little boy unable to support his blue strip coloured football team at the Olympics in HIS country, but hundreds of kids up and down Great Britain.

Edit 1 – Response from London 2012

Dear Ed,

Thank you for contacting The London 2012 Shop.

We are currently looking into your query and we will respond as soon as we have any information for you regarding this.

Kind Regards,

Martin

The London 2012 Shop Customer Service Team

Edit 2 – Response from London 2012

Dear Ed,

Thank you for contacting The London 2012 Shop.

Adidas has the license to produce clothing for the Olympics. They have not produced replica kit in infant and young children’s sizing – however there are other official Team Gb and London 2012 t-shirts that are available to purchase from the range.

Please see below links for product that we have in stock for 5 year olds:

(Links removed)

We have many more lines due in over the next month – so there may be other styles that you will like among them.

Should you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

So they passed the buck, tried to sell me other stuff, even when I made it quite clear what I was after AND got my kids age wrong.

Due to my upcoming move to the USA, I have (very) reluctantly begun to tidy out my bookshelves as I don’t want to ship 400kg of book. These are the books I will be hoping to find new homes for. I would prefer they went to someone who would like one. Most books are in great condition and have been well looked after.

Happy for any offers or requests and I will be using any money received to replace these books with the Kindle versions. See the image above or the list below and if you have any questions, just ask.

(Just to clarify, not looking to sell these job lot, happy to find individual homes, 21/37 SOLD)

1. Marvel True Believers Retro Character Collection
2. East Lothian Cycle Map SOLD
3. Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski SOLD
4. Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter (A Book Apart) SOLD
5. Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte (A Book Apart)
6. The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane (A Book Apart) SOLD
7. CSS3 For Web Designers by Dan Cederholm (A Book Apart) SOLD
8. HTML5 For Web Designers by Jeremy Keith (A Book Apart) SOLD
9. The Smashing Book #2 SOLD
10. The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich (Paperback) by Timothy Ferriss SOLD
11. Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?: And 114 Other Questions (Paperback) by New Scientist
12. Professional LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP Web Development (Wrox Professional Guides) [Paperback] by Jason Gerner, Elizabeth Naramore, Morgan Owens, Matt Warden SOLD
13. Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works (Interactive Technologies) [Paperback] by Janice (Ginny) Redish SOLD
14. Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-it-yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems (Voices That Matter) [Paperback] by Steve Krug SOLD
15. Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability [Paperback] by Steve Krug SOLD
16. 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (& Other Useful Guides) [Paperback] by Matthew Inman
17. Learning jQuery 1.3 [Paperback] by K Swedberg, J Chaffer SOLD
18. Bulletproof Ajax (Voices That Matter) [Paperback] by Jeremy Keith, Aaron Gustafson SOLD
19. ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever [Paperback] by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
20. HTML for Babies SOLD
21. E-myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It (Paperback) by Michael E. Gerber SOLD
22. Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?: And 101 Other Intriguing Science Questions (Paperback) by New Scientist
23. The Manual #2 SOLD
24. The Manual #1
25. Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design (Voices That Matter) [Paperback] Dan Cederholm, Ethan Marcotte SOLD
26. Bulletproof Web Design: Improving Flexibility and Protecting Against Worst-Case Scenarios with XHTML and CSS [Paperback] by Dan Cederholm
27. Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook, Special Edition [Paperback] by Dan Cederholm
28. Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke SOLD
29. The Talisman of Unification: The Overlords (Paperback) by Jr. J. Michael Squatrito
30. Legend of the Treasure (Paperback) by Jr., J. Michael Squatrito
31. Journey to Salvation [Paperback] by J. Michael Squatrito Jr
32. Jack Draws Anything [Paperback] by Jack Henderson
33. The Icon Handbook by Jon Hicks SOLD
34. Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3 [Paperback] by Ben Frain
35. Introducing HTML5 [Paperback] by Bruce Lawson, Remy Sharp
36. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art [Paperback] by Scott McCloud
37. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative [Hardcover] by Edward R. Tufte SOLD

Noah Henderson watching brother Jack and Dad Ed on the Social Media for Social Good live stream (Photo © Rose Henderson)

Last month, my son Jack and I took the afternoon off school/work and went through to Glasgow to talk at Social Media for Social Good (an event organised by Be Good Be Social) about Jack Draws Anything. With a room of around 80 delegates and a load more watching on the live stream, there were certainly a lot of eyeballs on us.

Giving a 7 year old a live microphone while you attempt to talk sensibly was always destined to cause havoc but I think it went okay in the end, I think.

Video

If the video does not work for you, you may use this direct link.

Slides

If the slides do not appear for you below, you can use this direct link.

And finally…

Jack’s book is still available to buy, best bet in the UK is from Amazon, or check his website for full details. Buying this book raises further funds for the Sick Kids Friends Foundation (the charity for the Hospital that helps his brother Noah).

Jack at Social Media for Social Good with a copy of his book Jack Draws Anything (look how much he has changed) (Photo © Ed Henderson)

This is a short story (possibly based on actual events) written by my good friend Tony Hughes, back in 1999. He has kindly given me permission to reproduce it here.

It was a Friday night and I was going out. I met up with Ed and some of his workmates in town and, as usual, they drifted away home because they had sore heads or no money or some such other excuse not worth mentioning. So, at some point in the evening we found ourselves in the Moo Bar. It’s not the sort of place I like to frequent as it’s usually full of dark, shady characters staring ahead. We only went in because Ed needed to use the toilet.

I got the beers in while I waited and glanced around the dimly lit room. There wasn’t much to it — it was like standing in a living room of a house of someone you don’t know particularly well. Just as I was wondering what I was doing here Ed returned. We talked a little until his voice trailed off as he noticed a hat on the floor presumably belonging to the occupants of a nearby table. It was a sort of Indiana Jones type thing, felt–like and wide brimmed. The three men at the table looked like university lecturers and were all dressed smartly.

Now for reasons only best guessed at Ed hatched a plan to steal the hat. He suggested we sidle over to the fruit machine and I put some money in thus causing a distraction whilst he edged the hat over our way with his foot. This we did and I bent down with the practised art of a person with years experience of picking things off a pub floor and attempted to make my escape. I chose to leave by a different door to the one I had come in by — something I soon realised was a mistake. Lesson one for any prospective criminal is to have a foolproof escape route mapped out for those times when he requires a quick exit. I picked the hat up, stuffed it into my coat and walked briskly to the exit. It was locked. Two padlocks barred my route to freedom. What does one do in such situations? What could I do? I sprinted back through the main bar to the door where I had come in, passing three puzzled–looking lecturer–type men, and ran out into the street, gibbering laughter as I went.

I rendezvoused with Ed farther up the street, he oblivious to my panic–stricken plight of earlier, and we headed off to the next pub, The Woolpack. The next part of the plan was simplicity itself: sell the hat to enable us to purchase more beer. Well either students are getting a whole lot poorer or we weren’t the salesmen we thought we were. Nobody was prepared to pay for the hat. We couldn’t even get a pound for it. The bar staff wouldn’t buy it, the bouncers wouldn’t buy it. If I were a student I would pay a pound for it just for the thrill of throwing it at somebody or fooling about with it later on. Eventually, after a long protracted bartering session with some English Lit. students, we managed to offload the hat for the net total benefit of one pound. That managed to get us one vodka and lemonade.

As we sat there with our respective drinks (I got the vodka, Ed got to hold his last drink for a while longer), we felt a sense of loss. Tonight’s fun had been taken away for the sake of a watered down spirit. There was only one sensible option left: locate the hat and attempt to buy it back.

It wasn’t too hard to find. After haggling for over a minute we had the hat back, all for the princely sum of £1. 20. Where next? The Student Union of course! Having ordered 8 vodkas and lemonade, we tried and failed to swap them for the hat. The young barman looked at us and laughed a nervous laugh, as we had drunk 3 vodkas each before grudgingly agreeing to give him some real money for the alcohol. The hat was sold and repurchased another two times before it was dawning on these students in the bar that these two clowns were not really to be taken seriously and, in fact, must now be avoided as they were having fun. All the fun seems to have been somehow sucked from students in the 1990’s. It’s as if their primary reason for attending university is to get an education.

Whilst we stood debating what to do next, Ed decided to play an electronic quiz machine, called something like ’Mastermind’ or ’Test Your Knowledge’. It seemed fairly simple and we confidently expected, with our unwavering now–drunken enthusiasm, that we could actually win some money from this thing. All there was left to win five pounds was the music round: listen to 4 songs and press the requisite button to indicate which of the four answers provided are correct. A still picture of the Bee Gees came on the screen with the words ’Listen to this piece of music…’, this would have been fine had (a) The surrounding noise in the bar not been as loud as a fog horn, and (b) the speakers on the quiz machine had not been disconnected. There went another pound.

Next stop was Citrus Club, where we happened upon two blondes standing at the bar, the sort of women who, if you approached saying hallo and offering a drink, would tell you to fuck off. As the dance floor got busier it became easier to sidle up to people and plonk the hat on some unsuspecting head. It was to mixed reactions: some people laughed and played along with the joke, others threw the hat away as if in a rage, and glared at us ominously.

I’m not actually too sure what became of the hat. Ed swears he didn’t leave the club with it and I remember nothing of its demise. Perhaps it was meant to be.

I have spent the last few weeks winding down my freelance web design business (been going for 7 years) and its a lot harder than I thought it would be. The simple things like not taking on any new clients, letting existing clients know and administrative stuff is pretty straightforward. However the part that is proving the most fiddly is sorting out my existing clients and finding them a new home.

I made the decision early on NOT to suddenly close up shop and leave my clients hanging. I have seen this happen many times and its not pretty. While it may seem like the quickest exit, it would leave a lot of unhappy folk. Clients who were originally friends, clients who become friends and clients who will remain friends. Its just not my style.

I gave my clients a couple of months notice by email that at the end of May 2012 I wanted to be in a position where I was no longer responsible for their websites, hosting and email, BUT, still able to field questions and help if I could. Around only 50% of my clients actually responded, which was a LOT less than I thought. It took a further two rounds of emails of increasing urgency to eventually elicit a response from everyone but we got there.

(I have around 40 clients of varying degrees of complexity; mailboxes, hosting, maintenance, websites, applications, etc.)

It was only once I started the process, did things get complex. Speaking to each client in turn, finding out what they wanted to do, did they have another supplier they wanted to use? Did they want to run things themselves? Did they know what they were doing? And for some, surprisingly, what services did they have with me and how much did it cost them!?!

I thought it would be quite easy to rehome my clients, potentially even selling the business as a whole or at least large groups of clients but it didn’t happen like that. As I spoke to each client I came to realise that it was very similar to rehoming a cat…

(Please for one minute don’t think I am comparing cats to clients, this would be wholly unfair on our feline friends).

What I mean by this is that over the years, you kind of grow attached to your clients, you get used to their nuances, habits, good points and even problems. For the most, you learn to live with them, adapt, put up with them and sometimes even clean out their litter tray.

When it comes time to find them a new home, it has taken time and effort to find the right person and place for them to go. Some clients need a lot more hand holding, for some its all about price and some just want to be left alone. For the more tricky clients, finding them a supplier that would tolerate them has also proven taxing. Most clients just want things to continue in the same manner they are accustomed to.

I did my best and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, everyone will be gone and be settling into their new homes. Means I can finally hoover and get rid of all the cat hair on the couch.

Meow.

Hopefully everyone has heard of Dummies books, well in short, I have been approached by a US publisher and asked if I would write an upcoming Dummies title – CSS3 for Dummies.

CSS3 (keeping it simple for non-techies) is a language used to describe the presentation (the look and formatting, colours, fonts, layouts, styles) of a website or web page. CSS3 is the newest standard being developed (CSS = Cascading Style Sheets). Its a web design book Mum!

With more than 200 million books in print and more than 1,600 titles, Dummies is the world’s bestselling reference brand and they have an instantly identifiable and distinctive black-and-yellow cover design. Katie Feltman, Senior Acquisitions Editor for John Wiley & Sons. (owners of the For Dummies brand) said “we are very excited to have Ed as part of the Dummies team!”

Now this may not be big news for non-techies but in my world this is incredible and I am honoured to be working on this book with such a high profile brand and respected publisher. I have not started yet as the contract has only just been agreed, but the book *should* be out later this year (Q4).

I am still in shock myself. Exciting times!

If you have reached this page looking for Web Man Walking (web design/development studio, 2005-2012) or Web Man Walking Limited (business, company number SC362327, 2009-2012) then unfortunately they are no more (or are in the process of being wound down).

You have been redirected to the personal website of myself, former owner and Director, Ed Henderson which you are more than welcome to browse.

Both the business and I are no longer reachable at the old registered business address: PO Box 13935, Prestonpans, East Lothian, EH32 2AB so please do not write to us there.

Please get in touch if you have any questions at all and I will be more than happy to help (where I can) and/or direct you to the right person.

Thank you.

I will be speaking at Scotland’s first full-day third sector social media conference, Social Media for Social Good. Taking place on 26th April, Social Media for Social Good is a day long event packed with expert talks and workshops to help third sector organisations get the most out of social media.

Following on from my talk last November at Be Good Be Social, for some reason I have been asked back to talk some more about the phemonenon that is/was Jack Draws Anything.

From 9.30am BST on Thursday 26th April 2012 they will be live streaming the whole event. Jack’s Dad (me) is due on stage at 4:10pm so you can watch me on the web, or follow along with the hashtag #begoodbesocial.