Fit and Fabulous

Cladding the Queensland house or ‘Queenslander’ with vinyl cladding speaks eloquently of our distinctive lifestyle and is one of the most sensible alternatives to the regular high maintenance of the exterior of our houses whilst also maintaining it’s distinctive character and architectural design.

Queensland has more than one type of housing but a traditional past of building with timber has been dominant. This distinctive tradition originated with rough timber huts of early settlement and developed into the multi-gabled bungalows of the 1930s. Buildings continued until, and were adapted after, the Second World War, leading to more contemporary timber houses.

The most typical early twentieth century Queensland house is characterised by:
• timber construction with corrugated-iron roof;
• highset on timber stumps;
• single-skin cladding for partitions and sometimes external walls;
• verandahs front and/or back, and sometimes the sides;
• decorative features to screen the sun or ventilate the interior.

Some of the negatives for the Queenslander were the high maintenance and poor insulation of the external walls as they were only single skinned and required regular painting. One of the most cost effective ways of rectifying these negatives is to have insulated vinyl cladding install directly over the existing exterior walls. This will leave you with an almost maintenance free exterior that never needs to be painted and also makes the house warmer in winter and helps with cooling costs in the summer.

Vinyl cladding, despite its relatively low price, is an extremely durable product. The colour of vinyl house cladding will last much longer than a cladding option that is painted. The cladding won’t dent like aluminium cladding, and unlike wood cladding, vinyl cladding is resistant to moisture, mould and insects so it won’t rot or deteriorate like wood can over time. In fact, vinyl cladding is one of the most durable options of any type of exterior cladding on the market. Our vinyl wall cladding can withstand extremes in weather including temperature changes and relatively high wind speeds. In fact, our cladding can even withstand cyclonic force winds. The manufacturer of our cladding is so confident in the product they offer an extensive lifetime warranty to back up their claims of how durable the product is.

Keep the character of your Queensland home, reduce maintenance and add insulation.

We offer free quotes for new and old buildings, why not call us today on 1800 684 717 or check out these web sites: Cladding Townsville – Cladding Bundaberg – Cladding Ipswich .

Moodle is the world’s most popular learning management system. Moodle is flexible and scaleable software designed to help educators create interactive and collaborative online learning experiences. Moodle originated in Australia around a decade ago and has since been internationalised in more than 200 countries and 100 languages. The official community site has more than a million registered users.

There are many ways in which Moodle can be effectively used. These include
the delivery of online courses, continuing professional development, staff compliance, workplace assessment and induction training. Being open source software, there is a great deal of community support toward the development of third-party plugins to extend Moodle’s core functionality.

Moodle is distributable without licensing costs, however, it does take a degree of technical expertise to install, configure and secure the software on a web server. Once deployed, it can be easily managed by a qualified system administrator.

Moodle’s key administrative functions include the ability to control authentication, change site appearance, assign roles and permissions, manage accounts, perform bulk user actions, automate course backups and generate various reports. Moodle enables integration with external systems, e-commerce plugins and SCORM compliance. Moodle is proactive in terms of data security and information privacy of its users, hence, patches are released on a periodic basis and there are global settings that can be configured by the system administrator.

Course creators can add online activities and resources intended for their students. Moodle’s standard activities include assignment, forum, blog, chat, messaging, quiz and wiki. The learning sequence may be totally non-linear or controlled so learners engage with online course objects in a structured fashion. User activity and course completion tracking are tracked, moreover, assessment grades and feedback can be reported in real-time via the internet.

Moodle enables online content to be distributed in several ways. Course participants can quickly upload existing files from their device, disk, or network. Using Moodle repositories, it is possible to import content and media from Cloud-based services such as Google Docs, YouTube, Flickr, Boxnet and Dropbox. On the same token, content can be export from Moodle to third-party services.

Assess, track and report on your learners via the web. Get started now and learn more today about Moodle Sydney, Moodle Brisbane and Moodle Melbourne providers.

Most heavy vehicle owners in the transport industry are asking themselves – How can I save money on my running costs? How can I save on fuel consumption? Will a truck wheel alignment help?

Research & studies conducted around the world show that around 80 percent of medium to heavy vehicles are incorrectly aligned, or have a mis-alignment. If your truck, trailer or bus has incorrectly aligned wheels & axles, you have what we call increased rolling resistance when travelling on the road. This means the engine is working harder than required to push the truck along the road, and the end result is an increase in fuel consumption. Given that fuel can account for up to 50% of the operating costs of a truck or fleet, smart operators must explore all avenues to reduce fuel consumption.
Generally speaking, correcting even slight alignment issues have been shown to result in a saving of 3 – 10 percent on fuel.

3% doesn’t sound too significant does it? Lets take a closer look – One truck runs Brisbane to Sydney (return) 3 times a week (6,000 kms). That’s 312,000 kms a year. Fuel consumption average is 1.85 litres/km. That’s 577,200 litres, current local prices are around $1.49 per litre. Fuel cost for the year – $860,028.00. If you reduced fuel consumption by 3%, you would save $25,800.84!!
Your scenario may be different, but you can see that small changes can make a big difference to the bottom line of your business. There are other areas where you can save on running costs, which will be covered in another article.

If you own one truck or one hundred, and you are not having a regular truck wheel alignment performed as part of your maintenance schedule, you really need to contact your local truck wheel alignment specialist for a chat.

Truckologist is a mobile truck wheel alignment business based in Brisbane, Australia.

On-line social media has absolutely changed not only the way people interact with each other, but essentially the way that customers deal with business.

With more than 700 million people using the internet worldwide, Facebook alone is a gargantuan marketing entity, not to mention other social media powerhouses such as Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin and Google Plus. While there is much media hype and hysteria, social media sites have -in the most basic sense- changed the way that any type of business with a public presence operates, and are now as necessary to a business as an email address and a website.

But with all of the clear differences social media has brought to marketing, it is crucial to hold a realistic assessment of its capabilities and results.

With any kind of new marketing bandwagon comes a multitude of dishonest or clueless companies and “social media experts” that focus on new businesses by promising the world and under-delivering.

Many millions of dollars and countless hours are completely wasted on useless social media ideas every day. But social media is not magic. Without proper marketing and business basics behind you, a social media presence can only fail and -depressingly- be a waste of time and money.

Despite creating the illusion of ‘free’ advertising with its lack of start-up and/or hosting fees, social media requires a constant presence, fresh content and site maintenance in order to be successful, which demands valuable time that most businesses simply can’t afford to spare. This is where Social Media Brisbane offers to do all the work for you, while encouraging room for approval and oversight by their clients.

Examples of where companies often do the wrong thing with social media include:

• Bad Content
Uninteresting or even stolen articles, out-dated suggestions, and painful attempts to be groovy are all too common regarding content published online. People on the internet are perceptive, and will sniff out insincerity and arrogance in an instant.

• Impatience
Creating a healthy online social network takes time and diligence. A successful network can’t just sprout in a day, you need time and content to see results. Some businesses will create a social media profile, watch the results for a couple of weeks and then quit with annoyance when they don’t get the results they hoped for.
This also ties into:

• Consistency
Spacing content out regularly over several platforms is a lot better than using all of your content up at once or not updating at all. Nobody likes a spammer, but with the overload of information that we encounter all the time, without a steady reminder of your brand’s presence you will quickly be forgotten. Just a small fortnightly update can be fantastic for continuing and increasing relationships with customers.

We here at Social Media Brisbane know exactly how social media operates, and deal with it as a part of your marketing strategy rather than the be all and end all.

Most importantly, we also integrate revolutionary Search Engine Optimization systems into our work, which is something that no other social media group does.

Choosing consultants who concentrate on gimmicks instead of content and that throw around buzzwords like “viral” or “Web 2.0” instead of showing strategy and results can simply end up as an exercise in frustration.

If you are looking for a social media consultancy based in Brisbane, contact the Brisbane SEO Company today on 3166 9622.

Parties for kids have come a long way in recent times with more options, more expectations and more expense placed on an event that runs approx. two-three hours. Involved in the kids party industry for over 15 years, I have seen every type of party from the informal backyard gathering to a veritable carnival with a great variety of entertainment hired.

However, a children’s party doesn’t require a big budget or an event planner to be wonderful. I want to give you some great tips to get the party started and the kids having a ball.

1. Stick with tradition. Children love it when predictable elements are present, and if they’re overlooked, it won’t go unnoticed! Must-haves are: Food, birthday cake, and the all important Party Bag! If you provide these three things, you have a party.

2. What to provide for the kids. There are so many options: Party games; hire an activity or entertainer or have it somewhere that will entertain the kids for you. The Golden Rule is: DON’T OVER-DO IT!

Just one or two entertainment events are more than enough. The fact is, the kids are already being expected to eat now, cut the cake now, watch the gifts being opened now, etc etc.. When you add entertainers, activities and games, children can easily be overwhelmed, and the party whizzes by without the kids having time to actually play.

3. Play time: This element should be the number one party essential. Factoring time for children to play, run around, talk and laugh with one another is golden. It suits children of all ages and capabilities, and what’s more , it’s free!

4. Age-appropriate entertainment. This suggestion may seem like a no-brainer, but I have attended many parties that can have children feeling bored or bewildered. For example, hiring a magician-clown for two-year olds left most of the children terrified. Another example is a bowling party for four-year olds. The children had no interest in being competitive and after a few bowls, the excitement had absolutely worn off. And even Pass-the-Parcel can cause distress when played with kiddies too young to know they haven’t missed out, they just have to wait their turn. When you are hosting a party with mixed ages and genders, there’s a broad range of entertainment that appeals, such as jumping castles, face painting and balloon-twisting.

5. Relax! When planning a party, listen to your child and use your instincts – you know what they’ll enjoy the most. On the day have a mini run-sheet so you don’t forget anything, like when to put the party pies in the oven or to hand out the party bags.

Then, enjoy YOURSELF too…after all -it’s a party!

Best of luck!

Looking for face painters Bribane for face painting Brisbane ? For the best kids parties Brisbane, contact Wowee Creations today.