It still amazes us the number of companies not TPS checking their call lists before making sales and marketing calls.

Only last month, we heard of an organisation being fined £90,000 for cold-calling thousands of TPS registered numbers.

TPS or the Telephone Preference Service is a central opt out register where people can register their wish not to receive unsolicited sales calls. It is free to sign up for the service and as of today there are well over 22 million numbers registered.

It is a legal requirement that companies are TPS compliant and there are numerous services out there that can check calls lists against the TPS register. When ukphonebook.com was relaunched earlier this year, a TPS checking facility was added that allows users to check their numbers starting from 80p per 1000.

With TPS checking this cheap there is no excuse for not being TPS compliant!

1. Don’t enter too much information

We generally try to allow for obvious spelling mistakes but typing too much can increase the chance of a difference in the spelling of a name. Just try and enter the last name and a town or village to start with. You can always refine the search further if too many results are found.

2. Find people who are not in the phone book by searching the Electoral Roll

If searching for a person using the Phone Numbers search doesn’t return the result you are looking for, it generally means that that person in registered as ex-directory. However, you may still be able to find an address for them by using the Electoral Roll search. Again, start by entering just the last name and a town or village and then you can refine your search from there.

3. Download the iPhone app

It is possible to have ukphonebook.com with you at all times. The app is called iPhonebookUK and it can be downloaded on the app store. For £2.99, you get unlimited telephone searches and results are displayed alongside a map. You can add the telephone and address information to your contacts or dial the number directly from the app.

4. Get volume discounts on credits

By signing up for a Corporate ukphonebook.com account, you can look up numbers from as little as 3p a search. You can also get access to more advanced search options as well as additional data sources such as Companies House and the TPS register.

5. Sign up to receive emails from us

All our emails contain useful information on new developments, special offers, and news of new product launches. We don’t want to spam you, just keep you up to date!

Pinterest was founded in 2008, and the site was launched just over two years ago but it is only in the last six months or so that the appeal has started to spread. Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo sharing website where users can collect images and arrange them into categorized virtual “pinboards”.

I began using the site in April 2011 after reading about it on an interior design blog. Although accessing Pinterest purely for personal use, I was aware of what a fantastic marketing tool it could be. However, I was uncertain of how we could use it at Simunix to raise our profile, seeing as web-based directory solutions are not particularly visually stimulating!

I decided that the best way for us to use Pinterest was not so much as a self promotional tool (a method frowned upon by Pinterest users) but as an insight into the Simunix office, the way we work, who we are, what we talk about, what our interests are etc. From my experience of setting up Twitter and Facebook pages for Simunix, our customers have appreciated the behind the scenes view they get from our social media pages as it humanizes an otherwise faceless company.

You can take a look at our Pinterest progress here where you will find boards showing why we love our office location, what gadgets we’re intrigued by and what we’ve been talking about, to name a few. The hope is that by pinning interesting images to our own virtual pinboard, we will attract followers who will want to find out a bit about who we are and what we do.

Happy pinning!

Although we update our data daily, we do rely on the telecom operators to provide us with the most up to date information. We have noticed that the new 101 non-emergency number for police forces has not been updated yet by the telecom operators.

We have ensured that anyone searching for ‘police’ on ukphonebook.com will see the 101 number at the top of the list as you no longer need to dial the full phone number for your local police station.

There’s a lot going on in the UK this year with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the 2012 Olympic games lighting up the summer calendar. It’s been recommended that we Brits skip our customary summer holiday to warmer climes in favour of a “staycation” in order to make the most of all the fun.

For our overseas friends who are considering a trip across the Channel/Atlantic/North Sea/Irish Sea this year, we thought we would come up with a few suggestions of essential London travel companions – for your iPhone.

1.       British Airways – Free 

You can view your check-in information, live departure times and gate numbers or can even book flights directly from the app. It provides access to your boarding passes and even allows you to check in with your phone. If you’re not planning on travelling with British Airways then check to see if your airline has a similar app.

2.       London Tube Deluxe – 69p/$0.99

This is a must for anyone planning to brave London’s notoriously busy underground. You can use it to plan journeys and check the status of specific lines which are prone to weekend closures. Available in multiple languages.

3.       iPhoneBookUK – £2.99/$4.99

Unlimited searching of residential and business telephone numbers and addresses for anywhere in the UK. The “near me” function allows you to find the post offices, banks, pharmacies etc. nearest to your current location. Definitely cheaper than calling the expensive directory enquiries numbers.

4.       London Travel Guide – Lonely Planet – £3.99/$5.99

A detailed city guide with attractive photos and articles about things to see and do. It’s easy to use and beats carrying around a heavy guide book all day.

5.       Hailo – Free

A bit of a gimmick but worth downloading just to see how it works. The app claims that you can hail a black cabbie with just two taps on your iPhone and then choose whether you want to pay by cash or by card. You can watch the black London cabs circling around you on a map and see when yours is approaching!

Remember me saying I was designing the website which was going to be launched alongside our new iPhone app (see this post)? Well they’ve both been launched now. You can find iPhoneBookUK in the app store now and visit the accompanying website at www.iphonebook.co.uk.

iPhoneBookUK provides you with an unlimited telephone lookup and address lookup. It finds both residential and business information and has a “near me” function which uses your location information to find results near to your current location.

Results are displayed alongside a Google map and you can add the telephone and address information to your iPhone contacts directly from the app. There is also an option to dial the number straight from the results page.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out!

We are exhibiting at Venturefest Yorkshire 2012 tomorrow so please feel free to come and meet us!

This one day business event is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and businesses from around Yorkshire to showcase and promote their advances in science and technology. Exhibitors and delegates alike will find inspiration, innovation and motivation as well as exciting investment opportunities.

Simunix will be exhibiting as part of the Innovation Showcase alongside over 30 of the best science and technology companies in the region where we will be demonstrating our newest ideas and developments.

It takes place at York Racecourse on 8 February 2012 (8:30 – 17:00).

I was designing a brochure in Illustrator CS4 recently and wanted to create this effect but couldn’t find anything on the Internet that showed me how to do it. I ended up figuring it out myself so thought I would share how I did it. It may not be the most efficient way, but I got the effect I was going for!

1. Create the shape and the text you want to overlap and make two copies of each. I’ve just put this on a grey background so the text shows up for demonstration purposes.

For now, hide the copies of the shape and text that are lower down the list of layers by clicking on the eye symbol next to the layer you wish to hide.

N.B. When pasting, hold down Ctrl+F to paste in place.

2. Create outlines of the top text layer by right clicking on it and selecting “Create Outlines” from the drop-down.

It should then look like this.

Next, select the top text layer (which is now in outlines) and the top shape.

Find the “Pathfinder” window. If it is not already visible, click “Window” in the top toolbar and select “Pathfinder” or simply just hold down Shift+Ctrl+F9 to open it up. Now click the “minus front” button which looks like this  .

3. You should now be left with three layers. Hide top layer but you can now show the other two. Ensure the text layer is above the shape layer in the layers panel.

Right click text to create outlines then ungroup by right clicking again and selecting “Ungroup”.

Select and delete all letters that fall entirely within the shape; in this case – E R L A P P I. Keep any letters that overlap with both the shape and the background (V and N).

4. Now is a good time to reverse the colours of the letters and the shape. In this case I have made my letters blue and changed the colour of the shape to white. Now bring the shape in front of the remaining text and make another copy of it.

Select one copy of the shape and then the letter V. This can be done while holding down Shift while you select the two objects. Again, use the pathfinder window to “minus” the front layer. Do the same with the N.

5. You will now be left with two letters that look like they each have a scoop taken out of them!

Unhide the blue shape (top layer) and you can see effect take shape.

Select all and group by holding down Ctrl+G.

6. Finally, set the shadow effect. In the top menu bar click “Effect” and scroll down to “Stylize”, select “Drop Shadow” and an options box will open.

You can set the shadow size, opacity and position in this box. Make sure “Preview” is selected so you can see how the shadow looks before clicking “OK”.

7. You now have a shape with overlapping, contrasting text. When saving, ensure you save on a transparent background so that you can see the through the punched out text on the shape.