Qik – Peter Donegan Garden Design & Landscaping

you should...

The entire list of companies for ‘technology for a gardener’ is/will be here.

This is piece #3. This is Qik.

This is a toughie to explain. I find. For me. It’s not Irish. But there is no alternative. And it is absolutely amazing.

NB: VERY IMPORTANT:

before I go any further. Please contact your phone company. In Ireland mine is O2 for example. You need a data package. I have the ‘1 meg’ data package. It costs about €15 per month. IF YOU DON’T sign up – do expect to remortgage the house…..

That out of the way. This is where the very intelligent people in QiK turn into amazing – It’s made simple. In every way. Its simple to sign-up – even for me 😆 You click on the website http://qik.com – a little box appears – pick a username, password and fill in your email address. You’ll then get a text to your phone with step by step instructions and after that you are just about done… *if* you do have any trouble – you email – it is answered. Genius 🙂

So what is Qik? So why do I use it? A gardener. A greenie. A green fingers etc… ?

It’s quite simple. You know when you need to explain something and one photograph just won’t do it? Qik allows one to video it – with a twist. That is, those watching can ask questions at the same time as you you ‘record’ – from their computer – which appears as question on your telephone screen.

Not the greatest example but, here’s one I did last year on growing in seed trays… I may not have had the greatest audience but the point is that – I did allow interaction with people – rather than ‘preach’ from a pre-recorded video….

Gardening aside – the finest example I used Qik for was when at a wedding – my brother in law was stuck in Dusseldorf airport and couldn’t get to the wedding on time because of airport strikes [Irish strikes for the record].

Naturally distraught – he called me – I told him to get to a computer in the airport [you know the pay per 30 min ones]. He did and I live streamed the couple to him saying they’d see him soon… and Phil typing in messages for me to read out….

The other great thing – no uploading to a blog post or an email – it’s already there. You just send the link or embed.

Anyhow – it is another amazing piece of technology that – makes life less complex… Thats said since I changed my phone grrrrrrrr 🙄 I have not been able to use Qik [click here for explanation] – but i’ll solve that one soon enough..

jackie…. thursday garden guest #9

If you’d like to know more about Thursday garden guest time – click here

For the moment, garden guest #9 is Jackie Danicki. If you know a little more about computers than I do anything about technology, then you will probably know this lady as part of the QiK.com team. My intro to Jackie came through this [and the good old Irish style of my mate knows her so she’s cool] and when I had trouble working my abacus phone – a lady appeared – and ensured I was guided through my paces. Everyone I know speaks extremely highly of her and through no sense of an inferiority complex I can only raise my had and admit to being a great admirer of the individual, genius, generous and caring mind that is Jackie. Ladies and gentleman all rise and applaud boisterously for the legend that is….

The Garden – What I like about….

Some gardens are exquisite, some are ratty, and some are a bit of both. Spend enough good times in a garden like this and the charms of perfection will be lost on you.

A close friend holds the deed to one such space, in Chelsea, London. More often than not, the grass is a little longer than it should be. Occasionally, the vines get somewhat out of control. There is no real landscaping to speak of, just haphazard beauty which would regard symmetry as offensive.

My friend and I worked on a business together a few years back, and we spent many hours working at a mosaic tiled table in that garden. At night, we’d have other friends come over for supper and drinks al fresco, with the hardcore contingent lasting until morning light. Eventually, heat lamps were bought so that we wouldn’t have to head indoors at all.

Over the years, that garden saw a lot of action. I fell in love under the heat lamp, had huge rows across the table, and closed more than one business deal in that tall grass. And this was only one night! No amount of landscaping could have improved upon what was already the ideal backdrop for an indulgent, productive, massively influential period of my life. Sorry, Peter – sometimes there’s no work for you to be done. 🙂