Let’s look at the fiction and the reality of anyone would want to become their own boss.

The fiction:

• Money: You can pay yourself whatever you want
• Freedom: You don’t have to go into work if you don’t want to
• Boss: You don’t have a boss
• Stupidity: You don’t have suffer anyone else’s stupid business decisions
• Holidays: You can take holidays whenever and wherever you want

The reality:

• Money: You pay yourself only what you can afford, and that usually isn’t much – sometimes nothing at all
• Freedom: You don’t have to go into work, no, but then nothing will get done and you’ll have no business to speak of
• Boss: You have a boss. It’s you, and if you slack off you have to deal with yourself, wondering why you can’t pay the bills this month or your clients are unhappy work hasn’t been done
• Stupidity: The only stupid decisions you have to suffer are your own, so the buck stops with you
• Holidays: Holidays? Holidays??? Are you serious? You can’t take holidays – who will cover for you?

Do you still want to be your own boss? The reality of working for yourself isn’t quite as exciting and rewarding as the notion may first seem, but (and there is a but) it does offer you the sense of freedom and achievement you just can’t get by working for someone else. The opportunities and potential of becoming your own boss are also unlimited (as the risks, of course) so you succeed or fail depending on your own ability and dedication.

What are you waiting for?

Share on Facebook

Over the years one of these would have come in very handy, especially when some idiot reversed into me and then lied about it. Sadly I have only just got the camera, but it’s already starting to pay off. This particular incident happened when some moron decided to swerve across the road in front of me, rather than wait for me to pass. As you can see from the video, and the slow-mo, it was very, very close.

I’ll be recording all of my car journies from now on, so expect a few more of these in due time.

Share on Facebook

The video was added to YouTube on the 19th by the intended recipient of the monitor, and in two days it has attracted almost 2.5 million views and has gone viral. FedEx must be so proud of their driver. They couldn’t have paid for this type of publicity. Watch the video and marvel at the ineptitude and the ‘just couldn’t give a f*ck’ attitude of the driver.

Share on Facebook

This weekend I presented another man of the match award at an ice hockey game, this time at the Flintshire Freeze in North Wales. The Freeze had just beaten the Fife Flyers 15-6 at the Deeside Ice Rink, and I was there in my capacity as Technical Director at StuckOn, as StuckOn is a sponsor of the Flintshire Freeze.

During the game we received our sponsor’s shirt, which sports our logo on the arm, and then following the game I presented the man of the match award for both teams.

When I arrived at the rink however I didn’t realise I’d be doing the man of the match, and I was asked if we had a banner with our company branding (for the photograph) which, sadly, I didn’t. This set me thinking that perhaps we should have had some sort of branding for the photo, such as a banner or perhaps T-shirts (like the MrDaz one I had printed a few years ago) or maybe personalised polo shirts with our logo on them. This would have looked great in the pictures but, unfortunately, you’re stuck with my grinning mug (incidentally wearing the exact same coat that I wore when I did the Cardiff Devils presentation – I need to go shopping).

Still, the game was great, the Freeze annihilated the Flyers and there was a great fight in the third period (all you want from an ice hockey game really).

Share on Facebook

While it is true my glass collection doesn’t necessarily match, with different branded beer glasses all sat next to each other in various cupboards and cabinets, I never have the problem of drinking a beverage out of the wrong glass – something that I have to put up with in many pubs and bars. For example, I find there’s nothing worse than drinking Peroni in a regular beer glass. If you’re paying £3-£5 for a Peroni (as it can cost in some bars) then you’ll want the entire drinking experiencing that the money affords. In my house this isn’t an issue. Equally, when you’re drinking a Guinness (as I do regularly) you’ll want a Guinness glass to complete the experience. Some pubs have the audacity to serve Guinness in a non branded glass or, worse, in a Carlsberg glass (or some such inferior lager glass).

This annoys me, as a great many things do, so I’ve made sure this doesn’t happen in my house. Whatever the lager or beer, I have a glass available. Where did I get these beer glasses? The same place every guy gets his glassware, and it wasn’t from Sainsbury’s or Argos.

If, by some chance, I have a beer for which I don’t have a glass I can cover it by using one of my Beer Festive beer glasses, which were obtained legally at the Stockport Beer Festival… happy times.

Share on Facebook

One post the site had recently was particularly funny because the woman who posted it came back a few days later, after receiving advice and comments to her post, wondering how her story had wound up on the website in the first place. This woman’s story (which I won’t link to) was sent in to the website by the aforementioned woman using the contact form on the website, yet she was dumbfounded as to how we received her information and were able to post it.

Had there been some sort of security leak at the CSA itself, you may ask? This wouldn’t have been uncommon, seeing as their data is hardly secure anyway. They once posted a woman’s bank details to me by mistake, after printing them out and leaving them on the printer for some idiot to pick up and shove in a letter bound for my address. They have also famously lost data, and had staff sacked for accessing adult websites and material online using supposedly secure computers; their information security is basically a mess, something which I personally told their head of security, Bernard Devaney, when I last spoke to him in reference to the CSA staff member who tried to coerce fathers into killing themselves via Facebook. He agreed, although couldn’t go into detail.

However, this time the error wasn’t the agency’s, not that they couldn’t do without recruiting a few more people to information security jobs anyway. No, this error was the fault of the woman who rather stupidly pasted her entire story into the CSAhell.com website thinking she was contacting the CSA and, even when she returned to the website to retrieve her feedback didn’t remember being there in the first place.

No wonder her life’s in a mess.

Share on Facebook

My particular model Handycam is a DCR-SR36 – although I believe the issue may affect other Sony Handycam models as well. The problem is that when you take video files from the camera into Premiere, you’re left with video only – and no audio track. The fix, as it happens, is quite a simple one and requires you to download this dll file (right click and save target) and copy it into the root folder of your Adobe Premiere.

Before you do, I take no responsibility for anything that goes wrong – but it worked fine for me on both computers for which I’ve tried it.

If you restart Premiere, you should find your video files now have sound.

On a related issue you may find that Adobe Premiere isn’t playing any sound at all through your speakers, even though you now have an audio track in the timeline. This can be fixed by navigating to: Edit –> Preferences –> Audio Hardware –> ASIO Settings

Then ensure that each device is checked (as they’re not all checked by default, so you may end up with no sound).

This is the double headed problem I just faced today (and again last year, but didn’t make a note of the solution) so the next time I get stuck on it, I’ll know where to go. Hopefully it’ll help someone else too.

Share on Facebook

On the network of blogs that I run I get hundreds of comments each day, and companies that employ spam link builders to post nonsense, badly written comments in an effort to build links to their website are like a red rag to me. This latest company is a Cheshire based firm offering web design and ‘white hat’ SEO services. Obviously their SEO services aren’t quite as white hat as they claim, if the following blog comment is anything to go by:

Name: cheshire web design
Website: you-media.co.uk
Email: nicoleglass99@yahoo.co.uk
IP Addfress: 112.202.13.122
Date: Submitted on 2011/11/16 at 8:31 am

I differ with a lot of individuals right here; I ran across this web site submit We couldn’t leave right up until I completed, though it wasn’t precisely what I had been searching for, had been a great go through however. Let me instantaneously get the weblog supply to remain in effect of the improvements.

The name for the comment was ‘cheshire web design’, the keyword for which they’re trying to rank, and the email address used is a disposable Yahoo email (probably created by a foreign ‘link builder’). The comment itself is gibberish, and has probably been run through spinning software, translation software or just crafted by someone with a passing knowledge of English. Indeed, if you simply Google the first line of the comment you’ll see a number of examples where this dross has been published, linking to other websites that have also used the same link building company.

Rather that create quality back links for them, this gibberish has merely served to expose the black hat SEO tactics they employ, and the fact that they evidently use foreign suppliers for their link building (or they employ link builders who really cannot write intelligibly).

Good work You Media, your ‘white hat’ SEO skills are indeed impressive.

Share on Facebook

Anyhow, as I mentioned I bought this convertible back in 2004 and, as has become apparent over the years, it’s not the best car for the UK (or for me, really). The pictures below will show just one of the many problems associated with this very low down, two seater, real wheel drive convertible with low profile tyres.

The last few years have seen some pretty heavy snowfall in the UK over Christmas (probably something to do with polar bears and ice caps) and it’s made my car practically unusable for the duration. I’d have been better off with something like a 4×4 (such as the Toyota Landcruiser I once had) or even a small quad bike or ATV snow plough, which I have been looking at online!

Quad bikes aside (because they would be somewhat chilly) I have been looking at a new car in all seriousness. My BMW is about to tick over the 100,000 miles and, having owned it for 7 years, it’s probably due to be replaced. Of course, it may have 100,000 miles on the clock but the engine has actually only done about 45,000, because it was replaced after some idiot stole it while it was in for repairs and completely knackered it, so it has a new engine. Also, I may have owned it for 7 years, but for 18 months the car was in hiding because Direct Line insurance wanted to repossess it.

For the sake of argument though, it’s a 100,000 mile car that I’ve had for 7 years and it’s nearly time to swap it. So what should I get next? Something practical? Something economical? Something that just makes sense?

What do you reckon?

Share on Facebook

One such recruitment consultant is Jonathan Howson at Evolution Recruitment. I have never spoken to Jonathan, nor have I had any dealings with Evolution Recruitment, yet, for some reason, I cannot stop this man from trying to contact me offering me various jobs around the country.

I have been bombarded by emails, as is normal, from Jonathan Howson and have deleted each one without giving a second thought. However, he hasn’t stopped there; Jonathan is also bombarding me with text messages about random jobs, even though I have replied and asked him to stop.

I have also tweeted at Jonathan and Evolution Recruitment asking them to stop, but still I keep getting these texts and emails. It is annoying, it is unsolicited and it has been requested that he stops… but still he continues. He’s like the Terminator in the sense that he cannot be reasoned with but, unlike the Terminator, he’s just trying to earn some commission for sending candidates to job interviews and, in my case, job interviews I’m really not interested in at all.

So, if either Jonathan Howson or Evolution Recruitment are reading this (as I’m sure you will be) please stop emailing and texting me. It’s seriously getting on my nerves… and getting on my nerves, while quite easy, isn’t a good idea.

If anyone is interested, the number used for these unsolicited spam texts is 07515 522 056 and the email is jonathan.howson@evolutionjobs.co.uk.

Share on Facebook