I was recently contacted and asked to trial the new 3 USB dongle for three months and write down my experience of using it, so I was quite excited to get it almost immediately in the post with instructions to simply plug it in and follow the instructions.

Unfortunately due to my vista, it didn’t quite work out so easily, but after some reading I figured out what was happening and finally managed to get it all working.

Wow, I was impressed to start with, quick to connect and fairly quick connections too, pages opening up almost immediately. If you had been around on Sunday afternoon in my house, you would understand why I was eager to use it and test it out. My router had blown itself up and left me totally internetless, and I was suffering from withdrawal symptons several hours later, so when I got the 3 dongle working, it was like having that first drink or that first mouth of chocolate.

But I have since been left frustrated further, after my brief glimpse at how good it was, it now refuses to open pages and the bandwidth can’t even get my emails or open a simple IE window. Signal is good and connection immediately but I sit and get constant page won’t load messages, having tried at various times of the day too. So I will try it out again this weekend from various different places and see if its just a small area thats affected …. watch this space for further news!!

Commuter land has found a new craze, knocking down houses and building them again! The idea is to knock down a house built between the 20’s and 60’s when houses were built with large rooms and possessed large gardens, and then rebuild it as your dream home. Check out your local council web site and see the planning permissions for re-build, and your local property press with houses advertising, potential to extend subject to planning permission suggesting that this trend will continue for a while yet, despite the credit crunch that’s hitting lower end houses. So who is doing this then? Well the present trend for new dolls house developers as they are known would appear to be middle to upper management/directors/professionals, mainly in their 40’s, who have large equity in their existing properties.

For information on getting a mortgage/loan to do this visit this page then come chat.

I was invited to join a new one the other day and I did and found myself promoted within hours to the ranks of the Mods! There might not be hundreds who have joined it yet, but those of us there are having a very relaxed informal but informative time, so come join in and see.

There are lots of various forums out there though and if you seek further information, whether its general or more specific good advise can be found, from seo, IT, marketing to just general business chat.

See you there then …

Why oh why oh why, do small businesses not realise that to take their eye off the ball regarding their accounts for more than a few days, is the same as not bothering with making sales calls and doing their marketing.

Its not such a dirty word you know, cashflow .

For instance, do you as head of your Company, know how long it takes your average client to pay you?

As an article in the Independent last year stated,

“Q. What one thing should I do every month to help my business succeed?

A. Every business must make a profit. But even profitable businesses can fail if customers don’t pay on time since they may not have the cash in the bank to meet their own bills. Every month, identify customers who haven’t paid you on time, known as “aged debtors”, and chase them. Remember that you are in business to make money and not to lend it - you are not a bank!”

Did you realise that despite any terms you state on your invoices that the average time for payment of it will be 60 days and larger companies longer. Time to sort out your credit control and ensure that this figure comes down, as after all, you need that money to purchase other goods plus pay yourself and if you have them your staff.

What is that all about? I have recently joined the myspaces and facebooks that you are told are a necessity, but also digg, twitter, stumble upon and technorati as well. You are also told to ensure you get a blog and link it to your site. So how effective are they?

Come back in a month of so and perhaps I will have a better idea if they actually can drive traffic to your site, or should I say the traffic I am looking for.

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