My Arm is Giving Me Some Trouble
mMy left humerus was broken by a bully at school and for the last few days, it has been giving me quite a bit of trouble. Or that’s what I hope it is. My left hand was terrible yesterday and I had difficulty tying up my shoe laces. I also couldn’t get the souvlaki off the skewer. But after a good night’s sleep it seems to be a bit better. I’m actually using the shift key with my forefinger easily this morning. Usually I make a few mistakes and have to correct them. But today it seems alright. It could also be better because the Caps Lock key on this computer isn’t so easily mis-hit. Who needs the key anyway? I never normally use it.
I suspect that as I haven’t had any physio on the upper arm and shoulder for nearly two weeks now, that this is the problem.
Programming in the Nude
The story about Comic Relief reminds me, that most of the time I was programming Artemis at Debach and was alone, I never bothered to get dressed.
It did have its drawback, in that once I trod on a loose nail and hurt my foot. Luckily after a bit of TLC from C, I was able to carry on.
How many people, other than a few models and actors, can claim that they made their fortune without their clothes on?
Why SMEs Don’t Get a Look In
David Cameron is reported as saying that he will open up more contracts to small and medium sized companies.
But it won’t happen, as these sort of contracts don’t fit bureaucrats thought processes.
As an example, a government agency found that my software Daisy would be ideal for an application. The cost would be a couple of thousand pounds for a special system. But as they were dealing with contracts in millions, they couldn’t find a way to buy the software or pay me for the consultancy. In the end I walked away from it. I suspect that in the end they did nothing or spent several millions with one of the major consultancy firms to do a job that was worth five grand at most.
As a contrary example, a division of a major British company found that Daisy was useful to their researchers. So they put it on their approved software list and allowed those who wanted it to buy it with credit cards and then bill it on expenses. I sold many copies that way, just because the accounts department at this company wanted their people to get the work done.
And then there is the question of bribes. Not actual suitcases of the folding stuff, but big companies can afford to have things like days at sporting events and ask the purchasers along. Small and medium sized companies can’t afford that and anyway they have more important things to do, like keeping their business solvent.
How To Organise a Company
I found this article on the WordPress site.
It just shows how blogging is more than just an expression of one person’s vanity, but a complete philosophy for the management of a company and its web presense. I won’t say site, as that is so out-of-date and constricting.
Death, Taxes and Spam
Benjamin Franklin said that there are only two certainties in life; death and taxes.
Today he would have added spam.
If I look at my unwanted e-mails and remove everything that is obviously crooked, comes from a foreign source or is related to companies I once signed up to, I end up with a surprisingly short list; Rodial and Heaton Wealth Investments. As I said before, Rodial is a company I have no need for and I find it mildly amusing that they are targetting me. The other company is trying to sell me useless property investments and my financial advisor has told me to steer well clear of them. As most of the properties they seem to be promoting are from places, I wouldn’t visit, if you paid me, I doubt I’d be pulled in by their charms.
What worries me, is that these companies wouldn’t do it, if it wasn’t profitable for them. So perhaps there really is one born every minute.
A Better Way to Measure Blood Pressure
I do hope so, as the current method seems to cause all sorts of problems when healthcare staff measure mine using the traditional cuff, whether it’s connected to a high tech machine or a manual device.
In Hong Kong, they were very worried about my blood pressure and they were always measuring it. Sometimes they changed from the new to old devices.
My previous doctor too, often got a different result to her nurse and another doctor, said I suffered from a classic case of white-coat hypertension.
So a new blood pressure device developed at the University of Leicester is to be welcomed. Especially, as it can measure the blood pressure closer to the heart or the brain.
It also looks to me that after fully researching and sorting the medical principles, instrument engineers have applied modern electronic technology to the problem.
We shall be seeing more devices like this to monitor many bodily parameters in the future.
Dixons Get It Right
I have said that the fridge had been wrecked by the previous tenants and a chippy came round yesterday morning and removed it and fixed the kitchen cupboard doors, which the tenant’s children seemed to use as exercise equipment.
The Wrecked Fridge
Note the broken door and hinges. There also seemed to be evidence of small furry animals behind the fridge, but as the chippy said, there are lots of them round here.
I’d seen the type of fridge I wanted in Currys on the Kingsland Road, so I found one that fitted on the Dixons web site, so I ordered it. I also paid £9.99 extra to get it delivered in a three hour slot on Friday morning, when I know I’ll be here.
About an hour later, I realised, that I would need to do a swap and get the old one humanely destroyed. There was also the problem of the fact that my kitchen is on the first floor. So I phoned them and explained. I was on the phone to their call centre in Sheffield for perhaps a couple of minutes and the instructions for the delivery were sorted. At no extra cost too!
I’ll be needing a new washer-dryer in the next week or so. I wonder where I’ll look first!
John Lewis Gets It Wrong
I’m putting up new blinds in the house, as the tenants of the previous owners, wrecked them, just as they wrecked a lot of other things.
I’ve always liked vertical blinds that you can draw to one side, but have never installed them, as C preferred traditional curtains. The house is modern and I live on the first floor, which has a large living area and my bedroom behind it. There are three big windows, with two in the living room and one in my bedroom.
So I felt the best plan would be to get new blinds fitted in the bedroom and then if I liked them, put them in the living room. As I’m not too sure of some of the things I do, I felt it best that plan would be to get John Lewis to measure them to avoid any mistakes.
The lady came and measured my bedroom and whilst she was here, she measured the living room windows as well, so that they’d have them on file for later.
A few days later John Lewis sent me two copies of each of two estimates; one for the bedroom and one for the living room. It was a total of over a dozen sheets of paper. As instructed I accepted the estimate by signing and returning it. As I thought that there was only one estimate, as I thought the living room was just being kept on file, I signed the last estimate, which as luck would have it was for the bedroom.
Imagine my surprise yesterday, when the fitter arrived with the blinds for the living room and not the bedroom.
At first they said that is what I’d signed for and it was only after some lengthy phone calls, that John Lewis admitted they had made a mistake. They’ve also got two blinds made up, that don’t fit any windows except mine.
It still means that I’ve not got any blinds in my bedroom and in a few days, the sun will be streaming through from about four in the morning.
This is a classic cock-up, that could have been much worse. So why did it happen?
The sheaf of papers I was sent could easily get mixed up. I didn’t, but when I returned the estimate, they did something like put it in the wrong file.
Suerely, in this day and age, there should be an Internet-based system, where everybody can see and check the progress.
Nokia Blows It
I use a Nokia 6310i, as it does everything I want from a mobile phone and more. So where did they all go wrong? As rumours are that they are in serious trouble.
According to this article, they spent too much time in the sauna.
I doubt I’ll ever buy a smart phone, as they just don’t suit my lifestyle. I’m even taking my laptop on trains less, as a magazine or paper and my phone give me all the entertainment I need.
I do wonder sometimes, whether a large part of the population are growing tired of electronic toys. Reality is so much more fun!
The Blog Based Small Business
This blog is absolutely standard WordPress. all I pay for is a small amount of extra storage and the use of VideoPress to put my videos in the blog. I think I pay about thirty dollars a year.
This blog is in effect a complete web site, with a contact form, searching and all the things you’d expect from a professional website. It also doesn’t have adverts or other things that will annoy my readers.
It differs in one way to a professional website, in that updating it just needs a small amount of form filling in a web browser. The difficulty is about the same as sending an e-mail.
So could you run a small business on a blog such as this?
I’ll use the example of a lady who does small repairs and alterations to clothes and household furnishings. There used to be and probably still is, someone like that in Cambridge market a couple of days a week and C got her to shorten and alter clothes for her. I was taught to do all this by my mother, but don’t think I could manage it now, with my hands.
Such a business could work well off the back of a blog. Say she repaired an expensive evening dress for someone in Dulwich, she might post a picture of the repair, with a brief description in the blog.
As Google knows everything immediately from WordPress, someone searching for evening dress mending, Dulwich, may well find the blog.
Gradually, as the blog expands you’ll get more hits and from the statistics, you can find out how your visitors got there.
So the blog does your market research in addition to getting your customers.
The Anonymous Widower 