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On a personal level I love cloud computing. I love webmail, I love google docs, I love that my Android phone co-ordinates with it all.

Even on a local level, my ideal setup at home would be to have a lovely powerful central machine that was the actual computer and then just have a terminal in every room that I could pick up, log into my session, and carry on.

What I don't know about is cloud security. For this reason, unless a client *asks* me to work on something already in the cloud, I still work in the more traditional way of making a document locally, saving it, and emailing it as an attachment.

I just can't bring myself to trust the reliability and availability either - for important things I want a locally stored copy which I will back up myself to a separate drive. Not to mention how annoying it is when you have a document on the cloud... you have a device capable of viewing said document... you want to view it... but you've got no mobile signal, no wifi, no connectivity at all and therefore can't get at it.

Yes, a couple of weeks ago I saw this video... highlights from Dragons Den chopped and edited to make a very different kind of show. As if you couldn't guess, while the visuals are fine and the audio contains no actual swear words, it's not really suitable for work.

These are not the assistant services you are looking for.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. We've got a Conservative PM backed by a Lib Dem deputy and they're introducing a load of measures whose conception and initiation was the work of the Labour regime. What's to choose?

Best example for me is David Freud, a banker who the Labour govt brought in to advise on the welfare system. He began, by his own admission, with no prior knowledge of the systems involved... spent two weeks 'learning' about supposedly the entire system and writing a report, then spouted a load of wildly inaccurate information to the papers (in some cases based on benefits which no longer existed) in an informal interview which was taken as official truth. Even people who dislike the welfare system would surely rather have a properly informed expert spending a little bit more time considering the issue. Then, when it became apparent that Labour would not win the election, he jumped ship to the Conservatives to carry on pumping exactly the same half-baked misinformed ideas. Where's the difference?

To be honest I'm at a stage where I only vote to do my bit to prevent the BNP getting elected. I know plenty of other people who won't vote at all because they think it means they're 'endorsing' the actions and ideology of whichever party they choose. It's depressing.

Hurrah! Happy birthday Mark!

I love viral marketing as an end-user, because often it's funny and a lot of time and effort and energy has been put into it.

My favourite at the moment has to be the Old Spice campaign. The original ad really appealed to my sense of humour. Then I found out it was done all in one continuous uncut shot (admittedly with dozens and dozens of takes) and in 'real life' rather than green screen* - and so I was engaged by it again from a technical interest viewpoint.

However it hasn't made me go out and buy any Old Spice.


*Apart from the animation of the bottle of Old Spice rising from the diamonds (obvious), and an airbrushing in the final 1.5 seconds where a bit of a boom was in shot (forgiveable).

Oh dear. I mean, I agree that it's easier to keep track of spending when you're doing it with cash, I also think that money seems like more money when you hand over several

Forgive me for being late to the thread, gentlemen. I was busy having a fit.

The only trouble with asking for the full amount up front is that it puts off every client who has ever paid up front only for cowboys to do shoddy work, or no work at all.

They do come up a lot when I'm doing wedding-related searches, but it's a great big horrible and worst of all PINK* bunch of adverts, generally encouraging me to spend thousands of pounds I don't necessarily have on dresses designed to make tall skinny standing-up people look good.

I have no idea whether I'm representative of people currently planning a wedding, but I know I'm not alone in rebelling against an industry where the ultimate end result sees you having a taste-ectomy and turning into Jordan.


*I really hate it when marketing something at women means making it Barbie-pink.