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Looks fine for me here in Firefox... I was wondering, would it help you to use this browser compatibility tool that mrb pointed me at a few months ago?

I think it is increasingly important to be online, and becoming much less of a luxury than it once was.

Even at the bottom of the food chain. You want to search for jobs? Complete online application forms? Research the company who are interviewing you? Then you'd better have access to the internet.

Especially now that libraries are charging for the use of their creaking old computers - if you want to check your emails once a day every weekday, as a potential employer will expect, then it's actually cheaper to have the internet available at home than it is to pay for a session a day at a library or internet cafe. And that's before we get into the benefits of being able to save documents on your home computer, not having to find childcare while you go online, not being restricted to half an hour at a time...

Add aspects like HMRC and DirectGov to the mix and I can see us getting to a stage where having access to the net is less of a "rights" issue and more of a "duty".

Perhaps it's weird, but as lefty as I am I have no problem with the principle of buy-to-let done properly. If someone with enough money to buy an extra house decides to use their nest egg to buy an extra house and make a business out of renting it to others to provide an additional income in retirement or something, fair enough. That said, I'd like to see more stringent application of our existing laws to protect both tenants and landlords from unscrupulous landlords/tenants who don't keep up their end of the contract.

But all of the messing about with switching your status to avoid paying CGT, or using a buy-to-let property to get your kids into the "right" catchment area and so on... it just feels like fraud by any other name and leaves a really nasty taste in my mouth.

Indeed.

A one-to-one business mentor is a great idea for someone just starting out in business, to access networks, bounce ideas, get feedback, an "outside view", give you someone to 'report to' who has no stake in the business, and even (dare I say it) create a space in which you can admit, out loud, that you're having a poor month or not feeling as confident as you'd like.

I get that, for free, from the Prince's Trust. An experienced and successful local (and therefore relevant) businessperson who volunteers their time to try and support a new business. I've found it absolutely invaluable so far and I hope to be able to "give back" once I'm ten years down the line.

But the pay-per-ticket stuff like EBA does seem to be little more than an offer of 'entrepreneur dust' (nice one Steve) and a testament to the power of good marketing.

(BTW: if any of the more experienced business people on here wanted to get involved as mentors with the Prince's Trust, it's only an hour or two a month, training given, expenses paid, soul polished.)

Aside from poor internet connectivity and a hardware deficit, are you having a lovely time?

I rarely feel able to think of myself as a business. I know that by most yardsticks I am one - I am registered with HMRC, I keep my books and pay relevant taxes, I have a separate business address and phone number, I invoice my customers and have business insurance... but really I'm just trying to make a living for myself. I don't think it'll ever lead to me managing my Virtual Assistant empire from the deck of my yacht, you know?

I disagree with the definition of "business" as "one that employs people". According to that definition, I would have been a business while I was still working PAYE - because my personal assistants are employed directly by me and I have to take care of their holiday/sickness/maternity pay as well as being immediately and solely responsible for their training, health and safety, etc. That definitely counts me as an employer, but I feel that a business should be one that earns money rather than just dispensing it.

But again, same thing... someone spots the demand and creates a larger battery for any other phone, customers can then go out and buy the bigger battery for

I'd go HTC.

I've been using Android on a G1 for over a year now. The Android Marketplace has loads of apps and of course the user experience is so much more open to modification than it is for Apple products.

It really made my toes curl when people complained "there's a problem with this product!" and Apple responded "the product is perfect, the users are the problem." I'm a firm believer that our tools and technology should fit around *us*, not the other way around.

The Giant Redwood! The Larch! The Fir! The mighty Scots Pine!

.... no, that's something else. Carry on.

It really, really depends what I'm doing. If it's brain-work, I prefer peace and quiet, and if peace and quiet are unobtainable or driving me mad, then I put the headphones in and go to RainyMood.com.

If it's a more manual kind of job, like folding flyers or winding pom-poms (I do love the variety of my work) then something I can sing along to - for a given value of "sing". If you asked my other half he'd be more likely to use words like "caterwaul" but hey, I'm having a good time.

Fiddly jobs need something much more relaxed, a bit of Nina Simone or REM or something. Or audiobooks.