Author: Olly

  • Human Target – Season 3…. Hopefully

    During our last holiday to Rhodes (I’ve just realised i haven’t blogged about that!) we discovered a TV show called Human Target – its kind of a cross between the A Team, and James Bond.. With a bit of all the other action type dudes thrown in for good measure.

    It did at times come with a side order of cheddar, but all in all I loved it – so much so when I got home I watched the two seasons that were available -and I thought every episode was awesome, it even had some interesting co-stars popping up from time to time!

    After i’d watched them all I started looking into why the show had been dropped – and it appears that due to some bad episode scheduling (showing the episodes the same time as shows like American iDul) the show was simply cancelled to make way for something else. I found this really confusing to be honest as the show was ace and after some searching I found that it has a lot of great reviews dotted around the web too – which means a lot of people clearly enjoyed it!

    Then it kinda left my mind for a while due to there being no new episodes (and general getting on with life junk) until earlier today when I decided to look for any info that might suggest a season 3 – but the news literally stops shortly after it was cancelled only to be mentioned again in some other article about some other (not as awesome) shows doing really well (strangely enough the article mentions Human Target being a “highest rated drama”)

    So I figured I would do a blog post to see if I could get any Human Target fans to sound their trumpets and maybe make someone who can do something about it open their eyes to a TV series that with a few tweaks could be brought right back into shape and once again entertain millions of people (but mostly me)

    Also FOX needs to make a Human Target Season 3 as the only other series on TV I like is Spartacus, which coincidentally has just started the 3rd (well, 2nd, as the physical 2nd one was technically season 0 – coming before season 1) so I have lots of spare viewing time that could be filled with Human Target Goodness!!

  • Its nearly caddy time

    My car insurance runs out on the 28th of this month, and when it does it wont be renewed, neither will my tax which is also due at the end of this month…

    No… i will be insuring a soon-to-be-purchased runabout car and the caddy will FINALLY be going in my garage, only to surface for trips to see Neil (Turners Auto Services) and maybe a paintshop at some point – and when its finished of course! Woo!

    It feels like such a long time coming – Ive had the car 10 years now and after everything i have been through with it, it’s finally having some proper love, care and most importantly MONEY thrown at it.

    I haven’t suddenly come in to money and its not going to be greeted with a garage of parts waiting to go straight on – in fact the only thing i do have for it already is a new set of wings (Thanks Tia!) and that’s it! I do expect the project to take a few years (maybe longer) as i will try and do most of the work myself – calling for help when i really need it (probably daily!)

    My first task is to strip it down to as close to a shell as i can manage by myself – and then remove the engine and gearbox and all the junk that associates with that. I must remember to label and photograph the whole experience – not so i can show people, but so i know where everything goes when i need to put it back together!

    I will of course post a few pics and updates here and there – probably at insane holes or cracks in places i couldn’t previously see!

    This has all of course been made possible to our awesome new house and my awesome new garage!

    All i need to do now is find a cheap runabout and im laughin’ like a bag of budgies.

  • Debt Free!

    Like many people, i’ve been in debt for most of my adult life. It all starts out ok and you just a little loan to buy a car, then you want other stuff and so on and so forth – until you get to a point where things have gone a little too far and you really need some help.

    Some people turn to debt management companies, some to loan sharks… Some people flee the country and hide until it goes away.

    Thankfully I have amazing parents, an amazing partner and I am of the hard working kind – and after many ups and downs i am now – as of yesterday evening – 100% debt free!

    My mum helped me with the last little push (for which I am eternally grateful) and now I can finally start rebuilding my credit so that one day when I want to borrow loads of money to start my sneaker shop, the man at the bank won’t run a mile 🙂

    Woohoo for debt free-ness!

  • Organised, Finally!

    In this modern fast paced world, its sometimes very easy to find yourself swamped with stuff to do (work and personal) and it can feel very overwhelming and dis-jointed at time, which is what lead me on to find some services/tools that would help me and my businesses become both more organised, and ultimately more efficient.

    KashFlow – Online Accounting!

    One of the main areas of our business that wasn’t performing well was the accounting side of it. We had sage installed on Daves PC, and it was fine for a while but if i needed to issue an invoice, i had to get Dave to do it. Its also a huge program and we were probably using 10% of it.

    It just didn’t suit our business.

    So we browsed the web, and found a product called KashFlow – and we have never looked back!

    Its hosted on their servers, so no issues if your servers go down or whatever, it contains a full quoting, invoicing and purchasing system that allows you to easily be your own bookkeeper! So that’s a saving straight away!

    It also ties directly in with the VAT man, so one click and you can publish the info directly to the VAT office, no messing about!

    It also fits in with how we work SO much better…

    Try it for yourself!

    WHMCS – Hosting Automation!

    For years and years and years we have hosted peoples websites, and spending time chasing payments of £60/£120 once a year from the millions of customers we have is not only an admin nightmare, but also a pain in the bum!

    We looked about at a few packages that integrated with WHM (our hosting software) and WHMCS was found to be the best, by far!

    It pulls all existing accounts from your server, and you can set pricing and renewal dates so it automatically emails people an invoice when it is due.

    It also integrates with KashFlow which is pretty damm awesome!

    Try it for yourself!

    Google Mail, Docs and Calendar

    We’ve used these services for quite a while, but now ALL our documents, emails and calendar entries are stored “on the cloud”. We have totally bitten the bullet and now store all our spreadsheets, word docs and any other form of document on the Google servers.

    We decided it was more likely to be our servers that had an issue, not Google’s – also the sharing options of the documents are amazing. If i shared a document with you, i could edit it at the same time you had it open, and you would see it appear in front of your eyes.

    It makes collaborating on documents so much more efficient as you don’t end up with duplicates etc.

    The mail is also super reliable, compatible with all modern smart phones and just, well, works!

    We also schedule meetings on each others calendars, which automatically sync with our smartphones as well.

    From a more personal angle, i use a Google Spreadsheet as my “To-do” list, as i can open it on any PC and its always 100% up to date, i can access it via the Docs app on my phone, and my business partner can also add things to it if he needs me to do them – its a great (very simple) way of staying on top of your workload!

    Try it for yourself!

    These tools have made an incredible difference to both my own productivity, but also the efficiency of our company.

    And an efficient, organised company, is a more profitable one 🙂