Yet again today I’ve been involved in an argument about the costs of Dell vs. Apple laptops. It gets really old, really fast.

All the normal excuses get trollied out, “They’re not that more expensive really”, “Apple Macs are lovely, and built from a solid block of aluminium”, “Dells fucking suck” so forth, so fifth.

So for the sheer fuck of it, I decided to do a comparison. Dell vs. Apple Mac vs. HP (as one person recommended). HP isn’t really fair, as they don’t appear to offer much in the way of customisation.

The spec : An “office-ready” machine. (i.e. not Dell’s low-end inspiron, but corporate Latitude). 4Gb RAM. 500Gb hard disk (or highest size possible). Best possible monitor/screen resolution. And what we come up with is this :

Not the most convincing (once you’ve added in VAT – Dell and HP don’t show it ’til afterwards) but still the Apple is nearly £200 more than it’s nearest competitor.

Interesting though.

Over the weekend, I’ve made a decision and a bit of a commitment, which came as quite a shock to me once I’d decided on it.

Up ’til now (a whole month!) I’ve been looking at the current job as a six-month contract that’s likely to extend, rather than as a permanent role. My aversion to permanent roles is well-documented (and recently re-witnessed by Herself when this job came up) for a range of reasons, so seeing it as a contract role was more of a sanity thing than anything else.

Anyway, I’ve made the decision – allbeit with the proviso “Assuming that it doesn’t go as horribly fucking wrong as the last one” – that I’m going to be here for the next twelve months, through to the start of 2011. After that, all bets are off – but I’m going to do my best to stick out this role for the whole of 2010.

As you can imagine, it’s all been a bit of a shock to the system , but I do have my reasons for making this decision/commitment.

First of all, I’d quite like to have a year that’s considerably calmer than the last two years have been. In this case, while I’m still going to be doing work for myself (and for the clients of my own company) I’d rather reduce the stress levels a bit by not having to keep on chasing new contracts. Making this choice will basically put contracting “on hold” for 13 months or so. With the way contrating and work has gone this year, I can certainly live with that.

Additionally, it means that (hopefully) Herself will be less stressed out about my work situation. She’s never been a great fan of how contracting works, and this year has done nothing to help her opinion of it. That’s completely fair – my own impression of it has taken a pretty big knock this year, and that’s as someone who prefers it. So it’s no surprise at all to know that Herself will be happier if I’m locked in to this for a year.

Another reason is that – as others have said this year – I need to give “proper jobs” a fair crack of the whip. My experience of them ’til now has been unremittingly negative, but I need to give it another go.

The final reason is kind of related to the first. I want to have the time/energy to get other plans done. I also don’t want the pressure of “my livelihood, paying for the house, paying the bills etc. etc. are all dependent on these plans working”, so it makes more sense to keep my head down for a year, do the things I want to outside of that 40ish hours a week, and know that everything’s paid for, that holiday time is paid for etc., and I don’t need to stress (as much) about it.

So yes, that’s the decision made. Unless all else goes wrong, I’m now in the same place ’til Jan 2011. I’m still torn about whether this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. We’ll see.

This month is looking like it’s going to be a heavy one for mileage.

With the new job, I’m travelling roughly 70 miles a day, which works out as 350 miles a week before we’ve even started. So that’s 1,400 miles this month already.

In addition to that, November holds two trips to the NEC – one last weekend, one at the end of the month. That’s 140 miles each way, so another 560 added to the total.

Combine that with the normal weekend stuff, and it’s up over the 2,000 mile mark for the month.

I’m sure there’s other stuff I’ve forgotten too, so that’ll get added on when I remember it.

I don’t mind, to be honest – in many ways it’s just kind of a fact of life that I do a lot of driving. Hell, that’s why I ended up buying a sodding Ford Mondeo – the fact it’ll shrug off doing that kind of mileage without a hitch.

There’s not likely to be many updates today – we’re off to the NEC for Herself to visit a show there. Of course, it’ll have some interest for me as well (companies without websites, and all that malarkey) but the odds are that I’ll spend some time writing bits on the laptop, and/or reading a book.  Yes, I’m taking both, just so I’m prepared.

No idea what to expect, to be honest – it might be interesting, it might not. Either way, it’s a three-hour run each way. We’ll see.

OK, so following on from yesterday’s post about what’s been done over the last year, this is the list (in no particular order) of the things I’d like to get sorted in 2009/10 as Part Four of the Five Year Plan…

1. Mortgage renewal (carried over from last year – we did it, it fucked up, we couldn’t be arsed to keep on with it)
2. Build up own business
3. Design/Launch some of the sites I’ve got ideas for (I know, that’s an ongoing thing – but different sites/ideas this time, as always)
4. Write more – I want to get at least one solid piece done. I failed in 2009, but it’s still a plan for 2010 instead. And if it fails then come this time next year I’ll try to do it as a NaNoWriMo thing, as promised already.
5. Photograph more – again, I’ve got some ideas for big projects on this, I just need to get started on them.
6. Lose more weight – I want to lose at least another stone in the next year, and ideally more. But a stone will be the target for now.
7. Get to the gym more – something I’ve really slacked on this year
8. Do some business planning, and figure out (to some degree at least) what the fuck I want to do next with my life.
9. Get back in touch with (and visit) various friends I’ve been useless with for the last couple of years.

And that’s “it” for the year. There’s lots of sub-bits on pretty much all those main items, but that’s the plans so far as I can see.

I’ll probably write some more about them over the next couple of weeks, as I get clearer ideas. But for now, this’ll do.

Back in November ’08, I made a more basic list of what the plans would be for 2008/9 on the Five Year Plan.

I’m now more than halfway through that plan, which also means that  2 years from today, I’ll be 40. Shite.

Anyway, here’s the list from November ’08, along with how I’ve done with them..

1. Sort out the mortgage renewal along with Herself (March/April) – we did this, but then didn’t actually go through with the deal, so it’ll carry through to next year
2. Write and Launch the main site ideas that are in my head at the moment, and see how they do
   • Daily Word Challenge : launched, but not doing anything
     
   • Creativity Merger Site : done – but having second thoughts about it
     
   • 
     
   • Two Three other primary sites : under development
3. Promote one of the other sites I’ve done, which has a big dollop of potential – not done, but changed plans with it anyway
   
4. Complete the NCFE Photography qualification/course – done
   
5. Redesign my photography site – considering a significant change of theme on this one
6. Promote the photography and site more – still working on it
7. Write at least one more big piece to get it out of my head at last – started some ideas, but not completed any of them
   
8. Possibly redesign D4D™ a bit – I know, I’ve been talking about it now for years
   Oh yeah, and…
9. Lose some weight, as my plans for doing so in 2008 have emphatically failed – primarily due to zero motivation to do so, but also due to life over-riding gym etc.  Working on it, as detailed in previous posts about weight-loss. I’m still not doing a load of gym-stuff, but the weight is going down, and I’ve lost more than a stone already.