Plans

Posted: Tue 19 September, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

In less than two months, I’m going to be hitting the ripe old age of thirty-fucking-five. Without meaning to sound overly negative, it’s not an age I ever really envisaged myself getting to. Now, however, it doesn’t seem too bad. Well, with the exception of feeling like I’m getting – well – if not old then older. Which is kind of scary in itself.

Anyway, along the way, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do and so on. There’s a few things on the list (some of which is remarkably similar to the stuff on the resolutions) and when you also include the changes that are going on at the moment anyway, with house, job, etc., well, it seems like a good place and time to look at that kind of thing.

Really, I think at the moment that it’s about seting up a timescale. I want to try out a fair number of things over the next few months and years, and see whether any of them work out properly. But the general idea is that over the next five years I’m going to try as many ideas as possible that have any potential of success, and work to make them profitable.

Of course, one of the secrets of making them profitable is to spend a bare minimum on them (although enough to give them all a fair crack of the whip) so that when/if they make money, then they don’t need to make much in order to recoup the costs. After that, well, it’s all cream really.

So there’s a whole bundle of ideas that I intend to working on, and if they don’t work out, well, I don’t intend to be breaking my fiscal back with any of them. There’s a few website ideas that will be getting developed, most of which have so far not had anyone else working on them, even though I’ve had the ideas for a while. Of course, I don’t yet know whether that means that a) they’re good ideas that no-one else has figured out, or b) really, really bad ideas that’ve been tried and already failed. (The cynical side of me expects it’s B, but only time will tell) The first of those ideas is/was Where’s Good, which is slowly coming together.

As well as the websites, though – and at the end of the day, the fiscal investment in those will run to maybe £200-250 per site, along with some development time etc., but money wise that’ll do the job, and keep it going for a year, at which point it’ll be assessment time – there’s other ideas I still want/need to try out. Primary among those is the photography work, and seeing how things go on that score. Financially the camera and photographic gubbins is the biggest investment, what with the camera itself and the necessary lenses and accessories, I’ll probably end up putting about £2,500 in that direction (although most of that’s already been spent on the camera body and current lenses). At the same time, though, the photography is something I enjoy doing anyway, so I’m not hugely worried about the expense – it’ll be worth it, even if we “just” use the photos for our own walls, and maybe those of friends etc. But at the same time, well, it’d be nice to be able to sell them commercially – yeah, maybe it’s some kind of artistic prostitution, but there we go – and also to do some commission work, similar to the stuff I produced for the charity in Manchester.

And then there’s also the other creative ideas, the things I want to do with writing, and other experimental stuff. And there’s a couple of other ideas in the background as well that I want to try out. I know that one of them has been kind-of done before, but at a price so extortionate that they priced themselves out of the market. Of course, that pretty much buggers up anything I could do with regards to product protection, patents and so on, and keeps the idea open to some very heavy competiton, but at the same time, well, being first on the market and building things that way might work out as well. We’ll see.

Anyway, the basic plan is that I’m going to be working on these things, these ideas, over the next five years. And if none of them work out? Well, I’m giving it that five years, and if by then nothing’s worked out to be profitable enough to keep us going then I’ll have to reassess, and look at perhaps settling down to a “proper” job, and working from that, if nothing else.

But time will tell. I think it’s a pretty good start, taking 40 as a target, a point to aim for. And we’ll just see how it goes.

Wireless and BT

Posted: Mon 18 September, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

While I’ve been figuring out what I’m going to be doing while I’m based in Cambridge, I’ve been checking out wi-fi access, what it’ll cost, and all that kind of gubbins. I know that the place I’m staying won’t have access, so it’s going to be relevant for evenings and so on. Looking around, there’s plenty of access points, which will make life a lot easier.

At the same time I was also trying to figure out something to do with my BT Broadband account, and checked out the broadband homepage – and bloody hell! Turns out I get 250 minutes a month of wi-fi access along with my BT Broadband account. Well OK, it’s actually a voucher for something like 3,000 minutes – which they reckon works out at 250 minutes per month for the length of my BT Broadband account. But either way, it saves me a fair chunk of money initially. I’ll probably use it up while I’m in Cambridge, but even then I can sort out another 500minutes per month for £5, which still isn’t bad.

The stumbling block, though, was that it was supposed to be activated by an email, which BT were going to send me within 14 days of starting the broadband account. Which was in – um – July. So they hadn’t sent the email, and thus began a spate of phone calls. First to BT customer services, which seemed to end up in India, and a person who really didn’t get the concept of “BT Openzone” vs. “BT Communicator”. And then gave me a number that didn’t exist for some other department in BT. I despair.

Then a call to some other department, who were actually almost semi-helpful. They gave me the number for the Broadband bunch, who then gave me the number for BT Openzone. BT Openzone then insisted that I should talk to BT Broadband – but at least they put me through to the person they’d decided was the right one. It still took another ten minutes for the ~~numpty~~ person at the other end to read all the instructions on their system, still didn’t find anything, and had to go and speak to a supervisor. And then put me through to yet another person, but they eventually did get it sorted, sent the email out again, and lo, I’ve now got the necessary voucher. Took its bloody time, but got there in the end.

So now I just have to wait ’til next week and see how the entire wi-fi thing goes. Should be fun.

A drop of blood in a sea of piss

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