In preparation for what it has christened ‘the accident season’, online short-term loan providers Lending Stream have invested in brand new technology that makes it the only online loan provider to make funds available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day – even on public and Bank Holidays.

Motivated by research that shows that the period between early November and Christmas is one of the ‘riskiest’ of the year for both potential accidents and emergencies that often strike causing huge unexpected expense, Lending Stream’s new system means that people who fall victim to cash emergencies know that there is instant help at hand.

With the change of season, risks range from icy surfaces that can cause road accidents and pavement falls, as well the associated risks of an increased number of people driving to and from work in darkness. The change of temperature also causes people to switch the central heating on for the first time, often to discover their boiler is faulty, and with the bill for a replacement sometimes being up to £3,500, this throws many families finances into turmoil.

Evidence also shows that the period, which includes Bonfire Night and then holiday season parties is also prime for accidental falls, and hospital admissions are expected soar with boozy revellers in the run up to Christmas.

Lending Stream’s new 365 24/7 system is thanks to improvements in its sophisticated technology combined with boosting the number of back-office staff. The application and payment process is now designed to be the easiest, safest application process available.

Unlike some payday loan companies, Lending Stream supports multiple methods of payment, with a unique system that allows them to make secure payments. Lending Stream stands ahead of competing sites by offering instant cash service all year round, including holidays.

You can apply for Lending Stream’s short-term loans at http://www.lendingstream.co.uk and have money safely and securely transferred into your bank account within minutes. Lending Stream’s average short- term loan amount is £200. However, short-term loans can be offered at amounts between £50 and £1000.

The company sets itself apart from conventional payday loan companies by offering much longer periods in which to pay back loans of up to £1000, making the whole loan experience less stressful and more manageable since the repayments are made in much smaller easy instalments.

A short-term loan provided by Lending Stream, unlike other payday loans, can be paid back anytime over a period of six months. These short term instalment loans allow the borrower more time to pay back the loan comfortably without upsetting their monthly budget. Lending Stream customers often repay early and are able to save on interest charges as a result.

Pictured above is Lytro’s new Light Field camera, which doesn’t look like any camera on the market. And, being the only camera to focus after you’ve taken the picture, it doesn’t work like other cameras either. With pictures produced on the Light Field Camera, the photographer doesn’t have to wait around for the auto-focus to click into action, and the images allow viewers to select which portion of the image they want in focus. Try for yourself by clicking around on the pictures below to adjust your own focus and depth of field.

The Lytro has an 8x optical zoom lens and a constant f/2 aperture. Lytro claims this camera will “never miss a moment” with no shutter delay thanks to the elimination of the need to auto-focus.

click to enlarge

The camera differs from other cameras by capturing light in a different way to to other cameras; by means of a series of microlenses set in front of the sensor. Conventional cameras focus light down into a single pixel, but the Lytro splits the information across a number of pixels, depending on the angle from which they have arrived.

There will be three versions available from Lytro’s website in 2012. Both the blue and the graphite versions have 8GB of internal memory which can store 350 pictures, and the “red hot” model contains 16GB of storage, allowing for 750 pictures. The pictures taken are all hosted on Lytro’s site, from where they can be linked to from elsewhere (primarily Facebook).

The price of the two 8GB models are $399 , and $499 for the “red hot” 16GB version. Photos are transferred via a microUSB cable.

The Light Field Camera produces pictures with a lower conventional resolution of other mid-range digital compacts, but the company is keen to emphasise that cameras are devices for taking pictures and sharing stories, and that if the majority of pictures are being taken to be shared on Facebook, the fact is that many megapixels are wasted anyway.

I can see the geek appeal of the camera, and I would certainly welcome the opportunity to have a play around with one, but for me a major stumbling block is the inability to adjust colour, exposure or even make the image black and white without converting the image into a 1,080×1,080-pixel-resolution JPEG; this feels like a bit of step backward now applications like Instagram have become so popular. Having said that, this is the very first version, so more editing features could well be added to the desktop software or Lytro’s website in days to come.

All images: Lytro

On Tuesday I went to a breakfast debate hosted by the lovely people at Rocket Fuel UK. For those unfamiliar, Rocket Fuel is a real-time ad targeting company whose technology combines all data-driven targeting techniques, from behavioural to contextual, into one system that automatically adapts campaigns in real time to get their clients most bang from their buck.

The debate was focused on the whether the most critical ingredient in effective brand advertising is environment or audience? Which has the greatest impact and traction, and should these tactics be combined or do they work better as separate strategies?

Marketers agree that getting the right message to the right audience at the right time is the holy grail of marketing. However, it does leave the question where budget is best allocated: Should the bulk of the advertising budget be kept in brand advertising within trusted and known content sites, or should this budget be reallocated to ‘the most precise audience you can reach,’ not necessarily engaged in reflective content.

The introduction was provided by Dominic Trigg, MD or Rocket Fuel UK who gave an overview of today’s discussion and introduced the speakers:

Tom Bowman, VP Strategy & Operations BBC Worldwide who’s presentation was entitled ‘Content is King’, and Pete Robins, Managing Partner of Agenda 21 talked on his subject entitled ‘Data is the New Oil’.

Dominic talked about the fact that digital advertising is no longer a secondary channel in the chief marketing officer’s arsenal. Once a bastion of simple banner flipping and annoying pop-up ads, display advertising is rapidly overtaking traditional media as the preferred channel to drive targeted awareness and the customer pipeline.

Yet with all the advancements in digital formats and devices, the dramatic shift to digital advertising is more likely a function of data—the explosion of anonymous online databases categorizing individual Web users based on their demographic attributes, surfing and purchase behaviour, and content preferences.

The demand for audience targeting has never been greater, and the demand for premium brand association has never waned. Getting the right message to the right audience at the right time is the holy grail of marketing. But it leaves the question, where to allocate your budget: should marketers keep the bulk of their advertising budget in brand advertising within trusted and known content sites, or should this budget be reallocated to ‘the most precise audience reachable,’ not necessarily engaged in reflective content.

This was demonstrated by a study carried out by Pubmatic in March this year with 644 advertisers and publishers – 2/3rds buyer and 1/3rd Publishers. This showed 97% using audience targeting this year), advertisers wanting the best of both audience targeting and premium brand association, and summed up by pointing out that publishers now have the ability to combine both in order to meet market demand and increase their yield from ads.

Trigg then pointed out:

• That in 2011, the available data volume is predicted to grow to 1.8 zettabytes (a trillion gigabytes).

• Data is crucial at Rocket Fuel, with the data warehouse having grown from five billion events to 30 billion events a year which takes 2 petabytes of storage

• Traditionally in advertising, content has been king, but significant impressions can be wasted.

• In the survey, asked if they could only pick one: “Right Content vs. Right Audience”, which one is more important, more than 70% of the respondents replied ‘audience’.

• The nature of data not only includes browsing behaviour, the referring url, site actions, etc, but can also track purchase intent, interests and psychographics, painting a rich portrait of the consumer, and reaching the consumer at the right time of day is crucial.

The next speaker was Tom Bowman, VP Strategy and Operations at BBC Worldwide. He pointed out:

• That advertising needs to shift from commercial messaging to consumer-led stories, augmented content, be innovative, engaging and fun.

• That the best definition of a brand is ‘the most valuable piece of real estate in the world – a corner of someone’s mind’.

• The voracious appetite for content, with for example, 48 hours of content being uploaded to YouTube every minute.

• But that the appetite for advertising is smaller, with Advertising Association tracking data showing how public favourability towards advertising has been in steady decline since the 1990s, but are far more welcoming of sponsorship and product placement.

• When it comes to reach – the dominant role is still played by broadcasters and (perhaps surprisingly) this has not changed in the age of new media.

• Despite huge growth of content, TV watching is up, and viewers stick with respected TV broadcasters for the vast bulk of their media consumption

• That the role of the aggregator has been extended – it now covers the curation of content, a badge of quality and shortcut for consumers seeking great content on any platform. This is particularly important for brands looking to secure acceptance and viewership of content across multiple media platforms.

• The social network numbers for broadcast TV brands are an indicator of the potential for brands to leverage broadcast relationships across other media. This example is Top Gear, which currently has over 11 million Facebook fans across two profile pages.

• Brand augmented content can wrap around authentic, premium content that comes with guaranteed audiences, create a layer of utility, entertainment and extra information built into brand engagement, and an enhanced experience for content consumers.

He concluded with a quote from John Hegarty: “Targeting specific audiences is a wonderful science but unless you include broadcast in some way within your marketing strategy you’ll be talking to an ever shrinking audience. And that’s not particularly good for the long term health of any company.”

The final speaker was Pete Robins, Managing Partner of Agenda 21 who spoke on the subject ‘From gut instinct to data instinct’.

Pete pointed out that serving effective ads is allowing exploration of content units in the form of ads or website hubs which means that data planning and exploiting technology becomes more crucial to get mass specificity.

And that a ‘mass of audiences’ is not a ‘mass audience’ – the message needs to be relevant to the individual given their scale and range.

He also pointed out:

• That more channels means more opportunities and therefore more need for media agencies to keep up to date… but that we’re waging a battle with increasing complexity.

• As digital becomes even more important to even more businesses even if you’re an agency, advertiser, media owner, audience aggregator, we’ll need stronger justification to support the inevitable growing share of market.

• It’s only going to get more complex too – we’re going to need ‘depots’ of data sources that are reliable and most importantly we have confidence in.

• He concluded that the rules of engagement should be that technologies within digital media channels are rapidly exposing weaknesses in communications strategies and that the key will be to establish ‘why’ an individual will be saying things rather than just ‘what’.

• Merging messaging with the right technologies which can increasingly take decisions based on swelling data sets should lead to be more specific across all digital touch points, and this will mean more relevancy – it means people will be able to opt in and opt out as they go, it ultimately gives them more choice and control.

Dominic Trigg concluded that it is not about using one tactic or another but it’s about understanding the usage and benefits of each and combining them to get the best results.

If you are considering ordering from b4udirect.com, fizi.com or froomoo.com, you may want to read about other customers’ experiences before you do so.

My experience with this company is ordering goods totaling £700, cancelling the order ten days later when the goods failed to show up, and now, over a month has passed, they have kept my money, and a person who answers their phone called ‘Jeff’ tells me that a refund was made (despite being unable to give me any reference details). No refund has been made, and a dispute has been registered with Paypal. Paypal have said that ‘they couldn’t give you any reference for the refund because it hasn’t happened’.

I have since sent two legal letters by recorded delivery, neither of which have even been acknowledged. I am now in the process of issuing a claim, via the County Court System against b4udirect.com.

I would advise anyone else in my position to immediately contact www.actionfraud.org.uk (telephone 0300 123 2040). They process details of b4udirect.com’s alleged fraud and they then pass the details on to the police and other relevant authorities. Another agency I have been advised to contact is Consumer Direct, who as well as offering valuable free legal advice, also contact the relevant Trading Standards office with details of b4udirect.com‘s actions.

The company in question, B4U Telecom Ltd has numerous accusations of fraud spread across many company names if you do a little digging online.  Some of the names that the company or the directors trade under include:

B4U Telecom Ltd
frommoo.com
fizi.com
Continental Mobiles (link)
luxurplc.com
b4uparty.com
B4U Business Media Ltd
B4U Business (Europe) Ltd
B4U Group Plc
zodigem.com horoscopes and psychic readings
continentalcouture.com
luxurlighting.com
Rinkstar Ltd
B4U Money Ltd

Other related or similar companies listed at D&B Small Business Centre include:

Interestingly, another company in the B4U empire, b4usearch.com was issued with an enforcement order by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2006 for being in breach of the Data Protection Act.

This was for by using electoral roll data from before 2002 to form their online directory. The ICO said that it had received 1,600 complaints about the site, many saying that B4U did not remove their personal details when requested.

This report on the conduct of B4Usearch from out-law.com states: “People who complained to the ICO about b4usearch.com included a police officer whose family’s names and addresses, along with a map to their house, appeared on the website and an individual who had previously been a victim of identity fraud,” said an ICO statement. “Both were concerned about the availability of their personal information and the fact that their requests to b4usearch.com asking for their details to be removed had been ignored.” This was the first time the ICO has issued an order over a website.

You can read more about how B4U used a “loophole in the law” to obtain their information, along with the ruling in this Parliamentary report.

Meanwhile, there were also accusations of fraud made against their text service which used to be operated at www.B4Utele.com, and frustration from consumers who were unable to remove their details, or felt that they had been misled into hidden charges.

If you wanted to dig a little deeper about the goings-on at B4U Telecom Ltd, you could do so here, here and here.

The company directors are listed as:

Owner: Ronnie Banga
Ravinder Singh Banga
Kewal Ravi Banga
Kewal Banga

And their address:

B4U Telecom Ltd
90 Broad Street
Birmingham
B15 1AU

B4udirect.com: 084454481 54
froomoo.com: 01216439988

This company lead by their ‘owner’ Ronnie Banga, son of Ravinder Banga, big chief of the B4U ‘empire’ should not be allowed to operate in the UK.

I realised my mistake when I did a web search for froomoo.com and b4udirect.com reviews. Here are a few other customer’s experiences with them. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether these companies should still be allowed to trade in the UK.

Review by DolphinnaFirst, I placed the order with my international Mastercard which UK address could not be validated as it issued in other country. I’ve been waiting for 10 days, contacted customer support and only after another 3 days found out that the order was cancelled because they can’t validate my card. Could they send me a cancellation notice?? Second, I ask my girlfriend to use her UK Visa Debit card which billing address matches the delivery address. I did put not real telephone number- who knows if they decide to spam me later? They then called up that number and then again canceled the order as couldn’t reach me. Why on Earth would I give my own phone number to a seller? To join a telephone spam list? It was just a simple cheap 100£ GPS-navigator, not even something expensive. Why would they want to call me??? So I’ve bought Garmin nuvi in another store. They certainly don’t care about customers.

C.W. Dixey & Son of London, the world’s oldest independent eyewear company, has a rich heritage of iconic clients. They include legendary explorers, artists and writers, such as James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, as well as emperors, royalty and leaders.

However, it’s long-time C.W. Dixey & Son devotee, Winston Churchill who is the inspiration for the company’s first new range in a generation. Launching in September 2011, it will be known as Chartwell, named after Churchill’s estate in Kent.

The Chartwell Collection pays homage to the legendary spectacles C.W. Dixey & Son designed and made for the former prime minister. Designers meticulously studied a number of Sir Winston’s frames and have created a faithful replica for the new collection.

Featuring eight black or tortoise shell optical frames the collection has a timeless and elegant feel. The key design elements are conserved throughout and the frames are not branded. A simple two white spot motif is marked on the temple tips: just as Churchill personally requested in September 1944.

Use of fine materials, limited production, and artisan craftsmanship, ensures the new collection follows in the purest C.W. Dixey & Son tradition. With an ethos which has always been quality and exclusivity, and it remains so today, it’s eyewear is designed in Great Britain and crafted in France.

The Chartwell Collection starts at £440, inclusive of VAT.  All frames are presented with a luxurious leather case, and all patrons are invited to enter their name in into the company archives.

Throughout the company’s history, the frames have appealed to a discerning, elegant clientele. Often risk-takers and mavericks, they had the confidence to set their own style rather than be dictated to by fashion. The new collection appeals to a similar audience today. Self-assured and individual, they are motivated by a brand’s history, provenance, quality and timeless elegance rather than by its mass-market appeal.

C.W. Dixey & Son history
C.W. Dixey & Son was established by William Fraser in 1777 as an optical and mathematical instrument company. Fraser’s talent was recognised by King George III of England and Royal Warrants and commissions followed. However, the business fell into decline after a member of staff used the premises as a gambling den.

It was rescued in 1824 when Charles Wastell Dixey and his uncle acquired the business. Over the next century the family created one of London’s most distinguished companies, earning a reputation for innovation and excellence.

The first 163 years were spent at 3 New Bond Street and 19 Old Bond Street. The Old Bond Street premises was destroyed in the Second World War, forcing relocation to London’s medical district.

The recently restored archive contains correspondence, records and original designs dating back to 1780. It describes a rich creative legacy and two centuries of service to emperors, royalty, and leaders.

Since 1777, it has served seven successive kings and queens of England, the Royal Houses of nine nations, and the emperors of China, France and India. Sir Winston Churchill remained a loyal patron for half a century and our reputation also attracted legendary adventurers, writers and artists such as James Bond creator, Ian Fleming. There are more details of the distinguished clientele at ww.cwdixeyandson.com.

More details of the new Chartwell range can be found here, and you can find C.W. Dixey & Son on Facebook by clicking here.

One of the advantages of working as a freelance consultant is being able to work from anywhere. This allowed me to live and work in Munich last year, and my favourite spots nearby now include the table outside the pub downstairs, a nice cafe down the road, and the magnificent reading room of the British Museum.

And, because I don’t want to always drag my laptop (or even my netbook) around with me all day, life often involves working across a range of devices, including mobile phones and iPads.

And while working on my iPad has certain limitations, if the job is something reasonably simple, then an iPad, along with the Tuffluv – one of the most practical cases / stands on the market is a great, very enjoyable way to work.

After wallowing in iPad heaven when it first arrived, knowing I wanted to do at least some work on it, my next challenge was finding the right software that works across all devices, which are PCs, the iPad, a BlackBerry and an HTC Android phone.  And trust me when I say I have devoted weeks on end scouring the app store, searching on google and asking around – and then trying out probably around 100 before settling on the set up I have now, which works well.

Here are my top eleven* tried and tested apps and software that have transformed the way I work. Some will be immediately obvious to some people, but I mention them purely to sing their praises. *It was meant to top ten, but I remembered one at the last minute.

11. Skype
Skype doesn’t need much explanation. Make Internet calls for free. Handy if you’re working abroad to catch up with the folks, and for those weekly update calls with clients overseas. Admittedly, I must have looked a plonker using it in a Munich coffee shop – looking as if I was talking into a big silver steak plate, but nobody ever said the freelance life was going to be easy.

Incidentally, there’s a shiny new kid on the block offering free calls between subscribers using Android devices or iPhones, take a look at Viber.

10. Voice Recorder
I have a voice recorder app on my phone, which is handy for recording those random, ground-breaking thoughts that pop into your head when you’re on the go, arms laden with important documents and executive gadgets, eg “buy milk”, “record It’s Me or the Dog”, etc. I also have one on my iPad which is handy for discreetly recording high-powered executive meetings or finding out what colleagues are saying about you when you pop out to the loo.

9. Google Maps
Navigating to meetings in unfamiliar areas has been transformed thanks to google maps, just stick in the address, and then look like a numpty as you tentatively shuffle 50 yards down the street, staring blankly at your iPad, only to realise you’ve walked the wrong way out of the tube station and have to double back. Mine was especially useful for adventuring around the streets of Munich, both for work and at the weekends. Just don’t drink one too many Augustiner Bräu Pils, leave the iPad on the table in a bar, realising when you’ve strolled ten minutes up the road, having a panic attack so severe you think you’re going to evacuate on the Große Straße.

8. Evernote
If you’re not familiar with Evernote, then give it a go. It’s ideal for recording ideas on your mobile when a thought occurs to you staring at magazine shelves in WH Smith® (That Actually Happened to Me!) Everything syncs to the cloud, so you can then either stop at the nearest cafe and expand the idea on your iPad over a Choco-latte-babba-rarra-coocoo-dada, or wait until you get home, and write the full piece with the luxury of a keyboard that actually moves when you touch the keys.

It also allows you to create a number of ‘notebooks’, with many individual notes within each, so I have one for each client, and another book specifically for noting down client blog topic ideas while out and about.

7. CamScanner
I have to admit I’ve only recently come across CamScanner, thanks to a client in San Diego. Remember the days when you had to “fax” documents to a “fax machine”? No, nor me. Well, since fax machines no longer take up a third of one’s home office, I’ve found contracts, NDAs, project confirmation forms – basically any documents that require you to sign them and return them, a bit of a pain. Having to *print out* documents, *sort them into the right order*, *sign them*, *take them to the funny little Internet Place Over the Road* and *PAY* to have to send them – sheer madness!

Now, you don’t even need to bother reading contracts, just print out the last page, sign it, scan it with your phone, email it, and Bob’s your Uncle. To save time, I just scan my signature, send it to all of my clients, and they can insert it in the appropriate box and they don’t have to bother even telling me the document even exists! Great stuff!

6. Dropbox
Our Dropbox, which stores files in heaven,
Handy be thy name.
Thy files down do come,
And editing be done,
In the pub or in office the same.
Then saved can they be,
With a press of a key,
And, then resurrected – praise be!
Be you on bus, on bike or in plane.
But deliver us from email.
For thine is the server space,
Interface, and technology,
Share for ever and ever.

Amen.

5. Documents To Go
Dropbox and Documents To Go® go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong. In a nutshell, you can open and edit Microsoft Office documents on your mobile device (mainly my iPad). My only niggle is that it lacks the ‘track changes’ feature in Word – which I use on an almost hourly basis, and often the format preservation as it goes from one device to another isn’t great. But now I know that, so if I am planning to work on a flash looking PowerPoint, *insisting*, as I do, on using Comic Sans font and lots of lovely bright colours on every page of my 9pt presentation, I just know to take my laptop instead.

4. Daily Notes
Daily Notes is another note taking and time management app, except it’s not really like any other I’ve ever come across. I suppose the best comparison is to a Filofax of the 1980s, remember them? No, nor me. The most striking likeness is the ‘leather’ jacket in which it is ‘cased’ which might not be to everyone’s taste, but I think it’s very classy indeed.

So, like a Filofax, you can take notes and manage tasks, all split by an infinite number of tabs on a specific day. You have a choice of different views, an excellent search facility, and built-in import, export and back up facilities. But what does this do that the others can’t? I suppose it’s like having a sophisticated diary / journal in which you can section off your life by each day.

So, here’s a possible use: if like me, you were following the lives of those impressive executives in that marvellous businessy TV programme The Apprentice (which, in it’s seventh series is not at all flogging a dead horse and creating a ridiculous pantomime caricature of Lord Sugar), then Daily Notes could be ideal companion to the series.

Each contestant could be assigned a ‘tab’ (which run down the side of the page), all nicely colour coded. Then, as the series progresses, you can add updates on what’s gone on, news on how they’re progressing and any top business tips you’ve picked up (in fact I think you’ll be wanting your own tab specifically for Business Tips from The Apprentice). All of this information is split both by day and by candidate. You can even add in photographs, scans from magazines and email regular updates direct to friends and family.

Each week you could use Daily Notes to commentate on each contentast’s tab individually on whether they are being a shining beacon of business acumen, basking in the glow of Lord Sugar, or a ruthless idiot who deserves the mauling they get when they’re paraded in front of him.

At the end of the series you can export your ‘Apprentice Scrapbook’ as a PDF and have it made into a nice set of table mats by one of those companies, or perhaps give it to a loved one for Christmas.

Sadly Daily Notes does not yet sync to mobile or PC.

3. VoiceText and Enhanced SMS & Caller ID
Joint third place go to the above mobile apps. VoiceText allows you speak your texts – without having to use your hands, so perfect if your hobby involves sexing budgerigars or battle re-enactments. And I must say, the accuracy is pretty good.

The Yang to VoiceText’s Yin is Enhanced SMS & Caller ID. This nifty little app not only announces the name of callers as the phone rings, but can be set to read out entire text messages. Don’t forget to switch to Airplane Mode when you’re in a high-powered meeting if you have friends who are likely to send rude or naughty texts.

Combined, these two apps are perfect for projecting an image of a modern, swish executive about town, as, wearing your modern fangled Bluetooth headset, you drive, jog or cycle, barking out your executive orders and confirming that all-important business meeting in a very authoritative fashion.

2. Wunderlist
I had been searching for a decent task management app for around a year and a half when I finally came across Wunderlist. And, this is the first one that fulfils every requirement: it looks fantastic, it has a clean simple interface. it’s free, you can set up numerous lists and add tasks to your heart’s desire, prioritising them with due dates, etc, then make them disappear with a smug little tick of satisfaction. And best of all, it syncs seamlessly across PC, Mac, iPad and Android making it an incredibly flexible and powerful little app.

 1. Cube
It’s very rare that I come across an app that I think is simply too good to be true (with the exception of Angry Birds). But I get a tingle of excitement every time I open up Cube. The strapline is Adding an extra dimension to your productivity, but for me, it has added an extra dimension to my happiness and emotional well-being.

Again, this was the result of a marathon search, dating back to when I first got my iPad…*stares dreamily into the middle distance*.

Keeping accurate timesheets is an essential part of my job, because if a client were ever to question how much time has been spent on a particular project, there needs to be an easy, tidy way of showing them. And if working between a PC, an iPad, a brain, and a nice Moleskine notebook is your thing, then keeping good timesheets is a *major*, *MAJOR* hassle.

But gone are the days of dreading the end of the each month when I have to sit down and plough through notepads, scraps of paper, Google calendar and discarded kebab wrappers to tot up time in readiness for invoicing.

Cube is quite simply bursting at the seams with nifty – and yet user-friendly – features.   In a nutshell, it’s a time tracking / timesheet program that, again, can be used across a range of platforms, and also syncs with the cloud. But unlike so many others, it can be used with incredible ease.

Begin by entering the names of your clients, followed by your projects and / or tasks, and you’re pretty much set. It’s then just a matter of inputting the time you spend on each project every day – or whenever you prefer – and, at the end of the month, you literally press one button, and, hey presto, an immaculate timesheet showing a detailed breakdown of exactly how you’ve been spending your time is instantly produced.

Add to that real time project costs, rich interactive charts, the ability to create project teams and assign tasks, a feature where you can tag your data and report, chart and filter based on those tags, and excitement bubbles over.

Another small point worth mentioning, but incredibly reassuring, is that when I was first getting to grips with the software, I had cause to email Cube’s technical support, and was amazed to get a response within eight minutes. All this for under 5 Euro / 7 USD.

Read more about Cube’s features at cubeanywhere.com.

That’s it, my techological executive life is complete, but if you have any other suggestions, feel free to share them in the comments. Posts from individuals working in public relations warmly welcomed if accompanied by mild bribery.

Here is a trailer for Panic Button - a brand new social network themed horror/thriller from Movie Mogul Films.

Starring Scarlett Alice Johnson, Jack Gordon, Michael Jibson, Elen Rhys and Joshua Richards, the film shows four young people that putting their lives online can have deadly offline consequences…

See the imdb page for cast & crew details.

For the official website, go here, for more information go here or like the fan page here.

A Sir Winston Churchill look-a-like last night failed in his attempt to win a pair of Sir Winston Churchill’s glasses, which were auctioned for £11,210 to a telephone buyer, understood to be from overseas. ‘Sir Winston’ went along to the auction with Simon Palmer, owner of C.W. Dixey & Son, the manufacturers of the glasses, and the world’s oldest independent eyewear company.

It was hoped that the glasses, which featured in an auction of antiques and collectables at Northamptonshire auctioneers JP Humbert could be ‘reclaimed’ by the manufacturers in an attempt to preserve them as an important piece of British history.

The auction catalogue described the reading spectacles as being made made by C.W. Dixey & Son in 1954 for the former prime minister who was often seen wearing the distinctive glasses when speaking in public.

Simon Palmer commented, “It’s disappointing that we were unable to win the glasses. We thought the bidding was likely to go high, but we didn’t anticipate that the glasses would be quite as popular as they have proved to be!”

Click below to hear BBC Northampton’s report on the auction, featuring Winston lookalike Derek Herbert and Simon Palmer from CW Dixey & Son.
BBC Northampton Report.

The timing of the auction couldn’t be more perfect with C.W. Dixey & Son about to launch its first new collection in a generation. The collection, which is inspired by Sir Winston Churchill’s frames will be known as Chartwell and will be available from June 2011 in selected outlets. The collection will feature 10 optical and a small range of sunglasses. The Chartwell collection starts at £440, inclusive of VAT. All frames are presented with a luxurious leather case, and all patrons are invited to enter their name in into the company archives and to go alongside those of the most influential and exacting people of the last three centuries.

C.W. Dixey & Son was established by William Fraser in 1777 as an optical and mathematical instrument company. Fraser’s talent was recognised by King George III of England and Royal Warrants and commissions followed.

In 1824 Charles Wastell Dixey and his uncle acquired the business. Over the next century the family created one of London’s most distinguished companies, earning a reputation for innovation and excellence.

The first 163 years were spent at 3 New Bond Street and 19 Old Bond Street. The Old Bond Street premises was destroyed in the Second World War, forcing relocation to London’s medical district.

Ownership of the company has passed between friends or family and to this day we remain an English family business, based in London.

Their recently restored archive contains correspondence, records and original designs dating back to 1780. It describes a rich creative legacy and two centuries of service to emperors, royalty, and leaders.

Since 1777, CW Dixey & Son has served seven successive kings and queens of England, the Royal Houses of nine nations, and the emperors of China, France and India. Sir Winston Churchill remained a loyal patron for half a century and our reputation also attracted legendary adventurers, writers and artists such as James Bond creator, Ian Fleming. There are more details of our distinguished clientele on our website http://www.cwdixeyandson.com/.

C.W. Dixey & Son was one of the first to consider eyewear as an art form, producing functional items of exquisite beauty from an early stage. One such item is the luxurious telescope created in the 1780s for the Emperor of China, which can be seen on the ‘About us’ section of www.cwdixeyandson.com. Another is the telescope made for Napoleon Bonaparte, crafted in fine green leather and beautifully decorated with a sowing of bees.

Other company firsts include the first use of platinum and diamonds in eyewear and pioneering work on the development of contact lenses.

Information on the new range from C.W. Dixey & Son will be available shortly at cwdixeyandson.com.

For more information, please drop me a line.