Thinkovation

Facebook fatigue…

There I was, stuck at Heathrow, with 5 hours to kill. I’m not about to “cross over” and go to departures because, well - I have to admit - I want t o be able to “nip out” for a breath of “fresh air” once in a while.

So what do you do? Wandering around Terminal 4 in search of somewhere to sit down and do some work, I saw a sign saying “Yotel“, which advertised cabins for £25.00 for four hours. Intrigued, I wandered in…

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The chancellor’s announcement last year that there would be a a flat rate of 18% for captial gains tax was pretty stupid.

Heralded (by the government) as a poke in the eye for the fat-cat corporate raiders and private-equity millionaires it was, in fact, a great big bung for people who make their money out of short term speculation.

The chancellor has “revised” the CGT plans - and while they are slightly improved - under the revised scheme small business-owners selling their businesses will pay only 10 per cent CGT, as long as their lifetime gains do not exceed £1m. But to qualify you have to own at least 5% of the company - so most employees will be excluded.

This revised scheme still benefits the raiders, and still penalises small business owners - and (more importantly in my view) employees who invest in their employers.

I’m with Mr Holway on this - I think it is silly.

It’s a tax that benefits the rich, at the expense of the less wealthy.

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I ordered something from an on-line retailer on Boxing day, the item was shown as “in stock” and I received an “order confirmation” on the same day. They debited my visa card - and then I waited.

On the 6th January I sent an email to their “customer support” email address asking for an update. I received no response. On the 19th I used their “contact form” to tell them that I was cancelling the order, and requesting a refund. I received the following automated reply -

This is an automated response confirming receipt of your email.

A member of our Sales Team will deal with your query as quickly as possible.

Usually you should receive a reply within 48hrs although this may increase during busy periods such as Christmas.

In the meantime please DO NOT send the same email more than once or to other departments this will only slow down our response times.

Computerwebstore Sales.

 Not a particular promising response…. and it goes without saying that they didn’t respond within 48 hours, or 72… or even 96.

So I did a web search.

Now I feel really stupid - This company has been blogged about, commented on, and complained of many many times…

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I’m in Orlando Florida at IBM’s Lotusphere conference, an event that is crammed with announcements and news from IBM and its partners. It’s, frankly, too soon to say anything particularly intelligent - while you’re at one of these events there tends to be so much cool-aid sloshing around, that even if you’re good and don’t sip, you’re bound to inhale some of the fumes.

That said - The opening session (which was introduced by the Orlando symphony orchestra - and a superb and very fetching solo violinist) was full of news.

The guest speaker was Bob Costas, an American Sports commentator - I was a teensy bit disappointed, given that in the past they’ve had Neil Armstrong and Walter Cronkite - Bob was a relatively entertaining speaker - but very very US-centric in his outlook and message. I’ve no doubt he’s well known and loved by many of the US attendees - but he’s more or less unknown outside the states.

The formal session was opened by Mike Rhodin, the GM of Lotus who took on the job in 2005, he’s a savvy experienced exec who really does know what he’s talking about - and what’s going on in his business.

The keynote began with a little bit of justified bragging - IBM made a series of product promises at last year’s event - then delivered them early - So early that they announced a “mini-roadmap” update in the third quarter to deliver even more.

There were a bunch of announcements aimed largely at the Lotus faithful, all good and important stuff. But there were also a number of announcements that were very interesting…

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I confess that I’ve been a Maco-phobe for years, I thought it was funny to mock Mac-users, I used to disparage the Mac an then hurriedly insist that “one of my friends is a Mac user”.

I’ve been quoted as saying “Macs are computers for metrosexuals” or “Macs are for men who moisturise”.

But…. lately I’ve been compelled to furtively walk into Apple stores…. trying to look disinterested… frantically wondering if the sales assistant thinks I’m actually going to buy one…

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Am bracing myself for “therapy” from a proper blogger