Scottie James Grainger

I’m looking to have a website built for my wife to show off and sell the bags and purses she makes as a hobby. She has sold a few items through her eBay account, but wants more exposure a proper website would bring.

Not knowing a great deal about website design (as you can tell by my blog theme), I’ve decided to seek out the expertise of a web design UK company to help us out.

I’ve spoken to the guys at moojah web design and they seem really nice and happy to help, plus they have designed some great looking sites in the past. They suggested that me and my wife sit down and write out some sort of plan on how we want the website to look and what functions we would need, such as e-commerce and widgets.

We have been sitting down at night and looking at similar sites to get some inspiration so hopefully in a month or two my wife will have her own website.

Almost makes me wish I had a hobby that I could make some money with.

As you all well know I like my technology and gaming, and always hit the latest gadget blogs to find stuff that catches me eye. Today I found an interesting game on the crowd funding website Kickstarter that I hope will get funded.

Pixel Press is a game similar to Mario (my all-time retro game), a platform game but with a difference. Instead of aimlessly going from level to level you can actually draw your own levels and challenge your friends and other users to beat it.

First off you print out a grid and simply draw your level out, putting jumps, hazards and fireballs in the way. Once you’ve finished your design take a picture of it with your iPhone or iPad and the game will make the level for you to test.

What’s more you can also change the themes of the levels and also add your own music. Once the level is finished you can upload it for the masses to play.

Pixel Press looks really interesting and has already hit $23,000 of its $100,000 goal, check out the video below:

On Wednesday the news from Old Trafford was that our figure head Sir Alex Ferguson was retiring at the end of the season. It was a big shock to not only Manchester United fans but for the footballing world.

The United board acted quickly and David Moyes was named as the new manager on Thursday afternoon. I have to admit I was a bit concerned at first after I saw the appointment, but after some thought I came to the conclusion that it probably was the right appointment, but only time will tell.

The bookies favourite for some time to succeed Sir Alex was of course Jose Mourinho, who has won major trophies wherever he has been, but in recent months the player fall outs and strained connection with the Real Madrid fans really scuppered his chances of getting the United job.

I think the board’s decision is probably the safer bet, but Moyes will have to win at least one trophy in his first season to keep the fans happy.

Can he succeed? He has all the players and staff in place to do so, even if some big names were to go this summer I have every confidence that the players that are brought in will do the job.

His lack of European experience is another concern, but as they say you don’t learn unless you do. It might be a bit of a baptism by fire, but he has the players that are capable of winning major trophies.

I think the priority for the team will be to retain the Premier League next season, but I’d like to see a concerted effort to pull in the FA Cup as well (it’s been a while since we won it).

What will the future hold? I hope quite a few more trophies, but only time will tell.

Its nearly summer again, and I think it’s about time we tackled the garden and got that into a nice standard like the rest of the house.

One thing we’ve been looking at for a while is adding some outdoor space with a garden studio, but to be honest the budget just won’t stretch that far, at least not for this summer. So in the meantime we’ve decided to build a decking area where we would ideally want our garden room to go.

The decking area will have a garden dinning set, as well as a purpose built BBQ so we can entertain in the summer months. This has the added bonus of proving us with a base for any future garden room, whilst giving us an area to relax in the sunshine.

I’m looking into the decking materials at the moment and should have some sort of plan worked out in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime we will set about getting rid of all of the junk from the garden, getting rid of all the weeds and cutting the grass.

Hope this weekend will be nice as we have a lot of work to do.

Tell me what you want, what you really, really want – one of these!

P.S. Sorry for the awful Spice Girls refference but I really want one!

Imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up and Sky News was abuzz with an imminent massive story coming out of Old Trafford. What could it be I imagined, maybe Rooney was leaving or we were buying back Ronaldo. I headed to work and waited for news.

Before I’d even parked the car at work the radio was telling me what I feared the most, Sir Alex Ferguson was retiring at the end of the season. As a lifelong Manchester United fan I’ve grown up with Sir Alex at the helm, and of course we’ve all been here before.

Prior to the 2001/02 season Sir Alex had announced that he was retiring at the end of the season only to change his mind and stay on. Hopefully this will be the case again as I can’t imagine him not being our manager, but at 71 and 26 years in charge of a mostly successful team he is surely going out on top.

Who will replace Ferguson? David Moyes, Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp? Only time will tell.

I would expect that a new manager will be announced sooner than later and a new reign will begin in Manchester.

Picture: apasciuto

I read a news article today that said that living in the same postcode as a Waitrose supermarket could add up to 25% on your property price, rising to an astonishing 50% in London.

We don’t have a Waitrose in our town but a neighbouring town has one and their property prices are higher than ours. Our neighbouring town has always had higher property prices even before Waitrose moved in so I don’t think that having the upmarket supermarket on your doorstep necessarily equates to higher house prices.

I think that it is more the fact that Waitrose stores are located in upmarket locations as that is where their customers are based. I wouldn’t imagine that a store located in a poor area would get anywhere near the customers that a store located in an upmarket area would.

A publicity stunt for Waitrose, maybe!

Picture: Images_of_Money

Invoice factoring is a method of quickly injecting cash into a business, before a business transaction has been completed. In essence, it means that the responsibility of customer payment is outsourced to an invoice factor. The invoice factor lends a business an agreed percentage of the invoice before collecting full payment from the customer. The factor then pays the full value of the invoice to the company, minus the value of their own fees.

The immediate benefit for employing this approach to funding is the increase to cash flow. Invoice factors pay the initial percentage of the invoice within 24 hours, meaning that companies have immediate access to finance rather than having to wait the usual six weeks or longer required when dealing directly with the customers.

Invoice factoring is particularly beneficial to companies that are expanding, whether established or just starting out. Maintaining a positive cash flow is paramount if a company expects to survive.

Invoice factoring is a useful alternative to loans or overdrafts, where banks and other financial institutions are concerned with a company’s credit rating and financial stability. Invoice factoring is based on lending directly linked to sales. An additional benefit is that there is no maximum limit to borrowing as it will always link directly to the sale invoices raised. Invoice factoring is often easier to arrange, too.

Generally an invoicing factor will lend the company a percentage of the invoice, usually 80 per cent, although some transactions may raise 100 per cent. The remainder of the invoice will be paid, minus the factor’s fees, when the customer has settled the invoice.

Typically, an invoicing factor will charge between 1.5 per cent and 3 per cent above the bank’s base rate. In addition, there is a handling fee based on the customer’s annual turnover and the number of invoices processed.

Picture: David Plas

A recent report has found that despite efforts from the government, the sales of electric cars are still way below market expectations and that the technology needs significant updating if electric cars are to gain any sort of market share.

A government scheme was set up to get consumers to purchase electric cars by offering a £5,000 taxpayer subsidy, but only 3,600 cars have been sold using the scheme.

So, why are electric cars sales so low?

•    Electric cars are expensive compared to standard engine cars.
•    The range of electric vehicles is still impractical for many consumers.
•    The lack of charging stations in city centres.

I agree that advances in technology are needed to attract new consumers, but with over 2 million new car sales in 2012 and electric cars only selling 3,600 through the government scheme in 2 years it has a long way to go for an electric future.

There are currently 12 cars eligible in the Plug-In car grant including the Smart fortwo electric drive, Nissan Leaf and Peugeot iOn.

Picture: mariordo59

Britain has always been known as a nation of tea drinkers and a new study has found that our love affair with tea is still strong.

The research, conducted for WRVS (a charity set up to provide support for old people) found that the average tea drinking Brit consumes 3.5 cup of tea a day, with 25% of those drinking 5 or more a day. So here are the facts of the research into Britain’s tea drinking habits:

•    3% of people enjoy a milky tea, while 35% enjoy a mid-brown cuppa.
•    7% of people are so picky that they will only drink tea brewed by themselves.
•    1 in 5 brew their tea in a pot and 6% of tea drinkers still use a traditional cup and saucer.
•    41% of Scots take sugar in their tea compared to just 26% of Yorkshire folk.

I have to admit I love a good cup of tea and regularly drink anywhere between 6 to 10 cups a day. We take turns at work to make them so I don’t mind how it comes as long as there is no sugar in it, although if I make a brew for myself then I tend to put a dash more milk in it.

So, how do you take your tea?

Mr. Strong, think there’s some irony there!