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5% Off Christmas Holiday in Italy
- bySpode on22nd November, 2008 inGeneral
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My parents have been working on their website recently, getting some Christmas promotions in place, for those that want to rent a holiday home over the Christmas period. I thought I'd lend them a hand by leveraging off my Google juice, and sorting out a special 5% off offer, for all you lovely Spode's Abode readers.
Anyone who doesn't know, during the summer months my parents run a Bed & Breakfast out of their Italian Farmhouse. All year round, they have two other self-catering properties that they rent out to for longer periods. These work out at great value for money, especially with the deals on flights to Genoa that both Ryanair and BA are doing. I've booked in advance before and had return flights for as cheap as £25!
They are based around 45 minutes from Genoa, and set in the mountains. It's really quite idyllic and somewhere I like to...
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50% Off Hair Cuts and Treatment in Top London Salon
- bySpode on17th November, 2008 inGeneral
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Some of you might have seen my recent hair cut, where I decided to go a rather bright red. I had this done at Eclipse Hairdressing, who have four Salons placed around
Central London.I've always been more of a "cheap hair cut and dye my own hair" kind of guy, but I was really impressed with how good a job they did of cutting and dying my hair.It's certainly the best red I've ever had and I'll be heading back once this grows through.
However, while I was there, I managed to seal an exclusive deal for Spode's Abode readers, giving you 50% off a hair cut, and bundled extras. Unlike other offers, this is not using junior staff. What a perfect way to beat the credit crunch, while staying stylish over the Christmas period
The details...
With over 27 years experience in the hairdressing industry, Alex Ciangola and his dynamic...
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Support Spode for Movember
- bySpode on13th November, 2008 inGeneral
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Many of my fellow Journalist friends have been growing a "mo" this month as part of Movember. I have been supporting them by growing a beard, but I have finally been persuaded to whip out a wet razor and join the mo club. I'm a little late in the month, but as I haven't shaved November 1st, things should look god
I shall be posting some pictures tomorrow when I am finally home. If you want to sponsor me, all proceeds go to help fund prostate cancer research and you'll get to see some great photos of me in my moustache glory. So head over to the Movember site, and put your money where my tash is. As a reminder, let's take a look at the last time I grew a moustache...
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Security Implications of USB Memory
- bySpode on9th November, 2008 inGeneral
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I wrote a feature last week for IT Pro, taking a look at USB sticks and the possibly security risks associated with them. Considering how easy it is to carry 8 or 16GB of data around in our pockets - what are the implications of this? What are the best practices? What do they experts say?
8GB is more storage space than a fair amount of netbooks on the market today – some of which only have 2GB of internal memory. That said, they still manage to cram in a full operating system with the features you'd need from most desktop computers. 8GB is enough to house an Ubuntu install, a fairly decent MP3 collection, a selection of films, and every article every IT PRO writer has written for the past 10 years - with room to spare. This is as superb as it is alarming – especially when you consider...
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Royal Worcester & Spode in Administration
- bySpode on7th November, 2008 inGeneral
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Well, people have been wondering if the economic climate would effect Spode, but this isn't quite what they had in mind. Yesterday, the Staffordshire company went into administration - meaning that the fine china that I've been struggling to remove an association with will be diminished to say the least. To quote the BBC article:
BBC News
The company, which dates back to 1751, employs 388 people in the UK at sites in Stoke, Lymdale and Worcester. The US trading subsidiary of the firm, The Royal China and Porcelain Companies Inc, is not affected. UK management will continue to work with the US bosses who remain autonomous, the accountants said.
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Does Sheridan Smith Google Herself?
- bySpode on7th November, 2008 inGeneral
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Last night I found myself at the Guitar Hero World Tour launch. I was really hoping to actually get to play the game - especially on stage, but apparantly we needed to have pre-registered a band. Karl, myself, Zara and Carly turned up hoping the same and were rather disappointed not to strut our funky stuff. But, just like any other event there was free drink all night, so we made the most of it.
I had way too many Vodka + Cokes and ended up sleeping only a couple of hours last night. I'm not used to caffeine at night and it kept me buzzing until around 8am... Not feeling great! However, I did find myself attached to a table with, from what I recall, was filled with people from BBC Three, celebrating just coming back from filming. Lovely guy called Jerry (who I found shaving his beard off in...
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Spode to Have Knee Surgery
- bySpode on4th November, 2008 inGeneral
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I've had knee issues for the past 3 years, which have been classified by most as Patella Tendonitis. I've been given the run around by several doctors and physios and if anyone remembers - last year I even had a ligament in my ankle intentionally torn and casted up, just to try and help it.
Finally, after constant hounding, I got an MRI. While waiting for the results, I decided to take some time off the bike to see if it helped. I've been off for 2 months and although it's better, it's not perfect. Finally, I went to see the consultant today and he concluded that the tendon itself was fine, but rather it was the infrapatellar fat pad (sometimes known as Hoffa's pad) that was damaged. He felt this was in fact irritating the tendon, causing symptoms of tendonitis.
So what's the plan? I'm having key-hole surgery where...
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Britain's Got Talent, Season 3
- bySpode on30th October, 2008 inGeneral
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My opinion of reality TV as a whole is not high. Watching Pop Idol, X Factor or the 101 other shows really alarms me at the number of truly deluded people who consider themselves to be talented. This in itself isn't so alarming, but in order to become talented, one must be able to recognise talent in others. So this trend demonstrates that a large proportion of the population has no respect for real talent.
When the first season of BGT came out, I was inundated by e-mails suggesting that we sign up for the next season and my gut reaction was to say no. I believe strongly that if someone has talent, they should do what everyone does - work hard and progress. I say this, while also being reminded of the sheer number of bands that I know that nobody has heard of, or the wasted talent out...
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Planning a Secret Santa?
- bySpode on28th October, 2008 inGeneral
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Some of you might remember that last year I launched Think Secret Santa. I unfortunately also launched this in December when most offices had already planned their Secret Santa's. Just over 400 people used the system, so I'm looking forward to see what happens this year.
I have updated the system slightly to make it more user friendly, but it's certainly what I consider to be a very simple way of organising even a small number of people. The premise is simple - put in the e-mail addresses of everyone involved in the Secret Santa. Once everyone has confirmed they want to be involved, the names are picked out of a virtual hat and everyone is e-mailed their Secret Santa.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys, that I don't do anything malicious with the e-mail addresses and the only money that is made from it, is via the...
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Where are the Posts?
- bySpode on23rd October, 2008 inGeneral
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Some of you might have noticed that I haven't been posting on here as much. The reason for this is I have been concentrating my efforts on thinkabouttech.com in an effort to get the ball rolling, so to speak.
As the site is in its early stages, it's very fluid and could go in many directions. I already have a number of things I want to implement to the site, and will be in the near future. I am getting more and more writers signed up and when I feel we have enough, I shall have an official launch at a London venue.
So where does this leave Spode's Abode, I hear you ask? Well, the site will *not* disappear, but I imagine I will start covering more non-technology topics, or merely taking a different angle to that I would give on TAT. At some point, I imagine I will integrate a...
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