John McCain – Why did you email me?

Just got this in my emails:-

My Friend,

From the time I entered the Naval Academy at age seventeen I have been privileged and honored to serve my country.

Throughout my years of service, I’ve been faced with challenges where I could have taken the easy way out and given up. But I’m an American and I never give up. Instead, I choose to show courage and stand up and fight for the country I love. Today, I am asking you to stand with me and to fight for our country’s future.

Our country faces enormous challenges and our next president must be ready to lead on day one. My lifetime of experience has prepared me to lead our great nation. I’m prepared to bring solutions to our economic challenges, bring our troops home in victory and improve our nation’s healthcare system.

Time and time again, my country has saved my life and I owe her more than she has ever owed me. I have chosen to show my gratitude through a life of service to our country and tomorrow, you will have a choice before you.

I humbly ask you to make the choice that will allow me to serve my country a little while longer by casting your vote to elect me as your next President of the United States.

Finally, I ask that you never forget that much has been sacrificed to protect our right to vote. We must never forget those Americans who, with their courage, with their sacrifice, and with their lives, have protected our freedom. It is my great hope that you will exercise your right to vote as an American tomorrow.

I thank you for your kind support, your dedication to our cause, and most importantly I thank you for your vote.

With sincere appreciation,

John McCain

Errr John, I am a Brit, I live in France..sorry, no can do…

Stop the bus, the Tour is off

For those of you reading this, it is tough for me to write, however, the secret I had been planning has been shelved, due to the recession and incompetence.  I had planned to host a tour of the UK (then USA) in theblogbus. The bus was to be provided and supported by a World leading transport company, we hoped to visit every major city and explain just how blogging and social media can help the general public.  The challenges were huge but the coverage fuelmyblog would have gained would have been enormous.  All users would have benefitted.  We had signed up a couple of well known celeb’s, the Government, some huge online companies and two of the World’s largest technology companies.

Unfortunately, after spending three to four solid months on the project, the company pulled out at the last minute.  This has let a handful of global companies down.  Thankfully, the contacts at these organisations are keen to continue working with me and fuelmyblog and I will revisit the tour idea shortly, with someone able to deliver.

For the corporate, I suspect this was a project that the employees probably felt they had to put time into, the only person really understanding the value was the board member that signed it off.  In any case, I have had a large portion of my working year put aside, the costs are huge both in a personal, financial and business level.  It was set to be a fantastic event, it still will be, only next time, I will choose the company wisely, I want to work with a company that understands the internet, the value of meeting the public (their customers) and the value of 5m unique visitors per day – even if the tour is not part of their bread and butter.

Ok back to fuelmyblog.  There are plenty of products to test out now, one to note, the King of Shaves Azor, we are hoping to tie up a lot of companies over the next few weeks to ensure the bloggers get a flow of great products.   We are also bringing out a new feature very shortly, this will be very exciting for us and hopefully enable our users and friends to interact more on the site.

Sorry to have been away for a while, things have been busy here, trying to catch up

Future of Web Apps – Butcher plays rrrrrr-runaround

Just got back from Future of Web Apps.  It was a great show, so slick and so many amazing speakers.

Snapshot of things seen, people spoken to:-

MySpace Bus

Microsoft Table

Jemima Kiss (blue dress – ok, possibly only female in shot) filming Mike Butcher hosting Techcrunch Runaround – a format that should be revisited in a larger scale

He who has most behind wins:-

Mike Butcher meets Ben Huh – I can haz a knackered Mike (he just finished Runaround at this point)

Here’s to the next event – although I am still thinking Mike should def run a Crackerjack version – best pitches get to hold cabbages – most cabbages win.

And then finally back home, this damn iphone is not picking up but..look at the ceiling in the plane, those two white rectangles are for mobile phones, the left says “turn off mobile” on the right says something like “mobile can be used”..imagine, a plane with mobile phones…urrgghh.

Youtube freezes after 2 seconds

Many many people face the same problem using Firefox and Internet Explorer, you click on a YouTube video, it starts, two seconds later, finished. Or rather, it stops. If your YouTube video stops after two seconds, this tip is for you..

I have seen many many people say that you need to go back to previous restore point, change config or DNS settings, delete programs, upgrade drivers, buffer problems, change start-up settings, restart PC or blah blah blah..forget it. You do not need to do anything so drastic…

So your YouTube video freezes after 2 seconds, simply close your browser. All tabs, the lot. When prompted to restart windows or firefox, do not restore all opened tabs. Start again *from fresh* and hey presto, youtube will work as normal..

That’s magic – and will save you hours of sodding about.

Dear Apple please fix this iPhone problem..

Dear Apple,

I acquired the iPhone 3G on launch day in the UK.

This week I was lost in a part of London’s West-End and the fantastic Maps function saved the day for me, pinpointing exactly where I was and showing me where I needed to go, great work.  And then I needed to call one of my clients..

Then the trouble started…you see dear Apple I have adult man hands…Do the team working on the iPhone contact search have little elf sized fingers?  I simply cannot easily find a contact, those letters are too small to locate any particular letter – oh thanks for the magnifying glass search function, the only problem is, the icon is too small to locate with my “man hands”.  If there is any easier way to search, please let me know, i’d be grateful, alternatively why not simply have a permanent search bar at the top, then us people with “man hands” can actually find the people we want to call..

Regards

Blogging now recognised in the UK by companies

I just received the following box:-

Intrigued – I opened it:-

Still none the wiser, lifted the green nest:-

Berocca had sent me some goodies!

Inside the blogger’s relief pack are a load of goodies that are designed to de-stress!  Plus a tube of their orange effervescence multi-vitamin/mineral drink.  This drink is created for people with hectic lifestyles.  I have, as my friends and family will testify, had the worst, in terms of busy and hectic, few months I can remember, I am hoping this drink will be the tonic I need to pick me up!

UPDATE:  I just had a glass of the orange, already I can feel myself feeling mentally more alert.  Fingers crossed that it will help me in a meeting I have today in London.

The contents of the pack are below:-

Thanks for the pack, Berocca – I look forward to receiving more pick-ups in the future!  You can learn more about their range here.  Hopefully we’ll be able to run a campaign with these guys on Fuelmyblog soon. I will cross-post this over there too.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored nor paid post.  I was under no obligation to write about the product in any shape or form.

Twitter has new look – then crashes

I love Twitter, it is a great site, I can be found and added as a friend here.

They just deployed a new look and feel, not sure if I like it but am sure it will grow on me..only the changes seem to have affected the new found reliability guess who came back?

Telegraph Business Club

I recently signed up and joined the Telegraph Business Club, it seemed to be a good venue for some online business networking along with a great list of events to attend. The only problem is actually networking.
As per their site “The Telegraph Business Club exists to give readers a forum in which to share their views, insights and challenges with each other. We hope this exchange will help to enhance your business performance.”

Ok, so to use the forum, you must click on one of a list of bullet point titles to view the “post”.  I did this, found someone requesting help on growing traffic online and using different marketing tactics.  Of course I know an angle there .  So I started searching for a place to leave a comment, a button some text…nothing?

Clicking back I read the following:-

“All member feedback is valuable – no matter how big or small. If you want to provide any comments, articles or raise any issues that you want to leverage input from your peers, then send an email to Talk Back.

Please note that comments may appear with your name and company. If you prefer your comments to be anonymous, please state this in your email.”

Come on Telegraph what is the point in vetting every comment if you allow anonymous comments, install real forum software and lets get talking.

Sheesh.

Dear Diary…

This was just sent to me, had to share, very very funny:-

Dear Diary,

For my birthday this year, my daughter (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me.

Although I am still in great shape since being a high school cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Brad, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear.

My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

MONDAY:

Started my day at 6:00 a.m.Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Brad waiting for me. He is something of a Greek god – with blond hair, dancing  eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!! Brad gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring!

Brad was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week-!!

TUESDAY:

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door.

Brad made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then he put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I  made the full mile. Brad’s rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT-!! It’s a whole new life for me.

WEDNESDAY:

The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop.

Brad was impatient with me, insisting that my screamsbothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying. My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Brad put me on the  stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Brad told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other stuff too.

THURSDAY :

Brad was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn’t help being a half an hour late, it took me that long to tie my shoes.

Brad took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. He sent some skinny woman to find me.

Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine — which I sank.

FRIDAY :

I hate that Brad more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world.

Brad wanted me to work on my triceps. I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher.

Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

SATURDAY :

Brad left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing him made me want to smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel.

SUNDAY :
I’m having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter (the little git) will choose a gift for me that is fun — like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

Friday Five – my answers

I decided to start a new weekly meme over at the FMB blog, so I guess I should answer it!

1. What is your best joke?

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”
2. If you were a character in the Muppet Show which one would you be?

Fozzie Bear

3. Do you brush your teeth before bed?

Not always..

4. Would you employ Daddy Papersurfer?

One can never have enough tea, so yes.

5. When was (if applicable) the last time you lied about your age?

Phew, wish I never asked this one..I guess when telling the kids we are 21..or getting in to an over 40’s nightclub..which is not good actually..

There wasn’t too hard was it.