Just a quick note from me to say that 2009 should be just as promising as 2008 was, and there is going to be plenty to talk about in terms of latest innovations, newest creations and technological advances to keep us on our toes!

Thanks again for joining me, and hope to see you again soon….

Regards. 

Many of my friends and colleagues have ideas for their own companies - even if the world financial climate is tugging at a few purse-strings.

Anything from a simple cafe to an individual service provider and some even on-line. Well, I know from experience that there are a lot of hoops to jump through to really get started, and there is a lot of jargon and red tape to fight your way through. One tiny thing missed in the early stages could cost you a fortune to put right in the long run.

There are, of course, many different companies out there who can offer advice and assistance for simple company formations, and continue this over the first few years of your company, but I found one that offers to have you up and running with everything you need in ‘less than 4 hours’! So now - there is no reason for you to wait until you have the time to fill out all the forms and speak to all the relevant people while juggling your current job or career - just relax.

Highstone Company Formations Limited have been forming Limited Companies for individuals since 1996, and this decade of business has prepared them for the current downturn in the market. While some individuals are closing their companies, the benefits of limited companies come into their own - and professional help and support at this time could make all the difference.

For LTD company formations, you just need to follow their 7 simple steps - starting with choosing your company name, and protecting it for the lifetime of your company. With their helpful, prompt advice, and their online answers about company formation and explaining the relevant technical jargon - they are worth investigating if you are serious about taking that first step.

The company can also offer additional services should you require them with UK company formations, including company branding, relevant business searches, even supplying secretaries, payroll services and a registered office if needed. Most importantly they can offer Trademark advice to make sure that you are protected from the off.

So, if you are considering starting a business or accountancy firm, then maybe you should check them out……

And Good Luck!

It was a competition for children across Europe to come up with a great project to help combat climate change locally to them, but with international possibilities.

The winners were a group of young people from Copenhagen, Denmark who headed up the project:  Biogas: The Best Solution.

Their idea revolved around the concept of creating energy from an existing method, but by using the fuel from their local zoo.  Basically, the animal waste was burnt to create the energy needed to run the zoo itself.  A perfect circle.

The judges felt that this was ‘the most holistic’ project submitted from hundreds of entries from 21 countries.  Not only does it reduce the need for the zoo to import energy from other sources, it also plays a role in preserving the habitats needed for wildlife so that fewer species become endangered in the first place. 

The zoo already has a great reputation for helping existing endangered wildlife - and now it is helping other species before there is a problem - and it may be the model that leads other zoos and wildlife sanctuaries to do the same.

To find out how the project develops in the future follow the progress at www.nationalgeographic.com/combatclimatechange

But my ideas are changing.

If they aren’t going to really love my gifts - and it is estimated that over 50 million UK pounds worth of Christmas gifts are thrown away each year (!!!!!!!!!!!) then I am going to buy them something I want, or something that cannot be discarded - something that will make a difference.

And I don’t care if that difference is to someone else entirely - even someone I don’t know, or someone on a completely different continent infact!

What Gifts Are They?
Well, they are the gift of wildlife sponsorship, domestic animals such as a goat, pencils for 100 children, training teachers for schools, etc.  They are not the non-convincing offers of buying a tree in a rain-forest that you can’t verify - these are serious gifts that will really make a difference with companies that are known world wide 

Now these types of gifts have been around for a while, but they were always a bit dull sounding or were very expensive - but times are changing and there is a lot more to choose from and at more reasonable prices.

Why These?
Well, there are many benefits to these gifts, and not just to the cause they are supporting.

1) These gifts are good for the environment - they will be supporting communities around the world who are ‘in charge’ of wildlife or environmental areas that should be preserved and cared for.

2) They cannot be thrown away and wasted.  The money you spend on these gifts will instantly go to work on your chosen cause whether your friends or family like it or not!

3) There is no wrapping involved, so less sticky tape, shiny non-recyclable wrapping paper and bows, etc are required, therefore even less waste and less time and energy spent on the whole thing.

4) They are totally different - a talking point.  Get others to think about the causes that interest you across the globe, and maybe get your charity or cause more support.

5) They really will make a difference - a positive one.  Rather than just lining big high street retail stores pockets with your reasonably impulsive purchases of gifts and wrapping, create a safe, healthy environment for people and animals in another country.

6) Feel good about yourself and the moeny you have invested.

Below are a few websites to get your search started.   There is still time to get these to your friends before last post! 

www.goodgifts.org- supporting African schools
www.worldlandtrust.org- protecting rain-forests
www.presentaid.com - supporting farmers worldwide
www.oxfamunwrapped.com - everything you could imagine

Alternatively, think of your favourite charity and just visit their site - I’m sure they are offering something as a gift.

Basically they have found a way to divert high-pressure water underground so that it only flushes out the oil rich seams rather than just flooding out through ‘empty’ cracks, routes, gaps or as they are known in the trade ‘thief zones’.

The Technique.
Many area of oil can be extracted from the ground by forcing it out with water. High pressure water is forced into one end of the oil seam and it pushes along the rock strata and out into a collecting area.

Normally the ratio of oil to water coming out is heavily in favour of water at the other end as once the water has flushed out some of the less dense areas, most of the water flows through these rather than forcing out the heavier oil-filled areas. Once the percentage of water gets to high, the land is abandoned.

What’s new?
Recently, BP in Alaska have been working on a new polymer that can actually help block off the entrance to these ‘thief zones’ making sure that the water flushes out the oil instead. This polymer expands when heated and causes a diversion - helping to retrieve more oil from the seams.

So far they have extracted half a million barrels more than existing techniques! As a result of these amazing achievements, they have started using this technique in other areas including Prudhoe Bay and Milne Point, as well as other across the globe.

In addition, you can actually change the temperature needed to create the polymer to swell allowing for all sorts of other factors to be taken in to consideration at every oil seam. These enhanced oil recovery techniques will be of great use in making better use of existing locations, saving extraction companies a fortune (and making them richer of course).

However, the opposite could happen. It could mean that smaller oilfields that were not viable for mining before by the large companies may now be plundered with this enhance technique. This could end up affecting many more regions, and possibly smaller locations much closer to towns and villages.

On a happy note:
There could be another benefit to this underground technique - BP are working on ideas to add more carbon dioxide to the water they use to flush the oils seams. Now this would mean that they would be depositing waste products underground so reducing the amount that is released into the atmosphere.

Yes, it would help to reduce their own carbon footprint, but they are not alone. The idea seems to be common knowledge and many companies and governments are hoping to pump waste gases into previously emptied oil or gas fields under the oceans.

Sounds great short term - but isn’t that like burying a body in your back yard and hoping that the next owners don’t try to build a pool……..

We have all been there. We have a great idea for a product, but we can’t quite get it to look how we want, or do what we want. But we keep trying.

Some people, however, go without one half of the process and their products are sometimes highly desirable and amazingly stylish - but generally they don’t last long and can damage your brand name.

Or they are fantastic at what they do and amaze all who witness their achievements - but they look like a machine rather than a work of art. There is a limit to what the general public will have in their homes or gardens, and it has nothing to do with snobbery.

So make sure you get both parts right with your inventions.

What makes a product successful?

Well, it isn’t just what it does that makes it a must have. It is the whole energy surrounding it that makes it a winner. Sometimes the design is just perfect - but if it doesn’t get into the public eye in a favourable climate, it is a loser. It needs to surprise people with its character.

Take Fair Trade for example. Noone used to pay the premium for that 20 years ago - now it couldn’t be more trendy to have your coffee and chocolate brandishing it’s fairtradeability. And Harry Potter. Noone wanted to know him the first few dozen times J K Rowling took him to the publishers.

The product also has to do everything that is expected of it - and for a very long time. If a product gets a reputation for breaking easily it could easily make it a failure. Also it needs to be easy to use - it’s no good having great technology and software if the buttons are too small for anyone to use or it only works in certain places.

Think of the problems you have with the products and technology you use, and try to overcome them. However, don’t forget that it is other people you are making this for as well. So, unless you are aiming for a niche market (narrow fitting shoes/people allergic to bee stings/underwater weddings) try to cater for everyone’s needs, specialise later if you want.

So, what makes a product iconic?

Well, this one is a bit different although still about timing to a certain degree. You need to have the product associated with something in the buyers memory, so they know and love this product by association, by memory.

Take the whole range of products being re-released now that remind everyone of their childhood/ their school days/ their mums cooking/ their granma’s kitchen. All these things are embedded in our memories as happy times so we remember those products and desire them as we get older. Think of the current sales of ‘old stuff’ on eBay at the moment. People are even buying incomplete sets and games off the Internet just to keep hold of that piece of their past.

The same thing needs to be incorporated into products being designed today. Will this stick in the mind of your customer? Will they enjoy using it? Will they like how it looks - what it does - what it represents - how it helps them? All these things will be setting the future for your product and of course your current sales.

What new technology is just around the corner?

There is lots of work at the moment with materials, which have little changed over the past decade or so. For example, there is just different types of plastic rather than a whole new concept.

Nanotechnology could soon change all of that. There is hope for some amazing new ideas and products to enter the market based on this new technology. For example, a paint containing nano particles of carbon could actually make the car it is painted onto photovoltaic - therefore able to power itself. That’s some exciting stuff to look forward to!

Based on James Dyson interview in STUFF

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It seems at the moment that companies are looking for ways to hide the carbon, waste products and other pollutants rather than stop producing them in the first place.

Just as Governments are happy to bury tonnes of household waste and garbage under the ground all over the World rather than stop companies making such products and packaging in the first place; these businesses are hoping to still create the damaging by-products of their industry, but find some way to catch it all, store it and then hide it somewhere far away.

Lets take one current polluting industry as an example.

The Coal Industry
Coal was once the backbone of the UK. It’s Industrial Revolution was fuelled by this cheap and easily accessible source of fuel. The image of a soot-covered chimney sweep was a nostalgic image of industrialised Britain - until we checked it’s carbon footprint!

Kingsnorth Coal Factory is at the moment gripped with protests. It gives off 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every day - into the atmosphere. This is the same amount (give or take) as the 30 least polluting countries in the world added together! (The Sunday Times)

Coal gives of more of this damaging gas than any other fuel - with 820g given off per kilowatt hour. Gas produces just 380g and nuclear a tiny 22g.

Worse still, is the fact the nearly half of the UK’s coal is imported from Siberia - now how much more carbon does that give off???

How can we fix this?
Well now, there are steps to make the coal industry ‘look better’ and to reduce the amount of carbon it emits this year - needless to say all the hidden gas will eventually leak out from wherever they stick it.

First things first - Step 1: Make coal-fired power stations more efficient. Frighteningly, such power stations only convert a third of the heat they generate into power - the other 70% is wasted!!!!!

Strange.  The Government keep telling me to insulate my loft to stop heat escaping - a bit of pot calling kettle black here!

However, their targets for this are only to increase their efficiency to 60%. Forget about that other 40% - it’s not important. We’ll look at that another time.

Step 2: Catch all the carbon given off during production and bury it somewhere.

In Germany, construction has begun on the worlds first complete demonstration of the technique of Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). Built alongside an existing power plant, this £56m project will capture 100,000 tonnes of gas and compress it. Then transport it to a disused oil or gas field and inject it in the gaps.

CCS has 3 suggested techniques (none of which have been proven to be effective). These are:

1) Burn the coal in pure oxygen - this will result in pure Carbon Dioxide as a waste product. This means that the waste product does not need further processing before disposal.

2) Pre-combustion - coal burning is more controlled, resulting in hydrogen and carbon dioxide as waste products. The hydrogen would need to be recovered before disposal.

3) Post-combustion - this technique will scrub the exhaust gases from the power station. Not quite sure how that one will be processed.

There are plenty of locations willing to try these techniques, and the Mountaineer scheme in West Virginia may well be the first company to use all 3 techniques in it’s production. And it hopes to trap and bury 1.5 million tonnes of gas every year in a nearby oilfield.

So, is Britain moving forward?
Well, the UK Government is looking to increase the number of coal-fired power stations instead.  They are planning at leat 8 more!

It has looked at CCS apparently in 2006, then didn’t really make any progress. It talked about 2014 for work to start on one, but with their slow progress - it won’t be finished until 2020 at the very earliest. Greenpeace believe that Governments are using the ‘hope’ of CCS technology to justify building new power stations now - shushing the people by saying that ‘it’s OK, it will be cleaner to use in the future’.

However, I think coal-fired power station will only become ‘cleaner’ when we run out of coal, shut them down, and turn them into nice eco-loft apartments.

(Main Source: The Sunday Times)

A British team have come up with a car that has the potential to break the current land speed record of 763 miles per hour, held since 1997 by the Thrust SSC (super-sonic car).  And by some way.

The Bloodhound SSC:
Their new vehicle will apparently cover the length of a soccer pitch in the blink of an eye - literally. In one sixth of a second it would have travelled the entire distance at 1.4 times the speed of sound, and it would only take 34 seconds to travel 10 miles…..

Made from carbon fiber and precision made titanium parts, this vehicle will be assisted by not only a Typhoon jet engine, but also a Falcon Solid-Fuel rocket engine and a V12 racing engine.  The jet engine fires first getting the vehicle up to 100mph in 5 seconds, then the rocket engine takes over, powering from 300mph to over 1000mph.

It would have hit the speed of sound at 761mph, so there would have been an ear-shattering sonic boom as the car just kept on accelerating.

After having only traveled just over 1 mile, the record will have been broken and the vehicle will be coming to a stop, with the engines cut, the brakes deployed and the parachute inflated.

Why Do This? 
If successful, this record will also have overtaken the low-altitude flight speed record too - which currently stands at 994mph.

Out of the 109 years the land speed record has been contested, it has been held by the British for 65 of those.

Due to the immense forces of the speed and acceleration, the vehicle needs to withstand more pressure than a submarine - requiring the protection from forces of around 12 tonnes per square meter.  The wheels will be turning a over 10,500 revolutions per minute creating a g-force of around 50,000 times that of gravity.

When Will It Happen? 
Needless to say, the construction of such a precise machine has yet to be authorised, but if allowed, the crew are hoping to begin work next year (2009) and they hope for a world record attempt by 2011.

Who is crazy enough to drive the super sonic machine?  Who has the experience to handle such tough conditions?  Why, Andy Green - the RAF pilot who currently holds the land speed world record of course!

To see The Guardians computer generated video of the Bloodhound in action, go to their site.

# Asus won 2,568 independent awards in 2007 - that’s 7 per day for the whole year.
# Asus ranked 4th in the Top Notebook manufacturers listings
# Asus offer a 2 year global warranty
# Asus shipped over 60 million motherboards last year - making 1 in 3 PC’s sold last year.

Here are some of their finest divided into groups.

Ultra Portable Laptops:
Asus offer several designs of notepads to suit your travelling and portable necessities.

Battery life is important in these, so the features you use will need their performance settings and energy-sapping features life BlueTooth switched off when not using them.

Asus U2E:
from £1199 - Steel & Leather outer - 11.1 inch screen (1.25kg)
Runs Genuine Windows Vista Business with 32GB Solid State Disc and Wi-Fi, USB and Bluetooth. It also has fingerprint security!

Asus U6:
from £849 - Stylish metal finish - 12.1 inch screen (1.57kg)
Runs Genuine Windows Vista Business with 4GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive. Has Wi-Fi HSDPA and Bluetooth. It also has fingerprint technology.

Professional Laptops:
With an impressive selection of features in sleek and chic packages - allowing you to work without compromise in any situation.

Asus R1:
from £1119 - Stylish metal finish - 13.3 inch wide-screen (1.98kg)
Runs Genuine Windows XP Tablet Edition with 250GB hard drive and 2GB of memory. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and Intel Core 2 Duo processors.

Asus R50A:
from £899 - Modern palm held office assistant - 5.6 inch screen (520g)
Runs Genuine Windows Vista Business with 32GB hard drive and 1GB memory. With Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.5g with HSDPA connectivity and built in GPS.

MultiMedia Laptops:
With great images needed and a lot of RAM and storage - these are great finds.

Asus M50:
from £899 - 15.4 inch screen (3.02kg)
With a 500GB HDD and a 4GB memory, you can run the nVidia GeForce 9600 with ease. With HD screen and Blueray drive.

Asus X50:
from $419 - 15.4 inch screen (2.8kg)
With a 250GB HDD and a 2GB memory, you can run the ATI HD3470 graphics easily. With DVD super multi DL drive and photo editing capabilities.

Gaming Laptops:
With exceptional graphics cards and fast action needed, these certainly pack a punch.

Asus G70:
from £1799 - 17 inch wide-screen
With a 640GB HDD and a 4GB memory, running the nVidia GeForce 8700M GT and using Intel Core 2 Duo.

Asus G50:
from £1349 - 17 inch wide-screen
With a 500GB HDD and a 4GB memory, running the nVidia GeForce 9700M GT and using Intel Centrino 2.

Asus are also launching their Asus EPU, a bamboo ecobook!!

Find out more at techinstyle.co.uk.

If you’ve got your new iPhone, but have been showing it off to everyone that you haven’t had time to see what it can actually do, here are some simple and fun applications to get you started:

1) Crash Bandicoot Nitro (£6)
A silly but addictive version of MarioCart with a bandicoot instead. Great fun.

2) Truphone VoIP (Free)
Free calls to other Truphone users and great international rates.

3) Brain Challenge (£6)
A slightly cheeky take on a popular game, but just as fun.

4) Pennies (£1.80)
An income tracker that allows you (if you have the time) to track what you spend on what and how much you have left!

5) BeatNaker (£12)
This application allows you to make your own music using simple musical components but can be a bit fiddly to get used to.