I was looking forward to having the whole team back in the office today – but it seemed the weather had other ideas.

Overnight, Fubra HQ, Aldershot and the surrounding areas were covered in a blanket of snow TEN inches thick! Some staff were unable to make it in, but the Directors need to set the example!

Here’s Fubra’s MD Brendan skiing – yes, skiing – into work!

I guess it must have been too tempting, having only got back from France late last night.

Even better, I was able to ski to the office too, which meant was able to ski yet avoid the extra luggage and insurance that easyJet piles on to air fares at the moment!

Of course, this being an internet firm, most of the team decided working from home on their laptops would be a good idea today – which left me with little to do but go and mess about in the park with everyone else!

It’s currently in a BETA release, but I tested it out by creating a tutorial and it worked without any major problems. This took me a little over an hour, which is a lot quicker than if I had coded it by hand.

The tool will be most useful for any web users, who lack HTML skills, but want to create their own web page… and just like Google’s other services, it is free to the end user.

You get 100mb of storage which should be enough for around 1000 web-sized (640×480) photos. I expect to see Google tie this service in with picasa in the near future to allow seamless publishing of photo albums on to the web.

It’s quite surreal seeing cows and ponys wander freely around the New Forest, but is a welcome distraction from the hustle and bustle of living in a city or town.

Unfortunately for me, I had to learn as I went, but next time I will be sure to check out our camping guide which has tips and advice for anyone thinking of going on a camping trip.

Make your own here JPG to ASCII.

The judges were expected to rule in favour of file-sharers because of a legal precedent set when video recorders first appeareed, but in the end they voted unanimously in favour of the argument brought to court by 28 movie and music makers who claimed rampant piracy was denting their profits.

More Information

So, if like me, you have a young relative who asks you to find out how to make them, then hopefully I can save you some time surfing.

First you need a starting knot, then you can start “stitching” with either a square stitch or a round stitch.

How to make Scoobies

I found some basic Scoubidou knot instructions for beginners on a scooby strings guide site.

Someone on another website summarised the making of Scooby Strings as follows:

“What you do is take 2 lengths of thin plasic (the cord from inside old telephone wire works if not) and fold them both in half and tie a knot at the folded end to produce a loop.

Then pull all four strips to tighten the knot and start all over again.”

Once you get confident with the basics, you could then try one of the many advanced scoobidou techniques, and even build some scoubidou animals!

I hate it when things like that happen! But I called my insurance company who managed to “Quote me happy” just a few short weeks earlier and pressed 2 for glass damage.

Shortly after I was put through straight away to a very helpful member of their call centre. He was evidently very well trained and reassuring he guided me through the whole process of what I needed to do and offered to have someone come out to fix the car where it was. I opted instead to bring it into my local branch as it was perhaps going to take up to 7 days to get the glass because they didn’t stock my rear window. So he arranged with the local Autoglass centre for me to drop the car in to them then he gave me directions.

Upon arrival it was evident that there must have been a good centralised IT system because just 5 minutes later they had all my details ready and they were waiting for me. They took the keys and checked my details, they then apologised that it may take up to 7 days and told me they would call me as soon as the glass arrived and when it was fitted.

Sure enough they did, in fact, the next day they called me to ask if I was free in half an hour to collect because they had already finished! 6 days ahead of schedule I couldn’t have been happier. So I went to collect and found they had also fixed a small chip on the front windscreen free of charge to help stop it spreading into a crack. The car was vacuumed clean with a nice new window on the rear.

Overall I have not seen such good service from any of the companies I have dealt with recently and I thought it was worth a bit of praise. Credit where credit is due, well done Autoglass!

So I decided train had to be the best way in. Last time I used the train from Aldershot it was pretty awful. But credit to South West Trains this time the train was new instead of 20 years old, it was also nice and clean. This was all a pleasant surprise, until I arrived at the Tube!

First I had to get the northern line from Waterloo to Goodge Street and coming from nice country air it was pretty disgusting as I descended into the smell of a musty heated perfume concoction mixed with body odour and dust. As I rose in the lift at the other end gasping for fresher air I could already feel the dust settling in my nostril hair and looking at my hands they were all grubby.

I thought to myself is it any wonder people drive everywhere with that as the alternative and then thinking back to a bus journey last summer I remembered that was just as bad. It seems obvious that something needed to be done about transport but that is something everyone says not many people actually make a suggestion.

So here’s my plan, it’s pretty radical but perfectly achievable, with a willing government and the support of commerce and the people of London and the UK. Both the people and the businesses in London need to wake up to the mess short term thinking has got them in and start acting in the long term interests of everyone concerned instead of living in the fear and short term mentality.

Todo list:

1. Close the zone 1 tube lines.
2. Ban all motor vehicles from zone one.
3. Make a major public investment into pedicabs.
4. Put 50,000+ free to use bikes at each major station.
5. Invest in electric goods carriers so anyone can put heavy parcels or goods on a train into a zone 1 access station like Waterloo and from there, included in the price of the ticket, the goods can be taken to the final destination of their choice inside zone 1.
6. Rebuild the zone 1 tube to have 2 tubes at least for each line and a maintenance line.

The only problem with this idea is how to pay for it and I am not sure about that yet but perhaps the flat tax Paul has been going on about can help?

What I find even more surprising is that this short list of todo’s is more bold and sensible than most of the main political parties plans on transport all the main parties seem to be good at ignoring the issues and not so good at dealing with them.

If there is one thing I have learnt in business it is that radical thinking backed by money goes a lot further to making a change than sitting on the fence thinking with 10 times the cash behind it. So next time there is a tax hike proposed. Why not think about this question: Is my tax going towards something radical? Or is it going towards a continuation of steady change?

It should be interesting to the present government that as a higher rate payer I would be happy paying a radical Green party government higher income and corporation taxes but I would hate paying the same or even more tax to a Labour government with more “Bank Manager” levels of adventure and risk in their goals.