I receive anything up to 3,000 spam emails in a day so am always interested to see the latest trends. Recently it seems that the majority of my junk mail is made up of emails that look like they are from Amazon. Looking at my spam mail these tend to follow two formats. Either they ask you to confirm your log in details and direct you a page that looks like Amazon but judging by the web address is clearly not or they contain the subject line similar to “Thank you for setting the order No.538532” and include a zip file called track.zip.

According to this article due to volume of emails that are appearing Amazon have warned their customers to be wary of any emails asking them to check their accounts and only check the status of orders by first logging into the website not by clicking a link in an email. I find it interesting that people are fooled by these, as each of the emails I have received has contains a multitude of spelling mistakes, usually one of the first things that makes doubt the authenticity of the sender. The message once again is clear, don’t assume the sender is genuine and don’t click through and enter your details.

The answer according to one academic is 151 when it comes to Facebook friends. It appears that is the stage at which your Facebook friend list becomes unmanageable. The reason is that our brains are simply not big enough for us to handle meaningful relationships with more than a handful of people. Apparently there is a general relationship between brain size and social group size in monkeys and apes. That relationship predicts a natural group size and for humans this size is 150. This number is among other things the average number of people we send Christmas cards to, the average size of parishes among community-focused sects such as the Amish and the Hutterites, and the typical size of companies in most armies. Within these friends your social world then contains circles of friendships from a core of more intimate friends declining in intimacy down to those on the outskirts. I currently have 94 Facebook friends so it appears I have extra capacity for a few extra.

According to this article around 16 million people use the same password for every website they use. It seems people faced with remembering multiple passwords prefer to use the same one for everything. Unfortunately, however, they are making themselves easy targets for fraud. A study has found that the average internet user is asked for a password on 23 websites a month. 46 per cent of British internet users, that’s around 15.6 million users have the same password for every website they use. Around 29% use variations of the same password by adding days of the weeks or adding numbers to the end of the word. One in ten users tend to use memorable dates, children’s names and mother’s maiden names and one in five users use their pet’s name. 40 per cent of users also admit to disclosing their passwords to friends and family rather than keeping them secret.

All of these things leave people open to fraud and potentially having numerous accounts compromised. It is, however, easy to see why people tend to use the same passwords when there is so much to remember. Identity theft experts recommend using multiple passwords and including a combination of letters and numbers in order to stay safe. Personally I have one of these password fingerprint readers which helps to make life a little easier allowing you to put in details of the sites you use and access them with a touch of your finger.

According to this article online retailer Amazon is considering a move into the high street. The move comes as Amazon has started to stock larger products which can be problematic and expensive to deliver. If it goes ahead Amazon would have outlets where customers could pick up purchases that they have ordered online. The article suggests that Amazon is currently looking for high profile sites across the UK to pilot the scheme. The move would not only allow Amazon to supply those larger items but also allow customers to pick up their purchases at a time to suit them rather than relying on being in to sign for a delivery.

The New Oxford American Dictionary has named the word unfriend as its word of the year. It has beaten other finalists such as hashtag, intexticated, sexting and funemployed to win the title. If you are confused as to the meanings of any of these words there are explanations here. I find it interesting that most of them are only likely to be used by regular users of social networking sites and probably not in everyday language.

A study carried out on Twitter has found that 40% of tweets can be classified as pointless babble. The short term study was carried out by the US market research firm Pear Analytics with the intention of producing a snapshot of what people do with the service. They looked at 2,000 messages in total and put them into one of six categories: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and those with pass along value. It found that 40.5% of tweets were pointless babble, 37.5% conversational, 8.7% had pass along value, 5.85% were self promotion and 3.75% were spam. Pear analytics intend to repeat the study every quarter to track the trends in usage. What do you think, is Twitter simply pointless babble?

I have been using Twitter for a while now and have been very careful to abide by all the Twitter rules. Always erring on the side of the caution I am careful what I link to, I don’t repost other peoples content without giving them the credit for the original tweet (retweet), I don’t impersonate others and I certainly don’t use my account for violence or threat, breach copyright or promote illegal activities. Likewise I have not created a number of serial accounts, I have not engaged in name squatting, I have not tried to sell user names, publish malware or use Twitter for the purpose of spam. I can only assume that my last update regarding the fact I was defrosting my freezer must have upset someone. So please tell me Twitter, what did I do?

I have posted a “suspended in error request” and am waiting to see if I get a response. Has anyone else had this problem?

Update
30 minutes after logging the request my account seems to be back, it seems Twitter likes me again. Lets hope it lasts.

For those who thought they had seen the end of Woolworths the good news is that is back but in an online form. The new website has recently been launched and is proving to be popular according to this article which says nearly 100,000 people logged on in the first few hours. Much loved brands such as Ladybird clothing and pic ’n’ mix sweets can still be found on the site. The new owner Shop Direct brought the brand name in February and has kept the red logo that customers will recognise from the stores. The online stores will sell much the same things that you would expect to have found in a Woolworths shop but they will also sell some larger items that were to big to sell in store.

According to this article online fraud is at its highest ever level with seven out of ten internet users regularly seeing so called e-scams in their inboxes over the last twelve months. Around 80 per cent of users have received fake banking emails or fake online shopping emails. 70 per cent have been targeted by fake requests for money and 67 per cent have been told they have won a competition only to find out it is a scam. Personally I get so many of all of these types of emails that I automatically assume they are all fraudulent. If I ever did receive a genuine email from my bank or informing me I had won something it would be deleted along with the rest.

This article suggests that many people now consider broadband to be an essential service and that many regard it as important as electricity or water. The findings are based on information collected from 16 focus groups and surveys of 2,000 people across the UK. Based on this a report will recommend that the government provides universal broadband at a speed of 2Mbps by 2012 so that everyone has access to it. Personally my broadband is an essential service as I would be unable to carry out my day to day work without it but I can see that electricity and water are more important. What do you think, can you manage without your broadband?

I found This is Why You're Fat some time ago and am still amazed at some of the truly awful creations submitted on the site. This rather awful looking creation is a bacon cheese pizza burger its basically a giant burger between two large meat pizzas complete with eggs, bacon and cheese. Now doesn't that put you off your lunch?

According to this article one in three workers in the UK have admitted to having watched porn on their computer at work. What is perhaps more surprising is that more than 33 per cent of those have managed to get away with it with only 7 per cent getting caught in the act. The survey was based on responses from 400 office workers. Amongst other findings were that 56 per cent had returned to work drunk after a lunch time session in the pub and 59 per cent had been ill in the office because they had a hangover. I do find the statistics on watching porn a little surprising especially as many companies will consider visiting porn sites whilst at a work an instantly sackable offence. I do wonder why you would feel the need to watch porn at work, its not that I have a problem with people watching porn, but I mean that's why you have a computer at home.

I'm not sure if anybody else finds them irritating but after recently installing Skype on a new computer, I found that it automatically adds call buttons to web pages when it thinks something is a phone number. It appears that this is a plug in that is installed for use with Firefox. It took me ages to find out where to turn it off but eventually I found it hiding in the tools menu under extensions. After disabling the Skype extension for Firefox those annoying buttons have gone and I am much happier.

According to this article people in who live in Egham receive a more junk emails than anywhere else in the country. On average people in Egham receive 189 junk emails every day compared to 167 in Alton and 116 in Petersfield. What the article fails to explain is why Egham appears to be the spam capital of Britain. Living in Egham myself, I certainly receive much more than 189 spam emails every day, my total is closer to a thousand.

For the last few weeks the majority of the spam I have received has been Paris Hilton or Brittany Spears related so has been fairly easy to filter to my junk mail folder. I have noticed over the last couple of days a new spam trend. The email generally follows the format below and has a zip file attached to it. It tries to convince the recipient that malicious programs are being sent from their email address and threatens legal action if the matter is not resolved. I'm not sure what's in the zip file but I am guessing it is one of those malicious programs mentioned in the email.

-------------------------------

To Whom It May Concern:

I am tired of receiving messages containing malicious computer programs (viruses) from your e-mail address!!!

If within 1-2 days you do not stop sending messages to my e-mail address, I will have to address this issue to the Police!...

Today I received a hard copy of your data logs from my Internet service provider. The copy contains your IP address, logs of sending malicious programs and your e-mail address details...

I am sending you the copy of the document containing your data and logs of sending malicious programs as the proof of your fault!!!!!!

You must print the document containing the list of your data and logs of sending malicious programs and pass it on to your Internet service provider with, so that they could find out why the viruses are sent from your computer to my e-mail address!!!!

Ask your Internet service provider to resolve this problem!!!!

Do this now!!!

Once again!!! If you don?t stop sending the letters, I will address to the Police and file a lawsuit against you!!!

I buy a lot of things online but I also like to be able to send things back if I don't like them. That's where I think La Redoute have the right idea. Although they charge £3.99 post and packing you can do what is called a replacement order. Basically how this works is you receive your parcel, try everything on and then decide what to send back (with me there is always something). Then you decide which other items you want to order to try instead. Once you have the catalogue numbers of the items you want to try, then you give them call. Simply say you want to place a replacement order, let them know what is going back and what you want instead. Then they arrange a courier to pick up the items that are going back and you get a new parcel of goodies to try without having to pay another £3.99 postage. The best part is you can do this as many times as you want, so can quite happily work your way through the catalogue without worrying about being stuck with an item you don't like and can't return. The only way they could improve this service is if they let me do my replacement order online. I wonder whether they might consider adding this option to their website.

I notice that spam seems to come in waves. You seem to get one email followed in the next few days and weeks by thousands of similar ones. The latest wave seems to be these emails that try to convince you there is a parcel waiting for you at customs, such as the email below. I'm currently receiving around a hundred of these every day. I can't help wondering whether anyone actually believes that they do have a parcel to collect and responds to the email.

Dear Sirs,

We have received a parcel for you, sent from France on July 9. Please fill out the customs declaration attached to this message and send it to us by mail or fax. The address and the fax number are at the bottom of the declaration form.

Kind regards,

Your Customs Service

If you have trouble finding a sofa that matches your living room you might want to look at a bespoke option. Sofa specialist John Alan Designs can produce a sofa to match the size, colour and style of your room. They have a catalogue of different fabrics to choose from but can also use fabrics you already have. They can also use wood to match your current furnishings. Its an interesting idea but at a cost of £2,000 per sofa, a little out of my price range. Maybe one day if I win the lottery.

I am used to checking my email and finding an inbox full of spam but it really only occurred to me how many I actually receive when I didn't read my email for a day at the weekend. I was shocked to find that in just that one day I had over 2,000 spam messages. The majority of them had been sent to junk mail folder but I still find I have to wade through in case my spam filter has been overzealous and picked up messages that I do want to read. My main problem at the moment appears to be undeliverable emails that are being returned to my inbox because my email address is listed as the sender. Obviously I didn't send the emails in the first place but because my email address has been entered as the sender by some unscrupulous spammer I get the pleasure of an inbox full of spam. What I would really like to do is track these people down and kill them.

I do my shopping monthly so usually shop online because my ford fiesta is simply too small to take a months worth of groceries. I was surprised that the usually quite reliable Sainsbury's website was down when I tried to place an order on Wednesday. It appears the issue was caused by by a technical problem which meant they couldn't process any orders. What did surprise me was the website was down all of Thursday as well and the issue only appears to have been resolved today. Apparently during those few days more than 30,000 customers have not received their orders, with all deliveries being cancelled on Wednesday, Thursday and today. The good news for people that use the Sainsbury's online service, is it appears to be working correctly now, so fingers crossed the problem is fully resolved by next weekend when I am expecting my delivery.

It was my Dads birthday a few days ago and as I wasn’t able to see him on the day I sent him a gift. I used this website called realbeerbox.com. They carry a range of beers and real ales from some of the smaller, lesser known breweries. My Dad is always keen to try new ales so I ordered a case of mixed bottles. It’s the second time I have used them and I have been impressed both times. They delivered when they said they would and according to my Dad the bottles were wrapped securely in a large box. He seemed very impressed. I will definitely be using them again.

I was on the Virgin Wine website the other day, checking to see when my discovery club case was going to arrive and I discovered wine auctions. Basically they have about ten cases of wine in an auction which usually lasts a couple of hours. The cases start at 99p and have no reserve. However, I haven't seen any cases actually sell for under £30. Anyway I placed a bid, not really thinking I would win and ended up with a case of Merlot, which I will review here shortly. I got the case for just over £30, so it works out to less than £3 a bottle. It looks like I have just found a new way to spend my hard earned cash.

I read this article about a virtual farmers market called localfoodshop.com and thought it was a really good idea. The virtual market is not live yet but is due to launch next month. The site will allow farmers to sell their produce online for a £10 a month subscription fee. The farmers will keep 93% of whatever they make on the website, which is currently much more than they make selling their produce through the supermarket.

The reason I liked the idea, was because I like to try and buy all my produce through local farmers if at all possible, mainly because the quality is better and the food is fresher. However, it isn’t always possible. We do have farmers markets in the area but generally if I need something quickly I find myself having to buy it in Tesco. Customers will be able to search the website by postcode to find suppliers near them. The website will also encourage producers in the same area to combine deliveries, making the service more environmentally friendly. I am waiting for the launch of the site with interest and will certainly be giving it a go, so watch this space for the review.

I read this interesting article about the top 100 travel websites. It lists everything from where to stay, sites that give you inside information, holiday bargins and travel essentials. It's certainly worth checking out some of the websites it mentions.

I usually like to do my research before trying out a new restaurant particularly if we are going into London because the extra expense of the train fare makes for a costly evening, so you don’t want to be disappointed by as bad restaurant. That’s why I look for reviews from people that have already been there. At www.trustedplaces.com you can look up a London restaurant and see opinions of people that have visited it recently. You can also leave your own opinions once you have been there. This site, helps take a lot of the guesswork out of finding a good restaurant and I will definitely be adding it to my favourites to use in the future.

I am always looking for new recipes to try and found BigOven.com Recipe Community which is an interesting recipe swapping website. You can search over 160,000 recipes by ingredient, occasion or cuisine. One thing I particularly liked about the website is that the recipes include a photo of how the finished recipe should look which is always useful. The website also has software to help you to create grocery lists and meal plans, so if you have special diet then it could be really helpful. You can also upload your own recipes, complete with photograph. As an incentive they have a monthly prize of $100 for the best recipe photo submitted. As someone who regularly posts photos of my cooking on my blog I might give this go to see if I can earn a bit of extra cash.

I found this really interesting quiz. It has 10 websites and challenges you to spot which are the real sites and which are the fakes. I got six out of ten.

I have noticed over the last month or so that most of the spam I get seems to contain simply a PDF attachment. I was wondering whether this was a new tactic designed to fool people into opening up a dodgy file. I came across this article today that claim spammers have stopped sending pictures in their emails and instead started attaching PDF’s. It appears that they are doing this to try and get around corporate spam filters. So far, it appears to be getting through my spam filter quite effectively with several hundred of these spam mails with PDF attachments arriving each day. Whilst my daily amount of spam mails continues to rise, I suppose one good thing about this latest trend is I don’t have to read about Viagra or penis enlargement unless I actually open the PDF.

I’m still getting used to my new iPod that my husband brought me for my wedding anniversary and have been looking at iPod software that will make things easier. iPod Audiobook is a new conversion tool for people that own iPod’s. It converts audio files into a a format supported by your iPod. It can deal with MP3 files, Wav files, OGG files, Wma files and CDA files just to name a few. It’s made to integrate seamlessly with Windows so you can convert all of your audio files without even having to launch the program. It can also convert hundreds of files in one batch and you can get a 30 day free trial.

This article is not about big dicks. It's about an article I read recently suggesting that links such as the words big dick seem to generate more traffic to your blog. The article in question was not linking to a porn site but to a blog entitled Big Dick's Blog. Anyway that's enough big dick links, I will be interested to see if my traffic increases.

My blogging has got a little bit out of control and what started out as a personal blog, now appears to be more of a mini news feed. With this in mind I have started a couple of new blogs to try and split the content up a little bit. This blog will remain a personal blog, and contain all the usual stuff I blog about. However, I am going to post most of the shopping related content at ineedashop and most of the news related content at atheniaglobe which will both be live soon. In addition to these you can already read my design related blog and my travel related blog.

Facebook can now claim to have created its first boy band. A group of four musicians met on Facebook after discovering they had similar interests. They later tracked down Daniel Glatman, former boss of the band Blue and asked him if he would become their manager. They have now signed a £1 million album deal with Universal. The group called Blake have already recorded their first album which includes classic tracks such as Moon River and Jerusalem.

Blogging dosh.com is a blog about making money by blogging. The blog is sponsored by Dosh Talk. The first article I looked at was about making money from selling invites, not really an avenue I have considered so far and to be honest I would probably just give them away rather than try selling them. Still, it’s interesting that some people are cashing on this idea.

Another article that I found interesting was regarding people who remove comments from their blogs. For me comments are always appreciated and let me know firstly that people actually read my blog rather but more importantly that they found a particular subject of interest. As this article says comments are a vital part of blogging.

Another really useful article is a review on websites where you can Make Money Blogging. It talks about the main sites including PayPerPost, ReviewMe and Blogvertise as well as some lesser know paid review sites. I have already come across most of these paid blogging sites but this is certainly a useful overview for anyone who is looking to make money from their blog.

Not only does this blog have useful articles about making money it also has interesting stuff about optimising your blog. Simple things such as including simple to use navigation might not seem like rocket science but making things easy to find for your readers is obviously important. Other tips include how to create a brand for your blog, in other words creating a professional design, using consistent colours, designing a logo and making sure that any advertising you use fits with the style of your blog. Its all really useful stuff and as I am new to blogging I have a feeling I will be visiting this blog on a regular basis for some more useful tips.

Last time we moved we did it ourselves hiring a van which my Dad drove. Since then we have gained a lot more stuff and next time we move we will certainly be using a moving company.  I found this useful directory of moving companies. You can search by area and by the type of service you need. They also include services for moving internationally as well as storage rentals.

I came across these great Simpsons quotes. Among some of the good ones are “Your questions have become more redundant and annoying than the last three “Highlander movies” from Comic Book Guy and “I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman” from Homer.

GimmeTheScoop is a Blog on a number of subjects including health, business, finance and news. It is written by Gaurav Bhola and the idea is that it is a webblog open to the public to try and provoke intelligent debate on a number of subjects.  Among the posts in the finance section is a particularly interesting article about the rise in mortgage rates and how it is affecting the current market.

I was looking into a detox program and thought about juice fasting. Looking around for more information on it I came across this website that contains lots of useful tips. The site talks about both the good and bad points of Juice Fasting. The benefits include the fact that it can help expel toxins in your body but it can also have side effects. Looking at the website I don’t know that juice fasting is really for me, but I found the information here really useful.

With the recent rises in mortgage rates it’s getting harder to find the money to buy a home especially for first time buyers. I remember when we purchased our house four years ago we struggled to find the money for our deposit and the fees and had to borrow from family, just to get on the property ladder. We have always made sure we choose a fixed rate on our mortgages, mainly because we would find it difficult to cope with any rise in interest rates and would struggle with increased payments. However if you do have problems there are people that can help you with bad credit remortgages and debt consolidation. We are now trying to find the money to purchase our second home and finding it equally difficult to find the money for fees. We have worked out that to buy a new house and sell ours will cost around £10,000 just in Stamp Duty, Land Registry fees and solicitor’s fees and thats before we start paying the mortgage.

If you are looking for something a bit different you might want to try some Handmade Jewelry at Night Fox Jewelry. They have a wide range of necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings. The fact that each piece is hand made means that you can be sure you will have a special custom made piece. I was looking for a necklace for a wedding I am going to soon and found an amethyst and carnelian necklace which should match my purple dress perfectly.

I received an email from Nectar the other day advertising a new Nectar wine club. It's similar to the Virgin Wine Discovery Club, in that they send you a case of wine every quarter. The email advertised a special joining offer meaning you got the first case of wine for only £39.99 and also got three extra bottles free. I thought this was too good an offer to miss out on so clicked the buy now link on the email, only to find the website was down. I tried the site again today and still no luck. I wonder how many potential customers they have lost in the last few days. I will persevere and may give them a call on Monday to tell them they have a problem, but many people have probably given up already.

I found this interesting quiz on technology. Apparently it's designed to see how useful you would be if you went back in time and tried to invent some of today's technology. The questions are quite hard, but I managed a fairly respectable six out of ten.

I have been feeling a little tired and run down recently so was considering putting myself through a detox and cleansing programme. I came across this article on the benefits of colon cleansing and how it can have positive effects such as improved digestion and less bloating after meals, which suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a problem that tends to really affect me. The article went onto to recommend a cleansing product called Bowltrol. I’m usually a bit sceptical as to whether these sorts of products work, but this website contains a Bowltrol Review where the product was tested on real life customers with all of them seeing successful results after using the product.

Tesco have announced its latest step in their move towards world domination, not content with being the biggest supermarket in the UK, they have now decided to move into the property market. Their property sales service will let sellers list their homes on a Tesco website for a fee of £200. Sellers will also get a Tesco branded for sale sign to put outside their house. The idea is that the website will be for private sellers and Tesco say it will save them money and is a real alternative to instructing an agent. It will be interesting to see if there are any hidden fees when its launched.

Its getting to that time of year when cat owners like myself need to start thinking about flea control. Fleas can be a real nuisance especially in a multi-cat household. With four cats if one cat gets fleas, then soon the whole house is infested. I usually find that prevention is better than cure, if at all possible. I am careful to change my cats flea collars every few months and so far we have been flea free for nearly two years, fingers crossed.

However, with pets it’s inevitable you will have to deal with fleas at some point. I found this useful website called fleascontrol.com that has a flea control guide to help you get rid of annoying fleas. The website has useful tips on what remedies work such as flea collars for prevention and flea shampoo and powder for tackling the problem. It also has useful information for removing fleas from the home to try and prevent further outbreaks.

I came across this website for the World's Ugliest Dog contest. You can vote online for who you think should win. This little guy is called Elwood and he sure is ugly.

As someone who drinks quite a lot of wine I am always in need of a constant supply. I recently signed up for Virgin Wines discovery club. Basically what that means is they will send me a case of wine every quarter, based on the wines I would usually choose. If I don't like any of the selected wine then I just let them know and I don't pay for them. I also get 15% off any of the wines in the case if I want to purchase more. My first case arrives in September, so I am interested to see how the service works for me and also if their money back guarantee is as good as it seems. More updates on this to follow.

An interesting article here from the BBC. There are 20 short clips of people smiling, all you have to do is tell whether they are fake or real. I got 18 out of 20.

Orange have been criticised over its use of the term "unlimited" used in its advertising for broadband, because they do in fact limit customers to 40GB of monthly downloads and 1,000 minutes of calls. Whilst most customers are unlikely to use anything close to this download limit, it still seems to be false advertising to say there are no limits when they quite obviously are.

An interesting article here on the top ten most common passwords, its worth checking this list and if you use one of them, it might be an idea to change it.

I read this article about people that have managed to grow unusual plants in their gardens. A lady in Essex managed to grow a pineapple by putting the top part of a pineapple fruit in water and then planting it when it grew roots. I'm off to Tesco next week to buy myself a pineapple to try growing one myself.

If you are prone to allergies then is the time of year they generally start acting up. You can help prevent many allergies by investing in humidifiers, or helping healthy living with an air purifier or even using a specialised vacuum cleaner. www.bestvacuum.com specialises in all of these devices. You can buy various humidifiers that remove impurities from the air whilst also humidifying the air at the same time. Their vacuum cleaners also cover a variety of problems, I have recently purchased a Dyson animal which having four cats I find great for picking up the handfuls of fur they leave behind when they are shedding their fur during the summer.

Marks and Spencer and BHS have just announced they will sell a new range of school uniforms. Whilst that in itself is not unusual, these unifroms will be made from recycled plastic which has been melted and woven into yarn. The end result is a range of fleeces, shirts, trousers and skirts that will go on sale this summer. The whole uniform will cost around £20.

Its fathers day on the 17th June and if you are looking for an unusal present you might want to head down to the joke shop for one of these giant mugs. Priced at only £6.99 delivery is free anywhere within the UK.

If you are busy and don't have chance to get to the post office, why not send your fathers day card from PC2Paper. They have a wide range of card designs and can be fully customised with your own message. You can also send a your dad a letter and upload your own pictures.

If like me you live near an airport, in my case its Heathrow, you might be interested in the new website just launched by BAA. Covering Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted it allows people to see which flights fly over a particular area. So now when a plane flies over your house at six a clock in the morning or disrupts a peaceful day in the garden you can use this handy website to see exactly what plane it is and even how high its flying.

I found this website SendMeScent.com that offers a wide range of perfume and aftershave. Personally I wear perfume every day and tend to have seven or eight different bottles open at any one time, so I’m always looking to try new fragrances. My favourite at the moment is Be Delicious by DKNY on sale here for only £34.50 which is quite a saving from the RRP of £48.95. Other favourites of mine are Cool Water by Davidoff and Rush by Gucci both available here at cheaper prices than you would find on the high street. If you are in no hurry for your purchase you can get free second class delivery or alternatively pay an extra £5.95 for next day delivery within the UK. You can also add gift wrapping at the checkout if it’s for a present.

I read this interesting article on Web Worker Daily about the nine best practices for working from home. I can identify with most of the nine points. As someone who works from home most of the time I find that I regularly work until late at night, just because my computer is so close. Its also difficult to switch off at weekends and I tend to find that all my time is spent working. The article also highlights the problem that friends and relatives often assume you not busy just because you are at home. Once again I find that some of friends tend to assume its ok to pop round in the afternoon and although it is nice to them it does usually mean I have work all evening to make up the lost time. Its clear to me from reading the article I still have to find the balance between my work and my personal life.

I found this interesting website where a guy has managed to attach a camera to his cat. The camera is set to take a picture every two minutes so by the end of the day he has a picture diary of what the cat has been up to during the day. Very interesting I must try this with my cats.

If you are planning a trip to Ireland and like me find it hard to survive with no internet access you might want to visit Carlow. A project run by the council in partnership with E-net has introduced 24 hour wireless access to all of its main streets making it one of the first towns in the EU to offer open air web access.

The RSPB has removed the word "cock" from its website as it has been deemed offensive. Apparently in todays society we are now unable to refer to male birds by their correct name. A cock robin must now be referred to as a male robin.

I came across this site called caterpillars creations who make custom made soy candles. Most candles are made from paraffin wax but all the candles made by caterpillars creations are made from 100% natural soy beans making them a much more environmentally friendly alternative. Not only are they a reusable energy source they also last three times longer than petroleum based candles and are virtually soot free.

The website has a variety of candle designs from tealights through to pillar candles and votives. Once you have selected which style of candle you want, you also have the option to fully customise your candle by selecting the colour and fragrance that you require. This is particularly useful especially when you are planning an event such as a wedding as it can be hard to find the right colour combination to match your other table decorations.

I came across this useful website pethealthforums. It has lots of useful information and advice from other pet owners. I was actually looking for some information on what to do when your cat gets stung by a bee and although I didn't find anything about this (it appears other peoples cats are more intelligent then mine and don't play with bees) I did spend a lot of time reading through the other posts.

I am writing this from a bar in Ireland after connecting to BT Openzone. You simply pick up the local wireless network and purchase a voucher from BT for the time you want to spend on the internet. A great tool for geeks everywhere.

Have you experienced a drop in your US based sales? It could be down to a recent policy change made by ebay. Whereas before when you listed an item it automatically appeared on ebay.com as well, now it only appears if the US user performs an advanced search. A basic search will now only bring up US based items. You can still list on ebay.com but to do so will now incur two lots of listing fees.

I came across this article showing a variety of server down pages from some of the more well known companies. I quite like the following example from YouTube although the others are well worth a look too.

An interesting article on Quasi Fictional about the word "geek". The article looks at the origins of the word and asks why we use the term "geek girl" but not "geek boy". On reading the article I have concluded that sadly I must be a geek.

Want to see if your website is blocked in China? On the greatfirewallofChina you can check your url to see if its blocked or not. Thanks to crooked Brains for the link.

Further to my previous post about YouTube being banned in Turkey a similar ban has now been enforced in Thailand. Thailand's government have blocked access to the website because it was showing a video which insulted their King. Insulting the monarchy is currently a criminal offence in Thailand. I wonder how many people would call for a ban if YouTube showed a video which insulted Tony Blair. Not many is my guess.

We all know that here in the UK it is very difficult to find a river or ditch that does not include a supermarket trolley. Well now it’s possible to see just how many abandoned trolleys there actually are out there. I found this bizarre website called trolley spotting. Basically it’s devoted to tracking abandoned trolleys in various locations. It includes maps to show the trolleys location and how far it is from its originating supermarket. 

This is interesting from The Times online. A list of fifty nine things that would have stayed a secret, if we didn't have the Freedom of Information Act. I think my favourite is that The Thatcher government looked for the Loch Ness monster using a team of dolphins.

Also 1980s school dinners could be the cause of three young Welsh people’s deaths from the human form of mad cow disease. I always knew I was right not to eat those school dinners, no matter what my Mother tried to tell me.

YouTube has been banned in Turkey after a video insulting the country’s leader was posted on the website. The video which sparked the ban claimed that the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a homosexual. This led to a Turkish court ordering that access to YouTube should be blocked. Insulting Ataturk is currently a criminal offence in Turkey.

Levi Roots maker of Reggae Reggae Sauce has just launched his sauce in Sainsbury’s. I remember seeing Levi when he appeared on Dragons Den to try and get the investment he needed to take his business to the next level and start mass producing his sauce. Until then he had been making the sauce and selling it on his own website but he required further investment in order to rent a premises and machinery for mass production. It’s always nice to see the small businessman becoming successful especially in a time when many rules and regulations can make like very difficult for those to trying to start a business. It’s also good to see one of the major supermarket chains supporting a smaller supplier for a change. Levi has also released the song he sang to the dragons.

I found this interesting website global incident map that shows you a map terrorism events and other suspicious activity. It allows you to zoom in to get a better view of a particular area and also shows the 25 newest events.