Time to spare? Take the Idiot Test

This is the opening image from a website. It's a simple test, interestingly titled "The Idiot Test".

Once you have spent a few minutes playing, you'll see why it's called "The Idiot Test"

A word of warning though, you could lose quite a bit of time playing the game.

Great Deals on PCSs

Don't know how long these offers will last, but if you are in the market for a second PC, a PC for the kids, a home media server or just a PC for the office and are prepared to accept a 6 month warranty, then have a look at some of the offers over at www.morgancomputers.co.uk

AMD Athlon XP3000 processor, 256Mb ram, 40Gb hard drive, DVD reader / CD burner, onboard sound and graphics, 10/100 network connection with Microsoft XP Home. All of this for £149.99 Ex. VAT and shipping. OK, so it will never be a PC for gamers but for office type work, web browsing etc it would be ideal. Rev it up a bit and add some more memory, invest in a screen (17" CRT for £39.99 Ex VAT and shipping) or search around and bag a 17" flat screen for around £80 + VAT and carriage


Or if you need a little more "oomph" how about an Intel Celeron 2.8Ghz processor, 512Mb ram, onboard sound and graphics, 80Gb hard drive, DVD writer, 10/100 network connection, Windows XP Home edition for just £179.99 + VAT and shipping. Again, you may need to add a screen if you don't have one already.

And last, but not least, Intel Pentium 3.06Ghz, 1Gb ram, 80Gb hard drive, DVD writer, onboard sound and graphics, 10/100 network connection and Windows XP Home. This is quite a tidy powerhouse of a computer provided gaming is not your thing, all of this for £229 + VAT and shipping.

These are pretty hot deals and NO, I am not on a commission.

Anyways, just thought I'd share these "deals of the day".

Is this the world's funniest joke?

Many researchers spent a great deal of time recently trying to find the world's funniest joke. (Good money if you can get it, thinks I). Anyhow, here it is - judge for yourself.

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 takes 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 gunshot is heard.

Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

Ecommerce sales soar to new hights

Online sales increase by 57% in 2006

Now that the tills are quieter and the crowds have diminished after an exceptional online year it is the time for a little reflection.

2006 saw another record year for online sales in the UK, with no signs that the consumer’s love affair with on line shopping is diminishing, quite the reverse.

IMRG have been monitoring online trends for many years, and have seen they have seen exceptional growth year on year. In 2004 the retail spend online was £14.5bn, this increased by 32% to £19.2bn in 2005 and by a staggering 57% in 2006 to £30.2bn with over £42bn expected in sales in 2007. This equates to nearly 15% of the total UK spend on shopping.

In fact the market growing so rapidly that many established high street stores are considering increasing their investment in on-line activities after a record 2006 say market intelligence company, Hitwise.

Leading the activity is Waitrose who saw traffic to their website more than double in 2006, HMV saw increases of 50% and Marks and Spencer saw web traffic increase by 25%. In the case of M&S, overall trading figures were up by 5.6% overall but online earnings jumped by 70%

There was more good news for M&S earlier in the year when its website topped a new ranking of websites that were most user friendly. Web usability consultants Webcredible assessed 20 of the most popular High Street retailers to see how easy it was to use their sites. Other stores evaluated included Currys, Debenhams, Woolworths, Boots and The Early Learning Centre. M&S topped the survey with a score of 81% whilst Clinton Cards were at the other end with a score of just 25%

This high score relating to the ease of use of their website no doubt goes a long way towards explaining the phenomenal growth in Marks & Spencer’s online growth last year.

This all came to a peak at Christmas where online spending rose by 54% over 2005, increasing from £5bn in 2005 to £7.6bn for the 10 weeks before Christmas.

All of this only serves to demonstrate the consumer's growing love of shopping online, with all the benefits that it brings – no hassle having to find a parking space, no fighting your way through crowds of people or waiting in long queues at check-outs, and best of all, being able to shop when you want to shop, not when the store decides it will open its doors.

For the UK small business, it is essential to take advantage of this switch from traditional shopping as soon as possible, otherwise there is a really big danger that they will be left behind, their traditional customer base migrating to stores and suppliers which can service them in the on-line world.