Thursday 20 May 2010

What Is The Point Of Twitter?


Ever since Twitter first began, I've never really understood the point of it all.  A few months ago I finally joined up to see what all the fuss was about and after entering a few 'tweets' I still couldn't work out what the point of it was.

I started to follow a friend of mine and soon knew when she was at work, when she was at home, if she was having dinner, getting a drink and a fair few other mundane pieces of information.

I just didn't get it.

I then started looking for some famous people to follow and that's when I started to realise what it's all about!

It's about following people that you find interesting and when you follow the right people you'll start to enjoy twitter and that's what I think it's all about!

I've even started following local business to me such as my local paper so I can see local headlines with a web link, if I want to read more I can click on the link else I just ignore it!

I've recently discovered the Lists function so I've now grouped together all the local people I'm following, people I actually know, famous people and funny people!

One of the people I'm following is @thekeithchegwin who tweets a lot of funny jokes and it made my day when I replied to one of his tweets saying I had just found him on Twitter and hadn't laughed so much in a long while and he sent me a reply!

I'm also following the lead singer of the band Twisted Sister @deesnider and he Re-Tweeted one of my comments and added to it!  In what other situation could I be chatting with a megastar like that?!

If you want to see the people I am currently following on Twitter then take a look at my lists here:

http://twitter.com/andrewfarren/lists

When it comes to Tweeting, I have decided not to Tweet about everything and anything but will mainly Tweet about the different day trips I go on along with the odd thing that I find interesting or relevant to me.

If you want to follow me on Twitter then take a look here:

http://twitter.com/andrewfarren

Saturday 1 May 2010

Best Buy Open First UK Store

This May Bank Holiday weekend the US giant Best Buy open their first electrical retail outlet in the UK - offering fantastically low prices with knowledgeable staff (9 weeks of training each) who aren't on commission and want to help you.

DSG International (Currys & PC World) and COMET are in for a huge shock as more new Best Buy stores are on their way.


I can remember assisting in the Currys 'Big Bang' project where they moved pretty much all the stock in the warehouse out on to the shop floor so if you wanted to buy a TV you didn't need a sales person, you simply picked up the box and dragged it to the cash desk!

They even opened new stores that didn't have a warehouse at all, when a delivery arrived it was scanned on to the system as it came in the back door and went straight out on to the shop floor!  This was a HUGE advancement and now Best Buy is on the scene they'd better come up with another idea this big else they'll quickly lose market share and Best Buy will take over.

Electrical retailing in the UK is about to change, forever.   How will it change?  Only time will tell - we'll have to see how COMET and DSG International fight back.

Check Your Tyre Pressure Properly For Good Fuel Economy

A few months ago I had to get new tyres on my car.  Normally I would pick some Toyo ones from www.blackcircles.com and get them fitted at a local garage but I didn't have time to arrange this so had to make do with whatever they happened to have in stock.

Within just a few days I noticed that the fuel economy of my card had gone down by around 15% so I was not best pleased.  I checked the tyre pressure of each wheel with my digital pressure reader and I couldn't get a proper reading so I tried my foot-pump to see what that said and they all seemed to be at the right pressure.

I've recently just had a full service on the car and the fuel economy hasn't got any better so it had definitely got something to do with the tyres and all that people say is make sure the tyre pressure is correct.

As I had already checked the pressure with my foot-pump and my digital pressure reader and not got anywhere, I decided to head off to Halfords to see what they had in the way of a decent reader and that's when I saw this:


It was in the sale for around £15 and it looked really well built so I though 'sod it' and brought it which as it turns out was the best thing I could have done and should have done soon after I had my tyres put on rather than wait this long!

When I connected it to each wheel the connection felt better than my cheapo foot-pump (Halfords own brand from a couple of years ago) and instantly gave me an accurate reading of the pressure and needless to say all of them bar 1 were under pressure so I promptly pumped them up to the correct level.

I then filled up my car with Diesel and reset all the counters and one week later going to and from work the MPG was back up to where it should be so the £15 (or whatever it was), was money well spent!