Work

Competitions

0 Comments 05 May 2010

Thought I might as well stick up a few posts on the various things I do for “work” Thought I start with what I consider to be the more “fun” side of the business but quickly became a lot more work and a lot less fun. UK Competitions as you may have guessed is a competitions website that lists, well competitions.

UK Competitions started September 1999 as an off shoot from Free UK Stuff, but only really got its own database driven site in 2001, up until then it was all manual updates, fun times

So some of you will be thinking “how can this make money”, a few of you will have partly guessed that the banner adverts on the site makes some revenue. However the real money making comes from people taking part in competitions, some sites will pay anything from 20p per person taking part in a competition to upwards of around £1.20 depending on the quality of the people taking part and how much information they are willing to give to take part in the competition. The companies then use this information to market to the people who took part be it offers, news or even free samples and of course 1 lucky (or several) person will win the main prize.

I have won the odd competition myself back in the early days of the site, I used to take part in everyone that I listed, however as I no longer list the competitions I hardly ever take part, mostly just Industry based ones but tend not to be so lucky with them, have had the odd prize but some people are just way more lucky at these things

News

Flights over the UK Today

2 Comments 20 April 2010

I took a few screen shots from an App I have on my iPhone called Plane Finder. Basically what it is doing is tracking flights over the UK and some parts of Europe. What’s interesting is watching what was going on at different points but the most interesting is what happened when the Air Space over the UK was meant to be closed. So how come some flights are flying and if they have a magic trick aka fly higher or lower why are all airlines not allowed to do that. No idea, all I know is I am glad I never went away this Easter.

08:05 Before Air Space Ban in UK is Lifted

10:09 Flights Flying Out and Coming In

10:09 Closer Look at Scotland

11:12 Less Flights

12:14 Less Still Again

13:08 Europe is Busy as we close our Airspace

18:02 Our Airspace is closed but look at all the Flights

News

I Hate Iceland – Neds Live On The News

0 Comments 15 April 2010

Live on Sky News this morning, Scotland’s view on the Volcanic Ash is broadcast to the world

The guy from Sky News then tells everyone that this is basically normal as you get lots of drunks at 8:45 am in Scotland, well done James your a local and you reinforce the stereo types, just because it’s true doesn’t mean you should tell everyone

But this is not the only time Scotland’s finest has interrupt the news, check out these classics. I can’t however find the one when the Neds interrupt Cathy Jamieson the Minister for Justice in Scotland, that was great .

Twitter

Clarke Duncan Twitter

0 Comments 23 March 2010

Every so often I type my name in to Google to see if I can find other Clarke Duncan’s but mostly I am hit with a wall of Michael Clarke Duncan the actor from the Green Mile etc. Today I done something a little different, I typed in “Clarke Duncan Twitter” to see what would come up.

In my version of Google here in the UK, I am 1st and 3rd and rightly so as I have the username @ClarkeDuncan on Twitter. And of course no search for my name no matter where it is would be complete without the actor Michael Clarke Duncan spamming up the majority of the listings also, even on Twitter

A more common thing to happen is to see “Duncan Clarke” or “Duncan Clark” but rarely do I see a “Clarke Duncan” that is not me but do get a far few “Clark Duncan” from all over the world.

So here is a couple of the more interesting “Clarke Duncan’s” on Twitter.

• @SuperHighTweet – This Clark Duncan only posts after tokin’
• @retrodata – This Duncan Clarke runs a data recovery service.
• @PastorDunc – This Duncan Clark is a Pastor of Elim Church in Coventry.
• @gduncanclark – And this Duncan Clark is the Executive Editor at National Post in Canada.

I am sure if you have an even more common name you will probably have a huge mixed bag of results. Type in your name and see what you get, and also what others see on Twitter if they use your name, you never know, you might be a hooker by another name! LOL

General

RM Skills Centre

0 Comments 18 March 2010

RM Skills Centre is a Roads and Construction Industry training centre based in Craigton in Glasgow.

The centre has been running for a number of years offering courses from Road Works Training to Confined Spaces Training.

What’s impressive is that RM Skills has remained an independent SQA Approved centre all this time when you consider the “competition” ranges from colleges to councils. The reason customers go to them is their expertise and the fact that many of the industry standard courses and new ones yet to be adopted originated from RM Skills, a true credit to the roads and construction industry and something to think about if you’re looking for nationally recognised qualifications.

Visit the RM Skills Centre website for more information or call them on 0141 810 5477, their address is RM Skills Centre Ltd. Block 7A, Barfillan Drive, Craigton Industrial Estate, Glasgow, G52 1BD.