New clients, Tory job seeker proposals and new podcast

Bit of a mixed bag on today's blogpost.

Firstly, taken on several new clients in recent days and I know many of my clients read this blog so I just wanted to say 'Hi' to all my new clients around the country - it is always lovely to pick up new clients and I look forward to working with you in coming weeks, months and years.

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This week is the Tory party conference in Manchester and one of the flag pole policies reported in the media today has been the proposal to force Job Seekers Allowance claimants to work for 30 hours a week or lose their benefits. This presumably would be in community style work situations : feeding the elderly, picking up litter, painting out graffiti and so forth. Several thoughts strike me about this suggestion.

Who is going out police the work gangs of hundreds of thousands of JSA claimants as they pour out of Jo Centres to blitz the British countryside ?

Is there enough litter for them to pick up ? Or should we let them pick up leaves in the Autumn too.

Where will they go for lunch, who is going brew all the tea when they have a break and if they get interviews for an actual paid job who will deliver dinner to grannies in their absence.

Would the elderly want a 19 year old job seeker in their council house painting their kitchen or indeed what are all the council litter and leaf technicians and painters and decorators going to do when they are put immediately of out of a job when this plan is implemented ? Well the answer is simple of course - they will become JSA claimants and be required by law to do their old job for free in order to receive £70 a week in state benefits - oh the irony - this could slash council tax budgets by tens of millions of pounds. In fact if we get JSA claimants to administer council offices more generally we could end up with the entire local government bureaucracy running itself with every 'staff' member paid £70 per week by central government and council tax then  falls to virtually nil. Smashing !

Broadly (in all seriousness) however I am in favour of driving accountability for those on benefits - I work for myself and if I don't work I literally don't earn and would not dream of using the benefit system but understand the need for it as a fallback. I'm not sure though that this particular Tory measure is the one to sort out those 'disinclined' to work for a living.

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Last thing, the latest episode of my medical insurance podcast will go live tomorrow morning - you can find it on iTunes -  just search for PMICast or visit www.pmicast.podbean.com

Buying a new fridge freezer

Had to buy a new fridge freezer today and it is really striking that for less than £ 1,000 the American style fridge freezer options are literally super cheap and plasticky and as soon as you go over the mystical grand barrier the options suddenly become sleeker, nicer more well built and so forth - it's also really annoying that when we designed our kitchen in 2004 that we included a built in alcove for a large fridge otherwise we could probably have gotten away with two independent unitsfor much less. 

Let's also hope that the next one lasts a little more than nine years - I think that's not great for a major applicance especially when you consider that over the nine years it has cost us several hundred pounds to keep it going over the three or four faults it developed.

Still looking on the positive side my new fridge freezer is sleek and sexy and has a special beer storage section - yay !

But just Don't get me started on my car which looks like it is going to need a new gearbox and clutch - ouch !

Still working 9.13pm and counting

Been a busy old week and from my diary it's looking like a hectic one next week too.

Haven't had time today to put together a cogent blog post and just finished a couple of hours of client marketing tonight in a (vain) attempt to catch up/normalize this week.

So rather than write a post on something clever and erudite I thought I would instead remind my loyal listeners that the latest episode of PMICast, my medical insurance podcast is available on iTunes and at www.pmicast.podbean.com and of course make sure you check back here daily to find out what is happening in my business world.

Our You Tube Channel ...

If you are looking to kill a few brief moments during your busy, browsing day why not hop on over to my You Tube Channel : pkn439. You can visit using the following link :

http://www.youtube.com/user/pkn439/videos?view=1&flow=grid

At the channel you will find some general business videos, tech vidcasts and of course the video version of my PMICast podcast.

Please feel free to have a look and leave comments and if you enjoy make sure you check out the main PMICast podcast available on iTunes and at www.pmicast.podbean.com

Get your lovely fix of PMICast while it's hot !

This weeks ep of PMICast - the only UK podcast devoted to medical insurance and related cover.

This is ep 7 and we are now well over half way to our first major milestone - which is episode 50 which will also be our one year anniversary (give or take) - not sure what we will do when (if ?) we get that far but watch out for news on it in coming weeks.

This weeks episode is a fairly quick and dirty overview of what's happened in the last 20 years of the medical insurance market and I hope that you enjoy it and find it interesting - certainly if you've been in the market for any length of time I'm sure you'll understand the issues I cover.

If you get chance please leave us an iTunes review on either the UK or US iTunes sites and recommend us to your friends.

What is the best to do list ?

I seem to constantly morph my requirements of a to do or reminder list for work.

When things are quieter (rare these days admittedly) I try to run a wholly electronic system. usually based on my reminders app on the iPhone/iPad that replicates through to my 2 Macs. However as things get busier I tend to devolve back to paper - I have now a regular to do list that segments off types of task (Call Backs, sales chases, marketing, urgent, low level etc but even that goes by the wayside when I'm super busy and I have two sheets - one urgent, one everything else.

Not very efficient or technology based but seems to get the job done.

The problem with the two sheet method is I do tend to lose the planning and stop thinking strategically so for example, usually I work on marketing five days a week (and both the phone and single sheet To Do methods support this quite well) but last week having reverts to the two /panic' sheets method I only managed to get two days worth out - whether this is a function of the system or the lack of time that drives me to that poorer system is a valid question - going to force myself back to a more logical and less rushed approach this week and hopefully the marketing will get back to normal.

The inevitability of a 4.00am alarm call

Why is it that following a nice dinner on a Saturday evening with lovely dinner guests and a few beers that you get to bed around 1.00am and then at 4.00 exactly your 7 year olds iPod set to alarm, hidden in your bedroom goes off ?

Someone could be in trouble today !

First thoughts on IOS 'hands on'

I held off for a whole 36 hours but did download IOS on my iPhone and iPad late yesterday to see how the new IOS 7 looked in and worked.

Frankly I'm a little disappointed. The feel is still a little buggy and apparently unfinished - the OS seems jittery and unsure of itself and not so well thought out or 'mature' as IOS 6 - as if maturity and functionality were something to be sacrificed at the alter of being trendy and colourful.

I have some technical niggles - like the new control centre that swipes up from the bottom of the screen but how can I set my audio going ?  Is it a single click from a locked screen (two clicks) ? Is it a click on home, swipe to open and the swipe up to control centre then click play (4 clicks) or is it using the home, then swipe, then into the app then find the track or podcast and then press play or is it all three ? Well the answer is I'm buggered if I know - but the old double click on the home button and press play on the most recent audio you had on in IOS seemed simpler and more consistent and of course no longer works now.

My home and lock screen pictures are too large and unchangeable. Irritating but not a deal breaker.

Deal break potentially though is the massive battery drain that IOS 7 seems to cause unless you switch off all auto-updating and location services - no doubt the IOS 7.1 release (due imminently I'm sure) will resolve this but wow - went through 100% power in less than three hours yesterday afternoon. In total needed to top up charge three times yesterday in around 8 hours of use where as normally on IOS 6 I managed around 10% per hour drain during my daily (fairly heavy) business and personal use - so at worst I needed to top up 15 or 20 minutes late afternoon to see me through to bedtime.

Today is better on battery drain -  I'm at 72% right now (typing at14.24) having got up and begun using the phone at around 6.30am. However, today has been relatively light use and I have literally switched EVERYTHING that works in the background off and all location services. Oh the compromise - it may be in fact that my diamond slippers are pinching a little !

Oh and app developers - don't take a good app, update it to IOS 7 and remove one click functionality and make everything work differently - change for changes sake is pointless - PocketCast take note ! You used to be able to see 'unfinished' podcasts on their own tab - this is gone, accessing show notes is clumsy and slow plus deleting unwanted podcasts needs neurosurgeon class reflexes to find the little settings icon and hit it with human sized fingers - apparently some app designers imagine we all have iPhone pixies with the nimble fingers and genius level IQ's to wade through their pointless changes and make them work again.

Rant now over - as intimated above I may be blowing this out of proportion but even on day two I'm not enjoying the IOS 7 experience yet - I will however stick with it and more to follow on living with the OS permanently in the near future.

IOS for Pets

With the launch this weekof IOS 7 I wondered (idly) which operating system my pets might make use of.

I have a small daft cat called Molly (10), a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Jasper (7) who, in human terms, is clever and empathic and a Cocker De Spaniel named Muffin (8) who is lovely but as simple as the day is long.

The cat would run a raspberry pi (ARM/GNU architecture) chip - small simple, not very powerful but gets the job done.

Jasper obviously is currently running IOS 6 and we'll probably upgrade him to 7 when the OS goes to 7.1 (gets rid of the main bugs and so forth).

Lastly Muffin, poor daft, simple Muffin - dopey and smelly. She's running MS DOS with very little RAM and to be honest we wouldn't have her any other way.

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IOS & Hits today

Very excited about the new IOS operating system - looks extremely interesting and different and although I am an Apple Developer I took the decision at the launch in June not to download the beta version - my iPhone is too important a tool for me to run it with even slightly buggy OS.

My advice to owners of compatible devices is two fold.

First of all do not download it today immediately it is available. I made that mistake last year on IOS 6 - the upgrade comes obviously from Apples servers in the USA. There is limited bandwidth in and out of every country, their servers can only deal with so many requests at once and last launch day that particular information superhighway got totally blocked. To the point where, having started the download around 6.30 or 7.00pm (as soon as it became available in the UK) my iPhone ended up bricked for nearly 14 hours with the connection to Apples server dropping off part way through the update over and over.

The following morning it ran through in less than 20 minutes - so it's definitely worth waiting 24 or 48 hours for the millions of first day adopters to get it out of their system.

Secondly, if you already know what I'm about to say then this doesn't apply to you. But if you're a non power user of IOS devices consider carefully if you want to update at all. IOS 6 is a well thought out, fully mature OS - put simply and to quote Apple 'It just works'. You know where everything is and how it all fits in to your day and life.

IOS 7 is basically a total retool of the OS front and back - it doesn't just look different. Screens and settings are different and the way you interact with your device will alter subtly. There will also be issues in the first few iterations with things like battery power and data usage as there always are with new versions of the OS. Put simply, if you don't want to two to three week 'relearning' period on your device then I wouldn't bother updating yet. My advice would be to look at the Apple videos on IOS 7 to get an initial feel for how it differs from IOS 6 and importantly listen to two or three of the many (there will be thousands popping up in the next few days and weeks) You Tube reviews and guides to IOS 7 - they are a really useful way to get yourself up to speed on the new system and let others both guide you and make the mistakes so you don't have to.

I'm going to download IOS 7 over the weekend, have a play for a few days and then put a review up on my Tech 4 Biz vidcast in a little while so watch out for that.

In the meantime remember, you cannot rollback and downgrade from 7 back to IOS 6 - this means if you do upgrade it is binding !

Enjoy !

Episode number 6 of Season 2 of PMICast is now live

I have just uploaded the latest episode of PMICast onto the stream at www.pmicast.podbean.com and it will shortly propogate over to iTunes.

This week sees a return to our usual format following last weeks introducer special. It's worth mentioning though that from this ep I have now included a new regular introducer section.

Spamming my blog

As a business I use a fair amount of e-mail marketing and always try to be fair, responsive and ethical when people respond negatively. In other words, if you don't want to receive my missives you send me a nice e-mail or call me and I will very happily apologize for wasting your time and remove you from my marketing list and never contact you again as you would expect.

I would however, never spam someones blog - I now receive two or three of these a week :

michel jonathan has left a new comment on your post "Small Business in Huddersfield, Leeds and Bristol": 

This post was really interesting, particularly because I was looking for thoughts on this subject from last many days.
Small Business Loan 




Posted by michel jonathan to Localventure at 16 September 2013 08:47

The frequency of these spam messages is increasing and having seen other forums and blogs ruined by this sort of thing I can assure my readers that I have a zero tolerance to this rubbish and will remove them immediately.

Thanks you and normal service is now resumed !

The joys of public service

This week I am going to be less available than usual and wanted to put advance notice in the blog.

As a governor at my little boys school I am involved in the recruitment and interview process. This means that I am in school all day tomorrow (Tuesday) and then at the interview venue all day on Wednesday with a Governors meeting in the evening.

As a result I will have less time to be pro-active on the blog here (may well miss a post or two) and although I will be available for clients and working in the evening will have less time for social media and so forth.

Episode 6 of PMICast is in the can however and will be uploaded tomorrow as usual.

The End of a Busy Week

I have (it seems) managed to cram a fair amount in to this week.

I would like to take my last post of the working week to remind you of the highlights and low lights :

Hot - one of the busier weeks on social media for me - highest ever daily hits on this blog on Wednesday and Thursday - averages now looking like around 3,000 readers plus per month at the moment. The podcast (some details below) is now getting just shy of 7,000 listeners per month.

Hotter - excellent new business week - lots of new prospects, clients and good professional introducers - if you are new to me and my healthcare business (or my medical marketing business) - Hi there !

Hottest - new episode of PMICast - a special 'Professional Introducer' feature episode - had several comments from listener and really positive feedback - make sure that you continue to check out the 'cast - find it on iTunes or at www.pmicast.podbean.com

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Low - still over 20 un touched to do items on my list

Lower - Apple IOS and iPhone announcement had literally no surprises whatsoever and for the first time in years I don't want nor am I excited about the latest iPhone ! (see my article earlier this week about why I'm sticking to the iPhone 5.

The Pitts - no one had yet responded to my frequent requests to put a four or five star iTunes in the US store - as I've mentioned both here and on the podcast I need some decent reviews on the US iTunes store in order to move forward with an important new sponsor with the podcast (Audible) - if you or anyone you know who listens to the podcast could see their way to doing this then please do so.

Thanks !

NHS Sitrep

Another day, another raft of negative NHS stories in the media overviewing the status of weekend cover in the system (or lack thereof) and calls for senior clinicians to take charge, work seven days and so on.

Plus in the last week or so there have been the usual pre-Winter stories about how the NHS will not be able to cope as the cold catches hold and of course the inevitable deaths that will follow as a direct result.

I'd like to make two points. Firstly I work on a daily basis with senior clinicians and there is no harder working group of people in my experience. I often struggle to get hold of my clients, even at the weekends as they undertake extra clinics or are called away to hospital at unexpected times. In particular, Summer seems to be the hardest time, not Winter as they provide cover for holidays - it seems to me that the senior doctors are the ones who take the least holiday as they cover for more junior colleagues !

Secondly, the state of the NHS is supposed to be in the governments hands. The last time I looked the NHS was being reformed so that Primary Care providers (GP's in other words) would take control of the service, commissioning care for their patients and maintaining and controlling their own budgets. There have been stories about patients arriving in A & E and overburdening this section of the NHS but where are the GP surgeries in this - should they not be educating their patients as to when to use which service. Are the government driving the changes forward, who is responsible for what. In other words, have we ended up again with nothing really changing, the political blame game and continuing and doctors and patients alike really have no idea which way the NHS is going ?

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Karate Update

My little boy (aged 7) started karate this week, so as a big congrats to Ryan I wanted to say he's doing really well and put his picture up on the blog :

'Using the power of the Force'

Well done mate and keep up the good work and you'll be a black belt in no time.

My on-going iPhone story

I transferred to iPhone 5 from my old 4S on a network upgrade in December last year and have been running with it since then.

Love both the functionality and look of the device although have had some occasional connection problems with the phone and occasional crashes from both the Audible and Pocket Cast apps (happens about once or twice a week and the app just stops working and a switch on and off of the device normally fixes). So minor niggles aside, very happy. Obviously the launch of the 5S yesterday makes one think about whether I should update or stay with the 5.

To this end I recently took my phone out of it's super tough blue case :

I had put this case on the phone to protect it literally within a day or two of having the new device and hadn't spent anytime with the phone 'naked' - so now I've taken the clunky (though very safe) case off and substituting a light weight bumper :

This has really been a revelation - the phone is far lighter than I remember and seems more responsive and faster and importantly a more intimate experience. As I mentioned on Twitter when I first swapped covers it is literally like having a new device.

Taking this into account and also the advent of IOS 7 on the 18th of September I have decided to stay with the 5 until the 6 becomes available next year - I'm happy broadly with the functionality of the 5, IOS seems like an exciting upgrade and no doubt will again be like having a new phone. Plus I am not all that bothered about either of the two main upgrades : camera enhancements or the new fingerprint scanner - I'm one of the few who already use an unlock code on the phone and have no problem with sticking with this for another 12 months.

It's here - make sure you download the introducer special episode of PMICast

As promised and trailed heavily over the last week (welcome to new readers and listeners) you can now listen to the Professional Introducer Special Episode of PMICast - it is episode 5 of Season 2 and you can now listen on iTunes and at www.pmicast.podbean.com.

If you enjoy, please tell your friends and colleagues and please leave feedback on iTunes if you have the opportunity.

Remember that as well as this one episode we also have the first 20 episodes of Season One and then Eps 1 through 4 of season 2 - all available on-line as above.

Enjoy !

Don't forget next episode of PMICast on Tuesday - for Professional Introducers

Just a reminder that the epsiode of PMICast i am uploading on Tuesday is aimed towards current and prospective introducer to my medical insurance practice so would suit IFA's, Accountants, Mortgage/Commerical Brokers - anyone who professionally advices clients and would like to offer their clients an outsourced advisory service on medical insurance. In addition of course you will increase your income stream in the process for minimal effort.

You can find the podcast on iTunes - search for 'PMICast' or at www.pmicast.podbean.com. The episode you're looking for is no. 5 from Season 2 and I expect to upload it around 9.30am on Tuesday morning.

For more info contact me on : pmicast@gmail.com

What comics are you reading ?

I've been a comic reader since around the age of 6 or 7 and have an attic full of over 5,000 old Marvel and DC's plus over a 1,000 in digital format on Comixology (my digital comics reader of choice).

Graphic art and storytelling isn't a subject I've covered (in more than passing terms) on the blog before so I thought I'd mention it now and cover off what I'm reading on a regular basis.

Being honest I've always been more of a Marvel than a DC guy and although I read the DC staples in the 70' and 80's - Detective, Action Comics, JLA, Flash, Bats, Superman, Teen Titans etc I was always much more into Fantastic Four, X-Men and Avengers and certainly into the 1990's I became almost exclusively Marvel and at the time stuck with Iron Man and the FF mainly with a few X-Men and Spiderman books on occasion. In the early years of marriage (1991 onwards) and then into the noughties I dropped off reading comics for the most part, only buying occasional issues.

The advent of digital comics though has brought me back into the fold and buying an iPad 1 on day of release and now with my trusty IPad 4, comics are once again a mainstay for me. As a general rule I buy four or five books a week on a Friday evening as a reward for finishing work.

At the moment I'm especially enjoying DC's new 52 over Marvel - so I decided to begin reading from issue 1 of the following :

Action Comics
Batman
Batman/Superman
Earth 2
Flash
Green Lantern
Justice League
Stormwatch
Superman Unchained
Swamp Thing

I have stalled with Action, Flash and Green Lantern - didn't get too involved in the comics and in particular for Flash got a bit disappointed with direction of the stories.

I rotate buying the other books so that I can try something different each week and because I'm behind current issues on these (I'm up to 23 on JL but only issue 3 on Earth 2 and 13 of Batman for example) it will take me ages to catch up to current continuity.

For Marvel I'm only currently buying Iron Man and Fantastic Four.

From the above list I'd really recommend Jim Lee's early issues of Justice League - great take on the DC big five or six characters, especially enjoyed the Flash/GL and Batman fight with Supes and then the later introduction of Wonder Woman.

The Batman book is full of great ideas and fantastic art but I'm finding the stories a little variable - I stuck with the Court of Owls story to the finish but frankly found some of it dragged a little - hoping the Death of the Family storyline will be a bit more consistent.

Lastly, I'd really recommend Sndyer and Lee's Superman Unchained - only first three issues out at the moment but the art is superb and Snyder seems to be bringing some mystery and genuine threat to big blue - so let's hope that continues to be as good.

Really recommend the Superman Unchained first 3 eps by Lee & Snyder

Help wanted if you have a moment

Most of the members in this group will be aware of the medical insurance podcast that I host on a weekly basis. Listeners will know that to assist with the funding of the 'cast I do now have a couple of regular sponsors. However, I have managed to secure a major new sponsor : Audible but in order to set up a bespoke weblink for listeners of my podcast to obtain a free trial to the audiobook service (which by the way is brilliant - I've been a subscriber for many years now which is why I'm so keen to get them on the podcast as main sponsor) I need to fulfil extra quality criteria for them. In essence I need at least one feedback on the US iTunes store for the podcast and my average rating needs to be at least 4 star.

I would therefore be immensely grateful if one of my listeners/introducers could spare 2 minutes to log in to their Apple ID account and on the US store leave me a quick review.

Many thanks in anticipation. To access the US store, go onto iTunes on your computer and click on the Union Flag at the very bottom right of the main homepage - this takes you to the country choosing page - just click on the stars and stripes. Then to revert back to your usual UK home page do this in reverse.

Obviously if you want to to leave a similar review on the UK version as well that would be super fantastic and above and beyond the call of duty !

Special Professional Introducer episode of the PMICast - next Tuesday 10th of September 2013

I've been pushing this on the blog and Twitter (plus various other social media this week).

On Tuesday I will upload a special episode of my PMICast podcast devoted to subject matter relevant for existing and prospective new professional introducers who may be interested in sub contracting their medical insurance business to a specialist health insurance broker like myself with the aim of offering a better service to clients and of course enhancing their income stream from this important and technical product class.

I've also mailed out an announcement of the podcast to my panel of IFA's and prospects so I'm hoping for a good listener base for this one and of course then it sits in the back catalogue for new prospects to find it too.

The 'cast will go up on our normal schedule on Tuesday the 10th and is Ep 5 of season 2 - will announce as usual but the easiest way to ensure you don't miss out is to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes (search under the name : PMICast) - you will be able to stream it from www.pmicast.podbean.com or if you'd prefer, contact me on the podcast e-mail address : pmicast@gmail.com and I will e-mail you a link to the show.

Learn karate for free (kind of)

The karate club I train at in Leeds, West Yorkshire is changing our set up slightly to allow new beginners to join whenever they want and offering a special deal too.

If you're interested in trying karate for fitness, self defence, discipline and fun just call the Sensei (details below) or come along to the new beginners class as follows :

Details as above !

The class is at Yeadon Westfield Junior School on New Road Side in Yeadon (dead easy to find on google).

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, I'm one of the brown belts at this club and have also done various styles for over 30 years - happy to help.

Exciting times ...

Following on from (modestly) what I think was the best episode of PMICast yesterday (search for it on iTunes or www.pmicast.podbean.com)we also had some of our biggest numbers here on the blog too. Over 100 visitors (108) in a 24 hour period is I think our best single day ever and continues the growth to over 3,000 hits per month now - please keep visiting and reading and tell your friends and business colleagues - the more the merrier.

I monitor the stats on the podcast on a daily rate and our 30 day figures have been consistently over 6,000 downloads for some time now - with the launch of Ep 4 of season 2 yesterday we peaked at 6,400 downloads. These are great numbers but I would like to get over the 7,000 level sometime soon so please pass the word if you can.

Two other quick issues to mention on the podcast - firstly we have an exciting event for introducers on the 9th of September episode so if you're an IFA, broker or accountant who's interested in help with sales of medical insurance you need to download episode 5 of PMICast when it goes live next week.

Lastly, we have been approved by Audible as an affiliate sponsor but to go live we need at least one US iTunes feedback entry and and average rating of 4* so this is an appeal to our US based listeners - if you have two minutes could you please leave us some iTunes feedback.

Are you a prospective professional introducer to my PMI practice ?

If you are an IFA, accountant or other professional adviser then you could be a prospective introducer to my medical insurance practice.

I work with a range of professionals, offering advice to their clients on medical insurance that is expert, focused and transparent. The client receives good advice on PMI, the introducer builds a growing new income stream to their practice as well as obviously enhanced support for their client bank.

I've worked with IFA's and other brokers for 20 years and have built my practice around this kind of subcontracting introducer support. Many of you will know about my medical insurance podcast : PMICast - next week (9th of September) and I am planning a special introducer edition of the 'cast.

There will be lots of relevant information and features to inform and educate - should be good stuff. The main aim is to help you increase revenue from medical insurance by irking with me more closely.

I've been talking about it on Twitter and LinkedIn already and will do so more this coming few days but if you fall into one of the above categories then keep an eye on this blog for more details. Plus subscribe to PMICast on iTunes and bookmark the streaming website at www.pmicast.podbean.com

New podcast episode - now available

You will now find my latest podcast on medical insurance on iTunes (search for 'PMICast') or at www.pmicast.podbean.com.

This is the fourth episode of the second season and today I cover some basic information on a specialist insurer for civil servants and also a masterclass on using cash plans as a cost control and premium reduction vehicle for small corporate insurance. As well of course as an additional benefit for the staff.

Please take the time to leave us some feedback on iTunes too if you get chance and also visit the websites of our various sponsors which would be of immense use.

As an update, we also have over 6,100 monthly listeners to the podcast - tell your friends, colleague and relations - the more listeners the better.

Our main sponsor at the podcast is www.podcreateuk.co.uk

Email problem and courtesy

Think on e-mail today.

Firstly a bit of a pet peeve - when I receive an e-mail that requires an answer I always attempt to drop a note through to the sender to acknowledge the question even if I can't answer the question immediately - although I do apologize for not always actioning dull admin tasks immediately !

Important or technical queries should in my opinion always be replied to, even if just to put them into a holding pattern.

Also in land of e-mail today I've been having some issues with e-mail on the Mac - some mails are coming in fine but others, addressed to my business e-mail account are appearing in gmail (where I aggregate everything) and on my IOS devices but not all are going through to the desktop on my Mac - very frustrating as I'm having to hop in and out of devices and forward mail into different folders which then do replicate over onto the Mac - bizarre as it affects one app but not others.

Help !