Petrol, Coffee and an Internet connection please

Wooha what a week.

My phone line sounds worse than a dry wood fire and my broadband got disconnected early. So I can sympathize with Rob S down in Portland about not having internet access. As I don’t. nor can I call waterstones or ottakars to ask them to buy our books as they can barely hear me over the crackling phone line.

Dial up at best is 28.8 speed but usually 9.6. In comparison broadband is usually around 400 where I live.

But I have written a list of the things I CAN do offline and yesterday I even hunted down the costs of a 3g data connection card for my laptop. Hah! I saw it as very expensive as it charges me for the amount of data not for the time used. So I dropped in on the nearest Starbucks this morning after dropping Thomas off to nursery ( a perk of working for myself ) and found it empty.

Yes. At 9:15am this Starbucks had two staff and no custom! But alas – no wireless hotspot. So I finish my drink ( grande latte ) and drive off home. I make a detour to the local serviced office building and find that they do hotdesks for £4 an hour or a permanent desk for £350 per month ( erk!) or an office with 3 to 4 desk spaces for £1300 a month. I have access to a free office space in Southampton but parking is at a premium down there costing me around £160 a month if I chose to go there 5 days a week. ( unlikely! )

I can still not get over the fact that Starbucks was empty…

Anyway, I suffer through 45 minutes of poor dial up to find my nearest local hotspots. 1 in the working mans club, 2 in nightclubs ( why on EARTH??) and 3 in various pubs. The closest one to me though is either the working mans club one or one at the local petrol station.

WHY? Imagine a small local petrol station in a residential area. It has the sweets and car condiment isles a freezer and a coffee machine. Plus a wireless hotspot.

But where on EARTH am I supposed to put down my laptop? Where am I going to sit and work? In my car while going through the carwash??

So for me my working environment while I wait for the broadband to work itself out will either be in the local Harvester or the local serviced office building. Unless the cinema complex will have a hotspot when it finally opens its doors. If I need access that is. Currently this is being written in a local sandwich bar.

It’s a hard life when broadband disconnects…

So in short, I haven’t achieved nearly as much as I was supposed to, but I have been able to think more about what I want to achieve with my self employment status. I have researched 3G costs and broadband hotspot costs and I have researched a couple of niches with a good representation in the magazine shelves in WH Smiths.

I’ve read more than I planned and I have just done other things to keep the progress going. There are always other things that I can do to keep on progressing. If there is a roadblock ahead of me, I find a way around it, over it or through it. Easy.

For next week,
If my phone line corrects itself, I will be calling book stores for 8 to 12 hours and see what it does to our revenue.

I will work with Pauline to get our ecommerce solution installed on one of our sites so that we can set up our affiliate programme.

I will also call and introduce myself to one of our suppliers as they have upgraded their internet offering – in fact I need to do this first.

I will also work on two content sites for the holding company behind niche service station and provide some long awaited resource updates to our members.

Cheers,
jon

- Every day in every way, I'm getting better and better -