The OpenSure Free Press 8th August 2011

Posted on by March 20, 2013

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the energy-saving OpenSure Free Press. There’s something of a local theme today – apologies to our more far-flung readers.

Virtual Machines
This sounds very space age, but is simply a way of dividing up a computer’s hard drive into several sections, each of which can be configured as a separate, ie ‘virtual’ machine. It has a number of virtues, not least saving money and power because one machine can be made to behave as if it were several, reducing your company’s need to buy and power extra hardware. This IT Donut article explains in more detail.

GreenLight

GreenLight is Go! this Thursday
GreenLight launches this Thursday evening, August 11th, 8pm at The Old Market Inn, Newmarket St, Hereford. We’re expecting people from lots of local companies and green/sustainability groups, so please do come along and join us. We’re keen to see people who really don’t know where to start with making their business more environmentally-friendly and sustainable just as much as we’re looking forward to meeting old hands. We’ve been chatting to New Leaf, Herefordshire Greenlinks, Caplor, Life Space Design and many other local groups and companies to make GreenLight just the free resource you need. Please come along and tell us if we’ve got the right idea! You can find us on Twitter @GreenLightLocal and via our website.

Herefordshire Business Booster Scheme
We thought our local readers should know about this – we quote from the official email:

The Business Booster Grant is a capital grant scheme: it can be used to support the growth or diversification of existing micro, small and medium sized businesses through a range of initiatives including the purchase of capital equipment, the modernisation of facilities or the ability to create or enhance a website. Successful applications will be offered a grant of between £250 and £4,000, which will have to be match-funded by the applicant paying up to 50 per cent.The scheme will be delivered in two tranches, with the first deadline for applications of September 23 at 4pm. Download application forms here.

Software Freedom Day and HLUG
HLUG is taking part in Software Freedom Day with an event at All Saints Church, Hereford, on Saturday 17th September, 10am-4pm – you may have seen the piece on p42 of The Hereford Times this week. We’ll be there to offer advice, support and encouragement. There will be all sorts of software freebies available, and we have a special guest lined up to speak on the subject of open source in education, which is the subject of HLUG’s outreach program due to start this autumn with several trailblazing schools.

The Green Bit

Special offer
We have recently taken out a listing with the green directory GreenFinder. As part of the deal we’ve struck, GreenFinder is offering any of our green clients 10% off a listing. Please get in touch with us for more details.

Other bits and pieces that have caught our eye recently include:

And finally, our favourite energy-saving tip so far, from Gareth Kane, whom we worship (@GarethKane):

“Fav idea from energy workshops: eat cake, get fat, then you can turn down thermostat.”

Perfect advice for a chilly August. Until next time, keep warm and hope to see you in the pub on Thursday night.

(image credit: hotkey.net)

The teenagers are coming

Posted on by March 4, 2014

This BusinessZone article is all over Twitter today – “The teen entrepreneurship revolution is coming”, and about time too, we say.

Having had the dubious pleasure of watching teenagers tussle with the strictures of the education system in the face of a bleak employment situation and weighing up tertiary education on financial as much as academic considerations, I think self-employment is at least as good a prospect for school-leavers as any other.

Think about it: what holds you back in running your business? You probably have dependants of some description and more than likely bills and other hairy grown-up commitments. You also need to sleep and realise that things are rarely straightfoward. Teenagers have none of these considerations, they’re free, have boundless energy and the kind of know-it-all attitude that drives their parents to distraction but that is vital to making the leaps of faith that running your own business can require. Factor in their absolute ease with technology and really, you have to wonder why it’s taken this long for teen entrepreneurship to become the next big thing.

Where would you rather see your teenagers – queueing at the JobCentre, depressed in a boring or dead-end job or putting 20 hours a day into getting a project off the ground? I would gladly support a teenager who had the drive to bring a business idea to life and was pouring their energy into a future for themselves. In fact, I secretly hope one of ours will go that route as there’s nothing to match the buzz of making something happen and following your own ideals. One down, three to go.

Rock on

Posted on by March 20, 2013

Roger McNamee sounds like such a dude. Not only is he a Facebook investor but he’s a rock star and he can see into the future! He gave a speech recently in which he went over the big trends in technology and made a few predictions. This really caught our eye:

The fact that most people now have more than one device means the cloud is vital, because you want to have all your stuff on all your devices. It also means the old PC paradigm is dead, because the old PC paradigm means everything stored on one device, instead of everything in the cloud synced to many devices.

Absolutely. Spot on. Nuff said.