Hi everyone,
Monday is here, December 1st 2008. The sky is blue, the sun is shining and I feel (comparatively) terrific!

The cold/chest infection I have had is almost gone, which is a relief.

yesterday I gave a talk to a group of coaches at the Dartford Judo CLub about "Coaching Digital Natives", which seemed to go down well. It was interesting as it was the least "web-savvy" group I have given the talk to so far. I think it went down well, so I am happy. I really enjoy discussing the web to Judo people as I think it is an area that Judo on the whole is failing to utilize.

Which brings me to the first thing I did this morning. I applied for a 6 month contract with the BJA (British Judo Association) as an events and PR assistant.

Now, you are probably asking yourself "why?". Especially, if you've been following the blog and my other blog over at www.judocoach.com/blog .

The reason is that I am probably the most publicly critical person about the PR/Web presence of the BJA. I have written post after post about their website. I have written to them and made suggestion, some ignored, some replied to, some implemented (although I might add implemented poorly and without bothering to acknowledge my input).

I mentioned the role on my Judo Blog and people emailed me saying "GO FOR IT!"

So I have, my purpose in criticising was/is always to make things better, so I decided that if I want to criticise I should at least offer to be an employee and help them. Given I have publicly offered to take on the BJA website, applying for a job that involves working on that site seemed the only honourable thing to do.

A six month contract is also pretty desirable in terms of my short term finances. As regular visitors will know I am building my own business at the moment ( www.enVirtua.com ) and as you can imagine it takes time to develop a revenue stream, so some regular income would be good right now. After all, enVirtua has only got a couple of clients so far and the incorporation process hasn't even been completed.

Of course there are some things to navigate with the BJA role and running my own business. Not least of all is balancing hours and a working location. The BJA role is based in Loughborough and I am based in Southampton. But I shall cross that bridge when/if I cross it.


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Today is the first of December and I have my first "big" advertising campaign planned and should start today. It is promoting the Cloud Based backup service enVirtua is offering.

I have been using a cloud based backup for... quite a while, something like 18 months at least, probably more. And it is awesome, cheap and reliable.

I used to backup to external hard disk (in fact I still do via "Time Machine", but cloud based backup is terrific for me. I can archive things like podcast episodes up there and forget about them. If I ever need the files, I can access them from anywhere which has been used on more than one occasion when I have needed something and left my laptop at home.

Cloud Backup means I never run out of backup space. When I upgraded the hard disk in my laptop, the capacity suddenly grew larger than the disk I backed up to. So I had a problem, but my cloud based backup just kept growing to whatever size I need it to be.

The offering I am making via enVirtua I hope will prove popular with laptop users and small businesses. The ability to within minutes be backing up your data "offsite", and minimal cost is really valuable. No ordering expensive tape drives and tapes and waiting for delivery and installation. No having to plug in the external hard disk, just to find it's full.

Cloud backup is great, just click and go. You can backup from the office, from home, from Starbucks, where ever you have internet access. As it's all encrypted prior to transmission, it's safe.

I am hoping that the campaign I am starting today will prove successful and I can get people backing up to "The Cloud". I sincerely/genuinely believe in the concept and the product, I use it everyday and hope lots of other people do too.


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Playstation Home looks awesome in Beta!
I can't wait for it to open out and the universe to expand. My secret desire is that Sony and Linden Labs make it possible for you to access Second Life on your PS3. That would be amazing!

James from the Wisdom of the Clouds blog, who I met some years ago when he was with Cassatt has made his move to Cisco and helped host Robert Scoble.

Robert filmed the meetup and has posted it online, so take a look over at http://www.kyte.tv/ch/6118-scobleizer/2 ... acenter-30

Lance

This morning I have moved my office from out in the "dojo" to upstairs in my house.

This is mainly because it is Winter and I suspect my working in a cold, damp 'shed' may well have had a little to do with my recent (ongoing) ill health.



So I have moved my computer desk and chair upstairs into the spare(-ish) room. I tried working from the couch (no good), the kitchen table/bench (no good), the study/music room (no good). Upstairs feels good.


Much of working for yourself, is about acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses. Moving upstairs is my being aware that I need separation from my "home". I simply struggle to be productive if I am sat in parts of the house I associate with home life. The Dojo was excellent as it was physically removed from the house and is still my preferred option. But upstairs in the spare room works for me too.
It is a room I have never spent time in, so it is not tainted with experiences of watching TV, etc.

It also has the huge advantage of being the warmest room in the house, so shall help my health. It will also hopefully help the power bill as it is the warmest room and also has a single bulb (unlike the kitchen and living room).

In the long run, I think I will get someone in to fit out the Dojo as a office properly with insulation and so forth. It will be able to seat about 4-6 people in an office configuration so if (as I hope) enVirtua grows, then I'll have a work space as i need to take people on.

But for now, the upstairs room feels right. It is isolated and quiet. It feels productive, and that is what matter.

Lance

Monday morning and here I am sat in front of the keyboard again.

Reviewing my last post, and little has changed, I'm still sick. It's slipped down into my chest, which technically means I have pneumonia! So I am on anti-biotics and not feeling that much better after a weekend of coughing!

On the plus side NZ Rugby was on form!
Both codes (Union and League) were on winning form and won their respective matches.

It was interesting to watch league again, not watched any for a while and it's weird. I find it less sophisticated and less enjoyable to watch than Union.

The Union match was good too, in particular, the second half. It was awesome to see the difference in execution between the first and second halves. I can only assume that "words were said" by Graham Henry at half-time.

It is a sign of the caliber of the All Blacks, that they could respond that well, when things had not been going smoothly prior to the end of the first half.

If anything shouts "well coached" to me, it was the way the All Blacks responded in the second half. They were like a different team.


Anyway...

This week, I hope to make the changes to the Envirtua site I have been thinking about. The more I work on the site and the business, the more I appreciate I was right to leave where I was. I certainly believe that I am going down the right path for where IT services.

The days of "boxes" and "box shifting" are dead!

Physical servers are hosts for services. The service provided by a server in this day and age is simply hosting of service providing virtual machines!

I'll be writing a series of posts along this line on the Envirtua site, even if your business rubs simply off a Windows 2003 SBS server, the days have arrived to not install SBS on bare metal but to install a hypervisor first and SBS on top of the virtualisation layer.

As regular followers may have noticed, I have been pretty quiet the last week or so.

I have caught the cold my son had (he was off school for 4 days), and it's kicking my butt. Nasty nasty bug this one, I've been coughing so much and for so long that I ache and each cough is awful!

It has also affected my productivity pretty badly too I am ashamed to say.

Normally when I get sick I just go to work and get on with things. Sadly, being based at home I have been slack and not working as hard as I should have. Not good!

It meant I have missed getting across to University of Bath on Monday as I had hoped and Camberley Judo Club on Wednesday.

Today I am heading off to see my accountant to collect the paperwork to incorporate enVirtua.

I shall probably try and blog later today.