The job is a bit of a ‘noddy job’ but it pays well for what it is, as I said in a previous blog post. I only have one more week to suffer until I’m away on holiday aswell! Yaytimes!

In the meantime I have managed to let www.crackingcardeals.co.uk slip, updates wise, so I will have a binge on that now as well as trying to work some funky SEO stuff out for it.

Anyway…as you were…

I have hated every minute of being a ‘doley’ and finally I have been given the opportunity to get back into work, no thanks to the Jobcentre’s job listings (usually consisting of “earn upto £80,000 p/a” then at the bottom “Please note this is a self-employed vacancy. Advertised salary based on commission. No basic wage.”).

I can’t sign off the day before I start work, and they have no spare time before. So I have to sign off 5 days before I actually start, meaning I will be short for my car repayments. The job I have got then pays a month in arrears which leaves me with nothing to live on for 28 days. I spoke with someone on the phone at the DWP who said they’d be delighted to sort a budgeting loan out for me. But oh no, I can’t as I haven’t been receiving JSA for long enough? But they might be able to offer me £80 grant, which would help enormously. Just been to a meeting for that and been turned down because “we can’t pay for travel to work”.

Apparently this is all my fault as they need two weeks notice that I have been offered a job & I can’t take a job offered to me until they have reviewed it. Not helpful when I’m offered a job there and then, is it?

So thank you, DWP & Jobcentre+, for the late payments which forced me into debt, for the patronising tone with which your employees talk to me in, for the long enquiries into whether I’m working cash in hand (which I was NOT!) and withholding several months contributions from me again forcing me into debt, for the lack of support in finding a job & for the lack of support with accepting a job.

I’ll be working in a call centre as a telephone researcher, so beware, I may well be ringing you up asking some random questions.

While I’m here I would also like to bring to your attention that I have enrolled on an OpenUniversity course in Business & Personal Finance, with the view to completing a degree eventually. Quite exciting seeing how I was a non-university advocate not so long ago!

Of course, I will report back here how things are going, but I don’t start Uni until November and I’m sure I’ll be kept busy in the mean time!

Since I started the venture the site is getting daily traffic and has totalled 408 unique visitors a lot of which are clicking on various vehicles listed for sale. I am rather proud of this as I have yet to spend anything on advertising!

Don’t forget to check out the latest deals on used cars in East yorkshire : www.crackingcardeals.co.uk … or follow us on twitter: @crackingcardeal

Please note, that I know the margins were not big enough really, however the product I was selling had fierce competition from the Chinese Market (of inferior quality – strangely people seem to want to buy something that lasts half the time but it 2/3 of the price!). With hindsight I wouldn’t have retailed this product but I learned a lot doing it. All figures are averages based on a months sales from August 2007 (apart from the fees, which are up to date).

Item Cost – £40.00

Sale Price on eBay – £68.00

VAT to pay – £8.87
eBay + Paypal Fees - £9.59

Profit so far - £9.54

Basic Rate Tax - £2.10
Postage Cost - £5.00

Total Profit – £2.44

And just for the sake of a cheap shot at government, if I decided to spend my profit on Diesel… after fuel taxes I would get £1.58 worth of fuel.

Note that these figures do not also include any packaging materials either.

Fun times.

I have every confidence that I will be able to pull this one off, so…which way will your bet lean?

Will I succeed or not!?

Let me know via comments!

I will make a blog post as and when I update it.

View here : http://timbolegrande.wordpress.com/windows-7-package-removal-guide/

Thanks.

I have spent the last 26 hours or so removing one package at a time using DISM and installing Windows 7 everytime to log any differences.

The point of this is so that people know what can be removed safely from Windows 7.

These are the results from Windows 7 7600, X64 Professional.

Safe for removal
Virtualisation
Virtual PC / Virtual XP Back end files
Hyper V Packages (May possibly break the ability to boot from VHD…I don’t have the ability to test this at the moment)

Mobility
Tablet PC Components

Desktop Applications / Utilities
Sticky Notes
Snipping Tools
Windows XPS Foundation (Doesn’t remove the entry for XPS services in Add/Remove Windows features)
Windows Gadget Platform

Media
WMP Network Sharing Service
WMP Troubleshooting Package
WMP Player Package – Removes DVD Maker
WMP Playback OC Package
WMP Codec Basic Encoder
WMP Codec Pack Basic

Mindless Bloat
Windows Anytime Upgrade
Music Samples

Not safe for removal
Parental Controls : Seems to cause funny behaviour in UAC & installation of some applications that require administrative privileges (Firefox)
Peer 2 Peer Network Packages : Seem to stop windows from setting network settings on first boot.
Windows Media DVD Registration Package : Causes a DISM exitcode – will look into.

Current Installation Size : 8.04gb

I will continue to test when I have time

Remember : you saw it here first!

Although I haven’t been trading for quite some while, I had one of my old customers contact me regarding a monitor they bought from me. It was an eBuyer own brand 19″ TFT monitor and cost £100 or thereabouts two years ago. It had randomly stopped working while in use.

I attempted to put an RMA request through eBuyer’s website but initially it wouldn’t let me as eBuyer claimed the product had a one year warranty…bugger…I sold it with the advertised 3 year warranty. One phone call to eBuyer later they had admitted that it was originally sold with a 3 year warranty and accepted the RMA request. They arranged for it to be collected on Monday via Citylink courier.

Two days later I received an email from eBuyer stating that the item had been found faulty. In due course I received yet another email stating that they no longer carried this monitor in stock. Because of this they credited the full amount to my eBuyer account for me to buy a similar item. I managed to purchase another 19″ tft screen for my client, a branded Fujitsu item this time – much better quality than the last and some very good reviews.

I had the new item by Thursday morning, cue one very happy customer. Well done, eBuyer! A very smooth & RMA procedure. I would rather not to have to deal with anymore though!

It would seem for most e-commerce websites that it isn’t anything that mindblowing. The regulations basically give some protection to both the supplier (retailer) and the consumer (customer); however they are bias towards the customer.

I have written a page to this blog post detailing the relevant regulations that most e-commerce sites will have to comply with. If you would like more in-depth information please view : http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/sales/sales-contracts-and-selling-regulations/distance-selling