I joined a new chapter of the BNI today, the Phoenix Group. I was introduced as a guest by a friend and associate of mine Rory from Pyranet.

The chapter meets just off J26 of the M1 at 0645 every Thursday. The people are great, as is the breakfast

Quote from the BNI Homepage:

BNI is a 24 year old business and professional organisation that allows only one person from each trade or profession to join a chapter. With over 5,291 active chapters, and 111,733 members, it is the most successful business referral organisation in the world.

Belonging to BNI is like having dozens of sales people working for you because all the other members carry copies of your card with them. When they meet someone new that could use your products or services they hand out your card and personally recommend your services.

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Tags: BNI, Phoenix Chapter, Nottingham

My new vehicle arrived yesterday

Therefore my Range Rover is up for sale, specification and photo below:

RANGE ROVER 2003 3.0TD6 HSE Auto 5 DOORS

Very Good Condition
67000 Miles
1 Years MOT
3 Months Tax
Main Dealer Full Service History
Metallic Green / Grey
Full Grey Leather
22'' Alloy Wheels
Heated Seats
Air Conditioning
Trip Computer
Remote Central Locking
Electric Memory Seats
Side Steps
Park Distance Control, Front and Rear
6 CD Changer
Privacy Glass
Cruise Control
Removable Towbar
Electric Steering Wheel Positioning
Service Indicator
Electric Door Mirrors
Immobiliser / Alarm
Headlight Wash/Wipe



For more information: stevecholerton@mac.com

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Tags: New Car, Range Rover, For Sale, Ford Ranger

I’ve been meaning to talk about these guys for a while now. As a disclaimer I have to point out that they are a customer of mine. With their permission I’ll talk about the solution I created for them in a future posting.

Tailored Marine Supplies create custom bedding for your boat or yacht. I don’t actually have a yacht personally but I’d love to have some of their bedding in my caravan - they may even give me a discount

TMS was setup by successful local businessmen and boating enthusiasts, Ian and Chris who I have known since 1996. They operate out of custom premises in Malaga, Spain. The idea for the company came when Ian was disappointed with the quality and choice of the bedding supplied with his Jeanneau. After attempting and failing to find an alternative third party supplier that could create what he required, Ian decided he had found a gap in the market worth pursuing.

TMS is now enjoying rapid growth and success, especially since opening the doors to the general public rather than relying totally on the Brokers.

I wish them all the success, they have a great plan, a great work ethic and will undoubtedly become very successful.



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Tags: Tailored Marine Supplies, Yacht Bedding, Customer, Yacht Supplies

Recent Recommendations. Good companies deserve praise just as much as bad companies deserve their negative press. Recently I have been impressed with these companies, all of which are local to me.

Name: Blue Spire
Category: Financial Services
Comments: Nigel Toplis, Senior Partner is on top of his game and delivers honest and informed financial advice. Thanks to him also for creating the Eastwood Group.

Name: Pyranet Limited
Category: IT Services
Comments: An impressive operation ran by young and talented business people with a real feel for customer service and efficiency.

Name: Holy Mackerel Software
Category: Software House
Comments: Some great products, headed by David Cox, an intelligent, motivated individual.

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Tags: Recommendations

This is a Guest Post by my Aunty Ann, a disabled lady with more guts, dignity and determination than I’ll ever have. She’s an inspiration.

Have any of you able bodied people out there ever parked in a Disabled Parking Bay ,you know, just while you nipped to the ATM or just popped into the shop for a packet of cigarettes ?

Well, I'm a disabled lady with Multiple Sclerosis and I need that space so that my husband (bless him) can get me out of the car and into my wheelchair using a 'person hoist'. I'm trussed up like a chicken, but it has to be. Seeing someone in the next parking bay getting adeptly out of their car is really annoying.

A case in point, at the Garden Centre recently a lady went trotting across the car park with her friends, her husband shouted "Hey, you've forgotten this" and the lady trotted merrily back to the car to retrieve the walking stick she obviously didn't need. I often wish that someone from the Disability Fraud Office (if there is such a place) would sit in the supermarket car park on a cold, wet and windy day and watch how many Blue Badge holders jump out of their cars and run into the supermarket !

Still, I'll moan about them another day, the Carer will be arriving any minute to empty my leg bag, and hoist me into bed.

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Tags: Guest Post, Grumble, Disabled Parking

‘It’s a funny old game’. Someone famous once said that. I think they were talking about running a software company. My company has two facets, on the one hand I sell commercial applications that I have developed and they are priced between £10 and £100. This price is nothing to do with the effort that went into creating them, they are this inexpensive because I expect to sell dozens or hundreds of them. On the other hand I do custom software development for a specific customer which generally costs them thousands of pounds.

For example let’s say it takes a month to develop a small application, that’s 180 working hours. Assume someone like myself can earn £100K+ per year, including benefits, working in a corporate. That equates to £47 per hour. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that I wish to maintain and exceed that level of income, not an entirely unlikely suggestion. To develop that application has cost me a month in which I could have earned £8500. If I sell that application at £50 I need to sell 170 copies just to break even. Hopefully I’ll exceed that and make a profit, sometimes I won’t. It’s a good job I am not in it for the money

On a slightly different track, I may spend 1 month developing a custom application specifically for a customer, therefore their price is going to similar to the £8500 mentioned earlier. Most customers understand and accept this. Where it gets interesting is what happens if I then use technology / skills / source code developed during that custom development and create a commercial product. For £50. Assume of course that the code / technology is not in any way tied to trade secrets or proprietary information from the original customer. So now potentially my customer has paid for a good chunk of my development fees and other companies (who buy it at £50) receive the benefit of this.

Is this a problem for my customer ? Maybe, maybe not. After all, they had the advantage of having something they wanted created for them to do exactly what they required. They have the onsite support and the ability to have the software further customised as time goes on and their business changes. They become a partner.

Of course, every customer believes that what they are asking for will be easily turned into a commercial product and sold. The reality however is different. There is a lot more to creating and selling a commercial product than thinking of a price and putting up a webpage ! Where a customer has this assumption I have in the past, and will continue in the future to offer them a return on their investment, if and when it becomes a commercial product. For the customer this gives them the best of both worlds - their software is developed and they pay accordingly and if that product is then sold commercially they are entitled to a royalty.

So what is the point of this article ? Well, nothing really. I just wanted to shed some light on how it works behind the scenes within a small custom software development company. I may do further posts discussing other aspects of running an ISV (Independent Software Company), if anyone is interested ?

My Company Website: Arten Science



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Tags: Software Economics, Arten Science

I went and registered at the Horizons Unlimited meeting today, had a wander around and took some photos.


Owned by the HU organisers, this bike has been around the world several times !




This is an obscenely fast sports bike. Well, it was.


Rambos Bike


A couple of nice BMW’s


The sheepskin is very comfy. Apparently.


More sheepskin seat covers ...


An old Beemer


You don’t need a BMW


One of the campsites

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Tags: Motorbikes, HuBB

The Horizons Unlimited UK Spring Meeting starts tomorrow and I’ve got a ticket. I won’t be able to attend the whole four days but as the meeting is around 1 mile from my home office I can come and go as I please. I am *really* looking forward to it. It would have been cool to camp overnight and socialise with others of a like mind, over a few beers, but living so close I could walk home in 15 minutes if I decide to have a drink so camping is not on the agenda.

That’s not to say I won’t turn up on my Scrambler complete with travel bags - I don’t want to be considered a lightweight, I have to make the effort to at least look the part

Horizons Unlimited is the online meeting place for people who are / have or want to travel the world via motorcycle. Time and finances permitting I intend to do the same at some point so it will be handy to meet the experts and attend some of the sessions.

My new car (although according to the insurers and for tax purposes - a van!) is being delivered Friday so I’ll have to wait in for that. Which brings me onto another point - Insurance. Obviously I want the new vehicle covered, and also my existing vehicle for a couple of weeks until I sell it. Surely this is a straight-forward requirement ? Nope - I have had to take out a completely new policy for the Ranger and keep my existing policy for my existing vehicle, which I can then cancel when sold and I’ll be entitled to zero refund on the remaining months. Not very impressed to say the least

While I’m in the mood for complaining, I tried to pay my British Telecom phone bill today. As we have just switched to another provider this was the final bill from them, which apparently means you cannot pay it over the phone using your debit card. You have to send a cheque or go to a Post Office. Well, the government has shut all the Post Offices and who uses their cheque book nowadays ? After an hour of searching I found my cheque book and managed to remember how to write using a pen (!) for long enough to address the envelope. Why make it so difficult to get paid ? Oh, and that ‘Free Evenings and Weekends’ deal we all signed up for - it’s not free when you cancel your BT account. Grrr

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Tags: Grumble, Horizons Unlimited

A very nice bloke came round last night and gave me a pile of cash for my Honda VFR800.

This means that there is now plenty of room in the garage as there is only the one motorbike, which makes my wife a very happy woman. She can now get to the Freezer and the Tumble Drier easily without navigating through a maze of handlebars and mirrors.

However - man cannot easily cope with only the one motorcycle and plans are already afoot to add another addition

As soon as my Tennis Elbow condition is sorted I intend to get an Offroad / Enduro bike and head for the green lanes at the weekends, I may even take up Enduro racing. Offroad biking as a sport is excellent exercise and very good for building the skills needed to stay alive on the road. It also happens to be really good fun

I don’t want to spend a lot of money on something that I’m going to run through mud and over rocks and almost certainly fall off regularly, so I am looking at something like this, probably second hand.

If anybody has any theories on how to get rid of Tennis Elbow - please let me know. I’ve had it for months and have done the exercises recommended by the Physiotherapist, I’ve had Acupuncture and last night at the Gym my trainer recommended a Chiropractor - so that’s next on my list.

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Tags: Motorbikes

Last year a developer named Alex Restpero released a Custom Editfield Control for REALbasic. An excellent piece of programming and a very sophisticated and useful control. He received feedback such as ‘Excellent work, just excellent!!! And they said it couldnt be done!’ and ‘Very well done Alex!’. Rightly so - it is an excellent tool.

Fast forward to late last month when I released my REALbasic Starter Kit with a Syntax highlighter module built in. A fellow developer with who I have had no previous contact decided to review the product on a public site, give it a 1 star rating and include the following comments (among others):

‘There is a strong suspicion in the REALbasic community that he is just repacking code that others have given away for free. This suspicion stems in part from the fact that his other product REALbasic Syntax Highlighter Module seems to be a repackaged version of Alex Resrepo's SyntaxHighlightEditField which is free ‘

As a professional developer who makes his living writing software and always behaves in an ethical manner - I had to respond to this.

Firstly I asked Alex Restpero, the author of the software I was supposed to have copied, to look at my code and make a statement as to whether or not I had in fact stolen his code. Alex, very kindly provided this reply to this midguided and insecure individual with the following comment:

‘Markus, I just reviewed the syntax highlighting code, and I can tell you it's definitely not based on mine. Steve's code is keyword-based, while mine is regex-rule based.’

So my point is proven - I did not ‘repackage’ anybody’s code it was written from scratch by me and is sold perfectly legitimately as part of my REALbasic Starter Kit. The problem for me is that this individual’s nasty and ill informed words are still there to continuously annoy me ...

I have emailed the individual twice, with no response, I have called him out in the REALBasic Mailing List, with no response - all I would like is for him to get the review removed and apologise for his ‘misunderstanding’. We can then have a virtual hug and get on with our lives.

If I ever hear from this individual I will update this post, but I don’t hold out much hope, maybe he will prove me wrong, I hope so.

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Tags: Grumble, REALbasic