I am not a huge one for reading real copy, I seem to tend to read from a screen - Blogs, Articles and techy stuff. Maybe a response to my personality or simply a movement of times. I do intend to read the big texts, the greek philosophies, the better deeper books but not yet. Priorities and speed of life currently lean me to read for the moment. Technology and business perhaps goes hand in hand with currentness of news and freshness.

Either way when I do get round to holding a real book here’s what I currently recommend:

• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey - A very good book - far from the realms of most self help books - more of a life help book. I would highly recommend this book for all business people, entrepreneurs and people that want to get somewhere in life.
• The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand - Chris Anderson - Written by Chris Anderson - an editor at wired.com this book is a bit over statistical for my appreciation - but it is written by an economist! Still if you are interested in internet economies, business and markets online well worth the read.
• The Google Story - David A.Vise - Not completely through this one but for sheer relevance it should be on most peoples bookshelf for that moment you require the bigger picture influence.
  
• Art of Contrary Thinking -Humphrey B.Neil - A great book if you are looking for a quick but worthwhile read. I really have a liking for short and concise books like this. Great points on interesting business situations going back over the last century. Stock exchange mishaps and how to think the exact opposite of the whole crowd. Excellent real world reading.

I will stick the links in to Amazon - if you think you would also like the books - please buy through these links and then recommend it to a friend!

Ok so 2 random lists in a week? I promise tomorrow I will post something a whole lot more boring/sensible/useful!

I have been working on what I have codenamed ‘pagex’ so I should release that later this week - bolt on 2 minute site management - letting you mess with 80% of every page on the site - by address. Great little SEO tool!

Things I have driven (in nearly backward-chronological order - not exhaustive):

• Audi a4 1.8 petrol (day 2 day runner)
• Audi a4 2.5 TDI Quatrro
• Audi 80 2ltr
• Single Seater racing car - pembrey
• MG ZR - pembrey
• Peugeot 306 xsi (2ltr petrol) - Crashed at 80mph (*sigh* that bloddy hurt)
• Punto Sporting 1.2 16V - My second car and very good for an Italian non-stallion - Crashed at 60 (hatfield bend - I blame the rain..and my being stupid.)
• Regular fiat punto 1.2 - horrible -tall car with tall chairs and tall gear stick - no power steering
• Renault Clio 1.2 Petrol - Old non-gay styling - my first car
• Toyota Celica
• Fork lift truck - all terrain
• Mercedes Sprinter 2.6 TDI
• Fiat Ducato

Online CV’s are common - so this isn’t one of those! A kind of combination of lists of programs/languages/things that may come in useful or I have personally used over the last few years and my opinions of them!.

Ok so its pretty random - but if your looking for something specific it might help - will update as I remember/encounter!

Web-Interest

• Wired - paranoid Americans, but interesting
• Forbes.com - goals are a great thing to have
• Funny funny stuff - cats lolz
• Hack-a-day - an old bookmark but always fun to read
• Hacked-gadgets - same applies

Web-SEO

• Hit-Tail - Excellent site, sign up and use their code - best bit is suggestions.
• Google Analytics - If you ignore them taking over the world you kinda don’t worry as much
• Feedburner - stick your blog on it for easy additions such as html feeds and automatic pinging
• Ping-o-matic - does what it says on the tin
• Garythescubaguy - infinitely useful site for seo
• Oscommerce - simple, free out of the box cart - best bit is contributions community
• RSStop55 - got half an hour to spend? push your rss then…
• Spider-food - good reading
• SEO Chat

Things to learn Before building a website (I mean practice - but to compete, the following are key.)

• HTML
• PHP
• SQL/mySQL
• Basic Javascript
• CSS
• How to install/use blogging tools (wordpress specifically)
• Basic SEO
• .Htaccess basics - mod-re-write is good, file access, custom error pages etc.
• RSS feeds - about them and how to make them

Windows Environment Database/Related

• Crystal Reports - easy to master, once you have your a valuable asset.
• SQL Decrypter - a microsoft encryption was never so easy to crack
• PyCRON - run regular tasks on mysql in windows (python cron basically)

Windows Environment General

•  Remote Desktops - windows remote desktop (type ‘mstsc’ from run) is a good start - would highly recommend gotomypc.com - so insanely simple and universally applicable - for people that want to work out of the office this is the idea solution -worth the £17.99 a month.

Random things I have learnt

• Access accounts
• XML
• Computer Graphic Design/3D (including Photoshop, Quark, Corel, Macromedia Flash and Freehand, some cad, 3dsmax, world hammer, source sdk and a ton more)
• Custom PBX, installed, configured, maintained
• Visual Basic and Visual Studio
• Mental amount of SQL
• Studied Business - still learning today