A teenage school blog
Better Time Management for Improved Cash Flow
Aug 2nd
We’ve all heard it: time is money. And as much as we sometimes hate to look at it in such base terms, it’s mostly true. As service providers (designers and developers), the time we spend on a project is directly proportional to how much we’re getting paid. How we spend our time also has a big effect on when money comes in. If we want to get a better grip on our cash flow, we need to get a better grip on our time first. Sure, we all recognize that the time we spend working effects our overall income. But it’s often hard to see the relationship between time management and cash flow. Regardless of how muddy the relationship seems, there are direct ties between how you manage your time and how much money comes in when. Read on for more information on how to better manage your time so you can better manage your finances.
Britain’s most expensive car wash
Aug 1st
Petrol-head Gurcharn Sahota charges a staggering £7,200 for Britain’s most expensive car wash which he does – from his PARENTS’ GARAGE. Car-nut Gurcharn, 30, has a string of celebrity clients and takes up to 250 HOURS to clean each motor. He has cleaned hundreds of dream machines including a Lamborghini Gallardo (pictured), Bugatti Veyron and an orange McLaren F1 GTR worth £5 million. Since he started the business five years ago he has travelled the world with his hi-tech kit which includes a microscope, 100 cleaning fluids and £8,200 car wax. Gurcharn charges customers up to £7,200 for a wash which includes polishing and buffing every inch of the car inside and out – FIVE times. He even uses a computerised microscope – normally used by forensic scientists – to examine the body work for the minutest scratch not even visible to the naked eye. Gurcharn, who drives an iconic MK1 Volkswagen Golf GTi, started his passion for cleaning by washing his neighbours’ cars with a bucket and a sponge – for FREE. 
He said: ”When I was younger I washed neighbours’ cars and my dad’s car whenever I could. ”They never paid me, I loved it so much I did it for free. ”Things have built up from there and now I’m cleaning some of the fastest, most powerful sports cars in the world. ”People come to me and they want the best treatment going for their car. ”Sometimes I’ll work through the night to get a car looking absolutely pristine. ”They’re world class motors that deserve a world class wash.” Gurcharn, who still lives with his parents, has converted their double garage into a hi-tech workshop.
iPhone 4 Review
Jun 28th
The iPhone 4 is no small thing to review. In the gadget world a new piece of Apple hardware is a major event, preceded by rumors, speculation, an over-the-top announcement, and finally days, weeks, or months of anticipation from an ever-widening fan base. The iPhone 4 is certainly no exception — in fact, it may be Apple’s most successful launch yet, despite some bumps on the road. We’ve already seen Apple and AT&T’s servers overloaded on the first day of pre-orders, the ship date for the next set of phones pushed back due to high demand, and die-hard fans in line outside of Apple locations a week before the phone is actually available. It’s a lot to live up to, and the iPhone 4 is doing its best — with features like a super-fast A4 CPU, a new front-facing camera and five megapixel shooter on the back, a completely new industrial design, and that outrageous Retina Display, no one would argue that Apple has been asleep at the wheel. So the question turns to whether or not the iPhone 4 can live up to the intense hype. Can it deliver on the promises Steve Jobs made at WWDC, and can it cement Apple’s position in the marketplace in the face of mounting competition from the likes of Google and Microsoft? We have the answers to those questions — and many more — in our full review, so read on to find out!
Hardware
Perhaps the most notable change with the new iPhone is the drastic industrial design overhaul — Apple seems to have completely rethought its strategy on how the phone should look and feel, and the results are nothing if not striking.
The Brand New XBOX 360 Slim
Jun 15th
The new box is crazy sexy in glossy black with touch-sensitive buttons, and Microsoft says it’s “whisper quiet,” with one large fan instead of two — the new 45nm chipset undoubtedly generates less heat to begin with. On the features front, it’s got integrated 2.4GHz 802.11n WiFi, five USB ports, and 250GB of storage on a removable hard drive, although it’s not a standard drive or same drive as the old console, and older Memory Units won’t work, either. Upgraders can use a USB-to-Xbox hard drive connector cable to migrate to the new box, however. There’s also a “custom Kinect port” on the back that looks like an HTC-style ExtUSB port, and it also seems like the power supply has moved inside the case, which is a welcome change. New Xbox 360 units are shipping to retailers now, with availability expected later this week, and MS conference attendees are actually getting theirs shipped today.
Xbox 360 is fully loaded with new features and still comes with everything you know and love. Here’s a feature list to make sure you don’t miss any of the newest Xbox 360 250GB parts. More >
A Guide to Facebook’s New, Simpler Privacy Controls
May 27th
If you haven’t quit Facebook yet, then it’s time to take another look at your privacy settings, which, as promised, are now less of a huge maze. Here’s the lowdown on how to work the new system. After a months-long privacy fiasco, Facebook has taken it upon themselves to revamp the privacy settings to make them simpler and quicker to set and forget. While the new settings are definitely easier to use, Facebook has thrown in a few surprises that the privacy-conscious may not be too happy with. Unfortunately—in some ways—with simplicity comes a lack of control, and Facebook has made sure that the control you don’t have is over information that is made public.
Note: Facebook’s new privacy settings will roll out to users over the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye on your Facebook page for a privacy prompt. When we’re able to test the settings on our own accounts, we’ll be back with our own recommendations.
Gold dispensing ATM launched
May 13th
Abu Dhabi’s top hotel has upped the stakes in the contest to have the most glitz in the Gulf by installing an ATM that dispenses gold bars.
The machine at the Emirates Palace monitors the daily price of gold and offers small bars that weight up to 10 grams or coins with customised designs.
Thomas Giessler, the German entrepreneur behind the idea, chose Abu Dhabi because of its high-rolling atmosphere.
Gold to Go, Geissler hopes, will tie in nicely with the region’s traditional ties in gold commerce.
The launch was timed well as on the day gold hit a record high of more than $1,245 an ounce. 
[SkyNews]
Five Best Personal Web Pages
May 11th
Not everyone has the time or inclination to build and maintain a full-fledged web site. If you’re just looking for a simple way to unify all your online profiles, these personal landing pages are a perfect fit.
Earlier this week, we asked you to share your favorite personal landing page. A personal landing page is a small-scale web site that directs visitors towards your other profiles on the web, a central page you can direct people to, instead of writing and linking a laundry list of your online presences—your Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, and other profiles.
If you’re looking to set up a personal landing page to unify your online presence without the work of setting up and maintaining your own web site, the following services can help. Read on to see the most popular personal landing pages.
Top 10 Hard Drive Upgrades and Fixes
Apr 25th
You should never feel like your hard drive is holding out on you. Anyone should be able to back up, recover files, boot multiple systems, upgrade, or otherwise improve their storage space. These tips explain the possibilities and procedures.
1. Automatically Back It Up
Don’t sell your computer data short—even if your documents don’t seem all that important, the time you spent setting installing applications and putting everything in order is definitely worth saving. If you’ve got a good spare hard drive or an web space you can FTP into, you can set up automatic hard drive backup through Windows. Most folks, though, will want to go with one or both of two routes: online backup, for the entire-house-burns-down security, and/or offline backup, for speedy backups and convenient restoring. The best tools for doing so, when we asked, were Dropbox for online syncing—even though it’s not exactly proper backup—and Time Machine for external hard drive backups. For two solutions that make the process mostly painless and care-free, try web-based, automated systems like Mozy or Carbonite.
10 Essential iPad Tips & Tricks
Apr 4th
Any idiot can use an iPad at a basic level. It’s designed that way. But even still, there are things that you’re just supposed to magically know—things no one ever necessarily tells you. So we’re here to help.
The Hard Reset
The single most common thing people don’t realize about the iPhone OS is how to perform a hard reset – which you’ll find extremely useful in cases when the system freezes.
Just hold the top (power) and bottom front (home) button for a few seconds. Your iPad will restart. To force quit an application, just hold the home button by itself in a similar fashion.
Cut, Copy and Paste for Experts
Copying text is as easy as double tapping a word. But when you want to copy a whole paragraph, like for an address, you have to stretch those annoying little blue knobs…or do you?
Tap any editable text four times. You’ll highlight the whole paragraph.
The end of radio?
Mar 30th
In five years, all radios in the UK will switch to digital. This development was first announced some time ago, but it seems many people are still unaware of it. In fact, the government has been warned it is in danger of a public backlash when listeners realise what is happening in 2015.
Peers in the House of Lords say the plan to leave behind FM and AM could backfire when between 50 and 100 million analogue radios become largely redundant and around 20 million car radios stop working, unless they are converted.
The Communications Committee’s findings suggest there is “public confusion and industry uncertainty” about the switchover, illustrating its point by insisting that many consumers are still buying analogue radios, even though they will soon become museum pieces.
They have warned of a “major public reaction” against the proposal, particularly when people realise that only 1% of all cars can receive digital, even though 20% of all radio listening takes place on the road.