What a difference an hour makes. Now that the clocks have gone forward it seems to be lighter so much later, it’s already putting a smile on my face, so much so that my face is aching from smiling so much. If only I could be sure there will be hours of golden sunshine from now until late September, it would make the achy face bearable.

It may sound strange to some people but when I woke yesterday it was almost as if I had rested for days not hours and it’s only now that I realise that for perhaps the last 3 or 4 months I’ve avoided doing very much at all when it has come to my self-employed work, personal admin, correspondence, socialising and of course…the garden! However after arriving home last night I took advantage of the light and did a bit of weeding, in an hour I’d done what I’ve been putting off doing since January.

Last year I was fortunate enough to win a competition being run on Twitter by Glasses Direct. The prize was a box of spectacle frames, this wasn’t one or two pairs, there were around 25-30 pairs of frames in a wild assortment of styles and colours. As I only wear glasses for reading and using the computer I obviously wasn’t able to make use of them all so I distributed them around the office and to friends and kept a few pairs that I liked with the intention of having them fitted out when I next had my eyes tested.

Well, it’s that time of year again. No, not Christmas but the time when I renew my Flickr Pro subscription. Long time readers may recall that last year I ran a little competition in which I gave away some annual Flickr Pro subscriptions and it proved to be quite popular, so much so that when I renewed my subscription this year I decided to get a few more to give away.

I’m not sure when I became so nice but I guess it doesn’t really matter. Chances are, if you’ve stumbled upon this entry after searching for Free Flickr Pro Subscription you don’t really care why I’m giving them away, you just want one and I can’t blame you for that!

How Do I Win the Gift of Flickr Pro?

After much deliberation I’ve decided to keep the format pretty similar to last years. I won’t be judging your artistic endeavours, instead it will be a straight forward random selection process. If you want to win a 12 month Flickr Pro subscription all you have to do is leave a reply at the end of this entry with a link to your Flickr profile. The only reason I ask for your profile is to see that you actually use Flickr and are therefore more likely to make use of the benefits that a Flickr Pro subscription offers.

If you’re a fairly new reader of this blog you may not know about my involvement with Kaitee Page whose band is now called Lunic.  In a nutshell Kaitee is an artist on Sellaband.com, a site which aims to help fans fund albums.  The premise is quite simple.  Take a $50,000 budget and break it down into $10 shares, for each share you buy you secure yourself a limited edition CD.  Once all 5,000 shares are sold the artists go off and produce an album from which you earn a percentage of the profits from each one sold.  The limited edition CDs you can either sell or you can have them sent to you to give away to friends and family, or indeed to sell yourself if you’re so inclined.

I’ve helped fund a few albums in this way but my biggest investment so far is in Kaitee and Lunic which probably explains why I have a box of 45 CDs sitting next to my desk.  A few months ago I told myself I would get my finger out and construct a website to sell them on but as you can guess I haven’t got much further than thinking about it.   This will change but as I’m working on some client sites it’s probably going to be early 2010 before I get the time to do it. You can now buy it directly from my Record Shop

I recently bought myself a new camera, quite well timed really as I was able to use it to take some rather good, if I do say so myself, photographs at the Deep Purple concert I went on last Sunday evening.  The camera was a smart buy. I also bought a Polaroid Pogo photo printer as well, I’m not so sure that was such a wise buy but I’m a sucker for gadgets and more so when they are on sale. Oh look, I’ve saved £30! Sounds good but when I admit to myself that I’ve spent £40 on something I don’t need just because I’m saving £30 I have to accept it’s not really a bargain!

I decided that I would resurrect my old Flickr account in order to have a better place to put my photos and after reading all the blurb thought I would upgrade to a Pro account, not so much because I think I’ll need unlimited space for photos and HD videos but mainly because I prefer having an ad free service.  Here are the Deep Purple photographs I took in a nice Flickr slide-show.

Do you want the Gift of Flickr Pro?

It got me thinking, how many people would like a Flickr Pro account but didn’t have $24.95 readily available to upgrade from the free version?  I decided there are probably at least four people who have the basic account who would like to upgrade but have more pressing needs for their cash.  So for those readers, Twitterers and Facebookers who would like to win a Flickr Pro account…