Just about ready to get the new competition up and running. I'm charging the mobile phone as I write this, although it will need charging again nearer the time of despatch.

This blog post will form part of the terms and conditions of the competition so make sure you read it carefully. Basically the prize is as sent and any problems after are down to the winner!

The phone is currently locked to the Virgin Mobile network as it is a replacement phone sent by them for one that broke. It hasn't been used by me and still has the screen protectors on.

I found an old PAYG Virgin Mobile sim in the garage and have put it in. It is however showing "Limited Service" - this may mean that you just need to put credit onto it or register it or the sim may not be working. It is up to the winner whether they try to get the phone unlocked to another network, try and get it working with Virgin (or flog it on Ebay!!).

I found the original box for the phone and inside were earphones and USB cable, both still bagged as they have not been used. The charger, CD and manuals are also included and are in excellent condition.

Although this is a "new" phone I cannot provide you with any warranty. If it breaks in a months time then it's down to the winner to fix it. My original phone lasted about 10 months so I would expect that this new one should at least last that long!

OK, those are the rules, so to enter the competition visit the competitions page and follow the link.

The quest to make money online continues. I've had a little time to make a start on Financeworx and I've just remembered I have another site I could use, both for finance and business opportunities, called Cash 2U.

Again this site was set up ages ago and has been languishing without any effort being put into it. I need to get more visitors coming to all three sites to start making some sales and thus make some money.

That's the key to making money online - visitors. It doesn't matter what you're trying to sell online, carpets, light bulbs, accountancy services or business opportunities, without visitors to your website you are not going to make any sales.

There are a variety of ways to get traffic to your site, many of which are free but require time and effort listing your site. You can also pay for traffic by pay-per-click or participate in banner exchanges etc.

Once you start to make sales and make money you can apportion a percentage of your profit to ongoing marketing to keep traffic coming in and to continue making money online.

Getting started is the hard part and it can be a daunting prospect and easy to give up too quickly. Websites require a little time to gather some momentum and need plenty of work in the early days. But once the traffic starts coming in it can snowball.

When I have more time I will compile a list of traffic generation methods which will help anyone participating in the online business opportunities listed on this site. Sign up with me and you will have my support available by email 24/7 (Well you can email me 24/7 and I'll reply as soon as I get it!).

The dream of running your own business, rather than working for someone else, is a dream shared by many people bored with their 9-5 jobs.

However, setting up your own business can be costly, time-consuming and entail a lot more work than you think.

Setting up a business from scratch needs a lot of commitment and full-time focus. If it fails it could spell financial ruin! Not everyone is cut out to run their own business.

Rather than give up your current job (and income) to start from scratch, why not consider starting a part-time business which could expand into full time if successful.

There are plenty of business opportunities out there that require very little in terms of funding and are flexible, meaning you only have to work your hours of choice. If you find that the business is not for you, either you don't like it or cannot make any money from it, then you have only lost a small initial investment and a few hours of your time.

It might be that by trying one business opportunity that doesn't work out it focuses your mind on what would work for you or gives you some ideas for the future.

So our advice to improve your future is to think big but start small. Don't commit money you cannot afford to starting a new business.

Give it a try and see how it works out for you. Everyone is different and we all want different things from our lives.

Visit our home page and complete the online form there and we will contact you with current opportunities that suit your requirements and let you know of new business opportunities as they arise.

The winners have all replied very promptly with their details so here they all are:

Shaft/Deep Blue Sea - Hannah Prosser

A farewell to Arms/The Snows of Kilimanjiro - Margaret Hamilton

Vacancy/Captivity - Angie Rhind

Hopefully the prizes will be despatched this afternoon, although not sure when they will arrive given the possible postal strikes!

Our next competition will be online soon, the chance to win a Samsung U600 mobile phone.

My own comping going very slowly, no sign of a decent win on the horizon. Keep your fingers crossed for me and I'll do the same for you!

All the best and good luck.

Still not cracked it. Business is slow on Improve Your Future so I've had a look round at other websites that have been left dormant.

One of these is Financeworx. This site deals with personal loans for tenants and homeowners as well as debt management and other finance related products.

I must have updated it at some point during 2009 as it has a 2009 copyright notice on it but I suspect that was done in January and since then I haven't touched it.

It is very out-of-date and needs work on pretty much every page. I've just added Google analytics to see whether it currently attracts any traffic and, when I get time, I will start to go through each page and replace all of the old programs with new ones.

I've got a few similar sites that are sitting idle, gathering dust, so once I get this back up-and-running I'll move onto some others to try and get some more visitors across a range of websites.

Hopefully I can get some referrals between sites and cross-sell on them. I have to do something. Last months bank statement is in and it looks like we are spending around £100 more than we are generating each month.

A slow, steady descent into the poorhouse beckons unless I can reverse this trend. So need to start generating some income quicker than I had anticipated.

Our first competition has ended. It closed yesterday at midnight and form submission has now been disabled so no more entries can be sent.

We received a total of 285 entries and the three winning numbers have been drawn. I used our random number generator to pick three numbers between 1 and 285.

For information purposes, although it won't make any sense to anyone, the numbers picked were 223, 128 and 112. I will match these up to the entries that were received 223rd, 128th and 112th and email the lucky winners.

Once I receive address and date of birth confirmation from them I will post the winning names on the relevant competition page. Prizes will probably be despatched Monday subject to getting all of the details in.

The next competition will probably also start on Monday, once I have more time to get the necessary pages sorted out. Keep reading this blog for more info.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Congratulations to the winnners and, if you didn't win, better luck next time.

Another competition prize received today. A Mighty Glass from Irn-Bru. Not exactly what I've been comping for but it will at least get used. I've added it to my competition wins for 2009 page.

As mentioned previously, the breakage of my laptop has meant I've entered very few comps in the last week and I don't know where I'm going to find the time to enter all of those I've missed.

I will have to be very selective and just enter the big ones where there is a holiday or big electronics prize involved. The rest will have to wait or just not get entered.

I'm just about up and running on my new computer. The final few bits of software I need are now in my possession, just have to get around to installing them. Then things will be back to normal.

However, for the future I need to think about what would happen if my computer breaks again, or is lost/stolen. I need a better form of data recovery to get myself moving in double quick time.

I have seen that there are online storage websites that might allow me to upload info on a daily/weekly basis. This might be the answer. I will have to try and find a free one.

Or alternatively I suppose I could use this website and just ftp everything on my hard drive every week. Could take a little time though. I would probably prefer a professional solution.

Anyway I'm back online and working hard now. My new competition will probably be delayed a few days, I'm thinking around the 20th October for a start date now.

Good luck to all of those that have entered the DVD competition. Only a couple of days until the results are announced!

Sorry, but it's been nearly a week since the last update on this website. A combination of things have happened/are happening that have led to this.

The most important is the demise of my old laptop. The screen packed up and it was beyond economical repair. After an awful lot of messing about I finally got it to work with an external monitor and have retrieved all of the data.

However now it is a matter of transferring all of this data to another computer and downloading all the software I need again.

Plus I need to get all my work stuff up and running first before I can spend any time on this site. So it could be a few more days before there are any substantial or interesting additions.

Note to competition entrants - no entries were lost, but I am now behind with compiling them all into a spreadsheet for selection purposes so it may take an extra couple of days to sort out the three winners.

We're also thinking of moving house. So we've been spending time getting it ready for sale, sorting out an Estate Agent (useless robdogs) to market it and looking at other houses to buy.

It's a time-consuming business, particularly trying to keep the house tidy and clutter-free for viewings when our one-year-old is intent on exactly the opposite!

Be patient, normal service will be resumed eventually. Keep checking back for further updates. Enjoy what's left of your weekend!

Making money online is not easy. Not everyone can do it and it is not a matter of simply switching on your computer and watching the money roll in.

However, plenty of people ARE making money online, and as the amount spent online increases exponentially year after year the slice of the pie you need to make a reasonable living reduces.

What do you need to make money online? A good idea is a start plus, if you don't want the expense of employing someone to get your website up and running, some knowledge of website design and protocol. This can be learned fairly quickly or there is plenty of software out there that will help you get set up in no time.

Of course if you have a product to sell and need an online shopping cart and payment processing this is going to take longer and be more expensive unless you use other peoples systems.

When you are starting out research is key. There are plenty of websites, this one included, who will point you in the direction of the next big business opportunity or method of online money making.

Some will promise you untold riches (not us, we know that is highly unlikely) but remember - if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. I call this the first rule of business opportunities.

If you don't want the hassle of setting everything up yourself, or just don't have the time, a turnkey business is probably ideal for you. This is where everything is set up for you, the website, product delivery and payments, and you just have to get visitors to your new website. For an example of this download our free money making ebook.

You could have your new website up and running within 48 hours and open for business. Then it is up to you to find visitors who are interested and want to sign up to. All of the knowledge of where to find them and how to get them to your site is included, as is ongoing email support.

Many people who are employed, and have always been employed, dream of breaking free and setting up in business on their own.

However running your own business is not for everyone. People tend to only think of the advantages of their own business without thinking of all of the things that can make running a business a nightmare.

For instance, they want to break free from a 9-5 job and be able to set their own hours. In theory an excellent idea but often your customers will want you to be available outside of these hours at THEIR convenience.

I worked as a self-employed Domestic Energy Assessor for a while and in order to make ends meet had to visit my clients in the evening and at weekends when it suited them. I had little or no say over my hours if I wanted enough work to pay the bills.

When you first start the business it is likely that longer hours are going to be the order of the day until things get up and running and the business starts to build some momentum.

The business opportunities listed on Improve Your Future aim to get around the many problems you can come across when you set up a regular business.

For instance, rather than setting up a business needing premises, staff and stock (all of which come with their own problems) you can set up a business making money online.

Our free money making ebook shows you how easy it could be to get started with your own website. Everything is done for you in fact and within 48 hours you could have a website online which you can start promoting.

It's not going to be as easy as that. You will need to put in some effort getting visitors to your site and following up on any leads you generate to turn them into sales but there are no ongoing overheads (other than your time) and you can work from home and fit it in around other commitments if required.

Plus if you sign up at Improve Your Future you will be able to contact me anytime by email for ongoing help and support. Remember I'm doing it too and will often have experienced the problems you are coming across and have already worked out the solutions.