With money getting tight nationally we have been feeling it first here in Thanet. To try and off set this a little Thanet Star has been looking at things that can potentially make things easier on us. For example recently we wrote about how you could Win a Car, cash and several other big ticket items.

One tool working for you should be a "digital reward card". Much like a store card for your favourite supermarket the digital reward scheme allows you to collect points and these points can be converted into goodies. The leading scheme is called iPoints.

Currently they have a number of offers going on including a free Twice the Spice Voucher just for signing up (which is free). Once you have your free membership you will, of course, be able to get more from your online shopping but you will also be able to get iPoints in other (free) ways too.

For example you can currently get iPoints for using certain search engines, grabbing free accounts, applying for quotes and taking advantage of other offers. This should soon add up to a whole host of free stuff for you cutting the cost of living.

You can scoop 200 points just for joining - which is what I did...

...

» Continue Reading: Getting a few things for free

The yummy car pictured to the left is the Toyota Yaris and for the small price of nothing at all you can enter a prize draw to win it.

Given the current credit squeeze I am sure more than one or two of us could do with a "small" win of this nature. The company is British run and so under the rules of the land is open to anyone. You will need a free account from which you can also win £500 in cash.

I'm already a member which is why I feel happy to promote such a tasty offer to other people. I have not expirenced any spam nor have I been flooded with "system messages" aside from when I have indicated I want more information about something.

I also understand that there is still time to Win a break to Las Vegas. So what are you waiting for?

A UK subsidiary of Unisys Corporation has won an outsourcing contract worth approximately £32 million to manage KCC's MAN.

No this is not some odd minder a MAN (or metropolitan area network) is a WAN that... For example JaNET is a MAN... Hmmm. let's just say that with Kent Public Service Network (KPSN) KCC locations, schools and the Internet are all being taken care of in this bundle. By taken care of we mean upgraded and made much much faster.

Formally Unisys will be tasked to "create and manage a public information network and security service" this was last until 2012.

So if KCC has 32 million quid available to upgrade it's Internet connection perhaps it also has some cash to subsidize some free parking with KCC? We'll never know unless we can motivate a councilor to go ask for the cash but I understand many are too busy getting their own way...

I've talked before about how great stumble upon is as a service but here is a chance to use it to improve the world a little bit. Click here to plant a tree.

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) recently spent £14,000 of tax payers money on a new logo. Which as you can see looks "very nice" (even if you would not catch me playing with the idea of paying so much money for it).



The problem is that the Governemnt department "needs to get a grip on itself" for if you turn it sideays it looks like this.



You can also read the story here

Saint George - a man that might not have existed but the patron of Aragon, Canada, Catalonia, China, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Amersfoort, Beirut, Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Moscow and a goodly number of institutions. Today is "his day"...

Now from a British point of view today is a British day. So what is your take on the British National Lack of Holiday (BNLoH) and the general celibration of "saints"?

Let's talk.

I have been looking around facebook and discovering that there is quite a Thanet presence there albeit a little decentralised (which is no bad thing as such). There is a very slim showing from the Thanet bloggers (which surprised me) as I have only so far found one or two of you on the site.

There is no rule that says we have to sign up to anything so don't think that you have to (after all we have our own Thanet Social Network). However, if you do it might be worth it just to get your blog listed on the Facebook Thanet blog listing where I seem to be the only one...

Just an idea.

The you tube video I wanted to show you was removed from you tube. I found this slide show which covers the basics and should work for the foreseeable...