Tablets are basically designed to be portable, useful and practical. But, as our defiantly procrastinating copywriter points out, they’re also great for dragging around a gadget-y excuse to put off work! Here are three great tips from across the bloggesphere to help everyone from our Money4Machines copywriters to our valiant CEO get stuff done on the go!

1. Invest in the right accessories and software Our resident marketing genius loves her iPad external keyboard almost as much as she loves her huge Bengal cat.

The woman could throw together an entire novel on a noisy coach ride from London to Manchester full of day-tripping West End matinee fans! So, for her it’s the keyboard, but you need to find whatever little extras make your working life a bit easier. Think about things like Dropbox, iPad apps, headphones, external keyboard, portable tablet stand etc.

2. Set small, achievable tasks The point of on-the-go work is that it needs to be highly adaptable and pithy (a bit like a really great night out!) The best work schedules are made up of lots of little increments that can be ticked off the proverbial list. Avoid leaving one huge task to do on the train – you’ll get bored and lose motivation. Create a list of smaller jobs that can be combined to form a kind of Mighty Morphin Power Ranger of tasks!

3. Get to know the machine It doesn’t matter whether it’s an old iPad or brand new Nexus, taking the time to really understand the ins, outs limits, shortcuts and tricks of the device will not only boost productivity, but also motivation when you’re sat on the train putting off a bit of catch-up admin. Learn the best ways to do stuff, love your tablet.

You don’t need to sell iPads as soon as an upgrade arrives, but you can use our great sell for cash UK deals to make sure you get the best rates on the net once you do decide to part with your commuting buddy!

We’re not suggesting that the premise for any of these websites seems useless and then turns out to be awesome. Our point is that the internet is a rich sundae of websites and apps that can help you with things you never even knew you needed help for!

From the mind of a superb Indian tech blogger, Amit Agarwal, here are just 10 of his recommended 101 useful websites. We picked our favourites based on things like our own personal habits and what we reckon you lovely folks looking to sell cameras, laptops and other gadgets need most.

1. followupthen.com – A great way to set up easy email reminders for everything from work deadlines to posting your old Kindle to us!

2. jotti.org – Check suspicious files and attachments for viruses.

3. printwhatyoulike.com – Easy way to print websites without all the annoying adds and rich content that burn through the printer budget!

4. sizeasy.com –Compare the size of products online by entering the dimensions, then the site shows familiar items in relation to the size. Great for online shopping!

5. hundredzeros.com – Free bestselling ebooks. The list is updated regularly so your old Kindle will never be dull!

6. similarsites.com – Enter the URL of a site you love and similarsites.com will give you a nice long list of related sites you might enjoy.

7. privnote.com – Write and send text notes that will self-destruct after reading.

8. mailvu.com – An easy way to send video emails to anyone you like using your webcam; really simple and great for everything from backpacker’s updates to work memos.

9. tabbloid.com – Read your favourite blogs as PDFs on your old iPad, smartphone or computer.

10. google.com/dictionary – An incredibly easy to use and comprehensive online dictionary that includes work meanings examples and pronunciation.

Here’s where you can buy the Kindle edition of Agarwal’s book, The Most Useful Websites, for your old Kindle, old iPad or tablet. And don’t forget to visit our sell for cash main page to see what you could get for all those old gadgets once even the most useful website can’t convince you to hang on to your old iPad!

A couple of nights ago, we suffered a hacking attack from some unpleasant folks looking to promote their own agenda by disrupting online businesses like Money4Machines. Perhaps we’re being a little gruff; they may be perfectly nice folks with pet cats and mothers and Netflix accounts full of Grey’s Anatomy. But the fact is that activities like hacking and spamming are, for the most part, a blight on the internet to regular folks like our sell for cash company and you, our lovely, lovely customers!

Our head web guy is awesome and fought off the hackers like Wolverine (thanks, Luke!), but what about spamming? Well, it turns out that our sell for cash company inboxes may be a little less full of spam from now on, and yours too!

When you log on to sell iPads and other gadgets, you probably have to wade through at least a few annoying spam emails before you get to the juicy stuff like Facebook updates and newsletters from Lolcats. Well, as of today you may be spared approximately 18% of that bullcrap. For a while, at least.

Grum, a botnet suspected of sending out around 18% of the world’s spam emails, has been shut down by Security company FireEye and spam-tracking service SpamHaus. Working alongside ISPs, the duo managed to track the Grum network and shut down its control servers in Russia, Ukraine, Netherlands and Panama.

We buy UK gadgets from you and we love the rapport we have with our customers, so we thought you’d find this quote from one of FireEye’s security researchers quite fun:

“Grum’s takedown resulted from the efforts of many individuals.” said Atif Mushtaq, “This collaboration is sending a strong message to all the spammers: Stop sending us spam. We don’t need your cheap Viagra or fake Rolex.”

Brilliantly said, my boy!

Most of us are the less affluent side of our forties, at least, here in the silliness of blogging HQ we are! Antique markets aren’t quite revered as the pastime of choice, but there is an element of retro fabulous sneaking into our hobbies.

But since we’re a sell for cash UK gadget site, most of our chats about vintage stuff tend to revolve around old consoles, retro games and that lucky chap from France who just sold his vintage console and games collection for £750,000!

Andre, the 32-year-old gaming fan who parted with his life’s work for a princely sum, spent fifteen years methodically seeking out and gathering working consoles and games from the systems he’d grown up with. His collection boasted a complete anthology of every Sega console and Sega game for those consoles every made.

Do you have that much commitment?

The problem with hoping to sell consoles and old games for cash is that the market is still pretty saturated with individual devices. Your old Nintendo NES may be in pretty good shape, but it’s only worth about £50 average on the collectors market. The trick in the current marketplace is to sell complete collections. Andre’s Sega games will have mostly been worth about £15 when sold individually. But bang them all together into a complete set and the prive shoots up to around £100 per game!

Wondering about the title? One of the girls who does research and tends and Office Cat’s every need has admitted to smashing her Commodore 64 to pieces to make a ball gown covered in circuit board body parts for her art foundation BTEC. According to the US arm of PC World, she’s missed out on up to £200!

We buy consoles UK-based customers send our way, and we pay excellent rates for them. But if you want to reap the rewards of your gaming hobby, build a collection you can sell for cash and make the news like our friend Andre, you need to be patient as that couple of years you spent trying to find the hidden stars in “Braid”!

We’re all guilty of the odd spelling and grammar mistake. And there will always be forgivable sins like Questionable Capitalisation. But what really cuts to the bone of grammatically awakened readers tends to be basic errors, mostly to do with annoying things like using quotation marks for “emphasis” and putting full stops on the wrong side of quotation marks – “I hate that”.

A few months ago, our Money4Machines blog played host to an interesting piece written to inspire folks like you to take up blogging. So as well as helping you sell computers, old iPads and whatever other gadgets you’ve got cluttering up your desk, how about a quick English language lesson too.

1. Apostrophe’s Rules Say No to Plurals!

As we learned in an episode of Jonathan Creek (‘The Seer of Sands’ if memory serves) a misread punctuation mark can have a critical effect on the meaning of a sentence and perhaps cause the fiery death of a fake gypsy and the revelation of an undertaker with very questionable morals (not in the way you think!)

Apostrophes are NEVER USED TO PLURALISE. It’s simple, but heaps of bloggers get it wrong every day.

2. Quotation marks are not for emphasis.

We love to add a little WOOHOO emphasis WOW as much as the next guy, but we don’t do it with quotation marks unless we’re being sarcastic (as in the sentence “Wow, your skinny jeans are so “unique”. I love how you bought them in the same place and with the same distinctive pattern on them as all the other “individuals” did.”)

Quotation marks are for quoting or adding a slice of sarcastic irony.

To add emphasis, use bold or italics.

3. A million punctuation marks does not help your case!!!!

We buy UK stock from you lovely folks because you want to make the most of your spare stuff and we want to keep Office Cat in the luxury to which she has rather swiftly become accustomed. So we do our bit for multiple punctuation marks sometimes.

That’s a lie. It’s a pet peeve here in the office, so we actually do a pretty good job of not belittling our great language with annoying teen-speak.

WACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM-FLAILING TUBEMAN!

That’s fine. You don’t need to add lots of ‘!!!!!’ unless you want your credibility to be swiftly slung into the idiot category. Multiple punctuation marks look sloppy, unprofessional and lazily colloquial. You don’t see Delia Smith writing about her “amazing stuffed chicken!!!”