In my efforts to give up smoking I decided to investigate these so called electronic cigarettes. To my surprise the reviews all seemed to rave about them and people were claiming they never looked back, what has a lot to do with the smoking bans, so I thought sod it lets buy one. There are so many out there it is damn hard to choose, but in the end I went for the one pictured left from Totally Wicked Eliquid where they call them Electronic Nicotine Inhalers (e-NI) rather than e-cigarettes, which is in fact what they are.

I have to say I am shocked at how good it actually is, not only does it taste very similar to a cigarette, but I actually prefer it and have been smoking it far more than I do cigarettes. You get all the things that keep you hooked on smoking, something to hold in your hand and put in your mouth, the taste, the inhalation of smoke and of course the nicotine high but without any of the nastiness, here are some of the benefits.

• They contain no tobacco,Nor do they contain any of the multitudes of harmful, carcinogeous ingredients found in traditional tobacco products
• No Smoke (it is actually water vapour)
• doesn’t make you or your clothes smell
• no chance of causing fire as it is not alight
• legal to smoke in public places due to above
• no where near as bad for your health
• no more mouth like a litter tray in the mornings
• will not effect those around you
• saves you money
• wont give you cancer
• you don’t have to go outside in the cold to smoke

There are many different types, some look like cigarettes and some don’t, like mine above, and some look just plain weird, add to that the fact that there are 30+ different flavours of nicotine liquid (or cartridges) to choose from, and you can see the whole smoking experience suddenly has a bit more depth to it.

So far I have only tried regular and cherry flavour nicotine and I like them both. I used to only smoke menthol ciggies and couldn’t stand anything else, but this is not an issue with the e-NI as it is far less harsh due to the lack of tobacco. I am a big fan of the flavours too, back in the days of pipe and tobacco shops I used to smoke flavoured pipe tobacco and use liquorice rizla papers, so itsa bit of a blast from the past and I expect I will have a nice selection soon.

So if you are a smoker, I would definitely recommend you give it a try, i’m sure those around you wont miss your stinky clothes and smelly breath either. If you are worried about looking like a bit of a ponce, all I can say is “grow a pair� and stop worrying about what others think, it’s your life after all.

PCI DSS compliance is now a legal requirement for anyone with merchant services, having just had to go through this myself and knowing that our clients are also going to have to do the same, I started searching for a simple guide that I could pass on to clients and came across this book.

Complying with the PCI Data Security Standard may seem like a daunting task for merchants. This book is a quick guide to understanding how to protect cardholder data and comply with the requirements of PCI - from surveying the standard's requirements to detailing steps for verifying compliance.

PCI Compliance for Dummies arms you with the facts, in plain English, and shows you how to achieve PCI Compliance.

And yes my company BlueThunder Internet is fully PCI DSS compliant before you ask :-)