Bullying is perhaps one of the oldest and most unpleasant human traits. With the rise of the internet we have moved from the playground and office bully, who is easy to identify, to the more anonymous cyber bully.
Sadly cyber bullying is something that is on the rise and schools and the workplace are still attempting to establish means to identify this and handle it appropriately.
Over the last year I have been working closely with several schools across the UK to raise awareness of the issue of cyber bullying and to establish policies and best practice to handle this appropriately and considerately.
Earlier today I read a tweet that led me to a web page that led me to another web site that finally dropped me into spending 25 minutes watching a video on Vimeo.
Now I'm not usually a great watcher of online videos, especially when I'm travelling and on a dodgy 3G internet connection but something about this presentation grabbed my attention.
If I could be bothered I would spend some time summarising the video and abstracting the key points. But as you should know by now I'm lazy and don't like to repeat things if I really don't have to.
So grab a coffee, some nice biscuits, settle down in a comfortable seat and watch the presentation.
We all know that the vast majority of email is spam or UCE (unsolicited commercial email) and that there are people out there whose sole aim in life is to harvest your email address.
I'm sure that you are very careful about placing your email address online, ensuring that it is protected by javascript, or using contact forms with hidden email addresses.
But when you add your email address to a newsletter or service do you consider the security of that list?
There are certainly benefits to both social networking and networking in person. Is one really better than the other? Well, I guess my answer is that in order to really develop quality relationships, face-to-face is the best way. Is that always possible in today’s technological age of communicating online all over the world? Not always.
Social networking makes it very convenient for the non-socialites to stay cocooned in their own little world. Sure, they talk to people on the phone, over Skype, they Twitter and blog, but I would argue that the bulk of that interaction with the outside world only creates a “surface relationship.” Whereas an interpersonal relationship requires getting to know the other person more deeply.
The other day I was conducting a review of a new web site and came across my favourite usability failure.
Drop Down menus suck!!
Not the whole menu of course just the bad habit of site builders who add functionality to the top level link.
With every web browser on the planet rendering differently it's a constant battle ensuring that your beautifully and painstakingly designed web site looks just as gorgeous on all browsers.
Personally I build a site entirely using Firefox and only at the end of the build process do I look at it in other browsers, curse and swear and then start to fix issues.
But what is the best way to check your site on multiple browsers?
If there is one thing I am fairly confident of this year is that touch will become an even hotter topic.
The recent CES saw a plethora of new touch enabled computers, Apple is still promising to release the iSlate (maybe even this week) and more people are browsing the web every day on their mobile phone.
So have you checked to see if your web site is touchable?
Last night I was excited, honoured and suprised to win the ComputerWeekly.com Open Source Blog of the Year Award. But this isn't really an award for me it's an award for you.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who voted for the blog, everyone who has given me inspiration for an article, Marc Ozin from ReformJudaism for nominating me in the first place and two very special people.
The original idea for the blog came from Fotis Evangelou who pestered me to start writing until it was easier for me to start than it was to shut him up and Chris Marinou who is the brains and talent behind the template design. Without the two of them this blog this blog would never have happened.
Today after a very long time of waiting I've finally reached the age where I have the answer and I'm happy to say that Douglas Adams was correct it really is 42.
So for those of you that are still waiting I'd like to tell you that it really is true and life really is that simple.
