Technology Bloggers

Technology and the future of work

2012-02-22T18:17:49Z

Technology is always changing and advancing the way we live our lives, unless you are a luddite and live in an Amish community that is! Some people oppose technological change, and I respect the for that, but personally I embrace it – techie all the way!

Technology is likely to improve the way we do business significantly in the near future, but how? In this article I am going to write about some of the latest and greatest technology which is going to revolutionise the way we work!

Portable Laser Keyboards

Okay, so you may be thinking that we already have keyboards that are pretty portable, you can get role up ones that you can take almost anywhere. The problem with these is of course, they do take up space, and often they cannot connect to your smartphone or tablet.

The future solution to this problem is already here: The Magic Cube. The Magic Cube is a super portable wireless laser keyboard, which has been developed by a company called Celluon. It is basically a little box which can project a laser keyboard onto any flat surfaces, and then works out what you are typing by where your fingers break the lasers.

The Magic Cube - a wireless laser keyboard

This is no ordinary keyboard though, it can connect via Bluetooth to most smartphones, laptops, tablets and desktops, so wherever you are, no matter what your device, if you have your Magic Cube, you have a keyboard!

Hand Motion Technology

In the very near future, we will be able to control screens using our hands, and not by touching the screen (that technology already exists) but by simply waving a hand in the air.

The 2002 film Minority Report featured futuristic hand motion technology where detectives could push images off to the side and bring up more content just by waving their hands in the air. This was in the movie, because the film makers heard that the technology was being developed.

Better Integration

In the future we are likely to see much better integration of all technologies. Mainly thanks to the likes of cloud computing and improvements in wireless technology, it should become easier and easier to transfer files from device to to device.

Apps

Smartphones and tablets have and are still revolutionising the way we do business. Smartphones and tablets have significantly improved the way we do business and communicate, but it is the apps that you can download onto them that are likely to significantly change the way we do business in the future.

We already have apps that can scan and store your business cards, store details on your asset and save your important documents, but in the future you can expect many more effective, impressive apps. Some examples of apps which we may see developed in the future (or that are being developed now) are the likes of more powerful, real time translators, high performance graphic design apps, apps which make paying, transferring and receiving money much easier, human quality text to speech apps, and many more.

QB Robots

A US based company called Anybots have created a very cool little robot called QB, which uses the latest in wireless technology to create a portable webcam, so when conference calling, you almost feel as though you are in the room (thanks to your movable position) with your colleagues.

The head of one of Anybots wirelessly controlled QB robots - notice the webcam eyes and screen inbuilt into the head

The robots have freedom of movement, so they can go anywhere in the office. On the head section of the QB, there is a webcam, so that you can see what the robot sees, and a screen, so you can be seen by those in the office.

QB means that you can be anywhere in the world, and yet still check up on those in the office, meaning that working out of the office is so much easier than ever before! QB could also help to significantly reduce the costs to businesses of travel, as fewer employees will need to be on the move.

3D Printing

3D printing is a new technology, which some critics say will be as big a revolution as the internet! 3D printing will allow firms to print products to order in store, bringing huge savings to firms in terms of transportation. Some predict that by the end of the decade, 3D printers will be a common household object, where we can print things, in 3D out of a whole range of different materials. I plan to write an article in the near future about 3D printing, so stay tuned!

So, the future looks very exciting, but what do you think of it? Have you heard anything that I haven’t?

The top 5 mistakes I have made in blogging

2012-02-18T16:48:21Z

About a year ago, I started blogging on a niche topic, hoping to earn some income from it just like many other bloggers out there today. However, nothing comes easy and I have been through a lot in that one year period. In this entry, I would like to share the pain when I started out, by telling you the five biggest mistakes I made.

1. Meaningless domain name

I started out by naming my blog and want to find a domain name as close as possible to the name of my blog. On top of that, I have the fear as well to have a long domain name because it is difficult to remember. As a result, I ended up creating a totally meaningless domain name which I still have the regret today. People find it hard to determine the niche of my site just by reading the domain name. The lesson learned here is to have a domain name which can represent your niche as close as possible.

2. No keyword research

After I had gained some experience in blogging and internet marketing, I begin to realize the importance of keyword research. It does not only help you to define the objective of your blog, but also identify your competitors. Keyword research can be pretty boring and that is why I made a mistake to skip it first, research later. The lesson which I learned here is to research first, write later.

3. A niche topic without focus

My niche is IT security and I know that I am going to write about security. Why is that not good enough? Because it is too general. During my first month, I had been writing everything about IT security such as news, tips and tricks, reviews, network security, computer security, internet security and many more. Readers that come to my blog can’t see the purpose of the existence of my blog and I think I failed terribly there. The lesson which I learned here is to start a topic in a very focused way, even if the target audience size is small and grow slowly from there.

4. Spamming dofollow backlinks

Everyone here knows the importance of “dofollow” links. In order for anyone of us to rank well in Google and other search engines, you have to build a lot of “dofollow” links. I build plenty of them from “dofollow” forums and none of them give me any boost in SEO. The lesson I learnt here is to spend more time writing quality content, which other bloggers will want to link to.

5. Started out with Blogspot

Have any of you tried migrating your blog from Blogspot to self-hosted WordPress? It is not really difficult but can take a lot of time to amend your previous posts to fit into your WordPress theme properly. If you really want to blog seriously, invest into web hosting and a domain name because they are not really that expensive.

What about your blogging mistakes? Have you done anything which you still regret today?

5 things you should know about Google’s new privacy policy

2012-02-18T18:52:34Z

With all of the buzz surrounding Google’s new privacy policy, you may be confused about the exact changes and how they will affect your internet usage. The bottom line is, the changes aim to improve the services that Google offers by making your Google experience more personalized.

Here are five things that everyone should know about the changes that will come occur when Google’s new policy takes effect on the 1st of March.

5. Google will gather information across all of its platforms

Google’s new policy puts the majority of its platforms into one privacy policy. Through this policy, Google will be able to put together a more holistic view of each user, as it can track one user’s data across all of its platforms together.

For you as user, this means that all of Google’s platforms will be more closely integrated than before and will allow you to work across multiple platforms at once more easily. Some critics however say that Google trying to create a ‘cauldron of data’ of its users.

4. You’ll see more personalized search results and advertisements

Since Google will be able to get a more complete view of you as a user, it will be using this information to personalize your internet experience more than ever before.

For example, this means that Google will tailor advertisements and search results to suit your specific needs, correct frequent spelling errors in search queries, remind you of appointments about which you may have forgotten, provide you with a suggested contact list, and much more. You can also contribute to the personalization of your internet experience by using features like the Ads Preference Manager to take control of what kind of advertisements you see.

These changes should help to improve user experience, as well as Google’s profits, as users are more likely to click on ads more relevant to them.

3. The more Google services you use the more you should benefit from the changes

Because Google will rely on your user information across all of its platforms to determine what type of advertisements, search results, and more are best for you, the more Google services you use, the more improvements you will be likely to see.

This is because if you use a host of Google services, such as all of those included in Google Apps, Google will be able to get the most complete picture of who you are, what you look for online, and how you generally use the internet. To track your usage of Google services, you can use the Google Dashboard to see your activity as a Google user.

2. You can still use Google services without it logging your data

Although allowing Google to learn information about your online usage will provide a more personalized experience, there may be times when you don’t want Google to collect certain information about you.

In these instances, you can utilize Google tools like “off the record” chat in Gmail and the “incognito window” in the Google Chrome web browser to ensure that all of your data will not be logged by Google.

However it is thought that Google will try to persuade users to remain logged in and connected through their Google profile, more of the time.

1. Google believes the new policy will allow it to better meet your needs

Google redid its privacy policy because it believes the changes will enable it to offer each individual user a more tailored, better experience of the web. In summary, Google is hoping to meet your needs better and faster by learning who you are and what you look for online.

What do you think about the proposed changes? Do you think you will benefit?

Online data backup using cloud computing technology

2012-02-15T18:42:58Z

In the past I have written about cloud computing and how cloud data storage is the future, and at the moment it is playing a key part in backup technologies, as it is now easier than ever before to backup your data online.

One firm that offer online backup services are the Glasgow based Bulldog Backup, they were founded in 2010 and offer backup solutions for both domestic and business users.

I read a statistic the other day that almost 50% of businesses reported a loss of important data in the last two years, probably why more and more firms are investing in online data backup systems!

The good thing is, online backup solutions are getting easier and easier to use, another reason why more and more people are using them. For example, with Bulldog Backup, all you need to is select the package you want to buy, you will then be emailed with your login credentials, then all you need do is login and download the relevant backup client – either Windows or Mac.

When you install your backup software you are asked what you want to backed up, you can choose your entire hard disk, or just a few files – say pictures and music for instance.

Now you may be thinking that online backup storage is a great idea for most people, but you are on a connection which has a limited monthly allowance – say 40 gigabytes, you can’t afford to run the backup system, in fear of going over your allowance.

There is a solution to this too. With most good backup systems nowadays, you can configure how much bandwidth is used for backups, therefore you never go over your limit. You can also choose which files the software should prioritise the backing up of – e.g. give pictures and documents high priority, whilst don’t worry so much about music.

Select how much of your bandwidth Bulldog Backup can use

The best thing is, once you have backed up your files, you can easily access them from anywhere, using your own personal web portal. Bulldog Backup’s portal has a clean layout and is designed to make listening to audio files and viewing images as easy as possible, all as standard. Therefore you can access all your albums whilst out and about, how cool is that! You can also install mobile apps for both iOS and Android, making it even easier for you to access your files on the move.

If you want to go up a level Bulldog Backup offer a ‘Pro’ account which has all of the standard features, with the addition of a ‘SmartDrive’ allowing you to sync files across multiple computers. A SmartDrive is basically a drive that appears like any other hard disk on your computer, only anything you store in it is automatically uploaded to the cloud – a pretty cool bit of tech don’t you think?

A screenshot of what the Bulldog Backup SmartDrive looks like - just another hard disk

Okay, so you like the idea of online backup, you can see the potential and benefits, but, what about the costs? Well you may be pleasantly surprised, you can start backing up online with Bulldog Backup from only £2.95 a month ($4.63) with a 1 Terabyte Protect account.

Think that is a good price? I have managed to get a discount promo code which makes the same account cost just £1.25 ($1.96) a month, and that price is fixed for 5 years! Visit the site bulldogbackup.com and use the promo code ‘bullbonanza00’ at the checkout before the 29th of February (this year) to take get started at that rock bottom price

What do you think about online backup? Will you be investing in it in the near future?

Facebook and the Inevitable End

2012-02-13T19:29:45Z

Facebook is again in the press, this time about its proposed sale, or if you like the sale of the data it has collected about you and me, but Christopher addressed this issue in a post a couple of weeks ago, and I would like to raise another issue involving the mighty corporation.

Facebook state that they have over 800 million registered users, and that more than half of them use their account on any single day. Incredible stuff, it seems they have a lot to sell, but here in the US several states are trying to tackle a serious ethical and moral issue, what happens to their data when users die?

What happens when users die?

In the world about one person in every 113 will die in a year, obviously Facebook is generally used by young people who are relatively rich in that they have access to a computer, so this rate would be much lower, but even taking that into account thousands of Facebook users must die every year.

And that leads me on to the point of this, one of my more morbid posts. If these people haven’t made a will or named a benefactor for their account, what happens to the data? The current legal state of play is this; in the event of a user’s death their next of kin does not have the right to alter or take down their Facebook page. Obviously if they were in possession of the deceased person’s password they could do it (although it might be illegal to do so), but without this information they have no way of removing the data.

This is not only a question of privacy, but also of tact. Many families suffering bereavement do not like to see the deceased’s Facebook page open to the world, or even worse see the photo of their loved one in their ‘friends’ every time they open their own Facebook account. The issue is being addressed in the US with several politicians pushing for legislation that would allow family members access to deceased people’s pages, and Facebook do have a policy on freezing the accounts of dead people but it is a painfully slow process. They require death certificates and other documentation all of which takes time and is probably a very unpleasant experience.

The NC Times and Wall Street Journal both carried articles this week about a young man who posted a picture of himself with a gun in his mouth before commiting suicide and the problems his family had getting the photo removed. It remained for some time and caused a great deal of distress to many people.

On a slightly lighter note you might like the idea of life after death, and fortunately now you can have it, with the new ‘digital afterlife Facebook application’ called If I Die.

Yes you can post on your wall directly from the grave (preparation required while still in life) and communicate with your friends here back on Earth.

I have written about Facebook on a couple of other occasions regarding what I see as far from clear privacy rules, and you can read them here and here if you are interested, and you can download a free will and testament here if you feel you need it.

Here is a short report on the BBC website reporting on the problem.

Movie Awards Trivia iPhone App Review

2012-02-13T19:29:50Z

The Movie Awards Trivia app for the iPhone is a must if you are an Oscars fan. Why? To test out your Academy Awards knowledge, that’s why. The app has almost 1000 questions on the Oscars and I bet you are going to have a blast having a play with this app.

The app has a special offer going on right now, so if you have your iTunes budget available for this month, spare 99 cents and get this app. You won’t regret it. This limited time price drop from $2.99 to 99 cents is on until the 26th of this month and has been done in celebration of the 84th Academy Awards.

Along with 1000 questions to put your mind to test, the app comes with 4000 high quality graphics of your favorite movie stars. To add to that, there are 100 slide shows of Actors, Actresses and Movies from various era.

Each quiz has 20 questions and an option to share them via Facebook or email. There is a count down timer and scores are based on how many right answers you get as most of them are multiple choice questions. There are also filters available for the quizzes to narrow down to your favorite section and this seems like a handy little feature.

There is also a free update promised each academy awards season, so we have to wait until this year’s awards are over to test them out as the app is relatively new, having been launched last December.

Its hard to come up with negatives in a trivia app like this one, that comes with all the necessary items but as with most of them you get jaded after a while. Though this app comes with the great extras like images & slide-shows having almost all multiple choice questions somewhat restricts the fun. I can’t figure out what, but there seems to be some interactive element missing out.

My final verdict, if you are a movies fan, you’ll like this app. If you are an Oscars fan, you’ll like this app or if you are looking for something new to try out, give this one a try.

You can download the Movie Awards Trvia app from the iTunes App Store.

Tips to improve your mobile SEO

2012-02-13T20:10:05Z

Mobile search engines contain different algorithms and bots than used for traditional web searches. They evaluate websites as it is being rendered on a mobile phone. The ranks are computed based on how well the page is rendered for the phone that submits the queries. One thing you can do to improve your mobile SEO is to make verify the user agents, and the mobile crawlers can pick up your content.

Mobile phone search engines are not as finely tuned as traditional search engines. They are still placing tons of weight on bounce rates and using mobile visitors as barometers for how websites renders on phones.

One neat suggestion in improving your mobile search results is to follow traditional SEO strategies. Mobile indexes and bots determine different from web search. The differences entail things such as alt tags; heading tags and title tags are still dominant with mobile SEO.

After performing traditional SEO strategies, it proves necessary to create a secondary mobile sheet from your website. This will allow for formatting of existing pages to be viewed on mobile phones without having to create separate content. It gives you strength with the SEO value that you have already performed on your website minus creating new pages. You can use the mobile style sheet to assist in blocking things from being rendered with using a “display: none” on the style sheet. All mobile phones with the exception of iPhones can automatically pull the “handheld” style sheet.

iPhones determine different with not searching for mobile “handheld” style sheets. In addressing this critical problem, ensure that you copy your handheld sheet, and create on that is geared for the iPhone. The iPhone is meant to render entire website pages, and people statistically still prefer mobile-formatted content on their iPhones.

Sometimes, mobile search engines will rank traditional pages but consider them ill-suited for rending on mobile phones even with mobile-specific style sheets. When this happens, the mobile search engine will rank the traditional content but “transcode” it for viewing on mobile phones.

Transcoded versions of websites are hosted on temporary subdomains on search engine’s domains. Typically, this provides a user experience that proves under-optimized. This is because navigation sometimes is broken or misplaced and the individual pages are separated into different pages for faster downloading. This can prove problematic when it comes to tracking activity on your mobile website, and if someone links to your content, the website might not receive credit for the links. Address this problem with a “no-transform”header of your content. The no-transform in the cache-control should stop transcoding.

Next, you should include a mobile-site map. Google provides tools that can help you in building one of these. For website owners using multiple-markup languages such as WML (Wireless Markup Language) or XHTML, you should submit separate mobile sitemaps per languages being used on the website. Ensure that you link to mobile site maps in your robots.txt file, the same as you would for traditional site maps.

When you are submitting a mobile site map, add the mobile style sheet and the no-transform tag for this should confirm fitting in getting the mobile search engines to rank your content. Another excellent tip is to make sure your traditional content will work on mobile phones. This will provide the best chance of faring well with higher numbers of browsers and phones.

If your content on your website does not include external style sheets, or contains sloppy code or too many media files, the content will have problems rending on mobile phones. You might want to make mobile-specific content on a mobile sub-directory or sub-domain. This can generate tons of problems for SEO strategists because it can end-up splitting traffic and links between two sets of similar pages.

You should use a “handheld” style sheet with the no-transform designation. You can also re-arrange code so that it proves more suited for crawling and rendering. Redirection and browser-detection and self-selection are how websites and mobile phones interact with one another. Browser detection and re-direction is the process that appears to see what browser the website visitor is using to access your website. If the mobile browser is requesting the traditional website, a single PHP script can redirect the user to the mobile phone website. If a browser is requesting the mobile website, it can redirect them to the traditional website. This proves helpful if your website out-ranks your mobile website in mobile searches.

When you think of mobile SEO, the act alone proves dangerous to create a duplicate copy of your website and placing it in a sub-domain. Most website owners think that mobile phones are capable of interpreting the duplication, but unbelievably, they can become confused. When confusion occurs, your new mobile content has a very-little chance of outranking your traditional website in the mobile searches. Redirection and browser-detection should take care of these issues, but there is always a chance of duplicate content taking away value from the content located on the main website.

If this happens, you can try using a canonical tag that will promote the value from your mobile website back to your main website. You can then rely on your browser-detection and re-direction to take care of it. What proves dangerous in this scenario is that you might hurt your rankings for searches on the primitive mobile phones. The reason is that you are pushing the total SEO value into non-mobile content.

Why does superfast broadband matter?

2012-02-13T15:37:13Z

Technology Blogger has had many articles about broadband speeds, superfast internet connections, and how the general trend is that global internet speeds are on the rise, but the question is, why is that important? Why do superfast speeds matter?

Download and Upload

There are two types of internet speed, your download speed, and your upload speed. Your download speed is how fast you can receive data from the internet – how fast you can stream media, receive emails, load websites etc. Your upload speed refers to how fast you can send information to the internet – how fast you can send emails, upload media, update your status etc.

When people talk about broadband speeds on the rise, they are usually referring to download speeds, as most of us get a lot more from the internet than we upload. Both upload and download speeds are on the rise, but upload speeds are usually only around 10% of download speeds – depending upon your location.

So superfast broadband means that we can do things faster, we can download and upload content quicker than we used to be able to. But that does that mean?

More Going On

Faster internet speeds mean that you can be doing more things at once on the internet, with less lag or jitter. You can be on an online game, whilst streaming the radio, and in the background sending emails, all at the same time! You can have more internet hungry applications running at the same time, and the speed of your activities (providing you have adequate processing power) should be the same as if you just had one activity going on.

Improved Internet Call Quality

Faster internet speeds will allow for smother internet calling, with less lag and better quality. You will be able to chat with friend across the globe and stage a conversation as though they were there in the room with you. VoIP will be significantly improved, as faster speeds meant that the media you are sending out is of higher quality, and the stream you are receiving is better too.

Such improvements could significantly benefit businesses, as VoIP can significantly lower the cost of holding meetings with fellow colleges based in different locations, thanks to better, more affordable online conference calling.

Furthermore, improvements in internet call quality can make remote working more viable, meaning that employees can spend more time working and less time commuting, thanks to them being connected all the time. This can save time, money and office space, as more employees are able to work off-site.

Improvements in Healthcare and Education

As Rashed suggested in his recent article (Five changes in video conferencing for the next decade) improvements in internet calls could lead to an improvement in the provision of telemedicine, meaning that the best doctors can help patients from across the world.

There is also similar potential for education. The best lecturers and teachers will be able to educate far greater numbers of individuals from across the world, thanks to faster broadband speeds. Improvements in such technology could be very beneficial for those living in isolated communities.

Cloud Computing Becomes More Viable

Cloud computing has huge potential to cut costs, improve efficiency and improve data security, and superfast broadband makes it more viable! With faster broadband, more and bigger files can be stored in the cloud, meaning that files are less likely to be lost if one device fails, and are more likely to be accessible from any location.

Media Streaming

Streaming media from across the internet is smother, faster and more seamless with faster internet connections. You can watch online videos with less buffering, or even in high definition.

Furthermore, internet TV and other similar services become more viable than ever before. In the last quarter of 2011, Virgin Media reported profits of £48 million, which it is believed is mainly down to faster broadband speeds encouraging more users to user its TV and internet services.

More People Online

Every day thousands of new people around the world make the leap and go online. For every extra person on the internet demanding resources, the whole system slows down a little. However with superfast broadband, more people can be online with less of an effect on speeds. In large offices, more employees can be connected, with less of an effect on the speeds received. This is also true in households, more people can be downloading media, whilst it not affecting others on online games.

Your Speed

Superfast broadband is very important and is revolutionising the way we do business and live our lives. The question is, how fast is your broadband speed? Are you likely to benefit from the things I mentioned above, or do you need to think about switching provider? Try this very useful broadband speed test from uSwitch and see if you could be getting a better deal elsewhere.

ITIL improves the relationship between the business and IT

2012-02-10T15:44:07Z

The most successful business can usually demonstrate a healthy relationship with its IT department. This is because over time IT has learnt what it is that the business require from technology and as a result have been able to design and deliver IT services that meet the needs of the business. This in turn can be seen as an enabler of the success of the business as a whole.

A very simple conclusion can be drawn from this and that is that if an IT department delivers to the business the IT that it wants and needs, then the business will be more inclined to listen to the advice of IT on technical matters in the future. There is also an increased likelihood that they will provide sufficient investment to meet future requirements. In other words business and IT will get on well with each other – a happy marriage!

Business and IT need to get on well

However, we’ve all probably been in the situation whereby the business is extremely demanding of IT. Where the business itself identifies technical solutions, before even identifying its needs. Where budgets are cut whilst demands continue to increase. Certainly in such circumstances, the IT professionals strive to perform as best they can, but frequently fall short of meeting the lofty expectations of the over demanding business community. This often results in more cuts and/or poorly managed outsourcing activities. The end result here is typically increased dissatisfaction, which in turn can easily lead to reduced business productivity and ultimately increased costs overall. Most definitely not a happy marriage!

The ITIL best practice framework is designed to improve the relationship between IT and the business. By building bridges between the two, the improved communication will help to ensure increased alignment between the IT delivered and the specific needs of the business. This in turn cannot help but improve productivity, both for the business community and IT itself.

An IT department should not be run from its own remote silo. Rather it should be considered part of the business as a whole and indeed central to the success of that business. ITIL facilitates a good working relationship between the business and IT, which can only be beneficial to both parties.

As the saying goes…. It’s good to talk!

Jonny’s 7 Links Challenge Response

2012-02-10T19:49:03Z

Well first a big thanks to Christopher for nominating me for this 7 links challenge post, and I will get straight into it. I should say that a couple of my choices are more like web articles than blog posts because there is no way of commenting, but as this is how I got into blogging and because the vast majority of my posts have historically been in this format I include them nevertheless (apologies if this is bending the rules). Now at last anyone can comment upon them here and I am all ears.

The Lucky 7 strikes again

Most beautiful

My most beautiful post involved an interview with a member of the US Congress, Michael Capuano. Congressman Capuano represents Boston and Cambridge, home of MIT, Harvard University, Boston University and 30 other research institutions, and the ward once held by President Kennedy. I was interested in the politics that lie behind technological development, and as he represents more scientists and global research organizations than anyone else on the planet I wanted to speak to him.

My wife thought I had lost the plot as I started sending e mails to Congress, but as you can see I did get in touch with him, he granted me an interview and I posted the transcription in its entirety and wholly unedited on the Bassetti Foundation website (with his clearance).

Most popular

Without doubt my most popular posts are within the series I wrote here on Technology Bloggers about the environment. Some of the posts created a lot of discussion and all in all the series got more than 50 comments. Within the series I would have to say that ‘Engineering a Solution to Global Warming’ was the most popular, and it certainly stirred some debate.

Most controversial

Although it passed by relatively unnoticed (a bit off target for Technology Bloggers but posted anyway) I would say that my most controversial post was that about US immigration. The post talked about the fact that technology has allowed US borders to move overseas and many travelers now enter US jurisdiction in a foreign airport before even boarding the aircraft. The ethical and political implications seem to have gone unnoticed however by the general public.

Helpful

The most helpful post is about buying spyware on the net, again on the Bassetti Foundation website. I did not buy anything I might add, but used the post lots of times to provoke debate in the various Italian secondary schools I worked in as an English teacher. Among other more obvious products the post is about mobile phone technology that allows a person to listen in to another person’s conversation and receive copies of their texts. All you need is the box or serial number from your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband’s or anyone else’s phone. You order the software over the Internet and it is downloaded directly into the phone (any smart phone will do) without the owner’s knowledge when they go online, and you spy. Some even allow you to listen to the surrounding area when the target phone is turned off using the inbuilt microphone. Not legal to use in most countries but legal to buy.

Surprisingly successful

My most surprisingly successful post involves an interview with Marta Milani, one of my ex students, also on the Bassetti Foundation site. Marta took up athletics while at school, and after leaving she became a member of the Italian Army athletics squad. I followed her career until one day I saw that she was competing in an international meeting where Oscar Pistorius (a South African athlete who races with 2 carbon fibre legs) was competing. I have an interest in prosthetics as one of my other posts here shows, one day having a new body part might seem a good idea, harder wearing, does not burn, stronger etc, it’s only like having a crown on a tooth or a new hip or knee after all. I tracked Marta down and interviewed her about the place of technology in sports. A couple of years later Marta managed to qualify for the World Championships and in an incredible result got to the semi-final. She will also be competing in the Olympics this year as current Italian champion over 400mtrs, and as a result my post gets a lot more readers than I ever imagined. Unfortunately the interview was conducted in Italian although the introduction and summary of the conversation is in English.

Underrated

Probably my first foray into blogging was and remains the most underrated post. Posted on the Bassetti Foundation website it did not receive any comments. The post is entitled ‘Drugs for People, Not for Profit’ and is a report on changes in how drugs companies conduct their business, the ethics and marketing involved in the production of new medicines and the falling rates of new patents. It was is a complex post and took a lot of research (and reading) so I was rather disappointed, but I learnt from the process.

Excellent

Well I would have to say that I think my most excellent article appeared on the Innovation Excellence website in their blog entitled ‘Responsibility in the Processes of Innovation’. Although it didn’t receive any comments it was widely circulated, and I think that it is my best written to date. The article really looks like it could be published anywhere, it doesn’t look like a blog or even an online publication but resembles old school academia, and in fact I took the base from an entry in the Dictionary of Social Sciences about Responsible Innovation that refers to the foundation that employs me. I cannot take all the credit though as the piece is very much a joint effort, I translated the base article from Italian and expanded upon it.

Writing about your own work creates a strange sensation, particularly if you want to talk about it in glowing terms as required by some of the categories above, but it makes you think about your public voice. As I don’t know 5 other bloggers I am open to volunteers for nomination on my part, applications below.