They announced it as a “Small Settings Update” – pasted below:

Small Settings Update

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

The Importance of Discovery

Spotting new folks in tweets is an interesting way to check out new profiles and find new people to follow. Despite this update, you’ll still see mentions or references linking to people you don’t follow. For example, you’ll continue to see, “Ev meeting with @biz about work stuff” even if you don’t follow @biz. We’ll be introducing better ways to discover and follow interesting accounts as we release more features in this space.

The beauty of Twitter has always been that it is like a chat room where you are not necessarily listening to the same people who you are talking to. That may seem a bit odd at first, but when you think about it it can be rather cool. Take me for instance; without sounding too egotistical, I have time to follow about 100 people, but more than that are interested in what I have to say. Some of those people might mainly use Twitter to talk about personal issues that are not relevant to me, so I don’t follow them.

Equally, I like hearing replies from people I do follow to people that I do not. That way I can “listen in” to conversations of the people I follow and if it sounds interesting I can link through and look at the other side of the convo, but I don;t have to have the other person in my feed / timeline.

@monkchips is a good example; he is a great Twitterer and a strong voice in the IT community. He follows about 800 people, and is followed by >5,000. I like hearing his side of conversations directed at people I do not follow, since then I can cherry-pick interesting sounding ones. I follow him because he is interesting, not because he is a personal friend or we share friends.

In effect, this change is turning Twitter into a ‘normal’ chat room just like the ones I was using 13 years ago at University. We used a system called Internet Relay Chat.. or IRC as it is commonly known. Such a shame to see a great innovation in online comms take a massive leap backwards.

I became the first woman to tandem skydive past Mount Everest and I was very, very nervous.

It took us about 45 mins to climb from the airstrip at 12,000feet (the highest airstrip in the world) to 29,500 feet (in-line with the top of Mt. Everest), but we were certainly not bored – we were treated to what must be some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet. Titanic mountain peaks reaching into the sky, wreathed in cloud and wearing heavy coats of snow were all around us, and dwarfing them all was mighty Everest itself.

Five minutes to go, and Wendy (our hugely-skilled, and thoroughly lovely camera-flyer) disconnected me from the plane’s oxygen and put me onto my own personal bottle. At this point I was definitely having trouble restraining my nervousness!

What seemed like moments later, it was time to open the door, and I should have been terrified but for the fact that as Tom, my instructor, pushed it back there was Everest, directly to starboard, thrusting magnificently above the sparse clouds! I had to sit in the door for a couple of minutes, feet dangling over the edge in the freezing 120 mph wind, but that was actually rather nice – it gave me a chance to get used to the rushing sensation and calm a little.

But then, all that calm was shattered as our Swiss-pilot, Rudy, gave the green light and Tom, Wendy and I manoeuvered into the door, and then we were out – AAAARRRGGGHHH!!



I kept my eyes tight shut. Then the air started to support us, and, feeling like I was flying, I opened them to see the most amazing sight of my life.

Within moments the terrifying falling sensation faded though, and I was flying over the Himalayas, falling past Mt. Everest’s snow-clad slopes!! I cannot adequately describe how that felt, but it was without a shadow of doubt one of the most intense, beautiful and amazing experiences of my life.

So what possessed me? Well, I am raising money for Computer Clubs 4 Girls, a national schools programme to encourage 10-14 year old girls to consider the IT industry as a career. Already I have raised over £3,000 so far.

CC4G is a cause I passionately believe in as there is a crisis in IT when it comes to women. The industry trade body of which I am a main board member, Intellect UK (the UK’s IT trade association, of which I am a main board member), says the under-representation of women in IT “remains a significant and worsening issue”. In fact in 2007 only 18 per cent of IT and Telecoms professionals were female.

And research just released by Intellect in their most recent Perceptions of Equal Pay Survey shows that less than a third of women in IT believe their pay reflects their experience and skills respectfully. This is hardly surprising as the gender pay gap in IT is 23 per cent – 6 per cent more than the average in all other sectors.

Another finding shows that nearly 60 per cent of those women surveyed believed that their company did not have a transparent pay structure.

So, as well as campaigning for equal pay for women in IT, I am also campaigning to get pre-teens and teenage girls to consider the opportunities, as there are few professions that can give them such broad access to almost all industry sectors.

It is not just about encouraging the girls towards fulfilling and rewarding careers though. We, the IT industry, badly need them; there is good evidence that companies with gender-balanced management teams are more effective and more profitable, in some cases by as much as 34% on the bottom line (Catalyst, 2005).

Hence the jump. It was really worth it – a fantastic flight, but certainly no flight of fancy. Read about my trip through the Himilayas and see some pictures of Nepal on my Jump Everest blog.

Congratulations also to my friend Holly Budge – the first woman to solo-skydive Everest!

In this article I shall try to point out some examples of “environmental activities” that do little more than salve our conscience, making us feel we are “doing something good”, thus diverting attention from the real problem areas, as well as some examples of what I feel are total “green myths”.

Myth: Switch it off / standby power

There has been widespread media coverage of a “turn it off” campaign. Certainly, not leaving electrical devices (be it a PC or a TV) on at all times is plain wasteful, but getting people to totally turn such devices off at the plug rather than just letting it go into standby mode is, frankly, a bit of a waste of time.

The problem is that the figures used by the media are at least ten years out of date. For example, a modern TV built within the last 6 years uses about 0.5Watts in standby mode. That means that a TV would have to be on standby for about a month to use the same energy as boiling a kettle (approx 0.3kWh, or about 0.13KG CO2)!

Also, we should not forget that all the energy we use ultimately ends up as heat, thus warming up the office or house a little. Therefore, if the building is being heated at that time of year the the energy is not wasted anyway. In fact, when you compare the net effect of leaving devices on standby (rather than unplugging them) with the total carbon footprint of a typical home (most of which comes from burning gas), the total contribution is only 0.3%. If you want to make a difference, turn the thermostat down and wear a jumper – don’t worry about standby power.

The same applies to PCs; a modern desktop computer (with screen) will use around 2 Watts when in hibernate mode. Getting people to shut down their machines totally at night inconveniences them and wastes their time the next morning when they have to boot up and get back to where they were. Promoting the use of hibernate rather than shutting down is much better since they are more likely to do it, or even better use the built-in power management facilities in the PC to automatically standby or hibernate after a period of inactivity.

Myth: Home working is not that green

Travel is one of the most environmentally damaging activities we do in day-to-day life. Even if driving a very fuel efficient car, a 20 kilometres journey (ie. a short round-trip commute) will produce around 2KG of carbon emissions. Obviously public transport is much better, but it still better to encourage staff to work from home some of the time where practical.

The myth here is that someone working at home uses more energy than in the office because they are heating the house. Even in fairly cool climates, modern, well insulated homes only lose a few degrees celsius during the day, and since most people tend to prefer working in a slightly cooler environment anyway the natural dip in daytime temperature is not an issue. As well as that, most people would have their heating set to come on to have warmed up the house by the time they got home regardless so the overall effect is negligible. Additionally, if you get a proportion of the workforce to work remotely you can have smaller offices, which means less lighting, heating etc. Encouraging home working is definitely good from a green perspective.

One alternative though is to encourage staff to use more efficient modes of transport for commuting of course!

Myth: IT is very harmful to the environment

The IT industry has recently been the subject of some negative media attention regarding its contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions (around 2% globally according to Gartner). In particular, there have been comparisons to the airline industry which contributes a similar amount. Such comparisons are simply not appropriate; yes, the IT industry may generate 2-3% of Europe’s carbon emissions, but it contributes around 10% of our total GDP!

Additionally, the IT sector as a whole has been making huge leaps forwards in recent years. A server bought in 2006, for example, used twice the power and did half the work of one bought today; a four fold improvement. That said, there is still a lot of work to do in improving the efficiency of data centres, but again we are taking the issues very seriously and are making huge leaps forwards in efficiency thanks to technologies such as virtualisation.

Finally, IT is a key enabler of energy efficiency in other sectors; everything from home working (above) to efficient logistics. One could even argue that the 2% contribution is more than repaid by the use of IT to reduce other industries carbon footprint. If you are interested in what the IT industry is doing to combat climate change then read Intellect’s (the UK’s high tech trade association) recent report High Tech: Low Carbon – The role of technology in tackling climate change.

As a slight aside it is also worth remembering that, in the case of a desktop PC at least, the embedded energy cost of manufacture and distribution (around 1,000 kWh, of half a tonne of CO2) is a large proportion of its lifetime energy cost. What this means is that it is worth trying to avoid replacing desktop PCs for as long as possible. Over a 5 year lifetime with typical office use, an average PC’s total energy cost would be roughly 50% in manufacture and 50% in electricity used. The situation is different for servers, however, and in some cases it makes both environmental and economic sense to replace them after 2-3 years.

Myth: Recycling paper is great

Many businesses make a big show of how good they are at recycling paper. In reality though, while it is certainly a good thing to do, it is not one of the big issues we should be worrying about; most of our paper comes from renewable sources in Norway, not from deforestation of rain forests, and in fact the energy needed to recycle paper is only marginally less than the energy needed to extract it from the tree in the first place. Additionally, because of shortening of fibres in the paper you can only recycle it about 3 times, and if you use cross-cut shredders then you cannot recycle the paper at all.

As well as the above, one could argue that growing trees, turning them into paper and then burying them in landfill sites is actually a rather good method of carbon sequestration, provided that you capture the any methane produced from the landfill by anaerobic degradation of organic waste.

There is a danger that focusing on things like paper recycling becomes a distraction, encouraging people to believe they are doing real good when what they should be worrying about are things like using less energy in the office, travelling less and improving the utilisation of IT existing resources. That said, recycling paper (and trying to avoid using it at all) is certainly something that we should do, we just need to retain perspective and realise that it is much less significant than many other environmental initiatives.

Myth: We can’t make a real difference, so there is no point trying

I am frequently faced with apathetic views on tackling climate change, the basic premise being that the developing world (especially China) is going to vastly outstrip Europe in terms of greenhouse gas emissions perhaps within a decade at its current rate of development.

Yes, in reality, even if the whole of Europe became super-green it would not be enough to reverse the global trend – we need to encourage the developing world to be more efficient as well. Therefore, what we should be doing in business is demonstrating to China and similar countries that it is possible to be green while still having a vibrant economy and not inconveniencing end-users. Europe’s collective role in combating climate change will not ultimately be down to our own reductions alone; it will be though us being exemplars to the rest of the world on how to be a successful low-carbon economy.

I am ashamed to say that I failed to do any such thing with any regularity last year for a number of fairly feeble reasons, principally that the two mile journey was inconveniently uphill almost all the way which meant that by the time I got there I was tired, hot and a feeling like I needed a shower! Of course, being a bit more fit would fix the problem, but that would involve even more effort on my part, and I’m not one for taking the hard path if an alternative is available.

On the same research park as us there is a new company called Natural Discovery that offers trips around the Surrey countryside on an electric bike, the concept being that it takes the sting out of the more strenuous parts of the journey for those of us for whom Davina McCaul’s 30 minute tummy toning exercise video is a serious work out! The idea of an electric bike seemed perfect; I could get to work easily, cheaply, quickly and in an environmentally friendly manner all at the same time!

Speaking with the Natural Discovery boys I uncovered one of the hidden benefits of electric bikes; due to their eco-friendliness the revenue does not regard them as a benefit-in-kind for tax purposes, which means that Memset (my company) could buy the bikes and make them available to staff without a tax increase, as there would be with a company car for instance.

They kindly arranged a trial of their Urban Mover bikes, a mountain bike and a ladies’ town bike the latter of which I borrowed for a week. At first glance they did not look unlike normal bikes; the motor is concealed within the rear hub and the battery nestled against the vertical bar under the seat. They were noticeably heavier when pushing, but once astride they felt just like normal bikes, at least until you started to peddle. Although there is a twist-grip which just kicks in the motor, in normal operation it does not get used, so all you have to do is get on an use it like a normal bike. The difference is that once you start peddling, the bike “helps”; the motor kicking in and assisting you gently but firmly. I rapidly became accustomed to my little helper and within minutes was whizzing back and forth really quite fast (10-15mph) but with very little effort – quite delightful!

The real test was on the daily commute though. I would normally wait until 6pm to avoid the traffic, but that should not be an issue so left at 17:30. Sure enough, I was happily passing the slow-moving traffic, feeling confident enough to move out to the middle of the road and effortlessly swish past the somewhat surprised car drivers. It rapidly became apparent that I needed to be a little careful – I did seem to be surprising people by managing to pull away as fast as them, catching them up from behind and overtaking – not something they were expecting from a girl on a bike, so I tried to give myself extra space as I would when riding my motorbike. Enjoying the downhill run home I was mildly disappointed when the motor maxed out and cut off at 15mph (the legal limit for electric assistance) and I found I had run out of gears, so could not be as much of a speed-freak as I would have liked. Hardly a big problem though!

The following morning I made the same trip back, this time uphill. It was an absolute breeze; the normally arduous journey transformed into a pleasant trip. I could still make it strenuous if I wanted, and that just meant I got there really fast! In fact, on the second morning I decided to go for it a bit, and later that week gleefully received third-hand reports from car commuters who had noticed a “blonde girl hurtling along past all the traffic on bicycle with far too much ease”. It was especially fun racing with some of the uber-fit cyclists who generally did not notice the fact that it was an electric bike until at least a quater mile of hard work keeping up with me! Definitely an unexpected plus to the whole experience.

After the week’s trial I decided to buy some on the company, initially for my brother and myself. I found the riding position of the ladies’ bike a little too upright, and preferring the pseudo-mountain bike’s more usual pose opted for that one (the target="_blank">Urban Mover 36). One minor problem I had found was that the motor tended to kick in and help even when peddling very gently, for example when filtering through traffic resulting in me having to keep jumping on the brakes. In fact, when the motor system was turned on it was hard to ride slowly at all. Therefore when speccing up the new purchase I decided to spend a little extra and get bikes with torque sensors that give graded assistance depending on how hard (specifically with how much force) you are peddling. Having the torque sensor definitely helps, giving a smoother, more controlled ride while also helping to conserve the battery by avoiding unnecessary accelerating and braking.

I also opted for the more expensive lithium polymer batteries which allow me to use it for a week’s worth of commuting (20-ish miles) and some without needing a charge. The total price was not small – around £900 each – but with the tax break (which when taking NI into account is >30%) I felt it was affordable, and I expect the prices will drop in time. You can get cheaper electric bikes, but from speaking to Natural Discovery (who trialled many) I think it is worth going for the more expensive end of the market.

Despite this Summer’s hopeless weather I am now managing to cycle into work a lot more, and am feeling better for it. The eclectic assistance, while helpful, does not eliminate the need for work on the rider’s part so I am getting a bit fitter too. In terms of raw cost-benefit I doubt the bikes pay for themselves, even considering the cost of offsetting a car’s carbon emissions, but when you combine the financial benefits with the reduced peak commute time, easing parking requirements (we have 1 space for every 2 people), environmental friendliness and gently getting fit during your commute, I think the package is very worthwhile indeed.

(also published on Telegraph Earth)

I am presently catching a few moments late in the evening on a train seeing as I managed to forget my Vodafone datacard and am unplugged so can’t do any real work. Certainly, I enjoy writing about various topics, and doing things you enjoy is always important. However, is this blogging thing actually of any practical use in a business context? First of all though, we should perhaps break up blogging into two categories. The vast majority of writings are social blogs – people sharing their life experiences, usually with a fairly small (20-100 people) community of online and/or “real life” friends. The principle site for that activity seems to be MySpace, especially for slightly younger age groups, while LiveJournal appears to attract a slightly more mature group of writers.

In my view blogs are the modern day soap operas; giving people a chance to peer into others’ lives on the one hand, while allowing the writer to fulfil that deep-seated desire to share personal details with the world on the other. The range of subjects is quite staggering (here are some of the terms associated with blogging. Some simply write about their day-to-day trials and tribulations (a lot of blogs are really rather depressing), while more focused examples include details of the writer’s sexual adventures, or the dreaded catbloggers – people writing about their cat, often pictured in amusing poses (why?!). I would like to be able to disdainfully sniff at this apparent mass waste of time, but I’m just as guilty and have at times been drawn into some of the online communities that grow up and have ultimately met some good friends through them. That is, perhaps, the ultimate drive behind personal / social blogging – a modern-day means of connecting with like-minded others and making new friends.

The massive human desire (need, even?) to share can of course be dangerous. There have been many examples in the news lately of incidents such people losing job interviews thanks to be a little too open in their personal blogs and forgetting that the whole world can view what they write. More serious issues around cyberstalking have also come into the spotlight, with MySpace being sued after a young girl was assualted by someone that she met on the site. Personally, I think that is daft. When I was young the mantra “don’t talk to strangers” was drummed into us, and our parents took responsibility for our protection. It is no more the job of Web hosts and community site owners to police their content and users’ activities than it is for the phone operators to scan / filter text messages or calls. To blame a Web site for a girl being dim enough to give out personal information is a dangerous step on a slippery slope.

Anyway, rants aside, back to the subject in hand; does blogging have a place in the business world? Even though I have not been doing it long, I am already seeing benefits. On the one hand, it appears to have helped people see that there is a real person behind Memset, and that human aspect seems to be popular in what can be a rather impersonal online business world. I also like it as a platform (soap box?) to voice my opinions on a number of topics, and the very act of doing so is something I find very useful since it gives me a chance to sit back and look at the world through a different lens and to get some feedback and debate from my eclectic group of readers. Also, it seems there is demand for people willing to give their views; partly as a result of this blog I have been invited to give a few talks and recently wrote an article for a leading IT business magazine (I’ll post it here once they have published it).

So, in short, yes I do think blogging is useful for me in a business context, however there is also a misconception around it. While this blog does divert some traffic to the Memset Web site, it is pretty small in the grander scheme of things, and generating traffic is definitely not a significant benefit. That could change, I suppose, but I would encourage those writing “business blogs” in the hope that it will improve their main site’s traffic to re-evaluate their motives.

Finally, it is worth mentioning an impressive example of the power of the blogosphere. Many scientists write blogs of their activities in lieu of formal peer-reviewed publications. Last December, John Conway mentioned in his blog that he thought he might have glimpsed a sign of one of the most elusive things in modern physics; the Higgs Boson (the theoretical particle that gives everything in the universe mass). He mentioned it in his blog, but dismissed it as an abberation, however two months later another group noticed something similar and they too made a passing mention in their blog. Independently both results might be dismissed, but together the coincidence is striking and might never have been noticed otherwise (read more at New Scientist).

Blogging could be argued to be a vast waste of time, but in my view it is certainly better than watching TV, gives people an important creative & social outlet, and can have serious benefits for business and professionals. Communication is almost always a good thing – we just need to develop new mental tools to ensure that it does not absorb all our time, and employ a bit more common sense when interacting en-masse with strangers.

It was a moment’s work to kill off the torrent site, and I sent a gentle email to the customer in question suggesting that they might like to take advantage of our Perimeter Patrol™ security services. He was a lucky one – many of our customers only decide to get us to manage their server’s security for them after a major, and damaging intrusion, but in their case no harm was done. There are plenty of commercially-run sites as well; it is not all just hackers stealing others’ bandwidth, and peer-to-peer file sharing is constantly growing especially as home broadband connections become ever-faster.

There is an on-going battle on the encryption and encoding front too. Just recently in The Register I heard that someone has already cracked the new HD DVD’s anti-rip system; embarrassing in the extreme for the HD DVD format’s supporters. The problem is, at a simplistic level, if you can play it then you can copy it. There are simply no two ways about it, and I for one think the music and movie industries are fighting a battle they cannot win, and should be taking a different approach entirely.

I am hardly innocent myself; I am quite a fan of allofmp3.com (a Russian mp3 site that purports pseudo-legality), but in my defense I primarily use it for getting good quality rips of CD’s and tapes I already own and therein, I think, lies a potential savior of the music industry. People like me do not want to be criminals, and we are also quite happy to pay a modest fee for a convenient service. I could have just ripped my CD’s for free, but I preferred to pay a few dollars and not faff about with disks etc.

Traditionally, a major cost for the media industries has been distribution, but the Internet renders that tiny. I am no expert, but I am pretty sure the music industry could make good money even at a small fraction of the current prices, say 10-20p per track. If combined with a really good interface most people would be quite happy to pay rather than mess about trying to download dodgy mp3′s.

In fact, it might even allow the music industry to sell a lot more thanks to being able to make “smart suggestions” based on what other users with similar tastes also like – there are already examples of such systems out there. Equally, such a model would be a great boon to small-time artists who currently have a nightmare getting their material heard since there would be minimal costs associated with getting your music listed, and if it was good then the “smart suggestions” system would auto-promote it. Everyone wins. Hmm, why am I giving out potentially-killer business ideas to the world?

However, this all powerfully reminds me of a sub-text to an excellent book I read last year by Peter F. Hamilton, Misspent youth. It portrays a world where ubiquitous high-speed connectivity and massive personal storage capacities have rendered copyright impotent, and the professional production of new novels, music and movies ends. Such a future seems, at times, chilling near.

Many large corporates now have a CSR budget – essentially an allocation of funds that have to be put towards “good things” like supporting the local community or implementing more environmentally friendly processes. Sadly, for many of those organisations it can end up just being a soulless line on the P&L amounting to little more than a financial donation, but many companies, especially in the high-tech sectors, are making real changes to how they operate in an effort to be more socially responsible.

It is not just about getting a good night’s sleep either; as we all know consumers increasingly care about the impact of the products they buy on other people and environment – the rise in fair trade and free range products being cases in point. Companies are ideally placed to further encourage such measures too simply by virtue of being a collective of people. In the UK many IT companies seem very open to such initiatives; for example, with encouragement from Compassion in World Farming, Google and AOL have switched to only using free range eggs in all their staff catering. A small and low-cost step, but lots of little steps add up! Quite why high-tech firms seems to be more open to such changes is not readily apparent, but I expect it comes down to younger, forward-thinking companies being more open to change.

There are many innovations coming out of the CSR drive as well. In the same building as us, just upstairs from our office, is a company called Magic Taxi (www.magictaxi.co.uk). They are a search-engine with a difference; every time an advert is clicked on (the main source of revenue for most search engines) half of the revenues goes towards some of the leading UK charities. Most of their users are obtained by getting large companies to install the Magic Taxi search toolbar into the standard PC setup which costs the corporate nothing, but helps them spend some of that CSR budget they were struggling to make good us of.

It is by no means only large orgnaisations that can and should be acting in a socially responsible manner either, and there are plenty of cheap measures small businesses can implement. Take Memset for example; party by accident we ended up hosting quite a few charities’ Web sites for free (it did not seem right to charge them), and just recently we have formalised the offer and to provide free hosting for any charity’s Web site (even if they need a cluster of dedicated servers!) in exchange for an acknowledgment on their site. It is far cheaper for us to provide some free service & expertise than to make an equivalent cash donation, and we get paid back by our name being spread more widely. Another example is power usage; we are committed to investing in energy-efficient server systems & technologies, such our Miniserver™ technology, which saves us and our clients money (electricity is our single largest cost) and helps the environment at the same time. CSR really can be a win-win for business and society alike.

Online gaming is becoming serious business, with exponential growth during the last 8 years to over 12 million players (chart courtsey of MMOGChart.com) and global revenues measured in billions of dollars. That demographic of users is not just teenage boys hiding their acne from an unforgiving world, either; more and more girls are playing for example, and more adults too with the average player age in many games being mid-to-late twenties.

Take me for instance; I first got properly hooked on a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) called City of Heroes when I was 26. While the appeal for many was running around a virtual city and clobbering villains into insensibility with a range of super-powers, I was drawn in by things like the social interaction (such games are very chat-room like), the ability to conjure up almost any costume imaginable (think 101 varieties of pink Spandex!), and trying to get my avatar to pull off nifty dance moves in the midst of some mighty battle of Good vs. Evil – I liked to let my trusty team mates do the actual dirty work!

Back then, admittedly, girl-gamers were still in a minority (perhaps 10-20% at most), but game designers are becoming ever more inventive at broadening their audience, and there is some solid research around it now too. According to an article I recently read in New Scientist, men and women have just as much fun engaging in virtual violence (for example), but women need more of a reason; a story line to follow. But then, we all know that men are more simpler creatures quite happy to take pleasure from blowing stuff up for no good reason.

So are we all going to be playing online games in years to come? No, I don’t think so, however I do think that the lines between games and social activities will become ever more blurred. Take Second Life; like most MMORPG it is a virtual world where text-based chatting is enhanced by a personally customised avatar that can laugh, cry, dance, gesticulate and more, yet it is not really a game. Unlike the traditional MMORPGs, it has no specific objective – no target for participants to achieve. It is just an online environment where people can, if they wish, build a literal second life. In 2002 EverQuest became the first MMORPG to have a significant “economy” – arguably comparable in size to Russia’s. Second Life has a real-world currency exchange actually built in, which is so effective that some players have given up their “real world” job and instead earn in-game currency.

Regardless of their ever-changing nature, it seems clear that demand for online games and virtual worlds will continue to grow, and that means more demand for servers and bandwidth. So then guys, pick up your rocket-launchers and, er, get back to work!

Up until recently I had been using a massive Dell Inspiron 9100, which is a great laptop as long as you don’t actually put it on your lap or try to lug it around on the tube. I have also been a faithful Palm user for many years, but trying to do anything useful on a PDA, even with a bluetooth keyboard, is painful thanks to slow & limited applications, terrible reliability issues and poor battery life.

So, I recently splashed out on a gorgeous little Sony Vaio VGN-TX2HP (see right). Not only is it perhaps the ultimate geek-girl fashion accessory (and great for starting conversations on the train!), but it is so small that it fits in my handbag, so light that it is a breeze to carry, and has a battery life that puts the energizer bunny to shame (4-7 hours!)! It comes in-and-out of standby mode really fast too, making it so convenient to use that I will often put it to sleep while changing lines on the underground and just wake it back up for another 10 mins work tube-hop.

My other problem was mobile connectivity. I was using 3G on my hopelessly slow, chunky and unreliably Nokia 6680, which not only had major issues handing over between cells causing the connection to bounce irritatingly when on the move, but was also limited to 112Kbps thanks to the bluetooth connection. Therefore I recently gave in to temptation and bought one of Vodafone’s new high speed mobile data cards. I went with their more expensive £25/mo, 250MB/mo one rather than the popular £17/mo, 2,000MB/mo T-mobile for three reasons: i) I trust Vodafone’s network more ii) Vodafone don’t filter the traffic – T-mobile block things like VOIP and even MSN apparently, & iii) Vodafone’s can do up to 1.8Mbps when the new HSDPA system is fully rolled out. I have been seriously impressed so far; I get a persistent link almost all the way from Guildford to Waterloo, and the connection speeds are truly broadband-like. Even the latency is better – I can happily use PuTTY/SSH without a painful lag.

This sort of true anywhere-connectivity gives a whole raft of new options as well. Already, all my email is stored centrally on a remote IMAP server, along with most of my critical documents, diary and so forth. I am only a few steps away from having everything important centrally stored with my laptop acting as little more then a client application terminal, and when I have managed that the days of fretting about backups will be gone. I am not alone either; we are seeing an ever increasing demand for online business applications from IMAP email to CRM solutions and centrally hosted groupware.

Anyway, you may be saying “that’s all very well, but those are not cheap toys!”, and you’d be right. However I am quite sure that they have already paid for themselves in terms of my increased productivity. Money well spent I say (and come on, they’re so cool! ).

I have decided to move my blog here to make use of the excellent setup (no point reinventing the wheel!) and to make it a bit more public.

This blog/journal is some of my thoughts, comments and experiences on issues facing UK Information Communications Technology (ICT) &amp; businesses from the perspective of a young entrepreneur; the Managing Director of <a href=”http://www.memset.com/”>Memset Ltd, a leading UK dedicated server company</a> (me!).

Why, you may ask? Well mainly because no-one else seems to be doing it in the UK, and as with any industry there are lots of issues to talk about!

OK, OK, and sure I hope it will raise the company’s exposure, and yes I do like to write, but hey – nobody is perfect.

Well, off to try and work out how to make this all look nice… I knew I should have remembered those CSS skills!

Kate.