Archive for the ‘Digital Birmingham’ Category

I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently as Digital Birmingham have been looking at the way that using the social web can help Small and Medium Sized businesses to drum up work.

Recently, Pete Ashton had a problem with his boiler and he asked Twitter for recommendations.

Now, having been on various Moseley related lists in the past ten years or so I knew that it wouldn’t be long before somebody recommended Clive the Gasman. Sure enough, Jon Bounds soon popped up and did exactly that.  I’ve used Clive myself because Bill Lees from the old Moseley Free group recommended him.

More - SMEs: Don’t bother with the Social Web

Online accounts at risk

The number is up for any who thinks they can count on a simple online password to keep personal details secure.  Choosing an easy-to-remember sequence of numbers is so widespread it is making it easy for cyber-criminals to hack into accounts.

Andrew Penman wrote an article in the Daily Mirror on 22 Jan 10 detailing the Top 10 passwords, I had to have a quick look down the list to see how many of them I’m guilty of, and with some relief my usual passwords are not listed, but I bet it still wouldn’t take the Hackers long to crack them!

How well do you fare in the The Top Ten Passwords list:

• 123456
• 12345
• 123456789
• Password
• iloveyou
• princess
• rockyou
• 1234567
• 12345678
• abc123

17 minutes … in that time 1,000 accounts will be hacked!  Tips on safe passwords including picking a gibberish word or taking a sentence like ‘this little piggy went to market’ and turning it into ‘tlpWENT2m’ - you should mix upper and lower case letters, avoid short passwords and don’t use the same one for several sites (well now they tell me!!) and finally, never trust anyone else with your passwords to sites such as personal banking!

The Pope has issued a new commandment to priests: Thou shalt blog - and make animated videos too!  His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI advised clerics around the world that using multimedia tools would help read the gospel. (released Vatican 23rd Jan 2010) 

The Pope may be 82 years old but he obviously has understood the huge importance of using digital channels for communicating messages.  Pope Benedict’s own online activities include a YouTube channel, a website and Pope2You even features a Facebook application that lets you send postcards with photos of Pope Benedict to friends.  I’m hoping that me spreading his good news may get me one step closer to the pearly gates in years to come!

Image from the Vatican

I’ve just read an interesting article from the BBC site which makes reference to London’s attempt to free up some of the public sector data in order to see how people might use it.  Birmingham is doing a similar project called Timely Information - but I hadn’t realised until now that 4ip Channel 4’s innovation fund are offering a £200,000 reward for the best of the ideas that come out of the mashup.  If I were a hacker, that would give me another good reason to work into the small hours.  And when you’re analysing the released datasets, why not check out the Council’s ‘Be Heard’ database.  This is an online portal for all of the City’s consultation.  Eg. what people want.  Hackers, you have the data, and you also have a font of information from the public, on what services they need or would like to see developed. Check out the piece from the BCC here

In my post Christmas, rather over indulged state, I’ve just had a quick look around for some help with how to get back into shape.

It didn’t take me long to find a favourite….   Came across this site from handbag.co.uk that shows you little video clips of different exercises, relevant to different body parts.  Exercises relevant to a pretty comprehensive list such as; banish back fat, get a booty-licious bum, minimise your miffin tops, eliminate jelly belly to list just a few - I guess there’s something there for any ailment.

I’ve been working on the banish bingo wings for the past 10 mins - whilst eating the last of the mince pies in the office.  I’m hoping to pull off a break even calorie count.

A site I will be logging onto quite often over the next month.  Why not check it out here then let me know your favourite and if you’ve seen any improvement.

As we nudge closer to 2010, here is a look back at some of the digital highlights from our 2009 work programme that we have been involved in with our partners and colleagues across the city. We look forward to a successful 2010 - Happy New Year.
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With the e-christmas cards doing the rounds, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to send out our own personalised message. So this is a once only, because I don’t think I’ll be able to persuade the team to do this again - well at least not the singing Santa version. Hope you have a great christmas!
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Thought it would be good to share with you our December headline report that we circulate to stakeholders and interested parties. It provides an update on Computers for Pupis (CfP) initiative which has seen over 18,500 computing devices rolled out to secondary schools across Birmingham; Work with Will Perrin on a Talk About Local bespoke programme to target key communities, Online school admissions idTV development; the digital business campaign - Cafelicious and the Healthy Way to Learn IT project that has demonstrated some significant outcomes in terms of developing language skills and diabetes awareness in the Aston pride community. If you would like any further information on any of these initiatives then please get in touch.

Well, it may be 5 years too late but at last Central Government has decided to catch up with the times and revise the primary school curriculum to include Internet Safety and prepare our children for the digital age.

It has long been the belief of IT educationalists that there is no point in restricting young people’s access to the wealth of information held on “t’internet”.  But, wouldn’t it be better preparing our future generations by providing them with the knowledge and understanding of not only the benefits, but the dangers of “t’internet” and enabling them to make informed decisions and judgements for themselves.  Because we all know, if you tell a young person not to do something … the likelihood is that they WILL go and do exactly what you’ve told them not to!