Computer Weekly Editor's Blog

Computer Weekly's search for the 'Best Blogs in IT' gets exciting

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:00:00 +0000

In May we asked you to nominate your favourite blogs to help us identify the best "IT blogs in the UK". Thanks to those who shared with us their must-reads, by June we had about 300 nominations for blogs that IT professionals are reading.

Now it's your turn again as it's time to cast your vote for your favourite blogs in IT.

Our panel of judges has selected the best blogs in each category, highlighting blogs that are bang-up-to-date, relevant to the UK, and liked by your peers.

So get involved and let us know what you think is the best blog in each category, by voting for your favourites at http://www.computerweekly.com/blogawards.htm.

Computer Weekly's most read stories

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:20:24 +0000

The weekly list of what was hot on the site last week. So what were your peers looking at?

Topping the weekly chart was our story "IT is boring say graduates", which was by a long distance the most popular story on the site. It also provoked lots of comments on Slashdot.

Coming in at number two was a semi-related story that broke the same day about IT staff being wasted on non-strategic "chores"

If you didn't know already Bill Gates is stepping down today

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:23:06 +0000

So Bill Gates's is spending his last day in his office today before stepping down at the head of Microsoft - lets hope he remembers to shut his Windows! I know poor a very gag.

You have to be impressed by the media interest in this story if nothing else. It was the second item on Radio 4's Today programme news headlines this morning and it has been plastered all over the internet ever since Bill anounced he was to step down.

The irony of this, I guess, is that Bill Gates's would probably happily swap his online popularity as a story himself, if the company he founded 25 years ago, could get a share of online revenues and business.

Wordle word-clouds: simplest business card design and print service ever?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:47:16 +0000

What's ComputerWeekly.com really about, right now? This, according to word-cloud generating service Wordle's view of the text on our home page at 16:26 today:

I think Wordle word clouds could make fantastic quick and easy business cards for Web 2.0 types and bloggers. Whack your CV or your blog into Wordle, screengrab your Wordle cloud and pop that into Flickr (remembering to thank and link Wordle for their Creative Commons kindness, in a good online citizen kind of a way) and then use card-print service Moo. Business cards created and ordered in under an hour without leaving your desk! All you'll have to wait for is the post - it could put your local copy shop out of business!

Thanks for the heads-up on this service to both Ian Grant and fellow CW blogger, Ian White.

IT is boring - so say graduates

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:22:18 +0000

We wrote a story earlier this week about IT being a boring career and a real turn off for graduates. It has been picked up on "news for nerds" site Slashdot and has got over 680 comments, with the thread asking the question?

"Despite good job prospects, graduates think that a job in IT would be boring. Is this because of the fact that Bill Gates has made the whole industry look nerdy?

There's been quite a long running theory that IT has an image problem and hence its problem recruiting the right calibre of graduates into the industry.

I met up with the BCS earlier this week and this issue was a big concern for them. They made the point that children need to be excited about a career in IT before they reach secondary school and the fact that many primary schools didn't have qualified maths teachers wasn't helping attract pupils into the sciences. So perhaps its not solely an image problem and surely as more kids grow up with computers a career in IT will seem more within their reach.

A few mischevious comments on Slashdot have agreed that the unattractiveness of IT as a career is all to do with poor old Bill Gates, who retires next week and has been single-handedly blamed for giving the industry a geeky, nerdy image. A touch harsh and affair, I think. My position is backed up by this comment, which makes a lot of the point that being successful is an attractive quality that people generally try to emulate.

Are you really trying to blame this on Bill Gates?
"I mean really? The man is the poster child for why you SHOULD get into IT... I don't think anyone looks at Bill Gates, with his billions of dollars, happy family, and from an outsider's point of view "good life," and says "Nope... don't want to be a nerd like that!"

People think it's boring because, generally speaking, it can get VERY monotonous. If you don't like programming (regardless of how you define the word), you won't like IT. If you don't like long hours trying to figure out why something isn't working on 1 out of 1000 machines, you probably won't like IT either. I'm not going to get into a "You might be a redneck if..." stream here, but I think you get my point.

If the corporate world is honestly having problems finding IT people, they should either (A) Outsource to a reliable partner, or (B) offer more money. Long story short, IT is like any other job on the planet, if you offer people enough money, they'll gladly do it.

What's hot on ComputerWeekly - what did IT pros click on last week

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:40:20 +0000

Last week's top stories were dominated by our coverage of hacker Gary McKinnon's fight to avoid extradition to the USA. A cracking series of stories that really give a great insight into this fascinatring affair.

The end of the Internet? Cyberspace fills up...

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:25:34 +0000

Got yourself an online address? Good for you, because cyberspace is filling up like it was "on steroids", and there may not be enough investment to ensure further growth is possible... Watch this video for a warning on the possible failure of IPv6.

New look Computer Weekly magazine

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:03:34 +0000

If you're a regular reader of or subscriber to Computer Weekly in print form, you'll notice a dramatic change today.

The magazine has been given an overhaul and relaunched with an attractive, fresh new look. The front cover now features an eye-catching, almost full-page, image highlighting one of the week's top articles. This week it's Bill Gates' turn, with a piece by Jack Schofield focusing on Gates' coming departure: looking back on the road ahead.

Open up the magazine and things get even better. The new page layout is pleasing to the eye, but most importantly it's also clearer, making it easier to scan through to spot the issues that matter to you.

We've also tweaked the content. There's a greater concentration on analysis of the issues behind the news, although you'll still find a round-up of the big stories towards the front, and, of course, we'll be bringing you all the latest breaking news as it happens on ComputerWeekly.com.

You'll find other new and reworked sections in the magazine too, including Radar, Manage IT and Strategy.

Editor Brian McKenna explains the philosophy behind the redesign:

We have been guided by the principle that not all news in the IT space is worth paying attention to in a weekly print format: it needs to be filtered and analysed. The new 'News of the Week' section and the news analysis pages do this. We don't aim to be comprehensive, but to select and offer informed point of view analysis. Our bedrock is, as ever, to be the champion of the corporate user agenda and of IT professionalism.

Don't have a copy? Check out the new design online in our digital edition.

And to subscribe to the new look Computer Weekly, follow this link.

Friday feeling: iPhone 3G, procrastination, productivity, and premium bonds

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:30:55 +0000

Normally on Friday the editor's blog attempts to bring you a round up of some of the funniest or most intriguing things we've spotted on the web, like the Internet meme rock videos on YouTube. But having been a wee bit late in this morning, I've been feeling the need to make up for lost time all day. No, Friday's no time for fun, it's productivity all the way for me, honest, guv.

So, first, I've been researching whether or not I should get an iPhone 3G when they hit the stores (conveniently forgetting the fact that price cut or not, you do still need to have some spare cash in hand, whereas my spending habits are rather more in line with the shopaholic IT consultant spotted on our Downtime blog...)

The 3G iPhone's enterprise ready, says Apple, despite some analysts raising security concerns. And okay, the company probably won't allow me to connect it to the corporate network. But would it help me do my job as a deputy web editor? You know, online content production, supporting our in-house digital journalists, that kind of thing...

Follow the link or scroll on for what the reviewer from Stuff magazine had to say:

Photo story: IT departments take on the Three Peaks Challenge 2008

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:02:54 +0000

Congratulations to the IT departments that helped raise £100,000 for charity by taking part in last weekend's Three Peaks Challenge, supported by Computer Weekly.

The sponsored teams climbed Britain's three biggest mountains in under 24 hours: Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in Cumbria's Lake District, and Mount Snowdon in North Wales.

Richard Preston of the FMC Technologies team enjoys the view in this first of our photos from the event.

More photos follow below...

Broadband speeds - BBC coverage and Ofcom report. Coincidence or good timing?

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:25:49 +0000

I loved the BBC's coverage of broadband speeds this week. On Tuesday morning they got 30,000 people to participate in their broadband speeds exercise, resulting in this interactive map. A mash-up of comments and recorded speeds of broadband connections around the UK.

ComputerWeekly "keeps-a-changing"

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:39:49 +0000

Where I come from in Norfolk, some of the older folk have a saying, "things keep-a-changing boy".... It's a saying that is normally used to lament the march of "so called" progress, something that Norfolkians are not normally keen on.

Well despite being a kindred spirit with the good folk of Norfolk, I am a fan of progress and change. One of the things we said we would do when we relaunched ComputerWeekly was to continually evolve and devlop its offering. So.... read on to find out

Friday video fun: Internet memes from Weezer and the Barenaked Ladies...

Fri, 30 May 2008 11:19:07 +0000

Here's how to find out whether or not you spend too much time on YouTube. Can you spot all the Interent meme references in Weezer's Pork and Beans video? If so, you definitely need rehab...

But Weezer weren't the first US nerd rock band to take on this concept. The Barenaked Ladies got there first. See over the jump for more...

Fujitsu pulls out of the National Programme for IT

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:16:51 +0000

It was the big news of the day yesterday and we have got the best writers covering the publc sector and IT project failures.

Find out where now for the NHS Programme for IT with Tony Collins's news analysis.

Or go to Tony's blog for all the latest on the the NPfIT

And for the latest reaction following Fujitsu's decision to pull out of the NPfIT see Ian Grant's news piece.

For the full round up on the NPfIT go to our special report

What have your peers been looking at on ComputerWeekly

Wed, 28 May 2008 07:44:49 +0000

It's that time of the week again when I let you know what stories have been clocking up the hits on ComputerWeekly in the past week.

Not surprisingly it was the big brother-style plans of the Government that grabbed your attention most.

1. Revealed - Government plans to tap phone and internet use

2. Government plans to store citizens' phone and web records in massive database

3. Video Hard Drive Data Recovery from bathed, burnt and broken desktops