Weekly Review - Internet Psychology, BT Strikes and Browsers

The Psychology of the Internet

Graham Jones, the internet psychologist was, he believes, the first person to have a business book published about the internet in the UK. His blog articles turn news in sometimes obscure areas into practical and valuable business advice on using the internet profitably.

Graham also provides tips on the best internet tools to use, as he is trialing and using them extensively for his own purposes. So well worth subscribing to his blog.

This last week there have been two absolute crackers:

1. "Do not use Twitter for business", but that depends on how you define business
   
2. "Five powerful reasons why you should start blogging", to which he and I would add a couple more
   

Turning a problem into a sales opportunity - “Re: Impact of potential BT action”

First prize for FUD must go to one of my ISPs (I use two ISPs, plus BT by default as broadband supplier – this goes back to pre-ordering the very first broadband accounts in the UK). Here are edited highlights of an email I received from the ISP recently:

“Dear Customer" (don't they know my name yet? - it's only been 10 years!)

"Re: Impact of potential BT action

You may be aware from stories in the media that BT staff have been balloted on industrial action over pay, having rejected a final pay offer from the company. BT has informed us that it is committed to averting any such action and remains open to continued dialogue with its union to avoid disruption to its customers.

However, if industrial action proves unavoidable, the company has contingency plans that it will implement to safeguard service where possible. The earliest any action can be taken is July 12th. BT is committed to providing updates as and when the situation changes.

Our recommendation is that if you know you have a requirement for additional lines you should place the order with us as soon as possible so that we can get it placed before the action starts. For DSL services this will allow the implementation to be carried out in normal timescales, for Ethernet based circuits we will be attempting to escalate through planning to try and remove as many BT departments from the process as possible before strike action takes place.

We will also be evaluating alternative delivery methods using XXX and our other tier 1 provider networks, please contact your account manager who will be able to check for other delivery methods.”

Just to put this into context. There is concern that strikes amongst BT's call centre and/or maintenance workers will mean that any problems on broadband (and indeed telephones) will result in excessive delay in repairs.

Whilst the first reaction might be to think this email is alarmist, it’s worth dusting off those comms contingency plans (you know you’ve got some, don’t you?)

Perhaps a comms specialist would also like to tell me if such new lines, presumably running into BT exchanges, will actually be any better?


Internet Explorer Bounces Back

According to netmarketshare.com after at least 9 months’ of falling market share, Internet Explorer’s has risen slightly. In June 2010 shares of the top 5 browsers were:

• 60% Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)
• 24% Firefox (open source)
• 7% Google Chrome
• 5% Apple Safari
• 3% Opera + Opera Mini (kept free by Google)
  
• leaving 1% for all the others

I switched from IE to Firefox recently, as that seemed to fix the continual need to re-boot my PC when IE froze. Other than that critical advantage, Firefox doesn't seem to be any better, and I miss two IE8 features that I haven’t found in Firefox (yet?):

• If you open tabs from another tab, they are all in a distinctive colour. This makes it much easier when simultaneously doing a lot of Google searches on different topics (as I often do, especially when preparing these blog articles)
• Opening groups of favourites with one click (such as to check a group of ebanking sites)

Talking to a PC expert, they swear on Opera (rather than at it). With the lowest usage, Opera is kept in the game by a string of awards, yet remain last of the five.

If you’ve tried 3 or more or these browsers, which is your favourite, and why?

.

Weekly review - Broadband risks / Smartphone vulnerability / iPad

There’s two important pieces of news this week, plus an update on the Apple iPad:

(1) BT workers are to be balloted on strike action.

If you are reliant on the internet for cloud computing applications, accessing other websites or just for email, would the loss of your internet connection be a body blow?

Here in Maidenhead a couple of years ago, someone vandalized a section of BT cabling serving several hundred homes and businesses. For several days no-one in the area could make land-line phone calls, automatically authorize card payments, or access the internet through BT. A strike may have the same effects.

Fortunately I have a 3G dongle which I use when away from base, and BT diverted incoming calls to my mobile, so the landline loss was little more than a nuisance. But what about all the internet-enabled devices in your business or home?

Larger organisations will have their own redundancy solutions (though I’ve seen several go without internet access for hours if not days). For smaller installations it is worth considering broadband routers that have a 3G service in-built. Here’s an example from Billion where they say “The auto fail-over feature ensures maximum connectivity and minimum interruption by quickly and smoothly connecting to a 3G network in the event that your ADSL line fails.” It’s available from places like Maplins. Not cheap, but worth it?

(2) Viruses for Smartphones?

PCW recently reported that a few of the new Samsung Wave smartphones had been shipped with a computer trojan virus pre-loaded onto the microSD card. Connecting the phone to a PC using auto-run would allow the trojan to attempt to infect the PC. Copying the file would potentially pass it on to other PCs.

It’s a stark reminder that it’s not only PCs that are vulnerable, even if the devices only act as a carrier, as with the Wave.

It’s also worth remembering that the Apple Mac is virtually immune from viruses and other threats (though can never protect from phishing and other threats that don’t take place on the device itself). Apple says "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box". Norton onetheless sell an anti-virus solution for the Mac, principally to avoid passing on infected files to PC users like with the Wave (the term "dual protection" only refers to getting a copy of the Windows version in case you are running both Windows and Apple OS X on the same machine ). Other companies also provide Mac anti-virus, and here's a useful round-up of Mac security risks and protection.

With strong security solutions readily available, could someone tell me why the world puts up with Windows vulnerability?

(3) A little more on the iPad

By the way, when the iPad was first announced, the Apple website said that the "mobileme" service would allow you to remotely wipe everything from your iPad instantly in the event of theft or loss (provided presumably it’s switched on and accessing the internet). This is similar to the "mobileme" service for iPhone.