I suspect that at some point in the future, today may well be seen to be very significant! Why? Simply because today was the first day that Microsoft moved forward without its founder at the helm. (Bill Gates retired from Microsoft as an executive last Friday, although he still remains its non-executive chairman).

Changes in strategic leader nearly always are accompanied by big changes in direction, not necessarily immediately, but often relatively soon afterwards. This is even more evident when the strategic leader has been the organisation’s founder. Microsoft is clearly very keen to play down any hint of a change and I doubt there are any plans to be different at this stage, but I suspect when we look back at some point in the future, the big changes will seem to have sprung from this period.

Obviously, the direction and stance that Microsoft takes will have a profound influence on the computing industry and business at large. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft moves forward and what those changes will be.

I came across an interesting article by Bruce Lawson on The Web Standards Project web site about the UK Government Accessibility Consultation that was held by the Cabinet Office last November.

The consultation clearly aimed at looking at ways of making .gov.uk web sites more accessible to people with disabilities. It proposed making it mandatory for government web sites to achieve World Wide Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA-level compliance (presumably to meet European objectives for inclusive e-government).

The bit that caught my eye was the proposal that government web sites should face withdrawal from the .gov.uk domain if they failed to comply.

It occurred to me that a similar approach could be very effective at ensuring commercial .uk web sites comply with existing UK legislation (such as the Companies Act 2006 and the Disability Discrimination Act 2005). What if the Internet domains publishing web sites that failed to comply with UK legislation simply couldn't be renewed?

I was interested to read Ben Limberg's article on the BBC News web site this morning about how stressful email is becoming. It highlighted for me that spam continues to grow and it reminded me of my earlier article on this blog about the need to start tackling the phenomenon rather than hiding it. The BBC article suggests that around two million emails are sent every minute in the United Kingdom. The majority of reports I read suggest that spam currently accounts for around 95% of all email in circulation, so the BBC statement implies that an amazing 1,900,000 junk emails are sent every minute in Britain!

I suspect the loss of 25 million child benefit records by HM Government in the United Kingdom will have considerable, long-term ramifications. I understand that the data represents the details of all the recipients of Child Benefit in the United Kingdom and includes names, addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers and, in many cases, the banking details of the parents or guardians involved.

Unless I am greatly mistaken, there has been yet another surge in spam in the last few weeks. Like many firms, Revell Research Systems uses a fairly sophisticated anti-spam system, which generally performs pretty well. It occasionally needs tweaking to improve its detection rate, but on the whole, it does its job well.

However, I am acutely aware just how much spam is actually chucked into our email system on a daily basis. It is literally huge. There is the spam that is sent to our active email accounts and then there is the massive amount sent to random addresses in the hope that something might strike lucky!

Worse still, spam is increasingly being sent with large attachments, which eats away at our bandwidth.

I believe that the majority of Internet users are blissfully unaware of just how much spam is actually in circulation (although they know that they receive an unreasonable amount). The problem is that much of it is sent to non-existent people and is handled in the background by email servers, whose time is now mostly devoted to handling spam email, which means the sheer scale of it is well off most people's radars.

This is, of course, the nirvana that corporate IT departments are asked to achieve – no spam reaching their users.

However, I really can’t help but think that this is little more than sweeping spam under the carpet. Sooner or later, we are going to have to bite the bullet and work out how we are going to stop spam altogether rather than simply hiding it.

I'm pleased to announce that Darren Rees, from Llantwit Major in South Wales, formally received the 2007 Revell Research Systems Prize at the University of Plymouth at a small ceremony in Exeter this afternoon.

It was the first time I've actually met Darren, who is interested in pursuing a career in the highly competitive games industry. He is obviously a very able programmer and Dr Nigel Barlow, his tutor while at Plymouth, was clearly impressed with his final year project.

The prize (which we established last year to mark our 21st year in business) is awarded annually to the best final year student on the university's BSc(Hons) Computing programme. Essentially, Darren is the best computing graduate from the university this year.

Although he intends to take some time out to discover New Zealand, he would be a catch for any company looking for a young and talented C++/Java programmer with an interest in gaming.

More details about the prize are available at http://prize.rrs.co.uk.

 

Darren Rees (centre), receiving a certificate to mark his award of the 2007 Revell Research Systems Prize at the University of Plymouth, from myself (left), with his tutor while at Plymouth, Dr Nigel Barlow looking on (right).

 

I’ve just read the BBC News report about the problems Northern Rock’s online savers are having in accessing their funds. Like many online accounts, it appears that Northern Rock’s online account holders can only access their funds online in accordance with their terms and conditions.

This is clearly both frustrating and alarming to the bank’s online customers, who like many of their offline counter-parts, are trying to withdraw their money quickly, since they all perceive their investments as being far from safe.

I can’t help but wonder whether this will have an impact on the public’s perception of online banking as a whole. I think people may conclude that online-only accounts are inherently less secure than traditional accounts.

It seems to be certainly true that the bank’s traditional customers have received better service when they’ve eventually managed to get inside their branch than their online counter-parts. The traditional customer has obviously had to queue for ages, but at least they could see their position advancing in the queue, which at least offered some comfort for their patience and perseverance.

The problem for online customers is that they have no way of knowing where they are in the queue. In fact, technically, there is no queue. Each time they try to gain access to the bank’s web site, it is something of a lottery as to whether a web server will be available to service the request.

I suspect that even if a customer has one web request satisfied then there is absolutely no guarantee that subsequent requests will be answered – something akin to being told in the branch to go to the back of the queue once you’ve been greeted by the cashier, which would probably result in considerably less calmness than we are currently seeing on the high street outside the bank's branches!

The message is clearly that Internet-customers are second-class citizens as far as the bank is concerned, especially if one accepts that actions speak louder than words.

I think that when the dust settles, many online bank customers will re-evaluate how much money they should keep in their online-only accounts. It may also have some impact on how safe people consider Internet transactions to be in general…

Hans-Eric Grönlund has an interesting article on the popularity of FireFox (FF) on his blog, entitled "The Firefox Domination" which you should read. Frank Carr has also remarked on Hans-Eric's blog that he has also noticed a high ratio of FireFox users compared with those using Internet Explorer (IE), which he finds particularly interesting because his site is about all things .NET, which he supposes would attract a more pro-Microsoft audience.

I've recently been working from France and have often had to rely on wifi hotspots operated by Orange. I consider the charges made by this firm to be very reasonable and one that encourages casual wifi use.

Plymouth University has just published details about the award of the 2007 Revell Research Systems Prize to Darren Rees at http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=19863.

More details about the prize are available at http://prize.rrs.co.uk.

I am pleased to announce that Darren Rees has been awarded the 2007 Revell Research Systems Prize at the University of Plymouth for being the top final year student in BSc(Hons) Computing.

Darren, who is from South Wales, is obviously a very talented graduate. I was at the Plymouth Awards Ceremony this afternoon and his tutor, Dr Nigel Barlow, spoke of his ability in glowing terms.

The Revell Research Systems Prize at the University of Plymouth was established to mark the consultancy's twenty-first year in business, which actually finishes at the end of this month. So, by a quirk of the timing of Plymouth award ceremonies, we have actually awarded the prize twice during our twenty-first year!

Anyone interested in more details about the prize can visit its web site at http://prize.rrs.co.uk.

I read with interest the article "Government Web Sites Too Complex", which was published on the BBC News web site yesterday and covers the publication of a National Audit Office (NAO) report that states that some government web sites are too complex.