Everyone's favourite toothless union congress the TUC has called on firms to draw up guidelines on employee use of Facebook, rather than ban it outright, Sneak has read with mild interest. On its website, the TUC – named after a rather delicious buttery cream cracker, by the way – has posted some 'useful' information for office drones to note.

Questions such as "Can my boss stop us using Facebook at work?", "Should I accept a Facebook friend request from my boss?" and "Is it wrong for my boss to keep poking me and my friends?" (alright Sneak made the last one up) are answered in no nonsense, informative prose. But it won't help the fact that, unless you have the linguistic skills of a trainee lawyer you're not going to be able to change the Facebook policy of your firm.

August 30, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like so many things before it Google Sky has disappointed Sneak.

Having installed and fired up the program, he immediately disappeared to the outer reaches of the solar system, mainly in an effort to search for the faster-than-light ship 'Event Horizon', in Neptune's lower atmosphere. Well, that's what the film says anyway.

However, an arrival at Neptune's position after an arduous simulated flight only brings up a low resolution thumbnail image of the planet discovered in 1846 and credited to Adams, Galle and Le Verrier.

Sneak was hoping that Google might have modeled the planets like it has done for Earth, or even better, with fly-throughable 3D terrain-based maps. In fact, he was hoping to check out the huge volcano Olympus Mons on Mars, the great red spot on Jupiter and also to visit every schoolboy's favourite - Uranus. No, sorry Madam, not yours'.

Of course, such maps have been in NASA's possession since the 70s. So where are they? Well it's fairly obvious that the US space agency can't release the original data it has for the planets, mainly because they show that the rest of the solar system is packed with every kind of alien critter known to - well - NASA.

How else can we explain all those horrific sightings of creatures usually described as being spawned up the backside of the Devil – they can't all be members of the Partridge family.

August 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

If Sneak starts another article with "according to reports", he will hang himself. But, According to reports Chinese authorities are set to send two 'virtual police officers' into the internet with a view to them going around annoying people, and clamping down on illicit activities.

How this would work is a mystery, until you actually read on. In simple terms two animated figures – a man and a woman will appear on users' screens every half an hour to remind them of "internet security".

The two busybodies will appear on news portals from this weekend, and by the end of the year will be ubiquitous on all Beijing sites and forums.

This is the sort of thing Sneak dreams about.

Now if only he could get a virtual grandma to pop up on his screen every half an hour with a disapproving look and a heavy tut he could curb a lot of his own illicit activities.

Or, at the very least, dampen them.

August 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems like all you need now to breathe life into a staid image and lacklustre set of products is a 2.0 suffix, Sneak reckons. Dell launched its Dell 2.0 strategy last year in a belated attempt to combat customer dissatisfaction and improve its internal processes, and now beleaguered computing giant HP is doing the same.

In a stunningly unoriginal piece of PR spin, the firm has decided to name its latest strategy "Print 2.0", no doubt hoping the association with Facebook, Flickr and all things hip, will rub off on the gullible public. Alright, there is a vaguely webby/Web 2.0 element in this – HP will offer web-based printer technology – but that has done little to assuage Sneak's grumbling cynicism. Bah humbug.

August 29, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak knows that he should have been a big fan of Lego. Apparently it is the geek equivalent of going outside and picking on smaller kids, except rather than pick on anyone it usually involves the creating of structures in garishly coloured plastic. Not Sneak's bag at all.

Nowadays though Lego looks a lot more exciting. Not only is the Star Wars universe very well represented in the blocky play world, but so too are such loveable characters as the young Steves – Wozniak and Jobs.

How have you managed to live without such wonderful toys? Quite happily? Oh. Well you probably won't care then that they go on sale on Wednesday, cost about forty dollars and are limited to just 300 pieces.

Sneak wonders when any company will ever make a playset of Steve Balmers' infamous Dr Fester-like romp around the stage.

A very frightening thing to watch, and I dare say that something that not many children would like to have in their bedrooms. But, perhaps now the time is just right for such a release.

After all, it has been a good long while since anyone actually believed that these toys were for kids. Right?

August 28, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers at University College London are using the old skool computer game Pac-Man to test how human volunteers react to danger, Sneak has discovered. The human guinea pigs are given an electric shock if they are caught in the Pac-Man maze, which is apparently a great way to test fear. Sneak reckons IT could be used in more inventive ways to test other human emotions, however.

The forthcoming release of the much anticipated iPhone could be the perfect chance to research mankind’s capacity to fall in love with inanimate objects, for example. And a study into irrational hatred might benefit from observing an argument between an open source-o-phile and a Microsoft executive. Not to mention that Sneak’s patience is severely tested every time he’s forced to wait 20 minutes for his PC to start up.

August 27, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nokia has been kind enough to supply Sneak, and presumably a lot of other people that spend their times in suits and offices, a guide to mobile email etiquette.

The book is introduced thusly, "To avoid any… communication faux pas Nokia has brings you this guide to Email Etiquette. Ten useful tips to help emailers achieve the right tone and language to get the message across first time." (sic)

Sneak is less than impressed with some of its advice. Such as: "Use emoticons to indicate tone of voice, such as smileys". Yeah – that's a great idea in business correspondence ;-).

Avoid the use of multiple explanation marks to emphasise important points! What kind of business communications are we talking about here? Really excitable ones?

Consider your surroundings. Often a recipient will call after reading an email, if you are in the pub or on the loo it could be tricky. What? People may reply at any time, might they also suggest a thirty minute window of 'no toilet' after the sending of any mails? Maybe.

Bizarrely, it also cautions against the use of abbreviations, since the casual observer may not know what they mean. People observe emails casually? Who? Why? How? Also. If this is such an important rule, why does Nokia include a list of a such abbreviations at the back of the book?

The whole thing strikes Sneak as being a bit confused. But then, maybe you are not supposed to take it seriously anyway.

The book, a wine coloured hardbacked bad use of trees is illustrated with crude drawings of a man with sausages for fingers and cocktail sausages for thumbs – a condition that Sneak thinks would prohibit him from sending many emails from a mobile device anyway.

August 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thought Facebook was just for lonely self-obsessed sados? Well, you were wrong; it's also for trained killers, or at least that's the plan. Yes, Sneak has discovered that the CIA is planning to set up a social networking-type site for its operatives. Dubbed A-Space, the agency says it will help agents communicate with each other and share information, although participation is voluntary.

Considering this Web 2.0 medium is all about publicising the minutiae of one's daily life to the world, Sneak wonders if it's really appropriate for the secret service to be using? Sneak also wonders if US taxpayers will really be happy funding a project designed to allow their intelligence service operatives to avoid work for a few hours a day in order to tag their friends.

August 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently a man has been arrested for surfing on a garden wall, well, at least that is what pun-crazed headline writers would have us believe.

In case you haven't read one of the many reports of this story, Sneak can save you the bother. It is not about some bronzed, white toothed git in fancy shorts, riding an imaginary wave in some surburban setting. Nah. It's about a bloke web surfing the internet, while sitting on a wall, using someone else's unsecured wi-fi broadband connection.

Now, this is hardly the crime of the century, and the man involved – an un-named 39 year old - is hardly a great criminal mastermind. He was, after all, rumbled because he was sitting outside someone's house using his laptop. Someone got suspicious, called 'the law' and before you know it he's bailed and awaiting further action. Some people are so naïve.

Sneak has some advice for him, and other budding e-Raffles, if you want to steal wi-fi, catch it in a jar and take it home with you. That way no one will ever be none the wiser.

August 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak managed to watch Labour Home Office Parliamentary undersecretary of state and MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch Meg Hillier on the news last night, squirming when asked about when the UK could connect to the EU equivalent of the Police National Computer (PNC) database, the Schengen Information System (SIS).

Political considerations aside, readers may remember exactly why the UK hasn't been able to connect to the system since Sunday 11th December 2005. When Sneak woke up on that Sunday morning and looked North over White Hart Lane football stadium a dark cloud could be seen filling the sky.

This wasn’t due to an upcoming attack by Sauron’s forces on North Tottenham, but the Buncefield Oil Depot just inconveniently exploding. Sneak says inconvenient, because the Police National Computer (PNC) backup site was located there along with the systems meant to connect to SIS. The SIS kit deployed by the Police at Buncefield unfortunately wasn’t backed up, unlike the PNC, which had the main site at Hendon as a safety net.

Of course readers may remember that the Police nearly had to issue a ‘BPAR' order (Brown Pants All Round), when the office block opposite the only site left with a copy of the PNC database caught fire, threatening a catastrophe for law enforcement in the UK. Luckily the Hendon site got away with only £30,000 of damage and Police were allowed to remove said brown pants and nip down to the pub for a few stiff whiskies.

August 21, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another day, another survey; sometimes Sneak thinks his life is nothing more than a minor percentage point in a pointless piece of research. This time though those clever people at Vicorp, which creates speech self-service technology, have found that although people are willing to use automated systems for some services, you can't beat a bit of human interaction on the phone.

Apparently joyous moments such as losing internet access or the TV signal are most likely to have customers hangin' on the phone for a call centre operator. Sneak wonders why we bother at all, as the end result of waiting 25 minutes is usually either a) to be cut off without warning b) put through to the wrong department and put on hold again, or c) speaking to an operator you need a Phd in regional dialects of the UK to understand.

August 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new survey by Glasgow and Paisley universities has found that UK workers are getting stressed out about their emails, Sneak has read. It seems that around a third of staff feel the pressure to reply immediately to the mail in their inboxes is just too great, with females affected worse than males.

Sneak has no such problem with email stress, in fact, he greets the chirpy ping heralding each new mail like a fat man waiting for a microwave meal. Honestly, it can be a lonely job being an IT Sneak, you know. And however much pressure the ladies that Sneak emails of a lunchtime may be under, it doesn't seem to make them any more likely to respond.

August 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a question for you. What have social networking sites got in common with that old man who hangs around the primary school wearing nothing but a large brown trench coat? Well, they both just seem to love exposing themselves to the public. After a series of security scares in the past few months on sites like MySpace, Facebook has become the latest to tarnish its image, Sneak has discovered.

The doyenne of nosy, workshy social misfits everywhere, Facebook is one of Web 2.0's greatest success stories, but it recently came to light that some so-called "configuration errors" led to some of the site's PHP code being displayed for all to see when they logged on. While the Facebook team desperately fought the fire and said this was just a one-off error, others warned that the information could help hackers infiltrate the site, and possibly your 152 pretend friends. Sneak shudders to think what might happen if Facebook ceased to be. No … no, not that … don't make us WORK

August 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to Mark Ward, technology correspondent for the BBC News website, "Shadows are being used by Japanese researchers as an non-intrusive way for friends to stay in touch."

Eh..? Sneak tries not to get sucked into this kind of thing. Mostly because he finds that often it is his shadow that intrudes on his friends – when it is illuminated on their back wall as he peers through their window. Because of this, whenever 'shadows' are mentioned Sneak blushes so deeply that even his shadow looks like that radioactive bloke off the porridge adverts.

Anyway, he hasn't just been caught peeking, and it is not April 1, so Sneak will indulge Mr Ward, even if he will only skim-read his article.

Called Teleshadow the system sends video from one house to another, much like a web cam does. But, and here is where the shadow bit comes in, it turns the images into lovely shadowy outlines and projects them onto the inside of a lamp. This means that you can kind of interact with your friends, in as much as you could ever sort of interact with a lamp that has some flickering shadows on it.

Sneak – who doesn't see glasses as half full or half empty, but rather, as being potentially poisoned, is deeply concerned about all this.

How annoying if one evening you forgot to turn it off at your end, or your friend did at the other. What they might be getting up to – especially in Japan – is one of those thoughts that boggles the most sternest of minds.

And that is not the only reason why Sneak will avoid this sort prototype invention. Having once spent a night in a tent, with a tube of ointment and a rather embarrassing part of his body, all the while back-lit by a torch against the canvas, Sneak has had more than enough of scaring people with his shadow, and will now focus on his privacy, wherever he goes.

August 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So Sneak learned last week that Sir Elton of John hates the internet. See below.

In a column in the Sun, a far superior medium, he said, "The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision. It’s just a means to an end."

It would be hard to imagine that any up-and-coming artist would have a problem with any media being a "means to an end" especially if the end result is the result that they are looking for. So it is even harder to work out precisely what Elton's problem is.

Sir Elt does suggest one benefit from turning the internet off, "I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span." Er… yeah.. What a wonderful idea. Let's er. Do that.

Sneak notices that Elton's own website eltonjohn.com, online store, and a load of other rubbish sites connected with the toupeed trouper are all still live. So come on Rocket Man, get on with it and lead by example. Surely we could stand to lose a couple of them.

While the internet exists you might enjoy seeing some of Elton's finest work. And no, Sneak doesn’t mean any of his music, videos, haircuts, or the t shirts available through his web store.

August 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ageing rocker and erstwhile hairless wonder Elton John has had a go at the internet, bloggers and basically anything to do with technology in a story in Sneak's favourite red top tittle-tattle rag The Sun. Sir E of J told the paper he'd like to see the internet shut down for five years as an experiment to see what artistic creativity might flourish in its absence. Yeah, maybe we'd be really lucky and someone could write a sequel to Goodbye England's Rose.

While it would be easy to dismiss this latest outburst from the Queen Mum of rock as exactly the sort of ill-informed tosh one would expect from a sectegenarian ex-cokehead, Sneak thinks there may actually be some wisdom in his words. After all, the internet has a lot to answer for, not least the aural abomination that is Sandy Thom.

August 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Given the fast-paced, high pressure nature of his job, Sneak has occasionally been known to slip out the back door of his squalid workplace for a cheeky puff on a cancer stick, every time running the gauntlet of disapproving looks and vigorous tut-tuts from his esteemed colleagues. Well, according to a new piece of research by Queensland University we're all screwed, so there. Yes, those Aussie brainiacs have found that many laser printers emit microscopic particles, some of them potentially carcinogenic, that can be absorbed deep into the lungs in a similar way to cigarette smoke or vehicle exhaust fumes. Respiratory failure and cardiovascular problems in later life here we come. It's so worrying Sneak thinks he needs another quick snout to calm down.

August 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It turns out that Sneak and Diddy, Puff, Puffy, P Diddy, the Diddster, er Sean John Combs, have more in common than a long and rambling collection of alternative names.

Yup. The pair of them are both looking for some sort of assistant. Sneak, admittedly is looking for some assistance (he has fallen down the back of his sofa) but Diddy is looking for assistance of the human kind – which is just the sort of thing that Sneak normally chooses to avoid.

In the kind of technological embrace that you would normally expect from our man on the backpage, Diddy has posted his plea for someone to go around shuffling bits of paper, opening up bottles of brandy and champagne and generally 'bling' about the place on You Tube, the popular movie and clip sharing site.

The contest is announced by Bad Boy Records thus, "Do you have what it akes to be Diddy's Assitant? Here is more info on how to make it happen!!" Top of the list is probably proof reading and spell checking, if that is anything to go by.

Diddy, sat behind a mixing desk announces the competition, "Upload your video video… what makes you my perfect assistant.. forget coming into my office and having a meeting with me being nervous. If you the best, holla at your boy."

One person who has already applied is Burgle991. He titles his video post 'diddy assistent', and introduces his speech with this text: "Wat Must I say Let, see exally nothing. This vidoe means nothing before attempting to do something".

Hmm. Next…Nope.. not you.. er.. anyone else..

Well, anyway. Some, or all of these people have prompted Diddy to make a second post.

"Oh my god, what have I started? To keep things focussesd, you have to have some sort of skill set. You gotta know how to read. You gotta know how to write. You gotta know how to count. You have to have a college degree" he says, looking a bit concerned about the caliber of applicants.

Sneak is nowhere near as fussy as Diddy. In case you were wondering.

August 1, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sneak learned with sadness that sour-faced business tycoon Sir Alan Sugar has finally relinquished his multi-million pound electronics firm Amstrad to that corporate behemoth Sky. Amstrad, the company Sugar founded in the '60s, had fallen on hard times since it wowed the country with one of the first ever mass-market computer in the 1980's. How the mighty have fallen: the firm's E-mailer super-phone was roundly dismissed as utter tosh when it launched a few years ago.

Sneak wonders if the grumpy old man of the City has finally gone a little soft? Having turned 60 this year he has since sold his remaining stake in Spurs football club, and is now probably better known for his exploits on the telly than in the boardroom. So why the demise of Amstrad? Well, far be it for Sneak to say, but perhaps populating the company with winners of a reality TV show is not the best of business practices Sir Alan. Maybe the next winner of this year's never-ending Big Brother can make it onto the board of Microsoft too.

August 1, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)