Category Archives: Web/Internet

Church, Computers/Technology, Web/Internet

The Popularity of MySpace and Bebo

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As I mentioned in my previous post, tonight we had our planning meeting for the summer term at Youth Group. As usual, the discussion at the meeting also included more general talk about areas of concern, one subject being the popularity amongst the young people of sites like Bebo and MySpace.

In terms of the Church web sites we now have pretty tight rules over the use of pictures of any young people. The rules have actually been tightened several times over the years following concerns expressed by various parents, so you’ll notice that there aren’t any pictures of the Youth Group on this site where the young people are identifiable – and we’ve also tried to make sure that the public photo sets have any pictures with children and young people removed.

However the irony is that you can fairly easily go on to both Bebo and MySpace and locate pages belonging to a large number of the young people in the Church, and of course since the sites encourage people to list their friends, you can from there track through from person to person, browse through photo albums, many of which are helpfully named so you know exactly who you are looking at. Essentially it is just young people socialising, but in an electronic form – however the big problem is how accessible it all is, and how easy it is to build up a picture of them.

Recently, the BBC has produced an article on the issue, and whilst the sites are arguing that they are posting warnings, and trying to educate users, they still have a site that is especially attractive to teenagers. As a result, it is still a matter of some concern to us as youth leaders, quite how much information can be obtained with little or no checks of the person getting the information.

Computers/Technology, Web/Internet

Sometimes it is Good to be Reminded

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Craig Murphy has posted a great article highlighting the general lack of concern home PC users have over security under the title “PC security is not the first thing on the mind of a home user�.

He is absolutely right, PC’s are sold, and most people buy them in the same way as they buy anything else like a TV, a kettle or even a car. They expect the PC to sit there, allow them to read their e-mail, write a few letters and just work, in the same way that they expect that their kettle won’t suddenly burst into flames. Essentially with all of them they are bought to just work. The description of what happens is spot on too – the free security software never gets extended, and people put up with a lot – I know of people who quite happily clicked through about 20 porn filled pop-up windows to get to a browser window to do their online banking, without even considering what else could be on the machine onto which they are typing all their important financial details. I’ve also known a number of people who maintain that they don’t need anti-virus or security software because they don’t view dodgy sites, and don’t open attachments from unknown sources – all of them have ultimately found out to their cost that their are nasties on the Internet now that will transfer onto a PC without any intervention at all from the user, and generally ended up having to spend a lot of time and/or money getting their machines sorted out.

In fact, in general I tend to find that many people don’t start taking PC security seriously until they have had a problem like this. However, it’s not too difficult to protect yourself. Craig has some good advice and recommendations for both paid for, and free alternatives for the various essential bits of software that you need before you let your PC near the Internet. I also strongly back up his advice to go get a proper router instead of using a USB based ADSL connection. The added protection by having this extra layer between you and the internet makes a big difference.

Of course, the one suggestion I would make that Craig wouldn’t, is to consider whether you really need a PC at all. Want to read some e-mail, browse the web, do your online banking and write a few letters? You do all of those on a Mac – I do – our PC gets used for games mainly, everything else is on the Mac. Go along to somewhere with knowledgeable staff, like John Lewis or even better one of the six Apple Stores around the country to see one in action. If you can’t get one of those, get hold of a Mac magazine such as Mac Format or MacWorld – you’re even going to be able to pick up a Mac from Tesco now! Of course, I’d still recommend getting hold of a virus checker, and following Craig’s good practice, even with a Mac, but currently it’s a much safer platform to work with, and certainly not buried under nearly so much of the spyware and viruses that attack PC’s.

Cars, Web/Internet

My DVLA Online Vehicle Registration Experiences

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The Vehicle Licence Application form for the Golf turned up in the post today, however since the last time we taxed a car, it seems that the DVLA have taken a step forward. Rather than have to go and queue up in a local post office to get a tax disc, the envelope and renewal form were plugging the chance to pay your car tax online.

It has to be said that in typical fashion the URL they are putting all over the renewal document is currently wrong – http://www.direct.gov.uk/taxdisc producing a ‘Document contains no data.’ error. However it looks like this is only a problem with the redirect, a bit of digging around located http://www.vehiclelicence.gov.uk/, which is the site itself. (www.direct.gov.uk is the central site for government services, but it is really just a collection of links to the individual departmental sites.)

Anyway, the one obstacle I thought there would be to an online service is that the trip to the post office to tax a car has a second purpose, which is for someone official to check that each vehicle has valid insurance and if over three years old, has passed it’s MOT test. However these checks are actually done automatically during the online process by checking details against the Motor Insurance Database run by the Motor Insurers Information Centre to combat the problem of uninsured drivers, and the MOT details can be validated as a result of the new computerised MOT testing processes.

It’s a lot quicker, and is also available 24 hours a day. Essentially all you need to do is type in your reference number or car registration number, select 6 or 12 months tax, and type in a debit card number, so no more queues in the Post Office at lunchtime for me!