If you are a high street shop with no online presence look away now.  It is over for you. Apparently.

According to the latest report from Shopow (altogether now, who?), a whopping £7.76bn is expected to be spend online in the run up to Christmas as high street chains seek to quell losses over unsold stock.

And this is starting a new trend - social shopping. Again, apparently.

For those of you wondering who Shopow is - it is a site that "empowers online shoppers" and taps into the 'growing phenomenon' of social shopping.

The rest of the press release was one long marketing spiel about the wonders of sharing your shopping experiences over Twitter, Facebook etc - so I won't be going there. I'll leave you to discover Shopow for yourself. Enjoy.

But high street figures do make gloomy reading. According to the latest British Retail Consortium report, sales fell 1.6 per cent on a like for like basis (compared with 2010) for November, and hopes that consumers would start to treat themselves in December already seem to be fading with a few stores issuing profit warnings already.

Unfortunately people are just too worried about the doom and gloom over the economy, to be thinking about splashing out on expensive Christmas presents.

With things set to get even more difficult next year, it is little wonder.

2012 is definitely going to be an interesting year, although not necessarily in a good way.

I'm off to find all those online bargains that are just waiting for me to come along and buy them.

Wish me luck!

Don't trust a stranger with your laptop when you go to the toilet in a public place.

That is one of the genius bits of advice from security vendor AVG in an aptly titled press release sent this morning - Lessons from the security professionals to SMBs.

As we all know, many companies have suffered from data breaches this year and maybe they should be reading this simplistic advice. But I seriously hope most employees have a little more common sense.

Another gem is to 'count the items you take out of your bag when travelling - and count them back in' - really?

Are we addressing a bunch of toddlers, or supposed serious business professionals here? You wouldn't get any funny looks from fellow train or bus passengers if you counted every item in your bag out loud would you?

Also think about where you are sitting so people can't look at your screen - personally I like to set up a projector and screen so everybody can see what I'm doing. Is that wrong?

Use password protection and ensure you have a fully updated anti-virus suite installed - gosh I wonder if there is a vendor that can provide this.....oh, hang on.

There are some other points of advice, but I'll let you find those out for yourself.

There is even a video to watch on how to protect your business on the move which can be watched here.

I know I may mock (in a gentle way, I hasten to add), but I'm sure there are plenty of careless employees out there who leave USB sticks in the back of taxis, on trains etc who really should watch this.

But I just couldn't resist having a pop.

It should be entitled: Key advice for corporate dimwits on the move.

OK so the Christmas tree picture is a little cliched - but hey - it is only one time a year.

It really doesn't seem like five minutes since last Christmas - but it has been an eventful year inbetweet.

We've watched the economy stagnate while inflation goes through the roof, the Eurozone crisis kick off full pelt ad a wave of natural disasters rock places like Japan and Thailand - both of which have had an adverse impact on the  - industry as well.  then of course we have had riots, strikes and globally the Arab Spring which saw several dictators toppled after decades in power.

On a note closer to home, CRN has as usual held a range of events throughout the year aimed at getting people togetherand it seems to be working - our Channel Conference was the most successful yet and the Channel Awards smashed all our previous records and was certainly a night to remember for many reasons.

Next year is one of the same - we will continue to innovate as much as we can and strive to ensure the idustry has a voice and plenty of events to discuss issues most important to the channel. Of course we have the backdrop of economic uncertainty as well - but many have said those that innovate their way through recession are the ones that survive.

I would like to thank all our readers and sponsors for their continued support of CRN throughout 2011 - I hope you have found our events useful, and if you have not been to one yet, will consider coming along next year.

Merry Christmas and a peaceful and happy New Year to you all.

See you in 2012.