Medalling kids

This week Dave phones it in with some lazy potshots at cloud, Facebook, piracy and the Olympics. Enjoy!

Imagine my all-round amazedness to read this week that a reseller and a vendor are going to delight and inspire UK children by giving them genuine pieces of London 2012 equipment.

When I saw that Olympic sponsor Acer and VAR partner Probrand intend to "pass on the legacy of the Games" in classrooms up and down the land, I wondered what kind of awe-inspiring memorabilia they might be delivering. Perhaps a javelin thrown by Jessia Ennis? Maybe a pair of gloves used by Nicola Adams, Luke Campbell or Anthony Joshua? Could it even be Bradley Wiggins' aerodynamic sideburns or a mouldering pair of Tom Daley's Speedos?

Even better than that: discount second-hand computers. Which apparently qualifies as "a small slice of Olympic magic" (emphasis on the small, if you ask me), and "very rare Olympic legacy equipment".

OK, it's easy (very easy) to cock a snook at this, but just remember that all this magical Olympic legacy equipment could set a starry-eyed child on the road to one day achieving greatness in the field of promptly replying to ticketing queries, co-ordinating cross-departmental marketing activities, or even driving audience engagement and brand awareness with regular social media updates.

Pulling a FAST one

In an unusually thinly veiled attempt to get on their soapbox about how the scourge of underlicensing will bring about the collapse of civilised society, I saw the chaps from the Federation Against Software Theft put out some research about office thievery this week.

In not-particularly-scandalising revelations, FAST data revealed that 82 per cent of employees "steal" pens from work, while 65 per cent are not above getting light-fingered with the Post-It notes. A third of employees reportedly help themselves to blank CDs, while about one in five lifts the odd notebook.

Alas, putting the word SOFTWARE in CAPITAL LETTERS didn't disguise the fact that software was low down the list on 16 per cent.

All of which didn't stop FAST chief executive Alex Hilton from thundering: "Corporate UK needs to ask itself one serious question: what on earth are they putting on the corporate network and are they managing their software estates effectively?"

Of course, Alex. That's the one serious question facing corporate UK. Not ‘will the European economy collapse?' or ‘will I have to make long-standing employees redundant?' or ‘how do I get off the FAST mailing list?'.

Relationship status

Imagine my amazement to learn this week that yer average divorce case is now being decided on evidence gleaned from social media.

According to media guff put out by "internet reputation company" (no, I don't know either) GotJuice.co.uk, more than 80 per cent* of divorce lawyers scour social networking sites on behalf of their client. (*figure estimated to within nearest 80 per cent.)

Website representative Mark Hall offers strong, bewildering words for users who pay scant regard to their privacy settings.

"Cached data means that what is posted on the internet could be forever," he warns.

Good point, Mark. I, for one, don't want to look like I've got anything to hide, so I'll be making sure from now on that I never pay a visit to any ‘internet reputation companies'.

Clouding the issue

As a dyed-in-the-wool reseller of high-margin, low-service bits of tin, few things make me as happy as a bit of completely unsubstantiated scaremongering about my cloud-toting rivals.

So I was concerned this week to receive some promotional gubbins from Claranet seeking to dispel some of the more common myths about cloud security. Simon Bearne counselled firms thinking about going cloud that "it's easy to bamboozle customers with claims over security and data protection".

Before adding: "The knowledge that an organ-isation has taken time to ensure its technology is up to scratch and put itself through rigorous auditing and certification processes - such as those for ISO:27000 or PCI DSS - will build resellers' trust, giving them confidence that they are looking at a mature market that takes their security concerns seriously."

I was gonna make a joke here but I'm afraid I've run out of wordcount.