I could have titled this post “What your I.T staff do when your not looking“. Only kidding here is the latest research about how I.T Professionals use Social Networking.

The research study was carried out in November 2007 with 393 respondents.

This should be of interest to anyone interested in how people use social media.

Some of the topics covered:-

Which networks,  behaviour, identity, negative impact, managing communities, impact and effect.

Link: view the full results here

I get to spend *lots* of other people’s money on I.T Equipment.

I have decided to create a new category on this site called “Recommended Buys“. I will post and file equipment/software in this category that I would personally recommend.

The criteria for inclusion simply is: Would I recommend or buy it myself.

You may want to Book Mark this link: View all posts filed under Recommended Buys

This would be particularly useful for the Small Business purchaser as buying the right technology for this market is my business.

The price of this was checked on 30/01/2008.

Dell’s prices fluctuate all the time but the current price of their Silver 22″ Widescreen Model (SP2208WFP) is excellent at £183.54 Delivered.

A single large Widescreen display can be really useful for the busy executive types who work on multiple documents. At 1680×1050 screen resolution you can have word or excel documents side by side.

I would say the SP2208WFP would be a great upgrade for an existing monitor.

It has a built-in webcam which is a nice touch on a monitor at this price point.

There are some downsides to consider.

1) The viewing angles aren’t great. But for your typical user who sits in from of the monitor This wont be an issue.

2) The screen is one of these new screens with a reflective shiny coating. A nightmare for catching finger prints and smudges.

It has lots of connectively options:-

The default behaviour after you install Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is to visit the link show in the above image. http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx

But what if as in this case the site is down or experiencing problems?

Every time I open IE7 on a machine I have just reinstalled Windows XP on it keeps trying to get to the same page and it cant.

At first I got Server is too busy.

Then just the error page as shown below.

But what can you do if you are stuck in the IE7 first run loop.

Well on the Microsoft support link below they tell you to copy and paste a registry command into notepad and save the document with a .reg extension, then you run the reg file to import it directly into the Windows Registry.

That seems to work however I suppose the real question is why on earth do we have to visit the runonce link in the first place.

Link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945385

I have seen the above dialogue box twice in the last week and it just creeps me out.

I cant think of any good legitimate reason a Website should have access to my local clipboard.

After doing some reading on this apparently IE7 can sometimes set this off in error and you can turn it off, however I would rather be bothered with false positives than not know what a particular Website is doing to my computer.

There are a number of Websites on the web designed specifically to try install Malware/Spyware on your computer or worse steal confidential information like usernames and passwords.

The number of these sites is growing.

In the bad old days Viruses\Malware\Spyware travelled by e-mail but in 2008 you are more likely to get hit by visiting a Website.

Tip: If you have any doubts about a particular Website, exercise caution move on and try another one.

Things to Avoid: Sites that try and install software.

The above prompt is trying to install an ActiveX Control. An ActiveX Control is like software that installs in your web browser.

Tip: In some cases you may need to install an ActiveX control to access some feature of the site but only accept those you *REALLY* need. Clicking yes  blindly to everything is asking for trouble.

On the link below is a well written but slightly old article on Malware.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/malware.ars/1