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For an astonishingly large amount of people, the end of each year signals the annual commitment to create New Year resolutions. It's not a new thing. The Babylonians probably started it way back when as they made promises to their gods at the beginning of each year to return any borrowed items and pay off their debts. These days, resolutions have been redefined as goals. Rather than returning borrowed items and paying off debts, it's now all about building good habits and putting things into practice that can improve our everyday lives. Some will want to stop smoking while others will want ...  More

The normal reaction when a work colleague emails you with a request for a lost password, sensitive material or private information is to say yes and to email them the relevant details straight away, isn't it? Does it achieve its purpose? Yes, it certainly does. Is it safe from the prying eyes of others, though? Not in a month of Sundays, as my old mum would say. For a start, emails, texts and instant messages could be left open by the recipient allowing a third party to read them. However, just as dangerous is the fact that your private information could be stored on any number of insecure ...  More

While doing a little research for the review of this app I found out a few really interesting facts. I was astonished to find out that, in the US alone, there are about 2,500 dating apps available with about 1,000 new ones opening up every year. Some estimate that, at any given time, there are as many as 8,000 worldwide. In my online travels and apart from the obvious Tinders and Grinders, I found straight and gay apps, black-white apps, Asian apps, Christian apps, geek apps, women in prison apps and even Star Trek dating apps, for gods sake. Each has its own thing that sets it apart from ...  More

According to the latest figures, the unemployment rate in the UK is at its lowest since records were first recorded back in 1971. While those figures have to be commended, it's rather sobering to note that it has taken almost ten years to recover from the disaster of the GFC back in 2008-9. The downside is that people are working longer hours, wages growth has stagnated and many of the new jobs are part time. It doesn't help that many economists are predicting a new financial crisis in the not so distant future - especially with Brexit looming and Trump's America first policy continuing. ...  More

If you asked a number of potential customers about their most frustrating experience when dealing with an online business I'm betting that most of them will say that there's not much worse than sitting on the phone for half an hour while waiting for customer service. It's made worse when it's just a simple question that needs answering. And that's why the chatbot was invented. It enables customers to ask and get answers to frequently asked questions via an automated service. Amazingly enough, the first chatbot was created back in the early to mid 60's but the phrase itself wasn't really ...  More

Have you ever wanted to create your own version of YouTube, Hulu, WebTV... or Netflix, if it comes to that? You'd think that you'd have to take a course in coding and empty out the bank balance to have even half a chance of getting there, wouldn't you? However, with technology these days hitting new heights and being improved on every day, it's now possible to broadcast any number of long form videos for a small sum and  by utilising just a few lines of code. Because the camera is considered to be the new keyboard these days, the developer's mission was to make everyone's content ...  More

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There is plenty of evidence out there to suggest that the numerical concepts that kids acquire in early childhood lay the foundation for learning mathematical concepts later on in life. You will hear plenty of comments from baby boomer parents, for example, that learning their 'times tables' while at school has served them well to the point that they still remember them now - many years on. Personally speaking, one of the great math lessons in my life was playing the noble game of darts where players must keep track of their score as they count down from 301 or 501. The mistake that many ...  More

If you look online to search for the pros and cons of allowing young kids to play games online you will find as many positive comments as you will find negative ones. Some will say that kids should be playing with physical toys and interacting with their parents rather than being immersed in a virtual world on a computer. Others will say that kids should be outside enjoying the big wide world rather than stuck on the couch with an iPad in their sticky hands. However, many experts say that when kids play well thought out educational games it can improve their problem solving and strategic ...  More

It's a curious fact but, when Disney's animated film 'Finding Nemo' was released in 2003, its intended message was to save the beautiful clownfish and to keep them in the sea where they belong. Such was the effect of this emotive film, however, that millions were plucked from the oceans and sold on to parents who placated their screaming kids with tropical aquariums filled with brightly colored fish. Apparently, sales of clownfish rose by 40% over the next year or so but its estimated that 9 out of 10 perished pretty quickly. Now, I'm not suggesting that this game will have the same effect ...  More

Our online privacy has never been quite as important as it is these days. There seems to be a new story every week about accounts being hacked or identities stolen and I'm starting to get a bit tired of watching Mark Zuckerberg apologising for various Facebook anomalies every few weeks. WhatsApp claimed to have end-to-end encryption but that seems to have been shot down in flames when it was discovered that hackers can insert people into groups without having to have admin permission and the Android version of the Facebook Messenger app comes with a lengthy list of permissions that must be ...  More