As an avid users of Google Apps it was great to hear that Google launched a Status Dashboard for the service which alert users to any service disruptions.

Disruptions are rare, but can be frustrating, especially if you don't know if it's just you having the problem, or everyone else too!

Today I set up a Twitter account (@gappsstatus) which pulls in the Dashboard's RSS feed for those who might want to keep track of the service status on Twitter. (There didn't seem to be an official feed).

Follow @gappsstatus for updates.

I've had my iPhone for almost 4 months now so I thought I'd do a run down of the apps I have installed in case anyone is looking for recommendations.

Some of these apps I use every day, some every now and again, and some very rarely - but they're useful to have 'just in case'.

To take screen shots of anything on your iPhone like this press the 'lock' button (top right) and the main button on the front of the phone at the same time. Images are saved to photo gallery.

1. Safari - default and best browser.

2. Calendar  - default app, I have 6 or 7 Google Calenders synced with this.

3. Contacts - default app.

4. App Store (self explanatory)

5. Opera Mini - recently released and very quick. Still a litte buggy, pages don't tend to render as well as they do in Safari. One for the future! (free)

6. Simplenote - free notepad app, syncs with web account and there's a Google Chrome plugin for quickly adding/editing/deleting notes.  I love this app. Unobtrusive ads (free), or there's a paid version.

7. Tasks - this is a homescreen bookmark to my Gmail tasks, nice little Google web interface.

8. Reeder - RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. Really nice interface, much more intuitive than the Google Reader Mobile interface. Paid, but not expensive.

9. Facebook - official app, very good, lots of options to manage personal account and 'fan' pages. (free)

10. BBC News - Homescreen bookmark which will have to do until/if BBC release official iPhone Apps.

11. Sky Sports Football Score Centre - Lets you add your team so you can get the info/scores you want first, also includes scores for  most other major leagues. Doesn't like 3G very much. Free.

12. Foursquare - location based game/social app, fun but a little unreliable on slow connection.

13. Camera (default app)

14. Photos (default app)

15. Mailroom - Replacement Gmail web app - lets you log into multiple Gmail/Google Apps email accounts, also includes functionality such as archiving, labelling, deleting which default Mail App doesn't support for Gmail.

16. Hootsuite - Twitter app, syncs with web account, allows multiple Twitter accounts plus Facebook accounts. My main reason for using this is that it allows you to schedule tweets/status updates, which is very handy as I need to send messages from profiles in other timezones when I'm asleep! (Paid)

17. Phone (default app)

18. Messages (default app)

19 Mail (default app)

20. Tweetdeck - Twitter app which I've used since I had my phone. Generally very good, ability to add multiple search columns, multiple accounts etc. A little grumpy on slow connections and like it's desktop partner tweets sometimes disappear and get missed out. I'm waiting for Tweetie to be launched as the official Twitter for iPhone app and will probably switch to that as my main Twitter app.

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"Bod, James Bod!"

Last week I was browsing Twitter (whilst I should have been working) and stumbled up this tweet by Steve Campbell from Debut Design in Wolverhampton. Having given the photo a quick look, I took my chances and replied saying that I thought it was Gadget Show host Suzi Perry. To my amazement, a few minutes later I got a reply from Steve telling me that I'd won!

I was directed to this page, where I had to upload a photo of myself, along with a brief description of how I wanted my bod to look. I uploaded a photo, and included several things in the description that I considered essential; a beard, long hair, a smile, checked shirt, dark trousers, boots, not too ginger.

I think the result above speaks for itself - it's a really great likeness, crafted by someone who has never set eyes on me in 'real life', and I'm very pleased with it. So much so that I'm now using my bod as my profile pic on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and various other sites. Whatsmore, you can get your own Bod for the very reasonable price of £20 - check out the Debut website to order one.

The Blonde Kid: "There's only four things I want...although they are quite expensive" Me: "What are they then?" 1. "A Ben 10 decorated bedroom" 2. "An M3P player or an iPod to listen to my music on" (I think he means MP3 player!) 3. "Virgin Media/Sky (Cable TV) in my bedroom" 4. "A Laptop computer to play Club Penguin on" Not much of an ask then? Suppose we'd better get saving...son of a geek you say?

How do you to do? I mean, you have stuff to do, right? How do you remember to do it? Do you have the brain/memory capacity to remember everything you need to do each day? Or do you forgot lots of things? Maybe you have the ultimate to do list system? And do you worry about forgetting to do things? Or maybe you just don't worry about not doing, to do's?

I've been asking myself all of these question of late. There have been a couple of blog posts that got me thinking about this, one of which is here  (check out my rambling comment!).

The one conclusion that I have come to is that I have relied on technology to remind me to do things for so long now, I'm incapable of doing it myself - my brain can't handle it, most likely because it's out of practice (it hasn't been used in this way, so it's forgotten), and possibly because it hasn't been allowed to adapt to a world where there are literally hundreds of bits of 'mini information' being thrown at it from all directions at the same time, courtesy of the aforementioned technology.

I always have lots of things 'to do' but I suck at doing them. I make to do lists; most are in my email, some are in an online 'to do list manager' (which is embedded in my email), many are saved as reminders in my mobile phone, and very occasionally there'll be one or two in my head. But as my to do list manager (software called Remember The Milk) so often reminds me, my 'overdue' list is always longer than my 'to do' list.

So, how do I fix this? Do I need to adopt a super-strict routine when it comes to 'to do's', or perhaps I need to stop worry about it, and in the words of Nike 'just do it'? Either way I'm not sure, and I'm swimming in a sea of 'to do's'.

How do you make sure you remember to get everything done?

Recognition is always nice, and working for myself whilst I am often thanked by the people I work with/for, it's not as if I get an annual review or 'employee of the month' award, so I was very chuffed with myself when I stumbled upon an article about 'QDOS', a system that measures an individual’s 'digital status' in the UK. According to a recent QDOS report 9 out of 10 of the most digitally prolific personalities in the UK are musicians, and whilst you'd be forgiven for assuming someone such as Bono would be number one, you'd also be wrong! According to QDOS, the number one most digitally prolific person in the UK is non other than Imogen Heap! (Tony Blair and Gordon Brown came in at numbers 12 and 25 respectively).

A QDOS score is comprised of four main components – popularity, impact, activity and individuality. Each component is scored separately and these are combined to form a total QDOS score. Popularity measures the number of people one engages with online and the size of their personal network, impact is based on the number of people who listen/read/view/comment when an individual blogs/posts online, activity comprises the total of one’s digital activity including shopping, blogging, banking, chatting etc, and individuality is how unique one is in the digital world based on their name, age and lifestyle.

So as Imogen's webmaster and gate-keeper of all things online, I am patting myself on the back for a job well done! Although, I'm not the only person that deserves recognition here - there's Imogen herself for always being up for trying something new, Mark Wood (Imogen's manager) for letting us try things and always supporting us, and Tiffany 'the axemaiden' Le, our 'myspace housekeeper' who does a superb job managing Imogen's MySpace profile and it's 300,000+ friends. Having spent the last 5 or 6 years working with Imogen and it's great to see our efforts being recognised - I'm looking forward to retaining our 'title' in 2008! Read the full article here.

"Why I should be made the Internet Tsar" by Charles Arthur of Guardian Unlimited is as good a reason as any for me to start blogging again. Not only am I sealing my place in the blogosphere for another month (reference 1), but I'm also effectively "copying and pasting entire stories from mainstream news sites" (reference 2). This article is a rather amusing read, check it out here.

 The past week has been quite a busy and eventful one, for lots of reasons, many of which I won't go into here. However.... Steph and I are now the proud owners of new office furniture! Not content with new garden furniture we managed to blag some un-wanted office furniture , so we now have a really nice office set-up at one end of the living room, with a nice big desk - it means that the living room is now part home office as well, but it's going to be really useful for both of us to have somewhere to keep our plethora of technology and means our dining table may get used for eating off a little more, instead of computing on. We're still working on how best to have everything laid out, but we're getting there and once we've purchased some shelves we should be set! The house is currently in a state of chaos because at the same time as receiving this new furniture we decided to decorate Jordan's bedroom and surprise him when he comes back next week - it looks like it's going to turn out really well, but we're currently living in chaos with every room in the house turned upside down - I'm sure it'll all be worth it once we're finished though! I'm going to go and research office layouts and aesthetics now, in the hope of finding some useful tips, while fending off the mosquitoes that are eating us alive at the moment. [tags]Home Office, Self Employment, Living[/tags] ---------------- Now playing: Mute Math - Reset via FoxyTunes

BBC Columnist Bill Thompson has written a really good article on internet security. Bill talks about how web users shouldn't have to worry about how much identifying information they post online on social networks, blogs and personal websites, putting them at risk of identity theft. Instead he thinks that the banks, credit card companies and organisations responsible for looking after their customer's interests should adapt their security procedures to deal with the risks of modern-day technological threats. Click here to read the article.

[tags]Internet,Comedy,Humour,You Tube[/tags]