Take 4 minutes to view this great video.

Now if that has whet your appetite, take a look at this: Charles Leadbeater at TED talks

Here’s a great video about Web 2.0, the social / semantic web (4 minutes)

I’ve recently started using twitter as a microblogging service and for status updates. One really cool feature is the free sms feature for those following you. Can you imagine the creative ways this can be used? Think updating a family member about how late you’ll be or getting a direct message to bring home some milk or updating a customer about the status of a service call.

Take a look at the video below and feel free to follow me using twitter name smessinis

The internet generation is here and many children from as young as about three years are spending more and more time online. This holds both risks and benefits and so needs to be carefully managed so that children are protected from the risks while still being permitted to enjoy the benefits of the internet.

The internet holds great possibilities for early childhood education and for teaching children many new things, but what happens when your innocent little four year old accidentally clicks through to a porn or adult-only website?

Fortunately there are ways to ensure that little James stays on Thomas the Tank Engine website and does not mistakenly click through to visit any adult websites while playing around on the internet and this is done with parental control software.

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I say coincidentally because, I went by their offices today and complained about their site not being available for the past year or so. I’ve recently moved to Zografou and have often needed to talk to someone at the council for various things. Naturally, being a geek, I would look to their website to provide a telephone number but there has not been a website live for over a year.

So, today I went to the council offices to make an inquiry about something and right near the entrance I notice a sign pointing to the I.T. Dept. Naturally, I walk in. “Could you kindly tell me what the council website address is please”, I ask. I notice some bare stares from the three geeks in the room. One brave soul comes up for air from his session of bejeweled and says “Oh I think it’s www.zografou.gr” seeking confirmation from his cohorts. I respond like any unknowing citizen would. “Are you sure, because I don’t think it is. Could you show me?”

More blank stares, then a hint of terror. They now know I know there is no site at that address but he perseveres, fingers to the keyboard – DNS error. Not Found.

“See, thats what I get too” I say innocently. Another geek comes up for air. Google to the rescue. A couple of seconds later he calls out, “Found it!”

“Oh good I say”, what’s the address. “84.205.225.48” – before I can say anything the third geek jumps in. “We need to make that address known !!”

“No,” I say, “You need to fix the Nameserver entry to point to your domain”, Cat’s out the bag. They realise I’m a geek too.

The traditional “We’re not responsible for the site, we’re only temporary, I’m only on Stage (work experience) employment” conversation ensues to which I respond. “You’re geeks like me and even if it has been given to a contractor, a bad or non-existent website is a bad representation of you as geeks. So fix it or call someone to fix it.” You’ll have to talk to our manager, she’s not here now but we can give you the name of the person in charge of the contract.”

I go about the rest of my business and a few minutes later, I’m back in their offices, the manager has returned. She’s been told about my little complaint and immediately tells me to take my complaint to the mayor’s office. “Superb!! I’ll see the mayor, I have some other things to tell him too.” I say and off to the mayors office I go.

The mayor was busy. But I made my point and coincidentally, the site is live. Literally 2 hours later. It looks like it was built by Atcom They’re a great company – It’s a good site. I like it. I just hope they feed it before it dies.

Attended my first opencoffee event tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. What a group of smart kids, some seniors, some money guys. A good crowd. One minor negative, nothing serious. I felt that 10min presentations aren’t enough for the motivational speakers – give them more time. [Post edited]

Still, the event was great and I’ll make an effort to attend the next one too. I hope to bring along a couple of my geeky pals too. Keep up the good work.