chrisgreen.co.uk

As a journalist I know all too well that there is simply far too much spam pushed out by the PR community. It is something I have always vowed I would try and change given the opportunity.

These days, I do have that opportunity and I do my bit wherever possible to stop the flow of unnecessary and irrelevant comms flowing out to my colleagues, who have much better things to do than read press releases about lawnmowers when they write for a PC modding mag, financial results releases when they only cover product.

Anyway, the guys over at RealWire, along with some like-minded PRs and journalists have come together to support a campaign to stamp out PR spam. I’m backing it too! They have a video, it’s rather good:

Find out more at: http://inconvenientprtruth.com/

One of my last projects of 2008 has now gone on sale - it is a bookazine devoted to one of my favourite technology subjects - the BlackBerry.

You can buy The Ultimate BlackBerry Guide from those nice people at Amazon.co.uk, where it is currently on sale with an equally nice online discount.

The book will tell you everything you need to know, from handy shortcuts to undocumented features, along with tips on the best third party software and games available for the current range of devices. There is even a section dedicated to using your BlackBerry with a Mac.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this book possible. It was hard work, but I hope you will agree it was worth it.

Chris on CNBC Squawk Box talking about Apple's quaterly financials

I popped up on CNBC this morning on behalf of DMG Europe to talk about Apple’s quarterly financials and the business implications of a permanent departure by Steve Jobs.

You can view the video here.

I’ve just arrived home after a late-night appearance on Richard Bacon’s show on BBc Radio 5 Live as part of the business news segment.

We were discussing how to ensure your data doesn’t end up in the wrong hands should you (or your company) decide to sell off your old machine.

Which suggests the only way to be sure that your data won’t come back from the dead is to smash up your hard drive into pieces with a hammer. I agree, and to prove the point made by Which we attempted to do this on the show.

If we had been doing this for real we would have spent a few more minutes clubbing the drive in question to death to ensure the platter was well and truly destroyed and ripped into multiple pieces, however in five minutes we did manage to damage the drive to a suitable degree.

Of course, a hammer attack is not the only solution to ensure your data can’t be recovered after your hard drive leaves your possession.

There are several software tools available (many of them free) that can erase your drive in a way that ensures previously-stored data is overwritten multiple times, rather than just being flagged as erased. For most consumers, one of these solutions is more than sufficient. You can also use magnets. Not a guaranteed solution, but good enough for most people. A drive that has been magnetically wiped or erased to US DoD standard is pretty much clean. If anything did remain on the drive, the cost and complexity of extracting the information would make it pointless, unless the data itself was worth a colossal amount (such as the plans for performing a successful break-in at Fort Knox etc).

For businesses that intend to dispose of old computers, particularly those handling sensitive information such as customer lists, financial data, credit card details etc, destruction is well worth considering. In the same way that companies shred CDs, hard drives that previously contained sensitive data should be removed from the machine being sold off/given away/recycled and destroyed. Break the drive open, remove the platter (the magnetic spinning disc or discs inside the drive) and wreck it as much as possible - shred it into as many pieces as possible.

Some would still call this excessive, but it does ensure peace-of-mind.

Catch me tonight on BBC Radio 5 Live at around 10.45pm.

I’ll be talking about the BlackBerry Storm, which goes on sale in Phones 4u and Vodafone stores tomorrow (Friday) morning. I’ll also be talking about 3’s INQ 1 Facebook phone, which was unveiled to press earlier on today.

I’m going to be doing another live blogging event, this time on the evening of Monday 27 October, from the opening keynote of Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference.

We are using Cover It Live again to deliver the coverage, details below. Hope you can join us for what should be a very interesting set of announcements from Microsoft.

I’m going to be live blogging the announcements from the Apple Let’s Rock event over at IT PRO.

We will be using CoverItLive for the live blogging, providing it doesn’t collapse under the strain, which it did the first time we used it for an Apple event.

Coverage over at IT PRO begins at 5.30pm UK time, with Steve Jobs due on stage at 6pm.

Details below:

I’m doing a few media spots to talk about Google Chrome, the new web browser from Google.

You can catch me tonight (2 September) on CNN at 7.40pm UK time (2.40pm Eastern, 11.40am Pacific) where I’ll be discussing the new browser and the competitive implications for Microsoft, which has also recently released a public beta of IE8.

Tomorrow (3 September) I’ll be on the breakfast show on BBC Radio 5 Live at about 8.45am.

As always, these timings are subject to change.

I’ve just finished reviewing the new BlackBerry Bold and have to say I’m quite impressed. You can read my review over on the IT PRO web site now.

The Bold will be avilable on most UK networks by the end of the month, though T-Mobile is only selling it to business customers initially because, well - we don’t actually know why, we just know that it’s a bloody stupid move from T-Mobile, as usual.

I posted a slightly tounge-in-cheek blog over at IT PRO about Ikea’s new mobile phone service.

You might find it interesting. I like the no-nonsense approach to pricing. Just not sure if it will ever achieve critical mass.