HND Graduation

Went to Pencoed College today for my HND Graduation Ceremony. I was surprised be the number of other courses also at the ceremony, there was HND's HNC's MBA's and PGCE's from University of Glamorgan, UWIN and UWIC.

Another surprising thing was that I was the only person from my course to actually turn up for the ceremony (obviously all turned off by the price of hiring robes) but their loss I guess. My parents we're very proud and will be even more proud for my big boys graduation next summer.

Sustainability

On November 29th 2006 The Green Awards For Creativity In Sustainability are being held at The London Guild Hall. The reason for these awards is to spotlight brands and organizations that have demonstrated their commitment to sustainable development in a creative and effective way using various marketing and media platforms.

The awards are open to all types of businesses in both the public and private sectors who are willing to nominate themselves. The event is supported by The United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), Media Guardian, City of London, Marketing Week and CSR Wire.

"The overall objectives for the Green Awards are as follows:

• To recognise and reward outstanding creative work that communicates sustainability.
• To set the agenda for brands to brief agencies to include CSR within the creative process.
• To create a forum for how the media can help solve some of the environmental issues in a creative way.
• To develop the notion of 'Reform Advertising' i.e. advertising which includes environmental and social considerations during its planning and execution."

What they have to say about the reasons for the awards are “Today brands and organisations built on strong ethical and environmental credentials are becoming more influential across sectors as diverse as banking and retail, to food and pharmaceuticals. Marketeers and communications experts understand only too well the strong link between corporate reputation and customer trust, which in turn feeds through into brand strength and an organisations public positioning.

According to Mori, 82% of consumers want companies to make more effort to show what social, environmental and fair trade activities they are engaged in. The good news is that many businesses and corporations today see social and environmental issues as being critical to their overall success.”

The field that we work in ideally placed to encourage innovation in sustainable development, by

• practicing greener lifestyles,
  
• using energy efficient devices,
  
• producing our own green energy via solar panels and wind turbines,
  
• fitting in to our environment,
  
• encouraging social interaction eg blogs,
• recycling technologies,
  
• producing less waste heavy and toxic products,
  
• putting people first.

http://www.greenawards.co.uk/
http://www.csr.gov.uk/index.shtml
http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
http://www.leeds.gov.uk/sustain/
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,1924434,00.html
http://www.hydrogeneration.co.uk/intro.htm
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?ucidparam=20060918141449
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4445060.stm#
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6040536.stm
http://laptop.org/

wireless networks review

Looked at bluejacking but simons software wasn't able to communicate properly with our phones.
pico net
The cloud wireless in jukeboxes
Use blimps or balloons to broadcast wireless networks
pringles can antenae
MESH AP

Free, Open Wireless Networks

Seeing that I live in a small part (Rhoose Point) of a small village (Rhoose) on the edge of Cardiff (Rhoose) Wales Airport I thought I’d try to find out how many wireless networks there are in a this small rural area.

To start with I have a wireless network on NETGEAR shared between 2 laptops, which is open and free to use for anyone who wants to try.

Looking from home I found closed networks on BTVOYAGER a network called HORACE and one called SABAD. I then drove round the village with my laptop and found several networks - cxl-wifi, another BTVOYAGER, belkin54g, SABSW, NETGEAR, HILLNET, Livebox-2FAD, WANADOO-550D, linksy_nth, and at Cardiff Wales Airport BT Openzone.

Out of the above only 3 are open wireless networks free to use by anyone who finds them and the others are all secure. The exception to this is the network at the airport which uses BT Openzone. To use this you have to buy access time, walk into a hotspot, which could be a train station, café, shopping centre, restaurant/bar or airport open your wireless laptop or PDA, and connect to the internet using wireless broadband. Although not free to use it does give you access to thousands of public hotspots in the UK and tens of thousands global hotspots worldwide.

A completely free wireless network would allow people greater access to the internet no matter what their income and would create greater mobility of use for laptops and PDA’s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1707753,00.html
http://www.nycwireless.net/articles
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/technology/05wireless.html?ex=1299214800&en=de3c127408552e0a&ei=5089
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warchalking
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39195421,00.htm