The Weekly Round-Up: 30.09.09

It's almost that time of year when nameless horrors not of this world crawl shrieking into the light, creating terror and provoking instant madness in all that see their horrible, bloated faces.

No, the Round-Up doesn't mean consultants doing the annual software audit. It's Halloween tomorrow.

The tech industry has always had a soft spot for the paranormal, what with its mailer-daemons, software wizards, trolls and the like.

Throw in that green-tinged Gollum tan that many IT people develop from spending too much time hunched over a screen and add in those odd, bearded sysadmins that lurk dwarf-like in the server room, and you get the feeling that Halloween should be recognised as the official holiday for IT departments.

After all, Halloween is the only time of year you'll get away with having a skeleton crew on the helpdesk…

And it's not just ghosts and goblins getting excited about the impending spooky festivities: needless to say, virus creators are getting in on the act too.

According to antivirus companies, there's been a spike in Halloween-themed viruses as malware merchants attempt a spot of trick or treating: offering their intended victims the treat of what appears to be a Halloween party invite, hoping to trick them into clicking on the dodgy links that lie within.

And what should happen to these unwary link-clickers? Why, they'll be dragged away to their doom by monstrous, nameless denizens of a dark netherworld.

Either that or they'll get a virus on their PC. One of the two.

Considering the amount of non-backed-up data on its hard drive, the Round-Up isn't sure which would be worse.

Leaving the Halloween terrors behind us, let's talk of an issue similarly likely to strike horror into the sturdiest of office workers: should you be friends with your boss on Facebook?

Let's look at the pros and cons: on the plus side - the warm feeling of camaraderie and knowing that you are more than a team, you're friends working towards a common purpose.

On the downside - never being able to pull a sickie and then brag about it online ("Getting paid to watch 'Bargain Hunt' LOL…"). Another downside - finding out way too much about what your boss gets up to at weekends and who their freaky friends are.

Yes, you just try to get through that budget meeting on a Monday morning without thinking of that photo of him in the Jacuzzi that you saw on Facebook at the weekend.

Now this is not to say the Round-Up is opposed to social networking - in fact silicon.com has just launched a group on LinkedIn - join it here now. However, working out who to add (or not) to your Facebook network can be fraught with danger.

Luckily, silicon.com has worked it all out for you, striding confidently into this particular etiquette minefield and charting a path so you can use Facebook et al in the workplace with nary a care.

The path in question consists of setting out a number of options, (which sound like summer holiday dance moves) including 'The ostrich' (ignore everyone) through to the 'The minimalist' (have the smallest, dullest Facebook profile possible).

The Round-Up reckons there are only really two options. Option one - turn your social network identity into a shameless piece of fiction designed to help you climb the corporate ladder, featuring lots of updates such as 1) "Thinking of out-of-the-box ideas", 2) "Pushing the envelope", and 3) many fake-looking pictures of you gazing proudly at a pie chart.

Option two - complete honesty. That means lots of updates along the lines of 1) "Eating a whole box of flapjacks" or 2) "Stealing some envelopes" and 3) real pictures of you looking bored in the canteen gazing at a chicken and mushroom pie. The choice is yours.

Still, if you can't work out who to be friends with in the office, at least you'll always know deep down who loves you.

That special someone who keeps you warm at night and remembers all those little details, the one that knows all your little quirks.

Yes, your laptop. The real love of your life.

While one-third of people say they would like to spend their holidays enjoying romantic time with a loved one, an eye-watering two-thirds would rather spend their time off with their laptop, according to a survey by BT and VisitBritain.

Yep, that's right: up and down the land this evening there will couples out for romantic dinners whispering sweet nothings but all the while thinking of getting home and hearing the welcoming hum of their laptop's hard drive.

According to the survey, two-thirds of 18- to 25-year-olds will mostly be spending their holiday time updating their Facebook status, tweeting or uploading photographs. The Round-Up assumes that at some point they will actually have to venture away from their laptops to actually take photos and do stuff to tweet about, but that is by no means guaranteed.

But before you start moaning about the youth of today, the greybeards are at it too - more than half of people aged 51-plus admitted to taking their laptops away with them on short breaks. The first time the Round-Up read that line of the research it thought it read "taking their laptops away for short breaks", which sounded even more romantic.

And finally this week - you've probably just got used to the so-called millennials turning up in your office (otherwise known as smug kids who view iPhones and permanent access to YouTube as a human right). They're annoying enough. But now get ready for 'citizen developers'.

Citizen developers are defined as users working outside the scope of enterprise IT and its governance who create new business apps for others to use either from scratch, or by mashing up and building on various existing services. It's predicted that by 2014, citizen developers will build at least a quarter of new business applications.

That's definitely what hard-pressed IT departments need - more meddling amateurs.

Which leaves us just enough time for a quick run through the rest of the news.

How many iPhone apps have you got? Check out this crop of wonders and work out which you need to add…

CIOs and open source - the battle continues!

And - be green, stay lean.