Two cautioned over wireless Internet "piggy-backing"

Two people have been arrested and cautioned for using someone else's wireless Internet connection without permission, known as "piggy-backing", police said on Wednesday.
The practice, which sharply divides Internet users, has been fuelled by the rapid growth of fast wireless broadband in homes and people's failure to secure their networks.
On Saturday, a man was arrested after neighbours spotted him sitting in a car outside a home in Redditch, Worcestershire, using a laptop computer to browse the Internet.
A 29-year-old woman was also arrested in a car in a similar incident in the same area last month.
Both received an official caution, a formal warning one step short of prosecution, for "dishonestly obtaining electronic communications services with intent to avoid payment".
They were among the first to be arrested for piggy-backing in Britain. Gregory Straszkiewicz, from west London, was the first person to be convicted of the offence in 2005. He was fined 500 pounds and given a 12-month conditional discharge.
"Wireless networks don't stop at the walls of your home," said PC Tony Humphreys, of West Mercia Constabulary. "Without the necessary protection, your neighbours or people in the road outside may be able to connect to your network."
There is a lively ethical debate in Internet chatrooms over whether piggy-backing is immoral or harmless.
"If it travels through the air it is open season," wrote one contributor to a Web forum. Another wrote: "If it's out there unsecure and I'm not trespassing, it's fair game."
Up to a quarter of home wireless connections are unsecured, according to a recent survey by the consumer finance Web site www.moneysupermarket.com.
Jason Lloyd, the site's head of broadband, said it left people open to identity theft, fraud and pornography being downloaded using their account.
"The repercussions can be severe," he said. "It's bad enough when your neighbours can use your Internet connection freely, but this becomes far more sinister if someone uses your wireless connection for criminal activity."Businesses are also at risk. A survey of 320 companies by the London trade show Infosecurity Europe found that a quarter have no wireless security policy.

Source: Reuters

IT illiteracy undermines business productivity

Firms are finally facing up to the shortage of tech-savvy amongst their workforce

A survey last year of over 74,000 employers from the Learning and Skills Council found that 13 percent of applicants across all vacancies where firms have identified skills shortages lack general IT user skills.

Meanwhile, a recent study from government and employer-backed IT skills development body e-skills UK found that UK employers felt they needed to improve the IT skills of 7.6 million employees out of an IT-using workforce of 21.5 million.
"It is a major problem," said Martin Harvey director of IT user skills at e-skills UK. "We have evidence that those with the right IT skills for their role can save 40 minutes a day compared to those who are less adept. It may not sound a lot but when you add it up that means a huge amount of productivity is being lost."

Meanwhile, recent workplace trends such as the shift towards home and remote working and the movement offshore of many IT support teams suggest it is becoming ever more important that individual employees have a mastery of the IT hardware and software they use.
Experts agree that in the short term the best way to tackle this problem is through increased investment in IT training, and a wide range of courses and qualifications covering basic IT skills are now available to help bolster employees' IT skills.

However, with over 640 different IT qualifications available in the UK selecting the right course can prove extremely tricky, according to Harvey. " Employers are baffled by this plethora of certificates," he said. "Even when people have some of the better qualifications like CLAiT, the European Computer Driving License (ECDL) and the City and Guilds' E-Quals certificate some employers are uncertain about the currency of the qualification."
He added that having to put staff through the entire course to gain a qualification when they may only require knowledge in certain areas also put many firms off investing in putting employees through such certification schemes.
E-skills is seeking to tackle this problem with its new employer-backed iTQ qualification, which Harvey said would provide firms with the ability to tailor the course and exam to suit their needs.
Lauren Frere, product manager at accreditation body OCR, which offers the iTQ qualification said it provides employees with the ability to formally certify their working knowledge of IT user skills. "Employers can customise these qualifications to suit their organisations particular requirements," she said. "For example, bespoke software, such as a corporate intranet or existing accounting software can be added... Practical needs of the business and individuals are [also] met as learning can take place in bite-sized chunks, and can often be incorporated into the working day."
However, regardless of the confusion surrounding qualifications some critics argue that employers are not doing enough to upskill their staff. "Investment in training is key but many companies have a level of myopia when it comes to the benefits of training," argued Robert Chapman, managing director of IT training form The Training Camp. "IT is the tool that most people use in their jobs and it must hamper productivity if people aren’t skilled in using it, but many companies still see training as a cost rather than an investment, and believe people will just leave if they train them up."
But Harvey insisted that firms are increasingly aware of the need to give staff IT training. "Employers are now investing a huge amount," he said. "One survey found that 58 percent of employers are investing in IT training making it the most widespread form of workplace training after mandatory areas like health and safety."
Jeremy Beale, head of e-business policy at the CBI, agreed businesses are now aware of the value of IT training and argued that at some larger firms extensive training had even become mandatory. "If you look at BT, which has a very mature home working policy, staff have to do the [basic IT] training if they are going to work from home," he said. "That is sensible practice as it ensures staff get the right skills to drive the productivity gains you'd expect."
However, he admitted that some firms find delivering IT training to staff easier than others. "If there is a problem it is in the SME space," he said. "A lot of smaller companies don’t have sufficient resources for a proper IT department, let alone resources to train up staff further."
There is hope, however, that even these cash-strapped firms are beginning to see the IT literacy of their workforce improve as online learning technologies and improved user interfaces make it easier than ever before for users to master applications.
Darren Strange, product manager at Microsoft, said the vendor's latest version of Office embodied this new generation of user-friendly apps. "Office 2007 moves away from a scenario where you need to understand every aspect of the application to get where you want, to a more results-oriented design that means that if you know what you want it is far easier to deliver," he said. "We've also invested heavily in an online resource that offers all kinds of training from bite sized chunks you can learn in your lunch hour to full training c ourses."
Furthermore the emergence of a new tech-savvy generation of school and university leavers who have grown up with Google and MySpace leaves some firms hopeful that the problems posed by computer illiteracy could soon become a thing of the past. "There is a generational issue here," said Beale. "Kids coming out of school do find these skills much easier."
However, Chapman argued that that while new user interfaces and the retirement of the baby boomers may reduce the problem of computer illiteracy, relatively few people were making full use of the IT at their fingertips. " There is a contradiction here," he said. "Interfaces are getting easier to use, but at the same time functionality is getting richer and richer. As a result more people can make use of Excel for example, but few are using the full richness of the software and maximising their productivity."

Source: IT Week

Accessible websites can be cool too !

The majority of websites do not comply with accessibility standards, too often websites are designed to look "COOL" with heavy use of flash and images outweighing accessibility needs.

Attitudes need to change among those web designers who still I consider wrongly that accessible, compliant websites are generally a pain to create, involve extra work and do not look attractive.

The situation will only improve with the use of software tools that help ensure the pages generated comply with accessibility standards.

Here at West Coast Solutions we strive to make sure all the websites we devleop comply with the highest accessibility criteria.

Click here to view some of the websites we have developed.

Your Business Printing Costs too high ?

Business Pay per Print

Samsung is to launch a pay-per-print service for UK customers within the next couple of months. Samclick is aimed at reducing total cost of ownership for firms with heavy print requirements.

Companies will pay a monthly fee to lease printer copies, toner cartridges and on-site support, with a web-based portal giving an instant overview of usage and expenditure.

The solution is being tried at a UK goverment department looking to lease 20,000 printers. Samsung said businesses that currrently own their printers could cut their costs bt 25 to 40 percent by swithcing to samclick. Saving will vary according to the number of printers they use and average print volumes. Similar par-per-print services are available from rivals Epson, Oki and Xerox.

Source: IT Week