On this day last year I wrote my very first blog post, prompted into action by a link from Martin Weller's blog to my then largely empty blog! I'm glad I became a blogger, I've already explained my reasons for blogging and the last year has no doubt seen some quite dramatic changes in the technology world. The blog has come a long way since then and now I am proud to say that on average two to three hundred of you visit it each day. I would like to say a big *thank you* to everybody who has read my posts and taken the time to comment. My fist post was about the Course Profiles application we created that works inside Facebook. Back then we were being told that no student wanted their university to have a presence in Facebook as The Guardian put it:

...Students want to be left alone. Their message to the trendy academics is: "Get out of MySpace!"

Now I would bet that few people still agree with that view. About 5,600 people have installed Course Profiles on their Facebook profile and the application was praised in a government-sponsored report as a good example of institutional involvement in social networking services. All sort of universities are now getting involved in Facebook, but I like to think that we were pioneers in this area.

After a makeover, I got to blog another dramatic change in the wold of technology, the release of the Asus EEE PC, a small, cheap, Linux powered laptop that brought the convenience of ultramobile computing to the masses. It also exploded the myth that Linux wasn't suitable for the desktop and too complicated for the average user with its innovative Easy Mode interface, speed and ease of use. As it used an open source operating system, you could also expand it and use it in all sorts of ways to meet your needs. The year also saw the rise of mobile broadband as a viable option for internet connectivity. It made a perfect companion to your new ultramobile and coverage here brought about a little bit of unexpected fame!

Since covering the release of Drupal 6 back in February, I'm finding that Drupal is becoming a big part of my working life, with many in the Open University excited about the possibilities it brings. It also powers Operation Sleepercell, which I contributed some code to, and was also featured in the press. The year has also seen two releases of Ubuntu each containing significant progress, and in a couple of weeks another release is due, and that will again be covered here.

Developments on the web have often left us to feel that the lines between the online and offline worlds are blurring, but the current economic crisis hangs like a big black cloud over our technological world. Already Seesmic the video microblogging service has had to lay off staff to cut costs and the idea of Web 2.0 has been declared dead. It is the end of an era, perhaps an end to age of innocence for Web 2.0 startups and their venture capalist backers, suddenly the idea of having no business plan doesn't seem so clever. I don't believe that Web2.0 ideas and sites will disappear anymore that the dot coms disappeared after the burst of the "dot com bubble", but certainly a lot will change and startups will have to prove they are viable businesses in the future. I think open source will become a critical concept for organisations to embrace, it will give the the flexibility to cope with rapidly changing requirements without having to worry about licensing fees all the time, it will also give them the option to work smarter and not "reinvent the wheel" by working with a wider community to solve common problems.

It is important now to keep calm and keep a level head. Expect the unexpected, if you use Web2.0 services (of any kind) make sure you have a local backup of your data. If you work in higher education that includes your data that is being held on institutional services (e.g. if you blog on an institutional service). Even these may not be completely safe. Back in July, John Selby, Director (Education and Participation) of JISC stated that:

"The last decade has been a golden era in terms of the security of funding and growth of HE. People have got used to that and assumed it was going to go on. It’s a real challenge. It will ripple through to all of you in some quite significant ways."

If some of the largest finanial organisations in the world can disappear overnight, and entire countries can hover on the brink of bankruptcy don't always assume that your favourite Web2.0 service will be safe! The advice has always been the same, take a backup. 

That said, we should always embrace the opportunities that new technology can bring us and use it to bring benefits to our lives, an option backed by tradition isn't always the safest or best option. I wonder what the next year will bring?