The pros and cons of working from your bedroom;  from someone used to getting the train every day to someone used to freelancing at home. Can our mental health, creativity and new business engagement survive it, are some in a honeymoon period of cozy slippers and how do businesses manage their culture from afar. Will the remote manager be a different fish from the in person plaice? And finally how do you run a successful zoom workshop, apparently it involves roses!

Internet DNA - UX, Design and Tech musings

Do we like working from home?

What? Why? How? Exactly, that is the reason for our discussion today. Filling you in on all you need to know about creating a story for your business and how this helps growth, loyalty and ultimately success. Peppered with some strange and interesting facts as always.

Story Telling as a Marketing Tool

The Simian army is coming to a server near you. With chaos monkeys, doctor monkeys, chaos apes janitor monkeys and the perfect Facebook storm. Is chaos engineering the best way to test a system's robustness and what happens when a monkey actually does a good job? We look at the twitter hacking, NHS virus and engineering through elasticity not scale, and well, best listen in to the pitter patter of little monkey feet.

What is Chaos Engineering?

Neo banks, digital banks, online only banks you name it, they are probably called  it. Why haven't we swapped? Is it really loyalty or love of our bank or we are just too lazy to change? We dissect online banking, open banking and did you know that you are only limited to buying 4 gold coins, and the UK government can just take it off you if they get in a sticky situation, like now! ... read on. ps. sorry for the slight muffle it is only at the beginning. 

New Digital Banking

Dear Santa, why can’t Google and Apple let governments use Bluetooth in a way enables their track and trace apps to work when they seem to be able to do it for their track and trace apps? For Christmas, or preferably sooner, can you just make them do that. How honest is Google - we explain the Covid-19 track and trace apps in more detail and touch on the scary side of privacy, where do you stand? And Dan says he's not weird about data, but I think we can be the judge of that.

The Covid-19 Track & Trace App

We take a look at the apps out there, to see if there is anything that we really couldn't or shouldn't live without. But do we need a cake delivery app, family list maker,  app to stop you fiddling with other apps, apps to help you buy more, feel more, do more. And what if these apps are bit by bit reducing our freedom and civil liabilities? Are we in fact sleepwalking back to 1984 and what is the real cost of track and trace.

Can apps change our life for the better?

Bill Gates created corona virus - you heard it here first, or second, or third - so that he can then fine the vaccine, uh? yes well, moving on Abi gets carried away with a long list of 'cant live without' apps that she really can live without. While Dan thinks there is a social movement to off grid living, and that this may drive the tech needed to accelerate developing countries further into the digital future We need radicals, but alas that isn't Dan. Instead we sum up our findings on whether tech is helping us or not

Is technology making us richer or poorer?

Beating spam is a never ending story, but google, liking to be helpful in all walks of life have brought out google recaptcha, we discuss here what this is, what it means and how it compares to mud. Yes mud, possibly more interesting than recaptcha.

The New Google Recaptcha

In this episode we discuss Just In Time management, and how a minor change in habit, can make a major disruption to supply and inventory. Sounds dry... not with us. Dan knows more than is really healthy to know about loo roll and Abi gets a crush on Pat Riley @_rileyio and we may talk some sense too. 

Were people really hording loo roll?

Did you know that the porn industry was the pioneer of pushing boundaries and making the web what it is today. The games industry has now taken on this touch and we discuss in what ways and how gamification has spilled over into other aspects of our online and offline lives.  Does a leader board, 100k+ followers or super hosts actually just put the rest of us mere morals off and how does this play out with morale in educational games? Dan has a rant about loot boxes (again!)... and then we move on to the finance industry magicking money out of the air. Errrrr might we get some negative feedback? You will have to listen.

Gamification leading on where the porn industry left off

Is technology a help or a hindrance during this unprecedented Covid-19 lock down. What would it have been like without zoom and social media. What will change when we emerge from this stasis? Would slower supply chains and 'paperwork' actually have had a beneficial effect. Dan gets a little cross with the pasta panickers as he doesn't have a chest freezer, pantry or shed to fill with the stuff and Abi gets trolled. It is a brave new world but has technology made it better, do we all really need house party or will an old school phone do?

What if the Coronavirus hit in the 1980's?

It is different times we find ourselves, and different times mean.... new laptops! Well that is where we have found ourselves thrown into homeschooling. In this episode we discuss the right and wrong laptop choices for children; budget, specs, pitfalls, warranty, and mistakes we suggest you don't make as we have made them already!

The best laptop for kids, now that we are all homeschooling

The rise and… pan of 3d printing, but will it be the future? Will printing with organic material allow us to live a green life; it doesn’t matter if it wears out, or isn’t strong forever, as you just print another one. Imagine printing storage boxes at the moment you need them, or re-purposing whole rooms to become something else.. careful going out for the night the kids may have recycled and re-printed the furniture. We discuss the type of printers now and in the future, the type of applications they may fulfil, and spend too much time focusing on eggcups.. but no mention of Covid-19 we promise.

Do we all need a 3D Printer.. yet?

Good, bad or over hyped? We can see the future but right now a connected toaster isn't quite doing it for us. Today we explore the possible uses of IoT and their benefits to humanity. Big data has always been used for good and bad so the more connected our devices the more companies know and the more they can use this for... or against us. But what about the good in emergency services, supermarkets, global emissions and greening our planet? Or perhaps the netflix-atisation of our fridge? What if this connected world could help us save money. Forget uswitch, just use AI to always put us on the right tariff, and cancel unused subscriptions. Then there is self mending machines, roads, trains and even humans! Imagine not having to get rail replacement buses ever again. We are in an age of digital dis-harmonisation - who doesn't shout at their device. Can IoT change that, will we start to love alexa?

The Internet of Things (IoT)

Online safety for kids, the potholes of being a parent with these digital natives. This podcast touches on family sharing, screen time, good and bad apps and games such as Whatsapp, SnapChat, Fortnite, TikTok and more -  trust, responsibility, dialog, trolling, what not to post, privacy, communication, life gaming and streaming, a short rant about weirdos! 

Internet Safety for Children

A friendly and informative weekly chat on all things web - discussing latest technology, digital morality, user experience and decoding the encoded. Interesting, educating and only a little bit apocalyptic. Take the long route from a to b with us - visiting the future with only an old-fashioned map to hand.

hubhopper

Internet DNA - UX, Design and Tech musings

hubhopper