Another network to launch recently is the picture-based Pinterest. So is this going to be the next Facebook or is it more likely to finish like last year's launch of the specialist 'question and answer' service Quora - a whole load of fuss followed by, well, not much?

This article isn't an attempt to say who the winners will be in the social media race (if indeed there is an end point). Rather it will explain some of these new networks and offer tips on what to look for when you evaluate a new network and decide whether it's going to be useful to you.

Why is it special?

Obviously the first thing to check is whether a new network fulfils an actual need. Take Quora for instance, in which members ask questions and other people answer them. There was a lot of interest initially and indeed it's still going - but you have to ask, what does it do that Twitter doesn't? You can already ask a question in plenty of other places.

This doesn't always hold true. YouTube is widely known as a place that offers the chance to share videos. So was MySpace, which got there first - but its grip on the market was softening as YouTube launched. The quieter design also appealed to a wider audience.

This is where Pinterest, which enables people to highlight interesting images they've seen - with a link straight back to where they found them, comes in. This isn't, therefore, just a photo site but a links site as well. Yes, you can share visual links on Facebook in the same way but it's not as exclusively visual. Whether the market will take hold of this longer-term is uncertain but at least the market has something to accept or reject.

Search engine optimisation

Another important element of social links, at least from the point of view of commercial companies linking their goods and services, is that external links coming into your site push you further up the search engines. This is part of a process known as 'search engine optimisation' (SEO), which does what it says on the tin - it makes a website search engine friendly.

An extension of this happens on Google+, Google's new(ish) network. Businesses can add a 'Plus One' button to their sites or to individual products or services they are offering, and people with a Google+ account can tap this in the same way as they would a Facebook 'Like' button.

So far this all looks like a bit of fun - except it's owned by Google, which also owns the biggest search engine on the internet. Google takes the 'Plus One' buttons quite seriously: the more +1s your service gets, the better the placing when people search on Google. For this reason Google+ is likely to be around for a while, although a lot of research shows people aren't conversing on it a great deal.

Which is right for you?

Deciding whether to join a particular network is an individual decision. There are a few questions you can usefully ask yourself before joining one, though:

• Does it do anything new? Earlier in this article I asked whether Pinterest was going to be the new Facebook - it's not, there is currently no vacancy for someone wanting to be a new Facebook. New networks really need to offer something different.
• If it does something different, does it appeal to you? If you don't have a particularly visual sensibility and don't take many pictures, do you really need a channel on Flickr, for example?
• Is anyone else about to do the same thing better?
• Do you actually have the time to do anything with yet another social network..?

Learn how to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites with the WebWise online guides.

Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

This will almost certainly be a massive selling point for any new phone or tablet that emerges this year. The clever bit is that in the UK at least, it won't work - we have no widely-available 4G network yet.

What is 4G?

Currently the fastest commonly-available form of mobile internet is of course Wi-Fi. You connect your tablet, laptop or smartphone to a Wi-Fi network and you have 'proper' broadband. The difficulty is that when people are on the move they may not have access to a Wi-Fi network. This is where you may have to take pot luck and see what your device can find. There are various symbols you'll find when it's detecting a mobile signal; E, O, GPRS and 3G. Of these, 3G is the fastest - third generation internet, replacing 2G as it did. If you're out of range of 3G then it defaults to one of the slower ones.

You don't have to be a great detective, then, to work out that 4G is the next iteration of mobile internet. You may also see it referred to as LTE, which stands for 'Long Term Evolution' (although what they'll call 5G having already called 4G long term is anybody's guess).

The advantages of 4G, when they arrive properly in the UK, will be many. Instant email and a mobile service as quick as your home or office internet is one of them. In practical terms this will mean things like watching video streamed from the internet rather than stored on your device - so you'll be able to 'hire' a movie and watch it instantly when you're on the road; catch-up TV services in high definition with no picture judder or dropout, and if you're in business it will be easier to send and receive very large files without snarling up your email or that of your recipient.

Where we are now

The UK is slightly behind the curve when it comes to adopting 4G as you might gather from the fact that products are already supporting it in the US, as well as in some Far Eastern countries. Part of the reason is that the UK was already using some of the frequencies needed for 4G for analogue television signals, which are in the process of being phased out.

Ofcom have confirmed proposals that it would be authorizing a minimum of four companies to provide 4G services and that it hoped this would cover 95% of the UK's population, which will do something to help some of the remote areas still currently not covered by broadband. The government has put in £150m to help the process, so hopefully the auction process that pushed the price of 3G services up when they launched will not be repeated and cause another hike in costs.

Caveats

Two things are worth bearing in mind if you're considering being among the first to go for 4G when it is formally offered. The first is that a number of companies are offering what they're calling 4G, but which isn't actually the version of 4G ratified by Ofcom. This may matter to you for the second reason. In Australia there have been a number of complaints about the aforementioned iPad because it doesn't appear to work with 'their' version of 4G. These are among the reasons I won't be rushing to be the first to use 4G, and will only take it up once it's affordable and once the technology has settled. Meanwhile I, and many others, are finding 3G and Wi-Fi just fine when we need them.

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Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

OK. This year I am going to lose weight.

A load of the stuff I said you could do with your computer is still salient, though. Here’s a link to last year’s resolutions and here are some further ideas, which are easier to do now than they were last year. Some useful technology resolutions might include:

1.    Stop wittering on Twitter

Social networking is really useful. You can contact people, find stuff out, help other people find stuff out, pick up business, all sorts. It’s a great, great idea but as it’s become even more popular over the last 12 months people have been filling it with even more waffle than before. Honestly, we don’t need to know:

• What you had for breakfast – we hope you’re not hungry and wish you well, but that’s where everyone else’s interest stops
• That you’re annoyed with your phone, unless there’s seriously something someone can do to help
• That you’ve just walked into somewhere which is miles away from any place in which we might be interested

Constructive conversation is still more than welcome!

2.    Find someone who needs help on social media and offer it

Kind of the flipside of that – people are always looking for a hand, asking for information on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Look for somewhere you can help and do it – the whole community improves when people do this.

3.    Get the hang of a smartphone

In November 2011 it was confirmed that over half the phones being bought in the UK were smartphones. These can be really useful for keeping diaries, documents, music, pictures, video, playing games – and of course you’ll pay for it. Nevertheless if you need that stuff on the move, do give a smartphone some thought.

4.    Secure your home WiFi network properly

If you haven’t already done so, this can be a very wise measure to take. Otherwise you’ve done the IT equivalent of setting up a network and leaving the gates wide open so anyone can walk in. Any modern router will allow you to set up a secure network in only a few mouse clicks. Start by naming your network as something other than the default name it has when the router is taken out of the box – criminals find routers with default settings unchanged very easy to get into.

5.    Don’t download any apps you’re not going to use

Yes, phones can download lots of software whether it’s games, business apps, a full-blown Global Positioning System (GPS) – and yes they’re often brilliant. Laptops and desktops can do the same, depending on the operating system. But you can get rid of an awful lot of packages of two or three quid on a whim – and they do add up. Now, do you really need that latest upgrade to that second word processor you were going to use, or that mouse cursor that looks like an actual mouse..?

6.    Get your accounts in order

Yes I know I said that last year, but once again the tax deadline of 31 January is closer than it seems for anyone who has to fill in a tax return and hasn’t glanced at their books just yet.

There’s free software like online spreadsheets and also online accounting systems that cost only a few quid a month – there’s really no reason to miss the deadline this year (that said, if you’re not already registered to submit your accounts online you’d better get a move on because they take a couple of weeks to process your application).

If you're new to social media why not watch our short videos on everything from profiles to privacy?

Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

1. Increase the memory

Many computers allow you to increase the memory yourself. You may need the manual and you’ll need to check what sort of memory the computer takes, but taking the old memory chips out and adding something more powerful is one of the easiest ways of making a system run more smoothly.

Why would you want more memory? Simply because whereas storage is a matter of how much stuff a computer can hold, memory governs how much the computer can do at a time. So if you want to do something complex like video editing you might well need extra memory – or if you like to leave loads of application windows open all at once, for example.

2. Increase the storage

If you have a desktop PC you might be able to unscrew the front and add a new hard drive. If not, you’ll almost certainly be able to add storage by attaching a USB hard drive. If you were thinking of replacing a computer because it’s filling up, try this first.

3. Put in a new graphics card

Again this involves unscrewing a desktop computer if you have one and installing a better graphics card. If your computer is slowing down whilst playing games or video it may not be the processor or memory at fault, the graphics chip might be the problem. Ask around about your model – don’t spend out on a graphics card before you’re sure! – and then try installing something faster.

4. Buy a new webcam

A number of people use their computers for video conferencing. This is a great money saving idea as well as a means of keeping in touch with overseas contacts. Then they get frustrated with the state of the image they’re told the other person can see so they assume the computer is at fault – actually it may not be. Consider a higher-definition webcam, which will be of a higher spec than the one that came built into your system.

5. Update your speakers

Fed up with the sound your computer makes when you pop a CD in to listen to? Or download something from one of the many online stores, or watch something on BBC iPlayer? (Other catch-up services are available but we don’t want you to watch them). Around £40 will get you some considerably better speakers with a bit of oomph, and as you move further upmarket you’ll find the clarity and bass gets better. Of course you get what you pay for.

6. Get a USB hub

So you've got your camera, your phone, your speakers, your backup disk, your printer, your e-reader, your media player…and only two USB slots. The good news is that you can get USB hubs, a connector with more than one socket on it, and your computer should recognize every device as if it’s connecting directly.

You can daisy chain these hubs – connect another hub to one of the sockets and so on, giving you an almost limitless amount of devices which you can connect. In theory you should be able to connect 128 devices to one computer.

This assumes it can service the devices with enough power – it also assumes you’re daft enough to want 128 devices on a single computer! We’re betting the system would crash because of watching too many devices at a time, and never mind how much memory you’ve got.

7. Use a carrying case

Not strictly an enhancement but if you're going to have a laptop computer with you and want to carry it around, make sure it’s in something well padded!

Follow the WebWise guide to buying a computer.

Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

You still want to look your best, you want to make a few adjustments so you don't look like a walking mid-life crisis, but there's no "middle-aged bloke" magazine out there for you - it's straight from Nuts to The Oldie. Doing your research and often buying online looks like a good option.

Some basics

You can, of course, save a lot of money buying clothes and accessories on the web. This isn't the place to promote specific sites as they're all private businesses and this isn't a commercial blog, but there are a few pointers you can take into account.

First, check the returns policy on absolutely everything before you buy. If they won't take it back you don't want it. Different brands have different ideas of what's large or extra large, which can mean one brand's XL size in undies looks and feels five sizes too big on you whilst another is uncomfortably tight.

It may not just be a matter of sizing. Something that looks great on the immaculately-coiffed, young-enough-to-be-your-son model on the screen can look ridiculous when you put it on. I had this with a jacket a few years ago, a chocolate-covered check thing. I put it on; my wife was polite and said I'd have to wear a plain shirt with it, but my then-much-younger daughter couldn't stop laughing. I looked like a caricatured used car salesman from a particularly naff 1950s sitcom. The seller took it back without a quibble even though it was a faultless sample of what I'd actually ordered.

Also, look at alterations. One online tailor offers you the chance to perform all your own measurements instead of paying them £25 to do so - but if you really screw up then for £40 they'll apply a retrospective guarantee and fix it as if they'd measured you themselves. Another I know won't let you do your own measuring so the suit carries his own warranty, then if you lose weight or gain it he'll alter it for £20 a seam.

Never forget though, that the days when items were automatically cheaper on the internet have gone. Hardly anybody pays the full amount for a shirt these days, so do check your online price against what they're charging on the High Street.

It's not always a good idea to buy purely on price, though. When you're looking at suits or shirts see if you can get a swatch of the material - try scrunching it up to see if it creases or not. The ones that don't will look better on you for longer. When the shirt arrives see how dense the stitching is - if it's loose or too spaced out then it won't be as solid as something better made.

Beginners in men's styling are often bewildered that you can get a suit for just over £100 at some very reputable High Street retailers but pay hundreds or even thousands for a "designer" name. Of course you're paying for the name but you should also be paying for a better grade of fabric than the High Street retailer can manage for the price.

Outlets and sales of last year's designer shirts often represent bargains both online and off. A lot of men's clothes remain reasonably classic so the changes aren't huge, but a real buff will spot last year's Polo Ralph Lauren colours immediately. If that worries you, you'll need to pay a bit more.  Personally I think they still look fine.

Websites

There don't seem to be any magazines catering for us 'not-yet-old' blokes. However there are a number of excellent blogs dedicated to male styling and grooming. I'd recommend TheChapBlog, which is currently busy discovering spa treatments, and The Grooming Guru who seems plugged into more of the male grooming industry's PR offices than most of us and therefore gets all the good freebies.

My own blog, LifeOver35, aims to do what it says on the tin, talking about suiting, casual clothes, skin products, shaving equipment, watches, and gadgets. As far as I can make out, none of us are paid for these blogs so I'm not pushing any commercial interests in naming them.

People react in different ways to the idea. One reader said he found it a bit strange, men talking about on stuff in which only women were usually interested. I've done some research and found that these female types can vote and everything now, so we're allowed to go a bit beyond stereotyping.

And you're stuck in the middle, wondering about how much money you can save on the internet. Prices for goods and services are often cheaper but you've heard that there are scammers around.

Precautions

You’re right to be cautious. There are organised criminals out there who will fleece anyone without mercy, and old advice like “if an email is spelled wrongly it won't be from your bank” is dating rapidly. Not that banks send out badly-spelled or punctuated communications, it's just that many of the scammers are quite literate too.

Nevertheless you can start protecting yourself by not clicking through to any financial website from a link in an email. Type the address into your browser's address bar so you know you’re going to a genuine site, and if that offer is still advertised on the bank's official website then fine, it was genuine, no harm done.

A bank will never ask you for your full password via email, by the way – so a mail looking as though it’s from your bank asking for that is highly likely to be a fake.

Purchases

There are many companies on the web who'll also ask for credit card details and there are often good reasons for this. There are the shops, who quite legitimately want some sort of payment before they dispatch any goods. Inevitably there are also fake sites, some of which will look a lot like shops.

There are a few things to look for in your computer’s browser window when you’re about to spend money. First there should be a padlock at the bottom of the window somewhere if you’re using Internet Explorer, still the most popular means of looking at the web. Second, the address should change from an 'http' address in the bar to an 'https' address.

These are all reassuring signs. You might also have to go through a verification process with your bank details after putting your card details in – this is entirely reasonable and means the company from whom you’re buying is looking after your interests.

No-nos

There are certain details that it's unwise to input, no matter how honest a site might appear. Unless you are buying alcohol or something else age-restricted, there should be no reason for a company to ask your date of birth. And yet people divulge it. Postal details are reasonable; sometimes a scammer will also ask for details like your mother's maiden name as an extra password.

Buy elsewhere. You are handing over enough information to allow someone to forge documents in your name. It's human to assume the best of people; a security company did an experiment a few years ago, offering people an Easter Egg for taking part in a survey – and during that survey they effectively took enough information from participants to put together a convincing passport application.

Rights

There can be a problem after an item has arrived. The majority of traders on the internet are of course honest – but they aren't all governed by the same rules. European businesses are legislated for by the Distance Selling Directive, which means (for example) that there must be a real-world contact address on the site. This isn’t obligatory everywhere else, and its absence will tell you either that you may not have the same rights as you would in dealing with a more local business, or if it's a UK company then they’re not aware of their obligations.

Whether purchased online or elsewhere, goods have to be fit for purpose and if not you may return them. You should also insist on the seller paying the return postage – although smaller sellers might drag their feet more than a little on this one.

If you’re in any doubt remember that the Citizens’ Advice Bureau will offer independent help, and an online search for your local trading standards body at the Council (or that of the seller) should also yield good results.

Visit our WebWise Internet Basics course on shopping online and play the Shop 'Til You Drop online shopping game.

Find further tips on avoiding scam in the WebWise guide How do I shop safely with my credit card online?

Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

There are of course more realistic resolutions people can take up for any New Year. Mastering a few basic computer skills is one of them. You can probably do more than you think already; if you’re reading this then let’s face it, you don’t need any help finding your way to a website.

There are other things you can do, though, and they’ll all make your life significantly easier. Here are just a few:

1. Find your way around

The AA, The RAC, Google and many others offer a route planning service free of charge. Just enter your postcode, the postcode of your destination and you’ll get a route planned for you, a map and an estimated arrival time (which never takes account of traffic so assume it’s underestimated). Also look at the train times - the National Rail site offers a real time link to train departures and arrivals, so if you’re expecting to meet someone at your local station you can check whether the train’s going to be late without leaving your desk.

2. Weather

There’s this rumour it’s been snowing over the last few weeks, I haven’t checked it out myself. But you can have a look at the BBC weather website and narrow your search down by postcode if you want to plan around what the weather is going to be doing.

3. Communication

Modern computers often have a microphone and many have a webcam. The addition of a bit of software can turn this into a free international video phone - great for keeping in touch with family across the world. NB: Make sure the light’s not behind you otherwise you can end up looking like one of those re-enacted witness interviews on Crimewatch.

4. Shopping

Yes of course there have been delays over Christmas in terms of deliveries because of the snow (which were actually quite useful: "You were hoping I’d buy you a what, darling? But I did, it just hasn’t arrived yet..." PLACES QUICK ORDER) but this is very rare. The internet offers a great opportunity to let people who’re being paid take the strain of getting items to you, while you focus on stuff that’s more important.

5. Join a social network

Twitter et al get a rough press sometimes but they’re honestly not packed with people wasting time telling you what they had for breakfast. If you need a local plumber try asking on a social network - someone will know someone and be able to recommend them. If there’s some information you’re looking for whilst writing your dissertation or if you have local information you think might be worth offering, join up and have a look around - you could get quite a reputation and before you know it people start helping you, too.

This is of course stuff you can do on the internet. Without connecting up there’s other stuff you can do:

• Organise your family photos - and please, please back up so if your computer goes wrong you won’t lose them!

• Organise your music collection - put CDs onto your computer, then they’re all available on your mobile music player if you have one.

• Get your household accounts in order - why not scan in those receipts and warranties so you always know where they are?

That’s all before you’ve started buying extra software, adding bits of hardware, mastering spreadsheets and databases or even opening up a word processor - that’s for another day. Meanwhile all the stuff I’ve listed is free of charge. Have a great new year - and make use of that device you’re looking at right now!

Guy Clapperton is a journalist specialising in writing about technology as well as small business for several major broadsheets. He broadcasts occasionally on BBC Radio stations and reviews the newspapers on the BBC News Channel.

7.00: Computer goes on for early blogging. Ross and Roslin still telling the same story - they're indoors and without windows, it's fair enough - but Twitter and Facebook are telling a different story. People are outside, actually on the spot with their mobile phones and they're tweeting away telling me exactly where the snow is, how deep and whether it's still falling.

The internet is an unbelievably useful place for finding out about what's going on around you in real time. There are pretty much two avenues to consider - "official" sites and the more social stuff.

The BBC

This column is clearly on a BBC website, so I'm bound to send you to the BBC weather bulletins first, at bbc.co.uk/weather. That's not just vested interests speaking, though. The layout is clear and the best bit is that you can put in a postcode or area and it'll tailor a five day report (including the current weather) for you.

You can set somewhere as your current location and have favourite locations, perhaps a workplace or relative's home. Your local BBC Radio's website will take a feed from this if you want information on travel and related bulletins as well.

The Met Office

The other official weather site is of course the Met Office. This isn't as search friendly as the BBC but you can select from a dropdown menu of areas which is just as useful. This will also tell you - as it did as I was writing - when severe weather warnings had been issued.

Social networks

My own source of more-accurate-than-the-radio information this morning was social networking. People struggling to get into work were tweeting and Facebooking about just how cold they were, and how tricky it was negotiating the journey. This, as I said, got the information to me faster than it was getting to the radio. There's a nice website based on people reporting weather conditions to Twitter, called UK Snowmap - which looks for people commenting on snow and puts a marker on a map.

The only problem is that it's completely haphazard. The reason Twitter told me about the snow more quickly than the estimable Ross and Roslin was because people I follow happened to tweet it a bit more quickly than people picked up the phone to BBC Radio London. It could just as easily have gone the other way.

Likewise Facebook. Yes, a lot of people mentioned that it was snowing. A handful of them mentioned where they were at the time, which is essential information if it's going to be useful, and a lot of the messages just said "snow!" Oh, and I had only their word that it was snowing anyway - you can put anything on Twitter or Facebook; the BBC, Met Office and others are honour bound to do some checking.

This isn't to criticise the people putting the messages up. They didn't undertake to deliver a personal weather service to me, and there's no reason I should expect an accurate report. The fact that Twitter delivered it is a bonus for membership, not some sort of right. So although the informal, social approach can be very informative indeed but you can't take it for granted.

It's worth noting that hybrid services taking the best of official services and social networked services are starting to emerge. The BBC has, for example, been involved in Crowdmap.com - with which it built a coherent picture of where crowds were during the London tube strikes; it did the same thing during the floods in Cornwall only weeks ago and the results are still there.

The information is drawn from the BBC, mobile phones and a number of other sources and then put out there in graphic form. So you get all the "official" people's efforts combined with a real-time snapshot of what individuals are reporting. Presumably this is the way things will develop.

This is of course all rot, e-books will no more replace books than talking books did. TV didn't replace radio, theatre didn't die when radio was invented – I could go on.

You might want an e-reader for all sorts of reasons. A book (or several) you don't think you're going to read more than once. A business book, a manual – books to which you're not going to form any real attachment, so it doesn't matter that they're stored electronically. Or so I thought until I actually read a couple.

Setting up is really easy. Charge your choice of reader and either download some books to your computer and synchronise, or if your reader has WiFi or 3G then download them straight to the reader from a book site such as Amazon.

If you want to buy an e-reader then there are a few things to bear in mind. First, do you want back-lighting? Having a book that lights up in the dark so you can read it without putting the light on and disturbing your partner (hint: this doesn't work as the light from the e-book reader is just as glary as the light from your reading lamp) sounds appealing but some of the manufacturers think you'll suffer from eye strain. I used such a reader (the Apple iPad as it happens) to read two average-length books and didn't suffer unduly.

The iPad, along with the Samsung Galaxy and other tablet devices, is of course much more than an e-book, it's a cut-down computer. These devices costs a load more than an e-reader, which will typically have a few games, the reader and possibly it'll allow you to put some music onto it.

Generally these don't have the back lighting but they use something called e-ink; this is a bit like an LCD display and generally it's supposed to be less taxing on the eyes than a backlit screen although when I read Philip Norman's chunky tome on the life of John Lennon on one it didn't feel markedly different from the iPad experience. Amazon, Sony and Kobo supply comparative products.

Whizzy bits

There are bells, there are whistles - Apple's own eBook reader, iBooks, is built into both iPhones and iPads and makes a swishing noise whilst animating the pages as you turn them. Amazon's Kindle is available as a piece of hardware but you can also get it as software for some phones and tablet computers, so you can still buy the books. The hardware version doesn't have a backlight, there's no swishing sound or animating pages but once I was into the books I really didn't notice.

This is the thing about reading from an e-book reader; once you're into the content you don't think about it being a tatty paperback or a piece of state of the art electronics, you're just reading a good book.

Good books

It's all about reading something good in the end. Before researching this article I'd actually read "Claudius the God" on an e-book and can't honestly remember which one it was; I just remember the book, which is as it should be.

Luckily there are a lot of free books out there for download. Many out of copyright classics are available without charge; in fact at Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) you can find 33,000 free reads either for your computer or an e-reader if you want.

Of course there are limitations. You can't scrawl notes on an eBook, they don't all fit neatly into your pocket, although several models are lightweight for holiday they are not good on the beach if you get sand in the works.

As an alternative to standard books if you have storage space problems, as a means of getting books to which you're not going to be massively attached, though, they might just be the ticket for you.

Unless you’ve been in hiding since May you’ll be aware that we’ve had a new Government in the UK for a few months. Like Barack Obama's election to the US Presidency in 2008, the UK general election was predicted to be the first in which social media would play a large part. This didn’t in fact happen; it was there in the background but the first ever Prime Ministerial debates on TV meant that if this was anything it was the television election.

It was possible to get a bit more politically active through your computer, though - or at least to make a start. Many politicians, for example, have adopted Twitter as a means of making an announcement and loads of them will engage properly. Novelist turned Conservative MP Louise Mensch is @louisemensch, Lord Prescott is @johnprescott and there are numerous others. Lord Prescott certainly replies to things in person, but Barack Obama (@barackobama) is a little busier and he’s certainly never replied to me.

More opportunities to have your say

Politicians and interest groups often use electronic media, whether Twitter, Facebook, blogs or a more straightforward website, which anyone with a connection can find.

In the last few years a number of electronic petitions websites have sprung up such as petition.co.uk, and famously Number Ten.

If you set up or sign a petition then of course you can publicise it through Twitter, Facebook or other social websites - you can see how the petition might grow. Inevitably many pressure groups have emailing lists as well, which you can use as a jumping off point for further activity and to get more involved.

It’s great because...

For people with computers and an internet connection this is of course good as it makes it easier to get involved and means the privilege of access to more information. For instance the website TheyWorkForYou.com allows people to see how their MP is voting in parliament and the BBC News site publishes details of what ministers claim on expenses. If you like Twitter, Tweetminster is a place where you can find your MP and post a message to their account.

It’s not great because...

The flipside of this is that if the bulk of political engagement shifts too much towards the electronic media too quickly then there’s a risk that people who aren’t fully digitised will become disenfranchised. My job keeps me at a computer most of the time, I’m writing and usually have an internet browser running in the background. I see my emails as they come in and I check Twitter frequently.

Political inactivism

To look at another possible drawback I refer us again to Lord Prescott of Twitter. Everyone on Twitter has a little picture next to their name which appears next to all of their Tweets. Lord P has a slogan instead, 'Save NHS Direct' (or at least he does as I write). Other people use their Twitter pictures to carry banners - their picture appears with 'Save 6 Music' underneath it.

As part of a considered campaign to raise awareness these things are useful. The problem is that some people put something up online and think they’ve done it. They tick the box, they sign a petition, they alter their picture a bit and that’s their bit of activism for the day.

Politicians, meanwhile, aren’t fooled; they can spot a political move that didn’t actually involve as much effort as getting dressed and leaving the house and I have no doubt these things will be weighted accordingly.

If online engagement with politics and the decision making processes is used as a substitute for the real thing then frankly I have doubts as to its effectiveness. As part of an overall effort, though, as one of the prongs in an overall strategy in getting something done or drawing attention to a good cause, the electronic media should be an excellent starting point.

Status update: the back door key's under the bin

It would be tough to find documented cases in which thieves had found their quarry using social media, they’re terrible at filling in questionnaires about where they found their victims, but certainly last year there was talk of insurance companies increasing their premiums for people who wilfully make their location available everywhere to any passing crook who’s online.

Pleaserobme feels the point has been made. Unfortunately the issue of people giving thieves an open invitation to break in and help themselves is far from closed.

It’s likely to be highlighted again as General Motors brings its On-Star communication tool into an alliance with Facebook, assuming the rumours are true. Your car will be able to help you update your Facebook status. But can it do it without bleating that you’re away from home, too?

Location-based networking, as it’s called, has many uses and benefits. Services like FourSquare will end a Tweet telling everyone where you are which is brilliant if you’re, say, between meetings and would like to see if anyone’s around for a coffee. “In Trafalgar Square considering a coffee” might well get a response from someone who’s in there and equally at a lost end. There can be many reasons for wanting to know where your friends are.

Likewise many cameras and phones offer geotagging of their photos. This means the picture will carry little bits of data on when and where you took it, so that sort-out of pictures and the wondering-where-the-thump-you-were-when-you-wore-that-jumper-in-front-of-that-mountain ritual can become a thing of the past; click on it and it’ll tell you it was Milton Keynes, last week, or whatever.

How can I protect myself?

The snag is that people are starting to leave these services on by default. If I had malicious intentions then yes, I could take your automated announcement that you’re about to enter a coffee house in San Francisco as a signal that you’re probably not at home in Tooting. Even when people switch the automatic notifications off, though, a handful still insist on announcing when they’re about to lock up and go on holiday.

I suppose there are two ways around this. The first is not to leave the house empty in the first place, although although of course it's not always easy with a busy 21st century lifestyle. The second is of course to watch what you Tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn and otherwise announce to the world – and if your home’s going to be vulnerable, don’t tell everyone.