The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate also increased to 8.1%.

The unemployment total for 16-24 year olds hit a record high of 991,000 in the quarter, a jobless rate of 21.3%.

The claimant count, the number of people out of work and claiming benefits, rose 17,500 to 1.6 million in September.

Other figures showed a record cut in the number of part-time workers, down by 175,000, and there was also a record reduction of 74,000 in the number of over-65s in employment.

Other figures showed a record cut in the number of part-time workers, down by 175,000, and there was also a record reduction of 74,000 in the number of over-65s in employment.

A number of unexpected catastrophes and shortages dominated the headlines in the first quarter of 2011. Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that caused a nuclear disaster, persistent power outages, and a host of other major societal and economic challenges.

China sharply tightened its limits on exports of rare earth minerals, on which the information technology, automotive, and energy industries rely. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa experienced severe political eruptions, including civil war in Libya and regime-shaking protests in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia, which pushed oil prices above US$100 per barrel.

Portugal and Greece tottered on the edge of insolvency, destabilizing their political leaders. Christchurch, New Zealand, was hit by two major earthquakes in quick succession, and the state of Queensland in Australia suffered the worst floods in recorded history in at least six river systems, resulting in great social and economic disruption.

All these events are examples of the kinds of high-magnitude, low-frequency upheavals that Nassim Nicholas Taleb labeled black swans, after a historical reference to their improbability.

In The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2007), Taleb defined a black swan as “an event with the following three attributes.

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility.

Second, it carries an extreme impact…. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.”

Whether environmental, economic, political, societal, or technological in nature, individual black swan events are impossible to predict, but they regularly occur somewhere and affect someone. Some observers argue that the frequency of these events is increasing; others say global communication networks have simply made us more aware of them than we were in the past.

In any case, with the rise of global business, it is likely that black swans carry increased risks for your company, including negative impacts on your customers, suppliers, partners, assets, operations, employees, and shareholders.

Today, not only can a catastrophe in one part of the world affect the sourcing, manufacture, shipping, and sale of products locally, but the interconnections of global financial, economic, and political networks ensure that the effects of such events ripple around the world.

Read the full article at S+G

http://www.ted.com Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves.

Scottish Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture, call them the 6 killer apps, that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable.

The West’s 6 Killer Apps

Global Patent Registration

India has already churned out the world’s cheapest car and is now launching what’s billed as the world’s cheapest 7-inch touchscreen tablet.

The result of efforts by India’s Ministry of Human Resource and Development to develop a low cost computing device that could be used by students across the country.

Aakash, or “sky” in Hindi, is set to be sold to students at the government’s subsidised price of US$35.

The regular retail price of the tablet is expected to be around US$60 when the unit hits the shelves as a commercial version called the UbiSlate 7.

Wonder how many ‘students’ will sign up for this one!

Staff from The Netherlands-based company will confer with clients, to determine which of the submersibles will best meet their needs.

That watercraft can then be transported to a destination of the client’s choice, with U-Boat Worx supplying the crew, support/technical equipment, and transport to and from the launch site.

For underwater sight-seers, they can also recommend an itinerary for the cruise.

Although there are plans to add other craft to the charter fleet, there will at first be two models available – the C-Quester 3 and the C-Explorer 2. Seating three and two people respectively (including pilot), the mini-submersibles both feature 360-degree transparent acrylic pressure hulls, air conditioning, and a maximum operating depth of 100 meters (328 feet).

Joining the fleet once it’s completed late this year will be the five-passenger C-Explorer 5, which will reportedly be able to descend to 300 meters (984 feet). All three subs are said to have an operational time of up to eight hours.

The charter price of €75,000 for one month (all-inclusive with crew, insurance, parts, etc.) is not going to be an option for most of us, but it does at open up the possibilities for some individuals, and particularly for companies and research institutes.

U-Boat Worx is also currently providing guided dives to tourists in a C-Quester 3, based out of Aruba.

The video below (part-way through) shows one such sub cavorting in the briny deep.

U‐Boat Worx makes its mini-submersibles available for private charter

Since 2008 German police forces have been legally allowed to to install wiretapping software on a suspect’s computer in order to monitor voice-over-IP communications through services such as Skype, but they are forbidden from accessing or installing other programs. The CCC analysis suggests the police software is capable of much more than is legally allowed.

“Our analysis revealed once again that law enforcement agencies will overstep their authority if not watched carefully. In this case functions clearly intended for breaking the law were implemented in this malware: they were meant for uploading and executing arbitrary code on the targeted system,” say the CCC.

Security firm Sophos has confirmed that the trojan is able to eavesdrop on instant messaging software, log internet browser keystrokes and take screenshots of what appears on user’s screens, while also attempting to communicate with a remote website. Sophos consultant Graham Cluley also says there is no way to confirm the software was written by the German state.

Regardless of who wrote the software, it seems installing it on someone’s computer leaves them wide open to any attacker. The trojan’s commands are unencrypted, making it possible for anyone to access an infected system and retrieve or upload data. “The security level this trojan leaves the infected systems in is comparable to it setting all passwords to ’1234′,” says the CCC.

A portfolio site can be a double-edged sword. It either builds or breaks you. Bad design simply irritates potential clients, stopping them from viewing your works.

The way to attract the potential clients; your portfolio should be designed properly according to certain key principles, which not only impress the clients, but also ensures smooth user experience.

Here we have summarised these principles into 7 essential rules for you to build or improve your portfolio site;

Rule 1: Keep Faithful to Your Objectives

Keeping a strong core objective is the key to every successful online portfolio as it lets you know what you have to do, and what the clients should expect.

You must establish a key objective, one for you to achieve before you get started on designing your portfolio, and keep it simple.

It’s far better that the objective can be described in 1 sentence, making it clear and straight to the point.

Below, we will explain to you that there are several purposes possible for a portfolio creation:

To get a job: this kind of portfolio is created to help you to find a good job so your main aim is to impress the potential clients.

To sell your works: this is the type of portfolio developed for commercial purpose, particularly to introduce, showcase and ultimately sell your works.

To gain reputation: sometimes you create portfolio just to display your works and spread the word about your talent, in order to gain yourself some reputation in the industry.

To communicate: this kind of portfolio is mainly for networking, which means to find new connections among people who are also involved in web design.

You don’t need to follow every objective listed above absolutely, in fact you can create your own objective from them, or even define yourself a new objective. However, once you created it, stick to it really well and don’t change it unless for some critical reasons such as technical difficulty.

Rule 2: Trust in simplicity
Less is more. Every designer, who entered the design industry for some years, will get to know more and more about the importance of simplicity. Keeping every element on your site simple and intuitive is so important that it even makes your site looks like it’s not something created by certain amateurs, which pretty much burns out your reputation before the potential clients even look at your works.

And what’s really matter here is, a simple portfolio site makes its messages crystal clear to your potential clients. It not only allows the clients to get the idea easily on what the portfolio is going to show, but also get to know or view your works without too much confusion.

However, it’s not that you are not allowed to make use of creative ideas, but those ideas must help the clients concentrate on your showcased works. So as long as the ideas are aimed to focus on your showcasing works, you can probably implement a lot of visual elements that make your portfolio site stands out from the rest!

Rule 3: Be sure to provide ease at use

This rule elaborates more about the friendliness of content access, or so-called user friendliness. Try to look at your portfolio as a client would look at it.

The content should be really easy to access and browse without any confusing or disturbing buttons, pop-ups, shiny banner or even complex site structure which can be hardly understood at once.

Complex navigation may confuse the potential clients and even irritate them so your works might just be ignored by them. That said, you should make your portfolio works like what common people expect to be intuitive and convenient.

Don’t bring clients to Showcase page while they click on the About page. Don’t ask client for a signup when they want to access your work gallery. This sounds ridiculous but trust me, lots of designers done that. You have to avoid these cheap mistakes in order to achieve with your portfolio site.

Rule 4: Don’t overcook it
The rule is really simple, if you want your portfolio get impressed really quick, you need to show only your best works. Don’t try to showcase everything you have, choose some of the most impressive works which could demonstrate your expertise efficiently.

If you have too much great works and you want everyone know about all of them, you can consider to categorize the works and publish them in different sections of the page, or different pages. It allows the client to get what they expect without searching within the overwhelming list.

The same rule applies with description. If you want to write 200 words of the description, think about the way of saying the same thing but in 20 nicely described, straight-to-the-point words.

In short, show the best, mention the important, highlight the relevant.

Rule 5: Pay attention to and understand your technology
You have to be really careful when it comes to using the web technology to build up your online portfolio. In most cases, user-friendliness is the key.

As long as the user can navigate the site without lagging controls, confusing effects or tedious loading time, you’re fine with using the technology.

The other aspect you need to consider about is compatibility. Let’s take HTML5 as example. It’s new, it’s cool, it works like Flash for certain scenarios, but its support varies with browsers, even with their different versions.

Having said that, you have to consider the platform, such as which browser and device your potential clients will use to view your portfolio site, before you work on that technology.

Know the compatibility and incompatibility of the web technologies before you embrace them.

Moreover, the convenience of updating your portfolio will also depend on the technology you use.

If you are working with technology you are good at you will be able to do regular updates and tweaks to your content or site as it won’t take a lot of time and efforts. But if the technology behind your portfolio site is difficult for you to manage you will experience difficulties with the updates, or even suffer with it for years.

Rule 6: Include your contact info
It’s a fact that by including your contact into your portfolio site, the chances of getting work from the potential clients will increase.

To make their life even easier, it is better to put your contact information on every page, be it on site header or footer, so that they can retrieve the contact easily without going here and there.

Also, include as many kind of contacts as possible. It can be your email address, mobile phone number, Skype name or even a Google map for the clients who wish to talk to you face to face.

Make sure the contacts you provide are really easy to reach, such as the email you check often, or the phone number you always carry.

If you are only able to reply clients after few business days, or you just want to limit the time availability of certain contacts, note down your availability in your contact information.

Rule 7: Use the power of testimonials
If there is a chance for you to include testimonials from your previous clients, especially clients from big brands, you must add them.

It not only shows the clients’ recognition on your expertise, but also lets the potential clients know what they can expect from both your skills and work ethic. But always remember that, don’t lie, and choose the honest testimonials that describe the truth.

Getting the testimonials is not hard at all, you can invite previous clients to write the testimonial after you’ve done work with them, with a reminder that the testimonial must be honest. Otherwise you can just list the logo of the company, especially big players in certain industry who have hired you before.

Rule 8: Be Unique
Ultimately your portfolio site is built to impress the potential clients. You have to make it so unique that your clients won’t think of any other alternative. Only you can make it.

While many designers attempt to put their works online as soon as possible, you should really sit down and think of the unique design, as it will impact a lot when it comes to attracting the client.

Bonus tip
Don’t write any introduction message like “Hi, I’m Peter. I’m a web designer. I create beautiful website with well-functioned content.” It’s a nice introduction for sure, but the message is too repetitive that you can see they exist everywhere in the web, with slight variations. Create your own creative introduction message, and your client will think you’re a different one.

Conclusion

These are essential rules you can follow to build a truly effective and professional portfolio site which can help you to achieve the objective you defined, or get the works you desired. They can also serve as a reminder for experts seeking for improvements.

It’s never too late to build up your portfolio site to be a more creative or more user-friendly existence to win more work, popularity and /or reputation.

So what are you waiting for, get started now to make it stand out from the rest!

SOMO – a brief introduction from SOMOamsterdam on Vimeo.

SOMO is an independent, non-profit research and network organisation working on social, ecological and economic issues related to sustainable development. Since 1973, the organisation investigates multinational corporations and the consequences of their activities for people and the environment around the world. SOMO supports social organisations by providing training, coordinating networks and generating and disseminating knowledge on multinational corporations in a context of international production, trade, financing and regulation.

• download SOMO brochure
• download Presenting SOMO 2008-2010 a publication which gives a general picture of SOMOs aims, objectives and key activities
• read the SOMO Annual Report 2009. See also 2008 and 2007.
• SOMO participates in two alliances: Fair, Green and Global and Impact

Google+ is being promoted as the next best and the most amazing, awesome collaboration tool. To be more moderate, it may help you promote your classes in a better way.

There are some good ways to think about this and how you get started. Possibly the best function of Google+ is it’s availability and the savings on promotional overheads. The tool is open to anyone with a Google Gmail account and is free to users.

Setup an Account

First connect to Google+ at www.google.com and establish an account using your existing Gmail account or follow the online instructions to make a new account.

Making a Class Circle

Let’s look at one of the basic functions that may assist teachers i.e. building a class environment and populating this with like minded and motivated students /people.

After you’ve set up your account and published your profile, go to your Circles page and start adding people in your class to the circle.

When you have it all populated, share it with the people in that circle, so they can all add each other to the same circle.

Do this by clicking “share this circle” in the upper right hand side of your screen. (If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section and Google+ promise to sort you out.)

Sharing your Lesson Plans

You can post your lesson plans to your circle without sharing them to the outside world. Simply click the X on other circles and sharing options like “public” and “extended circles” until your special class circle is all that’s remaining, and you have your privacy.

Now, post lesson plans, share YouTube videos, photos, and more via links. You can even do location-related homework by having people post location check-ins to the circle as a response to your plans.

Conclusion
I hope this posting has been of some assistance to you and wish you and your students great success for the future.

Reason 1: It’s an Out-of-date Android
The single biggest reason you might not want to buy a new Kindle Fire is because it’s most likely going to be running the old 2.1 Eclair version of Android. For those keeping track, that’s actually ten revs behind the current tablet Android release, 3.2 Honeycomb. There was 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, 2.3.3, 2.3.4, 2.3.5, 2.3.6, 2.3.7, 3.0 Honeycomb, 3.1, and, finally, 3.2.

All indications are that Amazon has customized their version of Android, but still, that means you’re essentially running something almost two years out of date.

Reason 2: It’s not really Android
If you’re interested in the Kindle Fire because it’s an Android tablet made by Amazon, think again. Because Amazon is likely to be hacking it up and making it their own, anything you want to run from the real Android world may or may not run on the Fire.

Plus, from a more geopolitical point of view, Amazon is adding one more fork in the already twisted road of Android distributions.

On one hand, they’re taking advantage of an open environment, which is what open is all about. On the other hand, they’re specifically not working and playing well with others, to the harm of the entire ecosystem.

Reason 3: It’s a BlackBerry PlayBook hand-me-down

The “new” Kindle Fire is really just a BlackBerry PlayBook with some new software. The Fire was apparently designed opportunistically by the same company, Quanta, that did the PlayBook — and it’s essentially the same hardware.

Now, I have to say I like the form-factor of the PlayBook, but we know the device hasn’t really resonated with consumers.

Do you really want to buy hand-me-down hardware that’s already failed in the marketplace once?

Reason 4: No Access to the Android App store
While you’ll probably be able to get all the apps you want from Amazon’s Appstore, you will not be able to get apps from the canonical Google Android App store that should be available to all Android users.

That also means you’re going to be getting special or custom or possibly nerfed versions of apps, because they’re specifically meant for the Fire and not for the wider Android ecosystem.

Conclusion

There are many many more reasons you should not be in a hurry to buy this device but the bottom-line is, if you like the Amazon services and pretty much want to be tied down to just that suite of services, you’re fine with the Fire.

Otherwise, you might want to ‘wait and see’ how other users in the market like or dislike the device.