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So 2010 is nearly up and 2011 just around the corner. Whatever you are up to there is something magical about seeing people across the globe enjoying new year festivities.

Countdown to the New Year across the world.
Of course, New Year begins early in certain parts of the world and you might be interested in following this text driven site, that updates per second showing how long until 1 January 2011 in various locations across the world. Christmas Island is the first to fall (grab you Christmas Island domain name here), then New Zealand, Australia, through South East Asia, Europe and across the Americas. It is a little weird to think that those in American Samoa will be celebrating New Year 25 hours after those in Christmas Islan because of the way the international date line falls but they are less than 1500 miles apart.

Live action across the Globe

Sydney, Australia
Sydney is one of the first big cities to celebrate new year and their fireworks displays rarely disapoint. Nearly 2 million are expected to gather across the city to watch the display over Sydney Harbour but if you can’t be there in person you can catch them live on this web cam.

London, England
Traditionally Trafalgar Square – technically the centre of London – has been the place to celebrate New Year in the UK’s capital. However, in recent years, with organised public fireworks displays, the South Bank just down the road has become a more popular hub for people to gather. Keep an eye on both here: Trafalgar Square and South Bank.

New York, USA
For over a century the ‘ball dropping’ on top of Number One Times Square in New York City has become a TV favourite on New Year’s eve. This link has a selection of 10 different web cams overlooking the events, so you can ensure you won’t miss out even if you can’t be there. There are HD cams too and even a 3D broadcast! Watch them here.

Happy New Year from all at 123-reg.

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Early December this year, Facebook introduced an update to present everyone with new layouts to their profiles and walls which made posting status updates slightly different in format.

Since then, customised profiles have been popping up around the place and we thought you might like to know how you can produce something as elegant as the examples below.

(Images found on Google image search “personalised Facebook profile”)

Get your image

Firstly you need to select an image that will look good in pieces like the ones in the examples above. You will need Adobe Photoshop or some sort of image slicing software to do the next part.

Slice it up

The biggest part of your image on the left (your main profile picture) needs to be 180 pixels in width. The height can be as tall as you’d desire.

The small boxes at the top of the image need to be 68 pixels high x 97 pixels wide which will contain other elements of the main photo to achieve the effect shown above.

Upload

Go to photos > upload photos and select the images you want that compile the whole image. Be sure to allow the images to share with everyone so that everyone can see.

Once saved don’t publish them to your stream unless you want to. Tag the photos from last (furthest right) to first furthest left (not the profile picture) with your own name so they can appear at the top in the way the examples do.

Last but not least upload the biggest portion (the profile picture) as your profile picture to complete the effect.

Voila!

Your profile should now look really cool and your friends will be bugging you to ask how you did it. Be sure to send them our way.

The steps above were inspired by the very useful video “Facebook ‘Profile Picture Hack’ Tutorial” by xadacka which is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vhvJqGgzmoQ#!

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Amidst the Christmas excitement and slower news updates across the internet, one story appears to have gone past without too much notice. And it was pretty big news from our point of view, suggesting the way we are using the internet is changing.

A report from Experian Hitwise on Christmas Day traffic indicated that in the UK, Facebook received more visits than Google for the first time ever. Facebook.com accounted for 10.50% of all UK Internet visits on 25th December while previous top site google.co.uk had 9.77% of the traffic. It was the first time Facebook has topped the charts and probably owed much to people wishing friends and relatives “Merry Christmas” but it does suggest that social interaction is set to become the most popular use of the internet over the traditional reference tool.

Will Facebook wrestle the top spot permanently in 2011?

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One more sleeps as the kids around here (big and little) appear to want to tell everybody. Yes, today is Christmas Eve, the day before the most exciting day of the year for small children across the world. So how do you cope with the excitement? How do you pass the waiting hours? We’ve found a few suitable websites for you:

NORAD Tracks Santa
If you’ve never tracked the NORAD Santa system before, it is well worth a check. Using Google Earth in 3D you can see just how busy Mr Christmas is as you follow Santa’s journey across the globe in anticipation for his arrival at your home. Starting on December 1, there will be activities posted each day to help with the wait. The big event starts at 9am UK time and you will need to download Google Earth to view it.

Portable North Pole Video from Santa Claus
As a grown-up spend five minutes answering a few simple questions about any special children you know and upload some pictures and you will be sent a link for a personalised video from Santa. A digital version of the traditional letter from Santa it will bring even more excitement to the kids, big and little.

Santa Claus Live
Part of a bigger site trying to sell trips to meet Santa, this site offers web cams live from Santa’s home, inside and out as they gear up for delivery. Well worth a sneaky peak.
Santa Design Christmas Printables
Print out and colour for all the family. Not just about creating an unwanted mess on your dining room table either. SOme of these things are quite practical for the festive season. So if you’ve not been able to find suitable napkin rings, or forget to get Xmassy place name cards, or even run out of Christmas gift tags, then this site offers you a chance to make your own and have some festive fun at the same time.

LAST MINUTE PRESENTS!
If you’ve left it late, there is still hope. A number of online shops offer you the chance to order, download and print gift vouchers but we’ve also found these two sites who were expecting to still be taking orders this morning and guaranteeing same-day delivery.

ASOS
Women’s fashion and men’s clothing online. With over 40000 styles, including dresses, jeans, shoes and accessories, there is plenty to choose from. Order before 2pm – although check this, the weather might affect this.

Interflora
Flowers say everything simply. This infamous flower delivery network uses florists across the nation who hand-deliver flowers, bouquets and arrangements. Order before 11am for same-day delivery, but there may be certain areas where same-day is not available and also issues with availability of certain stock.

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If you are one of millions hoping to take to the air, rail or roads in the next couple of days in the Christmas getaway, tuning in to social media is likely to be the best way to stay up to date with how things are moving.

Whether you are planning a holiday, trip abroad or just heading off for a family Christmas, the weather, strikes and the usual Christmas travel chaos can make the whole event very stressful. So here’s a few sites to keep an eye on to make sure your Christmas travel is as stress-free as possible.

Channel 4 News Weather Live Blog
Not a blog as we know it but more a feed updated minute-by-minute by various news sources using Twitter. There is Heathrow Airport, Eurostar, National Rail Enquiries and a host of airlines as well as updates from Channel 4 news themselves and the Met Offfice. If you want a one-stop shop this is probably your best point of call.

The AA
The “fourth emergency service” as they bill themselves have some tips and stats on travelling over the Christmas Getaway. Monday 20 December was the AA’s busiest day in their history due to the snow and ice, and with temperatures still not much warmer and 18 million cars estimated to be using our roads over the Christmas getaway, they are gearing up for another busy time, with over 20,000 call outs expected per day over the next couple of days.

Transport for London
In the capital, the weather, shoppers looking for a bargain and planned industrial action, look set to disrupt even the normal reduced ‘holiday’ service for London Underground. For the latest updates on how London’s transport network is operating, this should be your first port of call.

If you are travelling this Christmas, please make sure you do safely.

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If you are reading this then the chances are you already own a .uk domain name – one of 9 million .uk domain names that have been registered. The 9 millionth .uk domain was registered last week and the .uk domain continues to be one of the most important country specific domains.

The total number of domain names registered worldwide is set to pass the 200 million mark very shortly – if not already – with the last official statistics showing 2010 growth of around 6% on last year. The .uk domain was amongst the strongest domains too with over 1 million .uk domains registered in the past year alone.

Here at 123-reg we are very proud to play a big part in that. Nearly a fifth of all those .uk domain names have been registered via our systems and we hope many more to come. The importance of the .uk domain name as a recognised and respected internet presence is as high as ever and with our .co.uk domains at £2.99 if there are any you have yet to claim, now is as good a time as any to increase your portfolio.

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A new American report suggests that the way the internet is used is changing as different age groups find new avenues to make the most of being online.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project Generations 2010 report out yesterday shows US teenagers abandoning blogs and their grand-parents flooding to Facebook, as internet usage across the Atlantic continues to boom.

Even compared to last year’s report the balance of who is using the internet for what has dramatically changed, as the silver-surfer generation begin to dominate in certain sectors.

The findings suggest that those dubbed the “millennials,” or “Generation Y” – those aged 18-33 – are most likely to use wireless internet, laptop, social networking sites or participate in virtual worlds. However for things like online banking and accessing government website data it is the older people who lead the way.

Multi-media really has taken a grip of lives in the US. Of the adults surveyed the numbers watching video online leapt from 52% back in 2008 to 66% in the 2010 report. Music online is also much more popular with 51% of adults listening online compared to just 34%  back in June 2004.

Yet, with the increased popularity of Facebook, etc the writing may literally be on the wall for the future of online journalism. One of the only activities showing a decrease in popularity over previous reports was blogging. Only half as many of the teenage respondents now write their own blog now when compared to the figures from 2006.

And what of that rise in Facebookers? Amazingly the biggest rise in numbers has come from those aged 74 and older. Since 2008 that sector have quadrupled their Facebook usage.

Do you think this American survey is also reflective of modern UK internet usage?

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Opera 11 has arrived. In the past year Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome browsers have seen a noticeable improvement in user stats. Wrestling control of the market from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox could be possible and now Norway-based Opera has issued its own latest upgrade, hoping to pick back up the estimated 1% of its minority audience it has lost this year.

Billed as “More capable and more elegant” the latest version of Opera has some new functions all focused around the customer usability and helping to create a cleaner look. The new tab stacking feature allows multi-tasking but in an ordered way, allowing you to group various tabs together, so they are easier to work with. There is also added functionality for the right mouse button giving a simple graphical-interface to deal with the more basic navigational functions.

Opera has always prided itself on its smaller load size, appealing to those looking to avoid cluttering up their hard-drive with functions they are unlikely to ever use. It is claimed that the installer for Opera 11 is 30 per cent smaller than its predecessor which will appeal to many with smaller hard-drives and also weaker internet connections.

Full functionality however is not lost with Opera moving down the Firefox route with a host of widget add-ons that can be downloaded to tweak and customise the browser.

At the moment Opera 11 is available for Windows, Mac and Linux computers but with the success of its Opera Mini within the smartphone market, expect to see many of these funcitons being adapted to a newer mobile version soon.

A new feature of the new Opera 11 browser is Tab stacking, a better way to organize your open tabs. Simply drag one tab on top of another to create a stack.

Do you use Opera? Can it really compete with the big guns in the browser market?

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Hands-up straight away, we’ve been meaning to write this for ages, but put it off.

As the year draws to an end it is perhaps time to look at procrastination, the ‘thief of time’. The reason so many of those big plans for 2010 never got off the ground.

In the modern world with so many distractions, it is easy to see why procrastination is still one of the biggest obstacles to business success, so how can we overcome it? Here are six ways:

Do your To Dos!
There are plenty of task reminder programs out there like Remember the Milk, the good old Outlook tasks list, even traditional pen and paper, so there is no excuse not to make a list of things you need to to. The issue is usually actually doing them. Lists need to be prioritised or at least grouped and with a deadline set. Try and set yourself easy-wins, alongside more intense tasks, so you don’t constantly feel overwhelmed. Write everything down on that list too, otherwise  you will find yourself working off several different lists at a time all with different items. Even if you have one massive list, by grouping and prioritising you can make it managable.

Have a set time to organise
Set aside an hour or two at the start of the week to assess and re-asses your to-do list. Make sure your list is up to date, realistic and accurate. A little time spent organising at the start of the week will mean you will be much more productive come the end of the week when many more things have been thrown your way. Make your assessment of your to dos realistic. You might be governed by management and business necessity but you also need some autonomy over what tasks and goals you set and when.

Re-assess your priorities during the week
Your todo list should be your guide but not you governor. Things will change daily, even hourly sometimes. You will actually find yourself more productive overall if you take half hour every day, either at the end or beginning to re-assess your list.

Limit your hours for Social Networking
Yes, we know it can be a great marketing tool, but it can also be the biggest  procrastination distraction to your working life. If you must monitor your business Twitter account, etc 24/7 then make sure that is all you do. Don’t fall into the trap of just checking your personal account while you are there.

Use do not disturb
An hour per day of pure focus on the task in hand and you will find you get much more done – in that hour and beyond. Turn off social networking, close down your email, switch off your phones, even your PC if you can. Deal with one task at a time, work logically through it and close it off, at least as far as you can at that time.

Set some long term goals to
The reason big companies set 5 year and 10 year plans is that they work. It is great to strike off small tasks as you achieve them but you also need to be able to see how each of these slot into the bigger picture. Have a separate list of longer-term goals and pick one out every now and then and move it into your weekly to do list. You might not crack it immediately but over a few weeks you will and by doing so you will also be expanding your business future.

Remember, there really is no better time than now, but the most fun task might not be the most effective one.

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Online porn is still amongst the most top uses for the internet and while many do so trying to keep it secret, a Californian law suit currently before the courts might see more admitting to their vice.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a class action has been filed in the U.S. District Court in California claiming visitors to a pornographic website were abused by Javascript used within the site that stole information about their browsing history. Filed by two Californian men against Midstream Media – a Netherland Antilles based company that runs a number of x-rated sites -  the claim is a class action meaning others may join in the claim if they also have been affected.

Ironically, recent research has revealed that this practice of ‘history sniffing’ is a relatively unknown security risk but one on the rise. Histories could potentially be sold giving a unique insight into personal internet use. The claim is that Mainstream Media stole these histories and sold them to interested parties.

A recent paper from the University of California which would appear to have prompted this action suggests  history sniffing could be used to find phishing targets – especially by identifying any recently visited banking sites and then sending out spoof emails from appearing to be from the same bank in an attempt to steal login details.

History sniffing could also become of great use to advertising organisations looking to profile visitors to their own sites and tailor content to them.

The research paper uses the domain www.whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com as an example of how incisive history browsing could be and the potential it offers to building up a profile on innocent visitors to unobtrusive looking sites.

The advice on protecting your browser history appears to be ensure you use up to date versions of your browser and regularly clear your history too. Given the potential monetary value of a person’s online antics, and the likely high-profile of this lawsuit, we would expect many more to look into exploiting browser history until it is declared illegal.

Were you aware of the risk of history browsing? Do you think you may have been a victim?

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