The sjhoward.co.uk toolbar, for Internet Explorer and Firefox, has just undergone a radical makeover… it’s now pretty much a news junkie’s dream!

The feature list, with some of the changes highlighted:

• Improved: Instant access to sjhoward.co.uk from any site on the web, including full search functionality and built-in access to the latest posts
• Improved: Search from anywhere on the web with Google, Yahoo, MSN, Technorati, Wikipedia, and more!
• New: Live built-in headlines from more than fifteen of the top UK news sites, updating throughout the day
• New: Live links to hundreds of the latest news videos direct from the BBC and Reuters, constantly updated to give you easy access to the very latest content
• Improved: Links to more than twenty of the most important news sites on the web – with the list growing all the time
• New: The weather forecast for wherever you are throughout the world, always conveniently displayed
• New: An email checker to let you know when new messages are waiting – works with Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, and any service with POP3 access
• Privacy protector blocks pop-ups and clears history, cookies, and browser cache on request
• Fully customisable: You choose which components to display, and even add your own!
• Free automatic updates of new features as they become available
• Now available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox

The toolbar is provided completely free of charge. It comes with no spyware or viruses, does not open pop-ups or hijack your searches, and no personal information is required to use the software. This is the fourth version of the sjhoward.co.uk toolbar, which first appeared way back on simonhoward.co.uk as a browser modification, followed shortly by a customised version of Internet Explorer. This was later replaced by an EffectiveBrand toolbar, of which this latest release is the second version.

Current users will be automatically updated (indeed, should already have been automatically updated). New users can download the toolbar here, or get more information here.

Dr Monica Whitty, a newly appointed psychologist at Queen’s University, Belfast, is conducting some research and wants your help. This isn’t usually the kind of thing I’d post, but the slightly surreal fact is that this unexpectedly dropped into my email inbox whilst I was actually walking past Queen’s, having never been anywhere near the place before in my life.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how individuals in different countries use their work computers and/or laptop computers. It also asks how they protect their work computers and/or laptops from security risks.

I’m looking for individuals 18 years or over and currently live and work (full time/part time or casually) in Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK, or USA, you are invited to fill out this survey. Only people who use a computer and/or laptop at work are invited to complete this survey (although you don’t need to use one regularly).

A summary of the results will be published from about November 2006 – December 2006 on my website: http://www.psych.qub.ac.uk/staff/teaching/whitty/profile/index.aspx

It’s a very short survey, and can be found here.

Just came across this while YouTubing… It’s from the second season of Scrubs.

[flashvideo filename=”http://sjhoward.co.uk/video/scrubs.flv” /]

What other TV comedy could include something quite like this and get away with it? Scrubs is comedy with depth, and it continues to be excellent. For the uninitiated (is anybody uninitiated?), Amazon have seasons 1-3 available on DVD, and season 4 available to preorder. Enjoy.

Some time ago, Professor Stephen Hawking posted a question on Yahoo Answers asking how the human race could survive the next hundred years. A few days or so later, he (as you might hope for such an intelligent guy) answered his own question with an audio message, which Yahoo have inexplicably combined with a patronising slideshow to create this video:

My first reaction to this news was that, with all that brainpower, you might hope that Prof Hawking would be having happier thoughts. You know, sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, that sort of thing. With a brain the size of his, an awful lot of happiness could fill the space currently occupied, quite clearly, with a whole lot of misery. 😉

Then it occured that the most respected thinkers and philosophers of every society ever (or, at least, quite a few) have predicted the downfall of the human race to be in the near fuure, and it’s not happened yet. What makes the good Prof any different?

Next, it occured to me that it was, perhaps, reassuring that this video was popular enough to make it into the most-watched videos on Yahoo’s site. It shows that people must be interested in the problems which may affect their offspring after their death, that they care for the world in which they live, and actively want to aid the survival of the species.

Then I noticed what was above this video in the chart:

My faith quickly evapourated… but my smile grew.