Articles

Glasses? Affirmative. Obscure sci-fi references? Affirmative. Sitting in the dark alone, playing World of Warcraft? Affirmative.

We all have our idea of who the traditional ‘Geek’ is, and for most of us, it’s not a very flattering picture. Even the dictionary currently defines it as ‘an unfashionable or socially inept person‘. Ouch. For the Lady Geeks, this can’t fail to hit a bit of a nerve.

My company’s focused on bridging the gap between women and technology, while our latest campaign, Little Miss Geek, is focused on inspiring the next generation in order to do just that. Read more…

We all know it, it’s pretty darn hard to escape the fact that silly season is approaching. You only have to walk past the local pub to see the Christmas bookings board outside, several Facebook updates standardly at this time of year ‘OMG – it’s 8 weeks until Xmas!!’ The local supermarket has whole sections dedicated to the festive period for god’s sake. No pun intended.

Christmas: the media darling of all occasions, the Daddy’s favourite in the festival family and an opportunity for mass consumerism to take place in its full glory; the gifts exchanged, the technology bought, the alcohol consumed, the parties attended.  Britons will spend an estimated £16.7 billion on Christmas gifts this year according to a recent Santander study.

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The highly anticipated Halo 4 hit the market last week with an almighty crack and a boom  – even if it didn’t reach the lofty Halo 3 sales (over 11 million sold worldwide) it’s still on top of all charts.

Whilst holding it in my hands, I was going back in time and found it hard to think of a single FPS game that I’ve played for more than a day. It’s far outside my usual zone of comfort, genre-wise, but I was pleasantly surprised at how Halo 4 quickly surpassed my expectations and dispelled the preconceptions I usually have for FPS games.

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We’ve just received Motorola‘s new smart-phone, the Razr from the lovely PR folks at JCPR. If the Razr name sounds familiar that’s because it was the top-selling GSM phone about ten years ago. Motorola have revived the brand, however today’s Razr has evolved significantly.

One thing has not changed – it’s thin…just like the name suggests. Perhaps not as thin as a razor bit thinner than any other smartphone on the market today. Even though it’s screen has 50% more area than an iPhone‘s it really does not feel bulky.

It’s light too – significantly lighter than any other high-end smartphone, in fact you can barely feel it even in a tight pocket. Glass and brushed aluminum, that’s so last season. This winter it’s all about woven Kevlar titanium composites.

So the hardware is quite remarkable – and I am still amazed at how much hardware they packed into such a tiny case. You’d expect something this thin to have a terrible battery life or abysmal performance, or even an unimpressive screen – actually it’s all been good so far.

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The ‘bimbo’ like the fictitious audience for this laptop is largely a male fantasy creation. Do the sort of Barbie-girls portrayed in soft-core pornography actually exist? Clearly the management of Fujitsu believe in this fantasy otherwise they would not have just announced Floral Kiss, the most preposterously stereotypically ultra-feminine computer invented since Look Around You’s Petticoat 5.

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Lord Byron produced some incredible things during his lifetime: Don Juan; Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage; She Walks In Beauty. But one of his least heralded accomplishments is arguably one of his greatest – he was the father of Ada Lovelace.

Ada’s work with Charles Babbage, in which she wrote a detailed article describing the potential uses of his ‘Analytical Engine’ – designed 163 years ago but not built until 2002, and considered to be one of the founding works of modern computing – often sees her referred to as the first ever computer programmer.

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Men and women are different. We look different. We act different. We like different things. Men are from Mars. Little Girls are made of sugar and spice. We all know the drill.

With my new campaign Little Miss Geek I’ve been trying to narrow the gender gap in the technology industry, and get more young women thinking seriously about tech careers.There is one question that journalists continually throw at me: Are we fighting a losing battle? Aren’t men just naturally better equipped to work in the technology sector?

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‘I’d rather be a dustbin man than work in IT’.

These are the exact words of an 11-year-old girl. That’s how she responded to my suggestion that she consider a career in technology. Ouch.

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When I launched Lady Geek in 2010 it was an incredibly daunting prospect. I had a cause that I believed in — making the technology industry more accessible to women — but when it came to getting our voice heard I had to start completely from scratch. Over the last couple years we’ve built up a huge following and been able to make a difference — but only because of our presence on social media. Without it, who knows where we’d be?

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Featured on Huffington Post

A funny thing happens when you become a mum for the first time. When you look into your baby’s eyes, all sense of your personal history starts to drift slowly away. You start to forget the parties you’ve been to, the partners you had, the mistakes you’ve made. None of it exists anymore. You were never a party person. You were never a socialite. You were never that girl throwing up in the kitchen sink after too many tequilas.

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When I first heard that I was receiving the ZTE Grand X, I was a mixture of both excitement and nerves. Excited because hey, who doesn’t want to play around with a brand new phone? Nervous, because how would I manage without my trusty iPhone and all its convenient apps to aid me through the day? I’m ashamed to admit that I’m an android virgin and have always been slightly suspicious of it as a rival to Apple. Yes I’ve messed around with the odd HTC or Samsung phone when it was within my grasp, but I was reluctant to truly give up my Apple Allegiance.

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