Apologies for my lapsed blogging in recent months. It has been a busy couple of months at ET Towers, interspersed with Christmas turkey and a variety of chocolate treats.

But now we are well into 2007, and our new template design is bedding in after an inevitably exhausting 'birth' in early December.

A lot of our loyal visitors will have trouble finding their way around the new layout and new navigation, but that is inevitable in any major overhaul - and we needed one of those - in general the feedback has been complimentary, and the staff around the building seem reasonably impressed.

If you do have any constructive criticism of any aspect of our new design or features on the site, my virtual door is always open: richard.kendall@jpress.co.uk.

One of the main features of the site is the ability of you the user to comment on our stories, simply registering with your email address and password enables you to add comments quickly live on any article, which is then displayed at the bottom of the story.

Once registered you can also sign up to a daily email newsletter of the latest news from The ET (we will be enhancing this over time).

11:37am: 2006 has seen many changes in the way we live and work online. No more so than the improved availability and speed of broadband internet access allowing users to view larger multimedia files more quickly.

Time magazine has named YouTube as it's 'person' of the year. This truly shows how relevant user generated content has become to online media and entertainment organisations.

The quality of some videos available on YouTube may be questionable, personally speaking, but it has created a new slant on viewing moving-images democratising choice for those creating and viewing content.

TV no longer has the monopoly on offering content to viewers. Broadband has enabled online viewers to choose what they want to watch and when.

YouTube has provided the platform for people to contribute their own videos and clips of various media from film to sport, music to home-made movies and we the online audience have lapped it up.

Major media businesses are waking up the possibilities of user generated content and providing more viedo content.

On my way into ET Towers this morning, the official Christmas tree was being assembled in reception, boxes of baubles and tinsel scattered, signalling that the Christmas season is definitely upon us, or for me at least.

I picked up a coffee from Continental on Cowgate, and they had a small tree atop their chilled fridge. Even Queensgate have some decorations resembling something Wintry, if not particularly my idea of Christmas.

On the subject of gifts, we, The Evening Telegraph will soon have a pre-Christmas gift for you loyal readers. A brand new website design, a revamped layout for our existing and slightly weary current site, which has got us through some good years, I will shed a small tear when it leaves.

But change on the web happens fast and rapidly alters the landscape, looking at current design trends, personally I like The Telegraph's site which shares a few similarities with our new cleaner design.

But these new designs and working practices leave us wondering how we survived before new features and technical tricks were created.

Consequently it has been a busy few weeks which is my excuse for no posting for a few weeks. A lifetime in blog terms.

I will be posting more as we re-launch and our upgrade goes live, as always, your feedback is welcomed and essential.

The BBC has produced a good guide to being savvy when looking through your emails, so that you can spot obvious spam and phishing attempts by those trying to get hold of your bank details, because plenty of people are still getting caught out!


Read the full article at BBC News.

As it's Friday, here's something to take you away from work for 5 minutes, the best photos flickr has to offer, all packaged in a slideshow (you will need Flash installed), some very impressive photos here from some very talented photographers, inspiring.

A whole 2 and a half weeks without the internet at home! How is a web editor supposed to survive!? Ridiculous of course, as many people survive without the aid of the internet at all.

You just miss not being able to check emails from friends, do some research on things that need buying and finding out what that catchy song is on a TV ad. (I recommend Commercial breaks and beats is a good place to start).

No chance to check my bank details from the comfort of my own home, blog, rant and rave on the state of the web, or see what other online news sites are up to, but yes, you're right, there's plenty more to life, like the washing up for instance and going out for a bike ride, which did happen at the weekend.

I won't delve into the problems with my service provider as its all a bit technical and long-winded (and dull) for this blog, but I'm now back online in some fashion, and I survived my enforced internet cold turkey, which does make me a appreciate a little the positives of being online.

If you have been affected by going internet cold turkey let me know, email me richard.kendall@jpress.co.uk.