In April 2007, A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practised in the U.S. and worldwide.

33,000 responses is a lot of data. To make sense of it, An Event Apart commissioned statisticians Alan Brickman and Larry Yu to translate raw data into meaningful findings. The findings are now nicely presented in a 80+ pages PDF presentation.

The findings we present here have never been seen before, because until now, no one has ever conducted public research to learn the facts of our profession. This report is not the last word on web work; it is only the beginning of a long conversation. Read, reflect, and let us hear from you.

Read the full story or skip directly to the download.

It’s been a few years since I made the move from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to Firefox, and today I found myself wondering if the time had come for yet another move. I’ve just been testing out Flock, a browser, built with Mozilla Firefox at its core, with a social bent.

It looks and feels almost like FF but it integrates much better with the “new” social websites like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr etc. It also supports bookmarks and RSS feeds much better and provides a nice “My World” welcome page should you so desire (in a similar fashion as Netvibes).

Version 1.0 is around the corner and the latest version 1 RC3 looks very promising.  Download and test Flock for yourself and let me know what you think!

More details and reviews at PC World.

If you’re a Mac user and you want to access your computers remotely, then this Preview of LogMeIn Free provides a glimpse of what’s in store. Free and easy remote control that “just works” - combined with the standard LogMeIn bullet-proof security (pdf).

LogMeIn enables you to connect to your Mac computers from anywhere in the world; from any other Internet-enabled Mac, Windows PC or hand-held device. The remote control feature in LogMeIn Free means you can view and control your Mac desktop and applications just as if you were sitting at the computer. Just like LogMeIn Free for the PC, Mac users can add an unlimited number of their computers for free.

For more information and to download the Preview visit LogMeIn.com.

I’ve written a few news stories about Roger Marris, an Englishman diagnosed with an aggressive form of incurable NHL that has no known cause - Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (one of many illnesses grouped under the general term – cancer; Lymphoma is known as lymphatic cancer).

Digression: To improve the chances of people in the future finding themselves in a similar position, Rog wanted to try to raise a minimum of £10,000 while he felt able to do so. Mission is now accomplished! Rog has now completed this challenge and has surpassed his original target by raising more than £25,000 for charity. Congratulations!!

Anyway… He’s website, which I believe someone has created for him, are created using MS Word as the HTML editor. This has unfortunately resulted in a website being almost inaccessible for anyone using a browser not named IE.

Take a look at www.aroundwithrog.co.uk using IE and then try it in Opera, Firefox or anything else…

Someone should really redo his pages! A good cause deserves better.

Spam, or unsolicited “junk” email, is a common problem for people connected to the Internet. While it’s pretty easy to delete spam, it can take a long time to sort the spam from the non-spam messages, and worse, some spammers have also started attaching viruses to their spam messages. So, it’s best to avoid being spammed in the first place.

Jennifer Hodgdon lead consultant at Poplar ProductivityWare has written a thorough article on the SPAM problem issue and how to avoid/reduce it.