Friday night will also see the chance for those of you that come along to win some prizes.  The star prize of an iPod Touch, kindly donated by the Apple Store in Aberdeen, will go to our IT girl quiz winner.  Our IT girl Wii Fit Champion will win a digital photo frame which has been donated by the Dundee branch of Jessops the UK’s leading specialist retailer of photograpic equipment and accessories.  There will be a chance to win other prizes on the night including iTunes vouchers and some gifts provided by PC World.  Our thanks go to Apple, Jessops and PC World for their generous support for the event.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday!

It used to be the case that if you wanted to have a website or publish a web page you had to learn a language called hypertext markup language (html).  Thankfully now you don’t, if you can use Word or send an email you should find it quite easy to set up your own website and start blogging with free tools like WordPress and Blogger. Or you could try Posterous where you can post content to your own site by just sending an email.

So setting up a blog might be easy, but hey what’s the big deal, why would I want to bother having a blog?  Millions of people are blogging and they’re doing it for all sorts of different reasons.  Lots of journalists blog, Robert Peston the BBC’s business editor is a good example – as the UK banking crisis unfolded a couple of years ago his blog was essential reading for MPs and members of the public alike.  But blogging isn’t just for journalists.

I started blogging because I wanted to connect with others working in the same field both in the UK and overseas.  I use it to reflect on things that I’ve read or to pose questions and what’s great is that other people read what I write and give me feedback.  I have another blog which I use to share links to resources which my colleagues might find interesting or helpful.  Both of these blogs are public and anyone can take a look at them but I also have a private blog which only I can read and I use this to reflect on my work and as I’m also doing a postgrad course at the moment I use it keep notes on my studies and collect links to articles and websites when I’m working on an assignment.  Lots of students keeping reflective blogs even school kids are blogging, this a nice example from an Australian secondary school pupil.

Other people blog about their hobbies or interests.  There are lots photography blogs and if you like looking at photos check out Shutter Sisters a collaborative blog with pictures from women. If you’re into photography check out 15 best photography blogs for inspired and the top 100 photography blogs. Recipes are another popular topic for bloggers – you’ll find a collection here Top 25 recipe blogs of 2009 and there are of course blogs about chocolate, some examples include Chocablog and 8chocolate.com.

You can blog about anything, you can share it with the whole world, a small circle of friends and family or keep it just for yourself.  Getting started with blogging is one of the topics we’ll be covering at ‘Are you an IT girl?’ on Friday 29 January, so why not come along and find out  more. If you already blog why not tell us about it in the comment section and leave a link to your blog so others can take a look.

The Guardian is giving 5 iPod touches away, all you need to do is let them have yout name and email.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fiqp7dDp6g

One of the things we hope to do at the ‘Are you an ‘IT’ girl? event is give women of all ages the chance to ask questions about technology and IT.  Sometimes in the workplace it can be intimidating to ask a fellow colleague an IT question, we don’t want to appear stupid and if we didn’t grasp it first time round we struggle on because we don’t want to keep pestering others.  At ‘Are you an IT girl’ we hope that we can answer some of the questions you have about IT, whether they relate to your work, studies, or your personal and social life. So why not come along and get tips on all things IT.

To help us plan for the event let us know what you’d like to know more about. Do you want to know how to touch up your holiday snaps, more about Facebook and how to turn off those endless ‘Farmville’ updates, or just how to get the most out of your mobile phone. There are some suggestions below of what we could cover, just tick any that you might be interested in or if you’ve other suggestions just let us know in the comments section to this post.

‘Are you an ‘IT’ girl?’ is an event for women and the ‘IT’ in question here is Information Technology. With technology involved in so much of our lives both at home and work this event hopes to offer women in Dundee an opportunity to find out more about blogging, twitter, how to touch up those family photos, tips on finding free software and safe surfing for kids.  There’ll be a mix of parallel sessions that you can dip in and out of, an opportunity to get advice and those burning questions answered in a one-to-one consultation and time to have a chat with friends over a glass of something bubbly and nibble a few canapes.  The evening will end with some live music and  a chance to win some prizes.

This blog will provide updates on the event, including details of some of he prizes and giveaways we hope to have on the night and details of some of the sessions.  We’d also welcome hearing from you with suggestions of what sort of IT questions you’d like answered, so please feel free to leave a comment.

Tickets for the even are £5 and for more details on how to purchase them email the Gate at info@the-gate.org.uk – we hope to see you on the 29th January!