My favourite misrepresentation of IT involved a young John Hurt, who played a young nerd in The Sweeney. The nerd is captured by The Mob, who force him to hack into The Bank's computer. Hurt then types the following command into his Green Screen. "Divert gold bullion lorry to the old deserted docks."

Cut to a shot of the gold bullion lorry suddenly turning right and heading towards the docks. Aah, they knew how to make computers in those days!

As IT matured, so it got better and better roles, until it became the star in films like Hackers and The Matrix.

Sadly, fame hasn't been kind to the computer, and it looks like its star is in the descendant. There's a new up and coming model known as the cloud.

The cloud's career has been bubbling under nicely. It has won plaudits for roles where it helped show the lead application in a good light. Some say its role in Email should have seen it nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Other crtics hailed its performance in Storage was a 'tour de force'. The audience loves the cloud. To its credit, the cloud camp are seeking meatier roles that demonstrate its full range.

Its agents, such as Google's head of enterprise search Erik de Muinck Keizer and Saleforce.com's Marc Benioff are working on this.

But already there are whispers. There's a danger that the misconceptions about the cloud could set it back. The cloud definitely needs a svengali or a trusted advisor. Not my words, these are the words of the Gartner Group's channel guru Tiffani Bova.

They say there are four stages in the life cycle of a movie star:

• Who is Johnny Cloud?
• Get me Johnny Cloud!
• Get me a Johnny Cloud lookalike!
• Who was Johnny Cloud?

As Johnny Cloud's agent and trusted advisor, they are going to be aggressively promoting this exciting talent that can change people's lives.

Mind you, they must pick the roles very carefully. They're not just going to push it in any old ropey production. The cloud, if handled correctly, will become a household name and a box office smash.

Get me the cloud!

While Logica tries to wrestle with that problem and create an innovation culture, there's another battle going on a mile or so down the road.

How do we get the City of London to take a gamble on tech start ups? They're all very brave when trading billions of other people's money. But it seems they're pretty timid when it comes to backing their judgement with their own cash.

Still they've got enough disposable income to chuck around. If you've ever seen the till receipts of a lap dancing club (as I have, in a business capacity) you'd know that it's not unknown for one of these Masters of the Universe to spend £50k in a night.

Surely, if they were so good at business, they might be prepared to put their money where their mouse is!

This is the rationale of a new lobby group, CityMeetstech, which aims to bring the hard headed business experts of the city together with Britain's tech crunchers and start ups.

The idea, says front man Steve Kennedy, is to bring high net worths, who could invest £50K into something without worrying too much, into the technology industry.

The movement's inaugural deal came when Kennedy's friend James Rowsell (until recently CEO of MF Global) was persuaded to find an alternative to his usual investments in stud farms and horse racing. Rowsell's problem was that, though he understood complicated gambling permutations, he couldn't 'get' IT.

Kennedy introduced him to Jason Trost CEO of Smarkets.

Now they aim to 'educate the market' with a series of convivial City-based drinking events, which should be fun if nothing else. What's to lose?

The first event is purely educational. Kulveer Ranger (the Mayor's digital advisor) will give a brief talk, Taylor Wessing is giving a talk on EIS and other advantages of investing, then there'll be a panel discussion with various successful tech entrepreneurs and VCs who invest in tech (Anil Hansjee, ex-Google; Spencer Hyman, ex-Last.fm and now Artfinder).

There are other ideas to take this forward. Watch this space.

Well, sorry, that's just not going to happen. It doesn't work like that, sir. Unless a minister was prosecuted for some reason - if they could find a police man with the integrity to prosecute him, a CPS that didn't cock up the evidence and a judge who could uphold principle - it looks like they're pretty unsackable.

I only say this because a new survey by analyst firm Point Topic says 5 million more households around the world could afford broadband if the price was cut by 1%. That would help the digitally deprived, claims Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson.

Sorry, but I don't agree.

Sometimes, technology doesn't level the playing field. I'm afraid that's a myth, m'Lud. 

Banks created 'efficiencies' by outsourcing call centres to the poorest regions of the world. OK, they cut their costs and boosted their profits. But did that improve customer service? What did the consumer get out of it? We're actually worse off. 

When customers are told to 'talk to the hand', the hand invariably asks them to spell everything out twenty six times. I said twenty six times. Twenty - ohhh, T as in tango..

Meanwhile, the growth crime among these underpaid call centre workers, shocked by the disparity between their bank accounts and those of the people who are so rude to them on the phone, is to sell their bank details to crooks.

The banks, meanwhile, have got this one covered because they claim that their new system is infallible. So if you find five grand has disappeared from your bank account, the onus is on you to prove that a crime has occurred. Which is difficult when you're shut out of the system.

What is this great system they've got? Chip and pin. Yes, that's right, the technology that was going to protect us all. 

Does anyone know a technology that really does 'level the playing field' and give society a competitive edge?

It seems there is a better way to confound Piers Morgan and his like from hacking into your mobile messages.

(I used Spinvox but, when someone in power found out I liked it, they promptly closed it down)

Mobile phone developer HulloMail gives users the option to block any access to your messages via dial in. It's a new option in its SmartVoicemail doo dah. (Portal?)

Still, who cares how it works? The bottom line is, if Piers and Rupe had your number and a password, they still wouldn't be able to call your number and pick up your messages. Because Hullomail becomes the only way to pick up messages.

Better still, if he does try to hack into your voice mail system, Hullomail will alert you too.

The new invention is a reaction to the general public's vulnerability, which was only really revealed by the phone hacking scandal, according to Andy Munarriz, founder and CEO of HulloMail.

"After reading the high-profile reports regarding the various phone hacking cases, we wanted to provide a service which would give our customers total confidence in the security of their voicemail account," says Munarriz.

Hang on, doesn't that mean HuloMail is cashing in on our vulnerability? In a nice way, I suppose.

The feature that provides this peace of mind is called Access Control. "The recent incidents of poorly secured voicemail services are now preventable. Any attempts to access an account are instantly detected and the user notified immediately," says Munarriz.

The Access Control features builds on HulloMail's existing access safeguards, such as the enforcement of PIN number access for those users wishing to dial-in to access voice messages.

Access Control is the service that no mobile network operator has provided yet, says Munarriz, but they should have done.

"It's not just about the peace of mind that Access Control gives our subscribers," explains Munarriz, "it gives business and corporate users protection against possible corporate espionage or similar scenarios in the future."

The Access Control costs about six quid. Where do you download it from? They don't say. I guess you have to go to iTunes or the Android Marketplace.

In any department of any big organisation you'll find them doing the work. While the C level strategists are meeting with suppliers on the golf course and the 'conference class' are doing what they do best, filling their diaries with face to face and online meetings, the ordinary Eddy Punch-Keys of the enterprise are keeping the company going.

With the economy putting us on a war footing, big corporations now need to arm the workers a bit better. After all, they're the ones who will be doing all the fighting.

At an emergency meeting in the Institute of Directors, IBM unveiled two powerful new weapons that give the humble foot soldiers of the enterprise temporary parity with their C level counterparts. They will need it, because they need to take action while their betters upstairs are offline flitting between the airport lounges, hotel suites and five star restaurants where they 'furiously compete'.

While the C level executives are looking at the wine list, the troops at the front line are forced to make their decisions at a considerable disadvantage. As the battle of Big Data (as IBM calls it) looms ahead, message has filtered back from the front that the tommies in the trenches need better weapons.

CIOs, CFOs and IT managers have been called away from the table - interrupting the first course - to order up some new technology to support their IT infantry.

One of the biggest handicaps is a lack of intelligence. This is becoming even more of a problem as the troops are faced with massive data sets that look impossible to surmount.

While they are slowly picking their way through them, over them or around them, enemy snipers have been picking them off.

But now the ground troops can be supported by a newly-purchased IBM's SmartCloud. This will help them make mince meat of all those massive blocks of unstructured data.

Instead of being terrorized by Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, weather data, log files, genomic data and video, they can start to consume it instead. They can use the moment on new media and turn it in on itself.

This new kit from IBM could put the power of mobile analytics into the hands of iPad users, in key areas of conflict, such as financial services, healthcare, government, communications, retail, and travel and transport. (Don't be confused by our American allies, who call it transportation. It's the same thing as transport but it plays havoc with your layout.)

Facts

2.5 quintillion bytes of data from sensors, mobile devices, online transactions, and social networks are sent per day.

90 percent of the world's data has been generated in the past two years.

One billion Tweets are sent each month

30 billion messages on Facebook are sent per month.

1 trillion mobile devices are in use today

$31 billion: the mooted figure for ecommerce by 2016.

A new trade only trading system for SMEs could help them cut costs and boost their revenue without having to make any investment.

A new trading system for SMEs, GoTradeLive, could give small business the trading power of bigger corporations, help them compete more effectively and help them run a tighter operation.

Initially free, this cloud based online trading promises to be as simple to use as Facebook but as powerful as any corporate e-business system.

GoTradeLive will give SMEs a more efficient market for any goods and services they want to sell. Its tools allow businesses to create an online auction and invite a select audience to bid for the goods or services. It's as easy to use as eBay but without the lack of privacy of a public auction.

Founder Robert Doughty says it give SMEs all the advantages of the trading hubs and e-business systems that only global corporations can afford. 

"The odds are stacked against the SME and this system could help them compete on a level playing field. It gives them better buying power and better markets to sell into," says Doughty.

Farmers, for example, are often forced to dump perfectly good stock. Now a farmer can sell a consignment of potatoes that has unexpectedly been rejected by a supermarket because they were not photogenic enough.

Previously, finding a buyer would have been too time consuming and the farmer would have to bin them. Now they can set up an auction, contact all their normal buyers and invite them to bid for these bargains. The farmer salvages some money for his crop and the buyer gets a bargain they would have lost out on.

Similarly, GoTradeLive can be used for reverse auctions or invitations to tender. The same farmer could invite engineers to tender for the job of converting his combine harvester into a snow plough for the winter.

In these cases GoTradeLive brings a new liquidity to the SME sector and creates value by making new trading opportunities possible. The potential value to the economy is estimated to be ... well ... big.

Why SMEs need a B2B trading system

1.   Global trading systems are too expensive and hard to use.

2.   Consumer sites are insecure and expensive.

3.   Trade-only buyers are more knowledgeable.

4.   eBay has high margins because the customers do a lot of the work.

5.   GoTradeLive has lower costs and asks you to do less work.

6.   42% of eBay's users quit in 2006. 

7.   100 of the top 1,000 eBay sellers in the US had gone out of business, according to a survey by Sellathon in 2006.

8.   Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior have all filed suits against eBay alleging that 90% of their products sold there are counterfeit goods.

9.   Trade-only sellers are 50% more trustworthy.

10.  Trade transactions cost less time and money.

Well Facebook could. Thanks to Moonfruit, a web publisher, you can start your own shop their.

Moonfruit helps people build their own web site by creating aesthetically pleasing website designs that you can buy off the shelf. Why build your own? It's a nightmare.

Moonfruit spent the last two years perfecting another 'easy to use' template, for creating an online shop. That's not a new idea. Actinic was doing this 10 years ago - although I didn't find it particularly play and plug.

Moonfruit's masterstroke was to create a Facebook plug-in. So you can use social media to create your market and to update the shop at the same time.

Emma Jones, the CEO of StartUpBritain, a campaigning group aimed at stimulating small business growth, says SMEs are our best bet for creating economic growth. And Facebook could help SMEs to function more effectively.

"I've heard government ministers complain that SMEs are not recruiting people. He's missing the point. Today's start ups like to stay small. They stick to what they're good at and outsource the rest," says Jones, "and that's exactly what they should be doing."

SMEs won't take people on full time (with all the onerous employment contracts that entails) but they will hire people to do jobs for them. This is an arrangement that will only work for the economy if 'big company culture' is avoided. You need to find people to work for you with the minimum of fuss and without wasting time on endless meetings. "That's what people in middle management do in big companies, to justify their existence," says Jones.

The key to an efficient system for hiring partners could be social media. Which is why Moonfruit and PayPal's Guerilla Shopbuilding invention may have hit on something brilliant.

Well I hope it has. The economy needs growth and that stimulation won't come from the meeting mongering, decision dithering executives of big companies.

So, like it or lump it, they are forced into a mass migration, to the fresh pastures of Windows 7. Where they will find only temporary respite before another cycle kicks in.

For safety, the masses are huddled together and move as one. But the mass migration has many casualties. Predators lurk in all kids of areas, plotting to pick them off. The most dangerous part of the journey is the crossing.

Now AppSense and App-DNA have joined forces to make the migration safer for the users. (Hang on, should a company called App-DNA be messing with the forces of selection like this? Surely we need natural wastage to cull the users every now and then. Isn't this nature's way?)

No, it isn't, argues App-DNA. We're talking about human being here and they need to be helped to reach their maximum potential. 

AppSense and App-DNA are helping to protect the users and speed them on their way as they migrate to more bountiful environment, such as Windows 7, virtual desktop computing and remote desktop services for physical and virtual machines.

App-DNA helps to save the lives of many IT managers and CIOs too, according to Gartner. It saves their careers by helping them to analyse, plan, manage and deliver.

This isn't just confined to the plains of the Serengetti, but is a global phenomenon. "Virtually every corporate and enterprise organization is in some phase of planning or deploying new desktop infrastructure," said David Roussain, VP of strategic alliances at AppSense. 

Analysts say the users desperately need help. "The traditional end-user desktop is undergoing a period of significant transformation," said Chris Wolf, research VP at Gartner.

But we know exactly what went on. Everyone knows each other in this industry and we all talk about it in the pub afterwards.

Here's what we thought we heard.

Roger Black gave a speech to open IP Expo. Then Neil Crockett of Cisco lectured us about how Cisco was spending our taxes on the technological underpinnings of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

We should blimming well hope so too, given the billions in taxes we've lavished on them

A crowd of bemused and slightly uncomfortable punters gathered at the Arkadin showcase. They watched, slack jawed, from a safe distance as local artists acted out some kind of visual metaphor which, it turned out, was supposed to illustrate Arkadin's new Cloud Collaboration and Video Conferencing service. Hats off to them for trying something different from the usual half naked model actress paid £50 to give out leaflets for the day.

Atlanta Technology, however, reverted to tradition and used boiled sweets, free biros and stress balls as a means of drawing attention to its Private Cloud Services and newly attained Hitachi Silver Partner Status.

A rumour swept through the press office that Check Point Software Technologies had simplified public and private cloud security. The controversial initiative divided Expo fans, with some die hards claiming that Checkpoint had 'sold out' to 'the man' by being so nakedly commercial.

Purists say it's the biggest populist sell out since Dylan went electric.

On another stage, Centrix Software joined Microsoft UK and belted out a medley of their old hits, along with some new material such as Jumpstart Program and a new Cloud-based version of WorkSpace iQ. Nice.

Datacore Software, the IT industry's answer to Depeche Mode, introduced its new concept album, Storage Hypervisor and Auto-Tiering, to mixed responses. Many of the fans had come to hear their old favourites, such as Seamless Access to Cost-Effective Cloud Storage, which the band reluctantly agreed to play as an encore.

But there were no such problems for Spitfire, an ISP with a fanatical following. When it announced A Free connection to EFM Ethernet Circuits valid for a Limited Time Only, the crowd nearly took the roof off Olympia.

As marketing manager Susie Ward strutted the stage, demonstrating SIP solutions and offering new SIP Trunk and Ethernet packages at ground breaking price points, you just didn't want to be anywhere else in the world.

This means that if a moth's eardrum was the thickness of a brick wall, a hair's breadth displacement would alarm the moth.

What does this tell us?

Moths make for sensitive companions? Yes, good point.

But are there wider issues here?

Sensory organs are the brain's window to the world. The small nervous systems of insects shows how we're all coded by neurons.

Mind you, there's an awful lot of morons out there writing code too.

This is something that ethical hacker Ryan Dewhurst is setting out to combat.

Though still a student at Northumbria University, Dewhurst has caught the eye of the security industry with his invention, the Damned Vulnerable Web App (DVWA) which is now by RandomStorm  as part of the RandomStorm Open Source Initiative.

Dewhurst developed the app with his tutor, Dr Christopher Laing  to provide a legal forum where developers could learn about the common hacking vulnerabilities that can be left in web applications.

They promise to be the leading lights IP Expo.

Oh god, IP Expo. I vowed I'd never go back.

Like a moth to the flame...