Yes, it's almost here again. Christmas. The time of year when you express your great love for your nearest and dearest through the gift of two-for-one bubble bath and novelty slippers.

We've all made embarrassing mobile phone blunders as part of our busy modern lives. We've all done something with a mobile that has led to fingers pointed in mirth and mockery: a few years ago the Round-Up even had one of those Bluetooth headsets that make you look like a minicab driver (although the cash from all those unexpected fares came in handy at Christmas).

Wheezing. Coughing and spluttering. Unable to complete basic tasks without falling over. Due for a serious upgrade or a one-way trip to the skip around the back of the office. No, the Round-Up is not referring to that dodgy email server that you really should get around to replacing.

Warning to iPhone users: you may find the contents of this first part of the Round-Up upsetting. If you are of a nervous disposition skip to the second part of the Round-Up. Thank you. For the rest of you, here's what's been putting the wind up iPhone users this week: a piece of malware that can infect jailbroken iPhones.

Question: What do Britain's hairdressers and IT technicians have in common? Answer: A shared love of getting a bit on the side.

It's almost that time of year when nameless horrors not of this world crawl shrieking into the light, creating terror and provoking instant madness in all that see their horrible, bloated faces. No, the Round-Up doesn't mean consultants doing the annual software audit. It's Halloween tomorrow.

We British love our broadband. We're compelled to hug it, to adore it, to nuzzle it lovingly. It is our North, our South, our East and West; our working week and our Sunday rest. It completes us. Broadband speed is now the number one national preoccupation, just ahead of property prices and gossiping about the neighbours. In fact, as serendipity would have it, news this week manages to combine all of middle England's obsessions: fast internet access, property and what the Joneses are up to.

How many times have you heard a tale of woe that features 1) an incriminating photo from an office party and/or 2) a comment on the skills of a co-worker along the lines of "witless, talentless buffoon of a man" and 3) ends with a shake of the head, a wince and the punchline: "And then I realised that I'd sent the email to my boss Andy and not my mate Andy." Plenty of times, the Round-Up is sure.

How can businesses collaborate with partners and customers securely? Quocirca's Clive Longbottom and Fran Howarth have the answer. The number of websites is growing fast. Netcraft reports there were 231.5 million websites in operation as of April 2009 - an increase of 46 million in just three months, with the greatest growth coming from sites that encourage social collaboration and blogging in particular.

How often have you had the following conversations with your significant other? "I've just been speaking to Tim, he's madly in love." "Really? I didn't hear the phone ring." "No, it was through instant messenger."

Over the years, the internet has been blamed for many of the world's ills. Sometimes fairly, though often not. 'The internet is corrupting the nation's youth!' 'The internet is giving us terrible piles!' 'The internet has led to a massive drain in revenues in traditional advertising channels!'

Are Microsoft and Apple about to lock horns yet again, this time in the battle to reign king of the Tablet? Or, Seb Janacek says, is Microsoft fighting an imaginary opponent? Hyper-reality was rife early this year after shrink-wrapped boxes of iPhone nanos turned up in Thai markets shortly after the Macworld conference.

Every once in a while an application comes along that defines a platform. For the Apple II it was the early spreadsheet VisiCalc. For the IBM PC it was another spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3. Later, sales of the Macintosh surged on the back of desktop publishing software from Aldus and others.

A lot of people think their broadband service is bad. You probably think your broadband is bad. Even people that don't have broadband have an opinion about how bad their broadband would be, if they had it. It's Britain's new favourite topic to moan about, now that we can't really moan about our national performance at cricket or football.

Microsoft, eh? It seems like there's any excuse for a party these days. It emerged this week that Microsoft is offering people the chance to hold parties in their homes to celebrate the launch of Windows 7. No, honestly - the Round-Up isn't making this up.

Quocirca's Bob Tarzey surveys the datacentre market - and points out why they're better for the environment than you may think The awesome scale of today's datacentres can only be appreciated by touring them. Their huge halls house rack upon rack of equipment and feature seemingly endless corridors, spotless cleanliness, fortress-like physical security and resilience to power failure - all managed by just a handful of employees. They will not fail to impress.

It was only last week that the Round-Up was complaining about how much like hard work it is to slack off in the office these days. But now it seems that workers at one council will shortly face the prospect of life without status updates, comments on baby pictures and tossed sheep. During the day, at least.

Gone are the days when slacking in the office would encompass doodling, staring into space and elaborate daydreams about what to say to the boss upon winning the lottery. Loafing is now actually really hard work, what with Twitter to keep up with, Facebook to update and all manner of RSS feeds to scan for morsels of info. It's almost less hassle to just keep working.

Ah, the lazy days of summer in the IT department. Cricket and cream teas in the air-conditioned oasis of the server room, while the boss thinks you're doing a major systems upgrade. With the office deserted for the holidays, there are fewer stupid users assuming you can remember their passwords or demanding you fix their self-inflicted tech woes with their bleats of "but it said I should click on the link because I had won a million dollars…"

Every so often there comes a piece of news that makes you stop in your tracks. Something so mind-boggling, you can't help but wonder if you've slipped into some parallel universe where cats lie down with dogs and a member of the Nigerian royal family really does want to give you a cut of their millions. This week, there was such a news story. Are you sitting down? OK, the Round-Up will break it to you gently.

Clive Longbottom has got his hands on Windows 7. So what does he think: Microsoft saviour or Vista all over again? Read on… I've spent the last couple of days with Windows 7. The experience brings to mind that famous phrase: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

When T.S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruellest month" he had clearly never faced the prospect of writing pithy news round-ups in August. Silly season is well and truly upon us and real news is thin on the ground but happily there are all manner of research reports and other snippets to keep us all amused during the holiday month.

Twitter is known for its brevity so it was inevitable that Whitehall's guidelines for departmental microblogging would stretch to 20 pages. The guidance note on the government use of Twitter went viral this week after being placed on the Cabinet Office blog.

Worried about sensitive data on portable devices? Quocirca's Fran Howarth explains how to make sure it's safe and sound. According to the FBI, two million laptops were stolen in the US alone in 2007 - equivalent to one loss every 15 seconds. Research from data clearing house Data Loss DB shows that, of data breaches made public in 2008, 32 per cent resulted from the loss or theft of laptops, mobile phones or other portable media and storage devices.

Phishing has become a constant nuisance for the good denizens of Planet Interweb. Rarely a day goes by when you don't get a badly worded email from a bank you aren't a customer of asking you to give up your personal data for some spurious reason. This week it's the turn of HM Revenue and Customs, or at least phishing villains purporting to be HMRC. Warnings have been issued about the actions of a shadowy organisation that aims to drain our bank accounts of all our hard-earned cash without giving it a second thought.