My client records are handled through Zoho, the online CRM system. Zoho also handles email and online documents which I guess I may explore in time. Of course there are also Google documents.

For wireframes, I use both Mockingbird, and HotGloo; not yet decided which one suits my needs better.

I have long been a fan of Microsoft One Note, but I am being attracted to Evernote, which though lacking many of the features of Microsoft’s heavyweight, has the obvious advantage of accessibility for nomadic users.

This move to more online working has crept up on me silently and I wonder just how far it is likely to go. I took a look at Aviary – online image manipulation, draw and paint packages and more. While it is not up to the standards required by professionals, and Adobe should not be quaking in their shoes just yet,  the writing is on the wall.

My guess is that in the very near future the boundaries will be blurred totally and there will just be varying flavours of one thing – question is, what will we call it?

We have all experienced it – the email not replied to, a project delivered late with no courtesy call to let you know, sloppy writing and typos, clumsy code, unreadable text, the missed ‘thank you’. But we have also enjoyed that small moment of delight when someone goes that little bit further than you expected – the bit of additional functionality, the clever solution to a boring, everyday problem, the phone call follow-up from a supplier, the project delivered a day early.

So, while you are waiting for that ‘big idea’, just concentrate on what you are doing and do it very well – that will make a measurable difference for 2010, guaranteed!

I hear developers mumbling into their lattes now about CMS systems, but some very exciting stuff is being built on Joomla and WordPress for instance. I’m afraid the genie is out of the bottle but it does not indicate the end of some golden era, just the constant changing communications landscape.

As new year is always a time for predictions, I will stick my neck out and say that 2010 will see a rapid growth in sites built on proprietary CMS – but this will mean that developers will not be stuck doing the basic, boring coding. There will be a burgeoning of clever apps and plugins – especially extending into social internet and mobile media.

The only constant is change… embrace it, it’s what makes working with new media such a roller coaster of fun.

Reading some of the many articles in the media what I an struck by is the unspoken dimension that is so apparent in what people are trying to achieve – it is psychology. Back in the 1950′s when advertising in the US was searching for some underlying scientific principles, it was psychology that they turned to. Like the web today, they were dealing with human behaviour, trying to understand it, evaluate it … and ultimately, predict it.

Many of the techniques employed by UX practitioners will be familiar to any psychologist – what sometimes concerns me is that in general it lacks the theoretical foundations. This restricts the deeper understanding and insight of cognition and behaviour that could lead to the most effective outcomes.

We could spend a lot of time discussing whether ad agencies have sufficient digital expertise or fully recognise the possibilities, or if specialist digital agencies have a sufficiently broad marketing base – but in what is still an immature sector the discussion is rather pointless as the offering is so varied and patchy as to provide no obvious answers.

To compound matters, specialisms within the digital arena are growing and replicating faster than a swine-flu virus. We now have SEO, PPC, mobile, content, ecommerce, content production, international, email, research specialists and many, many more.

Nobody but the biggest digital agencies (big bucks) can keep the depth of expertise on their books to bring together the right mix of specialisms required for even moderately complex solutions. But few clients, particularly SMEs, have either the physical resource or the knowledge to assemble the right team of suppliers for an à la carte solution. The instinct of a big agency is do as much internally as they can; it maintains control and maximises revenue. But to provide a client with the most effective, and cost-effective programme, they need to take a more project management role.

The alternative is for clients to employ a digital project manager to manage the best possible team of disciplines to achieve their strategy.

Of course we expect introductory bonuses and such for new customers, but loyalty is hard-earned and loyal customers should be nurtured.

It is often said that high street retailers can learn a lot from their electronic counterparts, but this is a case where etailers should take a leaf from the book of bricks and mortar retailers – why do you think they have loyalty schemes, give points and exclusive gifts etc? Because it costs a lot to secure one new customer, and far less to hang on to, and make money from those you have got.  Get greedy and those repeat customers will soon tell you where to stuff your cookies.

I am still unsure why this is the case. Some very serious people and organisations are obviously using microblogging very successfully. True, it is a bit of an unruly child at the moment… an adolescent struggling for its own identity trying to find its place in the world.  But then, so was the internet back in the early nineties.

As I said at the start, opinions are strongly polarised and for everyone who hates Twitter I find support and adoption coming from the most unlikely quarters.

I would tend to be cautious when people state such strident views: maybe it is not the image of Twitter which is the issue, but their own self-image.

I’ve always been a bit of a purist so far as my mobile phone was concerned: it was just for making phone calls. Then I subscribed to mobile broadband, mainly to use a dongle on my laptop as I travel a lot (don’t get me started on the price hotels charge for broadband). Anyway, that permitted me broadband on my phone. My first use was Google maps when I was was lost. There followed a number of distress driven uses and soon I was hooked. My phone upgrade then led me to a bigger colour screen (my eyesight is no longer what it was… if it ever was).

So, where I always made sure I carried my laptop everywhere in its rucksack, I scaled down to a netbook for foreign trips. At one time I felt naked without some form of computer… now I am relaxed with just my phone, comfortably using it for most of my quick applications.

My tasks for the coming weeks?  Adapt and make sure my websites work well on mobiles.