2009: It's been all about the iGeneration

This year has been an up and down year for many. Since this time last year, I've learned a lot about the world we live in. Recession took a bite out of our lives, climate change is still hanging in the balance, and Windows 7 shot out the door like a sideshow in a clown set - successfully, I hasten to add.

And just as the academic year is about to end, I'm snowed in at home unable to get much needed milk for my tea from the shop.

Still, I'd like to end the year on a bit of a high - even though strictly speaking we've still got a good fortnight left of writing in us as a network. Let's have a quick look over what's been popular and what simply hasn't.

• Office 2010 made its first real appearance and has been getting people rather moist at the thought of a new set of applications;
• Facebook's privacy concerns have been shrouding the site's reputation, until I explained how to fix things before and even after the December 2009 settings refresh;
• Students like BlackBerry's a lot, it seems;
• Email is still an intrinsic part of the iGeneration's lives and the threats to the future of email has had staunch opposition;
• And you lot really hate the RIAA after a student nearly strung herself up by a ceiling fixture.

Suffice to say, it's been a mixed year for technology, the industry and the people who use it.

But even I've grown up a fair bit. Most of you know that I reached the grand old age of 21 only a few months ago, and since requiring glasses to see the slides in my lectures (I'd noticed I'd been moving slowly forward in the lecture theatres over the last three years; since realising the front row was as far as I could go, glasses were the only option). But with this means sometimes you have to go back on what you say.

Just to prove I am in fact human and occasionally eat my own words (and anything else which has an om-nom-nom factor to it):

• I loved Windows 7, and then I got sick of it. There was a lot of coverage, after all, but all in all it's a rock solid operating system.
• I went on and on about backup solutions and how important they are, and then I lost everything when my hard drive crashed.
• When I asked Nokia to start again with their not-so-smartphones, they decided to. Probably not connected, but it shows they're listening at least.
• I decided that touch technology was the epitome of evil, and then I bought myself a multi-touch computer which proved to be quite a hoot in the Whittaker household.
• I initially really hated Twitter, but have since really gotten to groove with it.
• And when my university upgraded to Vista over the summer, even though it failed miserably at first, it seemed to give the operating system a new lease of life.

See, even I learn from my mistakes. A year is a long time to change your tune on something.

So it's fair to say that the Generation Y, even though we are all a year older, means the older workforce in positions of power at the moment, are a year closer to retirement and/or the sweet release of untimely death. With this, my generation have been seen as ever so slightly more important this year, and so we should be.

Leave your thoughts; has it been a good year for you?