The founder of Facebook - the second biggest US social networking site after MySpace - has admitted he “really messed up” when he launched his News Feed and Mini-Feed services.

Both services allow users to view the online activities of other members. The Guardian reported that hundreds of thousands of people found these services to be “spooky and stalker-esque”.

Founded in 2004, Facebook is aims to connect university, college and high-school students.

And Zuckerberg has told users to “Calm down. Breathe” whilst the services were “evolving”.

The services News-Feed and Mini Feed had been introduced to each user’s homepage, logging each and every action performed on the website such as posting a photo or updating their profile.

However, Zuckerberg admitted that the company had failed as the company did not build the proper privacy controls.

Last month Microsoft signed a three-year deal with Facebook to provide online advertising ’services.

The Guardian have just published their annual list of influential people in the UK media. The top 100 list is comprised of different sectors of the media such as marketing, PR and new media.

The aim of the list is to capture “a snapshot of those who run or influence” the media, reflecting on their actions of the past year and their future achievements.

In first place is Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, who has “steered the BBC through a difficult year”. Playing an important role in obtaining an agreeable charter from the government has helped Thompson remain in top position for the second year running.

Coming in second place, is Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers. Jobs, whose endless campaign of improving Apple’s iTunes includes the launch of the iTunes movie store which incorporates wireless streaming in the living room.

Other whispers of second generation nano iPods and even an iPhone ensure that Jobs is ahead of his game moving him up two places in this year’s ranking.

And in third place is Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation. Murdoch has fingers in many pies including newspapers such as The Sun, The Times and the News of the World as well as the sateliite broadcaster BSkyB.

The special report can be viewed online on The Guardian website.

Audacity is a free software program that provides a multitude of uses for audio editing. It allows users to record, edit, import and export audio material on their computers.

The benefit of Audacity is that it specifically deals with all things “audio”, such as recording live audio through a microphone or mixer, and converting recordings from cassette tapes, vinyl records or minidiscs into a digital format.

Another feature is the ease with which you can use different formats such as WAV, AIFF and MP3 amongst others. It can also remove noise from your recordings, has multi-track mixing, and is available on both Windows and Mac platforms.

The simple but effective editing tools it provides like cut, copy, delete and paste allow for powerful audio manipulation. Many podcasters use Audacity because of its availability and multiplatform support.

By virtue of being open source and such an effective audio editing program, Audacity is growing in popularity, currently receiving 30,000 downloads a day.

Reporting of the recent appalling events in Lebanon have brought into sharp focus the possibility that photos can be digitally altered for for propaganda purposes.

The photographic industry is at pains to stress it has devised easier methods to detect doctored images. For instance, the Economist reported that camera makers have created image-authentication systems, to distinguish distorted images from the originals by attaching codes originating from the data that the picture is made of.

Other specialists use methods such looking at patterns pixels make in a picture by observing intensity and texture, experts can tell whether a picture has been adjusted.

Adobe has been changed to make it easier to establish if an image has been adjusted.

No-one would deny that digital enhancement has many benefits - it’s just that safeguards are needed to guarantee future confidence in photojournalism.

Getting rid of the plethora of computers, printers and mobile phones we use then throw away is fast becoming a major environmental problem.

Up to 50m tonnes of “e-waste” are produced each year, with most ending up in developing countries such as India and China.

The BBC reported that many companies and governments are disregarding the Basel Convention, which is designed to monitor the shipment and disposal of hazardous substances created by e-waste.

Many countries now have laws in place to ensure correct disposal, making it illegal to throw used electronic equipment into landfill sites as the chemicals they contain can be toxic.

However these laws are apparently proving too costly for many companies, who are choosing the easy option - shipping old computers to countries where lower environmental standards and working conditions mean cheaper disposal costs.

In a number of developing countries, there have been reports of discarded machines being burnt. Such methods can cause environmental problems and endanger the health of workers.

A typical computer monitor can contain more than 6% lead by weight, a bio-accumulative substance that concentrates itself in the brain. Cadmium, a poisonous substance, is found to accumulate in the bone structure impairing development in the young - of particular concern in the developing world, where child labour is common. There are up to thirty-eight separate chemicals built into electronic waste, making the potential health hazards great.

The importance of disposing e-waste is very important, as many of the components can be recycled and new laws in Europe and the state of California are ensuring the industry take responsibility for the correct procedures of disposal. The Economist reported that Greenpeace has recently named Apple as one of the worst offenders as well as Motorola and Panasonic.

In the European Union, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) monitors the use of toxic materials in new electronic products sold in the EU and in California, mobile phone retailers must take back and recycle old phones that have been sold.

Many electronic companies are offering recycling schemes and withdrawing toxic chemicals in prevention of hazardous e-waste but this is not enough according to Greenpeace, who are launching podcasts to raise awareness of the environmental issues caused by e-waste.