internet

In the UK we're lucky enough to enjoy a wide choice of broadband providers with a huge number of packages up for grabs. That's great because we get to select a service at whatever price suits our budget, but the array of options can be slightly bewildering.

And if it's confusing for those of us who have lived in the country for some time, the problem is worse for visitors, particularly students coming to the UK to study who already have enough to contend with. While libraries, coffee shops, universities and colleges all offer free Wi-Fi it's very useful, if not essential, to have your own connection at home.

If you're new to the country and looking to sign up for internet service, here's what you need to know about getting broadband in the UK as a student.

Broadband and Contracts

Signing up to a fixed line broadband service will involve some kind of commitment to stay with the provider for a set amount of time. If you break this contract by leaving early you are liable to be charged a fee for the remaining months.

This can obviously be problematic for students who may not be staying in one place for a long period of time, and don't typically have a lot of cash lying about.

If you plan to work in the media industries and want to research the market, you have to understand that you need to be skilled and experienced. The sector's skills involve learning about the web and its interactive content. We are all international students here, but if there is one common language that we speak, it has to be the web language.

Don't agree? Look how much time we spend online- and that's including the time we spend on the many social networks. We are constantly online taking pictures or filming and uploading our creative work on the web. We have become skilled in the filming and photography industries. We design blogs on multiple platforms. We've all got production skills and creative talent owing to the Internet. But is that a good thing?

I have got to be critical of the web.

Firstly, the Internet has given us common skills that will make it hard for us to market ourselves when wanting to apply for a work position. Also look at the amount of time we spend on the web. Facebook won't give us our educational degree for posting statuses online. Londoners are also addicted to Twitter and spend countless hours on the social networks even during university times.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died yesterday at the age of 87. She was the first (and still only) female PM and ruled Britain for 11 years during the turbulent 1980's. She divided opinion more so than almost any other public figure, and the reaction to her death reflects this.

On the one hand, she is to be given a ceremonial funeral at St Paul's Cathedral, taking the same status as Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, whilst on the other, there is still a lot of anger towards her for many of her policies during her time in power. There is the contrast of hundreds of bunches of flowers left in condolence at her London home, and crowds gathering to celebrate her death in Brixton (an area that saw fierce riots during Thatcher's time in charge).

We've gathered together some of the reaction to her death from world leaders, newspapers and celebrities on Twitter.

British & World Leaders

After hearing of Lady Thatcher's death, current and former leaders from Britain and around the world led a chorus of condolences.

Last year it was PSY's ‘Gangnam Style'. Now Baauer's ‘Harlem Shake' has gone viral. Since February 2013, we've all heard it played somewhere. The raucous composition had its rather bewildering fifteen-minutes-of-fame earlier this year, and appears still to be basking in the afterglow of Internet Celebrity for the many meme-architects who have refused to move onto the next ‘big fad'.

Not claiming to be any musical authority myself, I set out (like so many before me) to un-shroud the ambiguity surrounding the Harlem Shake. Released in early 2012, the song didn't actually receive any notable degree of worldwide acclaim until early 2013, when the recognizable videos featuring large groups of enthusiastic, vigorous dancers began to appear on Youtube. The Harlem Shake itself has become a widespread internet meme, almost irrelevant to the song itself. However, in some circles, it has been viewed in more serious eyes, under the technical microscope of music producers whose receptions of the whimsical tune have been mixed.

You cannot have gone through February without hearing about or seeing a Harlem Shake video. The phrase Harlem Shake has been everywhere over the last few weeks- TV, newspapers and of course all over the internet. But what exactly is it?

The name was first coined back in the 1980's when a new dance came out of Harlem in New York. As the dance became more and more popular, it was referenced by a number of different hip hop artists and songs in the early 2000's.

The current craze started to get going last year when American music produced Baauer released a song with the title ‘Harlem Shake'. However, it wasn't until the beginning of February 2013 when the first recognizable Harlem Shake meme video was posted on YouTube.

Initially, a number of video bloggers uploaded versions of the song and dance, each developing the concept a little at a time. Though they were all pretty popular, the first one to go truly viral was the video below uploaded by the staff of online video production company Maker Studios. Within its first week, it was watched by more than 7.4 million people.