The EU General Data Protection Regulation otherwise known as GDPR was implemented on May 28th 2018.

Now I don ´t know about you but the first I became aware of it was around mid May. I came home from work one night, turned on the computer and found my inbox full of mails from every company I was registered with or any website I visited asking me to accept the conditions related to data protection policies and the GDPR in particular and it seems I´ve been clicking “I accept” or “I agree” to the point of repetitive strain injury every since.

Yes, it´s that time of the year again. The summer holidays and what better way to spend them than overdosing on sun, sand and sangria. Not necessarily in that order mind. You could knock the sun and sand on the head and throw in a few cold lagers to keep the sangria company but you get my drift.

Off to sunny Spain this year we were to a place called Playa La Barrosa, Chiclana in Cadiz. Now I´ve been to Spain before and must say even though I´ve enjoyed every minute I´ve felt that something was missing. Never quite been able to put my finger on it but a couple of months ago it suddenly came to me. You know, like one of those vision things and what d´ya think it was?

The language! I couldn´t speak a word of Spanish! How could´ve I missed it when there it was all the time hidden in plain sight I thought? Well, never being one to let grass grow under my feet or hair on my head off I set into the world of night school and all things unfathomable like why the central heating’s never on, why there always seems to be a bucket perched under a drip on top of a desk in the last row or why I always get to sit next to the one who´s bought a dictionary big enough to act as a foundation for the Burj Khalifa and who insists on sharing gardening tips but I digress?

Threw myself into the course with more than gusto and here´s the result.

My workmates really pushed the boat out with my birthday present this year!

In my last blog I was going on about some simple steps you can take to safeguard your website from uninvited guests.

Like I said, I´d got hacked and trashed but was feeling good that I was back and now more secure than the first time round, I hoped.

In fact, feeling so good that the other night after working out how to add a “read more” link to Joomla articles I decided to have a beer. Yeah, feeling rather chuffed I was as I poured a can of Mahou into a frosted glass and as I took my first sip I closed my eyes in anticipation of the bubbles hitting my tongue.

Didn´t have to wait long either and soon they were dancing ever more energetically around my mouth and as I drank I could feel the intensity of the taste until it was as if a flavour bomb had exploded behind the inside of my eye sockets.

Yeah, I was in seventh heaven!

However, the feeling didn´t last.

As I went back to my computer I was confronted by the horror of an uninvited guest.

Want your very own website?

Thinking of starting a blog?

Yeah?

Joomla, Wordpress or Drupal?

Yeah?

How to get a domain name?

Yeah?

Who´s gonna host it?

Yeah?

How do I build it? Free template theme or pay?

Yeah?

Watching YouTube endlessly to help you make your mind up?

Yeah?

Reading up on how to secure your site from getting hacked?

Uuummmmm........well......well actually no!