my thoughts

It seems that there is no industry without grey ethical areas. Coltan, short for Columbite-tantalite is a metallic ore comprising Niobium and Tantalum, is found mainly in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formally Zaire). It is a vital component in the capacitors that control current flow in cell phone circuit boards. It is mined by hand in the Congo by groups of men digging basins in streams. 80% of the world's known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which the UN says is subject to "highly organized and systematic exploitation."
www.cellular-news.com/coltan/

There is a tool for recovering mobile data settings for Nokia phones on any UK network. It is useful if you've forgotten your MMS, WAP or GPRS settings.
www.nokia-academy.co.uk/ota/online/mms/

H&M is not a bad clothing shop, I'd say around half of my wardrobe is sourced there

They have a statement of Corporate and Social Responsibilty on their website covering both environmental and social issues.
www.hm.com/uk/hm/social/csr_rapport.jsp

The Social Issues document describes how they are committed to responsible supply-chain management. This includes a statement on working conditions, child labour and how they enforce the policy.

Ethical investing means not giving your money to organisations which invest unethically. This can mean anything from investing in countries which are run by oppressive regimes, slave trade or exploited workers (the cocoa industry, for example) or even organisations in the UK such as a particular national newsagency which is the largest wholesale supplier of pornography in England.

Here are the first results of my search to find resources on investing your money ethically:

The co-operative bank are one of the most public ethical investors.

The guardian have a column on Ethical Investing:
money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalmoney/

They also list the following resources offering products and advice:
FTSE4Good
Ethical Services
Ethical Investors Group
Ethical Consumer
Ethical Investment Research Service
Ethical Junction
Ethical Partnership
Green Money Guide

"Purveying quality coffees means much more than selecting the finest beans on the market. It means protecting a way of life for our farmers by supporting social, economic and environmental issues that are crucial to their livelihood. Commitment to Origins is dedicated to creating a sustainable growing environment in coffee origin countries."
www.starbucks.com/aboutus/origins.asp

"On Linux, there's no decent movie player and no working sound recorder (like the one in Windows 95) shipped as the default by GNOME, but hey, there are more than 385 text editors! Choice is good, but it's frustrating when none of the alternatives works properly. "

Too Much Free Software says Marius Andreiana on Freshmeat.net, and it's a valid point, applicable to all developers: Standardise and Refactor, but drop the "not made here" / rewrite from scratch approach!
freshmeat.net/articles/view/774/

"Penny Newman [M.D.: CafÈdirect] makes the forceful point that fair trade is decidedly not charity, but a viable trading model that respects farmers as equal partners in a business relationship."

"When you choose to drink an ethical cup of tea, or drizzle fair trade honey on your toast, the argument is that you are choosing to pay a realistic, rather than an exploitative, price for your pleasure." [Source: Louise Tickle 2001 What price fair trade? Developments 15]

Visit the following link for the full story. Check out the statistics at the end of the article.
www.developments.org.uk/data/15/f_trade.htm

Oracle provide a handy syntax reference for the PL/SQL language. The OraFAQ is pretty comprehensive too.

I find the DevGuru T-SQL syntax charts a good reference for SQL Server. There is a site dedicated to performance tuning SQL Server.

I'm most at home with MySQL, of which version 4 has just been released. They have a good online reference manual.
www.mysql.com
www.mysql.com/doc/en/

I've been checking out the various supermarkets and shops to see who's got a good policy on Fair Trade, and to get a good idea of their ethical policies. The Waitrose FairTrade information page is quite generic, although they do stock a good range of products. The Sainsbury's Fair Trade page has information on fairtrade products stocked by the company. They have over 20 products, and are adding more. Check their socially responsible trading information page.

The Co-operative Group has recently been in the press for it's public commitment to supporting fairtrade products. Here's a report on fairtrade chocolate at the Co-op. A PDF version of the chocolate report is available [3.1Mb]

On a related note, there is an alliance of companies, non-governmental organisations and trade unions committed to identify and promote ethical trade, this is more general than the tea sourcing partnership.
www.ethicaltrade.org

The larger tea producers say they cannot wholly embrace the fair trade as it becomes difficult to control when large numbers of suppliers are involved, or the crops are sold through auction [source: Twinings.com].

Many are members of an organisation called the Tea Sourcing Partnership, however, which "promotes the ethical sourcing of tea".

Whittard buy direct from single estates, they "negotiate sensible prices for the best quality, and often make separate contributions to their hospitals and primary schools", and "support the community directly, by fixing realistic prices with them and ignoring the currently very low world market price".
www.whittard.co.uk > Product Information (bottom left) > Whittard's Buying Policies
Twinings Fair Trade policy
www.teasourcingpartnership.org.uk