Whether you're a top executive or an entry level worker, what you say about your company on the internet can be like pointing a virtual gun at yourself and blowing your career away.

Perhaps the most recent example of such foolish behaviour was provided last month by John Mackey, co-founder and chief executive of Whole Foods Market in the US. Mackey, who should know better, provides an example of "exuberant" anonymous blogging over several years.

He was caught out when US-based Whole Foods Market made a takeover bid for rival Wild Oats. Then it turned out that for years Mackey had been running Wild Oats down and talking up the company he built into a $5.5 billion organic foods retailer.

Now the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Mackey's posts might have harmed Wild Oats' stock, allegedly making the company a cheaper takeover buy.

On 17 July Whole Foods Market released a statement from Mackey stating: "I sincerely apologise to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me."

Whole Foods Market's board of directors has also formed a special committee to conduct an independent internal investigation Mackey's postings on the online financial message board.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, Mackey was allegedly responsible for 1,100 entries on Yahoo Finance's bulletin board over a seven-year period.

The information on the alleged posts was contained in a footnote in a 40-page court document filed by the Federal Trade Commission, which is trying to block Whole Foods' takeover of Wild Oats.

It's a sad blemish on Mackey's career, all over some ramblings he posted. So remember, those foolish, dashed-off blogs about your company can land you in serious trouble. Think before you blog.

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If you are a fan of musician Brian Eno (think "Here Come the Warm Jets", "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" and the 3.25-second Windows 95 start-up sound) then you will like the kaleidoscope "77 Million Paintings" he created on a disc to be run on a computer.

Eno developed the program of generative video and music last year. It was shown for the first time in a public space at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for three days ending July 1.

The program generates different formations of 77 million hand made slides and music, so the same arrangement can possibly never been seen twice. You can see a sample at www.77millionpaintings.com The disc will set you back about $45.

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To get an idea of the extent of the internet as a channel for sex offenders one only has to look at the cockroach nest MySpace found on its community sites. The company recently had a clean-out of its members and found it had to remove about 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles.

The number was actually released by regulators in North Carolina, who had demanded that MySpace provide the data on ho w it was weeding out that many from its 70 million members.

Apparently to keep your children safe from the sickos it is not enough to warn them not to release personal information, such as phone number or address. In a study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, researchers said they found no evidence that sharing personal information increases the chances of online victimisation, such as sexual solicitation.

Victimisation is more likely to result from other behaviour, such as when the comments turn to a sexual nature. The researchers made telephone surveys of 1,500 internet users aged 10 to 17.

Send any comments to Ahmed at elamin.ahmed@gmail.com.