Posts by Otto is a bear.

Just like to say

My VW Golf Diesel does up to 90 MPG on a 1.9L engine, and more normally I get 60 on my 40 mile run through Chiltern hills. It's exhaust emissions do not smell or emit large clouds of black smoke (DPF), but it is noisy, and it's only expensive to run because of the $%"^"%% DSG gearbox which keeps going wrong. Don't forget that Diesel is now cheaper that petrol in many places.

It's also a 2008 model so hopefully no fiddled software. It's also the most boring car I have ever driven.

My next car will be a hybrid, because it's more environmentally friendly, oh wait those batteries are manufacture how......

Upvote for Wyatt

Have to agree, I have a Note, I thought it would be useful, but actually, I find paper and my laptop far more versatile for what I need, so my Note spends most of its time doing nothing.

I've also found with both my Note, and iPhone that some things I need to do are a lot less friendly on a mobile device, things like visiting some websites and paying for tickets.

I suspect it would be a lot different if more organisations that I use regularly had proper mobile sites, but they don't, and probably won't now.

Mundane

Such accidents are usually far more mundane than you might expect, I'd go for catching a toe in PJ trousers, missing a step in the dark, slipping in mule slippers, or a child's toy on the stairs.

Keeping a bottle of water by the bed doesn't seem very eco-friendly to me, and what happens if you need more, I guess that's a trip downstairs as well.

A speedy recovery to you sir.

It's Texas

It's a wonder he wasn't shot on the spot for resisting arrest, I mean calling what was obviously a bomb a clock, disagreeing with a police officer, scaring the principle, sheesh.

I'm always amazed at how stupid US authorities can be, especially supposedly intelligent ones like teachers and Principals. I expect a lot of kids to look at this, look at their electronics projects and think, am I going to get arrested for taking it into school.

You may not get fired

You may not get fired for buying Oracle, but these days you won't win the Mr.Popularity competition either. UK government loathes Oracle, and quoting them in a proposal is the kiss of death in some departments. In fact so much so, that they will do anything to get away from Oracle's ever increasing support costs, including trashing major systems, or spending millions on converting to another vendor.

Postgres is becoming a lot more popular as there is a low cost conversion path for PL/SQL.

Somehow Oracle have lost the plot with products that are now too expensive, they may have a really good Enterprise DB, but it has capabilities that really aren't needed for most applications, where as the Standard Editions really are good enough for most applications, so it's no surprise that people see it as a great alternative. Hobbling it even more can only loose them business in the longer term, why would you buy SE when you will face an exponential jump in costs as your business grows? There are other alternative out there and SMEs know who they are.

Sorry

Someone has patented the ability to generate a default application from a database schema? An there was me thinking that, that has been around sine the late 80s in one form or another.

Wasn't that the whole point of 4GLs like Gupta, Powerbuilder and Delphi.

Strange though it may sound

There are people out there who don't want a web presence of any kind, people who think their privacy is worth more than everybody else's freedom.

Perhaps we'll see facebook implement a pixilation tool to blank the faces of anyone you haven't asked permission of, or change the T&Cs to make it your problem when you post. Ultimately, if they win, it'll be the end of most group photographs anywhere on the web because it'll be too much hassle to put them up.

Thing is

Aren't most US tech companies actually multi-national, so the kit you produce overseas is cheaper to import, and if you hold your prices, your margin increases. Your IP prices are expressed in dollars, so your prices go up overseas, maintaining your margin, and forcing up the price of overseas produced using US IP.

The BBC threatening to help Osborne, sounds implausible

have to say if I was georgeous George and had the BBC threaten me with that, I'd say bring it on. The distraction caused by the news and the subsequent debate would let me cover up all manor of nastiness.

Don't forget the Tories hate the BBC with a passion because they are independent and have the temerity to report government policy and its effects. They even go so far as to air people questioning their policies and to highlight mistakes. All politicians, commercial organisations and media proprietors hate the BBC, it is independent, it has secure funding, and can't be bought with advertising revenue.

It really isn't politically biased, but we tend to highlight those times the BBC reports against our beliefs, rather than those the report for, and these days small voices can be amplified by social media. If the BBC did not exist, the world would be the poorer, and the UK much less free.

Costs of Change

Capita are very good at cost control and revenue retention in outsourcing. Once you have them, the costs of transitioning to another supplier could in many cases not be recovered in lower costs, and, if you have their software products, you still can't get rid of them.

Few other suppliers will want to support any substantial quantity of Capita products either, because they'll need to charge margin on it, which Capita doesn't. Again the costs of transitioning can be greater than the potential savings.

The moral of the story

Commercial organisations, no matter who, do what is best for their business, free services are only free so long as it is in the interests of the provider. If you really want your files protected and stored, do it yourself. If it's yours, its your responsibility.

Hmmm 25K to teach.

So, I sign up to be an IT teacher at 25K a year, I only get to keep and improve my salary based on the performance of kids defined by the predicted GCSE grades at age 10 in primary school. If they fail my salary is cut, if they pass, it might be increased.

(This is actually true, teachers can have their salary cut if their pupils fail to achieve their predicted GCSE grades based on SATs they took at primary school that may bear absolutely no relevance to their GCSE subjects, and take no account of the complete character changes teenagers go through)

Bugger that for a game of soldiers, I'll do it for real and earn far more than I ever could in teaching as a coding contractor. Why would anyone want to be a teacher, let alone an IT teacher, you are certainly not rewarded unless you happen to be an Academy head. Mrs Bear is an Ofsted rated outstanding teacher, and trust me IT is a doss job compared to teaching.

OS Maps

I use the Memory Map app with OS maps, which get round the problem of mobile reception by pre-loading maps, you don't have to but wandering around the more obscure parts of the UK.

OS maps are by far and away the best maps of the UK, and far better than the likes of the Michellin or Rand maps commonly available around the world. They are better than the internet maps as well because they tell you far more about your surroundings and route, without the clutter of an aerial photographs. If I'd used google maps for my recent walks and car journeys around the lake districk I would have gotten hopelessly lost and probably lost the sump on the car, as it shows nothing like enough detail, or differentiation between roads, tracks and foot paths. It has no landmarks or contours either.

Hmmmmm - Lets paint a target on our own backs

The NCA are right, very few governmental organisations are operationally dependent on their web sites, so all you manage to do is piss off the general public and a few IT administrators.

Oh and draw attention to yourselves from people who are looking for reasons to take you down. There are lots of proverbs about not drawing attention to yourself from those bigger and harder than you are.

Never let your ego get ahead of common sense.

#Dadsecurity

Sorry, not sure why attacking Mumsnet would help Dadsecurity. So far as I'm aware there's nothing sinister, evil or even anti-men about Mumsnet.

I feel #misogynistsnet would be a better tag for this bunch of clowns. One hopes that if Mrs. Dadsecurity (Be it his Mum or Significant Other) has her rolling pin handy.

And another thing

Just a reminder.

SMS is not a guaranteed delivery mechanism, just because person A sends person B a message does not mean they will receive it. Not only that it is not instant, near instant if you are online, but if you are offline you receive it when your operator feels like it. iMessage does at least update itself shortly after you go on-line again.

I'm surprised you can't use iMessage through an iCloud app, though, which would be visible from Windows, or indeed any other browser.

Cost and Success

In my experience, companies who view IT as just a cost, tend to get poor value and little, if any advantage from IT. British companies are particularly good at doing this when compared to the rest of the world.

Where IT is considered a benefit and an enabler for the business, then success usually follows, as IT is used to provide innovative solutions to business problems, and to generate more business. Let's face it, how many retailers thought of having a web store before Amazon came along, most did it because they had too to survive, not as a way to grow their business ahead of their competitors.

Where we, as an industry seem to fail, is in showing management the opportunities technology provides. Where management fails, is listening, and understanding. It always seems strange to me that in the UK the boards of companies are made up of finance people, when the Sales and Marketing people usually what the customers want and how to deliver it, the product developers how to make it, and IT how it all works together, yet rarely do you get a CEO or Chairman who knows squat about the business of the company. They also tend to put finance people in charge of operations, to control costs, but not understand how the costs are generated, or relate to the quality of the products. Me, I'd put an IT person in, as our job is to translate the technical into the business, which has never been a bean job.

I love it

Lots of assumptions here by people who obviously know next to nothing about the subject, and certainly don't think through their suggestions on reform or culpability.

But then I guess you must all be perfect.

If you change the management each time you change the government, then you would have a huge layer of people who were beholden to the party in power, and if that isn't a recipe for corruption, I don't know what is.

The data controller's I've dealt with are very conscientious and always recommend the best processes, usually to be overridden by higher-ups on cost grounds. You can never, in any system, protect against theft, internally or externally, and you certainly can't stop people being absent minded.

I wonder how the Home Office compares to the NHS, or a major bank, or supermarket chain, perhaps if we knew that we could truly draw some conclusions.

40m for a study

Some study.

Business Survey

Please and answer yes or no.

- Have you now, or in the past bought business?

- Is your business win rate lower than expected?

- Have you back loaded your contracts?

- Have you costed staff at the minimum man-time rate?

- Have you costed your supply chain at less than cost?

- Have you assumed more than 210 working days in a year?

- Have you signed up to an unachieveable SLA?

If you don't like BT speed you can go elsewhere

Not in my manor squire, yes you can go to 3 or 4 other suppliers, but it still comes down to the link between the exchange and the cabinet, and then the house, all of which are BT. Strangely enough, all my possible broadband suppliers quote exactly the same speeds.

I suspect the broadband demand in my manor is also going up, because the broadband performance is going down, even during the day.

Commoditized career

There's a general trend in IT to de-skill jobs, probably more so that anywhere else. I work a lot on outsource bids, and the "Production" side of the business is always talking about how to lower the skill value of delivery staff and providing a commodity product. Frighteningly they seem to be succeeding, but then our customers always want their IT mess for less, which equates to less people working for less money, on less kit, with less tools, and for longer hours, but delivering more.

I suspect that the numbers of people wanting to come into the IT industry is dropping across the board, with such a tough entry level environment, would you want to join, regardless of your gender. I'd also wonder about mid-career breaks distorting the numbers.

Still if you want a 60K job in five years, apparently Tube and Train driving is where you want to be, a lot less stress too on a 35 hour week. Requires only GCSE Maths & English, rather than any higher education, and you get paid to train.

https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/TrainDriver.aspx

It knocks being a teacher or doctor into a cocked hat as well, even if we can earn a lot more, it takes a lot longer to get there.

But ultimately, I expect it's just the young being feckless and just wanting to be famous.

PS. Try and find a male Nursery Nurse, now that really is a badly paid minimum wage job with long hours and lots of responsibility.

What he did.

Snowdon breached the trust of his employer, and stole information to which he was not entitled, perhaps he might have gotten away with it, if it had just been evidence of the government breaching the rights of the citizen, but he didn't, he also stole information on everything. No matter what good you may have think he has done, it does not counter balance the bad. He not only gave away US secrets he gave away those of other countries, and jeopardised the US relationship with its allies. It is well known that they all spy on each other, it is well known that security agencies monitor chatter in their own and foreign countries.

If you consider the activities of the NSA, in the context of what law enforcement and security services have always been able to do, yes storing the information themselves may be a bit over the top, but actually before the internet, telephone companies recorded the "Meta Data" of phone calls for billing, which were then harvested, as and when a need arose. What would you say the internet equivalent is, keeping details of who eMails who, who messages who. As internet traffic is not billed like telephone calls, who the keeps the data, the ISPs don't need it, nor is there any economic reason they should, thus government has to. Do you really think any government would leave a communications channel completely unmonitored, what do you think would happen if they did.

Why on earth would you expect this not to happen? Think really carefully about how you expect your law enforcement agencies and security services to behave, and what they need to do, to protect you, and indeed their allies. None of them are in the slightest bit interested in any of us, they have neither the wherewithal, the time, or the money, and never will in any western democracy.

Does anybody remember

Sorry, but when was the last truly great release of anything, on the PC has there really, for the normal user been anything since XP, that's really been worth the money?

Getting my cauldren out.....

Microsoft will probably take market share from the corporates who like the integrated Microsoft drug. Although it the US courts get their way......

Having used MS, iPhone, BB and Android, my preference is iPhone for me, BB for Business, Android can't decide, MS the bin, sadly I have another 15 months before I can ditch my Lumia business phone, by which time we will, in the UK, any way, be wall to wall Microsoft.

Sorry, but MS's mobile really does feel like tomorrows legacy platform today, the only reason it will survive is because MS is very unlikely to give up.

Mrs. Bear converted to iPhone from Android, and refuses to swap back, but loves my Samsung Note 10, which she also won't give me back.

Yup

The advantages of having a channel model are for some the fact you don't have to:

- Employ the sales and field service people, so you keep a low headcount.

- Manage a huge warehouse network to store your unsold stock, and spares.

- Have lots of offices to support your local sales and field force.

- Manage individual dispatch to small customers.

- Operate a huge logistics operation to deliver your goods to your customers.

Still if your home market is in a place where land and people are cheap to employ, it probably does make sense. I've found that, usually, dealing direct with the manufacturer works for large orders, but smaller, and follow ons, the channel is the best way to go.

The thing is

Digging up roads is expensive, if you already have the local conduits, then you have an advantage. You can't expect BT to allow others to put wires in their conduits, although doing it for them might be acceptable. There is a risk for BT that a third party will screw up a cable run and take out BTs cables in the process.

There is competition at the national trunk level, and even in larger cities where investment can be justified, but smaller conurbations just don't merit the huge investment in digging up the road. Look at the gaps in the cable TV network and you'll see where costs didn't match ROI on revenue. It isn't just digging up the road either, its negotiating the land access rights. Many cable companies, didn't connect houses that had no footpath or verge outside their property, or those on the wrong side of them, because they would have needed to reach a legal agreement with each land owner to dig up the front gardens.

BT had the wires there when the properties were built, or used telegraph poles. I doubt any cable company has thought of that, and if they have, the local authority would let them put up more.

Huh?

Since when has Sales and Marketing not told us what to do?