'The writing is TOO SMALL': MPs row over Parliamentary move to Office 365 The migration of Parliamentary mailboxes to Office 365 has left some ministers in a muddle, and caused others to question why the Houses did not decide to use the "free" alternative from Google. The Office 365 migration began in January but was delayed due to an unrelated network upgrade cockup that led to web outages and …
What do you expect? One MP (read: standard user) informing another MP (ditto) about an IT system.
For most of us, whilst it is hardly the way we'd wish IT decisions to be made, it reflects reality in many workplaces. I frequently get "I've read you can get software to do this for free on the internet" either from a user with a new pet idea or as a rebuttal from finance/the MD when I want to do something properly. It's depressing.
It is a shame there wasn't an IT bod there who could have clued them up on the legal and technical aspects around this idea, let alone the security risks of running the government on a system where the data governance is openly overseas. Perhaps they're thinking that as the system will be hacked to death by people (those we pay, or those we share everyting with) with really good skills in that field, what's the point in spending on ineffective security. They might actually have a point......
lol, that's the kind of shit we went through long ago. "Free" you mean a starting price that's about the same (higher if we're just talking kiosk for mail senders) for the enterprise then ramping up once you start adding things like backup and sane management tools, and don't dare say you think that googles limited selection of font types and font sizes are limiting, you'll get marched off the premises.
Fun times. Luckily not my project, still found it all rather funny though.
Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a PICT
http://rock.genius.com/Pink-floyd-several-species-of-small-furry-animals-gathered-together-in-a-cave-and-grooving-with-a-pict-lyrics
Funny, how Pink Floyd have foreseen that more than 3 decades ago. Just, wondering which model of Blackberry is called Claymore...
That's always the thing "Maybe women just don't want to do it and why are you all so insistent on forcing them to do so if they don't want to?" There are lots of different jobs I don't want to do, sales, marketing, first line support, bin man, though I am thinking I like the idea of the guy that uses the buffer machine to make floors nice and shiny.
And did I not say that the size of the typeface was the least of the complaints my users had with it? You should learn to read before you get all smart arsey.
And I can't seem to find a "scroll" key on my keyboard... Hmm... I suspected what you might hinting at, but I thought I'd let you clarify anyway.
Also, it wasn't my choice to migrate to Office 365. I just have to put up with the fall-out.
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Not got one of those on my trackball or on my mouse. Same can be said for three quarters of my department. I've never advised anyone to use ctrl and scroll to change magnification on a web browser. Ctrl and + or - for zoom. But, as I said, least of the problems - most of which are to do with the Light version and incompatibilities with different browsers.
Dublin most likely.
Not that that will stop the NSA giving MS a court order + gag order if they ever want anything. NSA think they can do what they want and they'll get away with it because, in their opinion, USA is the leader of the free** world.
**Their ever changing definition of free.
"He didn't expand on this, and was interrupted by Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP for Harlow, questioning why PICT did not migrate to Gmail "which is completely free" and Google Docs."
That is pretty funny, you have to admit.
Office 365 for PICT might be in the cloud, but it will be a private cloud that sits on a network not directly connected to the internet.
If they're refering to Office 365 E3 in this article, then I do wish they would stipulate office 365 E3 and it would be on an enterprise license scheme which your certified Microsoft Professional should have setup for you and the screen Font's should match the Fonts already available on the desktop, if the font size is too small, change your desktop resolution to get a more comfortable size, then you wont be squinting at it. But if your License says: Home - Personal or University in the License info then you should find out who it is in your PICT department that's given you a shoddy copy!
" if the font size is too small, change your desktop resolution to get a more comfortable size, "
Nothing wrong with that. What good advice, you can save lots of money that way, there must be lots of CGA screens available at the tip.
changing desktop res "to make the letters bigger" is surely a last resort? If you're lucky enough to be using web based software you can zoom in the browser.
Changing the res just means people go back to 800x600 , the apps dont fit on the screen , and its blurry cos its not native res. As another commenter said - go to effin specsavers , or plead for a huge monitor( which will have non native res on it)
A awe inspiring choice of desktop BTW.. I've always marvelled at the fact MP's could have a desktop that looks like this:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/3076951588_fd217fb244_o.png
Complete with a free Office and a free everything else...
But instead they always opt for something like this instead:
http://www.rakeshsingh.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/windows-8-desktop.jpeg
Well... many reasons I can think of. It's not intuiative at all to get it to do anything. There is no start button, menu, or anything. Nor any explanation that you need to right click (I assume that is how that menu appears) to do anything. It's like when users first got to windows 8, it was almost impossible to do anything and users would sit perplexed and eventually give up.
Secondly, I doubt they could care less what tasks are running or how much processor each are using. Nor how much they have downloaded. This technical information is useful at times but it's not needed all the time. It's just extra unneeded bloat.
When you run apps how do you see what is running? There is no taskbar? Or is it transparent and nothing is running there? The thing is.. I shouldn't need to ask these questions; it needs to be obvious from the start.
So really this desktop is fine for an experienced nerd but for most people it's useless.
Finally... why are buttons, scrollbars and text so ugly in Linux?
Serious question: Are Parliament not bound by the same security standards as the rest of government? We've looked into every cloud service going for our current client (major national public sector) and they all got ditched due to lack of IL3+ certification (good luck even getting IL2...) and/or guarantees data would never leave blighty.
I know (looking back at the article on the announcement) that they reckoned 80% or more data wasn't sufficiently sensitive to warrant high security - we found similar things in our appraisals - but the problem is getting civil servants and politicos to follow data protection/information assurance procedures is like herding cats (cf. 'How do i even log in?!?!' support calls). Could go terribly, terribly wrong.
That said, done right, security improves substantially. A lot harder to misplace a file full of sensitive information when that file never leaves the server. Even if that server is in Dublin.
The biggest issue I had with O365 when we first started using it was the lack of visual contrast. Using Outlook with a Word doc or two open in front of it plus a Powerpoint in there too - which set of icons belong to which window??? The fact O365 only comes in Light/Medium/Dark grey (and you'll be hard pressed to see the difference) means the desktop rapidly becomes a mash of grey windows. I think the 20-20 thing is more likely to be about identifying the toolbar than for reading the text which (as others have said) is zoomable.
There was an elongated pilot/user test for O365 in this case, over many months, so it wasn't a decision made lightly. Gmail was looked at too but discarded.
As for women - there are a surprising number in PICT - many more than my old job. But most work behind the scenes in management, or as BAs and PMs which of course the MPs won't be speaking to directly.
"Why is it that so many men are employed in PICT? There are hardly any women at all. What's going on in recruitment here? Surely we believe that women can do this kind of task in a way that is equal to, if not better than, men," said Barry Sheerman
I don't know what the numbers are here, but from my time in education all through my professional career of over 20 years, it has been clear that very few women have engaged in IT as technical professionals. Of those that have done so (that I have met), some were very good, others very bad and the rest indifferent - much like the men I worked with and in similar proportions, it's just that there are so very few women in IT. So, Mr Sheerman you can navel gaze over the why's and wherefores of this, but I'd suggest that it's because they're busy doing something else.
Of course we could set up a committee to investigate and produce a report, that should soak up a few £M of *spare* public funds.
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