Posts by william 10

Study finds 268% higher failure rates for Agile software projects

The UK Post Office's infamous Horizon IT system stands as a cautionary tale for large-scale projects. The project demonstrably lacked key Agile principles. Firstly, it failed to deliver "Working Software." Secondly, the focus seemed to be on "process and tools" rather than "Customer collaboration." Subpostmasters, the system's true users, reported issues that were dismissed, leading to some even facing jail time. This is the antithesis of effective customer collaboration.

Agile emphasizes business-to-user collaboration, not business-to-business. In Horizon's case, the "customers" were the actors/personas using the system, like Subpostmasters, Support, Accounts, and Managers. The project failed to provide them with the necessary tools for efficient work.

In my experience, project failure often stems from a lack of alignment between business and development teams. Agreed-upon goals are crucial. Additionally, engineering capabilities need to be sufficient for the task. As the Agile manifesto states, "We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it." However, this requires developers to:

Create functional software that meets user needs. In my view, "working code" should be "self-testing code." This promotes clear documentation and understanding of functionality. Businesses should be able to review tests and confirm intended behavior. New tests should be created to expose and fix issues as they arise.

By incorporating these principles, future projects can avoid the pitfalls exemplified by the Horizon system.

Sci-tech wants skilled worker cap on PhD and shortage jobs scrapped

Re: STEM

Kind of both correct. It would seem the state is doing it's part theres enough grad's - it then up to industry to do its and provided the specific skills, expertise & experience.

I have found industry exceeding bad at providing the correct train, having worked as a contractor for many different business both large and small - theres a lot of talk but this does not translate into action on the ground.

During 2015/16 I was working for a major UK Telco, HR never asked what skills my team would need or what new technologies we where planning to use in 6, 12 or 18. I could have provided this information up front and they could have started the recruitment/training process. Instead they where only interested in using out sources who brought people in via the Tier 2 (General) visas, these people had the same skills set as our grads. It would have been cheaper and more productive for them to recruit grads straight from a number a universities and agreed with those uni's the skills set required.

It's not difficult to provide the expertise & experience it just requires the will of business.

HMRC boss defends shift to AWS, says they got 50% knocked off

Re: Of course not

The CIA do not need a court approval to spy abroad they will just ask MI5/6 to install the necessary equipment and then start monitoring. The UK Government will be happy because when they ask MI5/6:

- have any foreign governments accessed the UK AWS data centers? the answer will be NO!

- are you accessing data held in the UK AWS data centers? again the answer will be NO!

Compsci grads get the fattest pay cheques six months after uni – report

Re: Value for Money?

Your making many assumptions, some so called 'children': work before going to uni; some courses have a year in industry; some work during the holidays etc... If the child has a: good work ethic; is not arrogant; does not have a chip on his shoulder, then yes.

For example, my son will leave uni at the grand old age of 22 with more than two years in industry under his belt, so six months after leaving UNI he will have nearly 3 years of experience and easily worth £45K.

Want your kids to learn coding? Train the darn teachers first

I had the same issue with my son, ended up teaching him to code my self.

IMHO, the issues is not only with the Politicians but us and the BCS ("Chartered Institute for IT champions") they should be acting as the link between industry, government, universities and schools to ensure the teachers are capable of producing the goods. They should also be helping to finesse the process of School children leaving schools and get IT apprenticeships, they should have an approval system for IT apprenticeships, so that school children can identify the best apprenticeships.

I have been a member of IPSE (PCG) almost since they started and they provide real value - I keep looking at the BCS and never see any value in the organisation.

Assange™ is 'upset' that he WON'T be prosecuted for rape, giggles lawyer

Re: WTF?

NO - He has asked for and has not been given guarantees, if it was a myth then the he would have been provided with the guarantees.

The U.K. could have ended this years ago, by charging the Sweden for the Police presence out side the Embassy.

It seems to me that the women, named in court as Miss A has a legitimate issue with the way she was treated by Mr Assange but the authorities have shown no desire to properly investigate the matter and this has created two victims Miss A & Mr Assange.

Cloud computing’s refuseniks: How long can they hold out?

Re: Recipe for a coming disaster

Sorry people, it comes down to the quality of the IT Staff and this is determined by the quality of the management.

Many out sourcing deals are about outsourcing a problem rather than fixing the problem, the management can afford to admit that the problem is themselves and as they have the power to blame the techies that is what they do.

Re: "Security will have kept up with the hackers"

Many people do not realise that cloud computing is more about how services are delivered than if they are private (in house delivered) or public (externally delivered AWS, Microsoft etc...).

Having worked as an IT Security manager for a large investment Bank and delivered software in to many Retail / Investment Banks, large energy companies, large logistic companies - I can clearly state that the security of many of these organisation would be improved by providing these services as a cloud public or private.

More managers need to look at installing a pilot VMWare or Microsoft Hyper-V or HP Helion or OpenStack solution to see the benefits of delivering services as a solution. They then need to look at the impact on their own in-house developed apps and moving them into the service delivery model.

But the problem is that organisations do not pay or respect quality IT people and instead stuff their organisation with overpaid managers who often have little to no IT knowledge and end up making the design decisions.

Contractors who used Employee Beneficiary Trusts are in HMRC's sights

Re: IR35

It wasn't just "unscrupulous IT contractors", when the previous coalition government came in they found that many people (managers) working at Quangos / BBC / NHS had moved themselves onto contracts to avoid paying NI even though they where really full time employees.

Zionists stole my SHOE, claims Muslim campaigner

Re: Does anyone listen?

It's not he believes, its a fact we have all listened to him (we may not believe him) and this disturbs me!

I keep remembering the story about Paul Gascoigne and his so called paranoia over having his phone hacked - every one said this was part of his mental illness yet the Daily Mirror had to pay him £180K in compensation because they hacked his phone.

EU net neutrality could kneecap the Tories' opt-out pr0n filter plans

Agree.

Where I do have an issue, is when people are treated as possible terrorist if they switch these filters off or visit sites like "Linux Journal" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/03/nsa_xkeyscore_stasi_scandal/

So why the hell do we bail banks out?

Re: And the Perpetrators

You make the assumption that the Banks and there Employees where the only ones to Blame for the failures. In truth the politicians where just as much to Blame (if not more so) as the Bankers that failed in there duty to the electorate.

In the US, despite all the evidence of fraud in the subprime mortgage market, the US Congress manipulated the rules under which Freddie mac & Fannie May effectively participated in this fraud.

In the UK, the government of the day change the Bank borrowing rules that then forced the banks if they wanted to stay in business to borrow ever larger volumes of money and participate in every more risky ventures. If the borrowing rules where not changed then the British banks that failed like Northern Rock or Bradford and Bingley or Nation Wide would not have happened.

Also if the UK government would have insisted the regulators did they Job, the PIP scandal would have been spotted earlier and never been the issue it became.

GDS monopoly leaves UK.gov at risk of IT cock-ups, warns report

Copeland added: "I fear people are also being too dogmatic about using open source."

I have many issues with the Policy Exchange and it's lop sided ideas, I fear GDS is not being Dogmatic enough about open source, as the Tax Payers has paid for the code to be developed it should all be Open Sourced. The problem with closed sources is the supplier becomes the monopoly and that gives you a whole set of bigger problems (as an example do I need to say anything more than Microsoft)!

In one respect the Policy Exchange is correct GDS is becoming to monolithic and should be split up into three small organisations that are forced to compete, I'm a big fan of competition as this would then force each of the small organisations to keep improving.

Android lands on Microsoft's money-machine island fortress

Not convinced, there should be no need to use FAT, interface to MS-Exchange or run Microsoft compatible applications, these are the areas that made it easier for some of the Smartphone manufactures to pay up than go to court.

Re: Perfect application for Linux

Perfect application for Linux, no just the Kernel. I would say that one of the main reason android was chosen over plain linux is the inclusion of components like Binder, ashmem, pmem, logger, wakelocks.

Another area they may have hound attractive is the The flash storage and the way that android is trying to prevent apps writing to other apps storage area.

Android's default user interface would have also been very attractive to NCR, as it is based on direct manipulation, using touch inputs, that loosely correspond to real-world actions, like swiping, tapping, pinching, and reverse pinching to manipulate on-screen objects, and a virtual keyboard.

The android power saving & wireless stack may also be of interest as this could make it easier to site ATM's in remote locations where it is hard to provide electricity and broadband/modem connections.

I have worked with NCR's past offerings and this will be a dream in comparison, especially for small financial institutions and those in the middle east, Africa and Asia.

Labour has a pop at the government over missed GDS targets

The Conservatives should be applaud they only wasted 150 - 200 Million a year on failed IT Projects that's a lot less than the 1 - 2 billion / year of the previous government.

Health & Safety is the responsibility of Connor's long-suffering girlfriend

I always, fix it - take the arse kicking from my boss. Then try and smile polity which always seems to comes out as smugly every time a similar issue is detected and ignored which brings complete chaos to the company.

I have learnt that it does not matter how brilliant I my have thought my code was at the time, once it comes into contact with the real world it will nearly always be found wanting. So it's much quicker to take the pain and fix everything and if that requires a re-write then so be it, the band aid approach always seems to dig a bigger hole for the company.

Bulk interception is NOT mass surveillance, says parliamentary committee

Re: Pure sophistry

You are making the classic mistake, and falling into their weasel word trap :-).

The security services try to distinguish between surveillance & collection, you used the phrase "mass surveillance" and they will claim they are not doing that, so where's the issue? Of course the issue is we are not happy with their "mas collection".

If you ban their "mass collection", how do they then get the data they need to perform their duty "which is to observing selected people's actions and communications". I think one of the issues the security services have is bad people will try and hide there actions and communications and the only way to find them is mass collection of data and filter this in a effort to identify only data from identified bad people.

Britain needs more tech immigrants, quango tells UK.gov

Of the firms they listened to, how many had more than 20 employees but did not have IT apprentices schemes. Most of these issues are self inflicted because many business do not have professional development schemes to train and mentor there staff.

I have worked with many leading investment banks, leading retailer's, NHS and logistics companies over the last two years and there is very little proper structured professional IT development.

I would change the rules to specify that firms must demonstrate that they have tried to develop these skills in house first.

£100 MILLION poured down drain on failed UK.gov IT projects - in just ONE YEAR

Re: FOSS for all...

It would not take money, but change in attitude to IT by our politicians and especially the civil service. Currently IT is treated as a commodity/cost, with an attitude that if they can use Excel they know all there is to know about IT.

The Civil Servants that manage IT projects need to have a proven track record of (5-10+ years) software development (using a key language like C/C++/C#/Java/Python/Ruby etc...) and managing software development teams.

UK air traffic bods deny they 'skimped' on IT investment after server mega-fail

Re: Failover not necessarily the answer

I agree, this is why they should have two independently developed systems running in parallel.

The slight of hand here is to confuse hardware spend with investment (just like RBS did recently with there new mainframe), Hardware spend should be seen as a cost of doing business. What one needs to look at is the Software investment as this is what's important to the business. I would expect to see a five-ten year rolling replacement plan, due to the nature of the business I would expect this to be developed in house by three competing teams.

Android gives Google a search monopoly? Not so fast, says judge

When the complaint was made against Microsoft, they had 97+% of the desktop market place and where preventing other browser being installed, completely different to Google. I notice my IOS friends all use Google so it cannot be that hard to install a search client on a smartphone.

At the time I never saw Microsoft advertising competitive products in there market place, I note that bing is available in the Google play store.

Whitehall at war: Govt’s webocrats trash vital digital VAT site

BIG Business approach to IT.

I have an issue with this whole BIG Business approach to IT, on the face of it they seems to make some good decisions i.e. agile. But the problem is over time they spend more time/money on marketing how great they are, taking longer and longer to make decisions and develop their products with their products become blander and safer. A good example of this was B.T. in the 50's to 80's when it was a monopoly you had one big heavy phone in one of two colours, where in the US from the late 60's you could get many different phones including push buttons and they had almost completed the digitising of their phone network. BT also developed a new exchange called system X that was 25 years late, over engineered - the world had already moved on.

They really do need to break up the teams, have some competition, work closer with Universities, try and have a scheme where 75% of new staff are apprentices. IT is a moving target insure that at least every 3 years the IT staff are skilled up on the current technologies that have been mandated. Have a programme to insure all IT's system are brought up to the latest spec's at least every 3 years. And as they use public money, give the source code back to those people that paid for it the UK citizens.

UK slaps 25 per cent 'Google Tax' on tech multinationals

I think you will find this is more a Amazon / Starbucks tax, if you want to tax Google the best way would be to place VAT on advertising.

Whistling Google: PLEASE! Brussels can only hurt Europe, not us

"but thinks it can win them round with populist measures that require ad hoc intervention."

This points to the essence of the problem with socialist politics, and particularly the EU, many of the solutions require hard and difficult choices which they are afraid to put to the people.

The solution to the Google problem is to reduce the cost of living and remove red tape from small business so that more people can have a go at starting a small business not just the rich - free the people to come up with a solution and they will (you cannot force a horse to drink :-) )

Bible THUMP: Good Book beats Darwin to most influential tome title

Re: The bible is a book ?

A common mistake people make,

The bible as a collection of writings, not all of the same category, some if it is undoubtedly historical records, some is poetry, some is philosophy, some is tradition, some is law - which has under pined western thinking for a very long time. So much of the modern world is conditioned around us by a time when the bible was central to most people lives.

If you're suing the UK govt, Brit spies will snoop on your briefs

Exactly. To me it looks like the biggest support that unfriendly foreign powers and extremists have had came from our own government & security services 1997-2010 and now is being continued by our supposed security services alone.

Firstly we need proper effective oversight of our security services (please note our Law makers who provide oversight failed to spot the fact that MI5/6 where undermining the Judicial system they had set up and oversee). The British citizens must understand the scope of what the security services are aloud to do and have confidence in the oversight that ensures they stick within that scope - once this has been accomplished we can then look at the other issues.

Ex-NSA lawyer warns Google, Apple: IMPENETRABLE RIM ruined BlackBerry

Re: NSA vs Apple + Google

The company's board of directors are endorsed by the general public through the purchase of their products and shares. So in that sense they are elected, and BB is example where the public fell out of love with there products.

Even a broken watch is right twice a day: Not an un-charged Apple Watch

Re: Odd

But my understanding is that this does not work out of the box with those iPhones ! The extra costs involved in wireless chargers, new backs for your phone etc.. is way to much, when you just forked out for a new wardrobe to allow your to transport your HUGE (and that's Apples words) new iPhone is beyond most peoples budgets.

Apple blacklists tech journo following explicit BENDY iPhone vid

Yes, Iphone 5 takes about 130 pounds of force where the Iphone 6 takes 70 pounds of force to bend.

BENDY iPhone 6, you say? Pah, warp claims are bent out of shape: Consumer Reports

Agree,

70lbs of pressure does not seem much. I have an LG G3 and I'm already looking at replacing the Circle case as the current one has already taken significant damage from being inserted and removed from close fitting front pocket, cycling when in said pocket, climbing over fences (and this from a 50 year old) I hate to think what would happen if my son had a iPhone 6.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus: GORGEOUS FAT pixel density - but it's WASTED

"Samsung, you’ll recall, doesn’t invent anything; it just "copies Apple". Even judges say so."

Being English, I go by what Her Majesty's High Court of Justice in England made Apple admit on the front page of it's Web Site.

Apple iPhone 6: Missing sapphire glass screen FAIL explained

Also it is heavier and not as opaque gorilla glass (requiring a more powerful back-light).

Scottish independence: Will it really TEAR the HEART from IT firms?

Re: What's in a name?

So if Scotland votes no - would we still have to change our name to DUK Disunited Kingdom :-) as we are clearly not united.

Re: Registered office.

Not correct:

Reuters: TSB Banking Group (TSB.L), which is part-owned by Lloyds, said it was likely to relocate some operations to England.

One factors, that will effect the number of jobs moved south - will be how effectively the U.K. regulators can regulate banking business in Scotland.

Please note the the North Sea Oil industries rely on Tax subsidies funded by English/Welsh tax pays, Scotland's tax take will be 1 / 10 of the current U.K's so the burden will be 10 times larger for the Scottish Tax payers. This same issue will effect most R & D work carried out in Scotland.

One question never asked - is who is Scottish ? Will my wife born in Glasgow get a U.K. or Scottish passport ? would each person on main land Britain get a choice ? Please note many brit's from the north of England left for Scotland 3 months ago just so that they could vote Yes to independence - so if we can vote do we note get a choice also ?

Blighty's mighty tech skills shortage drives best job growth in years

Re: competent IT Staff

Correct

Where's the proper Job development, having worked for many High street Banks/Investment Banks I have yet to see IT taken seriously, rarely do I see a scientific or engineering approach taken.

So, Apple won't sell cheap kit? Prepare the iOS garden wall WRECKING BALL

The same could have been said for BlackBerry users at one time. Your example is not comparable as she is not listed on NASDAQ employing thousands.

Apple has become a fashion brand and in that sense it has no competitors in the IT Fashion space (HTC came close and then fell away). IMHO it will not be about the technology, it will be about the perceptions from it's user base - it's new product need to have that premium look and feel ?

Apple 'sapphire glass' fronts for iPhone 6? It's NEWS to SUPPLIERS

Re: Another day

And all you have do is to look at what the competition all ready has - although I think laser aka the LG G3 is way to cool for apple :-)

Use Tor or 'extremist' Tails Linux? Congrats, you're on an NSA list

Mr Hague is no better. Over a year ago he came out using weasel words in an effort to say that GCHQ where not spying on UK citizen.

Everyone can and should learn to code? RUBBISH, says Torvalds

Re: Depends what you mean by 'code'

Agree, not everybody can do ART or Music but we all do it at school, coding should be no different.

A few basics (concepts) are already taught successfully to many primary school kids using simple robots that they programme with a few simple set of instructions.

Top tip, power users – upgrading Ubuntu may knacker your Linux PC

Re: "Surely you'd use a Windows 7 boot CD to re-install the OS if you're a power user? No?"

Na! you need a hammer & a nail and lots arm muscle

Apple: You're a copycat! Samsung: This is really about Google, isn't it?

Re: Oh please thise same tired old crap...

Apple has not sued Sony or Microsoft or Nokia, ....

It always seems to me, its because they do not look Chinese (=>益<=)

Google's tax returns are trop petite says Hollande

Corporation TAX is a TAX on profits not turnover !

If you want to TAX based on turnover then the best one is VAT (with a few fixes). For companies like Google Corporation TAX is not the correct TAX to be looking its VAT. We should be charging VAT on the products & services in the country the products & services are delivered, and if this was done fairly then Google would in the France as it should in England pay 20% of it's turnover in TAX in each of the countries it operates.

Use strong passwords and install antivirus, mmkay? UK.gov pushes awareness campaign

What is the point, the security service(with the help from their so called oversea friends) are ensuring that all systems are hackable, providing this information to the Americans who then broadcast this to the world either via virus/worms or making the documentation available via contractors like Snowdon.

May-be help provide some thing secure first before we go down the Eggs & Grandma route.

'Leaked' iPhone 6 pics will make cool fanbois WEEP - it's a PHABLET

Yep - it does't look cool to take calls, but if it came with a cool stereo Bluetooth headset all with Qi charging and a mat then it would still look cool when your on the phone.

Apple's legal bill for Samsung patent fight tops $60m

Can Mr Cook say this in the Europe where he would be in contempt of court:-)

"Given Samsung's blatant disregard of Apple's IP rights," Cook & Co. claim, "Apple should not be forced to bear the full expense of prosecuting its claims."

This as usual, is a bit rich given apple US ban for blatant disregard of Samsung's IP rights, that required Mr Obama to issue an executive order in-order to prevent the US courts enforcement of their order.

SCRUBBED: Technical oopsies halt SpaceX's bid for the Money Ring

Re: Another faulty valve? @ian 22

I think you find he's like me, he cannot afford the energy prices to heat these awful UK houses many would say my house gets to −222.65 °C :-)

What's wrong with Britain's computer scientists?

I think you miss point, in the real world there is little need for computer scientists, in my whole 34 years I have meet a handful of true computer scientists and only employed two (my wife and another), when recruiting or being recruited personality & business knowledge with a passion for industry sector are the key factors.

On role models what about Natalya Simonova in film or Eric Schmidt in business.

So I would recommend reducing the number pure computer science courses and ensure good computer science eduction is provided as part of the other degree course like art/design/medicine/science/engineering/etc... courses should include modules on software development , development methodologies (like agile), product production management and quality assurance. As these people then go out into industry they will have an appreciation of the issues and this will raise the standards.

I would also include computer science modules as part of politics degrees our politicians often run massive IT projects that fail a little understand of what they are doing would help.

I hope this makes sense, sorry for the English recovering from heavy night.

Apple Schill-er: 'I was shocked - SHOCKED! They went and copied the iPhone'

Re: Hmmm....

I would say the first Samsung phone looked like a Sony phone with design influences taken from Braun - just like the first Iphone. In this whole battle people have forgotten that Sony / Nokia / Samsung where already in the the feature(smart) phone business they just lacked a little bit of extra refinement that Steve Jobs managed to bring (there was nothing radical in the first Iphone).

Gov mulls making it easier for ICO to squash marketing pests

Exactly - You are correct!

As you say, just make the UK Based legal entity through which the call is first seen responsible for the fines (how that entity back's out the the risk through it's contracts with it's suppliers is it's problem).

Also TPS needs upgrading so you can request that the call meta data is kept for 24 hours only on incoming calls, allowing you identify which calls are an issue and this will provide information needed to identify the source of the problem.