Posts by Martin Chandler

Met Police to slash hundreds of IT jobs, hands £216m outsourcing gig to Steria

Should've gone to Specsavers!

This is a very short-sighted move by the Met, no doubt fuelled by someone's bonus target. Firstly, predicted savings are always guesstimates at best, and even then, they always specify the best case scenario so dont expect anywhere near this amount of savings.

Secondly, contracting to anything IT related for more than 3 years is massively risky given the rate of change in IT let alone any business change. The Met (and its IT needs) will be a very different place in 10 years, just like its very different now to how it was 10 years ago. However, expect any desire to keep pace with that change to be met with a change to the contract. Kerching! Those savings dont look so rosy anymore.

Finally, even if the outsourcer accepted changes, it will never deliver at the same pace as would happen with an internal team. There are so many more hurdles to jump through and red tape to cut when trying to effect change via an outsourcer than an in-house resource.

Still, at least the director responsible for pushing this through will still get his bonus and move onto a new juicy position well before this dodgy contract falls to pieces.

Cisco puts elastic in the fabric

Stretched Fabrics

Stretched Fabrics: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

LIFELESS BEAGLE on MARS: A British TRIUMPH!

Saying the whole thing is a success probably is overstating it. But, i think the point theyre trying to make is that it achieved a significant amount of its objectives (successful design, build, launch, travel, deploy to specific area etc all with a very (relatively) small budget). Therefore there are many aspects that can now objectively be considered successful, despite one significant failure in the landing itself.

Are we ready to let software run the data centre?

SDN has NOT reached maturity

This article starts out plain wrong and just gets worse. Just look at the mess that is OpenStack networking:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/13/openstack_neutron_explainer/

Furthermore, just because a bunch of big names are involved in something, didn't mean it's currently a good idea. The market place is changing in this industry and no one wants to be left behind. So you find big names sticking their fingers in almost every 'open' pie for two reasons 1) to make themselves look like a collaborator so as not to scare off any potential customers and 2) to try and influence the technology to more closely align with their own strategies. You just have to look at Cisco's efforts to get OpFlex adopted by OpenDaylight project as an example of this. It's also worth noting that most vendors are also developing at least partially proprietary SDN solutions alongside their work in these 'open' projects. Does SDN really look mature when you see the industry hedging its bets on multiple strategies?

Cisco tears off gloves, throws copyright and patent punches at Arista

Re: Fair cop?

Seems to me that there is more religious zealousness rather than rational thought on this post. The OP stated that *IF* the CLI can be protected by law then its a 'fair cop'. If the allegations from Cisco's copyright filing (http://www.slideshare.net/Cisco/2014-1205-cisco-complaint-against-arista-copyright) are true (namely that over 500 multi-word commands were copied, etc.) then, on this narrow point, I think the OP is correct.

...I guess we'll (eventually) find out (unless Arista settle out of court).

Not just websites hit by OpenSSL's Heartbleed – PCs, phones and more under threat

Re: Windows XP

What's the point of having a drop-dead end-of-life support date if you keep trying to resuscitate it with another 'one last patch'?

123-reg shrugs off customer complaints over stealth domain transfer charges

Re: has people forgot android Jelly bean 4.2

I raised a support call with 123-reg and they amended my account so I don't have to pay for changing the IPS Tags. I have now moved all my .co.uk domains out of 123-reg for free :)

From corporate bod to startup star: The 10-month gig that changed everything

What about DevOps?

It seems a lot of your frustration has come not just from moving out of tech and into management but actually from working within very restrictive IT environments. Naturally, the governance processes adopted within larger organisations are going to be more onerous than in a small start up, but that is necessary, to a degree.

You talk about how exciting and refreshing it is to do development on your laptop, using your own tools and being able to get what you want when you want. But in a larger organisation that needs to scale, a certain amount of standardisation is necessary to avoid other issues further down the road.

I have seen a relatively high profile project developed on someone's laptop/mac go live in a production data centre to almost disastrous results as the development did not take into account the deployment environment soon enough.

At our workplace, we are working very hard to implements a DevOps culture where infrastructure personnel are embedded in agile development teams so the Devs can get rapidly deployed dev environments including sandbox virtualised dev environments on their laptops, and the infrastructure teams get the automation, scalability and supportability that they need. This is still likely to be a little slower than leaving the devs to their own devices, but ultimately the organisation as a whole should benefit.

Finally! How to make Android USABLE: Install BlackBerry OS 10.2

"Not sure you know what you are talking about here" - Give the guy a break, he did say "presumably" thus indicating an openness to be clarified.

OK, so we paid a bill late, but did BT have to do this?

I can't believe...

you kowtowed to this poor excuse for a Service Provider!!

"During my discussions with BT, I agreed not to publish any of the specific responses that were provided to me"

Perhaps you thought you were doing a broader service to the public by working with these people to address these issues and thought sacrificing your journalistic freedom was a worthy price to pay ...But it is this journalistic freedom that (usually) works best at holding companies like these to account. If BT had any common decency, they would correct these issues regardless of what you do or do not print, therefore you should have honoured your 'customers', the reading public and published what is clearly in their interest.

PHWOAR! Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, Prime Minister

Re: How naive!!

"All through history, there are examples of where censorship has been used and it always starts light and then gets progressively tighter and tighter"

Always?? #FAIL

Just look at TV and movie censorship. That has gotten progressively more permissive. I think the majority of people would agree that (good or bad) the censorship changes have been triggered by the changes in society and not by some evil overlord who wants to take all control away from the viewing public like you are trying to imply will be the case with this.

There are all sorts of restrictions in place for all sorts of things, many of which are imperfect but help towards a goal. At the end of the day, you dont have to accept the filter.

"This is being presented as a way to stop perverts accessing really nasty, illegal, porn. It won't make the slightest difference"

Unfortunately, you can blame the media for that (and probably also the government). This is about making it harder for children to access porn (not impossible, just a bit harder). However, the announcement came amongst the other news that the government is trying to enlist the help of the big search engines to make it harder for people to use their search engines to find illegal pornographic material, hence the confusion.

"most El Reg readers are not so much worried about the "why", as by the impossibility of the "how"

Reading the comments, it seems to be split on both these points. People seem to be taking a view to this measure similar to how Sepp Blatter did with Goal Line Technology until recently i.e. that if its not perfect then we shouldnt impement it. Well he has seen the error of his ways and realises that while no technology is ever going to be perfect, it can at least help.

And for those of you that disagree, just disable the filter.

"I think that I'm better placed to look after my kids than some pubic school educated dick that forgets his kids in the pub"

... well, just disable the filter! No need to get so angry about it :) Just as parents take responsibility for their children's TV/DVD viewing regardless of the watershed, so too should they take responsibility of their web surfing regardless of the filters that are in place.

This measure is meant to help reduce the the ease with which porn can be accessed. Currently its so easy, you can do it accidentally. I know of an example when someone wanted to access the web site for the popular UK camping and outdoor shop called Blacks but got part of the domain wrong when typing the web address and was promptly faced with very explicit porn images without any prior warning, right on the front page. Those aren't images you can easily erase from a child's mind and so all the better for measures which help reduce the possibility of this thing occurring but do not in any way impede your ability to take control as you still have the opt out. Simples.

People here are clearly trying to present this measure erroneously as something which is the complete solution to protecting children from porn and/or the government making moral judgement on the whole concept of pornography, It is neither of these things.

Apple: iOS7 dayglo Barbie makeover is UNFINISHED - report

Re: has people forgot android Jelly bean 4.2

Yeah man, Android sucks so bad!! I'll take IOS any day!! PS have they fixed Maps yet? Surely it hasnt been a month already since that broke?!?

Google Play privacy SNAFU sends app buyers' details to devs

Re: This is true...

I have tried to change my contact details but it is mandatory to include street, town, postcode and telephone number.

It's not always just PARTIAL information, my dev account shows many users' FULL addresses and telephone number. I think the problem according to the article is that users are possibly not aware they are sharing this amount of information.

Re: This is true...

Actually, going into the archived transactions, I get the full address of some of the purchasers. Im not sure if Google have reduced the amount of info passed onto devs at a later date.

This is true...

I have an Android Dev Account with an app available for purchase on the market place. I can confirm you always get the following details - Full name, Post code or Zip code, Country. Some of the transactions have also included City and telephone number.

Mp3Tunes files for bankruptcy

Re: How Much did he lose?

Don't worry, he made sure his money was safe... See freespire.com

OnLive Game System cloud gaming console

Actually it cant...

Youre referring to the bluetooth controller which was only released on the 9th Dec.

LinkedIn pulls Facebook-style stunt

Old News....

I first learned of this last month from Greg Ferro... http://gregferro.com/linked-abusing-privacy-endorsing-ads-foul/

Steve Jobs beheads iPad apps for acting like desktops

Too many mistakes

Mistake #1: Wasting time writing an app for the Iphone, Ipod, Ipad

Mistake #2: Wasting time not reading the EXACT SAME STORIES about how other developers got shafted! (Why on earth did he not believe them!?!)

Mistake #3: Defending the indefensible

Mistake #4: Blogging about his bad experiences - its the same story as everyone elses - if people dont know what to expect from Apple, then they'll never learn.

Free OS, Free your mind!

Pinhead Mac Trojan sticks it to fanbois

This isn't a virus, it's a feature!

1 Jobsonians 10:13 Fear not for he shall not test you more than ye can bare!

Jesus Phone to exhibit holy gift of bilocation

Steve Jobs invented multitasking

...just like he invented, touch screens, multi touch, cut and paste, MMS, video calling and everything else everyone has tried to copy or steal! He is the Creator of all good things. Praise be!

Chip and PIN security busted

This was on the BBC... yesterday

Also, on the Newsnight programme was BBC Science reporter, Susan Watt's debit card details including sort code and account number!

Apple bans geo loco ads on iPhone, iPad*

Re; I dunno

"I pity the person who tries to order digital prints by rushing outside the house with an iPhone, and then trying to find an appropriate place to do it."

You pity the person as you expect it to fail miserably. You therefore recommend doing research before heading out.

To me this is very short-sighted. I admit that your advice is the probably suitable for the here and now but once Location Based Services (LBS) matures to a suitable level, there is no reason why someone couldnt wait until they are in the street before looking up the best place to print some photos or whatever. By your reasoning, back in the 90's you would pity someone who didnt make their important phone call before they left the house. Now, mobile phone technology has matured to the point where I can make an important call anytime and almost anywhere.

Furthermore, LBS isnt just about advertising or finding our way around, it can potentially be about anything e.g. hailing a taxi, shopping, sight-seeing, history etc etc

What are Patents For?

Patenst are not primarily meant for making money, though that is of course how it is used in our predominantly capitalist society. The idea (or ideal?) behind patents is that it encourages inventors and innovators to publicly document their creations so that others can make use of it also. It also provides a revenue so that the originator is fairly compensated. Therefore the primary purpose of patents is to generate and promote innovation. Sadly too many abuse patents to beef up their own coffers and stifle innovation in the process.

There should be a law against...

preventing innovation! Clearly Apple are hoarding the location based services business to themselves and effectively slowing down the pace of prgress in that arena. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of advertising but locaion based services, even ones that generate revenue, are an exciting, relatively immature, technology arena and I for one am looking to see what true innovators can really do in this space.

Brown offers free laptops to deprived UK schoolkids

Probably not good at maths but....

How can a project offering 270000 homes laptops or broadband only cost £300m ? If true, I think they need to share their secret with the OLPC project.

Europe clears Windows 7 for takeoff

This isn't good enough

I dont know why, but it is microsoft so it simply can't be good enough! mmmm Apples!

Vodafone Access Gateway 3G

Not strictly double paying??

I must admit, I'm not 100% certain how the femtocell works for data traffic but I would have thought the femotcell device creates a tunnel back to vodafone and that the data/internet access breaks out from their. If this is the case, then you would be using vodafone's bandwidth (as well as your own) and hence it would make sense that the data traffic is allocated from your fair-use allowance. If a tunnel is not created and the internet access broke out from your own broadband directly to the internet, then I do not see how they would know how much data you have used. Just a thought.

Microsoft offers EU choice on Windows browsers

Could it be... ?

Could it be that MS has finally developed some common sense?

Go, Brown, go!

David Miliband

Has anyone else noticed David Miliband signed this petition??

Virgin downloaders hit by AllofMP3.com fault

AllofMP3.com Workaround

I use Demon broadband (Thus plc) and have the same problem. Are there any other non-Virgin Media users which have the same problem?

Anyway, I think I have found a workaround. I have installed Google Web Accelerator and this seems to have fixed it for me.

Hope this helps.