Posts by KeithSloan

IBM overhauls rewards program for staff inventions, wipes away cash points

Miss treatment of talent

When I was going through the Patent process at IBM early 2000's I became aware of a German employee who had left the company with 9 patents and was still struggling to get his payments of $1000 per patent. The IBM Attorney told me of a UK employe who has more patents that all the master inventors in Hursley put together but I don't think the name of the employee concerned has ever been revealed. IBM patents are a bit of a numbers game, it was always about having the record for the most patents in the industry. When a patent is filed you initially get three years of protection and then have to pay to extend, I always wondered if the the number of valid current patents were counted, if IBM would still have had the bragging rights. There was news at one time of a researcher in the States suing IBM over his patents but as stated you give away your rights when you join, so I never understood how he had a case. You are supposed to get a framed certificate of any patent and I had one patent, not a great one but good enough for Nuance to buy when IBM sold off its Voice technology and never got it, still could have been worse, at least I got the £1000 dollars. If people believe IBM management had any morals even in the old days, search out Lyn Wheelers blogs.

IBM bosses wrongly sacked channel salesman after Tech Data joint venture failed, tribunal rules

IBM management total scum

My first manager who rose to be the European director of systems engineering one time when I was a trainee he planted two elbows on the desk and just glared at me for a number minutes. I also remember one time when some Americans were visiting he and a buddy of his a senior marketing manager who was probably an alcoholic and certainly the most evil of people you could ever meet discussing puting small amounts of LSD in an employees coffee. I think it was alcohol talking as they discussed puting in in his teeth and finally the IBM water supply idea to boost peoples ideas and save the pension plan lots of money.

I was the large systems specialist in the London City branch we installed 4 x 3900 at the time when even Lloyds bank were not buying, still only got a 2 on my ANC. Was not a manager that told me I should patent things but a master inventor. Getting a patent did not my change rating and when challenged got the response yes but it does not do anything for the division. Why did I waste 30 years of my life working for them? Certain Karma that Apple are now worth $3Tn and Microsoft not far behind, IBM $122Bn about 1/24 the size. At the end of the day they are a marketing company, control freaks who would spend 50% of the time discussing who in the customer were the decision makes and what handles they had on them. Plotting harming their careers if they were not pro IBM. Senior managers clueless about strategy hence screw up with PC business, missing, realising the value in marketing i.e. Google, Facebook, impact of smart phones. The only people in IBM with any real honesty were in Research,

IBM to GTS: We want you to 'rotate' clients every two years

""Being a good manager includes embracing personal responsibility to your team members, and one example to demonstrate that is taking an active interest in their careers and professional development."

IBM talks the talk, but does not walk the walk. I was coerced out of IBM 13 years ago after 30 years and the message had for some time been you had to look after and plan your own career. Managers were only interested in their own careers. Mind you it does say good manager and that excludes most IBM managers.

I think the person making the quote is harping back to the very old days when IBM was a good company to work for. i.e. When respect for the individual meant something

Hacked TalkTalk CEO: Dead as a Dido? Nope, she refuses to quit

Any CEO that does not understand that customers details should be encrypted and needs to make sure its implemented should not be a CEO. Resign NOW you stupid woman

Apple: Now that you've updated to iOS 7... YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK

Well I have yet to upgrade on my iPad2, but all app updates have the new style of icons, so you are probably no worse off. I agree they should have offered a choice of either new or old style icons, but hey they are Apple and they would like to think they know best. Me I will not be updating to iOS7 till something forces me to.

Nokia: The first year of the Elopcalypse

Nokia and WP.

I would have thought Nokia with its reputation for hardware would have sold more phones being yet another Android phone than WP. Seems to me that Elop made this decision because all he knows is Microsoft. Does not seem the right decision to me. I guess he should last a bit longer than a certain Greek at HP, but I think the end result will be the same. On a PC alternatives to Windows are limited. On a phone there are more options and I hate Windows enough to want to avoid it on a phone even if the only thing in common is the name and company.

Google Maps API now costs $4 per 1,000 requests

Trouble with Stuff in the Cloud.

This is one of the main problems of cloud computing - People changing the rules and the prices. Google, Spotify they are all the same. Take care what you move to the cloud and what you use it for.

ARM scooping in cash but remains cautious

Acorn.

Acorn did the right thing spinning of ARM. Acorn computers never really made any money. Okay a bit when a new machine came out, but the with the lows they hardly averaged anything.

Yes they had a lot of good GUI stuff, but they never patented anything. No use being first unless you exploit the fact and take over the market or you protect your intellectual property and make some money with royalties.

Spotify launches unlimited free US service

Be warned restrictions might come.

The UK Open version of Spotify started off with no restrictions other than needing to listen to adverts once in a while. They then changed the rules to limit the amount per month and limit the number of times a track can be played to 5.

Thats one of the problems of anything in the cloud, they can change the rules at their whim

Files Connect

Already use FileBrowser

I already use FileBrowser app and it meets all my needs and is a lot cheaper.

Has Steve Jobs killed the consumer hard disk industry?

To be fair to Steve Job's

To be fair to Steve Job's I think iCloud is all about getting people to get more music books and films from iTunes Store i.e. more profit for Apple. They see competition coming from subscription services like Spotify and want people to keep buying music instead. Now you can buy your music from iTunes and stream it to anywhere ( As long as you use Apple devices ). Yes you can use iCloud for data, calendars etc but the main thrust is for streaming music and films.

Pope says gravity proves technology can't supplant God

Omnipotent God

"Benedict also pointed out that for all Man's resourcefulness, recent natural disasters have highlighted that Man is not all-powerful."

Well recent natural disasters have also highlighted that there is NOT an all omnipotent and loving God

Skype to test advertising

Skype alternative.

Well there is always ooVoo as an alternative

Photo loss blogger to Flickr: You're f*cking kidding

Backups.

So are we to conclude that Flickr takes no backups. In which case Flickr sucks. And to think they charge for Pro accounts

Apple tightens rules for iPad news delivery

Glad I have held off buying an iPad.

First they sower the patch with iAdvert.

Now this.

Certainly caused me to take iPad off my Birthday and Christmas list.

Alien Earthlike worlds 'like grains of sand', say 'wobble' boffins

Energy Required.

As well as the time taken to get to any other earth like planet at less than the speed of light, it seems to me there is also the issue of the required energy. I was under the impression that you had to put ever increasing amounts of energy to get to any fraction of the speed of light. Given that you also have to expend energy to slow down again, that seems to me that one is going to need to use some sort of fusion power and we don't even know how to build a fusion reactor here on earth let alone one that could be contained in a space ship.

New iPod crew: 'Phoney, futuristic, retro, doomed'

Where's the GPS on Touch?

The Touch is not an iPhone without a contract. It does not have GPS. If the new touch had GPS and a good camera I would be getting one. As it is I will pass for at least another year. I want to be able to go on a walk take pictures at various places on the walk and then upload the details of the walk to the web. You can do this with iphone but not ipod touch. iPhone is too expensive and touch lacks decent camera and GPS

Also Apple TV is disappointing its HD is only 720p. I brought a 1080 HD TV guess I will also pass for yet another year on that too.

iPad includes hyberbole generator, first reviews show

iPad

Well if somebody gave me an iPhone I would keep for myself. If somebody gave me an iPad I would give it to one of my daughters. Difficult to see an iPad fitting in with my life. I prefer to sit in my study and use a desk computer rather than a laptop in front of the TV like my kids do.

I have a laptop for visiting customers and might one day get a netbook. Would get a netbook if I was commuting/traveling a lot, but an iPad just does not cut it for me. No physical keyboard, No camera for skype. As a iPhone type device it does not have GPS which cuts out a lot of apps I would be interested in.

Save DAB! Send FM radios to Africa

FM Radio's

Article got it totally wrong. It should say let common sense, good audio quality and battery life prevail and send DAB radios to Africa or bury in the ground

Steve Jobs uncloaks the 'iPad'

Sorry Steve has lost his touch - iPad does not hit the mark

I might have considered the iPad if I was traveling a lot i.e. spending hours on planes, trains etc. But the deal breakers for me are

1) No flash support - I make that about 70-80% of the web sites I access unusable.

2) No webcam for skype - If I was traveling I would want to video conference with the family at home.

Also not sure about having an on-screen keyboard - the jury is still out for me on that one.

Plus given to amuse myself on long journeys I would want access to Shogi/Go/Chess programs and all the decent ones are PC only. I think I would go for a Netbook something like the Samsung N10

2010 will be the year of the net tablet, claims analyst

Tablet

Well I will not be one of them. Unless they can do better than an on screen keyboard for input, its a complete no no for me. I also don't like voice recognition - I don't want everybody in ear shot to know what I am inputing. Steve Jobs is anti stylus and Graphitti type software so I wait to see what Apple come up with

BBC publishes Freeview HD timetable

HD Freeview.

Was hoping to delay buying any new equipment as long as possible i.e. after 2012 at earliest, being aware of changing flux in TV industry, but the on/off button on our old TV gave up the ghost. Having brought earlier in the year I see I am now already out of date. VERY annoyed at the TV industry and BBC over all the changes and making fairly new equipment out of date. There is going to be a lot of set top boxes that end up in land fills. Also what was the point of getting a TV with built in Freeview when its out of date within six months.

Murdoch threatens to yank News Corp. from Google News

Pariar

The whole Murdoch family are Preditary Pariah's they want us all to PAY for News and TV I hope

they FAIL big time

Sky made people pay for watching sport, once they get to a dominate market share they will just up the price even more and start charging for pay per view. If it was not for the BBC they would be a monolopy.

They hate the BBC because they cannot compete against it - Long live the bbc website.

My personal position is I will not pay for News or TV ( Other than license fee ) no matter what they do

LibDem backs IBM staff in pension row...

Get your Facts right.

jeremy - IBM does not recognise any union - get your facts right you plonker

Apple squeezes video camera into iPod nano

iTouch

Disappointing that the new ITouch's still don't have a camera. I would like to see a camera so that one could make skype video calls via wifi from one. Oh well means I can still justify not spending the money.