Posts by britsurfer1

'Silent' staff stood by as £100m BBC IT project tanked – DG

Not exactly a case of 'not speaking up'

The problem is, often people DO speak up, but they get overruled/ignored by the management who firmly believe it's the right thing.

I work in IT and I see it all the time. The management come up with an idea, they put it forward, the costs are high, the timescales more so, and everyone on the IT team says "this isn't going to achieve what you want" - the amount of times I've tried to say that and have been politely told "I hear you, but we're going to do it anyway".

Then (of course), when these things get canned the IT team gets the blame for large costs and long time scales.

Swiss photographer sues Apple for pilfering her eyeball

Re: "All Aplle had to do was just put on some various strokes and an uncopyrighted face"

Possibly but there are usually many checks to ensure content is correct and appropriate for use. It seems a little odd that this slipped through the net. That having been said, I do agree with you, it was probably an oversight.

Broadband minister Hunt LOSES portfolio, takes on national health

Qualifications?

I discussed recently with my family that I don't understand how some MPs get into their roles. This is a prime example. If Hunt was qualified to be the Culture Secretary then fine, but how does that also make him qualified for Health Secretary? Does he have a background of running medical institutions or working with medical professionals? If the answer is 'no' then I serious questions over his experience and ability to be successful in this new role.

IT departments are BRATTY TEENAGERS

Re: Grrrrrr......

Couldn't agree more!

I work with a lot of marketing people and they are always telling us how to do things. It would be considered unacceptable for me to tell them how to market stuff!

Re: Analysts & Managers

Not sure things should be managed by analysts but I do agree that too many people stick rigidly to things like Prince 2.

As an analyst myself I know the details of the business pretty well and offer advice to my PM's with the insight I've gained. Very often I'm ignored. Recently I suggested some feedback to my PM's terms of reference document which he didn't want to put in. The next day, a stakeholder said the same thing and he included it with no issues.

Generally speaking management dictates to IT what solutions should be implemented and how, even though they have little to no understanding of system architecture, analysis, project management etc.

I work in a very management facing role on the IT side so I see both sides of the coin, but I can categorically say that many companies just see IT teams as service providers. I.e. "You do as I tell you".

I think it's pretty ironic that in this day and age, most projects involve some form of IT to achieve competitive advantage or reduce costs, and yet businesses still view IT as a necessary evil, like paying the electricity bill.

Virgin Media staves off cable punter seepage

Re: I'm surprised that they're still going.

Question; Why are you against signing a new contract if you've been with them for 16 years already anyway? Many of the best deals are available to customers signing new contracts.

Re: TiVo sales helped/forced...

I admit that TiVo could have been better but YouView? If you seriously think YouView is better than the TiVo box that 'lacks a number of basic features' you will be very disappointed. I know for a fact that YouView removed a lot of it's good features to rush it to market. At this point, it's just an expensive PVR.

Re: The next quarter will be worse

So you're complaining because something you are getting for free is taking a little longer than expected? If you prefer you can go to Sky or BT and pay for the doubled speed.

Slow broadband blackspots mostly in south, not north

How?!

How can 18Mb be the fastest when I get just under 30Mb with Virgin Media?

Apple denies iPhone 4 antenna glitch, blames inaccurate signal bars

Rubbish

They are just trying to convince people this can be solved by a software update. If this really was an algorithm problem then calls would not be dropped when the phone is held. The call would remain connected but there would be no bars. Similarly if the phone shows more bars that it actually has then it wouldn't continually go down to zero bars when held.

I think it's poor show that apple aren't doing something about this and that their testers didn't pick it up. I've pre-ordered an iphone 4 but I'm seriously thinking about cancelling it.