Posts by Madboater 65 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Mar 2011
The IT dept really don't understand what the business does. It works to the whim of a few and can't see the needs of the users. Although many of the desktop support have a tendency to be completely useless, the shear lack in up to date systems and the inability to provide simple services that would make the organisation incredibly more efficient is clearly the fault of the IT management.
If you want effective IT management bring the IT teams into the office, have them work side by side with the rest of the staff. The IT teams are part of the business, have them support the rest of the work force in day to day activities, you will then evolve your IT systems and staff to maximise the effectiveness of the IT systems.
I have bought two IOMEGA store centres. They can sync over the net. I store one at home as a local storage solution, and one at my Dads. When the bandwidth allows they will sync with each other. My Dad has been doing it the other way round (he uses my remote as his local), but as they have filled up, we just bought a second set to keep our files separate.
I also have my music on Google Play Music and my photos on Flickr. Important files are also available on encrypted memory sticks. (Yes you can assume I have lost the lot in the past).
With the 5s audience being those that buy iPhones for the same reason the drink Stella, and the 5 being exactly the same spec but in a smarter more durable case. But then I realised that there is a brand of people who do not understand care about the innards, can't afford an iPhone but do want to have the latest handset no matter what. I know how well Apple understand their audience, I didn't realise there were enough of those numpties to warrant their own product.
Also do not forget the iPhone 6 must be round the corner, ready to lift another £500 of them.
Since when was "new Icons" a killer feature? I mean, if I travelled back in time and told my younger self that I had a phone, that was synced with all my contacts, emails, videos, photos files etc, so that when I got into the office all those things were available on my desktop, and when I got home they were all available on a tablet style device, my younger self would be impressed and looked forward to the future. However if I told him in the future, we will have new "flat" icons, I think my younger self would have been so unimpressed that even the fact I could travel back in time wouldn't have recovered his interest in any way.
They care about people's default action is to search. They want a "search appliance" within arms reach of its products (er sorry, Users) at all times.
All Android does for Google is makes smart phones cheap enough for everyone to have one, so they are carrying around a "search appliance" at all times.
If apple sold their iPhone at a lower price so that everyone could afford one, or Microsoft also didn't want a bigger cut of the search market, Google would not have bothered with a Mobile OS.
Google will however continue to invest in Android, to keep it relevant until such time it can equally monitise another system.
Because they can't run office on it?
I get frustrated with the iPad due to being locked into the apple eco-system!
I get frustrated with the iPad as it isn't compatible with the rest of my kit!
I however do like the pages/number software which seems 100% appropriate for the level of work I would like to to do on a tablet, I just wish my android tablet could run them.
If people want to run a developers software on their chosen equipment, and the developer doesn't make a compatible version. it is not a shortfall in the equipment, it is a shortfall with the developer.
MS need to realise they are not the beginning, middle and end of corporate/home computer equipment anymore.
This was the challenge Stallman put to MS and they didn't reply, some may say couldn't.
I would challenge MS to do the same here, however Google don't really care, as long as people keep searching, they will turn a profit. Android only allows most people to search more. Foxcon or any other company that has rolled over to play with MS have made a business decision, this will be based on maximising profits. If this is done by paying a MS fee, then that is what suits them.
Doing the right thing will only be considered if there is a financial advantage.
If the world is warming, cooling, changing the point is our current civilization can not survive in its current form, we need to adapt, either due to climate change, or population change or due to the fact that now we can not cope with the climate that we have experienced in the past. While we are changing, shall we cover all our basis tho?
Sorry to say Star Wars is the one movie I always use to explain the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy. Sci Fi is a fictional story based upon elements of science, humans going out into space, self aware robots take over the world and travel in time. Star Wars has absolutely no science, it is about as Sci Fi as Lord of The Rings or Where Eagles Dare!
Despite my hatred for Apple perusing all this patent and trademark rubbish, I thought this really took the biscuit, however when my less than IT interested wife saw the line diagram, she asked if that was a new Apple Store! Made me think they may have a point. I do think however they should be made to make all their shops look like that drawing. If they change it in anyway to look like any other store then they should get fined. After all it is Apple who has started this game.
Completely agree, Excel is an accountants tool, and most accountants use bespoke databases or accountancy packages.
If you want to build a mathematical, scientific or engineering model, there are much better software like math-lab or my favorite was TKSolver.
For forms (something most people use word and excel) Infopath works really well (I have yet to find an alternative).
For a database, I liked Access 2003 to quickly build and work with data. Since Access 2007 though it has become a bit more difficult. The world could do with a simple database program for quick works with data, that is as easy to enter info as excel, but has the function of rational database. Naturally if you are talking about a multi-user system you really should be looking at a database server and a proper developer.
"transporting to a ship at warp", I know, I just found it completely unbelievable. I mean traveling faster than the speed of light and also being able to disassemble a person into pure energy and transmit them via a particle beam to rebuild them into matter at a given target is perfectly believable, but doing both at the same time just didn't make any sense.
If LCE help me select and find the product I want, then yes I will as a mater of point. We need to support those that do provide a worthwhile service. I am not a Camera expert (just a keen amature), so need the guidance, I pay for that service. Buying music, I don't need guidance, can do that quicker and cheaper online, although I do enjoy finding new music, Amazon has a stab at helping us but I might welcome a small store with assistance who can help me find new music and bands. This was something HMV never did for me.
walked into HMV/Jessops and thought "thats good value, I can only buy that for more than half the price online, I must buy it here instead".
Don't get me wrong, I will shop on the highstreet, and will pay a premium for it, but in return I expect quality service and someone who understands the product. All I can see is a load of expensive box-shifters going out of business as their business model has been over ridden by a similer but cheaper (that provides better service).
I would have been upset when my Local Jessops closed, except they had got rid of those who knew what they were doing in exchange for extended warentee salesmen. The expert now has a good job working for the London Camera Exchange.
The high steet complained about the out of town shops being able to undercut them due to lower overheads, then those out of town shops complained that the internet under cut them due to lower overheads. It is time for the highstreet to pick it self up and dust itself of and sell something that the large out of town shops or the internet can not do, and that it good customer service and knowledge. Any high street store that dosn't can expect to go the same way.
Isn't that the line most MP's fed us. The difference is Google are not the ones who get to make the law, they are not the ones selected to decide what is right and what is wrong. Well done to the MP's for identifying the issue, all you need to do is change the rules, it works better the whining that someone smarter than you managed to outwit you.
MP's you have the power to put this right, just do it.
I was helping a colleague who wasn't confident with computers (he is an excivator driver) and was having issues with the incredibly ridiculous connection rigmarole to connect their depot (remote) PC to the corporate network (Involves 6 passwords and a RSA key). In the end the engineer came around (hardware failure) who the laughed at the guy as he couldn't navigate around the PC, I lost my cool and threatened to take the guy out, sit him in an excavator and ask him to delicately dig a hole next to a fuel pipeline and a river during one of the wettest summers with horrendous ground conditions. Surprisingly the engineer didn't like the idea. Just remember people have skills that don't involve computers, and no doubt you will do something that those people think is stupid. and just remember you work in an industry that for 12 years had people pressing "start" to stop their computer!
Firstly a lot of people who only use bricks and mortar stores to see good before buying online are shooting yourself in the foot, eventually those stores will go out of business and you will have no way of viewing your purchase. However saying that, I would argue that comet or any of the large electronic retailers could not offer anything that the internet couldn't, no one needs a sales staff to read the specs, and then sales staff cant offer up reviews or go into more detail about the product like you can on the internet. This is where I see the high street picking things up, small stores, with people who know what they are talking about, this is where people will want to go, as long as people support the service they receive.
Not so long ago, I popped into Comet with a list for a load of kitchen appliances, they were willing to match some of the prices, however tried to sell me the extended warranty . My reply was the John Lewis offer an extended warranty with the price that they were going to match, will they include the warranty? They replied no, so I asked them for a good reason for me not to go to John Lewis, all they could do was say that they had spent the time in helping me select the appliances, I pointed out I had already done this before I came into the store, they then started to plead with me to buy from them, when I refused they got quite aggressive. I wonder why they failed?
So lets hope they can pull this off. I think they need to leave the Skywalker years behind them and pick another point in the Galaxy History (or redo the Skywalker saga from the beginning, but not sure anyone wants that), hopefully one with a little more kick-ass and a little less politics. Despite Jar-Jar and other Episode 1-3 mistakes, the light saber action was way cooler then in the original movies.
The issue is that Apple, and in some ways Samsung have been acting like Kids over these cases. All the judge has done is treated them like kids. An guess what Apple have just responded like Kids. It would be a good point now for Samsung to let the matter drop, otherwise the childish squabble will just continue.
Lets stop all this nonsense and let the courts concentrate on putting criminals away.
As with all Green stuff, it is simply a mater of changing the way we live and think smarter, how many of us for example have a selection of transformers behind the desk/tv/sofa to convert 240V to 12V, why not get a single transformer that we can plug all our 12V appliances into.
I am sure I saw it on Dragons Den, but have thought about it for some time. Why not power standby using rechargeable batteries that switch a relay on the mains in when you turn your appliance on/off.
There are really some simple solutions out there, but most rely on the manufactures having a combined effort in sorting them out. But as they don't, consumers don't get the option, until that changes then we are all stuck with what we have.
And people who can think for themselves when presented with evidence are a little more sceptical. What a surprise.
To date the argument has gone;
We can prove climate change is happening, so you must all stop driving, or polar bears will lose their habitat.
The problem with this is the evidence given doesn't support the action they want us to take, and the result of not taking the action doesn't effect us that much.
To get people to realise the arguments need to be presented with the evidence as;
1, Climate Change is Happening
2, We are accelerating it un-naturally by our use of fuels etc
3, The impacts of Climate change are going to be...
4, These impacts are going to directly effect us by...
As far as I have seen the only #1 has been proven. We have a fair idea of #3. However if we can do #4 then #2 may be irrelevant, as we should then be working to adapt to climate change and while we are at it, adapt to reduce our impact on it to.
I live in a town in a county called Gloucestershire, and to anyone I spoke to while holidaying in San Fransico, no it is not near London. I think you need to realise that knowledge of local geography and appropriate nicknames for places is left to the locals, to the rest of the world as long as people understand enought for the article to make sence that is acceptable. Its not like anyone is going to mistake the coit tower for a NASA launch pad.
I'll have 6m of 4 inch pipe please! You will never get rid of imperial measures, our entire infrastructure is built on imperial measures, train gauges, pipe sizes etc... When measurements need to be accurate, and you look at fractions of a metric unit to measure what is/was an imperial one, you actually get into a fraction of a metric unit and errors start to send you out of tolerance before you f**k up. Where as an exact imperial unit is simple to measure an imperial size.
To turn completely metric the answer is simple, don't change our measures, just change the metric system. A metric litre is a 2special name" for a cubic decimeter, it is not a SI unit, it is defined as 1kg of water when at 4 degs Centigrade. We just need to define our common imperial units in the same way.
A beer pint is a measure of beer served in pint glasses.
A milk pint is a measure of milk when stored in a pint milk bottle.
A mile is a measure of distance to drive, and is defined as the distance you can travel in 1 minuet at a speed of 60mph.
If you need a decent level of computing power at a usable size that you need to move about with you. If they don't meet your requirements then don't buy one. Personally I have down-graded from a desktop pc to a laptop because my den has been converted into a nursery (apparently someone else wants to store their toys in there), making a "desktop replacement" laptop the best option for me.
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