Posts by Magister

Who's using 'password' as a password? TOO MANY OF YOU

The IT crowd

I'm currenlty dealing with an outsourced IT service group.

The password policy is age (max 35 days), complexity (chars & numbers but no specials), length (min 8 max 12), history (not one of the previous 24). However, they don't operate a single sign on, so there are multiple domains and systems, each using different account name, details and passwords.

Because of this, they get a very large number of support requests for unlocking accounts / resetting passwords. They have a user accessible password reset tool; but it only works part of the time due to network issues. They also insist that if they have to unlock an account, they also have to reset the password every time.

All of this causes them a bit of hassle; whenever they have to unlock an account or reset a password, they always change it to abcd1234. Then they stop you from changing your password for 24 hours.

EU joins Google, hippies, Uncle T Cobbleigh in fight against ITU

Not just Governments

Some companies also censor what their staff and contractors can see on the Internet. Not just to prevent access to pr0n, but also to prevent access to such dodgy sites as news sites, certain web forums, social media (apart from the CEO's promotional blog which all staff have to read every week) etc.

I'm waiting for them to block my access to ElReg

NASA: THE TRUTH about the END OF THE WORLD on 21 Dec

Re: Apparently there's a 'safe place' somewhere in France...

...ne pas oublier les oignons!

Four key mistakes to avoid when building your hybrid cloud

Re: The LAST big mistake of cloud computing

>>most company's IT strategy<<

Currently working at a large organisation; I have to say that my current thoughts are "What IT strategy?".

I may be wrong, but I get the feeling that there are a lot of businesses that really don't actually have any real "IT Strategy" as such, just a couple of thoughts based around "we need to use technology as a differentiator" without any understanding of how it might be designed and implemented, how to use it, how to measure if it does anything or how to make it all work.

Certainly, many businesses have lots of policy documents, but these seem to be more about HR / QA ticking boxes to say "we have a policy" rather than any real intention to implement something that is practical and will work.

As a result, some vendor salesman speaks to the senior managers and sells them on the idea of (for example) cloud offerings; they buy the idea without actually understanding more than a fraction of the consequences. Then, as you say, someone else has to clean up the mess left behind.

Grumpy Friday

NASA confirms ice at poles of Mercury

Re: Hey?

Face Invaders!

Hey?

Look a bit closer at the centre of the crater Prokoviev. Does that look like someone's face?

Broadband minister admits rural rollout by 2015 is 'challenging target'

It is a challenging target

We need to upgrade the national infrastructure; almost everyone agrees with this. Unfortunately, everyone wants to be next to be upgraded (yes me too) but it takes time to get the work done.

Unfortunately, the telecomms networks are in much the same state as the railways were back in the 50s. Too little investment - and in the case of the telecomms, it's more apparent because of the more rapid changes in technology.

BT used to have the staff to do the work, but trimmed back on their workforce a long time ago. They rely quite heavily now on some contractors to do a proportion of the work (many of whom were trained by BT!)

I'm not trying to defend BT; on the contrary, we are in this situation because of their lack of planning. But I can't see that we are going to get the network we need until there is some serious political pressure to make it happen and at the moment, I just don't see that anywhere.

Leveson tells media to set up independent regulator or bow to Ofcom

Re: Why?

I would agree that the press needs to be held to account; being able to make things up and then print them as fact has to be wrong. (This allows for genuine mistakes)

But I do get concerned at any suggestion that there should be further government intrusion. Quite simply, they are just too bloody incompetent to do a job right, they are even less trustworthy than the press and it would end up being more money from our taxes to pay for some self-important twerp(s) to sit on his (their) arse(s) and do sod all.

Do I have an answer? No; I wish I did. Breaking up some of the media groups might help, but I'm not too sure that would be enough.

Microsoft STALKS YOU even more than supermarkets do, says dev

Not working?

Here the interesting thing; I go onto (for example) a Microsoft UK website. The behavioural ad tracking then delivers adverts in French (possibly because the company breakout is in the Netherlands).

That's fine, but then when I use the laptop from someone else's wifi, the ads in French still appear even for several days after.

As my language skills are on a par with my ability to see through walls, adverts in French don't really "couper le moutarde"; but hey, it's their money to waste.

Dixons returns to profit in UK, rubs hands as Comet circles drain

>>Dixons Retail says it's positioned to capitalise on Comet's collapse<<

So rather than offer a better product, they just want to carry on selling the same crap and offer the same awful service to the punters that might have gone to a former competitor.

Nice business model.

Half of us have old phones STUFFED in our drawers

@LarsG

There was a comment on a previous article (I think)

A man showing his daughter one of the old rotary dial phones (from c. 1965). She looked at the phone with some puzzlement then asked "how do you send texts daddy?"

It's old fart time again

Annual reviews: It's high time we rid the world of this insanity

Busted!

>>All the “exceeds expectations” rankings this person had received were lowered to “fails to meet expectations<<

I've seen that situation; someone changed the definitions to show a below acceptable score resulting in the person being fired. However, the person had managed to keep a paper copy of all of the forms; these were handed to a legal advisor. Once the company had received a letter detailing the exact information and realised they had been caught out, they quickly agreed to a very handsome settlement out of court. The person concerned is now quite happily enjoying an early retirement with many years still to go and no need to ever work again. (And it was someone working in HR!)

The review process should be a very valuable way of motivating staff; sadly, we have too many PHBs that know bugger all apart from what bonus they should be getting.

Latest scam spam ploy: Bogus pay-by-phone London parking receipts

Re: Not just London

I've used APCOA and Ringo; both set-up by mobile phone. Found them to be really easy to use at a number of locations. Also used it to extend parking when I realised I'd been a twerp and hadn't paid for the fifth day of parking. Great as well for when you are in a hurry for the train and don't have the cash to pay the parking up front. I did use their website to download invoices for the parking, so that I could reclaim my expenses; found it very easy to do.

I even managed to get some others from within the company to try it out; in all but one instance, they found it really easy to use. The only one of them with a problem was someone that seems to struggle with any form of technology (the one that insisted on having a laptop, but then never took it off the desk docking station - ever).

Not just London

There are a number of companies that offer phone to pay for parking services up and down the country.

One of the staff had an email that was supposed to be from one of these; had the logo and everything to make it look genuine. The only thing that stopped him opening the attachment was that part of the text was written rather badly and he spotted a spelling error of the company name so it didn't match the logo.

I try not to keep warning people about scam emails (on the basis that people might think I'm crying wolf) but I tend to send a message out at this time of year just to warn people to be on their guard.

Peter Moore: IT consultant, Iraq hostage - Part Two

Wow!

What a great article; what an amazing story (the best stories are always true).

Many years ago, I had an opportunity to work overseas. I didn't pursure it, so don't know if I would actually have got the job, but I've often wondered how different my life would have been had I gone ahead with the application. I still feel a little regret even after having read other accounts of people that had bad experiences.

Best of luck to him for his future.

Google goes for Amazon: Slash-fest on cloud storage prices

Battling Behemoths

In some respects, this is similar to what started to happen in the retail sector many years ago.

The bigger suprmarket chains started to look at how to cut prices and deliver more; scale is key, but also making sure that the technology is used to its maximum capability to deliver efficiencies. However, they also found that they could "persuade" suppliers to do similar things; upscale production, cut costs, deliver more for less.

Those that did well, bought out the smaller players or the ones that couldn't / didn't keep up. Remember names like Fine Fare, International, David Greig, Gateway, Ford & Lock, Victor Value, et al. In most cases, it was simply a quick way to expand, to get more customers and sell more to squeeze the supplier.

To begin with, the winner is the consumer; they get a great deal at a good price funded by squeezed margins. However, there always comes a point where the cuts are too deep and businesses are not making a profit. You can survive for a while, but as a business model, running without making a profit is insane.

It will be interesting to see how far this develops.

Skills shortage may crimp Asia's IT rise

Re: Skills shortage

Beat me to it.

At the moment, there still seems to be a serious disconnect between businesses and their IT. I've had a couple of discussions with senior business managers and they really don't seem to be able to understand how they should be using IT within their business. If they can't identify what they need, how can they determine if they are appointing the right people with appropriate skills?

Phoenix IT Group signs £40m desktop support win

Oh no..

I used to deal with a company that supplied some services and they were pretty good. Then they were bought out by the group that is now called Phoenix (TGTINCP - catchy!) and service went through the floor.

They really didn't seem to be that interested any more in the Small / Medium market where they had built their business; they just seemed to want to go after big contracts. A shame as they alienated their good customers and haven't really picked up anything like the business from the bigger outfits that they thought they would.

I stopped dealing with them nearly 2 years ago and they weren't even bothered enough to find out why.

Russians: Decision on diva Sarah Brightman's space trip in early 2013

Shame?

Obviously it would be better if the person going up had specific skills to make them a contributor to the actual programme; perhaps even better if they had a specific project that was going to enhance the flight.

But I suppose that the publicity she would generate for the project would be worth more than the money that she is paying, so from the point of view of maintaining interest, it's a good thing.

I still think that it's a shame that the average person doesn't get excited by the thought that we have people working permanently in space; and that they would rather watch TOWIE than something that is advancing human knowledge

'Brit Bill Gates' Lynch: Only Mad Leo Apotheker understood Autonomy

Re: Anyone ever heard of due diligence

>>do I take the word of a CEO with years of management experience, that understands how company law works<<

Someone desperately trying to hang onto her job.

Fixed it for you.

Re: Anyone ever heard of due diligence

>>Maybe you should go back and read the original article and those that followed.<<

I have; and so far all I have seen is that the HP board claimed to have received information from an ex-employee. So far, they have still shown no hard evidence of any actual failings; nor have KPMG or Deloitte.

>>Leo's responsibility, and he's already gone.<<

Wrong, it's the whole board.

Re: Anyone ever heard of due diligence

Remember Enron? You cannot waive your responsibility to due diligence; you can hire in other people with more experience, but it is still your responsibility to ensure that they are doing their job.

KPMG were hired to check the accounting used by Autonomy; HP's board still have to check that they did so and that they undertook the work in the appropriate manner. If KPMG simply wrote to Deloitte and asked them if it was all OK, then they are not doing their jobs. If the HP board didn't check that KPMG were actually investigating the books, then they are not doing their job.

Now the question is, are there any inconsistencies in the accounts? If there were and they weren't picked up, then either (or both) KPMG and Deloitte are at fault. If there were none, then why are the HP board now saying that there were? (And further what evidence have they shown for their statement?) If the HP board are now saying that they were aware of financial impropriety, but still went ahead with the deal, then quite simply they should be fired on the spot.

methinks they doth protest too much...

UN: Greenhouse gas emissions gap is out of control

Re: Sorry, third world, you need to STAY POOR

>>Last I heard, human ingenuity has no limits. Unless you know differently?<<

"Only two things are infinite. The Universe and human stupidity; and I'm not too sure about the first one"

Albert Einstein

Nearly 90% of SAP customers find its cloud pricing confusing

Yeah, right

"SAP told The Reg it was "actively discussing" ways to make its software licensing easier to understand"

Discussing yes; planning to do anything about it... another matter entirely.

As for moving to their cloud offering, all the prices that I have seen so far would indicate a massive jump in costs for most companies. It's true that there are some benefits to be had, but I would question if more than a few would ever actually see those.

But no doubt there are businesses that will ignore advice from those that know about these things, move across and then wonder why it turns into a major problem.

BT: Olympics cyber attackers were amateurs

Pat on the back

This is the problem that we all face. Do the work to prevent things going titsup and they question if you were crying wolf; don't do the work and get crucified when it all goes pear shaped.

I think that the people working on the Olympics infrastructure deserve a beer for a job very well done. (Or at least a pat on the back)

Why IT chiefs are irrelevant to Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy

Re: Hmmm

This is turning into a very sensible discussion - something must be wrong here!

There was a time when people queried the value of staff having their own PC; did we really need to have so many staff that needed to use a computer? Then there was the issue of laptops; just "toys for the boys" which they wouldn't really be using productively. (At one time, much the same argument was made about the telephone.) The reality is of course that both the PC and the laptop became essential business tools without which most companies now would struggle to operate effectively.

The key item in your last post is that you say "I don't need.. " this is probably true, but the desire (if not the actual need) is being generated by the end users, not by those that have to manage it.

Some years ago, one of the MDs that I worked for was doing a lot of sales overseas. Margins were quite tight and changes in the exchange rate could turn a profitable sale into a loss. I installed a feed on his PC so that he could see the currency movements in real time; the savings were sufficient that it paid for my salary (and more) for the whole year. The same guy now has an app on his smartphone so that he can do the same when he is out on the road. Little things like this sound so silly, but they really do make a huge difference to the bottom line of a business.

And this is the point; it's not about the IT, but about the business. Processes are changing and customers (and staff) are demanding much more flexibility in the way that everyone works. The IT provision will have to deliver that flexibility whilst at the same time trying to maintain stability and security.

As it happens, I suspect that this discussion is not going to go away; there will come a time when people will see tablets, smartphones etc as being really old fashioned (you have to use your hands? That's baby stuff!) I can see a time when we will have wearable comms devices (a bit like ST:TNG) and voice controlled systems. When that happens, I know that I will feel like a complete dinosaur...

Re: Hmmm

"Have you ever tried to understand why IT or Management might take that approach " - I am an IT Manager. I have been for over 15 years.

I can tell you from experience that there are a lot of people that will move on and I say that having already seen some examples. Agreed, many of these are the younger generation now entering the workplace; unlike the older generations (of which I am one) they simply will not stand for working in a way that doesn't meet their preferred method of working. Even if they start, they will move on very quickly and the company will spend more time and resources just trying to recruit replacements.

Senior (C-Level) managers were totally against the idea of BYOD; until they saw a man in the pub that can do something on his shiny toy and then they all wanted the same. They then all became converts overnight and started preaching the "Word according to Jobs". You can put up road blocks to prevent it, but at some point, they will just brush you aside; at which point you lose all credibility.

And I will say again that my views were very similar to yours; but things change and we have to change with them. Those that are prepared to adapt to the changes will find that the process is easier; those that refuse to change will suddenly find that they are being forced to change and that is when it gets very painful.

Hmmm

At first, I was like a lot of people, thinking that this was a pile of pants. However....

Even though it was agreed that we would not be using BYOD, the reality is that a lot of staff and managers are doing exactly that. IT don't officially support these; but it's surprising how often we end up fixing stuff. And where we don't do this, the staff get support from amongst themselves.

This causes a major problem; staff start doing stuff like keeping their expenses on their phones and then expecting the internal systems to allow them to synch the data. Great when they are all using different apps to do the work.

Some IT people (and business managers) take the view that staff will have to accept the company view or go elsewhere; guess what, they will move on. At some stage, management will realise that they can't get the staff and will change their view; and at that point, there will be a godawful panic to implement BYOD in a couple of days.

Power to the people - if you can find a spare socket

New offices

Over the past decade, I've been involved in a number of new office builds. In each case, the architects are clearly working to standards that were set back in the 70s.

For each project that I've been on, I've insisted that they supply a minum of 2 double sockets per desk, along with a triple network point; and then an extra pair of double sockets at any point where they might think of putting a desk at a later stage.

It's always easier to put them in at the beginning than trying to add them later; and it is a lot cheaper too.

Should Microsoft merge Office into Windows - or snap it off?

Re: 'data' != valuable

You've hit a very important nail squarely on the head. The world may well be producing gazillions of bytes of data, but how much of that is actually of any real value to more than the person that created it. More importantly, how to separate the wheat from the chaff; if it's of no value or will never be used again, why spend billions on storing and manipulation?

Word wonks insist GIFs are really JIFs

You say tomato, I say tomato

I've a feeling that the origin of the soft g was in the USA; I worked with some people back in the late 90's that had been over there and they brought the pronuciation back with them. Those of us stay at homes used the hard g.

Personally, I don't care which they use; I'm not even bothered by the way that some people say "dah - tah" instead of "day-ta". But for some reason, I get really wound up by those that pronounce "dissect" as if it had only one s (you bi-sect a circle, you dis-sect a corpse)

El Reg mulls Forums icon portfolio shake-up

Really 18 months?

Perhaps we should have one to indicate the passing of time (Dinosaur?)

Definitely need a new one for all the political debates - crossed pitchfork and flaming torch?

How about one "the end of the world as we know it" - suitable for any new release of software, iDevice, Daily Fail readers etc.

Even £9.8m on consultants can't get UK.gov network push underway

Don't forget the "Brussels beurocrats "

Google, Amazon, Starbucks are 'immoral' and 'ridiculous' over UK tax

Re: what do you expect them to do

"You can't tax sales, that's ridiculous"

VAT - no matter what you call it, it is a tax on sales. (Admittedly, one that the customer pays). Note that each of the companies will have paid VAT which is (probably) not included in the figures given to the MPs.

There is a manual published each year in the UK that provides information on the tax laws. This book has more than doubled in size over the past decade; because the number of laws relating to tax has increased. They try to close one loophole off; and before the legistlation has even passed, people are working out how they can use the new laws to avoid paying tax.

Essentially, instead of passing new laws, they need to go back through the existing legislation to remove the stuff that creates the loopholes in the first place; but as that is actually much harder, they just make new laws that exacerbate the problem.

Navy SEALs from Bin Laden kill unit spanked for video game work

The future of warfare

>>Assuming, of course, drones don't put them all out of work in the near future<<

This has been a suggestion ever since the development of weapons. Every new development is the one that is going to stop warfare for ever. It happened with spears, with chariots, with cannon and rifles.

But the reality is that you will always need the hairy arsed individuals that are prepared to climb to the top of the hill and hold it against all comers. (My interpretation of "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu)

Judge drops TV ad-block block: So how will anyone pay for TV now?

15 million merits

Anyone see the short series "Black Mirror"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series)

The episode "15 million merits" showed a brief glimpse of what might be in store. If you have the credit, you can wave the adverts aside and just watch what you want. If you don't have the credit you have to watch the adverts; and even closing your eyes is detected and as a penalty, the advert break is doubled.

I suspect that we may also start to see scrolling banners across the top / bottom or on the sides of the screen. Possibly a return to the "sponsorship" model of the past. E.g. Coronation Street sponsored by Gala Bingo etc. An increased amount of "product placement".

Personally, I have very little interst in most of the programmes produced so could see me doing without a TV.

HP warns consumers: Don't downgrade Win8 PCs to Win7

Really?

>>'You won't get any help from us'<<

So no change there then.

Bargain! Desperate Comet SLASHES price of £4,400 iPod Nano

Sad

I don't like to see any business go under; it reduces competition & choice, leaves a number of people without jobs; and we all lose a bit because of this.

But it's sometimes difficult to be sympathetic when people bring these things on themselves by poor management, bad business decisions and a failure to adapt to changing conditions. Comet service may not have been quite as bad as Dixons / PC World, but hasn't been good for sometime.

All of the staff that I came across in the last 10 years were very poorly trained; on one occasion, I had to show a guy how to complete a transaction on their till system because he got himself stuck. They had limited knowledge of their products and often gave very poor advice.

I started in retail at the start of the "Pile it high, sell it cheap" concept; I was just leaving when the box shifters realised that customers were beginning to expect more. Comet never got on board with that; neither have some of the others. The end result was / is inevitable.

London council £1bn outsourcing plan survives vote

After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Article from El Reg of 3rd Sept

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/ibm_somerset_council_dispute/

For reference; SouthWest One also promised lots of savings, efficiencies, better services. None have been delivered and the council tax payer has to foot the bill (and will do so for about the 10-15 years).

Psst: Heard the one about the National Pupil Database? Thought not

Welcome to the world of 1984

I'm convinced that it's not the actually politicans; most of them are just too insular to even consider most of the stupid ideas that they seem to come up with.

For some time, I have been of the opinion that all of these ideas are actually being pimped by a group of the senior mandarins in Whitehall. I'm still not sure if they are originating these plans or if lobbying groups are persuading them to put the plans before the political masters. Because the civil servants don't change when the politiicans change, they just wait a bit and then put forward the same bloody stupid ideas.

Perhaps it is time for a root and branch clear out of the whole damn system; clearly, we can no longer trust any of them any longer.

I think that we need to have a pitchfork and flaming branch icon. Big Brother will have to do for now

UK prosecutors, cops ponder new probe into NASA hacker McKinnon

Just remember this

You and I are paying for this legal case - both for the prosecution and for the defence. You are paying for all of the lawyers, all of the police time, all of the time that the various politicians have spent on it.

Just wondering if anyone thinks that this is money well spent?

Mmm, what's that smell: Coffee or sweat? How to avoid a crap IT job

Seriously cynical

I'm in a situation I shouldn't be in; I had some nagging doubts about the job when the hiring manager wasn't available for the interview and had a couple of his staff do it. However, after having checked a load of details it did seem that I was being unfair.

Boy, was that a wrong assumption.

Now I have to say that I am being paid and they are also covering my expenses. But the reality is that what I was told the job involved has proven to be complete bollocks.

I am sat twiddling my thumbs as I have no authority and I spend most of my week looking at server logs to make it look as if I am actually doing some work. I was told that I would have staff; no. I was told that I would be able to make significant changes; no. I was told that their IT was shit and needed to be dragged into the 21st century; that's true, but I'm not allowed to make any changes.

I'm seriously frustrated and now it appears that because they have had a bad year for sales, they will be laying people off. I haven't been told yet, but will probably get the info at the end of the month.

The moral of this tale; trust your gut feelings. If something doesn't seem right, then it probably isn't

Welsh council's unused mountain of 2,400 laptops

This may seem bizarre ...

... but is quite common within the public sector. Someone negotiates a deal for a really good price without actually knowing what they need or what for.

They can't sell them as they will end up losing money and will then get criticised for wasting public money. They can't give them away for the same reason. You'd think that they could just give them some schools, but that would cause a fuss with those schools that don't get any. They could then try to charge the schools; but the schools will probably refuse if it comes out of their budgets as they would rather have new equipment and don't want anyone's cast offs.

They are buggered whatever they do. Welcome to the world of the modern civil service

(disclaimer: I don't work in the public sector although I was a school governor for a long time and had far too many dealings with LEA and othrr LGA.)

Nationwide to perform IT equivalent of 'replacing jet engine mid-flight'

Re: Comprehension Failure

SAP AG is one of the worlds largest providers of ERP software - the name SAP is used for their software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_AG

Would you expect the journalist to tell you that IBM stands for "International Business Machines"? If you work in the IT industry and read an IT news site, it's not unreasonable to expect that you would have heard of SAP and their software (if you haven't used it, you are one of the lucky ones) or if you haven't, to be able to do some quick research that will give you more.

Analysis

Getting the staff: - there are a lot more people trained in the various aspects of SAP. That doesn't mean that they are any good; in fact I've seen a lot of consultants that were less than satisfactory. However, I would accept that the odds of getting at least a few of the better people are higher.

Real-time: - the SAP system can be real-time for their own transactions, but it will still effectively use batch transfers when moving information to other systems. So not really the benefit that that they hope for there. As for anomalies, they will only be caught if the system is programmed to do so.

Flexibility: - (quietly snorts laughing). SAP is not the most flexible of systems unless you have been drinking the SAP kool-aid, in which case you will believe anything. As recent reports show, SAP licencing can also be horrendously expensive and support costs can get totally out of hand. As for scaling up and down; presumably that menas they will rely on the IBM datacentres; they will scale up but I've never yet seen them scale down.

Insights: - Remember the old saying "Garbage In, Garbage Out". This still applies in this case, and the "Business Insights" will only be of any benefit if they have the right people to identify the requirements, design the structure, apply the changes and analyse the output. I've seen some really good output information and I've also seen some stuff produced on a daily basis for years that no-one was ever able to understand.

The biggest issue is the outsourcing; I don't wish to sound as if I am putting the out sourced staff in India down, but in most cases they have limited expertise. They have a culture of moving on after a very short period of time (months rather than years) and never really gain the knowledge that would allow them to be as effective as they should be. Add to that, many of them seem to have gained their knowledge through training facilties that are not approved by SAP.

I don't use Nationwide; and I might think twice about doing so for at least a few years until they get the bugs out of their systems.

(For reference, I've used SAP over the last 5 years on several projects and undertaken a number of certs. It can be made to work, but that is entirely down to the quality of the implementation team.)

Hero police robot back on duty after 'unstable man' blasts it with shotgun

They need a new robot

Sir Killalot was available! Perhaps they should use that as a template to build a few more.

http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sir_Killalot

(BTW, they should bring back Robot Wars; that's how to encourage people in STEM)

A hundred Brit IT bods' jobs under threat at Direct Line

Re: Firing 100 staff to save £100m?

I thought the same at first; but the article does indicate that the IT changes are part of the overall plan and not just the only part.

The problem is of course that even if you get rid of 100 people at an average of say £55k per year (including employment costs, admin, offices etc.) and replace with someone overseas, their costs (including the extra comms costs) will perhaps be half of that; but as many people find, the quality of service nose dives. This then causes issues down the line and the end result is wasted time, possibly loss of customers.

But the main problem is that most businesses now are focussing purely on short term savings; long term planning went out of the window a while ago. They call this "strategy"; (I'm not sure that I would agree, but there you go).

BOFH: Uninterruptible patsy supply

Re: There's no excuse for IT to bypass UPS issues.

IT don't control the UPS systems where I am working. It's been given to the Site services team (eg. electricians).

So at the present, there are two water sprinklers from the fire control system in the server room; one above the industrial sized UPS, one above the mainframe sized telephone system. (I asked if the water was active and got a blank look; I still don't know)

The power input cables need to be replaced as they were under specced; it's been highlighted for 2 years and there have been 2 separate occasions in the past 4 months when they were going to replace them; but the wrong stuff delivered so project put on hold.

Add to that, there are 5 racks around the factory with UPS protecting them; 3 of these have flashing red lights indicating a fault. These have been showing the same fault since I have been here. I'm told that a request for replacement batteries was submitted and they are waiting for details of when this will happen.

I'm not saying that Graham is wrong; it is just down to the individuals concerned. Some do a good job, some don't; that is a fact of life. IT staff are generally no better and no worse than any others.

Boffins explain research with interpretive dance

Re: Oh look

@NB

Someone get out of bed the wrong side this morning?

WTF!

What next; competitions to write the best haiku to determine who takes over at CERN?

(Read "Interesting Times" by Terry Pratchett)