Email

I have sent company emails to my home email account. I done this for two reasons either the employer is abusive and I need a record of my interaction of them, or if I need to think something over.

However The New York Times reports on companies spending millions to keep coporate email safe. This is due to a large number of workers sending business emails to their webmail accounts so they can access them at home as for a variety of reasons. Having read the entire article there is nothing sinster in the employees actions. They basically want a simple way that they can connect to the office and sort out work-related problems unfortunately in the real world lots of companies don't realise that setting up webaccess to an employees inbox will sort this out. I have only worked for one company that has managed this and I didn't need to sent emails to a webaddress.

Technorati Tags: Email, Computers, technology, Trust

Keeping Children Safe On The Internet

While I was reading some blogs I overheard on the radio that the UK government wants to establish a kitemark for software that keeps children safe on the internet from paedophiles.

This news has made me sit and snigger as the fact that any computer contacted to the internet has a browser which allows you to go to any site you like which hosts a message board, forum or gives you access to webmail.

The only real way to keep children safe while using the internet is by being aware of what internet sites they are going on to, using kiddie control software which doesn't let them browse certain sites (surprisely this actually works) and produces a log of what sites they have to, explaining to them that people on the internet are not always who they seem and most importantly actually talking to your child. By talking I mean you get into the habit of asking about "their" day and actually listening. That way they will be more inclined to tell you what is in their letters, emails, etc. In fact they will be so happy that you are interested, you will actually wishing at times they would shut up.


Technorati Tags: government, technology, software, politics, children

No Silver Bullet

I was reading about software development again and came across this article called "No Silver Bullet" The article just reminds you of the fact that software development is a complex process and whatever new methodologies, languages or tools that come around that make development easier they will never be a cure all as software is designed by humans.

A bit of trivia you can find out what ipaddress you are currently surfing from at ip-address.com


Technorati Tags: ip address, technology, development

Going Bust!

I remember reading a post on a forum a few weeks back where one person was explaining that it was difficult and impossible in many cases to get references from some companies if you worked in IT, especially any companies from the 90's as lots of them don't exist anymore. Well on Friday I got this letter from a company I use to work at and apparently they have gone bust. This is the second company that I cannot no longer get a reference from as they have gone bust and so I now cannot prove 2 entire years of my working career. Both companies that I worked for that have gone bust seem to have a problem giving me enough work to keep me occupied so I left and finding out that they no longer exist is not a surpise.



Technorati Tags: jobs, technology, company

How To Spread FUD and Annoy A Mailing List

Mark Shuttleworth decided it was a good idea to invite SuSe developers to work on Ubuntu. He did this by posting this on the Open Suse Linux Users mailing list. You can read his post here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/81 and you can also contact him on this address: mark@ubuntu.com

Just a small point it’s not a good idea to invite developers of another Linux distribution to work on the one you promote by inviting them on a Users List. It’s better to find out the Developers list and post the invite there. You should also remember that lots of the developers are actually paid employees of a company and therefore are tied to the fact they cannot help you.


The obvious point of Mr Shuttleworth's post is to annoy as many people as possible and spread FUD over the Microsoft/Novell agreement.

Technorati Tags: Linux, technology, wars

Sore Neck

I have a sore neck. This is actually a sporting injury but it brought me back to thoughts on RSI.

RSI or repetitive strain injury can be brought on by typing away at a computer keyboard due to the computer setup, envirnoment or the posture of the person using the computer. Lots of companies don't recognise that this is a problem, and make life as difficult as possible for employees suffering from the condition. The best thing in the first place is to stop it occuring by having Display Screen Assessments for all new staff within 6 weeks of them joining. Unfortunately some companies including very large ones are too mean to do this and think it's better for them to sued than to look after the health of individuals.

Technorati Tags: RSI, technology, disability

Open Office and Java

Yesterday week I was doing some programming at work and got stuck on an issue, so I decided to look at the openoffice.org forums. I typed in the URL and received an error message stating that the DNS couldn't be resolved. I then did a whois search and emailed the site admin. I got no response. Today I was still struggling with the same issue and was getting fed up but now the site is back up.

The highlights a problem with software development particularly if depends on other users being accountable rather than companies. They can have problems with support sites and not bother informing their user base that there is this problem. I should point out that openoffice.org open source project is sponsored by Sun and so this issue shouldn't have happened.

Java was officially open sourced this week under the GPL. What does this mean? At the moment very little because there are a lot of little Java libraries out there.

Technorati Tags: open source, forums, technology, computing, openoffice.org, Java

Everyone's IT Expert

Before I worked in IT or became interested in working in it everyone who I met who had a job just introduced their title as "Something in IT". This mysterious job title was to stop people asking questions about their home PC.

However it doesn't work with family or close friends. I'm a software developer and write software that runs the backend of web applications. I have to muddle through my work using guess work and am quite competent at it. However I know very little about networks, printers etc. Yet everyone in my family thinks it's ok to ask me how to fix their printer, network etc or actually network it for them. Then they wonder why I have difficulty- it's because it's not my job.


Technorati Tags: IT Support, family, technology, computing, issues

Insults and Sexism

A few days ago I posted something on a message board. My post was basically a summary of other people's work and told the OP to use the boards search facility. The OP decided it was appropriate to:
1. Insult me on the board
2. Insult me via PM

A forum superuser saw the board insult and replied to the OP that I knew what I was talking about and the OP should use the search facility.

What is interesting in all the posts is that both posters presumed I was male as obviously only men use the computers and open source.


Technorati Tags: sexism, politics, technology, computing, issues

Useful USB gadgets

Every PC nowdays comes with some USB ports so you can attach such stuff as a printer, digital camera, USB pen drive, external hard disk etc. However you can also attach such wonderful things as a christmas snowman and a coffee warmer. As most computers have a limit on the number of ports i.e. mine has 8 ports of which only 2 are at the front, on attaching such useless things makes me wonder and it also makes the author of this article rant as well.




Technorati Tags: PC Gadgets, USB, technology, ports, accessories

Denial of Service Attacks & Copying CDs

A few days ago denial of service attacks became illegal in the UK. It took a long time to get the Computer Misuse Law updated simply because MP's don't understand how important computers are to everyday businesses.

Now the BPI is pushing (about 30 years to late) to make it legal to copy pre-recorded music that you have in one media form to another for personal use. Since the days of tapes people have been copying their own music to play on a walkman and this has never been entirely legal.


Technorati Tags: Law, Computer, technology, legal