Technically Speaking

Eric: you're spot on

David Cartwright — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:40:22 GMT

I was reminded today of something Eric Schmidt (chairman of Google) said last summer: "Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made".He's absolutely right, and it irritates the hell out...

Always consider the eventualities

David Cartwright — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:06:39 GMT

A while back I did a fairly major upgrade. Because systems had to be down it had to be done overnight; not a big deal, it's a perfectly normal thing to do as a techie. My colleagues and I spent...

IPSec: the right choice as your WAN backup

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

We're in the process of taking on a new partner to look after some of the systems whose support we've decided to outsource. It's nice letting someone else deal with all the RFP guff for once; all I really have...

Machine-to-machine 3G: a new thing?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

Last year I moved into a cottage that didn't have anything resembling a phone line, let alone Broadband. A colleague had at this time been waiting a number of weeks to have his Broadband installed, and the light at the...

Asterisk in a carrier setup?

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:00:00 GMT

It's a while since I played with (and, for that matter, wrote about) the Asterisk Open Source IP Telephony package. But as it happens I was having a pint with a friend from the telecoms industry last week, and he...

Are Mac-based Windows VMs be as good as the real thing?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:11:39 GMT

I'm about to get my eye back into .Net development on Windows and C development on Linux, primarily so I can do a couple of projects I've been promising myself for ages I'd have a bash at. Being the user...

The problem is sometimes what you think it can't be

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:50:50 GMT

I had one of those odd problems today. You know the sort: something stops working for no apparent reason, and although there are two identical machines sitting next to each other, and you can ping them both, but you can...

Size clearly matters

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:11:15 GMT

I've worked with both large and small suppliers a great deal over the years - but it's the large ones that frustrate me most. Well over a year ago I invited one of the biggest to implement a WAN optimisation project...

Why do I have a maintenance contract?

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:40:45 GMT

The guru from my PBX maintenance company was in this evening to do some work. As we waited for things to reboot (you know the drill: ten minutes to make the change, 45 to wait for the multiple reboots to...

Why are modern-looking telephones not that modern?

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:52:26 GMT

I have three types of telephone system in the company I work for: Mitel 3300, Cisco Call Manager, and ancient monster that's soon to be replaced. With the exception of this third category, all these systems are pretty new,...

PDF - an efficient delivery mechanism?

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:41:20 GMT

I had to send out a corporate communication the other day. I wrote it in Word, with some words and a few little graphics (flags, screenshots, and so on). Came to 148K, which I thought was pretty good. As I...

Do you challenge your suppliers?

Fri, 28 May 2010 11:05:17 GMT

Do you have "preferred" suppliers? Most companies do. Have you challenged their value recently? In many cases, I suspect not.When I worked in academia, we were told to purchase all our Mac kit from a particular supplier, because they offered...

Cisco - get your finger out and make me a firewall!

Sat, 08 May 2010 09:48:11 GMT

I called one of my suppliers this week to get a quote for a pair of Cisco ASA5510s. These are cracking little security appliances, and I've got quite a lot of them around my world.I was a little surprised to...

When freebie justice is done

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:51:36 GMT

A colleague of mine was sent a bottle of nice fizz by a supplier. Since my colleague is closely involved in the purchasing process, she was told that she couldn't accept it. Frankly this is utter crap because quite frankly...

Carry on with Vista or switch to Windows 7?

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 10:24:01 GMT

Twice in recent weeks I've been chatting to senior IT managers who are in the middle of Windows Vista roll-outs. In both cases the individual has been torn between two options: do I carry on with Vista or do I...

Naymz: sometimes the time comes to stop

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:10:42 GMT

I've a reasonably full connection list on the LinkedIn contact site, and although I don't use Facebook as much as many of my friends, my list of friends there is also pretty comprehensive. A couple of weeks ago I started...

Do vendors have internal meetings?

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:14:24 GMT

I had a wonderful chance to wind up one of my account managers the other day. This is a company from whom we buy a fair pile of kit each year, and as such we have a number of direct...

Ask yourself: what's changed?

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:25:20 GMT

I had a problem with my IP telephony system the other week. For some reason, calls were working fine around all my sites except between two particular offices. The first question I asked was: "What's changed"? There was one...

Sungard's John and Bob: the guys who get it to work

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:10:18 GMT

Last night I spent a delightful two-and-a-half hours on the phone. And this despite the fact that: (a) it was Saturday night; and (b) the call started at 10pm which meant I was sitting at my desk instead of down...

BT: Give it up, you should be above this nonsense

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:04:57 GMT

A few weeks ago, while away on business, I got a call from the pushiest marketing guy in the world. This person was, I hope, not a member of BT staff, but merely someone from a marketing company running a...

Why does AV break my world??

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:53:44 GMT

I had a mysterious problem a year or so ago, when a server started mysteriously to go hideously slowly. Having investigated everything to do with the network, the database and anything else we could see that had more than a...

Web 2.0; the millionth word in the dictionary

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:53:00 GMT

It was announced recently that "Web 2.0" had become the millionth word in the English dictionary. My immediate reaction was: "What a load of old b****cks".

Web 2.0; the millionth word in the dictionary

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:53:00 GMT

It was announced recently that "Web 2.0" had become the millionth word in the English dictionary. My immediate reaction was: "What a load of old b****cks". Let's get this straight. Web 2.0 is a vague term, not a proper word....

Hello? Are you still there? Dammit ...

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:57:00 GMT

What is it with Orange?

Hello? Are you still there? Dammit ...

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:57:00 GMT

What is it with Orange? I've used their cellular service since I joined Network Week, back in 1995. And for years they've served me well. Why is it, then, that my mobile is becoming increasingly irritating to use? The other...