markwilson.it

Category: Waffle and randomness

  • Basic math lesson for American software companies

    Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, et. al. please take note that the US Dollar price for your product multiplied at the current exchange rate, plus 15% value added tax (UK sales tax at today’s rate) is a lot less than the price you charge us for your software.

    For example:

    A 20-25% uplift is pretty bad (and the VAT will be back to at least 17.5% at the end of January 2010) but Apple and Microsoft are clearly not pushing this as far as they can… let’s look at what Adobe charges:

    • Adobe Photoshop CS4 is $699 in the States (which is £373.03, or £428.98 if we include the VAT) but, get this, Adobe charges us £615.25 – that’s almost a 45% premium… it’s a good job they’re offering free shipping at the moment if I spend more than £350.

    Just to be clear, I didn’t deliberately pick the most expensive products to make software vendors look bad. These are the latest operating system releases from Apple/Microsoft and probably Adobe’s best-known product. No wonder the UK is the third-most expensive country in the world.

  • Thought for the day: coping with information overload

    As I return from a well-earned family holiday, after what has been a pretty crappy few months, it seems like a pretty good time to remind myself of the key points from a magazine cutting that is permanently above my desk at home. Entitled “Your Route to the Top: Coping with Overload”, this appeared in the December 2005 edition of Management Today magazine and looks like good advice with which to reacquaint myself (indeed, an updated version of this list appeared in the May 2009 issue of the magazine):

    “Focus. Successful people are rarely frantic, and frantic people are rarely successful. Take a close look at your schedule and clear out the clutter.

    Make you time your own. Is your diary driving you? Take control and be as careful with commitments as you are considerate of other people’s time.

    Let go. Trying to achieve everything is admirable, but impossible. Realise that an active imagination will generate more proposals than there is time to get done.

    Have a single point of reference. A master to-do list will triumpth over an abundance of sticky notes, text reminders and diary scribbles.

    Prioritise. What’s critical in the next hours, days or weeks? Choose your priorities and fix a later time for less urgent things.

    Ditch your dependants. Are there people in your team who rely on your time? Support them in solving their problems alone. They will feel more confident; you’ll find more time to breathe.

    Lighten the load. Are there ideas where others can help? Match interests to tasks – could someone else write the first draft or attend a new client meeting?

    Break down big tasks. Split a job into its components and tackle each part as needed, rather than struggle to do it all now.

    Bring clarity through sharing. Engaging others at the start can reassure you that you’re on the right track. It also ensures their support and cuts the risk of having to invest time later.

    Use others to estimate your time. Research has shown that other people give more accurate estimates of how long something takes than the person doing the task.

    Get on with it. Once you have worked out where your focus is, stop organising and start doing.”

    Also on my reading list whilst I was away were a couple of MindGym books that my wife bought for me some time ago and David Allen’s Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity. Paradoxically, getting around to reading books like Getting Things Done, is something I’ve been consistently failing to get done for the last couple of years! Let’s see if any of this reading helps me to be more effective when I return to work next week!

    [Postscript: I wrote this post and set it to publish whilst I was away… I never did get around to reading the Getting Things Done or MindGym books. Nor did I finish the one about understanding my strong-willed child, or even the Harry Potter that I’m mid-way through. I did manage to read a few photography magazines though and catch up on my backlog of Sunday Times motoring supplements! Never mind… maybe applying some of the actions above will help me to make the time to catch up on my reading!]

  • How a single sheet of MDF has changed my life

    In my blog post last year about Microsoft Photosynth, I used my desk as an example and, even though I had cleared it up before taking the images for the photosynth, it was still looking congested – as the various items of IT that I use for my work and hobbies vie for placement on a desk that is a best described as small but functional.

    So, last Friday, I decided that something had to change. As well planning a trip to Ikea for some new shelves to organise the assortment of items that are spreading across the office floor (most of which is waiting to be advertised on eBay, Freecycled or otherwise disposed of), I purchased a sheet of MDF. Nothing remarkable – just a single sheet of Medium-density fibreboard, sized 1900x605x18mm.

    Laying this across my desk and filing cabinet gave me a large expanse of flat work surface, upon which to place: the MacBook and external monitor that I use for digital photography; the notebook PC that I use for work; my Netgear ReadyNAS; the PC that I use for video production; my IP phone; and the mouse and keyboard that control the server under the desk (connected to the same monitors as the PC, using a Linksys KVM solution). Now I can reach them all, I can leave my graphics tablet and film scanner on the desk all the time, and I still have room for papers when I’m working.

    My desk, in my home office

    It might only overhang the edge of the desk by a few inches either side but I really cannot overstate how big a change to my workspace this simple change has made!

  • Sometimes I really do wonder why I bother…

    It’s a new day and the sun is shining, I spent some time playing with my kids before starting work – I should be in a good mood.

    Except I’m not… I’m actually feeling quite insecure – and one of the reasons is the comments I get about this blog.

    Last week I wrote a piece about getting Vodafone Mobile Connect working on a Mac. In that post I linked to someone who had managed to speak to a suitably skilled technician at Vodafone who talked him through the process of installing the application as the root user. Thankfully that person blogged about their experience, I found his post on the ‘net and it helped me, so I did my bit to spread the message. Then somebody (for whom I can apply several four-letter words… but I won’t in public) leaves a comment which says:

    “This bears no resemblance to my experiences. I have installed VCM [sic] on about 100 Mac Laptops now and have never, ever had to use the method you describe.

    The standard installation works fine and is a hassle free process.

    I get the feeling you are making a simple installation process complicated by looking for problems where there are none.

    Your advice is incorrect and you really should not attempt to act as a source of knowledge on subjects you know nothing about.”

    Well, great, 15 years in IT (not including the time spent in education before that), over 1300 posts on this blog, some of which have apparently been useful to others, and now the insults start to arrive. I responded, then stewed about it for a while, before deciding that I have better things to worry about and to ignore the comments… until I heard that my efforts aren’t necessarily appreciated by technology companies either…

    …a few weeks back, I was sent some information from a (very large) technology company in which the e-mail said “please cascade as appropriate”. I thought that the information would be of interest to people reading the blog (even though there’s a lot of stuff I chose not to write about) but it seems that some people in the company thought I had breached an NDA (I did not and would not – indeed I have many blog posts stored up that I can’t publish yet because of such agreements) and that small blogs (written by real people) shouldn’t be reporting things that company blogs (written by marketing departments) should be spinning. I double-checked my source – it definitely said cascade as appropriate, which meant I was in the clear – phew! (Furthermore, thankfully, there are people inside that technology company who have been prepared to defend my position).

    Right now it seems that I have a blog which is neither small enough to just take a few hours a week, nor large enough to pay the bills. If I write about real world experiences with technology, I get flamed by fanboys who tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about; meanwhile if I write about technology subjects that are less “hands on”, then the companies those posts relate to get jumpy. It seems I can’t win.

    I spend a huge about of time writing on this blog and if I work out how much it pays me then it’s well below the minimum wage so it’s certainly not worth it from a financial perspective. I used to find the writing therapeutic but now it’s just something else that I don’t have time for in my day. I need a break… especially if all I’m doing is creating Internet noise. It would be a shame to undo 5 years’ work and to pack it in, but sometimes really do I wonder why I bother…

  • More ineptitude from HM Revenue and Customs

    18 months ago, I had a rant about the ineptitude of HM Revenue and Customs in losing the personal details of over 25 million people in the UK. Well, if you don’t want to read another rant, stop now because I’ve just got home and found another shining example of their bureaucratic f***-ups.

    In common with several million people, I filed an on-line tax return recently. I used the self assessment website from HM Revenue and Customs, entered the relevant numbers, and let it work out how much tax I owed. And the good news was that it calculated that I was owed several hundred pounds. Bonus! I like that sort of tax return but sadly my joy was not to last long. A few days after I received my refund and the 31 January tax return payment deadline had passed, I received a letter explaining that there was a mistake on my return and that I now owed the Revenue some money as a result of having been over-refunded. I thought it was too good to be true but I’d just put in the numbers that the system asked for – how was I to know that the line on my PAYE coding notice that said tax underpaid from a previous year was being reclaimed in my tax code was a complete fallacy? Hey – I only read it from an official Government document… (you may detect a sense of sarcasm… it may be the lowest form of wit but it’s also entirely deliberate).

    So I phoned HM Revenue and Customs to check that I wouldn’t be fined for late payment as it was their mistake, to which the response was “How do I know it is a Revenue and Customs mistake?” and my answer was “Because your website calculated my tax bill!” but knowing that resistance is futile, that the tax man is always the first debt that should be paid (and that a smaller refund was better than nothing) I repaid the balance of my account in order to avoid interest and a fine.

    Today, I received a final demand from HM Revenue and Customs. To their credit (excuse the pun!), it was issued on the day I made payment but it was issued on 16 February – just a five days (three working days) after they wrote to tell me that I had been overpaid. What’s worse though is that the final demand was for payment by 28 February and was sent by Royal Mail second class post and not delivered until today – 3 March – a whole 16 days (12 working days) later and after the payment deadline! According to Google Maps the postie could have walked the 217 miles from the HMRC offices in Sunderland to my house in a little under 3 days… so what took the Royal Mail so long to deliver it with the aid of some trucks and vans (no wonder they are losing so much business custom)?

    I suspect that the final demand, although dated 16 February was not posted until much later, by which time my account had been settled. Which begs the question, why can’t HMRC (or anyone else sending out bills) wait a few days to receive payment before issuing final notices?

    Right, time to pack up my soapbox. I found that cathartic and if you’re still reading I hope you did too.

  • Launching the “buy Mark a new camera” appeal

    As couple of weeks back, I started a digital photography course (evening classes) at my local college. I’m been taking pictures for about 25 years and I’ve attended courses before (when I lived in Australia I signed up for a black and white darkroom techniques course – it is truly amazing to see images come to life in a darkroom – as well as a photography course with pro photographer Naomi Burley which looked at everything from the basics of aperture and shutter speed to form, composition and generally taking good pictures) but I’m hoping to fill in the gaps between my traditional photography experience and my IT skills. Then I’ll finally pull my long-overdue portfolio together!

    I’m not sure if there is something about IT that attracts people to photography – or if it works in reverse but, over the last couple of years, I’ve learned that many of the people I know in the world of IT are also keen on photography. Take for example, James O’Neill, IT Pro evangelist at Microsoft in the UK – I haven’t seen any of his photos but I know (from his blog) that it’s something he’s really into. Then I got a Flickr invitation from Atila the Hun… at first it seemed suspect, until I realised that it was Windows Server guru Austin Osuide‘s handle.

    For the last week or so, I’ve been working with an experienced IT Architect by the name of Sean Mantey and it turns out that Sean is also a very talented photographer (check out his Flickr photostream, coverage on the BBC website, and his own website). And then he showed me his camera.

    I always lust after the latest toys from Nikon but having held the camera that Sean uses and taken a couple of test shots, all of a sudden I knew that my trusty D70 is due to be retired… in favour of a D700. The D700 is, quite simply, fantastic. It has a decent, weighty body, a huge screen (big enough for a preview, histogram, and technical data all at once) and, most importantly, a full-frame (FX) format sensor with 12.1MP and stunning light sensitivity – so I can use my lenses (which mostly date back to my F90X film days) to their full effect. In short, the D700 will undo all the compromises I made when I switched to digital and give me back even more.

    Then there are the lenses – I already have an AF-S 80-200mm f2.8 IF-ED lens so, although a modern VR lens (i.e. the AF-S VR 70-200 f2.8G ED-IF) would be nice, its the AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED that I desire in order to capture some full frame landscape photography goodness when I’m on holiday in France this summer (instead of stitching frames together in Photoshop, as I do with my DX sensor and a AF-S 24-85mm f2.8-4D IF lens).

    So, this is the deal: I need to save around £2800 for my new kit but that’s a lot of pocket money (more than the family holiday will cost!). This is where I get cheeky because there are a lot of people who read this blog and if I work out how much I earn from it, it’s quite depressing (let’s just say it’s well below minimum wage). If you subscribe to the RSS feed you don’t even have to look at the ads so, if you find what I write useful, how about sending me a PayPal donation? I don’t ask for much but if I’ve written something that’s saved you some time, effort, even some money, a contribution towards my camera fund would be really welcome. In return, I’ll keep on writing a mix of (hopefully useful) IT and photography-related articles whilst I try to take some good pictures and publish them on my Flickr feed.

  • Photography is not a crime

    In the current climate of political correctness and anti-terrorism legislation, there have been a few situations recently where photographers have found themselves falling foul of the law – for example the US photographer who was arrested whilst taking photos for an Amtrak competition at a railway station (of all places!) – and the UK Home Secretary caused controversy last summer when she suggested that legal restrictions may be placed upon photographers.

    A petition was lodged at the Prime Minister’s web spinning site and this week a response was published.

    There are no legal restrictions on photography in public places. However, the law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place. So there may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations, inflame an already tense situation, or raise security considerations. Additionally, the police may require a person to move on in order to prevent a breach of the peace, to avoid a public order situation, or for the person’s own safety or welfare, or for the safety and welfare of others.

    Each situation will be different and it would be an operational matter for the police officer concerned as to what action if any should be taken in respect of those taking photographs. Anybody with a concern about a specific incident should raise the matter with the Chief Constable of the relevant force.”

    [Number10.gov.uk response to photography law e-petition, 12 January 2008]

    So, there you have it – Photography Is Not A Crime – although an overzealous law enforcement agent may think it is until you take it up with his or her Chief Constable…

  • A new year resolution

    As we entered 2009, I realised that I’ve been writing on this blog for five years (well, a little under five years really as the first few posts were back dated) but what started out as “Mark’s (we)blog” has become a full-time job.  Incidentally, Mark’s (we)blog was a play on words that was lost on most people – “wee” is a synonym for “small” in Scotland and is well-known south of the border too, so I thought that Mark’s weblog also worked as Mark’s little blog – which is precisely why I don’t have a career in marketing…

    The thing is, whilst it’s become a full time job, it doesn’t pay very well.  And I already have a full-time job.  Meanwhile the number of blog posts has been getting silly.  For 2005/6/7 I managed to average about a post a day on week days but, looking back, some of those posts were just reporting tech news and there are better places to get news than this blog (a bit of comment should be expected but this is certainly not a news site).  In 2008 it looked at one point as though I would finish the year averaging a post a day (until I timed out – and burned out – in December).  I can’t keep it up: I have a demanding day job; a family who are losing out; friends I’d like to see more of; and I desperately need to get away from my computers and take some physical exercise every day (or at least on alternate days). 

    It’s not just the blog either – in 2008 I started to produce some videos for Microsoft (which turned out to be very time-consuming); James Bannan and I finally kicked off the Coalface Tech podcast (which we hope to keep on a monthly schedule); and my MVP award was a fantastic achievement but it also presents new challenges for my time management abilities (access to information is great – but I need to continue working with the user groups and forums if I want to be re-awarded in October).  Now I’ve taken on a role as one of the forum moderators for the Windows 7 beta – so that’s going to be another demand on my time over the coming months.

    So, what am I saying?  Well, markwilson.it will continue, and perhaps you won’t see much change at all – but I will be making an effort to only write something when I feel it adds value.  I’ll also be looking to reduce the amount of time that it takes to write each post: the useful links posts that I’ve been running on a monthly basis may become more frequent; I may publish more posts in bullet list/note form; and I will try to work though my backlog of part-written posts – but please don’t expect a post a day (I don’t think I can keep it up any more). I need to make some infrastructure changes too – a WordPress upgrade is on the cards, along with a much-needed overhaul of the site design (and a rethink of the best way to run ads on the site – making sure that they are unobtrusive but balancing that with a need to earn some cash).

    This website has become more than just my little blog, storing the notes I write up from events I attend and key points from articles that I read.  It’s also the focal point for all my non-work IT-related output and I’m frankly amazed at how many people visit it every month.  So, thank you, to everyone who reads the blog; adds my feed to their RSS; leaves a comment; listens to the podcast; watches the videos; or comes up to me at an event and says “hey – you’re Mark Wilson aren’t you?” (which is very weird, but strangely satisfying).  THANK YOU – I wish you a very happy new year and I’ll try to keep producing content.  It’s just that there might be a little less of it in 2009.

  • The British government’s next step on the transition to an Orwellian nightmare

    <rant>As if CCTV on every street corner (which even police admit hasn’t significantly reduced crime) and speed cameras that track movements over 30 miles weren’t bad enough, I’ve just read about the UK government’s plans that, in order to buy a mobile phone, we will soon need a passport (on the pretence that this is part of the fight against terrorism and organised crime). As Gary Marshall points out, have the UK Government never heard of Skype, e-mail, chat over public WiFi, payphones (and do they think that terrorists don’t have passports)?

    There are those who say that, if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear. I’ve nothing to hide – I simply just don’t trust the government not to mix my details up with someone else’s in a monumental database administration error. Only when they can keep my personal details secure, stop leaving top secret documents on trains, etc. will I be happy for them to store more information about me.

    In the meantime, I’m counting the days until we get the chance to vote this bunch of inept <insert expletive here> out of office…</rant>

  • Timezone blindness

    <rant>Daylight saving time is an outdated concept, a complete nuisance and should be abolished.</rant>

    I’m in the UK and I have a call with a Microsoft Product Group in Redmond (WA) tonight at 12:00 PST. US Pacific time is 8 hours ahead of the UK, and we’re both on daylight savings and in the northern hemisphere… or so I thought (I’m still pretty sure about the northern hemisphere bit).

    LiveMeeting tells me that the meeting has not started yet and to wait until the scheduled meeting time before trying again, so I checked the current time in the US and sure enough it’s only 11:00 on the west coast… then I checked the meeting request and saw that Google Calendar had picked up the time as UTC/GMT +7 (which is correct) but in the summer the UK time is not Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) but British Summer Time (BST) and somehow (possibly by Google Calendar, possibly by Microsoft Outlook, possibly by me), the iCalendar (.ics) file that Microsoft provided when I registered for the event had been mangled and my calendar only had a 7 hour time difference. Still, at least I was early not late…

    In future, I’ll be making good use of the other link in the e-mail from Microsoft – the world clock timezone converter – which takes into account daylight saving time (DST) as well as the local time zone.