Posts by WatAWorld
241 posts • joined Friday 24th February 2012 23:04 GMT
I am thinking you are an accountant, because you can't look at a change in systems and see what it means unless you have links and spreadsheets.
Imagine we outsourced the British Army to Pakistan. Less cost. Guys can shoot just as good. What would the change be to the effectiveness of Britain's national defense?
Do you need links and spread sheets to tell me that?
It has nothing to do with Windows for phones, Android or iOS. It has everything to do with outsourcing key parts of the business.
It is not that Windows means no need for programmers, it is hiring programmers whose loyalty is to boosting their billings to Nokia.
I see the MS reference now, someone else made the same oversight below
There is a huge difference, a mammoth difference, between doing an MS (or IBM) and opening an office in India and hiring staff loyal to you there, and outsourcing to staff loyal to another company.
Switching to an outsourcer, means having staff dedicated to transferring as much wealth as possible from your company to their company.
It matters not if the outsources is in India, the USA or UK -- look at the NHS e-health contracting. Look at other government contracting to domestic body shops.
It is the change in IT staff allegiance that kills your business. They go from being loyal leaches trying to cost their company as little as possible to leaches loyal to an external blood sucking enterprise that is trying to drain your company of as much wealth as possible.
between opening an office in India and hiring staff loyal to you, and outsourcing to staff
There is a huge difference, a mammoth difference, between opening an office in India and hiring staff loyal to you there, and outsourcing where you're getting staff loyal to another company.
Opening an office in India, or other comparatively low wage area, like Ireland or Canada, that cuts payroll expenses.
Switching to an outsourcer, means having staff dedicated to transferring as much wealth as possible from your company to their company.
Re: im sick of getting turned down at job interviews for not being indian
Indian, Chinese, American, ...
Re: Finally!
Are they leaving technology and going to strictly stick to sales and marketing other people's products?
Re: Hardly
So Chemist, you preferred x86 assembler?
Why don't I believe that.
They're cutting productivity, not costs.
They're switching from staff loyal to making them Nokia profitable to staff loyal to billing Nokia as much as possible.
The sound you hear is a death knell.
Good to hear this now as I'd been thinking of getting one of their phones.
Re: Nokia to align IT function with its business focus
I don't know why you're on about MS over this.
It happens with any OS, including the mainframe IBM OSes that were around when Bill Gates was a lad in shorts and Unix.
But you're right about the bribes, er uh, "fishing trips, free meals, conventions in Bahamas, etc. that are an integral part of doing business". I didn't mention them in my earlier post.
And if the bribes aren't enough, chances are your executive quits and gets hired on at a huge salary by the new outsourcer.
The outsourced IT department's job #1 will now be boosting billings
In general, the problem with outsourcing IT is that other people's staff have different objectives than your own staff.
Rather than boosting your own company's profits, the outsourced IT staff now want to boost the bodyshop's profits.
That means hazy project objectives, specification creep, hard coding variables, hard to maintain code, reduced documentation, failure to streamline procedures, not passing on savings from when procedures are streamlined.
All the wasteful stuff your own IT department tried to fight are highly desirable billing opportunities for your newly outsourced IT department.
Re: Ms Fail?
"But Norton is malware or atleast it used to be, ..."
Yes, Norton has improved. I guess the computer makers that pre-install it realized that the bugs Norton used to cause cost way more money and cost too many customers than the money they got for pre-installing it were worth. So Norton improved a fair bit.
But I prefer Kaspersky. Look for sales, the #1 or #2 AV (depending on month and platform) at $20 for 3 machines if you spend 15 minutes looking around web stores.
Re: Ms Fail?
If you were responsible for 10 computers at a business, or if getting your PhD degree depended on your computer could you still live with zero day hazards?
the 6% of malware samples affecting MS customers but not detected by MS is acceptable???
"94 percent of the malware samples not detected during the test didn't impact our customers."
So the 6% of malware samples affecting MS customers but not detected by MS is acceptable??? That makes no sense.
Re: Russian?
It doesn't say they were spying on NATO, it says NATO was one of the customers of the Acid Cryptofiler product, a product that the malware could penetrate.
I have zero doubt that the USA spies on the EU and EU nations. I have zero doubt that major EU nations spy on the USA and on each other.
The artifacts of Russian in the code, those could have been inserted intentionally.
And the infecting country could well have infected some of its own machines, knowing that there would be no harm in doing so.
You would probably have to look at what commands were sent, what data was sent back, from multiple infected machines from multiple countries, to try to figure out which country was behind this.
So this is where all those snoopy privacy destroying logs that ISPs are supposed to keep on us all are supposed to come in.
So, do they have logs from the past few years that they can go back and look at? Or do our rulers exempt themselves from surveillance?
Re: another reason to use a non-MS operating system
Did you bother to read the article?
"The researchers said the malware also has the capability to steal data from smartphones including Android handsets, iPhones and Windows Phone mobes - including Nokia, Sony Ericsson and HTC models."
Climate change gurus are part of a religion, not a science
To win their case they use repetition, faith and unquestioning trust in authority, rather than the scientific principles of sharing raw data and critical peer review.
You'd think there would be a vegetation free zone around this expensive sensitive equipment
They are living dangerously not having a 200 m vegetation free zone around this expensive sensitive equipment.
If the plexiglass covering on a camera housing melted, you can imagine what some of the wiring will be like.
And then there is the soot on the lenses.
Posted in US nuke lab drops Chinese networking kit
He who looks behind the door hath hid there once himself.
I assume US officials know all about the home countries of telecom companies getting backdoors installed into the stuff exported to foreign countries.
Re: Stubenville city replies
"When I used to watch CNN there would be the 4 stories getting 24/7 coverage: one political story, one industrial accident/fire, one pretty white girl who had gone missing."
My point there, the other political stores, the other wars, the other industrial accidents, and the other missing girls (most of whom were not white) got zero coverage from CNN.
It was 24/7 about one story from each category, and when one missing white girl story was resolved, it would be replaced with another. Each category would be filled with one story at a time.
Stubenville city replies
http://steubenvillefacts.squarespace.com/
It seems the calls for outside investigators and independent prosecutors are things that are being done.
As well as allegedly having a tradition of letting high school football players get away with rape, the USA has a tradition of making a big thing about crimes that happen to pretty white girls.
When I used to watch CNN there would be the 4 stories getting 24/7 coverage: one political story, one industrial accident/fire, one pretty white girl who had gone missing.
It turns out that stories of the police chief's son being at the party, or being one of the rapists, or being on the football team are untrue. Same thing with the initial lead investigator.
It turns out that stories the girl was carried from party to party are the sick thoughts of some commenter somewhere, being repeated endlessly.
I'm sure the press will be carefully going over Stubenville city's claims on that web page looking for any holes. From what I can see most of the information should be easy to check out from school year books.
I cannot help but think that this is one rape of one pretty white girl, one of dozens of rapes that occurred that weekend across the USA.
Why does no one care about the other dozens of girls who were raped that weekend?
the Indian rape case involved a death
The Indian rape case involved a death is why. That makes it a much bigger deal.
Still, this case in the states should get a bit of coverage in Canada and the UK. I mean, it isn't happening so often that it is not news -- is it?
ABC News has this on the story
http://abcnews.go.com/US/steubenville-officials-launch-website-alleged-teen-gang-rape/story?id=18139460#.UOimI3cvmWY
Set higher standards for trivial patents
1. The USPTO should set higher standards for non-trivial patents. Most patents we read about are very trivial.
2. The USPTO doesn't do much in the way of searching for prior art; they figure that can be done later if someone launches a dispute.
True, so make the dispute mechanism regarding evaluating prior art simple and free. If someone sends in prior art, there should be no need for lawyers or courts to get the patent tossed.
3. It should not matter if the patent or the body disputing the patent is or is not present in the USA. There should be no national preference.
Re: Rogue.
Tragedy of the commons? How do you use a JAVA instruction so many times the supply of that JAVA instruction runs out?
I share your point of view that the idea of the tragedy of the commons is taken too far, but it rarely ever begins to apply in the cyber world.
Re: Rogue.
If we all roll over and play dead that will surely be the case.
But be a man and make a stand if you feel strongly about this.
If you're in the USA, respond to the request for input and send copies of your response to your senators, rep and the white house.
Re: Here say?
I think you can post links in the Reg. Presumably you know the local papers. I'd like to read more.
accessories and accomplices
Accessories and accomplices are libel for the same range of criminal penalties as the person who committed the original crime.
So yes, let us hope they go after the closed mouthed people practicing a civilian version of the thin blue wall of silence (aka the thin blue wall of obstruction of justice).
But that may not happen, perhaps because it would set precedents that could be used against the thin blue wall of silence.
Social media firms should always ask for a search warrant
Social media firms should always ask for a search warrant, and in cases like this a search warrant should be easy to get. Same deal with ISPs and telecos, no search warrant, no info.
Social media firms should not be deciding what and what not to reveal to police based on rumors or vigilantes.
Search warrants are easy to obtain when there is probable cause, and can be obtained 7/24/365 if necessary.
I suspect (but do not know) the police, being typical American police, did not want to go out of their way to harm the local high school football team -- which is pretty sad if true.
I mean, did they even try send the phones off to attempt to have the deleted data recovered?
Re: Some users are threatening to quit the site
It worked on classmates.com, myspace and google plus.
Re: haaaahhhhhaaaaaaa
Oswald Mosley is the only non-banker in the same league of wankers as bankers.
Social networking sites are tier two wankers -- professional wankers capable of outrageous wankiness, but incapable of utterly destroying the free world's economy.
They are pretty clear that they don't own and can't sell your photos.
Usually the question is, "Did the other commentard read the article?" But in this case I'm wondering about the editor.
"Sell"? They are pretty clear that they don't own and can't sell your photos.
What they can do is sell the use of the photos.
Still, it is a pretty dreadful wording.
I wonder, did they intend something like Facebooks' "Instant Personalization" but the lawyers used over-general wording?
Re: Why doesn't Apple simply 'Man Up'?
The aviation and ocean shipping industries trust GPS. There is nothing wrong with GPS.
The problem is with the maps and the company providing the maps or making the software to interpret the maps.
I can excuse being out of date due to road works and missing minor streets and backlanes, but that is all.
Did Apple get the location of the town wrong because they copied someone else's map?
Re: Not that big of a deal?
You read the article right? The answer is in there.
Like with smudged screens, they produce screens that easily show finger prints so that when others produce screens that easily show finger prints they can sue them?
Re: Why doesn't Apple simply 'Man Up'?
Withdrawing Apple's map or admitting that a product affecting life-safety was introduced before it was ready could be evidence in trials settling law suits.
And that is the thing, few consumer software companies understand where fun products whose performance does not matter much end and life-safety products begin.
but those trusting *Apple* must share some blame if they end up in the wrong spot.
but those trusting *Apple* must share some blame if they end up in the wrong spot.
companies should encourage everyone to make reviews in order to balance bad reviews
Most adults know that some people are never happy with their service. But most adults also know that if more than 5% of the customers are unhappy there is something wrong with the company.
When I look at ratings, I'm concerned with the ratio of good to bad reviews and the number of reviews.
If there are just a few reviews, I assume only the dissatisfied did reviews, and then I try to guess how many customers there were in total and assume that most of those other customers would have given somewhere between 3 and 5 stars.
I think what companies should to counter bad reviews is to encourage everyone to make reviews. Put reviewing website URLs on little thank you cards they had out with their bills.
Amazon had the right idea when they would email everyone 2 weeks after a delivery from an Amazon affiliated store to get a rating. That is probably the only legitimate way to get 5 stars and a truly useful rating system.
CNBC says Yelp now uses employees (I expect "secret shoppers") to detect businesses that pay customers for good reviews. So you can ask for a review, but if you pay for a review you're asking for trouble.
"The growing trend has resulted in a crackdown in which Yelp employees stage "sting operations" to catch perpetrators. If caught, the Yelp page for the guilty company will host a red alert banner on the review page, informing consumers of the business' indiscretions."
Stick to opinion and “tell the truth, and you won’t get into trouble.”
Also this advise in the Washington Post article:
"Berlik, the lawyer, has a few words of advice for those who want to avoid similar lawsuits: Stick to opinion and “tell the truth, and you won’t get into trouble.”
If true, people would be sent to jail almost every time someone was acquitted of a crime.
"Under Virginia law it is a crime to falsely accuse someone of committing a criminal offense."
If that was true, people would be sent to jail almost every time someone was acquitted of a crime. So obviously there must be more to it than that. I looked for further explanation on US-based websites.
I did find this in a Washington Post article instead:
"In Virginia, someone can be found liable for defamation if he states or implies a false factual statement about a person or business that causes harm to the subject’s reputation. Opinions are generally protected by the First Amendment."
(Washington Post would be a local paper for people in Virginia.)
A December 7 CNBC News report says a recent court filing (by Dietz I believe) claims Dietz and Perez were high school classmates.
Not to say that this particular review was or was not legitimate, or that this lawsuit was or was not intended to suppress legitimate bad reviews. But there is a move to fight back against the use of lawsuits to suppress bad bad reviews.
"Mark Goldowitz, founder of the Public Participation Project, which monitors such lawsuits, said he sees a troubling trend in review site defamation cases such as the one in Fairfax. He thinks they are a threat to vibrant new communities that have sprung up around Yelp and other sites.
“The suits can have a chilling effect on people’s willingness to share information,” Goldowitz said. “It does lead to people not posting reviews for fear of getting sued and to taking them down when threatened by a lawsuit.”
His group is pushing for a federal law that allows defendants to seek early dismissal of lawsuits that are aimed at silencing voices on public issues. Twenty-seven states, including Maryland, and the District have such “anti-SLAPP” laws, but not Virginia, according to Public Participation Project."
Full article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/2012/12/04/1cdfa582-3978-11e2-a263-f0ebffed2f15_print.html
Re: How can anyone cost justify F-35s on the basis of them being useful for 30 years now?
the average useable life of a *combat* aircraft is 10 years
How can anyone cost justify F-35s on the basis of them being useful for 30 years now?
If they can do this with a helicopter at such low altitudes in hilly terrain, imagine what they can do with higher altitudes over less hilly terrain.
If things are this far along, how can anyone justify F-35s on the basis of them being useful for 30 years?
It seems to me that we're entering an age like the late 1950s and 1960s, where the average useable life of an aircraft is 10 years, and then regardless of how much life is left in the airframe, its obsolescence makes it too dangerous to take into combat.
He's not an alleged slave
McAfee is not an alleged slave on the run. He's an alleged murderer.
Let him have a fair trial and if he is guilty let him go to prison for a reasonable amount of time.
It would be wrong to give him a trial before a court rigged in his favor just because he is a US citizen and the crime he committed was in a foreign country.
In days he'll be back on US soil
The USA is big on prosecuting foreigners who allegedly commit offenses on their soil, but they are also pretty big on bringing their own alleged felons home unpunished when they commit offenses on foreign soil.
The heart attacks may or may not be real, but one thing is for sure: This is the excuse the State Department needs to successfully pressure its vassal state Guatemala into sending McAfee home to the good old US of A.
In any event, I hope McAfee turns out to be okay and gets a fair trial before an impartial court to evaluate his guilt or innocence.
Posted in Dell launches Sputnik Linux Ultrabook
Re: I like that it's certified Windows 8 compatible!
Blame the hackers. Microsoft tried allowing other software to run and it ended up being rootkit-ed endlessly.
Posted in Dell launches Sputnik Linux Ultrabook
13" screen for developers is laughable
I can just see sitting at a 13" screen for several hours straight. And they keyboard will be correspondingly cramped.
I can't even see BYOD developers on short term contracts wanting something so small.
I hope the failure of this one laptop does not lead Dell to think the concept would not work with desktops and 17" portables.
Re: The people who count will give the USA a free pass on acting like China on this
So you won't object to your allies spying on you?
Do you go so far as to be content if some US soldiers and intelligence agency employees have greater loyalty to other countries than the USA?
Re: The people who count will give the USA a free pass on acting like China on this
Just to be clear, I'd have only minor objections to Canada becoming the 51st through 63rd states. But until that time, comes Canadian government employees should have loyalty to Canada first.
The people who count will give the USA a free pass on acting like China on this
Those people being US citizens, since the rest of us don't get a vote. It is routine for them and their country to criticize, impose sanctions on and even invade other governments and countries for doing what they themselves routinely do.
They're our self-styled world police and they act with the same monumental hypocrisy and disregard for the rule of law that we in the new world sadly have come to expect from our police.
The big question in my mind is whether the USA has broken into UK, Canadian or Australian government networks, and *IF SO* was the lack of reports of this due to incompetence or "patriotism to a foreign power".
Hopefully the USA did not, *BUT* if they did, (a) would it be discovered, (b) if discovered would the individual discovering it and his bosses pass that information up the chain to elected officials of their own country, and (c) would anyone let voters know the USA was spying on an ally?
I hope I'm not being too strong here, but I have strong concerns on this issue and the extent to which the patriotism of too many Canadian and UK government-employed security service and military people have to their own country is questionable.
I'm a dual citizen, Brit living in Canada for a long time. I can tell you that in Canada loyalty is questionable for a significant number of people I've met, but I've only met a tiny percentage of the total number of such employees. So patriotism to Canada taking second place to patriotism to a foreign power is something I've seen, but I have no idea if it is a big issue or tiny. Canada only sent a tiny contingent of snipers to Iraq for example, and them going was done covertly without the knowledge of voters at the time.
As far as the UK goes, well we had that dodgy dossier, the guy in charge of it got promoted, there was that attack on Iraq and Tony Blair has still not been sent to The Hague to have his guilt or innocence judged by a fair impartial court. So from here it seems to be a bigger issue back there.
Re: I love your 10 whatever reviews of consumer products, where you review 10 competing products
The other website I mention, they do fall into the category of over use of tables. They'll run 8 different sets of benchmarks on each (say) video card and report on each in detail. They'll have 20 histogram tables in one review comparing graphics cards.
That is over use of tables to the point of unreadable boredom.
But a tables to compare resolution, power consumption, dimensions, and 3 columns with frame rate on each frame rate test, a table with 6 columns and one row per product is fine.
Mobile phones, a table to compare battery life, O/S, weight, dimensions, screen size, screen resolution, at a glace, is very useful -- much more useful than the same info buried in separate paragraphs.
Numbers are objective. Opinions depend on point of view.
I agree products should be evaluated on what they do, not what the reporter thought they would do.
However, reporting variations between what a product is advertised as being capable of and what it actually is capable of is very useful.
I need the numbers. Numbers are objective. Opinions depend on point of view.
Compare battery life in a table. Is 8 hours good or bad compared to the competition.
What we get too much of on North American review websites is a nice touchy-feely story woven around a re-print of the distributors press release.
I could see adding more photos to what the manufacturer has produced.
Re: I love your 10 whatever reviews of consumer products, where you review 10 competing products
Actually testing to see if a device meets claimed specifications would be the next best improvement to individual consumer reviews you could make. And if you could do that testing on samples anonymously purchased from random suppliers (rather than specially tweaked samples provided free by the vendor) that would be perfect!
Tom's Hardware does a pretty good job of this with the enthusiast (hobbiest) products they review, such as top-of-the-line consumer graphics cards. But they seem to use specially provided samples, which the vendor may have tweaked. (Sometimes there is no alternative, where a product is not available for sale, but then is a pre-release sample with pre-release firmware something a later production product can be evaluated on? Probably not. But they're in a hurry because their enthusiast readers (hobbiests) -- their target audience -- want to be on the bleeding edge of technology.)
Also they tend to ignore what is most important. For example, they don't test SSDs for stability in desktop situations where supply voltage may vary, they only test speed. What is more important for accessing your data? That it be 10% faster or that the data be there? That the data be there of course. But testing reliability might be embarrassing to vendors.
So yes, adding actual tests of samples obtained by making anonymous purchases would be a valuable addition to consumer reviews.
