Posts by Walter Ramekin

WRONG wrong wrong wrong wrong

"The truth is that users generally aren’t sat down in front a new installation of a new operating that someone has set up for them and just told to get on with it – that almost never happens in either a domestic or a business context."

In my 25+ years ICT consultancy/support to large companies, small companies, charities, personal users: proportion acting on my recommendation to even investigate training: less than 5%. Never mind bosses not wanting to pay - most end users actively reject training. Current case in point - one CEO who wants his first experience of W7 to be on a new laptop on his own on a trip to the other side of the planet. This from someone who gets into trouble with his tried and tested 5-yr-old XP laptop most trips.

Another example of the downsliding usefulness coefficient of Register articles.

The train is upset

v.g.

Avoid Wallet

I paid for a Postini subscription using Google Wallet. When it went wrong - a flaw in their website, I am fairly sure - it became painfully clear that there was *absolutely no way* of contacting Google about the problem. I resorted to snail mail ... and that was returned.

I will recommend against any product or service which requires payment via Google Wallet. It simly can't be trusted.

One tactic

... is to stick with banks which have not merged (at least not for several years). I've managed accounts with maybe 25 institutions in the past decade, and HBOS and RBS/NatWest are two shining/stinking examples: the vast majority of problems can be traced back (eventually) to inter-system incompatibility (not just IT: HR, training, paperwork, everything).

This *especially* applies to accounts for ex-pats and Power of Attorney, but increasingly affects "ordinary folk". Phone banking and internet banking are sometimes more problem-prone than branch, but not always.

I've also noticed an increasing trend for phone banking staff, when presented with virtually any issue, to trot out a default response of "you'll have to visit your branch". Whereas the previous trend in reverse was probably a corporate mandate ("reduce branch staffing, get customers to sort their problems online or using cheap callcentres") now I feel it's resignation or desperation on the part of the call centres ("our systems are broken and we don't understand them so we can't fix problems, and we don't have the time anyway, so push the problem/customer back to the branch, even though we doubt they can help").

Not good. Not good at all.

I do hope ...

... that we Scots learn to be a bit more selective in our moaning. Knee-jerk "isnae fair, puir wee us" gibbering won't just be ignored, it'll become counter-productive.

Damn, that's sad.

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Central Nervous System for the Earth ...

and then it wakes up.

Curses!

I have 12 years of personal finances in Money 2002 (UK).

I wonder when it's going to stop working? Spose I'll have to check the whole reinstall/reactivate process, for when I eventually move off XP to Windows 7. Sigh.

And almost simultaneously: http://www.businesscloud9.com/news_analysis/intuit-expands-cloud-contracts-its-workforce.

But I don't want my personal finances in the cloud, thank you very much.

Memory Lane

Ah, 1976, Fifth Year Geography. Ishbel and Julie ... no, not that memory.

Mr McConville (where he now?) tamed we restless pupils every lesson with an introductory "let's be 'avin' you".

And every time I wondered if, somewhere in the world, there was ...

And now there is!

Thanks for the nostalgia trip.

Mishaptic

I suggest a sweepstake: days from first sale to first attributable death.

My money's on 42.

W

Have you ever worked with Architects?

" It is this lack of consistency, from theory to practice, which distinguishes IT architects most fundamentally from their namesakes in the building industry "

From this, I guess not! I have, for 20 years. So -

"There is just the possibility that architects in IT really are over-hyped, over-philosophical and out of touch with the real world "

- delete "in IT".

Planned *predecessor* to Vista ?

Or unplanned sucks-sessor?

Mine's the one I was wearing when I left before before I came in.

W

A Welcome Distraction

- from worrying about Icesave and Kaupthing.

Hey, instead of kicking Iceland from here to Bermuda or sending in the gunboats, why don't we tell Iceland that Paris is going to be the boss of them for a while. "Paris is your IceQueen, B*tches".

And when she's proven herself capable, which I am sure she will, then she can run for US Pres in 2012. There'll be no stopping her. (Unless Sarah has pressed the red button meantime).

We can but dream.