Posts by Roland6

Re: Future-proofing needs a better crystal ball

Yes in the late 80's/early 90's there was an expectation that fibre would take off, personally, I was sceptical even allowing for the benefits of blown fibre, given the costs and problems of in-situ glass fibre termination. However, plastic fibre looked promising for in-building networking but it too seems to have been past over.

>so fibre to the wifi...

Well, one of the advantages of copper has been the ability to unify data and power over a single cable. However, it does look that with WiFi 6 and its theoretical limit of 9.6Gbps we are reaching the point where AP's will be needing two different connections: one copper for power and a second (potentially fibre) for data, making installation a lot more problematic.

Re: Fibre to the desk?

No, for those wanting REAL fibre it has to be All-Bran

Re: NIC?

Yes having a full function USB-C port, or at least one that supports LAN would make sense, this omission suggests either Cisco didn't consult with real users (particularly users of MacBooks) or they assumed that laptop users would use (Cisco) WiFi for network access...

Re: "In office environments "

>While even fixed PCs can have WiFi, ... unless external antennas are not placed properly.

Got a problem with one client - they invested in a bunch of nano USB WiFi adaptors - yes the adaptor says 802.11n but connection stability is only a given if the adaptor is within 3 metres of a WiFI AP, place it 6+ metres away...

The Ubiquity hub is powered by either PoE (leaving 4 ports for user devices) or USB-C. It doesn't provide any PoE or USB-C power outlets for user devices. So given it's modest power demands, it and a power adaptor could fit in a laptop bag.

The Cisco hub is obviously trying to limit the proliferation of desktop power outlets. However, as noted by others it is an ugly box to have on any desk outside of an electrical engineering lab.

Re: Cisco hasn’t explained why you’d run fibre to the desktop

Having way back in the 1980's spec'd a fibre-to-the-desk/FTTO/FTTx network infrastructure, I know there are use cases, which cause me to question:

1. Why no fibre port - this implies if I actually want fibre-to-the-desk I actually need 2 x FTTx outlets (one for the micro hub, one available to user devices).

2. Why limit it to 1Gbps ports, the top end model should have 10Gbps capable ports and the four port models capable of supporting up to 40Gbps over the fibre....

Additionally, the Cisco website spec's don't give any information about the USB-C power other than the line about laptops, so is it 100w capable?

Re: "when Wi-Fi gets more reliable every year"

>who think plugging in the CAT5 that is Right In Front Of Them is demeaning.

How many times do you reach for the mobile phone first, ignoring the desk phone right in front of you?

Re: "when Wi-Fi gets more reliable every year"

>I haven't got round to putting cat5 round my house even though I've lived here for 5 years and I'm very lucky I have 5ghz wireless

There is 5Ghz (802.11a) and there is 5Ghz (802.11ax aka WiFi6)...

If your broadband connection is sub 30Mbps and you are not using the WiFi for TV casting, you'll probably not notice the difference.

Re: A BIG beneficiary of this will not be a European Biz

Tesla will only get money because it satisfies the criteria of being an EU manufacturing company, which means it has to have facilities in the EU and employ EU residents. So whilst some monies will wing their way across the pond, much will remain within the EU - just like the monies and tax revenues the UK gained from having Google et al set up R&D facilities in the UK.

Perhaps you are suggesting that the UK government shouldn't have encouraged Nissan to set up in Sunderland because profits would go back to Japan...

Re: Everybody is doing it

>"Indeed, and this was both a surprising and unfortunate move by GitLab. I could understand raising the price of the Bronze starter tier"

What is surprising is they are keeping the free tier and seem to want more people to use it. Don't see how this (maintaining the free tier) is going to make GitLab appear to be more profitable...

>There isn't a lot of new features coming out when companies release a new flagship phone these days. It all increments such as slightly better camera, a bit faster CPU or more memory.

Its been like that since the iPhone was originally launched. Just that back then the incremental improvements seemed so much more substantive because they were so much more noticeable and actually made the device more usable.

Re: The neutral doesn't join up with anything on the switch!

> The better version would be to ensure the cleaners are equipped with the T plug so that nothing important gets plugged into the sockets they want.

Several companies I work with, used round pin sockets for the cleaners sockets, which were located in visually obvious places eg. along corridors.

Re: The neutral doesn't join up with anything on the switch!

>The combination of electricity and water/high humidity is rather unfortunate if the electricity isn't done right.

With bathrooms, its the earthing that must be done right...

20+ years back I rewired a house to the then wiring standards. It was quite shocking to discover the difference between 1975'ish earthing requirements and 2000'ish earthing requirements - the 2000 requirements required heavier gauge earthing cable and more of it along with clamps on taps, radiator, etc., in addition to the RCD in the fuse box...

What amused me was that it was now okay to use a standard light switch - as long as its outside the "wet area" whereas before it had to be a pull cord; given the average teenager doesn't dry their hands...

Re: There may be trouble ahead...

>A lot of tech is being developed to make WFH viable. With VOIP and a computer, a phone receptionist could easily work from home.

Suggest rereading your Tom Peters experiences of virtual organisations from the 1980's...

The only difference is that today, the virtual organisation can more easily consist of work-at-home individuals and you would have no real idea as to whether this is or isn't the case, until you are in the middle of a call and the parrot decides to join in....

>There was a piece in the November 2020 CACM by someone from SourceForge who's worked remotely for a long time (I don't recall the author at the moment, and I'm too lazy to look it up). He offered six tips (the article says five but there's a coda) for remote working.

Five Nonobvious Remote Work Techniques

Surprised it was on the first page of a speculative Google and the full text is freely readable.

>But now after a year or so I have started to miss a little bit of office action, pub lunch, talking shit together, and even some collaborative work stuff believe it or not.

Yes, it's the social interaction of any form outside of your home/bubble is the real problem.

Once things get a little more relaxed then there will be opportunities to get together, but much depends on how flexible companies are going to be, which in part depends on how the senior management perceives things.

Re: GUI vs CLI

>I do have a 17" laptop on order to make it easier on the eyes and I suppose at a pinch I could have gone upstairs & connected a second monitor but it's pretty chilly up there.

Not got an HDMI TV in a warm part of the house :)

[Aside: I've experimented with a cheap HDMI projector, however, it's not been much use as I have few walls/surfaces suitable for projection and it is too dim to comfortably use under normal domestic lights alongside a normal led screen.]

>However simply flipping between multiple desktops works fine.

I prefer multiple VM's - Chrome deciding to go slow on one doesn't mean the others are also left hanging. Although it is a little more tricky moving stuff between 'desktops'...

Re: There's very little that working in the office improves

Well one of the big things working in an office does do is: mindset.

When I worked in an office, I had to both make the effort to get to work, but also to dress for work - I found initially my suit (as opposed to jeans and t-shirt) was akin to putting on my armour and helped with the mindset, likewise being in an office and sitting at your work desk, you tend to behave and think differently.

Now working at home, I've found some of the disciplines learnt from the office helpful in getting me into a work mindset.

I think those who haven't worked in an office will struggle to develop the work mindset and then perform the necessary flips between home and work mindsets.

>When will we start to see WFH replaced by WFA (Work From Abroad or Work From Anywhere)?

In the mid 90's, on being given a laptop (386 cpu) and dial modem I joined the Anytime, Anywhere, Anyplace workforce - and became a Lotus Notes & Sametime user.

Interesting reflecting on Dr Syntax's contribution on Working From Home as opposed to Working At Home, there does seem to be two distinct groups: those who (in general) have laptops and are simply working remotely and those who have a full home desktop and office setup.

In both cases, the need for collaboration and unified communications tools like Notes and Sametime is obvious. However, I would hope that with modern hardware etc., the implementation of these tools will be better.

>Perhaps you find the act of writing down too slow and so you lose your train of thought...

You are right, the principal problem is speed.

I fully understand, that was my problem - I'm a visual thinker, and it did take several years to overcome; although even now I find myself doing things to avoid actually sitting down and writing...

Re: Salary adjustments for WFH

>Nobody is expecting an employee in Bombay to be paid the same as an employee in New York...

But that is the logical conclusion to economic aid and development...

Remember that person in Bombay isn't as cheap (in real-terms) to employ as they were back in the 1990's...

Re: GUI vs CLI

>Three GUI & one CLI.

This is where working in an 'Office' can be beneficial, namely the ability to grab additional tech (eg. screens) to do work on. the downside is that typically you have to return said tech before you've really finished with it...

Re: One great benefit to WFH

Another affirmation of the positive effects of lockdown:

Yesterday we caught up with a friend of my daughter's, the friend was diagnosed with ME at junior school they are now doing A levels. Their parents say that lockdown has really changed the attitude of schools.

Previously they had to fight to get schools to take both their daughter's illness seriously and to actually provide an equivalent education, resulting in her falling behind. Since lockdown, with everyone being home schooled, she has had equal standing to everyone, in fact because she has been doing home schooling for some years she is in some respects ahead of her classmates (and teachers), demonstrating that with equal access to lessons she can do as well as those who could normally attend everyday.

>How much work can they hope to do?

A lot more than you think!

Unfortunately, their real problem is getting decent downtime/respite. Under pre-CoViD circumstances, the baby would have been able to spend time at nursery, grandparents, neighbours, nanny etc. Also it was easier for either parent to leave the house for a while. Giving both parents (but more specifically the mother) time to relax, catch up on sleep etc.

"Young and inexperienced people do not seem to function well with WFH"

In the next few years ... It'll be interesting to see if this makes a difference.

Agree with all of the above, I've got my fingers crossed that all the time my son is spending building and running his Overwatch team - consisting of people who he has met via online gaming, will pay off when his turn comes to go to Uni and join the working world. Although I would be happier if he spent a little more time focused on his GCSE's...

When you operating in the territory of things that are harder to write down than explain in person; teleconferences are simply not good enough.

A question has to be why things are harder to write down than explain in person.

Perhaps you find the act of writing down too slow and so you lose your train of thought, something that can be overcome through understanding your thinking style and applying structure and practice (eg. see the Pyramid Principle).

Perhaps the problem requires you to walk someone through a set of diagrams/screens - in the case of diagrams, your style maybe to annotate as you explain. Yes, video means you can easily miss the visual cues as to whether the other person has or hasn't understood the point etc., so we just need to get used to asking and giving confirmatory feedback.

On a slightly different tack; back in the 1980's (before cheap mobiles and easy access to email) I had a PA who made great use of ansa machines to the point where if you picked up a call from her, you often got the introduction: "this is for your ansa machine, not you..."

But yes, there are benefits to be derived from simply spending time together with other people in the same geographic location. For one company I worked for that meant having to visit a rather nice french chateau a couple of times a year.

>That could be the crux of the matter. There is a bewildering number of Linux distros out there. Some random user, having heard of Linux and for whatever reason,. decides to try it, might well just pick whatever turns up first in the search results.

Agree, the issue seems to be the quality of installers.

It's almost as if what is wanted is a pre-installation configuration compatibility checker that determines which drivers your hardware needs and then provides a shortlist of the distro's with open/proprietary driver support and then can download all relevant drivers for a chosen distro (ie. create a drivers disk), so that they are available to that distro's installer.

Pie in the sky I know, but that is effectively what MS did for Windows 10.

>It will be difficult for African leaders to ignore those calls.

Tibet springs to mind... The Chinese will have emasculated the local rulers..

Re: Tempting fate?

>are Apple deliberately picking a fight here?

No, the MacBook isn't a mobile phone.

Also looking at the EU document Malcolm Weir links to, it seems the advice is for the EU to steer away from extending the current common charging standard for portable devices to laptops.

Re: MagSafe is the best charging connector

>In either of these cases, having the laptop plugged in with USB-C or a barrel connector would have meant a $1,500+ laptop gracefully flying through the air and likely me having to explain a busted screen to my boss.

Now having some experience with USB-C only charging laptops, I expect Apple engineer are seeing plenty of devices with busted USB-C ports. Whoever thought something as flimsy as a USB-C connector was suitable to be used as a laptop charging port really needs to be taken outside and shot.

What surprised me is why Apple never implemented the MagSafe connector on the iPad and iPhone, even though it used magnetic connectors for the cover and more recently MagSafe style connectors for keyboard and pen (charging).

Re: 5G is fine with the plebs

>I recall similar arguments when 4G arrived.

I seem to remember the early adopters of 4G who enjoyed similar coverage levels ie. they lived in a area 'blessed' by an operator, saying similar things...

>I find these arguments against progress about as compelling as arguing against gravity.

Not arguing against 'progress' (whatever that is), just keeping the eyes open and applying learning from history as we've been here before: 4G, 3G, GPRS...

If we look at 4G, remember it was supposed to support speeds of up to 1Gbps, however, EE "the fastest 4G network", caps download speeds at 60Mbps, which is still less than half the download speed my 2014 4G LTE mid-range phone supported.

I suggest with 5G we can expect similar and in fact this is exactly what EE are saying, implying that they will be capping 'normal' 5G download speeds at 100Mbps.