If ever someone deserved it...
This guys does. Sponsorship, that is. Whatever your views on the troops in Afghanistan, anywhere else or the military in general (or if serving, your views on the RMP!), Major Phil Packer is one tough guy who deserves our support to reach his sponsorship target. A man told he'd never walk again attempting the London Marathon on crutches? Come on, get over to his site and make a donation.
And yes, we know the marathon was yesterday, but it's going to take Phil a few more days to finish as he's only allowed to do two miles a day...
PS And pass it on, only 650,000 more people donate £1 and he's hit his target 
Posted at 08:08AM Apr 27, 2009 by Chris Puttick in General |
And I thought this one had been dealt with already...
So, way back when (that being when as an IT professional I realised that open source was the way to go), one of the common issues raised with adopting it in your organisation was "who do we go to if it goes wrong?", commonly shortened to "who do we sue?". Well, I had an answer ready for this, as it was a big part of the reason for my change of heart.[1]
Who do we sue?. Well, no one. Open source, closed source. Free or really expensive. One hobbyist's creation or a product of the world's most profitable company.
And I quote:
"YOU CANNOT RECOVER ANY OTHER DAMAGES, INCLUDING CONSEQUENTIAL, LOST PROFITS, SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES.
This limitation applies to
- anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and
- claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if
- repair, replacement or a refund for the software does not fully compensate you for any losses; or
- Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.
Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you. They also may not apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages." (c) Microsoft, from the Office 2007 Standard edition licence.
The warranty section is even more fun. For those who doubt (read "those who never read the licence they are agreeing to"), this useful site should help them:
http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
Coincidentally, exactly where I got my copy of the licence from for the quote above, having never installed MSO2k7 on my (Linux) computers
[1] Previously I was a Microsoft qualified sort of IT person, with expertise in NT/2K server and a specialism MS Exchange 5.5. You live and learn, and I was so much younger then 
Posted at 09:52AM Apr 03, 2009 by Chris Puttick in General |
Mii injured...
Some out there will immediately read the title of this post and say "Ahh, yes. You too?". Others will quickly guess at the implications but not quite understand and rush to confused conclusions. For all, here's the why and the how...
So, I was a bought a Nintendo Wii. With the Sports pack. That would be enough for those partly in the know to understand. For the uninitiated a Wii games console uses a controller that, unlike the more traditional joystick, requires you to move it through real space in 3 dimensions to play the game. Wii Sports is a game and add-ons that allow you to play various sports (tenpin bowling, baseball, tennis, golf and boxing). Many Wii games have "players" you choose from and create that are called Miis.
I haven't injured one of the Miis, strictly I've not actually injured anything. Turns out that while taking part in sports on a games console involves very little running around, reproducing the movements uses many of the same muscles. Combine that with a very competitive person, the enthusiasm of a puppy with a new toy and a system that rewards you by increasing its perception of your skill level and the skills of the computer opponents you are presented with and you get, well, ouch. I feel like I've played about 300 frames of tenpin bowling, 20 baseball innings, gone a few rounds with the bag and been soundly trounced in several games of tennis. Which I have, sort of...
Posted at 09:48AM Feb 16, 2009 by Chris Puttick in General |
Containers being standard makes the world a better place
Or at least a cheaper place. Which may or may not be the same thing, but for me professionally it is basically true. A way of achieving the desired output that is cheaper than the last way is a good thing and allows the money saved to be spent elsewhere.[1] This should make the world a better place, albeit marginally.
So, containers. Specifically this post was inspired by shipping containers, but there many other things out there, like railway gauges, that have been beneficial by their being standardised.
Before shipping containers the speed with which you could load a ship was controlled by all sorts of factors: the size and type of ship; the sizes and types of the objects to be loaded onto the ships; the cranes available at the dockside or on the ship itself; numbers, strength and current injury status of dockhands and crew members; etc..
With containers someone loads the stuff into the container limited only by volume and mass, in much the same process, time and effort they would have needed in loading the vehicle delivering the goods to the dock. The container is then put on a train, an artic or a barge and moved to the dock where one type of crane lifts the container onto the ship. The containers are a standard size and shape and a known maximum weight. The ships need loading space that fits containers and can be scaled as necessary.
The end result is a method of shipping goods around the world in huge quantities at a small proportion of the costs before. Using containers is simple, safer and less time-consuming for everyone. Excellent. A simple and open standard saving us all money. Your container needs to meet a size and strength specification, have places for the crane to get hold suitable for the maximum gross weight of the container, and be marked appropriately as per the ISO standard.
Now in much of IT standards have been equally beneficial, and pretty much all the best ones have been equally open. The Internet only exists because the standards were and are open to all; the web as we know it today only exists because the specifications for HTML and HTTP, etc., were open from day one. Networking works because TCP/IP is a standard (the dominant protocol used to connect network devices to each other); because RJ45 is a standard (the network port and plug you probably have on your workplace wall); because Cat5 is a standard (a standard for network cables, most likely the cable connecting your computer to the network port). And so on and so on, throughout your computer and its connected devices (a few hardware manufacturers being a dishonourable exception 
) all the way up to the operating system.
Until we get to interchanging human-level data. Then we (collectively) seem to think standardisation is about having the same software version as the majority. It isn't. We need to standardise the way we interchange data and as consumers, whether professionally or domestically, ensure that those providing the tools with which we create and share data use and comply with those standards. We need interoperability. This will have much the same benefits to us all as shipping containers have had and that the other standards which IT already depends upon have had. Real interoperability. That means I use my computer to create a file and store it and you use your computer to retrieve it and read or edit it. Without issue. Without you having to use the same software, operating system or even device type as me.
I want to be able to create a document using OpenOffice on a Kubuntu PC, store it on my document management system and have you able to access it with your Symbian or other smartphone and read and edit the document with whatever software you have on it and store it again, then someone else retrieve and open it to check and comment on something in the document using their Apple Mac using whatever software they have, and so on. Without anyone having to fiddle with formatting or install some extra stuff so they can access the document management system. And then me retrieve the document again, open it with Lotus Symphony on a Moblin Netbook, accept or reject the various comments etc. and PDF the document and email it off.
This means the format I save it in has to be a standard and all the editing packages have to properly, really support that standard. Luckily we have one that we can use for that, ODF (OASIS Open Document Format). It means that all technology involved has to be able to speak the same network protocols. Luckily we have some that work great, TCP/IP and HTTP. It means that that the devices all need to be able to authenticate to the document management system. More difficult depending on the strength of the authentication required. But we trust SSL/HTTPS for many online financial transactions so that should do. Awesome, I have what I want!
Except one software manufacturer seems to think I don't want interoperability on my terms, only on theirs. They call it "true interoperability". A phrase which as someone pointed out has all the Orwellian overtones one could possibly want. Especially when you find out that interoperability on their terms doesn't seem to mean the interoperability outlined above but something far more like the "interoperability through everyone using the same software" situation that we already have. Annoying isn't it? Even more annoying when you find out that company, having avoided being involved in development of ODF, are now involved in numbers and trying to prevent it becoming more interoperable.
Interoperability. We want it. It will be good for all of us, make life easier, make IT more inclusive, drive down costs, etc., etc.. Apparently however we must be clear we want real interoperability, proper interoperability, interoperable interoperability. Not that pesky Newspeak "true interoperability"...
[1] Bearing in mind my employer's "not for profit" status. Those in the private sector can think more money for shareholders and maybe the public sector can focus savings on reducing taxes
Posted at 02:35AM Feb 05, 2009 by Chris Puttick in Open Standards |
Becoming part of Ubuntu Planet
To quote the audience participants in The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged): "Maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe not...". But OA is submitting a feed of Ubuntu related blog posts for inclusion in Planet Ubuntu. We may or may not get accepted, and it will just be posts tagged as part of the feed. But 't'will be cool to be so accepted...
Posted at 12:12PM Dec 15, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Ubuntu |
Lock-ins - anyone's friend?
No, not that type of lock-in.[1] I'm talking hear about the deliberate and/or thoughtless aspects of some software and hardware products.
There are some companies notable for a traditional approach to lock-in: the practice of using undocumented file formats and deprecating older formats. Autodesk famously do this with their AutoCAD product, changing formats as often as most people buy new shoes and dropping "save-as" support for older versions. Microsoft also do it, by changing their document formats, but also by having unpublished APIs on products and building software with the assumption that everything is or should be Microsoft. Most software companies in a dominant position in their market do it (if you know of exceptions, let me know). They do it to protect their immediate market at the expense of the their competitors and their customers.
Sometimes lock-in pretends to be your security friend: Bruce Schneier on lock-in.
But the consequence of lock-in is simple; slower innovation, increased costs and slower market growth. So companies practicing lock-in gain in the short-term but lose in the long-term through a smaller market. Everyone else just loses. So why do we stand for it? In IT probably habit, a case of just accepting that's the way it is. Or maybe the influence of the big organisations: those private sector behemoths that can afford it so don't bother to change and those, like councils, who are both highly resistant to change and have annual expenditure models (rather than three or five year) so don't see the change to be a saving. Then all those who deal with those organisations as suppliers and even customers are forced to adopt the same technologies to be able to interoperate. Raising everyone's costs in the process.
But we would all gain from more openness, a set of standards we interoperate with. The web has HTML, CSS and Javascript, which is starting to benefit us all. File formats still need some work, primarily of the civil protest variety; the formats exist but not enough is being done about the adoption of them.
[1] For the uninitiated or non-native English speakers, the phrase "lock-in" is often used to refer to the practice of closing a public house at the end of licenced hours with guests still inside, almost invariably limited to regular guests. Of course that kind of lock-in is also a form of protectionism as those locked-in won't be spending money anywhere else
Posted at 10:15AM Nov 19, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Open Standards |
...a kind of click hungry hippopotamus in a tutu...
Surely a contender for the best line of all time in a tech review? Paul Murphy compares MacOS, Linux (SuSE Enterprise Desktop version) and Windows Vista in this ZDnet article, and in process makes a couple of excellent points about the options available for your desktop OS. I couldn't help but feel that a different flavour of Linux may have caused his recommendations to become one, but the comment "a kind of click hungry hippopotamus in a tutu" really covers off one of the contenders!
Anyone wanting to contribute drawings of a click hungry hippopotamus in a tutu I think I can guarantee some fame if not any fortune. I'll definitely start a gallery...
A kind of click hungry hippopotamus in a tutu. Couldn't resist saying it one more time
Posted at 10:13AM Oct 22, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Technology |
First they ignore gvSIG, then they laugh at gvSIG, then they fight gvSIG, then gvSIG win?
Actually I'm not entirely sure ESRI went through the laughing stage, but they seem to have reached the fighting stage. In Spain at any rate. This email circulated on the gvSIG and OSGeo mailing lists:
"Hi all,
I write this mail on behalf of Álvaro Anguix one of the leaders of gvSIG Project (it seems he is more confident with my English than me :P). I've posted his letter in Spanish on my personal weblog[1], and I write down here more or less his thoughts.
As you may know, he works for IVER, the most prominent company that supports gvSIG (aside note, I work for Prodevelop, another gvSIG supporting company). Ok, some coworkers of him went to Madrid few days ago to attend the Annual ESRI Users Conference. Because IVER has customers that use ESRI technology they, as every year, wanted to know the latest "arc-news". Obviously they registered previously and they were confirmed by the organization.
Well, when they tried to register at the beginning of the conference, the Marketing Director invited them to abandon the conference. Even more, the Managing Director of ESRI Spain insisted one of the IVER people that "to talk with customers, better she should go to a café or on the street". Quite annoying and bizarre!
As Alvaro says, why they have this behavior with his colleagues? Maybe they fear FOSS companies?
Anyway, all of you are invited to the gvSIG conf, even to discuss, it's free in both senses
See you"
The weblog (in Spanish) referenced can be found here.
Excluding a company from your conference on the grounds they also work with competing products smacks of anti-competitive behaviour to me. Presumably not allowing IVER staff into the conference reflects ESRI Spain's concerns that their product can't compete with gvSIG and an OSGeo stack. At least not the pricing they have been accustomed to charging; and maybe they have seen previews of gvSIG v2 and realise competing is going to be hard whatever they do with the pricing...
Posted at 08:23AM Oct 17, 2008 by Chris Puttick in General | Comments[3]
What we can learn from monkeys (part 1)
There are arguably many things we can learn from monkeys and in many senses. I'm not going to go anywhere near things like dietary content and biochemical realities; I'm more interested in what we can learn in terms of behaviour, individual and group and the degree to which they are interdependent, and what monkeys can teach us about real world maths. So welcome to part one: monkeys, policies and traditions...
A friend of mine from university dropped by yesterday and we got to talking about common practices vs best practices and how faced with too many choices and a degree of uncertainty (i.e. choosing from competing and rapidly developing technologies) people tend to stick as close as possible to the way it is now or seek justification for choices based on the what most other people have chosen up to now. This gave me the chance to air my new favourite saying:
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right" Thomas Paine.
He countered by reminding me about the parallel between monkeys and many company policies and practices; programmed as opposed to reasoned behaviour. The parable of the cage full of monkeys and the bananas...
Take a large cage full of monkeys. Lower into the cage a large and attractive bunch of bananas. The instant any monkey touches a banana let loose thunder and lightening, fire hoses of ice cold water over all the monkeys in the cage, etc.. Pretty soon, the monkeys in the cage will stop trying to reach the bunch of bananas and content themselves with other sources of nutrition provided. Now substitute a new monkey into the cage. If this monkey tries to reach for the bunch of bananas the other monkeys, not wanting all the bangs, flashes and cold water, will stop them by force until the new monkey learns not to try and get the bananas. Then substitute another new monkey into the cage and the same thing will happen, with even the predecessor new monkey helping to prevent banana grabbing. Then another. And another.
Eventually you will have substituted all of the monkeys in the cage. None of them will try to get the bananas and any new monkeys will be violently prevented from getting the bananas. And none of them will know why...
Posted at 09:14AM Sep 22, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Management |
If you don't believe me
Maybe a veteran celebrity instead? Stephen Fry, author, comedian, actor and all-round nice, terribly bright, fellow. His film about the Free Software (as in beer) movement is now available on Stephen's blog.
For those who don't have a media player that supports the open standard format the video is posted in, go here and download VLC. Unless it's available in your software management tool, in which case is highly recommended for install.
For those who can't quite be bothered to download VLC (obviously installing VLC from your software management is so easy that group just went straight ahead and did it) but would still like to see the video, someone also posted it on YouTube. But the quality is far nicer in the original format .
Posted at 10:20AM Sep 04, 2008 by Chris Puttick in General | Comments[1]
The importance of being earnest about standards
Nice to see someone's government IT is committed to standards being, well, standardised:
Such a key element of a government (any!) digital preservation strategy, yet I do not see SocITM or the CIO Council (UK equivalent bodies to some of the signatories of Consegi) even showing interest in standards let alone this level. Despite European regulation that requires them to exchange files in standard formats to facilitate interoperability.
The UK in general seems very blind to the other problem the use of good standards helps, that of digital preservation and access. The use of a good standard file format for the files you want to preserve and make accessible is invaluable. More or less a prerequisite. It's not complicated. Use a binary format that is undocumented and the only way to gain access with a high degree of success it is to use the software that created it. That software will still be around in 5 years? 50? 500?
Documents produced in the last major information revolution have survived over 600 years and are still readable. Gutenberg's Movable type printing method mass-produced information widening access to knowledge; by using standards, in this case languages, printed documents have survived the centuries. Documents produced at the beginning of the next major information revolution, the IT one we are still living through, have already been rendered unreadable. No Rosetta stone exists to be discovered that will help translate these electronic hieroglyphs in the future. The information they contain is lost.
What can be done to raise awareness of this problem? How to get UK national and local government organisations to recognise and vocalise the problem? The solution of using standard formats is there and standards are starting to emerge in many areas; but before anyone will apply them they first need to recognise the problem they are blindly creating.
Posted at 04:11AM Sep 02, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Open Standards |
The Hague declaration and now a UK PM petition...
From a news story on http://www.digistan.org/:
UK petition on Hague Declaration
OpenOffice.org's John McCreesh tells us that the UK Prime Minister s
Office has accepted an e-petition: "We the undersigned petition the
Prime Minister to adopt the Hague Declaration of the Digital Standards
Organisation."
John says, "please encourage any of your supporters who are British
citizens or residents to support this petition by voting online before
6th July at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/digistan"
Thanks to Pieter for circulating this! Go sign...http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/digistan
Posted at 11:39AM Jun 04, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Open Standards |
Twice the fun?
Maybe. But certainly twice the objections. Following South Africa's appeal against the recent ISO "approving" of a version of Microsoft's OOXML format, Brazil have appealed as well... Andy Updegrove has more information on his blog.
And rumours of a further two appeals on their way...
Posted at 04:05AM May 30, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Open Standards | Comments[1]
Gosh, what fun!
Almost unheard of, but in this particular case it always seemed unavoidable. South Africa national standards body, a "P" member (P is for Participatory and is the highest level of membership) in the ISO committee responsible for allowing Microsoft's much maligned Office Open XML format for office documents to be approved have appealed against the approval decision. It is widely expected that other national bodies will now follow suit.
The appeal is on the basis of clear breaches of the ISO's procedures for handling the approval process. No mention is made of the highly dubious activities, intended to force an approval vote, that have gone on behind the scenes at a number of national standards bodies...
More detail here:
http://topicmaps.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/support-south-africas-appeal-against-ooxml/
and here:
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/05/the-south-afric.html
Posted at 07:28AM May 23, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Open Standards | Comments[1]
To blog or not to blog, that is one of the questions...
Hints on tips on whether to blog, what to blog and when to blog.
[Read More]Posted at 03:34AM May 23, 2008 by Chris Puttick in General | Comments[2]