Author: Alexander John (Page 5 of 6)

I am an IT Professional and Web Developer living and working in the United Kingdom. I describe myself as an IT generalist as I have worked in a wide variety of IT and web fields and technologies. Whilst I am Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), I utilise a wide variety of technologies including Linux and Android in day-to-day work.

I am a founder and director of a SME orientated Web service company Calzada Media Limited where my daily workload varies from web development through to IT infrastructure management.

Why Blog?

26 January 2009 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

Why do people blog? Why do people who would probably never stand in the middle of a street and deliver a speech on their personal life feel free to write down the same information and then make it freely available for anyone to read?

The actual concept behind a blog is nothing new. At its’ core it is nothing more than an online diary or journal. The principal difference between a blog and its’ traditional counterpart is one of accessibility. A written diary is normally something that is intrinsically private and personal to the author. Readership beyond the author, if at all, is limited to close family or friends.

A blog is different. Authors seem to feel liberated enough to write personal information and details without the fear that would probably accomplish the publication of a written diary. Perhaps most authors feel the Internet provides a layer of detachment and annoymity.

One of the interesting aspects of blogging is that it is not limited to individuals. It has become almost de riguer for companies to have some form of corporate blog. A company blog is a cheap and easy method of delivering information in a manner that lacks the formality of normal press releases. A company blog can contain almost any information, and the very format enables the mix and match of subject matter without presenting an undigestable mess.

The reasons behind a blog are various, especially personal ones. The authors seem to vary between the mundane to the naturally garrulous with all variations of the rainbow in between.

Just as varied are the topics that a blog can cover. From information about family life to detailed technical announcements. If you can think of a topic or subject, there is probably at least one blog out there covering it.

What is certain though is that irrespective of the reasons behind a blog, there will be an audience available. The ability for people in general to be nosey and inquisitive into other people’s lives (as the readership of the celebrity magazines will testify) will never abate.

So why do I blog? Well, I don’t actually write this blog for other people to read, if they are actually are any readers apart from myself. I write this blog as a record for myself. I also do it to improve the fluency and style of my prose. As I work within a technical industry, written information often gets bogged down with a stogy style and, in many cases, plain bad English. I’m not aspiring to be the next Keats or Dickens, but I do aim to improve my proficiency of the written word. Hopefully, the more write, the more I will improve. I can only hope.

One thing that you will never find on this blog is personal information. That is my business, not Joe Public’s. And yes, I do read other people’s blogs.

2nd UK Bank Bailout. Deja Vu.

25 January 2009 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

Remember last year when the government bailed out the banks. At the time, Gordon Brown pronounced that the size of the bailout was necessary to avoid the government repeating the exercise three months later.

Well, here we are three months later, and the Government is again bailing out the banking sector. The worrying thing, is that I am not actually surprised by this manuever, nor is anyone else I speak to.

Recessions are inevitable. To say that you can avoid or eliminate recessions is to divorce oneself from economic reality. The hubris of the current government on this matter, especially that of Gordon Brown, is especially galling now that there is a body of evidence that they were forewarned of the problems were are all now experiencing.

Whilst I do not proclaim to to be an economic expert – is anyone? – recessions may be simply described as a period where we experience negative economic growth . What makes this one so different is that hasn’t been caused by the usual culprits. A new culprit has emerged this time: an almost total lack of credit.

Every business, no matter its’ size requires credit to operate. If there is no credit available, business stagnates. Contrary to what the government and banking sector say, as someone who works in the small business sector, I have witnessed the simple truth that the banks simply aren’tlending, or if they are, they have cut back their lending levels to minimal levels. I strongly suspect that a more reasonable degree of lending will not resume until the banks have addressed their own internal liabilities.

The interesting and encouraging aspect at present is that there is work available, and companies are still placing orders. What has changed is the ability to extract payment. A substantial number of big companies have increased their payment terms to over 90 days, which for a small business is simply unsupportable. Increasingly, the only way to extract money out of customers, is to become a major thorn in the side of their Accounts department. Those who cause the most grief, will probably be paid quicker.

As no-one has yet to invent a working crystal ball, no-one can say for certain what will happen next week, let alone this time next year. What will make a huge difference in the coming year is confidence. The higher the level of confidence in the market

As for myself, well like a lot of other people, one of my concerns is whether or not I will actually keep my current job. Even the most traditionally secure jobs, like those in the public sector, do not appear to be safe in the current climate. My local county council recently announced 500 job losses. It would seem that that the only people currently safe are those working in schools. Like most people, I am a planning to keep my head down, and my fingers crossed.

Snow. Again.

14 January 2009 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

Whilst cold weather is nothing new in old blighty, snow is. Where I live the snow stayed on the ground for a whole week, as did the ice – there were several repeat performances of Snow Lake with cars on Ice. Anyway, here are some snapshots I took while travelling into work. Needeless to say, the car was stationary when the photos were taken.

It may look pretty, but there was a thick layer of ice under the snow.

Ooh, look, tarmac

Note the trees bowing under the weight of the ice and snow.

It was actually colder inside the car than out.

Happy and Prosperous New Year everyone.

2 January 2009 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

As for New Year resolutions, I haven’t made any. I do have some general intentions though, and one of these is to increase the frequency of my posts.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

25 December 2008 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

Seasonal Greetings and Best Wishes to one and all.

Merry Christmas everyone. If you didn’t get what you wanted, then there is always the January sales. If there any shops still available to trade in the new year that is.

Vista Update

11 December 2008 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

A quick update on the Vista front. I wrote a while back about I succumbed to some of my earlier opinions on Vista and installed it on one of my principal laptops.

Well, since then I have fairly thrashing the computer on which Vista runs. I have used recently and a whole range of tasks from writing complex ASP.Net websites to building Virtual Machines and it has yet to crash on me. Thanks to some help found online, I have solved the NVidia graphics card issue – the performance rating was actually slower with the that latest NVidia drivers from Dell. A quick driver hack later and the graphics are now much better.

The only new annoyance so far is that Vista tends to be more hardware intensive which in turn increases the component temperature which in turn causes the laptop cooling fan to run more.

Crapware and a (potential) helpful little tool: PC DeCrapifier

8 December 2008 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

Configuring a new PC can always be a headache, especially when it has to be done completely by hand (i.e. no Ghosting or imaging). As there are often a myriad of little changes that have to be done when configuring a PC manually, I have devised a checklist cum installation form that I follow. This ensures that not only is the PC delivered up and running, but I also have a record of just what was done.

However, when I originally drew up these checklists I missed out the step labelled <i>Now spend one or more hours removing undesired pre-installed software (aka Crapware)</i>. The chances are that if you get a new computer, it will come pre-loaded with a number of trial versions of software which you have to remove before you can install anything else. Common trials are those of Norton Antivirus, McAfee or Microsoft Office 2007. The latter can take a small ice age to remove.

I am pretty sure that I am not alone in my annoyance for the presumptiveness of the manufactures to install this software on new systems. When I buy a new PC, especially one that is touted as being for businesses, I expect it to be delivered working (this helps, nothing makes me move suppliers quicker is a PC straight out of a box that doesn’t work), with the operating system pretty much ready to go and that’s it. No trials, no please wait one hour while the OS installs all the required drivers. Ready to go.

I had this recently with a new laptop. It was supplied with Windows Vista, which was promptly downgraded to XP using the supplied media (manufacturers occasionally get something right). The laptop flawlessly booted after the Windows XP installation and then presented me with a whole suite of crapware to remove.

Needeless to say, this did take some time. What I could of done with then is a little tool I recently found whilst searching around for something completely different: The PC DeCrapifier. This handy, free little utility removes all unwanted crapware for you. Whilst I have not actually tested it yet, I have read a number of positive reports and it is definitely going into my IT Toolbox. Once I get the opportunity to test it, I will post my comments.

Snowy Carnage

29 October 2008 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

A combination of snow, a gale and a frost brought a fair bit of arboreal carnage to my normal drive to work this morning.

I think this hole had just been made by a delivery truck.

Yet More Damage

The Tree Surgeons have just arrived

A pretty picture to finish

Succumbing to Vista

27 September 2008 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

A few months ago, I wrote about my opinions of Windows Vista, and stated that I wasn’t planning to use it. Even now, none of the businesses I work with have running Vista machines – any computer supplied with Vista is quickly downgraded to XP.

Irrespective of my own opinions, Vista exists and simply cannot be ignored by someone whose bread and butter work is IT Support. Therefore, earlier this month I installed Vista Business on my principal home computer (a Dell Latitude D820). The completed installation isn’t perfect – I’m still hacking around with video drivers, although this is more a NVidia than Microsoft issue – but I am not as disappointed as I had expected to be.

Now, this isn’t my first experience of Vista. I participated in the original Beta programme, and back then I wasn’t overly impressed when it completely neutered my test computer. I have also played around with the original RTM versions of Vista, and I was certainly not thrilled by it. However, after using it for just over three weeks, I have to admit that I am beginning to warm to it. I don’t think I have suffered any particular life changing experience, I think Vista has thanks to Service Pack 1. SP1 seems to have addressed a whole range of annoyances that had served as ammunition to my anti-Vista viewpoints. Chief among these was its’ woeful performance when copying files to and from network drives and external devices.

Does this mean that I am a now a fully-fledged, paid up member of the I love Vista club? Well no. I now consider its’ positives outweight the negatives, but it is still not the all conquering product that Microsoft promised. Will I continue to use it? Yes, and for the foreseeable future. Am I giving up on XP? No, and in fact I am actually typing this post on my antique Thinkpad T30 running XP.

Does new always equal better?

31 July 2008 / Alexander John / 0 Comments

There is an old engineering maxim: “If it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it”. It’s a maxim that has served me well over the years, and I have ignored at my own peril. This doesn’t mean that I am 21st century luddite, but I do often wonder if in the race to use the latest kit we get distracted from the main point of any piece of engineering equipment, whether it be software or hardware, namely that it is supposed to a job reliabily, consistently and for as long as it is required.

I, like many IT professionals, own and use several different computers. I do own a high end laptop, but the laptop that I use the most is the same one I am typing this entry on: a veteran Thinkpad T30. It may be a P4M, but for my day to day work of crashing about server rooms and general support work it is ideal. It handles pretty much anything I through at it and it has yet to throw a major wobbly. It may be at least 5 years old, but it still works and it is still useful.

So, what my point? In a little over a month’s time, Windows XP will cease to be available through OEM manufacturers. In theory, from the beginning of July the only version of Windows you will be able to get supplied with a PC ordered from the likes of Dell or HP will be Windows Vista. This is not something that I am looking forward to, especially given my experiences of Vista to date.

I am not a big fan of Vista. My reasons are not for what it is, but rather for what it is not. Microsoft had a huge opportunity with Vista to deliver a world class operating system that could build on the proven reliability of XP and deliver the kind of user experience included in other operating systems like Mac OS X. Initially, much was promised, but the final product is bloated mess that demands exorbitant hardware requirements just to run decently and incompatible with a whole range of applications. The recently released Service Pack 1addressed some issues, but not all.

And this is when I return to Windows XP. I like XP. It is proven and reliable operating system that does the job it is required to do. It does have its’ own foibles and problems, but for the most part they are known and manageable. It also doesn’t require a PC that has enough computing power to perform inter-planetary orbital calculations.

I have yet to see a realistic business case for companies to use Vista over XP beyond the ongoing support restrictions imposed by Microsoft. Out of necessity, a PC for Vista has to be of a higher specification that its’ XP counterpart, and whilst this cost increase may not be a big factor for larger organisations, it will be for small businesses. A substantial proportion of these businesses have ten or less employees, and a new PC is often a substantial capital cost. As someone who works in this field, explaining to clients that they are going to have to get a more powerful PC just to accomodate the operating system is going to be interesting.

There is a glimmer at the end of the tunnel. Microsoft appears to have semi-resurrected XP in attempt to stave off the Linux community in the sub-notebook market. Whether this will equate to another stay of execution for XP remains to be seen. For the foreseeable future I will continue to use XP and home the next version of Windows delivers where Vista doesn’t.