backbytes

Keeping abreast of the situation

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:04:57 +0000

Ben Newsam sends us details of this excellent email offer from Fred Olsen Cruise Lines.

"I don't normally bother with this kind of thing," he says, "but this time I might, bearing in mind what's on offer."

In good elf

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:59:10 +0000

"While Backbytes readers are lounging in the sun please spare a thought for the workers at the Backbytes Christmas Cracker Factory," says Graham Foster, who we're assuming is an elf. "This year has been difficult for them as they have run out of jokes, mottos and novelties." We know the feeling.

"So could we ask Backbytes readers for help?"

As Winterval approaches we need to replenish our stock of silly computer Christmas cracker jokes. So we leave you with an example from Graham, our trusty elf. Could you do better?

Q - Where do all the notebook computers come from?

A - Lapland.

Just the job

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:58:14 +0000

With recession looming, some of you might be contemplating a new career, like the woman last week who decided to become a plasterer instead of an actuary.

"One system support engineer I know gave up taking customer calls at all hours, being blamed for system crashes and tracing faults, to become a scuba diving instructor in the Bahamas. Can't for the life of me think why," says Mike Edwards at Theos Software."I gave up electronic engineering to run a smallholding. I then found myself back in IT after three years of poo and tractors," says Rob Hall at Northallerton College, who seems a fine man to consult over whether IT prepares you for farming.

"Farming and running Windows products are very similar. Healthy things die in bizarre and horrible ways,while viruses and parasites are a constant threat. The only compensation is that the weather is better in our office."

If you have advice for IT people who need a change of scenery, let us know.

Visionary feature

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:57:38 +0000

"You don't have to be as old as me to remember when you could only view what was on a laptop's screen from directly in front of it," says Charles Etchells at ProjectMandate.

"Technological advances in LCD screens changed all that so that modern laptop screens can be viewed from a wide angle. I'm now seeing adverts for security overlays for laptop screens that stop people reading the screen unless they are directly in front of it. This is progress."

It's excellent marketing. Take a disadvantage and sell it back to us as a premium feature. It's not like it has ever happened before.

Text troubles

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:56:56 +0000

"My name is Richard and I normally go by the shortened version, Rich," says Rich Roberts.

"If you type this in T9 text you get two options. Rich is one." We'll let you find out the one that's a default on his phone. "

In response to Richard Johnson's comment as to why 'nun' is considered more commonly used than 'mum'; it is because everyone believes US spellings are more commonly used," says Tom van der Elsen.

"I'm also amused by the fact 'arson' is meant to be more commonly used than 'apron' in my phone."

Surprising, but no more surprising than the idea that you'd be using either word in a text message.

Discovering the Routefinder

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:55:28 +0000

All Backbytes readers will be heading down to the British Library's exhibition of weird inventions, and clustering round the "Plus Fours Routefinder" to gawp at the world's first sat nav. Albeit without a sat, so it's really just a nav.

Created in the 1920s, you wore the Plus Fours on your wrist. Tiny scrolls show the route as you motor along the roads of Britain, which you wind on to show the bit of the road you are on. There's even a little "Stop" instruction at the end of the route. Now the Routefinder has been resurrected, we're secretly hoping Plus Fours will make a comeback too.

Fine if you want a Get Well card...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:37:53 +0000

More mobile phone fun this week. "It would seem sensible with predictive text that the most common words would be presented first," says Rob Farrell at Lincoln Financial Group, "When texting about a card, my predictive text gives me the options of care, case, base, acre, bard, bare, barf and cape before getting to my desired word.

"Giving a birthday barf doesn't seem as generous."

We have a bit of a vomiting theme going this week: "My friend sent me a text to offer me a lift," writes Kirsten Vale at Aylesbury Vale District Council. "The text read: 'Do you want us to sick you up?'. I was unsure of whether to accept."

Tim Hamlett points out that "tongue" comes up as "vomit" before you finish typing. Why does predictive texting seem obsessed with throwing chunks?

Warning lights

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:37:11 +0000

Dave McGrath, a self-confessed CA software user, thought we should be warned when he received this email from his provider. We're concerned, because we've seen CA's business continuity software, and we're worried in case it does not boot up again: "CA will be performing a global disaster recovery test on Saturday, August 16, 2008, from 7:00 p.m to 03:00am," it promises. Watch for lights out this weekend.

Number crunchers

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:35:41 +0000

"I'm always amazed by the unique way our e-commerce division is run," says Chris Samuel at Gala Coral E-Commerce along with every person who has ever come into contact with an e-commerce division.

The amusement centres on the process where change requests are known as "requests for change" - RFCs. Those lucky enough to have spent your lives working in the world of networks will know RFC also means "request for comment", the memoranda from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) describing how the internet works.

"All changes are given a RFC number, even if they relate to an actual RFC [that's an IETF RFC], which means no-one knows what is being discussed," he adds. "I suspect the meeting to approve number 1918 could take a while."

If you didn't understand the last bit, call the support desk.

IT job, plastered

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:35:02 +0000

We always knew that mathematicians were odd, but Gemma McCoyd's decision to turn down the chance of a £100,000-a-year job as an actuary, after graduating with a first class degree, to train instead as a plasterer set a new high water mark. "The parts of the course I enjoy the best are intricate things like fibrous plastering, coving and fireplaces," she told The Times.

Which leads us to ask you to nominate your colleagues who have given up the IT life for something different, turning down the opportunity to work in a e-commerce division (for example) to herd sheep or train as a fireman. For those jobs, you can see how the previous experience would be useful.

BT of the joke

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:34:02 +0000

Andrew Calver-Jones at CTi writes to point out that our readers who complain about BT aren't blameless. "Why do people buy ISP services from them when there are others out there that do provide a good service?

"Sure when the service becomes erratic it's often down to a BT line issue, but you can do what you want and often for less money than BT charges. If you use BT and complain about it, what are you showing other than poor judgement?"

Don't quit BT yet. BT customers are a valuable source of stories for us.

Failing at the first hurdle

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:32:02 +0000

The problem over Duncan Munro's switch with a mean time between failure (MTBF) of 47 years has prompted some useless advice.

Let's get the useful one out of the way: "Hardware manufacturers quote MTBF rates, isn't it time software manufacturers did?" says Malcolm Brownless at Fujitsu Services (not a software company). "We would be able to avoid the software with MTBFs of minutes or seconds."

" Duncan could buy 46 more switches and see if one fails during the year, which would give a failure rate of 2.13 per cent in any 12 month period," suggests Terence Andrews.

But if your experience is a guide, Duncan might not have to wait.

"In the 1990s, I was in charge of setting up a call centre," says Tony Thomas, "part of which was the purchase of an Ericsson 1100D ACD, which claimed a MTBF of 44,000 years. It failed on day one. I remember the salesman saying 'thank god we have got that out of the way'."

If only.

BT keeps us in the dark

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:43:54 +0000

"Paul Starbrook isn't the only one fuming at BT," says Tony Johns at Tinuviel Software, who has also been a victim of BT's decision to block port 25, among other things.

"We had two days without email - no information from BT at all, either before or after. Fortunately we had a good ISP - Fasthosts - who opened up a new port to bypass this 'security' enhancement and posted the info on their site," he says.

So a weak cheer for the ISP industry, or at least some of it. "BT seems oblivious to the effect on its
customers, yet the Indian call centre regularly calls me at all times of the day and at weekends with
'offers' that I don't want.

"Why couldn't they spend some of this wasted time keeping the customer base informed?" he says.

We don't know. BT hasn't told us.

This one will run and run

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:43:24 +0000

Duncan Munro works for NHS Grampian Department of eHealth, so he knows a thing or two about sick technology.

He was looking at the data sheet of a 3Com 4500 26-port switch the other day (we are assuming this was during a lull in the excitement that pervades the Grampian region) and the mean time between failure rating of 47 years caught his eye.

"Will there be a prize given to anyone in 2055 who is still operating one of these switches? What speed will the rest of the network be running at?" he asks.

"Has there been a little old man tucked away in a test facility for the past 47 years waiting for one to break? Perhaps they can only claim their pension once it does. Does anyone else know of equipment destined to last that long?"

So many questions, all of which deserve an answer, we think. If you've been sitting in a back room for 47 years waiting for something to go wrong, this is your time in the sun.

Turn left at the living room

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:42:31 +0000

Our quest for sat nav stories brings us to Bodfari in North Wales, where Amanda Sandland lives in terror in a house on a tiny country lane that shows up on sat navs as a short cut.

Trouble is that lorry drivers who do everything their computer tells them to do have banged into her little house 15 times, leaving her with huge bills and even bigger insurance premiums.

Amanda's daughter has moved out, because she was frightened when a lorry ploughed into the house a few feet from her bedroom.

Now Amanda's too scared to watch TV in the front room in case she gets buried under the rubble.

"I don't blame the drivers," she told The Sun. "They are just following instructions."