Categories
Business fun stuff

Call that an office? This is an office

from the office of Trevor Jones - Lincoln University

You walk into some high flyer’s office, sink into the lush undergrowth that is the carpet, disappear into the soft leather interiors of the sofa at one end and gaze down on the worker ants swarming around the city, dozens of floors below.

Size of the office, backed up with exclusive accessories = status.  Its a fair bet noone in the city has a ping pong table in their office though.

I walked in to meet Trevor Jones of Lincoln University’s School of Computer Science to be greeted with a table tennis bat and ball. Super cool and akin to the Google offices in Victoria. We batted round a few ideas while I was there. Trevor teaches courses that cover networking and cloud technologies – just our kind of stuff at Timico.

At the start of this year we hosted a bus load of second year students at the Newark data centre and are planning to do the same again after Christmas. It’s all good stuff. We want to be a natural choice of employer for graduates coming out of the department.

I won’t say who won the table tennis. Lincoln University where offices have ping pong tables…

Categories
Engineer internet

The history of the Isle of Man Postal service by Kelly from the Isle of Man

Mail of MannJust reading “The Mail of Mann” – the story of postal services in the Isle of Man written by Robert Kelly. A fascinating read  if you like that sort of thing which I presumably do.

On September 3rd 1837 the Post Office in the UK despatched a surveyor to the island to assess what might be done to improve its postal communications. The transmission of data packets (ie letters) was very much adhoc, asynchronous if you like. In particular the service to outlying rural parts of the island was pretty hit and miss.

Unfortunately for those rural dwellers, which in particular included the Lord Bishop whose residence as you probably know is on the far side of the island between Kirk Michael and Ballaugh, the surveyor decided that it would be too expensive to set up a regular service to anywhere other than the main towns which would in any case cover most of the people sending and receiving mail.

The rural areas were left to people to sort out themselves. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Categories
Engineer webrtc

ITSPA Leeds workshop Adelphi Shabab

Shabab LeedsITSPA held its first ever out of London workshop in Leeds last Thursday, chaired as usual by yours truly. We had three interesting talks. The first was by Adam Beaumont from AQL on mobile VoIP and why mobile networks will need regional peering for voice over 4G. Next up was Thomas Mangin of Exa-Networks/IX Leeds who discussed QoS for VoIP and finally Rob Pickering from IPCortex on WebRTC.

We were also given a tour around AQL’s new data centre in Salem chapel opposite the old Tetley Brewery in the city centre. The brewery has been knocked down and turned into a car park – criminal 🙂 IX Leeds is hosted free of charge in the new data centre and is developing as an alternative northern POP for people looking for connectivity in the area.

The workshop was highly successful and is something we will have to repeat sometime next year. Afterwards Adam Beaumont very generously bought the Timothy Taylors at the Adelphi pub and then a traditional Yorkshire curry at the Shabab.

Categories
End User Regs surveillance & privacy

Draft Comms Data Bill written submissions #CCDP #commsdata

portcullisThe written evidence submitted to the Joint Select committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill amounts to 448 pages and is a surprisingly interesting read. Some of you may not have the inclination to plough through the whole lot so just for you I’m going to jot down  few choice bits in a number of posts over the next few days.

In case you didn’t remember the Draft Comms Data Bill is what was labelled the “snooper’s charter” and which caused an outcry a few months ago. There were 91 written submissions in response to the call for evidence. Trawling through them I’d say that 10 were supportive, 69 were out and out against the Bill with most of the remainder having some sort of reservation.

Those for included organisations such as the Home Office, HMRC (they want your money), The Serious Organised Crime Agency and the UK Border Agency. All quite understandable. The Local Government Agency was also supportive but complained that the scope needed to be extended to include them.

The 69 opposing submissions included many from private individuals and also the following organisations:

JANET, Just West Yorkshire, Liberty, LINX , The Newspaper Society, Open Rights Group, Society of Editors, Timico Ltd, The Tor Project, Wikimedia UK, Equality & Human Rights Commission, The Coalition for a Digital Economy, The Bar Council of England and Wales, Privacy International, Big Brother Watch, JUSTICE, The foundation for Information Policy Research.

Many large organisations take a supportive stance when it comes to helping to prevent crime. The larger UK ISPs have a technique whereby they

Continue reading “Draft Comms Data Bill written submissions #CCDP #commsdata”
Categories
Business datacentre

To whom it may concern

"legitimate" spam exampleThere is nothing more annoying than being spammed. Anti spam software is pretty good these days and I rarely get spam spam if you know what I mean.

Spam spam is the bad stuff trying to sell me  viagra, handbags, penis enlargements etc etc etc.

Unfortunately these days the spam spam problem has been replaced with “legitimate” spam. This is the stuff sent by genuine companies who have bought my name off some database.

Over the last 24 hours I have had emails from Apposite Technology Parters (que?), datacentres.com News, Retail Week Jobs, OFFTEK, easyjet, BLiNQ networks, Sparks, SAP, Telecoms Tech and others. I go through phases of unsubscribing from mails I get sent but it’s like pushing water uphill. The cat is well and truly out of the bag.

Most of them I can just ignore. There isn’t much point in marking the sender as junk because it usually comes from some non descript mail server address. The ones that are really annoying come with Subject line content such as “Your enquiry” or “Re: ” There should be a website where we can name and shame senders of such emails.

That’s all – had to get it off my chest.

So long.

PS Akismet is brilliant at catching spam comments in wordpress blogs. I’ve just looked and I had 2,600 items caught in the spam folder. The flavour of the day seems to be ugh boots, nike gear, longchamp bags, louis vuitton and other such dross.

Categories
End User events

The all round good guys go first but there is room for a free thinker

Bar at London's Phoenix Artist ClubThat’s “All round good guys”, “VIP exclusives” and “Champagne drinkers” sold out with only 6 each of “Free thinkers” and “Party animals” left.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about you’re probably not planning on coming. It was interesting to see that the good guys went first closely followed by the VIPs. I think that free thinkers and party animals are a good match – I suspect they are one and the same though there is always the odd exception.

Once they’re gone they’re gone though if you have already had a person invite and not got your name down don’t worry – just remind me and I’ll stick you on the list at the door. That’s it for now.

Categories
Engineer engineering internet

the leaving of #UKNOF23 TfL bus number 205 to Paddington

Never let it be said that this blog fails to deliver. This time I present for your delectation a journey on the TfL number 205 bus which left Old Street for Paddington yesterday afternoon.

I had been at UKNOF23 at the Google Campus near Old Street and was headed for a rendezvous at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel with Paul Schwartz. Paul is an interesting bloke. He is CEO of Danish router manufacturer Icotera and member of the board of the Fibre to the Home Council (Europe).

Now some of you might wonder what on earth I am doing showing a video of a bus ride. This video is actually of a single hop between two stops: Old Street and Moorfields Eye Hospital on the City Road (of “in and out of the Eagle” fame). It represents a short window on the life of London and will potentially, when considered in conjunction with millions of other snapshots, contribute to the historical record of our great capital city.

The bus enthusiasts among you will also complain that a single stop is not enough. Give me more, more – I hear the clamour. Well there were two factors that prevented me from filming more. Firstly most people will not even watch the 52 seconds of this single hop. Then there was the fact  that my battery was running low and I needed to conserve it in anticipation of the need to call Paul because I had no idea what he looked like.

So there you have it. Those wondering why I left UKNOF23 during the afternoon coffee break now know and those who simply like to ride at the front of the top deck of double decker busses (which could well be the vast majority of the UK population) should also be happy.

And so to the video…

PS these videos are becoming increasingly popular. The one of “How to make steak tartare” has hit 60 views on YouTube! Life is good:)

Categories
Engineer engineering

Notes from UKNOF23 – Cinnamon, Brick Lane & Google Campus

blackboard at Google Campus near Old StreetThe title is somewhat disingenuous because the notes are from the night before UKNOF23. Before UKNOF everyone pops out for a curry sponsored by one of the fine networking companies that support the organisation. In last night’s case it was IX Reach and we all went to Cinnamon on Brick Lane.

Fair play to Cinnamon the food was great and included dishes called Naga containing the world’s hottest chilli pepper. Not for the faint of heart and certainly not for me though Adrian kennard of AAISP seemed not to break into sweat as he tucked in to his. More of a man than I’ll ever be.

Fair play also to IX Reach who took the decision to cover all the cost of the booze as well as the food which meant I could indulge in that second half of lager. I was in bed by ten though as I have a speaking slot today, albeit after lunch.

The photos are a random selection from the Cinnamon curry house, Brick Lane, the Google Campus where the meeting is being held and of Bonhill Street where the Google Campus is located. I took the picture of the urns because it is unusual to see two urns for hot water and only one for coffee. Clearly engineers drink more tea than coffee.

Photos below.

That’s all folks…

Continue reading “Notes from UKNOF23 – Cinnamon, Brick Lane & Google Campus”
Categories
Apps ecommerce End User

How to avoid giving Apple credit card details for iTunes setup

peel castle from fenella beach car parkOne of my beefs with Apple has been that you have to give them your credit card details when setting up an iTunes account. For the uninitiated, the independent of mind majority, you need to sign up to iTunes to be able to download apps onto your iPad/Pod/Phone, even if the apps themselves are free.

The signup process involves filling in payment method details which I have always objected to.

Last weekend my dad acquired an iPad at the tender age of 78. He understandably didn’t trust Apple with his credit card details. We set him up without iTunes but it was clear that he would need to install some apps to make full use of the device – Facebook, Google+ and Skype in particular.

The www told me it should be possible to not to have to provide the card details but none of the instructions seemed to match what I could see on the sign up screen.

In the end

Continue reading “How to avoid giving Apple credit card details for iTunes setup”
Categories
Business Regs security

Now where did I leave that important information? #commsdatabill

You will of course recall my recent post on Big Data in which I related how many laptops are left in the back of taxis. 10,857.14 of them every year to be precise. Well I was wrong. Not only did I underestimate how many cabs there are in London but the average number of laptops left in them every year was wrong.

Today I was picked up by a driver who estimated he had found 8 laptops over the last 5 years (up from the previous 4 in 7) and that there were around 25,000 black cabs in London (up from 16,000).

This bumps up the averages. To  make it easy on myself if I assume only one a year that suggests that 25,000 laptops are left in London black cabs every year.

Now I know someone will pipe up and say that this is not very scientific and

Continue reading “Now where did I leave that important information? #commsdatabill”
Categories
competitions Engineer

winner of the most home networked devices is @NeilMcrae

Neil came in clearly ahead of everyone in the competition for who has the most home networked devices. He gets the mug. There were some great entries and it was all a bit of fun so I’m going to give everyone a fabulous Timico pen for entering. What’s more if you really want a mug you can have one of those too:)

Can everyone wishing to take possession of their prize (s) please email me their address and I’ll try and sort it out on Wednesday when I am next in the office.

PS don’t forget to sign up for the Trefor.net xmas bash. It’s gonna be a goodun.

The competition is now closed…

Categories
competitions End User

Caption competition winner is Stuart James

The caption competition got some great entries but someone has to win. I’ve run it past the editorial committee and after long deliberation (oo at least half a second on each entry) I have chosen the winner who is Stuart James. His excellent effort can be found here.

Stuart I will be in touch to give you details of your terrific prize which is a six month’s membership of the fabulous Spirit Health Club in Aylesbury.

Well done… 🙂

Categories
End User fun stuff

letter from 1975

looking out to sea from Peel breakwater in the Isle of ManJust visiting my folks on the Isle of Man for the weekend and mam showed me a letter I’d written to dad dated 2nd March 1975. We were in the process of moving to the island from Caernarfon. Dad had gone on ahead whilst we finished the school term.

The letter was written in formal schoolboy Welsh and I note that my handwriting is still as bad as it was then!

I guess my observation is that I had to write dad a letter in those days. He was living in rented accommodation with no telephone. It was before the days of mobile telephony and tinterweb. That’s unimaginable for a kid these days.

I recall that at the end of that spring term in Ysgol Segontium, Caernarfon we had exams. When I arrived at Ballakermeen High School in Douglas they were about to have exams! A serious bummer for a 13 year old kid. I sat the exams and fwiw came 3rd in class without having done the syllabus (breathes on fingernails and polishes them on lapel). It all went downhill from there:).

The photo is a panoramic view gazing out to sea from the breakwater in Peel, Isle of Man. Paradise on earth and one of my favourite places.

Categories
Business events

Announcing the 2012 trefor.net xmas bash – SOLD OUT

Bar at London's Phoenix Artist Club

welcome to the Phoenix Artist club

I’m really really excited about this year’s trefor.net Xmas bash. Last year’s was a raging success at the Booking Office Bar. This year we are moving to the Phoenix Artist Club. Where do I hear you say?

The  Phoenix Artist Club is a super cool members only joint (yes I am a member) slap bang in the middle of SoHo. It’s got bags of character and a piano which is going to be put to good use by international jazz pianist (and my kids’ piano teacher)piano at Phoenix Artist Club Colin Dudman.

We are talking 5.30pm until 2am on Thursday 13th December for this year’s most anticipated party. Dress code is party gear, or whatever you like really – fancy dress even, though you might be the only one…

This year’s bash has been made possible by some very generous sponsors to who I would like to extend my sincerest thanks: Timico, NewNet, Redwood Telecom, PowerNet, Genband, RTP Solutions, O2 Wholesale, Fluidata,  Siphon,  ProvuThe bar area at the Phoenix Artist Club Communications and IPCortex.

Tickets are free and can be obtained here. members lounge at Phoenix Artist Clubsmile all you like at this crocodile at the Phoenix Artist Clubbar at Phoenix Artist Club

Categories
End User fun stuff

Amazing story from Hampton Court

panoramic view of Hampton Court Maze taken from the back of the Kings Arms Hotel

Story for you. Years ago I worked on a bid to develop an analogue chip for a company in London. It was a very big contract and we had tried to get the Purchasing Director out for a beer or eight during the process (just to better get to know him-he was a nice guy). He would have none of it but when we were eventually awarded the deal he set up a kick off dinner somewhere in Kingstson.

Our sales guy, Tony Myers, and I stayed at a pub at the entrance to Bushy Park and opposite the gates to Hampton Court. We had a bit of time to kill so we wandered around the wonderful grounds of the Palace and eventually we paid to go into the maze.

That was where we went wrong. After some time we made it into the middle but then found ourselves with only five minutes to go before the taxi was due to pick us up to take us to the restaurant. Uhoh!

Tony, however, had the solution. If you turn left at every opportunity you eventually get out. It took a lot of left turns and we practically had to run through the maze but we made it.

Of course these days I’d just get my trusty Samsung Galaxy S3 out and use Google Maps to get out – amazing detail of the maze here.

I was down for an Exec dinner on the 3rd October and then to visit Convergence Summit South at Sandown Park Racecourse. Photo of the racetrack below.

Sandown Park panorama taken with Samsung Galaxy S3

 

Categories
End User phones

iOS5 versus iOS6

An apple - grown in my back garden at homeOk lads and lasses. My wife has an iPhone4S. Should she upgrade it to iOS6? Pros and cons? Answers on a postcard or in the comment box.

PS she is desperate to have a navigational tool in her car. This should be a consideration in the discussion.

Categories
Business net neutrality voip

Successful @Amdocs press/analyst dinner discussing threat from OTT services at the Gherkin

Trefor Davies at a window on the 38th floor of the Gherkin

I was fortunate enough to be invited by Amdocs to one of their periodic Press/Analyst dinners. These are great evenings where the wine and conversation flows, all on subjects relating to communications and technology.

Last night’s was at the Gherkin, or St Mary Axe as the building is formally known. The views from the top are absolutely terrific and because I’m that kind of guy I’ve posted a video so that you can share the experience.

As for the dinner, we discussed the likely effect of Over The Top services on the incumbent telco base.  This is a fairly large subject. It encompasses net neutrality and ownership of the customer with the truly Damaclean threat of disaster and destruction hanging over the telcos. That’s if they aren’t nimble that is.

I suspect that there will be room for a number of business models and a specific differentiation between services provided for consumers and businesses.

This subject merits a longer post so for the moment I’ll just leave you with the video. Thanks again to Amdocs for a great evening. They are doing a good job.

PS to the security people at the Gherkin – I have just found my pass – sorry. I’ll bring it back the next time I come.

Categories
Cloud Engineer storage backup & dr

Human Face of Big Data launch today #hfobd

screenshot from android version of #hfobd#hfobd "trust"Attended the EMC sponsored launch of The Human Face of Big Data this morning and picked up some data:

Any kid born in 2012 will generate more data than all the information that mankind has ever generated. In his or her first year he will have generated more info than is currently held in Smithsonian Institute and 10% of all photos ever taken were taken in 2011.

At that point I stopped writing. People spout so many facts about data these days that it starts to lose its impact. Some numbers are so big they almost become pointless.

There are plenty of good and bad uses of big data and we as a society need to think how we go about minimising the risk of the latter.

Coincidentally a taxi driver yesterday told me that he had had four laptops left in his cab in seven years. There are apparently over 19,000 registered black cabs in London. If he was representative that suggests that on average 10,857.141  laptops are left in taxis every year.

I wonder how much sensitive data was on those laptops and how many of them were unsecured?

I’ve not really told you anything about the project – check it out here The Human Face of Big Data. I downloaded the app and entered my data. You can look at and filter the (anonymized) global data set and compare results for different demographics.

Apparently the Apple app isn’t ready yet but don’t worry – Apple usually manages to catch up eventually.

As a footnote, I am interested in exploring Big Data over the next few millennia (think big). If anyone wants to discuss projects drop me a line.

1 No arguing, I have total editorial control:)

Categories
Engineer gadgets

Home networked devices

I took a look at my router yesterday, as you do, and counted 14 devices connected over WiFi and 4 over Ethernet.

WiFi included 4PCs/laptops, printer, 4 android phones, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Ethernet included my laptop, a VoIP phone and a couple of homeplug devices that hook up the XBox.

That’s not SoHo. That’s a small business. We certainly have the overheads:)

Categories
End User social networking

And then there were four… quiet house

Calgary Bay Isle of MullHere in the Davies house all is calm. The Sunday roast is ready to go in the oven, the veg prepared and the fireplace cleaned out in anticipation of coal being bought from the garage at the end of Burton Road.

Two kids are now away at their respective Universities with two left at home. It’s strange having a family of four where most of the time it has been six.  The most noticeable difference is the noise, or lack of it. Even though when at home they are rarely all in the same room at the same time the decibel level seems to shoot up when they are all here.

In the summer of 2011 I went camping on Mull with one of the kids.  We visited a place called Calgary Bay. This is a beautiful bay from which settlers left to go to Canada, hence, presumably Calgary. In those days it was a much bigger thing for someone to leave home. That was mostly it. Very little further contact.

Nowadays Facebook makes a huge difference. I still have a bit of banter with my Funkypancake  friend Dave despite the fact that he is now in New Zealand. I often chat with my son Tom at Warwick University online and now Hannah is established in Durham I have my lifeline to her though my plans to provide her with a hotspot for her room have been thwarted by the fact that her internet connection requires a browser login.

In time (a long, long time away in a far-away galaxy) when I become old and even more shrivelled than I am today the internet really will make the family seem close by. It is a shame that there is a community of older people today who have never had access to the web and who are probably too old to make the change. There are lots of people who would benefit from using Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends.

In time the number of internet impoverished people will become fewer and fewer because, being blunt about it, they won’t be around any more. I would be surprised if there was a single person leaving school now who doesn’t have a Facebook account, at least here in the UK. The mix will inevitably change.

It’s quite likely that what is deemed acceptable from a privacy perspective will also change things for the older generation. Many of the information requests made to telcos by the police force are for details of mobile phone location information of missing kids and folk with Alzheimers who have wandered off. I must give my login details for SamsungDive to my wife, if only so she can track which pub to come and get me from when I am no longer able to walk home (due to age and infirmity).

Right, time to put the pork in the oven. I’ve gone on enough.

PS I still don’t trust Facebook though.

Categories
End User fun stuff

A big thank you to Sam

Took the family to Zizzi in Lincoln last night to celebrate daughter’s last night at home before heading to University for the first time. Food was good though they seemed to be a little understaffed.

Anyway in the multi-storey car park next to the restaurant, on the Brayford in Lincoln for those who know the place, I dug out some coins for the pay and display machine. I needed £2.50 and blow me down if I didn’t only have £2.30.

As I was stood there, staring at coins in outstretched hand, (I’m painting a picture here) considering my options along came a chap with his girlfriend off on a night out.

Without my having said anything he asked how much we were short and promptly came up with the twenty pence. “I’ve been in the same situation myself” he said. His name was Sam.

Sam, thanks very much for being a great bloke. If I can ever do anything to help you I hope I can do it before you have to ask.

Categories
Apps End User gaming internet

Electronic Arts infrastructure fails under weight of demand for FIFA2013

I had to pop into town yesterday to buy FIFA 2013 for my 12 year old. It was the price I had to pay for his cooperation with the BT case study filming when he got back from school. It cost an arm and a leg – somewhere in the region of £85 including 5,000 Microsoft points.

There would have been a lot of people getting around town without arms and legs because there must have been hundreds of the games  piled up behind the counter at Game Station, all on pre-order. In fact if you hadn’t pre-ordered it  you would have been out of luck as they were all spoken for.

My lad got home from school and immediately got down to business with the XBox. That’s when things started to go wrong. He traded 3,200 Microsoft points for 5,200 FIFA points. However the FIFA points did not appear. These are expensive virtual tokens (massive gross margin I’d imagine) and whilst I was sure that we would resolve the issue – @EA support has been great in the past – on this occasion the support was totally unobtainable.

I began to tweet my dissatisfaction – that’s usually a good way of getting a response (unless you are @eastcoastuk). Every minute I spent on hold I tweeted the fact with increasing levels of annoyance. Looking at the @EA twitter account I could see they had over 1 million followers. I gave up after 20 minutes.

Later the lad found out online that EA had had to switch off their points system because it had been overwhelmed. This was another Olympic ticketing/Ticketmaster moment. The next morning the system is still down for maintenance.

It surprises me that in this day and age of scalable online computing resources that businesses let themselves down like this. I often hear complaints in our house that the FIFA servers are down or too busy.

As I write the @EA twitter follower count is down to 999,901 – clearly a few disgruntled folks out there.

Categories
Engineer fun stuff

communications protocols for swimming pools

I was having a swim before work this morning, as you do – healthy body, healthy mind etc. I had a whole lane to myself which those of you who indulge in a bit of a splash before work will know is a real luxury.

There are two types of communications scenarios used in the swimming pool, one for serious lane swimming and one for the general melee and out and out chaos when you take the kids.

For the latter you employ more CSMA/CD1  style protocols of the old Ethernet hub world. Lane swimming is different. Lane swimming employs multilevel quality of service. The faster the swimmer the further towards the far side of the pool he or she goes. Slow ones like me go to the lanes nearest the changing rooms.

This basic protocol typically keeps everyone happy though even within lanes there are different “packet speeds”. Although I am a slow swimmer if I encounter an even slower swimmer I either overtake in a bit of “open water” or turn around when I catch the person up and swim back in the other direction. If I am the slower I usually pause at one end to let the faster person overtake.

It all works well. Everyone knows the protocol, the etiquette. We are a happy bunch, us early morning swimmers.

This morning was slightly different. I was ploughing away on my own, “in the zone” when a shadowy figure appeared at the shallow end of the pool. I say shadowy figure because without my specs life is a bit of a blur. I thought to myself, “hope that person isn’t coming in my private lane”. It turned out she was.

Now normally the protocol for newbies to the water is that they wait for the person swimming to go past then get in. I was just coming to the wall when this shadowy figure jumped in and set off directly in front of me momentarily throwing me off my stride/stroke. Huh I thought to myself, just a teeny bit disgruntled.

She was a slightly faster swimmer than me so she soon moved away. Then a couple of laps later she caught up with me just as I was getting to the shallow end and blow me down if she didn’t shove in front and disrupt me again.

Being extremely short sighted (-5) I will never know who she was and she will never know that she breached the unwritten law, the etiquette of the lane swimmer. There was no point in complaining. I finished my 30 minutes (ish) and got out of the water.

Protocols – why we need them and the consequences of a breakdown in order…

1 look it up – this blog is not here to teach the basics. It’s here for my own gratification 🙂

Categories
Apps Engineer virtualisation

Meet John Milner VCP5-DV, MCTS, MCSA+M/S, MCSE+S, MCITP: EMA/SA, A+, S+, eater of cake

John Milner and the VMware monster cake - click for a closer picJohn Milner started with us earlier this year to help with our virtualisation programme. He has a string of great qualifications and has now just passed his VMware Certified Professional – Datacenter Virtualization examination.

We are proud of him and glad that he has come to work at Timico. He has made an instant impact. He’s one of those guys you can chuck a job at knowing it will get done in a totally professional manner. We seem to be very lucky with the quality of our engineering staff all round.

In keeping with the cake making tradition we have here at Timico John has brought one in for everyone to help him celebrate his success. It says much about the character of the man that he admitted that the cake was actually baked by his sister. After all you can’t be good at everything:)

I of course am on a health kick and will not be partaking. It has been made easier by the fact that I’m sat at home waiting for a film crew to turn up but more on that later…

Well done John & keep up the great work :))

Just for the record & any SEO (smiley face) I repeat his qualifications here for your perusal: VCP5-DV, MCTS, MCSA+M/S, MCSE+S, MCITP: EMA/SA, A+, S+, eater of cake

PS John – sorry if this is a somewhat personally embarrassing post having nice things said about you but credit where credit is due 🙂

Categories
Business internet Regs

ISPA conference 12th November

If anyone is interested in attending the annual  ISPA conference registration is now open. I’m chairing an interesting debate on the draft Communications Data Bill. This conference is always jam packed with good subject matter and well worth going.

Full agenda is below:

0915  Registration and Coffee

0940  Introduction by Nicholas Lansman – ISPA Secretary General

0945  Keynote Address: tbc         

1005 Q&A Chair: Nicholas Lansman – ISPA Secretary General

1015  Does the Draft Communications Data Bill get the balance right between the needs of law enforcement, the privacy of users and impact on CSPs?

·   What has changed and how will businesses be effected?
·   Is retaining third party data proportionate and technically possible?
·   Is this an extension of existing powers? Are there enough safeguards in place to protect privacy?

Chair: Trefor Davies – Timico CTO and ISPA Council

Panellists: Conor Ward – Partner, Hogan Lovells; Dr Julian Huppert MP – Joint Committee; Nick Pickles – Director, Big Brother Watch; Professor Anthony Glees – Director, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) at the University of Buckingham; more speakers tbc

1115  Coffee and Networking                                 

1130  How can Britain’s broadband strategy best help SMEs and businesses?

·   Is the current focus too much on speeds and not enough on reach of service?
·   What are the next steps for the broadband strategy?
·  How best can we ensure that investment in broadband reaches businesses and consumers in all parts of the UK?

Chair:  Mark Gracey – Cable&Wireless and ISPA Council

Panellists: Earl of Selborne – Lords Committee; Barry Forde – CEO, Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN); more speakers tbc

1230  NETWORKING LUNCH

1400  Speech & Q&A: tbc

1410  Whose responsibility is it to ensure cyber security?

  • How can ISPs, law enforcement and government work better together to ensure a safer internet experience?
  • What can we learn from the experiences of other countries?
  • What is the responsibility of the user to protect themselves?

Chair: James Blessing – Limelight Networks and ISPA Council member

Panellists: Tony Neate – Chief Executive, Get Safe Online; Alexandra Birtles – PR and Public Affairs Manager, TalkTalk; more speakers tbc

1510  Coffee and Networking                     

1525  Review of the Communications Act

·   Update on what is happening with the White Paper
·   Is there a need for a wholesale review of the communications framework?
·   How is Government going to create a framework to make the UK a digital hub?

Chair: & panellists tbc.

1625  Drinks reception with selected members of the media

1800  Close

 

Categories
Archived Business

Looking for 3rd line VoIP engineer – can you help?

I’m looking for a 3rd line support VoIP engineer based in the Newark NOC. If you know anyone who might be interested or are interested yourself can you please drop me a line?

Ta

Tref

Categories
agricultural End User

Next time you eat a kebab…

I just had a meeting with a local farmer. He told me, and I have no idea how a conversation on Unified Communications got on to this,  that a single ram is expected to serve a hundred ewes. Worra life. It’s a short window of enjoyment because farmers want all the lambs to arrive around the same time so the ram spends the rests of the year away from the ewes, eating grass with the lads.

The downside is that when the ram’s useful life is over it gets shot and sold to the kebab manufacturing industry. Next time you eat a kebab…

Categories
broken gear End User phones

Galaxy S3 mended under warranty – faulty USB socket

Y’all will recall that I had to send my GalaxyS3 back because it wasn’t charging. Well I’ve got it back and they have mended it under warranty. The USB socket was faulty so all is now well. If it had been water damage I would have been cross.It wasn’t water damage.

That’s all…

Categories
End User fun stuff

School governors and giving something back to society

We are extremely fortunate with the school our kids go to. It has served the first two well and the next two are having a great time the youngest having just been elected as vice representative of his class. Starting a bit young I thought but hey…

The school is a user of modern technology. There is a portal that can be used to check on kids progress and letters to parents come via email.

I received one such letter yesterday informing me of the opportunity to become a Governor at the school. I have to admit that this is the one public function for which I shall never put myself forward. This stems from the time when the kids were at primary school and my wife asked if I’d help the school out by being a Governor. This was to me a matter of personal pleasure. Of course I’d be happy to help.

Then one day I found that I had come third and last in the election behind two mums.  Total humiliation. I didn’t even know there was a competition. Whilst I was happy to be a Governor it wasn’t something I “wanted” badly enough to compete for against women in the playground.

So there you go. I won’t be putting my name forward on this occasion. I am too busy:)

Categories
Business charitable social networking

Award winning Burton Road chippy in Lincoln @burtonrdchippy – eat their chips

Burton Road Chippy in Lincoln

charity begins at a chip shopI don’t follow many chip shops on twitter. In fact I think I only follow the one, @burtonrdchippy.

I like the @burtonrdchippy tweets. I like to know that they have offers on although seeing as I am trying to lose a few pounds I don’t typically frequent fish and chip shops.

When I see something good I retweet it and so hopefully in a modest way @burtonrdchippy gets more exposure and more custom. Many of the people I follow and who follow me are local to me so there is a chance they will go and eat there.

@burtonrdchippy has a personality I can engage with. Imagine my delight therefore when driving to drop off a trumpeter at a band practice I heard on BBC Radio Lincolnshire that @burtonrdchippy is now an award winning emporium – one of the best in the East of England in fact.

It wasn’t far to go so I popped round to congratulate them. Tweetmeister (for want of a better word) Lesley wasn’t there though and when I went back later this evening they were busy so I let them be.

So I’m just going to write this short blog post as a small token of my appreciation of the fact that this chippy has embraced the new world, mixed it with the old and is making a success of it.

Eat their chips, sit in their fine restaurant section and enjoy a bottle of wine with your fish. The fish will be freshly prepared and have come from a sustainable source. Check out their website here and follow them on twitter. I sense a tweetup at a chip shop in the offing.

Well done  @burtonrdchippy. Frying tonight:)