Working from home is a matter of trust
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in workwise week, remote working, IT PRO, flexible working on
Like my other IT PRO colleagues, I’m working from home today in support of Work Wise week.
I’m a fan of remote and flexible working. It makes a lot of sense. The big companies like Google and Microsoft undoubtedly have good flexible working policies, and it makes workers happier as it definitely improves the work life balance.
I would say though that managers really have to have faith and trust in their employees to make it work. There must be some management out there who still believe in ‘clockwatching’ - making sure that employees come in and come out at a set time.
Because you can’t see your employees then you don’t know what they are doing - are they offline, dossing, sleeping, playing with their kids - you can’t tell.
However I’m glad to say that IT PRO has faith in me and know that I won’t be doing that. They can also contact me on email and Windows Messenger at any time to check where I am and what I’m doing.
But in the end it’s about trust. They realise that I will work just as hard as at home, and that’s why employees and management need a good relationship to make this work.
I’ll also be going to my local Coffee Republic today to check out its Wi-Fi and to see whether its actually a good working environment!
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Ten funny sightings on Google Street View
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in Google Street View, funny, IT PRO, Google, internet on
Google Street View has come to the UK, and the IT PRO team has already been playing around with it.
First up I did what everybody does - look up our houses and places of work. Then I tried to see if the cars whizzing around London with Google cameras managed to pick up interesting stuff. Our ex-editor Chris Green was doing the same thing - he managed to find himself on Google Street View!
I decided to have a look around the web and see if there was anything else interesting that Google Street View may have caught.
1 Woman decides to flash the Google camera car in Chicago
It’s pretty self-explanatory. Hopefully it will a van will never catch me when I’m in weekend drunk mode…
2 A sign that makes no sense in Washington
I guess the only reason why this sign would be up was due to there being a school for deaf children or something.
3 Plastering a car with post-it notes in Florida.
Admit it. This is cool. If I had that many post-it notes I would be all up for doing this.
4 Someone peeing into bushes in Paris.
You would have to zoom in to see this properly. I guess at least he wasn’ t doing a number two. These sightings are probably more common than you might think.
5 Somebody giving the Google Street View car a taste of its own medicine
Say cheese!
6 Another French man peeing in Lille.
Told you. Wonder if French men like being caught peeing by speeding cars with big cameras on its roof.
For those Google Street View surfers of a more morbid nature.
My brain is melting…
9 An incredibly skinny Spanish guy
I’m sure this is simply a trick of the camera. Got a frame like one of those Indie dudes I see in Shoreditch with the stupid hats.
10 A French prostitute in Paris
Well I think she’s (or he?) is a hooker with those clothes and the gold boots.
Was also kinda glad that she wasn’t having a pee.
Rated: 20% (1 votes)
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How Pirate Bay sticks two fingers up at the industry
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in Sweden, trial, Pirate Bay, pirate, Microsoft, IT PRO, Apple on
The Swedish owners of Pirate Bay, one of the most notorious file sharing websites in the world, seem to be bulletproof.
It was today revealed that on the second day of their highly-publicised trial for copyright infringement, the prosecution has already had to abandon half of all the charges.
They are completely open about what they’ve been doing - hence the name, symbol and much of what they say on the website.
Their main defence is that none of the files shared are saved on their server - only torrent files, which technically means that the owners of the site don’t hold any of the copyrighted files.
Many of the companies whose property is being downloaded are pretty unhappy with what the Pirate Bay does, and how the owners stick two fingers up and laugh, as they feel they are protected under Swedish law.
Here are some of the cease-and-desist notices that companies have sent to Pirate Bay, together with some of the rather cheeky replies that its owners have given.
The big daddy of tech has already sent what Pirate Bay owners describe as a ‘ton’ of cease and desist letters like this one.
Pirates Bay contains a number of Microsoft files which users have uploaded and shared, including different versions of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and many more.
Like Microsoft, Apple sounds very serious in how it intends to “take further actions to stop the sites illegal activities.”
However the Pirate Bay sent a rather mocking reply, together with the insult: “Instead of simply recommending that you sodomise yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model- the ASP 21 inch, the previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action.”
The MPAA and the Swedish government
The Motion Picture Association of America and Swedish authorities thought they scored a victory against the Pirate Bay by ’shutting down’ the website in 2006.
However, the Pirate Bay returned.
They said: “Just some stats… here are some reasons why The Pirate Bay is down sometimes, and how long it usually take to fix.
Tiamo gets “very” drunk and then something crashes - 4 days
Anakata gets a really bad cold and no-one is around - 7 days
The US and Swedish government forces the police to steal our servers - 3 days…. yawn
Rated: 80% (5 votes)
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Seven months in as an IT journalist - 20 things I’ve learned.
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in list, IT PRO, Security, Social Networking on
Seven months in working as a Staff Writer at IT PRO… What can i say? Probably the best thing to do is in what my editor does - write a list based thing about what I’ve learned.
1 Journalists always complain about pay (especially me)
2 Some IT journalists are very strange. It’s a very incestious bunch.
3 IT journalists love getting free stuff - and won’t give it back unless prompted by the PR about fifty times.
4 Once you get a reputation in IT journalism, it’s very difficult to lose it.
5
Rated: 40% (2 votes)
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The new look website
By Asavin Wattanajantra in Editorial
Posted in participation, social, IT PRO, new on
So after a few gremlins in the system to which we all here at IT PRO sincerely apologise, the new look website is live!
Many of the changes will hopefully encourage you to participate more, which from my point of view is great as I really think that’s one of the big joys of an online publication.
So what do you think?
Rated: 60% (3 votes)
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