Pure DAB Con

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

I wanted a nice little dab radio I could carry round and I was bought the Pure One Compact as a present. Hopefully the giver isn’t reading this as it is a bit pants.

Not only does it have a bit of a naff UI requiring manipulation of buttons on the top and the side just to change channels (and pressing the button on the side really needs two hands or it falls over!) it also loses its presets with sickening frequency. Requiring more clicking and scrolling and pressing and holding to put them back.

My old Tesco value one was easier to use in general but setting the presets was horribly complicated. In fact the only time that lost its presets was when I deleted them all trying to save a new one! Hopefully this will last a good deal longer than the Tesco which just died one day (and is no longer made) and it does sound a lot better.

The other problem with the Tesco one was it ate batteries at an alarming rate (as DABs do – back to my frequent complaint that turning off analogue broadcasting is an environmental disaster!). The Pure One has rechargables, oh wait it has a recharging circuit and takes a battery pack “sold separately”.

As this is marketed as a “portable” radio can I sue because it isn’t portable unless you buy another bit of kit at £25 to go with it?

Could anyone get away with selling a laptop without the batteries???

Is remote working an infallible concept?

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

With Work Wise week underway here in the UK, many are extolling the virtues of smarter travel and more flexible working.

Now, remote working evidently has its benefits for the business – greater flexibility leading to happier employees and productivity boosts being two notable ones.  For the environment too there are plenty of pros – less power consumption in offices and fewer cars on the road meaning less toxic emissions to burn holes in our atmosphere.

At first sight it seems like remote working is an infallible concept. Are there any downsides at all to businesses offering this kind of flexibility?

Well, of course, it depends on the company. Too often we lump all industries under that one umbrella term of ‘businesses’ and claim something is beneficial for them, disregarding the different needs of different industries.

For example, would remote working be applicable to customer service employees? And what about telesales – can that be done while on the move? Every firm needs to consider how much they need people in the office before offering remote working – it is simple common sense.

Allowing employees to work while on the go also brings with it extra problems for management, particularly when dealing with a large team. Who do you offer remote working to and when? How do you prevent discrimination between employees and keep everyone happy? These are serious questions and if they go unanswered could damage employee morale. No one needs that.

Then there is a security issue. We’ve all heard of workers on the move losing devices containing sensitive data. Do you let workers use their own laptop, thereby placing corporate data at greater risk? Do you give them a corporate notebook with adequate safeguards? And what devices do you allow employees to take away from the office? Of course, similar key questions now apply to smartphones as well.

Solutions are emerging to help answer such questions, such as functions that allow workers to separate usage on their devices between work and personal operation. This is seen in the new BlackBerry 6 OS, with the Dual Persona feature. Exploring avenues such as this can help firms save money and stay safe.

These considerations need to be taken into account before organisations dive into remote working and its indisputable benefits. And here I will generalise with that umbrella term: all businesses need to answer all conceivable questions surrounding any project before implementing. Planning is essential, especially in precarious times such as these.

Two Sides

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

The only reason my new employers use e-mail to send highly confidential documents, instead of faxing them, is because the facsimile machine had broken. No-one could get the new one to work. When my employment with them started a year ago they were happy to send 50 pages of reports by fax. They thought it was safer and more secure because ‘The Internet’ was open to anyone to read what you sent. (more…)