Are you Goofling, Goggling or Gooping?

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Posted in Technology on January 23, 2008 at 5:38 pm

Do you ever get those times when you’re idling away time at the Google search bar trying to think of interesting things to look up ? Come on, admit it, we all do don’t we? Even my technology dis-interested partner does it - I have a feeling that it may become a national pastime - then maybe even a quiz show panel game.

I wondered if there is a name for it - I know about the word futzing which describes playful time interacting with a device such as a computer but I wondered if there is something particular to search engine input forms. They always seem so tempting with their little flashing cursors in the search box. So I typed into Google the following search phrase (without the quotes) “idling time searching google” which delivered around 1.8m results and didn’t seem to have the answer I was looking for. I then got a little more creative trying words like Goofling, Goggling and Gooping with no luck. It’s a shame because I really thought I was onto something with Gooping. I kept trying and couldn’t find anything but then real life kicked in - maybe next time!

I still haven’t found an answer but I did realise after a while that I was doing exactly what I was trying to find the name for! (for the employers out there, don’t panic - I am on a days holiday!)

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Legacy is alive and well

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Posted in Legacy, Technology, Programming, Management on January 14, 2008 at 6:25 pm

Reading Davey Winders Blog post regarding Brainstorm and its 24th Birthday got me thinking about legacy applications and in particular our in-house bespoke ERP system that I am currently caretaker and developer of. It is too easy these days to consider an application useful only if it has a graphical user interface but I imagine that there are many older applications still in active and essential use today – that is certainly the case in our business.

Originally our ERP system was an MRP package (before ERP became an all encompassing term) and started out life serving the automotive industry – until we bought the rights to develop the source code when the original development company moved on to other projects. This software was and still is developed in COBOL, originally Ace COBOL then RM COBOL and now Microfocus COBOL on AIX. The back-end file system isn’t even a database - it still utilises C-ISAM indexed files and very few are simple sequential files. File and record locking problems still occur (though less frequently these days) and new report programs have to be hard coded by hand – I sometimes still use those sheets of 80×25 grid paper for laying out screens and reports!

The thing I discovered whilst looking through some of the code recently is that quite a few of the older programs in our ERP date back to 1978 which means that this year our ERP will be celebrating its 30th birthday! Obviously parts of the software have changed a lot since those days and I’ve completely rewritten the front end and the majority of the everyday programs and added all sorts of bells and whistles to others. But not all of the code has changed and there are still programs that are relatively untouched bar minor updates to make them compile using modern compilers – there is no windows front end – in fact no graphical user interface at all - just a text based interface (though we do use colour now), no mouse control and no WYSIWYG print preview options. New users are sometimes surprised that they can’t click on menu options with the mouse and often quiz me why they have to keep CAPS LOCK on when entering data into input fields.

However, one of the strengths of our business over the years has always been quoted as being our strong ERP software which has worked with us and for us for all these years and just goes to show that legacy applications are still alive and well - after all ‘if it ain’t broke…’ – so to our ERP system I wish a very happy 30th birthday.

I wonder how many other so called ‘legacy’ applications are still out there and serving their business partners faithfully?

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Surprise Surprise - it’s the New Year!

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Posted in News, General on January 4, 2008 at 3:51 pm

So Dixons issues a profit warning due to poor Christmas sales – not a surprise really. Dixons, at least in my little world, has an image of being quite expensive plus the days of nipping into one of their stores to look at potential purchases are long gone – so too has the impulse buy. We tried a high street retailer online service at Christmas but they couldn’t even get a simple order right and we ended up having to cancel it at the last minute because they seemingly couldn’t tell a black iPod dock from a white one – needless to say they aren’t high on our preference list anymore – not when there are a myriad of online vendors who can supply the same product quicker, cheaper and more reliably. The thing that never ceases to amaze me though is that these companies always seem to get the cash bit right – the money came out of my account almost instantly – if only service followed through as efficiently?

And in recent news, the Highways Agency is outsourcing its IT infrastructure. Outsourcing is one of those things that goes in and out of fashion. Initially, some high ranking bod in the upper eschelons of power decides that outsourcing is the way to go and let’s face it – it is very hard to argue against it if your core business activity is not IT related – and suddenly the contract is worth far more than the poor IT people, who have struggled thanklessly for years, could ever get their budgetary hands on. Then, after a few years a sense of detachment occurs, communication barriers breakdown, and the IT operation ends up being bought back inhouse under a new realm of empowerment – not that that is ever likely to happen in this case!

Strange as it may seem public sector organisations have apparently been losing data and now MP’s are calling for stricter powers and punishment for data security breaches. It also seems that these data losses may now be linked to job cuts with the unions indicating that job cuts on the horizon may put more data at risk. I would have thought that at its very core any public body that deals with public data would make the security of the data paramount and everything else would ripple out from there – haven’t they read the data protection act? Don’t these systems have auditing or authority control systems in place and if not why not? We are constantly being told, and as IT practitioners we are constantly telling others, to be vigilant in protecting our personal information online but what is the point of this if our important personal data is regularly being mislaid – we may as well put all our personal data onto MySpace. It certainly sounds like a good case for the national identity card – put all the data into one place then police it like crazy.

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Blobs of plastic

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Posted in General on January 2, 2008 at 6:47 pm

With two very young children in our household Christmas means the house is now filled with huge blobs of plastic toys - sometimes I think that friends and family either think we live in a warehouse or that they have some wicked sense of humour. I am often also gobsmacked at the almost thesis worthy way in which these toys are attached to the packaging materials which means either severed fingers or so much twisting of little plastic wire seals that the fun of the toy is lost by the time it is opened. Fortunately Santa way busy opening all their toys on Christmas Eve (and came armed to the gills with batteries) so they were ready to play come Christmas morning.After playing with these blobs of plastic for a few minutes each then raising an almost cynical eyebrow my two (nearly three) year old daughter reverted to the two things she likes best: my portable DVD player and my PDA. My PDA is an aging HP IPAQ 4350 and since I loaded some games on it and a basic drawing program she has been hooked. She can power the thing up, retrieve the stylus from the device, understand how the stylus works in relation to the screen and load in both the game and the drawing program. For the game she knows she has to navigate several screens of information to choose the game from the game collection and she also understands the concept of how the game works. She even asked me recently if she could print out her pictures for heavens sake - a few years ago I was teaching rooms of employees the relationship between moving a mouse and an onscreen pointer! For the portable DVD player she knows how to switch it on, open the DVD cover, open the DVD case and get the DVD out of it (by pressing those little plastic button things). She can then power it up, navigate the menu and play her Peppa Pig DVD. By the way - I just love the episode where daddy pig fixes the computer by “switching it off and on again”.

I almost fear for her potential level of applied IT knowledge by the time she gets to the ripe old age of five - she will probably be redesigning our home wireless network or explaining to me how badly implemented our home data backup solution is!

If there truly is an IT skills crisis then perhaps employers are looking in the wrong place – maybe they need to contact their local school instead? Happy New Year!