alttab

to be honest some of the quotes coming from the article smacks of your typical local councillor cluelessness. examples of So-called 'business transformation' is much more than just a few new call centers. Obviously, the councillors tend to focus on the customer facing bit and how well that services the city's citizens, but really the scope of what's involved in new IT systems, organizational change of your ICT service and infrastructure is probably a bit too much work for them to have to comprehend. So they obviously focus on the stuff that makes the papers like job offshoring. What exactly do they hope to achieve by commisioning more expense in a report. I wouldn't say an analysis isn't a good move, but the whole point of ict transformation is that it's supposed to have cost benefits - if those have turned out to be pie in the sky numbers then i think it'll cost a lot more than they'd be willing to spend for someone to tell them where they're going wrong - what can they possibly unwind from such a deal anyway give the years of budget cuts ahead...?

what's sudden about it ? It's probably seen as a perk of the job for spending most of your working life as a mandarin.

which is fine if you've got an export-centric economic model. and you can setup a monetary union which has smaller nations in the union dancing to the tune of your economic model. But neither the UK nor the US have that (and it's debatable as to whether that would be healthy), so budget surpluses aren't an option.

out of control spending by who ? It is prolly true that households loaded up on credit during an era of low rates, economic growth and a housing boom...But prior to this private sector credit boom, the clinton administration in the US sought to balance their budget. So it wasn't the US government that went on an out of control spending boom. it balanced the books. Here in the UK, the deficit during Brown's years as chancellor were modest, and low by historical standards. By 2004 if there was any 'out of control' spend by the blair administration spending it was well and truly done and dusted, as 'efficiencies' and outsourcing to save dough across government took over. Prior to that the conservative government of the 90's sought to reduce the deficit after the deficit HAD to increase as a result of the recession of the late 80's early 90's. So the real boom and bust cycle of the the last 30 or so years in both the US and UK has been one where economic growth is spurted by private sector borrowing. Whether it's corporates expanding into new markets or households buying new cars and houses. This allows the governments to run smaller deficits because the economy is still growing, but then you hit a financial shock which chiefly impacts on those who've borrowed to fuel the growth. In the late 80's/early 90's exiting from the ERM saw rates spike which hurt those who'd borrowed, as a result government runs a bigger deficit as it's welfare payments increase to support the new unemployed, for years afterward increased deficits support a modest recovery. The cycle repeats itself when the large deficits are trimmed over a parliament by a government determined to demonstrate it's financial 'prudence'. Mark my words, the coalition will never get the deficit down to where they want it, because the appetite just isn't there for the kind of credit fuelled boom which would allow them to reduce the deficit and not plunge us into a depression. To get growth one side of the scale has to go into debt. Goverment sector AND the private sector cannot save at the same time. i'm not a socialist in any way shape or form. I was one of those all too keen to blame the blair-brown goverments for what i would of called overspending, before i put their administration into historical context. They weren't the first goverment to have benefited from a housing boom. It's just that they took over at a particular point in the cycle where private credit expansion meant they didn't have to do very much to get decent growth. Just as the thatcher goverment for a time basked in the glow of private sector credit expansion.

i don't see why an unmanaged AP moving around with a laptop trolley, where those laptops/netbooks have already associated with that AP, should be an issue. It sounds like one of the more reliable ways of getting connectivity on the cheap. I'd obviously prefer a fixed setup, with enough AP's to meet both coverage and density requirements, but i've been in plenty of places where they just don't have the money to go with a managed solution. Although obviously one of the solutions being talked up on here sounds like it could potentially provide a form managed wireless very cheaply indeed. Without having experienced the solution can't comment on it's effectiveness. I personally would rather have 25+ smart APs with a controller than going standalone AP's at that scale. And really your talking a/g AP's if you've got that many standalone AP's, 802.11n managed solutions have been around long enough for folk to have planned for them as a cost effective replacement of the legacy standalone systems. But then again i'd rather have one AP per classroom, rather than 1 per 2. And i'd also want to ensure that were i to have 25+ clients connecting to a single AP that they were setup so as not to have to pull too much down from the network at logon. In other words, you can't always get what you want.

spending more than you receive in revenue (running a deficit) is the only way to ensure people can save money. that's not the stuff of fairy stories it's one of the peculiarities of national accounting. running a surplus or balanced budget is actually the path to economic ruin. Don't take my word for it, past recessions in the UK and US were preceded by periods where deficits were too small as government sought to pursue policies of balanced budgets. In other words governments got into trouble when they tried to act how a prudent household might.

not really. i was still making the point about the nature of public spending and how the government chooses to spend. The point i'm hoping will become crystal clear over the next few years is that government spending constraints on social security, defence, education, nhs etc. are a political choice. 10bn to the IMF in monetary terms is neither here nor there for a country that spends in excess of 1 trn pounds a year. Even then by the very nature of such things, the government get's something back in return. When the government intervened during the financial crisis it took large equity stakes in some very big banks. That course of action wasn't strictly necessary, but it's not a commitment that bankrupts any grandchildren. And the government get's something in return. Neither is running a large deficit a real problem, i refuse to believe that the UK can ever go broke except if it voluntarily chooses to renege on making it's payments - and given that's nothing more than tapping some numbers on a keyboard, why would they ever want to go down that route!!! There are just too many people willing and needing to work and pay taxes - irrespective of how unbalanced the tax and benefits system has been, for investors to ever really lose confidence in the UK. Even if you look at somewhere like Greece with all the problems it has - tenfold the issues we face, those problems still aren't enough for the eurozone to fall in on itself because it has a buyer of last resort. It's not totally exposed to the markets. From a personal point of view, i feel localism has a lot going for it - and the idea that local people and communities should have a greater say in how and where money is spent. The things that could be done in my area which would have significant impact if only a fraction of the billions that get earmarked regionally can filter through...it's all political rather than monetary limitations.

what would motivate companies to fund a lot of these projects that serve a public good ? If not the ability to extract rents. Sure there is a social responsibility element that the large companies get involved in, but there primarily reason for existence is to make profits and keep investors happy. there has to be a mixture of private and public sector investment, At the moment it's supposedly the case that 40% of the economy is the public sector. But i believe the government sector involvement in a modern economy is far higher than that. It's just not identified as such, call it an invisible hand if you like. One of the reasons i think people want to see a smaller public sector or public sector involvement is because they don't have any faith in the beuracracies that accompany the machinery of goverment - and it's easier to have a go at those beuracracies rather than the beuracracies of the private sector, becuase people perceive that they're funding waste through their taxes. . But then spending public money at any level involves creating beuracracies and an element of waste and ineffeciencies, a community cooperative which receives funds from some local or national pot of money still needs people to take on administrative and managerial roles and be accountable so as projects can be completed. With more and more people withdrawing into a world of work and family and less interest in taking on responsible roles in the community, we can't complain if local or national government decides it can't take the risk and is better off investing using the existing mechanisms. It's no good an individual saying that they should be taxed less/get to keep more money in their pockets, and therefore for investment decisions around the country be based on the populaces spending habits, because governments' role in providing a public good has whittled away to nothing. We'd end up with nothing but shopping centres. Not all of the stuff that local and national govt. does is strictly necessary, ...and there are always consequences to taking stuff away or not doing it anymore. And a lot of stuff would just be too big of a void to fill by any other means.

So government can't intervene or shouldn't intervene to reduce things like child poverty ? We should just go back to pre-war statistics on a whole range of social issues, dismantle the welfare state maybe - send homeless soaring again...if it means more nice old buildings get built by wealthy benefactors ? If it can be shown that schools, hospitals, roads, rail can be built without state subsidy AND made freely available where needed then i won't hold on to the notion that government needs to intervene. But i've no idea how any of that would be profitable to do for a private sector company or financier. And good luck with the councils going round with a cookie jar asking the local businesses to build a local swimming pool. The nearest thing you'd get is a bank lending money for a community building project, because it portrays them in a good light. But that only serves to increase private sector debt, and i don't think you can rebuild britain based on that model. Whichever way dress it up as, the funding model involves debt of some sort, the choice is whether it's an increase in private borrowing or government borrowing. excessive private borrowing = financial crisis. excessive government borrowing = no big deal. the cash all private companies combined equal to the governments ability to spend ? not even close. don't apply private sector debt-earnings ratio's to a government which isn't as restricted. I'd rather low skilled staff be paid a decent wage, rather than bending over backwards to implement in initiatives to keep their pay down. It doesn't have to be one or the other, we can have higher pay and lower taxes. No, high cost of living is because government doesn't use properly it's powers to intervene. If it has the regulatory power to break up a monopoly would that not help raise competition and keep prices low ? What other agency has the power to protect consumer rights through law and regulation. If that isn't intervening in the economy then i don't know what is. So how would that work today, we abandon taxation and ask people to contribute to the building of new hospitals and schools ? No government money at all, just donations. Who decides what get's built where, do all those who've made a monetary contribution get a say irrespective of size of donation? you can't apply debt to earnings calculations to a country like the UK. if i borrow money to buy a house, i take out a loan that i have to repay through earnings. When government 'borrows' it's promising to pay people after a certain period of time a fixed amount of money that it creates by some people in an area of government typing into a computer. That's something that governments can do that you or me can't. businesses make money from consumers. So, to support the huge number of businesses in our economy and their desire for profitability, we as a nation of private sector spenders need to go massively (and i mean massively) in debt to keep these businesses profitable, if we decide to take most of the state spending and subsidy away. We can't apply a pre-1945 model of smaller population, far fewer people in the workforce, far fewer profit speaking businesses, and apply it to the situation we have today where we don't have the same fiat money restrictions. And then just say, we'll build everything with money that rich businesses and individuals don't mind if they don't see back!!!

and at the tail end of the 19th century and beginning of the early 20th you had massive government subsidised house building and clearance of slum dwellings. Then again during the interwar years. I don't think private capital is automatically preferable to state spending. Especially today, as government isn't technically as constrained as it was in the past, but there exists the problem in that we believe we are constrained in not being able to invest without bankrupting our grandchildren [thatcher's famous comment about the government not having any money itself - it being taxpayers money] . And so the government seems content to sit on it's hands.... and the spending that can and should be happening just isn't getting done. Probably because government has long since lost it's nerve on delivering socially useful initiatives for fear of 'wasting taxpayers money'. The 10bn to the IMF is neither hear nor there, it's just another number on a spreadsheet as far as the government is concerned. If government decided to spend 50bn building half a million new homes i wouldn't lose any sleep over that either. Or if it decided to allocate a few more billion to bring forward tax changes i wouldn't worry either, it's all socially useful stuff. And it wouldn't bankrupt us either. And we could still afford to pay welfare benefits. I think that situation will arise Eventually anyway, with spending increases and tax cuts and then they'll realise they'll never be able to raise interest rates and clear the deficit for fear of sending everything down the swanny.

it's not a view, i thought it was a known fact, that government's role is to intervene in the economy. What else are they their for ? agreed. but then companies small and large would have to increase substantially how much they pay their employees to compensate. It's not good enough to say that the current minimum wage alone is sufficient for families given the cost of living. Alternatively, taking part-time workers out of income tax altogether and reducing the tax burden of others is a start, but it's not really happening aggressively enough. Here you have an opportunity whereby government can provide a job at sufficient pay for anyone who wants one. There are plenty of examples of how government can employ on a large scale, and it's focus would be entirely on providing roles for people not maximising profit. But then other developed countries also seem to manage with more public holidays and lower tax burden relative to the size of government they have. yes, i did assume it was the role of government. you have to have some agency which performs that role, you can't simply rely on charities and religious institutions. As a taxpayer also, it actually cheeses me off. But, good luck to them, if they can take advantage of the tax system and keep their earnings - not having such tax breaks would otherwise discourage entrepreneurship, and good luck to someone on benefits if they're able to continue to stay in their homes and keep the lights on. I'd no sooner force someone to work to barely scrape an existence than i would force someone paying 20% or less tax to pay 40% tax that they would ordinarily be paying if they were taxed under PAYE. There's no company on earth that has anywhere near the money that any one of the developed countries or the eurozone have. Where will the money come from to rebuild tsunami ravaged Japan, if not the national government ? Similarly, while Cadbury's built small communities, it's hardly the same as national housebuilding or motorway building projects that only government can afford. I think both forms of infrastructure spending can exist, and it's a tremendous boon for any area where a profitable company can use it's cash pile to deliver something socially useful. But government has to build and maintain beyond these small pockets of investment. But even if you push government further into the background it still writes the cheques, because it has to in order to convince the private sector companies to make the investments. Whether that's massive rail subsidies or massive pfi.

I'm sorry, but it is the governments role to intervene. It does so already by subsidising low paid employment, through the tax credits system. You think those people on barely above minimum wage, working 24-30 hours a week can afford to do those jobs without government intervention. Trouble is even the security of those jobs is like gold dust, and good luck with getting anyone to aspire to anything further as the tax system system would disincentivise. Nothing to do with laziness. The other problem is the government needs to support the incomes of 'dole bludgers' with dependants through child tax credits because their benefit checks alone aren't enough!! I'd rather see people work for a living wage than work for their benefits. But how can the former happen if the government doesn't create the jobs and/or provide the subsidies. So by all means, cut benefits and reduce the welfare state if there exists an alternative that can support the numbers we're talking about. I didn't say they were evil, i just don't see them as being as unconditionally deserving as you clearly seem to do!!! I'm irked by all those who play the system, i'm not excusing feckless behaviour. But nor do i approve of cronyism. I'm not arguing for communism either - we're talking about a fundamental tenet of a democracy - a welfare system, just pointing out that handouts exist at all levels, but at only one level is it ever given media attention. wrong again. Government influences behaviour under a capitalist system all the time. Which other entity do you know that has the power to tax ? Plus individuals and companies always follow where the government decides to spend it's checks. Because that's how most jobs are created, by government paying for something. A road, a hospital, a school, rural broadband........

exactly. The exact same thing regarding increased mdm costs and increased help desk provisioning would have applied a few years ago when remote working solutions were being implemented/upgraded, and citrix licensing was the increased cost to the IT budgets at that time.

The problem is how you interpret this quote and the idea of causation the idea peddled by the press is that those in the second group of people have the prospects they have because of the people in the first group. When it's clear to me the circumstances of both groups are symptoms rather than one causing the other. Person A on benefits and in social housing is not the causation of person B incurring thousands of pounds of debts and forced to rent. And neither does it work the other way.... Person A is reliant on benefits because the government chooses not to guarantee a well paid job and childcare arrangements. Plus if it's commendable for someone on good money to be seeking out the most tax efficient way of receiving their income even if that's at the expense of others who can't take advantage of such breaks, then why is it not acceptable for those on benefits with dependants to not put themselves in a situation where they incur tax burdens ? This points to an unfair tax and benefits system, yes. But it's an unfair tax system all the way up, from taxpayer funded consultants in the middle paying tax at 20%, to non-doms who save even more every year. It's not just at the level of those who are on out of work benefits where the tax inequalities exist. Person B is in debt because government chooses not to provide affordable housing, both situations are rectifiable but not in isolation and the current prescription for dealing with these problems are wholly inappropriate. This idea that you work hard and you get the rewards is nice in theory, but on paper those who espouse that would probably not be in the position they are without a fair bit of luck, inheritance, cronyism, misfortune-of-others, tax loopholes to have 'earned' those rewards. But then they're not chavs so whatever good fortune they've fallen into is alright and govt. shouldn't dare tax or take it away. As soon as people try and take the moral high ground and say i work harder than thee or i get up earlier therefore...then they are on shaky ground. because that kind of perceived 'fairness' doesn't work in capitalism anyway.

the greeks will never pay that money back. Because the prescribed method of payback is reducing the national deficits which equals austerity cuts, which doesn't work. The only way shrinking the size of government and welfare cuts works is if it kicks off a credit boom, and i can't see that happening in places like Spain and Greece where unemployment is so high. In the end the government will always ending up writing the cheque, or in the case of the EU the richer nations via the european central bank - even if it's PFI-style off balance sheet state spending which disguises itself as private sector 'investment'. Just as much of a misnomer as investors 'lending money' to government in the bond market. The bond market should be more accurately described as governments writing pension cheques. ;0) So the only way out is some combination of the ECB writing the cheques so that the greek government can keep the lights on and a haircut for those who were daft enough to buy Greek bonds. In the meantime i guess the ECB continues to be the buyer of last resort. The IMF is not unlike the ECB, it's just a mechanism through which governments spend. I guess you could call it aid, but it's aid with a lot of strings. The chief beneficiaries of which are those who clean up during the firesale when a country is forced down the austerity/IMF route.

fair points, but looking at it it appears the forthcoming clover trail dual core atom will be initially THE option for x86 tablets, with a combo of 10" tablet-only reference designs and 11" hybrids (i'm not sure whether that means transformer prime style devices or basically 11" netbook with touchscreen). There certainly will be options in terms of a variety of manufacturers providing x86 in the two styles/sizes, but coupled with more options for the consumer with identical looking devices on the ARM side, however running RT. And so you have the fragmentation of the windows OS. It could well get quite confusing for the consumer, but it may also make decisions on purchasing decisions a little tricky. While no single style needs to win out, you want to know what you want from an ultraportable device before making a decision, if people are expecting one device to do it all...keyboard, touch, x86 apps, long battery/standby. they might end up with making a few more compromises than they were anticpating., I think people have experience of making those compromises when they made previous netbook purchases. And those purchases were incredibly popular but only because they got the price right to begin with, but i do wonder whether these devices will be priced competitively enough in the beginning phase. A problem that's hobbled the x86 tab attempts in the past amongst other shortcomings.

ofcourse the form factor existed before the iPad, just like the ultraportable existed before the macbook air, but arguably apple were first to succeed in using the form factor in a way that allowed as many people as possible to create and consume content on the form factor in a very different way to what was done before or what was being done on pc's. With early x86 tablets there was a nod to a different method of interacting with the device, but all in a tacked on afterthought kind of way. A kind of don't worry, this is still a pc...when it should maybe have been introduction the user to new features than we now consider standard for tablets and smartphones, and battery life that was days rather than hours. when people talk about scaled down intel architectures for slate type devices, they are as much drinking from a form of marketing kool aid as the apple fans. don't know how wise it is to be a slave to a product roadmap and expectations that intel, hardware manufactures and microsoft can/will pull it all together in 201? when people are out there with money burning a hole in their pockets to spend now and later on in the year.

i don't really see how any of that is a disaster. No flash support is a given for any ARM-based tablet which wants to boast serious battery life. What do the RT tablets need to be backwards compatible with ? If microsoft develop WOA versions of some of their popular software i don't see it as an issue. Plus, given the number of complaints i've read about some of the flash software developed for education i would have thought IT would be relieved those headaches won't be replicated across any flavour of tablet in the future. Lack of gpo support perhaps is a bit of a kicker for those looking at RT because it would fit in with their existing management tools, but clearly institutions have to give consideration to going down an MDM route anyway so as to support BYOD and the most popular tablet currently out there currently. The platform may come good in a few years precisely because things will move away from the legacy model of this thing needs to walk and talk like a fat pc and be managed as such approach. What microsoft needs to do is anticipate that and in the meantime provide some incentives for early adopters who've baulked at the iPad because of perceived PITA from a device management point of view..

on a number of levels the ipad is a better device IMHO, better battery life, snappier experience, more user friendly gui (v. important at primary level especially). but crucially the app ecosystem is much more polished. How many apps dedicated for the ipad - hundreds of thousands. Plus i would guess there are now many primaries now comfortable navigating the ecosystem and picking out apps which seem to find flavour across a number of schools in different parts of the country. How many apps designed specifically for the latest tablets running a version of android that atleast tries to compliment the undoubtedly impressive hardware specs of the latest devices ? and not scaled up version of apps which will need to run on a variety of different smartphones from different manufacturers. Cost is one thing, but the ipad2 will have come down in price since the introduction of the new ipad, and IT folk will and should argue for TCO benefits, and the T&L benefits. Rather than just Tablet A sticker price is cheaper than Tablet B.

I think even if you forgoe the uni route, you may find yourself in a situation where you take a left turn from the technical certs...it may be that the nature of the role changes to more contract mgmt rather than technical nuts and bolts, or moving up requires nontechnical certs like project management. Atleast a degree is universally recognised and not something that will pidgeon hole you into a particular role. I know of people with engineering degrees who've gone into banking and IT, because their academic skills were presumably an indicator of intelligence and ability to learn rather than an indicator of a detailed knowledge of jet engines. there's a certain amount of transferrable skills, the mathematical side i guess. The increased fees don't appear to be putting people off, who clearly see it as more than just a piece of paper. Even a degree at a former poly in a new fangled new media type degree has it's advantages, if it means students get to experience uni life and can carry on learning skills which have value in the economy.

There's a life experience aspect of going on to. Uni and living away from home at 19 or 20 that you don't get from doing A distance learning form of study... It's also the case that statistically your more likely to earn more over your career, but more specifically placements on graduate trainee schemes are available if you meet the academic standards expected by the prospective employer. This could be in finance, law, IT consultancy and various other area that might not otherwise be available if you don't go the uni route. sure you can work your way up over a number of years without being a lucky one who's being trained up a s a graduate professional, through a combination of diligence and luck but I would think it's more common for the very well renumerated jobs to be filled by graduate professionals eventually.

I've not heard of any one to one deployments featuring non 'idevices', not saying they don't exist just not come across any case studies. There are however an increasing number of iPad case studies. Deployment model will vary depending on ownership, but whether school owned or pupil/parent owned, they are still essentially single user devices with a nod to a hybrid model of deployment where the institution can have some control over install of common apps, pushing down settings and so on. As you say a Lot of the mdm solutions are pricey and paid app deployment is an issue for us in the uk, so do you invest in mdm if you can't utilise volume purchase codes? Hopefully apple supplied tools will develop to offer more in the way of management over wireless rather than via USB synching. That's assuming you don't want to limit IT's control only to the availability of settings and wireless portals for onsite specific settings. I can see an argument for saying that pupils should take 'ownership' of the device with guidance on areas such as esafety and IT ensuring the pupils can access resources and use the devices in the correct way in school.

I thought the argument about flash was put to bed a long time ago, sure it's annoying when flash content isn't available, but the con in terms of battery drain just wasn't worth it's inclusion for tablets. If it's about content, usability, battery and browsing (sans flash) performance, then the iPad 2 looks very appealing at the new price. I really don't think the number of megapixels a front facing camera has or whether SD expansion is possible matters very much to the majority of tablet purchasers.

I think people talk about a squeezed middle, and that certainly is true. When has it been any other way really ? But I think a couple of big changes in recent years need to be offset against the raising of taxes, low interest rates are really low which in theory benefits debtors rather than rich savers. Obviously low rates aren't good for those relying on traditionally savings based retirements, but lower rates benefit our democracy as a whole rather than paying higher rates on savings which aren't put to work. The other is low general price inflation. Obviously you don't feel wealthier if your persistently getting pay freezes, but in general it's a fairly benign environment as far rates and inflation....so with that side of the equation pretty much taken care of, it's up to someone to come into power who can slay another couple of dragons. No.1 top down tax cuts aren't democratically justifiable and where's the evidence they work better than say a payroll holiday for basic rate taxpayers. The second is that we don't need to cut spending faster so as to pay off debts. Paying off non existent debts, the equivalent of taking money out of the economy and burning it, is not as useful as putting money in peoples pockets. If they feel they must cut spending then they need to cut taxes equally aggressively to offset the fiscal drag. But obviously a democratic tax cut, not just a corp tax cut or an aggressive cut for top 1 percent of earners. At the minute it's one step forward two steps back....raising personal tax threshold is a good start but then the fuel escalator and public sector pay freezes continues to bite. Or how about the tax drag that is the tuition fees increase. And on and on. This whole notion of giving with one hand and taxing from another is really counter productive.

in most areas w2k8 won't add anything revolutionary for basic things like dhcp, dns and print. the improvements made in the areas of DFS and Quota management which come under the file services banner could be significant enough to make the difference should you choose to use them later on.