I'm hearing that more and more American companies don't have guaranteed vacation allowances and instead it's at the boss' discretion. Sounds open to abuse to me. This is how my employer does it, except I'm in the UK where the statutory minimum is 20 days, and they offer new and long-term employees 25 days (only 5 can be rolled over to the first quarter of the next year). I'm also Canadian, and as much as I love Canada, when I think of moving back I get put off by the loss of holiday. I don't know you you Americans do it, I guess you just haven't experienced better.
Encourage home working... Most office jobs can be done from anywhere with an internet connection and phoneline...
As somebody who did this for 10 years, let me tell you it's not a good idea as a permanent solution for most people. I only do it now if my early morning meetings leave me in my PJs at lunchtime. Some flexibility is good, but it does disrupt communications.
Many staff never need to interact directly with third parties and so have no reason to be at work 9-5.
As somebody who works with colleagues in Shanghai and California, as much overlap of working hours as possible is a good idea.
Convince businesses to get over this stupid obsession of having offices in central london (or other large cities),
When our office in the Soho was closed recently, I would have quit if forced to travel to the other office outside London. Even SE1 is a bit disappointing.
I personally have turned down several job offers that required commuting to central london.
I would refuse too if I had a stupid commute or had to drive. This is why I live in cycling distance and 25km/day is good for my health. Bonus!
I wonder if there will be enough room for DB and Thalys trains to run from Cologne or Paris right through to Manchester. Finally some competition. Looking for to the DB trains coming through the tunnel to London next year (or is it 2014?). Eurostar is pretty out-dated, and the stop in Brussels Midi is really grating after a while.
This HS2 line is embarrassingly late, and it's still years away. The UK was years behind our neighbours when the Eurostar route was porposed *sigh*
I have colleagues who live in the bay area and work a couple of days a week in LA, flying down from Oakland or San Jose. Make the ticket prices similar to SW Airlines and stations in accessible locations, and many of them will prefer the train. By 2033 though, I bet the cost of airlines has increased significantly due to demand for crude oil (or scarcity if you believe we're past peak oil).
It sounds like your ideology is getting in your way. It's not just the non-destructive editting that the other person mentioned though, but the work-flow improvements that software like LR/iPhoto/Picasa give over full-blown editting software like PS/Gimp. I can go through a batch of photos and do the most common tasks much more quickly in LR, including straightening, cropping, fill lighting, white balance adjustment, etc. Maybe a pro like you gets your photos right with the camera every time, but us amateurs who want good looking shots need to some extra work. Picasa is free BTW, generally good enough, and rejecting it because it isn't FOSS is asinine. You can keep waiting for a FOSS alternative, but good luck: Gimp has been around for years, and it's still crap compared with Photoshop. FOSS people don't seem to understand UI and user experience either.
Yeah, there are some really good small cameras out there. What eventually pushed me in to SLR land was constantly fighting the camera to do what I wanted. The interface on the little cameras is just not quite there when you start constantly playing around with EV compensation, manual focus, aperture adjustments, etc. Then of course the SLR really improves the low-light performance, shutter lag and continuous shooting. By then one's spent thousands of pounds instead of a couple of hundred for a high-end P&S. The irony being that one will rarely have the SLR with them in those low-light social settings that would benefit the most from having an SLR, but according to Facebook with all the grainy, blurry photos, most people don't care.
Why would you be faffing around with PS/Gimp for basics like that when Lightroom/iPhoto/Picasa all do most of that basic stuff faster, and much cheaper than PS?
I'm seriously eyeing up the Canon S100. Shoots RAW. Fairly decent interface for such a small camera with full manual controls. Very bloody small. Cheaper than an SLR.
I honestly don't really see the point of entry level SLRS with a kit lens. If you're going to have an SLR, spend the money on decent glass, and upgrade to the body from the most basic model. By then you have several kilos of gear that is inpractical at times. And BTW, I'm talking from experience as I normally haul around a backpack with an SLR, including four lenses, flash, small tripod, filters, etc, and I spend hours dealing with the GBs of RAW shots I've taken.
Bullshit. You do know that Canada loses more days to strikes than France? In 2009, Canada lost 2.2 million working days to strikes, compared to just over 0.1 million in the US, a country 10x the size. It seems to me that Canada is paying more for unions than the US.
It's a crying shame what's going on with upload speeds in this country. A recent broadband review in the Guardian failed to highlight this, focusing only on download speed. British Telecom artificially cap DSL upload speed at something like 448kbs, and that gets passed on via wholesale to a plethora of other ISPs. There's only a handful of ISPs that offer reasonable or uncapped ADSL2+ upload speeds. Don't try making a Skype call from most homes in the UK when somebody's uploading photos; even downloads are impacted due to delayed ACKs being bottlenecked.
BT lied to me when I told them I was switching to Be Unlimited, giving upload speed as a reason: they tried to tell me that it would be impossible for BE to offer something faster than BT. I will never go back to BT, so I was recently pleased to read that BE are trialling fibre in one exchange in Barking. I hope they start rolling it out nationwide soon. I'm prepared to pay a little extra for an unlimited/uncapped internet connection, and to avoid BT.
The other thing that's sickening, as mentioned in another thread, is the requirement ISPs insist on regarding having voice service just to get broadband. This is a scam. Other countries where I've lived don't insist on this. Voice service is not required for data service, and easily be unbundled. Why would I want a voice line when we all have our own mobile phones? To top it, I get charged a penalty if I forget to make a small number of phone calls on it a month, even if those calls cost less than the penalty. Ugh, I hate the consumer experience in this country.
This was the reason I didn't switch to Chrome from FF when I evaluated it last year. I have to deal with a lot of PDFs for my job (e.g. Specs from other companies), many of which are stored on intranet web servers, many on my local hard drive I prefer the UI of the standalone Adobe Acrobat reader, even over the Adobe browser plug-in. I found a way to get Chrome to open these in the Adobe Reader, but then Chrome kept a window open that didn't redraw and killed the Adobe Reader if closed. WTF? What kind of idiot programmer thinks that's an acceptable user experience? I hope FF does a better job and I can continue to use the standalone reader. I might as well move to Chrome otherwise, which will let me regain some control over memory usage.
BTW you can hardly complain about Adobe updating all the time. FF has this stupid version inflation going on. And I have a bunch of other FOSS software that constantly interrupts and bombards me with upgrades, mostly irrelevant to me and not security related.
There's some strange filtering imposed by the last two mobile operators I've used. Orange and T-Mobile have blocked various pages that I've tried to access from Google searches with the claim that they're adult content. Boring stuff like recipes or how to install a phone extension (yes, dangerous territory). Following their link to review the block page always results in them confirming the block was valid. The occasional times I've been able to see the Google Cache link, it's always been innocuous. Sounds like people with a day's training, but I doubt they were smart enough to be students.
That's one in addition to the one I subscribe to: Freesat.
I so wish this would be the beginning of the end of being deprived of our national sports by the Murdoch clan. I'd love to be able to watch the Ashes again for the first time in 20 years. Too bad for the Premier League... maybe they will have to start a home grown training programme instead of buying in the best from the rest of world.
The point of the menu at the top is that it is faster with the mouse. You only need to be accurate in the left-right direction, not up-down. You just push the mouse hard (the edge of the screen prevents over-shooting) and then fine-tune in one dimension.
2) I've never ever had to do anything remotely like you claim about removing kernel extensions and rebooting 3 times with iTunes, and in the past month I have bounced forwards and backwards between several beta versions. (b8 -> b9 -> b7 -> 10.5 all worked flawlessly). Just download a new version of iTunes and the installer will upgrade it anyway.
Bzzzzt. This doesn't always work. I spent an age recently trying to help a friend get iTunes to see his iPhone. It would see it after installing iTunes, but after rebooting, it wouldn't detect it. A bit annoying having to install iTunes every time the computer has been restarted. There's some document buried deeply on Apple's web site, which includes instructions to delete kernel texts (e.g./System/Library/Extensions/AppleMobileDevice.kext)
I had to connect to some machines in California from London via VNC the other day. A timely reminder of how much I hate that protocol: it's so slow. RDP completely kicks its arse. The OS X server side implementation seems particularly slow, but even with everything turned down in TightVNC and JPEG compression turned up, it's still horrible (and there are all of the bugs in TightVNC on Windows, like on some machines failing to redraw the screen). Only RDP seems to be able to cope with higher latency connections. If this Chrome feature is based on VNC, maybe we'll see it improved a little by Google, but I'm not holding my breath.
I love the ribbon bar; I feel way more productive than with the old crappy menus and toolbars. OO looks and feel more like Word for Windows 2.0. It's really jarring using it, but a really good reminder of what people hated about WFW.
People who use the quick launch bar don't use many applications. People who use the desktop don't run many things concurrently. I have two pet peeves with installers and the fuckwits who write them: putting icons on my desktop, and not allowing me to customise the Start menu folder for whatever they're putting on there. Make it three: dickheads who don't seem to realise the difference between installing an icon on the Start menu for all users versus the current user (extra note: the account installing software will be different to the logged on user if that account isn't a member of the admins group).
I don't want icons every where, and I've yet to see something usable and sane coming out of the FOSS world (is there anybody who understands UX in that camp, or even just plain consistency within the platform?)
The best change in the Windows Start menu world has been the evolution of the Run box to a streamlined search box. I just pop up the menu, type a few characters and go. If that's working for me, I still have the rest of the Start menu. I'll be happy if they get rid of all those crap links like Photos, etc, except for the quick access to computer properties, management console, although they're hardly implemented in an idea fashion, just convenient/ingrained from 10 years of usage
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mklink works for me as a member of the local admins group in Win7
Why are you referring to shortcut files? That's something entirely different.
I'm hearing that more and more American companies don't have guaranteed vacation allowances and instead it's at the boss' discretion. Sounds open to abuse to me. This is how my employer does it, except I'm in the UK where the statutory minimum is 20 days, and they offer new and long-term employees 25 days (only 5 can be rolled over to the first quarter of the next year). I'm also Canadian, and as much as I love Canada, when I think of moving back I get put off by the loss of holiday. I don't know you you Americans do it, I guess you just haven't experienced better.
As somebody who did this for 10 years, let me tell you it's not a good idea as a permanent solution for most people. I only do it now if my early morning meetings leave me in my PJs at lunchtime. Some flexibility is good, but it does disrupt communications.
As somebody who works with colleagues in Shanghai and California, as much overlap of working hours as possible is a good idea.
When our office in the Soho was closed recently, I would have quit if forced to travel to the other office outside London. Even SE1 is a bit disappointing.
I would refuse too if I had a stupid commute or had to drive. This is why I live in cycling distance and 25km/day is good for my health. Bonus!
I think you're referring to "loading gauge".
I wonder if there will be enough room for DB and Thalys trains to run from Cologne or Paris right through to Manchester. Finally some competition. Looking for to the DB trains coming through the tunnel to London next year (or is it 2014?). Eurostar is pretty out-dated, and the stop in Brussels Midi is really grating after a while.
This HS2 line is embarrassingly late, and it's still years away. The UK was years behind our neighbours when the Eurostar route was porposed *sigh*
Conveniently ignoring the fact that the US waited until they knew they were on the winning side. Just like a bunch of Manchester United supporters.
They're "boroughs", not "districts". Jeeze.
Thousands of tiny files? That sounds really efficient, especially if you want to copy them, or perform some other global operation. ZZzzzz.
I have colleagues who live in the bay area and work a couple of days a week in LA, flying down from Oakland or San Jose. Make the ticket prices similar to SW Airlines and stations in accessible locations, and many of them will prefer the train. By 2033 though, I bet the cost of airlines has increased significantly due to demand for crude oil (or scarcity if you believe we're past peak oil).
It sounds like your ideology is getting in your way. It's not just the non-destructive editting that the other person mentioned though, but the work-flow improvements that software like LR/iPhoto/Picasa give over full-blown editting software like PS/Gimp. I can go through a batch of photos and do the most common tasks much more quickly in LR, including straightening, cropping, fill lighting, white balance adjustment, etc. Maybe a pro like you gets your photos right with the camera every time, but us amateurs who want good looking shots need to some extra work. Picasa is free BTW, generally good enough, and rejecting it because it isn't FOSS is asinine. You can keep waiting for a FOSS alternative, but good luck: Gimp has been around for years, and it's still crap compared with Photoshop. FOSS people don't seem to understand UI and user experience either.
Yeah, there are some really good small cameras out there. What eventually pushed me in to SLR land was constantly fighting the camera to do what I wanted. The interface on the little cameras is just not quite there when you start constantly playing around with EV compensation, manual focus, aperture adjustments, etc. Then of course the SLR really improves the low-light performance, shutter lag and continuous shooting. By then one's spent thousands of pounds instead of a couple of hundred for a high-end P&S. The irony being that one will rarely have the SLR with them in those low-light social settings that would benefit the most from having an SLR, but according to Facebook with all the grainy, blurry photos, most people don't care.
Why would you be faffing around with PS/Gimp for basics like that when Lightroom/iPhoto/Picasa all do most of that basic stuff faster, and much cheaper than PS?
I'm seriously eyeing up the Canon S100. Shoots RAW. Fairly decent interface for such a small camera with full manual controls. Very bloody small. Cheaper than an SLR.
I honestly don't really see the point of entry level SLRS with a kit lens. If you're going to have an SLR, spend the money on decent glass, and upgrade to the body from the most basic model. By then you have several kilos of gear that is inpractical at times. And BTW, I'm talking from experience as I normally haul around a backpack with an SLR, including four lenses, flash, small tripod, filters, etc, and I spend hours dealing with the GBs of RAW shots I've taken.
According to their blog, Be are trialling fibre service at an exchange in Barking. They're getting there, but too slowly for many people.
Bullshit. You do know that Canada loses more days to strikes than France? In 2009, Canada lost 2.2 million working days to strikes, compared to just over 0.1 million in the US, a country 10x the size. It seems to me that Canada is paying more for unions than the US.
Maximum upload speed: Everyday Lite and Unlimited - 1.3Mb; Connect - 448Kb;
1.3mbs upload is pretty good for the UK. 448kbs is pretty normal.
Be Unlimited offer 2.5mbs, or if you want to pay for bonded lines, 5mbs. Not many offer truly unlimited broadband.
It's a crying shame what's going on with upload speeds in this country. A recent broadband review in the Guardian failed to highlight this, focusing only on download speed. British Telecom artificially cap DSL upload speed at something like 448kbs, and that gets passed on via wholesale to a plethora of other ISPs. There's only a handful of ISPs that offer reasonable or uncapped ADSL2+ upload speeds. Don't try making a Skype call from most homes in the UK when somebody's uploading photos; even downloads are impacted due to delayed ACKs being bottlenecked.
BT lied to me when I told them I was switching to Be Unlimited, giving upload speed as a reason: they tried to tell me that it would be impossible for BE to offer something faster than BT. I will never go back to BT, so I was recently pleased to read that BE are trialling fibre in one exchange in Barking. I hope they start rolling it out nationwide soon. I'm prepared to pay a little extra for an unlimited/uncapped internet connection, and to avoid BT.
The other thing that's sickening, as mentioned in another thread, is the requirement ISPs insist on regarding having voice service just to get broadband. This is a scam. Other countries where I've lived don't insist on this. Voice service is not required for data service, and easily be unbundled. Why would I want a voice line when we all have our own mobile phones? To top it, I get charged a penalty if I forget to make a small number of phone calls on it a month, even if those calls cost less than the penalty. Ugh, I hate the consumer experience in this country.
This was the reason I didn't switch to Chrome from FF when I evaluated it last year. I have to deal with a lot of PDFs for my job (e.g. Specs from other companies), many of which are stored on intranet web servers, many on my local hard drive I prefer the UI of the standalone Adobe Acrobat reader, even over the Adobe browser plug-in. I found a way to get Chrome to open these in the Adobe Reader, but then Chrome kept a window open that didn't redraw and killed the Adobe Reader if closed. WTF? What kind of idiot programmer thinks that's an acceptable user experience? I hope FF does a better job and I can continue to use the standalone reader. I might as well move to Chrome otherwise, which will let me regain some control over memory usage.
BTW you can hardly complain about Adobe updating all the time. FF has this stupid version inflation going on. And I have a bunch of other FOSS software that constantly interrupts and bombards me with upgrades, mostly irrelevant to me and not security related.
My AppleCare paid for itself twice over when I had to get the motherboard replaced in the third year.
There's some strange filtering imposed by the last two mobile operators I've used. Orange and T-Mobile have blocked various pages that I've tried to access from Google searches with the claim that they're adult content. Boring stuff like recipes or how to install a phone extension (yes, dangerous territory). Following their link to review the block page always results in them confirming the block was valid. The occasional times I've been able to see the Google Cache link, it's always been innocuous. Sounds like people with a day's training, but I doubt they were smart enough to be students.
That's one in addition to the one I subscribe to: Freesat.
I so wish this would be the beginning of the end of being deprived of our national sports by the Murdoch clan. I'd love to be able to watch the Ashes again for the first time in 20 years. Too bad for the Premier League... maybe they will have to start a home grown training programme instead of buying in the best from the rest of world.
The point of the menu at the top is that it is faster with the mouse. You only need to be accurate in the left-right direction, not up-down. You just push the mouse hard (the edge of the screen prevents over-shooting) and then fine-tune in one dimension.
Bzzzzt. This doesn't always work. I spent an age recently trying to help a friend get iTunes to see his iPhone. It would see it after installing iTunes, but after rebooting, it wouldn't detect it. A bit annoying having to install iTunes every time the computer has been restarted. There's some document buried deeply on Apple's web site, which includes instructions to delete kernel texts (e.g. /System/Library/Extensions/AppleMobileDevice.kext)
I had to connect to some machines in California from London via VNC the other day. A timely reminder of how much I hate that protocol: it's so slow. RDP completely kicks its arse. The OS X server side implementation seems particularly slow, but even with everything turned down in TightVNC and JPEG compression turned up, it's still horrible (and there are all of the bugs in TightVNC on Windows, like on some machines failing to redraw the screen). Only RDP seems to be able to cope with higher latency connections. If this Chrome feature is based on VNC, maybe we'll see it improved a little by Google, but I'm not holding my breath.
I love the ribbon bar; I feel way more productive than with the old crappy menus and toolbars. OO looks and feel more like Word for Windows 2.0. It's really jarring using it, but a really good reminder of what people hated about WFW.
People who use the quick launch bar don't use many applications. People who use the desktop don't run many things concurrently. I have two pet peeves with installers and the fuckwits who write them: putting icons on my desktop, and not allowing me to customise the Start menu folder for whatever they're putting on there. Make it three: dickheads who don't seem to realise the difference between installing an icon on the Start menu for all users versus the current user (extra note: the account installing software will be different to the logged on user if that account isn't a member of the admins group).
I don't want icons every where, and I've yet to see something usable and sane coming out of the FOSS world (is there anybody who understands UX in that camp, or even just plain consistency within the platform?)
The best change in the Windows Start menu world has been the evolution of the Run box to a streamlined search box. I just pop up the menu, type a few characters and go. If that's working for me, I still have the rest of the Start menu. I'll be happy if they get rid of all those crap links like Photos, etc, except for the quick access to computer properties, management console, although they're hardly implemented in an idea fashion, just convenient/ingrained from 10 years of usage