Boardmad…still mad for it !

Not overly impressed so far ! Jobs-worths in Apple have now re-ignited a Browser scrap but for all the wrong reasons. They’ve just released their much-lamented Safari browser for the PC platform in Beta format.

Initial reports on fairly vanilla installs suggest it’s significantly faster in the html rendering department but far from stable experiencing consistent crashes when using the form-filling functionality and I’ve personally experienced replicable crashes when entering proxy-authentication details on 2 separate and very differently built XP Pro SP2 boxes.

All in all I’d certainly consider pushing on with through Beta if they quickly resolve the stability issues if it’s really as fast rendering content as reports suggest (reminiscent of early Opera clients when it was very light). Time will tell.

Update: I’ve installed the browser in a virtualPC session on my home PC and it’s behaved impeccably and is indeed noticeably quicker on loading familiar sites. So a thumbs up on that point. It transparently pulls in your favourites from IE, Moz and FF browsers it finds installed and does an adequate job of bookmark management.

I miss the drop-down menu in the address bar but that’s just a behavioural thing I dare say I would rapidly get over. All in all don’t see it replacing FF for me any time soon but I think it’ll be a handy tool for site-testing and it’ll stay for now.

What’s better than working for the #2 UK Bank ? Why yes..! I believe it’s working for the #1 UK Bank <grins>

Well I’m finally saying goodbye to RBS after more than 4 years. It’s had it’s ups and downs but more of the former than the latter I’m happy to say. I’ve worked with a good bunch of technical people who’ve variably been grumpy, inspired, mad, inspiring, surly, ground-breaking and always challenging so thanks guys…you know who (which of) you are.Not over yet of course…I’ve a busy old notice period to get through and transitioning a lot of work and projects and processes over to the remainder of the team plus a couple of no doubt hectic days in London – probably my last with the team. Another chapter closes ;0)

Here’s the eternal question…how do you get technologists to intimately comprehend the business process and function in order that their finely-honed code can help do things quicker, cheaper and more accurately ?
This is largely the role of the Business Analyst. I’m getting heavily involved with my employer’s BA cadre grinding out a Best Practice bible in order to share experience.

I’m part of a larger group, looking at the nature of ‘Requirements’. In the broadest sense possible this covers everything from what is one, how do you define a good one, how do you get them, how do you test what you’ve got and what do you do with them once you got them, validated and tested them…so it’s all building into something a little more complex than one might think !

However this is where I tend to start sticking my oar in and muddying the waters a little. All this conjecture and academic analysis is useful and vital from the stated aim of the group – to share ‘Best Practice’…however my proximity to Business users, while staying intimately involved with the technology and infrastructure we reside upon makes me take a more measured and pragmatic view.

It’s going to be interesting to see how pragmatism and MoSCoW principles will sit alongside these plans, requirements-gathering methodologies, ellicitation tools etc !

Ars Technica does a good follow-up on their initial look at Vista from a graphical and design POV…this article goes into (limited) depth on the (belatedly updated) security model and what got cut from the release…WinFS most notably.

Shame about WinFS which is now apparently dead…but I wouldn’t be in least surprised to see something of it resurrected given that it’s principle means of data storage seems to be very similar to the way data gets backed-up and stored in Windows Home Server beta which I was involved in a few months back.

I guess storage of the myriad forms of digital soup that now reside on our PC’s is more of an issue than simply normalising all the instances of file fragments found in PC’s within your workgroup and storing instances of identical disk sectors just the once as WHS does. Still like this product but it needs a few more things like support for email transports, torrents and an externally-faced webserver with zero-config option.

Great article on the BBC yesterday about the public’s response to the ridiculous Olympic logo…they got a bunch of them to try and do better. This got one of the nods !!

And if you don’t know why it’s funny I ain’t explaining !

As ever Dilbert nicely fleshes out the ongoing disparity between what business people say and do and what they actually mean !

This is always an interesting subject for me…in almost every meeting I attend where you’re actioned you end up clarifying the actual ‘meaning’ of the requirements or action point. Now this isn’t always just down to slap-dash, hurried or unclear specification or req’t gathering…more often than not it’s down to ‘meaning’ or context or even what the specifier actually had going on in their head at the time they specified the work and did they adequately convey this meaning into consistent, unabiguous statements that are free from interpretation ?

Then of course in a dynamic and evolving business env’t how does one keep the specification ahead of the requirement ? ;D That’s for another time !!

So in the finest traditions of the stock market the share price of R B S has been taking a bit of a caning at the moment. Despite a recent multi-million pound share buy-back and a market beating 2007 share dividend the city still doesn’t believe Sir Fred et al can make their stated intent of taking over ABN Amro stick ! Sigh…

Microsoft have just released to the public their ground-breaking new interface paradigm. Can you tell I’m less than impressed ?

What’s the point in a $5-$10k hunk of rear-projected electronics and coffee table that twitters at you to get a refill, pay the bill…and don’t think for one second that the marketeers aren’t already salivating over new and insidious ways to pervade your social space with further product placement.

Imagine putting your G&T down on ‘Surface’…it knows it’s a G&T and from your earlier payment for the first round, has already hooked your demographics into it’s knowlegebase about you…next there might be info on the last series of amazon books you bought, what your eBay watchlist’s doing or “don’t you think that glass needs a refill sir ?” …argh argh. It’s a table, I just want to put things on it and for them to be there when I go back.

Some great comments on the ElReg article on ‘Surface’