TechArchive

Original article date: May 2001 If you can save your work when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on BillIf you can trust your scripts when others doubt youAnd keep well hid your list of those to kill If you can wait and not salute (three fingered)Just ‘cos the hour glass goes on [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 We get what we deserve in this country, we really do. Witness the Top Gear two-year-old car satisfaction survey when the most griped about cars are also the best sellers in the UK. It seems we don’t have the bottle to put our foot down, and [...]

Original article date: September 1997 I’ve always liked helpful guides. So here, for the first time, from a machinery designer, is the definitive guide to buying automation. 1. Show the supplier who’s boss. Refuse to discuss the project over the phone so that they have to travel the length of the country to find out [...]

Original article date: June 2001 1. Since we actually handedover the money for the 3D solid modelling system, the suppliers have been far more attentive and responsive. 2. Setting up a new computeris so much easier than you expect it will be, and takes so much less time. 3. When you add up all the [...]

Original article date: April 1998 Implementing new ideas with as little fuss as possible is really, really important. Here, then is the definitive guide to bringing a new technology or software package into the workplace. Really. 1 Kill as many birds with one stone as possible. Bring in voicemail, email, hot desking and 7.30am workforce [...]

Original article date: June 2002 They used to say that 75% of UK VCRs still had 00:00 flashinginstead of the correct set time. As Vic Reeves so rightly points out, 87% of statistics are made up on the spot, but I think we’d all agree that most technology out there is massively under-used. A classic [...]

Original article date: July 2002 I have spent the last month getting to grips with my first Palm OS PDA.Two things have struck me: the first is that the pen-based interface I always swore I’d never touch is actually quite handy if you have to take notes halfway across a departure lounge while walking with [...]

Original article date: March 2002 We really do get the service we deserve. In the same way people used to always vote Conservative for tax reasons after telling the pollsters they would vote Labour, purchasers say that service and supply reliability is their primary criterion and then go out and buy the cheapest. The problem [...]

Original article date: January 1998 This month I’d like to rant about software, because it seems to me that the vendors want to have their cake and eat it. You see, we don’t buy software anymore ­ we are granted a licence to use it, but it still belongs to them. And yet they don’t [...]

Original article date: September 2000 …If you are going to make a significant change to a product, then change the *$!o&* part number… I have said a few times of late that I thought that the whole ‘business to business selling on the net’ thing was missing the point. And this week has proved me [...]