TechArchive

Original article date: July 2000 The other day, I installed a telephone extension socket. The kit from B&Q included the cable and clips, the new socket, and all the instructions for tapping into the existing BT socket. Wiring into the new socket was an annoyingly fiddly job, and I was not looking forward to something [...]

Original article date: May 1999 A couple of issues ago I talked about streamlining the purchasing process by creating “plug and play suppliers”. I received some correspondence from readers pointing out that every day, goods-in departments and accounts departments key in large amounts of data (eg delivery note numbers, order numbers, invoice numbers) when these [...]

Original article date: June 2000 It has always infuriated me that I cannot view a standard via the web to see if it is the one I want to buy. BSI clearly thinks that such a resource would be abused, and that even it it charged a small fee for an online read – say [...]

Original article date: March 1998 I’ve just come back from skiing. Well OK, snowboarding (that explains the pleasant aroma ­ Ed). Well, OK, falling over a lot in the snow. And the Winter Olympics are all over the TV, so it seems like an appropriate topic for a discussion. Let’s take a (UK pounds)15 ski [...]

Original article date: October 1999 I have decamped to ‘down under’ for a while, and I’m therefore conducting a big teleworking experiment. Is it possible to work with nothing but a laptop and modem for contact with the world? I intend to find out. The two quite separate challenges of being 12,000 miles from the [...]

Original article date: October 2000 …if you’re about to specify a format for the file to store the values of a set of parameters, you’d be wise to specify XML… There’s a lot of excitement about XML at the moment. There’s a lot of rubbish spoken about it too. So I thought it best to [...]

Original article date: November 1999 As regulars will know, I have decamped to ‘down under’ for a while, and I’m trying to continue with my design work in the UK from the other side of the world. So far, so good, but as telephone and postal contact with UK suppliers is difficult, I’m really putting [...]

Original article date: October 1997 I’m writing this on a plane. Quite an astoundingly high tech plane, I might add. I have a screen on the seat-back in front of me with a control pendant that allows me to browse pages of news/sport, play a version of Tetris meets Mario, and make a phone call [...]

Original article date: January 2000 Here in Australia, tourism is a major part of the economy, and when you see their natural assets first hand, it’s easy to see why. What really takes your breath away, however, is the sheer quality and professionalism of almost every organised experience that the tourist is ever exposed to. [...]

Original article date: March 2000 I thought it would be helpful to look at how to get more from your email. If you don’t have the benefit of a friendly IT department to take care of all this, then this is for you. The essentials first. Of course you need a connection to the internet. [...]