The OpenSure Free Press 3rd October 2011

Posted on by March 4, 2014

I didn’t expect to be writing the first October edition of the Free Press in blazing sunshine – it was summer in April, the monsoon season in August and now it’s summer again in October. Here’s something to take your mind off the elements.

Back to school for the IT curriculum
The IT curriculum in British schools has come in for a lot of criticism recently and quite rightly so. It’s boring and fairly pointless, going no way towards teaching children the skills they need to keep Britain at the forefront of programming and developing, a position it has historically held but is now in very real danger of allowing to slip away. As Eric Schimdt of Google said so famously:

I was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn’t even taught as a standard in UK schools. Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it’s made. That is just throwing away your great computer heritage.

There are a number of approaches that would solve this problem. Teaching coding is a good start, and this is the subject of a very tiny trial described in this article. This represents a move away from teaching computer-literacy to helping children develop a deeper understanding of computing, or in Willetts-speak:

[It] will transform the IT curriculum away from computer literacy, which we believe many young people can do earlier, towards instead how they develop software and computational principles; how they can create their own programs.

With perfect timing, we came across this article on the value of IT degrees which opens:

Learning to code in your bedroom will prepare you for the IT job market just as well as a three-year degree costing £27,000.

Quite.

Open your eyes to Open Source
This Guardian article about Moorfields Eye Hospital’s OpenEyes program is a prime example of how and why open source works. A group of medics at Moorfields, feeling that patients’ and their own requirements weren’t being met by “disparate electronic systems, imaging devices, emails and paper notes”, has collaborated on OpenEyes,

a collaborative, open source electronic patient record (EPR) project for opthalmology

OpenEyes has the advantage of

the potential to save several million pounds over three years as a result of improved efficiencies and the reduced amount spent on storage, fire protection and transportation of paper notes

The article is well worth reading, not least for a discussion of the place of open source in reducing NHS costs. We give the last word to Bill Aylward, consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields, talking about the role of open source over proprietary systems in providing tools to meet the NHS’ requirements:

“I think the commercial model is not one that is suitable to deliver it in my view, or at least it’s had its chance and failed. If you throw £11bn at a problem and commercial companies give it their best shot and fail, that’s telling you something.”

The end of the web as we know it?
Is more or less the title of this article about the power of social media giants such as Facebook to affect levels of traffic to your site. The article begins with a useful run-down of how different types of hosting allow differing levels of control over your own site and is worth a read for that alone. It goes on to explain how social media influences traffic, people’s behaviour and therefore the number of visits to your site. It’s interesting, informative, thought-provoking and rather scary. You may want to follow it up with this article on how to lock down your Facebook settings.

The Green Bit

h.Energy Week
15th-23rd October is h.Energy week. We’ll be taking part at the exhibition at The Courtyard from 4-10pm on Monday 17th October, with an emphasis on energy-efficient computing, but able to advise on any hosting or computing queries you have. October’s GreenLight meeting is on Thursday 20th, to fit in with h.Energy, and will have an energy-efficiency theme. Visit the GreenLight site to find out more.

Other bits and pieces that have caught our eye recently include:

  • Should you let employees work from home? This infographic helps you decide…
  • Nerdy day trips
  • The infinite USB port
And lastly, a little something from Dilbert, but you’ll have to visit the official site to see it. Doesn’t it make you feel old?

A cost to be cut, or an investment to nurture?

Posted on by March 20, 2013

This PCAdvisor article really annoyed me, as you can see from the comments. The line that really had me snorting and huffing like a hotel owner from Torquay was this:

32 percent admit to spending £100 or more per year on web hosting

This narked me on several levels.

Firstly, £100 a year is a very low price for professional, responsive business-grade and expert hosting on well-maintained kit. Very low. Numerous clients have come over to us crying with the frustration of dealing with a CHEAP hosting company who don’t give a damn about the client, their business or the problem they’re experiencing, and cheerfully leave them dangling for three days before bothering to reply to the support ticket. We don’t do support tickets, we respond in good time and in person. The stack ’em high sell ’em cheap hosting companies don’t care that your website’s offline and you’re losing business – when your hosting costs at the most a couple of quid a week they really aren’t bothered by your little problems. You get what you pay for in this instance.

Secondly, that comment reeks of the attitude that hosting is an unimportant cost to be pared down to the bare minimum – effectively, it’s not worth paying much for. Ha! Perform this simple calculation: subtract the cost of your hosting from the revenue your website generates one way or another. If the answer is a positive number then your hosting is well worth the money and is an essential plank upon which business success rests. Why is hosting the poor relation of business investment? We look after numerous online services that are vital to the continued smooth running of our clients’ businesses – from ecommerce to collaboration to CRM. If hosting and online services are essential to a company then a fair price must be paid, just as with all other expert and professional business services.

Now enough of this nonsense. Is your website central to the success of your company? How much revenue would you lose through three days downtime or missed emails? It’s a useful exercise to work out whether you can afford cheap hosting, and if you want something reassuringly expensive, you know where to come.

The OpenSure Free Press 19th September 2011

Posted on by June 9, 2015

Did you miss us? The newsletter is a day late as we were otherwise engaged yesterday – read on for more details…

Cut to the core
This StartUp Donut blog post title says it all: if it ain’t core, don’t do it, or:

outsource or die!

I think we get the message. In this case the author seriously jeopardised his own company by trying to save a valuable client, but he makes a wider point about the value of outsourcing and remaining lean.

It’s easy to be lured into trouble in an attempt to save money, especially when that involves looking after complex IT issues. Consider how important well-run IT and online services are to your company. If the answer is ‘fairly’ or above, then unless you’re an expert, invest money in that supporting plank of your business. As with other professional services, the money spent is an investment, not a cost, especially if you choose a company that has your best interests at heart and works with you to achieve the best outcome for your business.

Crapware
We’re childish enough to find the term crapware quite funny, not to mention accurate. This LifeHacker article explains how to replace “crappy”, not to mention “craptastic”, software bundled with your new computer with superior alternatives. From naff PDF readers such as Adobe to the nightmarish Norton and McAfee, through Internet Explorer and Skype to Microsoft office, this article lists a good range of software alternatives. We’re shocked that not all are open source, but you can’t have everything. And of course, if you’re using a nice secure Linux operating system such as Ubuntu, who needs antivirus anyway?

Who’s cool now?
Well now this made us laugh. According to Mashable:

iPhones are for old people

This is based on not-very-scientific research carried out in an American college dormitory where not one single student owned an iPhone – that’s what their dads have; they themselves have HTCs and Samsungs. The article explains this as follows:

iPhone owners tend to be older and more affluent, largely because their device is more expensive than the average Android equivalent.

and, in a shocking threat to iPhone’s Arctic-cool image:

Android owners tend to…be aged between 18 and 34 — the cool years, as far as most marketers are concerned.

Zounds!

Project Gutenberg
Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, has died. Chances are you’ve heard of neither Michael Hart nor Project Gutenberg, but both man and project are very significant. Michael Hart was the pioneer of the e-book, inspired as far back as 1971 by ARPAnet, precursor of the internet – that’s 40 years ago!  Hart could foresee a day when a network of networks could bring literature to everyone – for free. Project Gutenberg currently has 36,000 books available to download to Kindle, Android, PC etc, without requiring so much as a registration. Read more about Michael Hart here – he was a remarkable man who has left a phenomenal legacy

Software Freedom Day and the Open Source Schools Project
Saturday’s Software Freedom Day event in Hereford was extremely well-attended by a wide range of people, from the frankly mystified to the mildly curious to the positively evangelical. Discs were flying off the Tardis (see the photos) and HLUGgers were busy from before 10 o’clock til gone 4 explaining, demonstrating and advising. We even gained a few new members. Hot on the heels of that, yesterday saw HLUG going into a county primary schools to let kids loose on Tuxedu, our distro for schools. Mark Sanderson from Herefordshire Council came along to watch us in action – both the council and the companies supporting school IT infrastructure are very supportive of the project – and if we can make a good impression on a day when one key member is down to the remnants of a voice and another has to leave to deal with urgent client business, we’re home free. The day went well, the kids loved Tuxedu (as we knew they would) and our Open Source Schools Project is attracting more and more attention throughout the United Kingdom.

The Green Bit

GreenLight
We had our second GreenLight meeting last Thursday. Andrew Talbot from Halo Leisure gave a very interesting talk complete with some staggering statistics. A run-down of the meeting can be found here. We’re in the throes of planning November’s meeting and are considering a lunchtime meeting, possibly with a contribution of £5 to cover lunch. What are your thoughts? Would the timing and the fee make you more or less likely to come along? Please let us know what you think.

  • 10 energy saving tips from Tom Stokes
  • The living billboard
  • Mapping a Bornean soundscape (it’s wonderful, do take a few minutes to listen)
  • The solar-powered ice-cream truck
Other bits and pieces that have caught our eye recently include:

  • AppInventor for Android – write your own apps (no cat necessary)
  • Be Prime Minister for the day with MyUK
  • The London Philharmonic meets Angry Birds (it’s not often NewsBeat makes it into the Free Press)
  • Old computer ads – we know you remember them too!