Writing Assignment – A Heated Disagreement

This exercise shows two characters in a heated disagreement with a word count of 250 words maximum. This was a first idea for the assignment; the one I submitted was more normal (about a taxi driver and a passenger arguing over a fare). Credit to my tutor – I think he knows that I pulled […]

Hammer to Fall

I was walking down the corridor at work today; up until that point, I was having a surprisingly good day. I’d managed to close several long-winded and difficult jobs down, and even received a glowing email from a grateful user I’d dealt with yesterday. However, as I entered my small office, I had a strange […]

On Reflection, I’ve Changed

Today, I sat down and logged onto Facebook; my mother and sister had posted two video links on my page. One was “Do the Bartman” (this was the first record I bought), and the second a link to “Space Cowboy” by Jamiroquai. The former made me smile, but the other set me in a reflective […]

IT & The Layman.

Sitting in the office today, was manually configuring a Windows 7 machine (no standard images yet) when a girl pipped up that most IT problems wouldn’t exist if we allowed the users to change the settings and install apps on their machines, because most problems could be solved by the users themselves. My knee-jerk reaction […]

Bee in a Jar

There a management technique I’d like to share with you. Imagine you have a team of people that have one common goal with a tight deadline. Everyone must be effective, focused, and above all, competant. Typically, when it’s all-hands-on-deck time, you will undoubtedly have one person on your team who is a bit of a […]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Stinks.

I loved Deus Ex 1; it was a perfect balance between FPS shooter and RPG. Deus Ex 2 was awful, as if rushed to release. Deus Ex: Human Revolution, from announcement to release, promised to be based on the strengths of the first one, with some new ideas and mechanisms thrown in. Not so. I’ve […]

The Death of Apple

With the passing away of Steve Jobs, a lot of people are asking questions; one, will Apple survive, and two, what is Steve Jobs’ legacy, considering Apple’s domination of the technology markets. My interest in IT started just as the 386 was launched – when 10 Mhz made a difference, and co-processors/FPUs were an optional […]

Tentatively Accept My Fist in Your Face!

I hate people who tentatively accept calendar invites. Think about it; there is a meeting that you want people to come to but you don’t know if they are available. You don’t know whether they are busy, but equally, you don’t know whether they are free. Therefore, before sending an invite, they might be free. […]

Look After Your Systems

I once did an NLP course – I highly recommend NLP if you want to know what truly makes you tick. One of the exercises was to list out everything that I felt was important about work, then rate each attribute against the other to discover my top 4 motivators. Thus I found out that […]

Broadband Suppliers Should Die!

I’ve made a good schedule now – I write 200+ words on this blog or on a hub, then get cracking with some fiction. It gets me focused on writing – like warming up before exercising. Anyway, drove out to a building site in Thatcham today. A bit of background; my company uses Checkpoint UTM […]