There was a time when the possibility of the earth revolving round the sun was the subject of much debate and, since there was a limited amount of evidence, it was basically a matter of belief and philosophy. Today there is no longer any serious debate, not least because we Continue Reading
Vote yes for AV on the 5th May
Posted on April 17, 2011 At the last election I was fairly ambivalent as to which party I supported, which is unusual for me. But I was pretty certain that I did not want the Conservatives to win! I was sure that the Osborne form of sado-masochistic economic policy in Continue Reading
Professionals now face automation
Artificial intelligence has long been the promise of the computer industry’s future, but until recently it has been characterised by a failure to deliver on almost all fronts. But there is now a serious risk to the professional classes that over the next decade their right to power, status and Continue Reading
Win 7 libraries
There is a quite useful new feature in Window 7 called Libraries. In essence it is a search service Lets assume there are customer folders on the network that you go to regularly, you can set up a new Library for ‘Customers’ and then link to the various customer folders Continue Reading
Commercial Property Market 2011
The Bank of England reports that 4 out of 5 loans to property owners and developers are in breach of their loan-to-valuation covenants. A total of £243 billion of commercial property loans exist and hang over the whole market. The risk is that property valuations have been maintained artificially high in an Continue Reading
The UK property market Feb 2011
First time buyers should be made a protected species they are so rare. The Banks have tightened mortgage lending so much that the average loan to value ratio is now below 60%, completely stalling the property market. Last year only 194,600 first time buyers managed to get a loan, which Continue Reading
Dihydrogen Monoxide should be banned!
Dihydrogen monoxide should be banned as a matter of urgency. It is well known that this chemical is fatal when inhaled, contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape, may cause electrical failures, and has been found in the excised tumours of terminal cancer patients. And yet we find this Continue Reading
Mobile Apps are history!
I have always wondered why businesses are so keen on mobile Apps. They spend significant sums of money developing a bit of software that will only run on a single phone platform – iPhone, Android, Symbian etc. and then each application has to be fine tuned for individual phone or Continue Reading
The parent habit
There was a lovely phrase in a Guardian article today, written by a single mother who brought up a son on her own. When she first realised she was pregnant and on her own she says “I found it a huge relief to give up the habits of egotism ingrained Continue Reading
Outlook search folders
I have been an Outlook user for many years and have got used to its idiosyncracies. As it has improved over that time I have even got to like it and certainly beome dependant on it as my most used app. But I have only just discovered ‘search folders’. Search folders Continue Reading