This really is a not as much of an issue as the author makes out. IT is all in favor of users bringing their own devices to the party as long as they accept that, much like you may own the briefcase, the documents and data contained therein remain property of the company and need to be protected.

If end users are prepared to accept the responsibility of protecting their data in line with the policies set out by the management of the organization (note i say management here, as opposed to IT) then the issue becomes one of personal culpability for breaches which IT is more than happy to shift to the user. Once people realize they can be fired if they leak data from their own devices they very often sing a new tune.

More often than not though, when users want to use ther own devices they want to do so with the same ease and level of support afforded to their company supplied equipment. This is simply unworkable. If its yours, you own it and you need to support it, not the IT department. Think of it like using your car for company business - You can claim back the milage but its your responsibility to maintain it or fix if it breaks down.

You also need to ensure that your personal equipment is good enough do the job and that you are licensed for all the right software. Don't think that, because the company runs Office 2003 that you can start sending 2010 docx's everywhere because it came preloaded on your new laptop. Likewise don't expect the company to pay for your upgrade to the latest MSOffice on your personal equipment. They might do, but don't expect it!

Likewise users ust also realize that they cannot have it all their own way. If its dropbox for file sharing then ok, dropbox it is for everyone. It makes no sense if 5 different departments use 5 different file shares. Dont blame IT if bob in sales prefers rapidshare to dropbox.

The state of IT security and systems is far more advanced than most users realise. Just so you all know, the second you connect your device (android, apple, windows et al) device to the corporate email systems or related services IT already has the ability to remotely wipe your device of any data or remotely access it. In the same way a company uses onstar or similar GPS services to track company vehicles so IT has tools to do the same on your devices.

Finally, there is a staggering amount of ignorance when it comes to IT and the people who work in IT for a living. For some reason someone who goes out and buys an Iphone or an iPad suddenly thinks they are able to talk over people who have far more experience and knowledge than them. Its kind of like buying a Prius and then trying to talk down to a Nascar or F1 pitcrew. IT doesn't actually think you are stupid, they just think you act that way when you condescend to them and claim to have more knowledge than you actually do.

Is to simply approach your boss (or the owners) and express an interest in investing in the enterprise. This works for both you and the owners as it registers your interest and belief in the endeavour and allows the owners the widest possible options in response.

If you are truly part of the companies DNA you will be recognised as such and can expect something reasonable; ELSE your offer is politely declined and you carry on working knowing exactly where you stand and, as you are fairly compensated anyway, no worse off than before.

Sorry to go against the grain of the generally held opinion that Onlive doesn't work but as someone in the UK who has tried the service out from my living room PC I have to say it is definitely a viable, workable platform for game delivery.

I know that it isint really all that hot for FPS's but neither are consoles with their auto-aim and limited input controls. Thats why i have a PC.

Meanwhile there are plenty of games that are pretty good, even with my 80ms lag to the us servers (lego batman just as an example). I enjoy being entertained by games, not by the frame rate or resolution.

And to pay 9.99 p/m for access to the current games on onlive is not really that steep.

When the service comes to the UK for real I will definitely sign up. Rather than buy a console which will become tomorrows trash!

Ok, Disclaimer - NAL

Lets say employee A works at company B. Company B suspects employee A of fiddling expenses. Company B then does an "investigation" and finds that, in their opinion, employee A probably did fiddle the expenses and finds this grounds for dismissal under the companies policies and procedures. A disciplinary panel is formed of managers of company B who decide to terminate the employee's contract and does so.

Up until now the only people involved are employee A, the manager of employee A, an investigating manager from company B, the HR droid from company B and the disciplinary panel of company B. Its not a court of law and they only need find reasonable suspicion of guilt to can employee A's ass!

But then they send out an e-mail to all employees of company B stating that employee A has been fired for fiddling expenses.

Now company B feels like they are somehow sending a message, that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated and that staff be warned but they have made a mistake. But they are not the police, nor are they lawyers in a court of law. They are a company who conducted an internal investigation that is subject to all sorts of bias and non neutral points of view. Policies and Procedures do not trump the actual law and this employee A, who may be guilty, was not tried and convicted in a court of law, he was tried and convicted in a closed internal company procedure. He doesn't get to put his side to all the colleagues in a nice e-mail or get to defend himself (or herself) publicly and, while nobody argues that the company had sufficient grounds for dismissal, they should have simply fired employee A and let staff know he was no longer at the company, no reason need be given.

Instead, in addition to firing employee A, they chose to accuse him publicly and that gives him grounds to sue as a public accusation needs to meet a burden of proof in a court of law.

If they felt they wanted to make a public statement they should have involved the police who would have investigated and found evidence of fraud. He could then be tried in criminal court or civil court if they wanted to make a civil case of it and if the outcome was in company B's favor THEN they can shout it from the rooftops because it is then a legal fact and not libellous.

But until then, company B should have been smart and opened up a can of STFU and simply fired his/her ass. Instead company B is on the defensive which is not where they should be.

And the papers never say someone is guilty unless it is proven... otherwise the couch accusations as questions like "Employee A, Did he fiddle expenses?" or make references to sources / allegations "It is alleged that Employee A may have been fiddling expenses" or "Sources say A may have defrauded B".

DivX makes an announcement that thier DivX player can now support a format that even Media Player Classic can play with an open source codec?

First off, MKV is a container which can add features to an encoded video stream such as chapters, subtitles, additional audio streams etc.

The corresponding DivX container (Introduced with DivX6) is far inferior with its limited support for audio codecs and its insistence on DivX video encoding profiles.

DivX the codec is simply a MP4 based video/audio encoder.

You can wrap virtually any video or audio format in an MKV container and it should work just fine. I see no reason why DivX encoded movies could not be wrpped in an MKV container!

I have never tried to encode DivX into an MKV container for several reasons:

1. DivX is not the best MP4 Codec out there, XviD is better and freely availiable (It is a fork of the original OpenDivX).
2. DivX started bundling thier codecs with all sorts of crapware some time ago which really tuned me off the codec.
3. x264 is already availiable for high definition encoding.
4. DivX encoding will cost you money with the Pro version.
5. It is bloatware.

Basically DivX are trying to make money by charging inexperienced users for functionality that is already freely availiable.

If you want to watch virtually every availiable format without problems with a choice of video players I suggest the Combined Community Codec Pack (http://www.cccp-project.net/).

Or you can go ahead and pay the ignorance tax that is DivX.