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Comment Wind them up (Score 1) 341

by accessbob (#42308331) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Collect Payments From a Multinational Company?

Depends on the jurisdiction of your invoice. In the UK it's a 222 winding-up order (ask your accountant).

In practice (and I've had to do this myself) you get your lawyer to send them a letter stating that they are in default, that you are to petition the High Court for a 222 winding up order, and that you will call a creditors meeting which will be advertised in the national press. Unless you get immediate payment by return of post.

What got me, was that it didn't even affect my relationship with the client. Their accountants just smirked and said "Ah, you've found out how to get us to pay then". It was like a game to them. Oh, and they sent a man on a motorbike with the money, not even a cheque, so that I had to explain to my bank why I was depositing such a large amount of cash (in the UK, unusual cash deposits are queried and reported to the police).

Comment So like BlackBerry but not as sophisticated (Score 4, Informative) 86

by accessbob (#42212303) Attached to: Google Launches Private Android App Stores
Sounds like the device management in BlackBerry but not as sophisticated. With BlackBerry, you can manage what goes on the devices even more precisely. And with BB10 next month comes the private app store where different groups of users can see different sets of apps within your organization. You can also automatically push the apps (and upgrades) to the devices. You can also manage a firewall between personal and corporate content/apps within each phone (it's called Balance). Good to see Google helping the enterprise, but it sounds like they still have a way to go.

Comment How *do* you compare server side failure rates? (Score 1, Interesting) 100

by accessbob (#42059951) Attached to: NTSB Dumps BlackBerry In Favor of iPhone 5
BlackBerry allows fine granularity in managing devices, and covers much more than just email accounts. Is that even possible with an iPhone? Is it possible to do a like-for-like comparison?

Also, if their BES is failing, wouldn't that be the NTSB's own hardware? The BES software will be running on NTSB hardware for security reasons won't it?

It all sounds like BS by someone who wants a shiny new iPhone 5 free from the government. But that's now how government contracts are supposed to be awarded....

Comment UK class of 82 (age 18) (Score 1) 632

by accessbob (#41580537) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Were You Taught About Computers In High School?

Quite lot actually considering our high school had precisely one Commodore PET.

In 1979 we were first taught to program in CESIL on coding forms that got sent to County Hall to be turned into punched cards for us.

In 1980 our school got it's first PET and an ASR 33 teletype connected to the Open University's mainframe.

Because we had only one PET, it (and the teletype) were kept in the store room with the maths text books but we were all encouraged to try programming it. Lunchtimes and after school (until the head of maths locked up and went home for the evening), there were always a few boys, and it was almost always boys, trying to write their own versions of Star Trek and Civil War (which were the two games the school possessed) in BASIC.

Can't imagine it now, but hopefully the Raspberry Pi will fix that.

Submission + - UK's GCHQ appologies for treatment of Alan Turing (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by accessbob
accessbob writes: Ian Lobban, Director of GCHQ (the UK's electronic eavesdroper) has apologised for the treatment of Alan Turing whilst he worked for them. In Lobban's own words:

"I strongly believe [the] agency needs the widest range of skills possible if it is to be successful, and to deny itself talent just because the person with the talent doesn't conform to a social stereotype is to starve itself of what it needs to thrive. "Part of my job is to continue to foster that atmosphere: to attract the very best people and harness their talents, and not allow preconceptions and stereotypes to stifle innovation and agility. I want to harness the best talent so that they can apply themselves to the big issues of intelligence and security which challenge an organisation which simply has to remain at the cutting edge in order to survive and thrive." "I want to apply and exploit their talent. In return, I think it's fair that I don't need to tell them how to live their lives."

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