I have many techy friends. They all have wifi. Which means, if I visit them, I have to go through a long and tortuous route to use their internet connection - because a combination of UK law and common sense make using encryption on your wifi really rather important.
I don't have this problem in hotels.
In hotels, When I try to use the wifi, they just intercept my DNS requests, rerouting me to a page where I can enter my credit card details. From this they can then give anyone with my MAC address access to the internet. It works well.
Why can't home routers do this?
When I go to a friends house, I should fire up my browser and get a login page. My friend can then either give me a guest password (which will give me access for a few hours), or give me a username and password of my own (to give me access whenever I want).
Now - this will only give MAC level security - which I guess isn't perfect 9although it seems to work for hotels), but it would also provide an easy route (over the web, once you've logged in) to provide all the other information needed to configure a computer to use the router's security features.
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Monday, 17 May 2010
Voting Survey
As I write this, the election is drawing near in the UK. By the time you read this it will have been and gone, and we'll be in a brave new world, totally different fromt he one before May 6th. Or something.
Right now, there are many websites which allow you to say how much to like particular policies. You make your choices, and the site tells you who to vote for. A sample of 1 (me) suggests they work fairly well.
There is also a campaign called Power 2010. Power 2010 is interesting, it set itself up as a policitcal pressure group without any aims, then got people to vote for the goals the group should have.
Power 2010 was broken - because the voting meant they would focus on the top 5 policies - even though only a minority of people may have wanted those policies - and there may have been noone that agreed with all five.
My suggestion is different: take the voting survey, but track how people answer. From this, you might be able to find 'clumps' of policies that many people agree with - or at least that more people agree with more of than they do with any existing political party. In essence, you could reverse engineer part politics and come up with a more attractive framework than the one presently suggested. And you may find new ideas - like liberty or small c conservatism which transcend parties entirely
Right now, there are many websites which allow you to say how much to like particular policies. You make your choices, and the site tells you who to vote for. A sample of 1 (me) suggests they work fairly well.
There is also a campaign called Power 2010. Power 2010 is interesting, it set itself up as a policitcal pressure group without any aims, then got people to vote for the goals the group should have.
Power 2010 was broken - because the voting meant they would focus on the top 5 policies - even though only a minority of people may have wanted those policies - and there may have been noone that agreed with all five.
My suggestion is different: take the voting survey, but track how people answer. From this, you might be able to find 'clumps' of policies that many people agree with - or at least that more people agree with more of than they do with any existing political party. In essence, you could reverse engineer part politics and come up with a more attractive framework than the one presently suggested. And you may find new ideas - like liberty or small c conservatism which transcend parties entirely
Thursday, 6 May 2010
The Meeting Manager
This is a small part of a bigger idea - but this came first, and would be a useful product on its own.
Companies have meetings. When I invented this idea, I was part of a small startup, and we were having too many meetings. Within a few days of this idea popping unbidden into my head, the startup merged with another company, and the number of meetings skyrocketed. Now I've moved to a big corporate behemoth. I think all I do these days is meet. And prepare to meet. And sometimes have met. Also I write software, but that's strictly on my own time...
Meetings have a format. Its not hard - but so often people forget to follow it. And when the format is not followed, meetings become more and more of a waste of time.
The format - for those who don't know - is
An agenda is sent to all invitees. This allows people to decide if they need to come to the meeting (well, in general the people the agenda is sent to, are expected to attend - or apologise, the people it is cc.ed to can attend if they want)
A reminder is sent nearer to the time.
People arrive at the meeting. It starts on time.
The minutes of the last meeting are read out. People have the opportunity to accept them or reject them (this is tricky. In the email age, we can let people accept or reject minutes before the next meeting)
Each action from the minutes is discussed. The person who is actioned reports on their progress.
We then move through each agenda item in turn. At the end of each item it is decided if any actions need to be taken. These actions, and the people actioned are agreed upon there and then.
Finally we get to Any Other Business (AOB). In general there should not be any other business - you have had the agenda ahead of time, you should have been able to contact the writer of the agenda and get your item submitted so that people can prepare. The chairman needs to be firm here.
If it is agreed that a further meeting is needed, the time and date should be set.
Following the meeting - within the next 24 hours or so, minutes should be sent out - to all invitees. They should also be made available online to other people with an interest.
Much of this can be automated.
First - the list of invitees: this is often going to stay much the same for each meeting type. Sure, their may be the occasional guest or change in group member, but lists of group members can be maintained to ensure we know exactly who has been invited.
The agenda: this can be sent out by email (for people where an email address exists) and by post (for people where we only have a postal address). Software can make the decision as appropriate. But we can also provide a website which people can connect to to suggest changes or additions to the agenda. This makes collating the agenda an open and collaborative task.
The reminder: This can be automatically sent out
The meeting: Google have talked about an interesting trick - when they hold meetings, each agenda item is given a fixed period of time. On a screen the agenda and a clock are displayed - you know from this exactly what agenda item you should be on, and how long you have left to discuss it.
More importantly, you can display the current agenda item on a screen so that people know what is discussed. As decisions are made, or actions are assigned, these can be input into the computer by either the secretary or the chair. People can see them as they are added - this makes contesting the minutes later on harder.
You can also automatically import the action items from previous meetings for discussion as the meeting begins.
When the meeting concludes, you will already have half of your minutes. The secretary can add any additional detail from his or her notes, and then send them out to everyone involved (again, printing those which need to be posted). The minutes will also be automatically uploaded to an internal document repository (so they can be view by the appropriate people)
Since the new minutes are now online and available, people have the opportunity to comment on them - accept them or reject them straight away. This means revised minutes can be produced, making agreement more likely at the next meeting. people can also make notes on their own actions, so that their status is visible to everybody involved.
None of this is essential, and most of it could be done within some of the better business process and business document management tools. But a standalone tool which does this easily and perfectly without rough edges would be sure to win fans amongst those who like their meetings to run like clockwork.
Companies have meetings. When I invented this idea, I was part of a small startup, and we were having too many meetings. Within a few days of this idea popping unbidden into my head, the startup merged with another company, and the number of meetings skyrocketed. Now I've moved to a big corporate behemoth. I think all I do these days is meet. And prepare to meet. And sometimes have met. Also I write software, but that's strictly on my own time...
Meetings have a format. Its not hard - but so often people forget to follow it. And when the format is not followed, meetings become more and more of a waste of time.
The format - for those who don't know - is
An agenda is sent to all invitees. This allows people to decide if they need to come to the meeting (well, in general the people the agenda is sent to, are expected to attend - or apologise, the people it is cc.ed to can attend if they want)
A reminder is sent nearer to the time.
People arrive at the meeting. It starts on time.
The minutes of the last meeting are read out. People have the opportunity to accept them or reject them (this is tricky. In the email age, we can let people accept or reject minutes before the next meeting)
Each action from the minutes is discussed. The person who is actioned reports on their progress.
We then move through each agenda item in turn. At the end of each item it is decided if any actions need to be taken. These actions, and the people actioned are agreed upon there and then.
Finally we get to Any Other Business (AOB). In general there should not be any other business - you have had the agenda ahead of time, you should have been able to contact the writer of the agenda and get your item submitted so that people can prepare. The chairman needs to be firm here.
If it is agreed that a further meeting is needed, the time and date should be set.
Following the meeting - within the next 24 hours or so, minutes should be sent out - to all invitees. They should also be made available online to other people with an interest.
Much of this can be automated.
First - the list of invitees: this is often going to stay much the same for each meeting type. Sure, their may be the occasional guest or change in group member, but lists of group members can be maintained to ensure we know exactly who has been invited.
The agenda: this can be sent out by email (for people where an email address exists) and by post (for people where we only have a postal address). Software can make the decision as appropriate. But we can also provide a website which people can connect to to suggest changes or additions to the agenda. This makes collating the agenda an open and collaborative task.
The reminder: This can be automatically sent out
The meeting: Google have talked about an interesting trick - when they hold meetings, each agenda item is given a fixed period of time. On a screen the agenda and a clock are displayed - you know from this exactly what agenda item you should be on, and how long you have left to discuss it.
More importantly, you can display the current agenda item on a screen so that people know what is discussed. As decisions are made, or actions are assigned, these can be input into the computer by either the secretary or the chair. People can see them as they are added - this makes contesting the minutes later on harder.
You can also automatically import the action items from previous meetings for discussion as the meeting begins.
When the meeting concludes, you will already have half of your minutes. The secretary can add any additional detail from his or her notes, and then send them out to everyone involved (again, printing those which need to be posted). The minutes will also be automatically uploaded to an internal document repository (so they can be view by the appropriate people)
Since the new minutes are now online and available, people have the opportunity to comment on them - accept them or reject them straight away. This means revised minutes can be produced, making agreement more likely at the next meeting. people can also make notes on their own actions, so that their status is visible to everybody involved.
None of this is essential, and most of it could be done within some of the better business process and business document management tools. But a standalone tool which does this easily and perfectly without rough edges would be sure to win fans amongst those who like their meetings to run like clockwork.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Programming Tools: Getting Started
I'm a programmer. Not just for my job, but in my heart. Programming is one of the things I think about when I have nothing better to do. The other night I dreamed that I was multi-threaded (seriously - from now on I will blame all my problems on race conditions).
But this means I identify problems with programming tools quite frequently. Because these problems annoy me on a day to day basis, and I believe there is always a better Way to do things. But I have lots of ideas in this space, and they overlap quite a bit. So I'm going to try to break them down into a number of posts, each getting across a salient point.
Start up time is everything:
I have, several times in my life, started at a new company. The first day tends to involve getting your computer working the way you like. The second day involves learning how to build their code. Then the next year involves gradually picking up the accumulated knowledge of the test environments they have built, the build system, all that jazz.
IDEs make things so much easier. But are also so limited and constraining. I've never worked for a company where the IDE is the way we actually develop things.
But what I want is a quick start way to do development. Don't make me do it on my own PC. Give me a web page I can point at: a local intranet web page which I can edit code on (we have ajax now: why do I need to install a dev system on my personal PC... sure make it a possibility, but don't make it a requirement). Now let my press a button and get my code to compile (Or don't. Maybe the code compiles in the background while I'm working. That's even more useful). Let me press another button to run a test from the test suite (with a GUI app, this might be a problem... but int he future all GUI apps are web pages too, no?)... and let me edit the code for the test suite in place too.
I should be able to get going straight away. Get into the system straight away.
And while I might be able to work in a more powerful manner on my own PC (and it should be a possibility - make sure I can check out a local version of the code, and give me some way I can try to build it - or schedule a build of it) from my local box - these are power features which I can worry about later, when I need them. Not on day one, when I ought to be getting to know the new territory.
But this means I identify problems with programming tools quite frequently. Because these problems annoy me on a day to day basis, and I believe there is always a better Way to do things. But I have lots of ideas in this space, and they overlap quite a bit. So I'm going to try to break them down into a number of posts, each getting across a salient point.
Start up time is everything:
I have, several times in my life, started at a new company. The first day tends to involve getting your computer working the way you like. The second day involves learning how to build their code. Then the next year involves gradually picking up the accumulated knowledge of the test environments they have built, the build system, all that jazz.
IDEs make things so much easier. But are also so limited and constraining. I've never worked for a company where the IDE is the way we actually develop things.
But what I want is a quick start way to do development. Don't make me do it on my own PC. Give me a web page I can point at: a local intranet web page which I can edit code on (we have ajax now: why do I need to install a dev system on my personal PC... sure make it a possibility, but don't make it a requirement). Now let my press a button and get my code to compile (Or don't. Maybe the code compiles in the background while I'm working. That's even more useful). Let me press another button to run a test from the test suite (with a GUI app, this might be a problem... but int he future all GUI apps are web pages too, no?)... and let me edit the code for the test suite in place too.
I should be able to get going straight away. Get into the system straight away.
And while I might be able to work in a more powerful manner on my own PC (and it should be a possibility - make sure I can check out a local version of the code, and give me some way I can try to build it - or schedule a build of it) from my local box - these are power features which I can worry about later, when I need them. Not on day one, when I ought to be getting to know the new territory.
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