Computer Weekly articles from April 2003

Computer Weekly archives from April 2003

NEXT MOVE.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... The question Finding part-time development work I worked for four years as a developer for a telecoms company using SQL, C and some Java, implementing client/server, object-oriented and component-based technologies. I also have an...

Knowsley's online job service sets the standard for public sector recruitment.
April 8, 2003... smart projects Merseyside council introduces an interactive recruitment service Knowsley's online job service sets the standard for public sector recruitment Ross Bentley ross.bentley@rbi.co.uk Knowsley Council in Merseyside...

Solving the; patch puzzle.
April 8, 2003... New software should be perfect and ready to go, like any other new purchase. But it is often not until after it has run in the real world that weaknesses become evident. Be prepared to spend a substantial amount of IT time managing the repairs...

No room for downtime.
April 8, 2003... Ben Booth Opinion Telecoms industry lacks maturity for business needs Because telecommunications are the essential link between commercial partners and customers, the consequences of a failure in either a carrier's business or in...

Most IT departments are unprepared to deal with viruses and cyberterror attacks.
April 8, 2003... British computer society Study reveals lack of security policies. John Kavanagh reports UK IT departments are poorly prepared to deal with terrorist attacks or viruses getting past their software defences, according to new BCS research....

The sharper option for the web?
April 8, 2003... hot skills C# is number 42 in the CW/SSP list of top IT skills The sharper option for the web? Nick Langley computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk What is it? C# is one of Microsoft's .net technologies for building and deploying web...

How to reduce the stress of e-mail overload.
April 8, 2003... E-mail Guidelines on using e-mail will free up employees' time, writes Monica Seeley How to reduce the stress of e-mail overload The results of a recent British Computer Society survey are hardly surprising: e-mail overload is causing...

Innovation should help, not hinder.
April 8, 2003... Robin Laidlaw Opinion New technologies can be advantageous, but do a risk analysis first I recently saw a headline in the IT press that said, "IT driven by technical innovation". The concept jarred with me. I have believed...

Employment law; Survey exposes job discrimination.
April 8, 2003... Ross Bentley ross.bentley@rbi.co.uk UK organisations risk discrimination lawsuits that could force them to pay millions of pounds in compensation to job seekers, according to figures published by The Work Foundation. Even though...

Give suppliers a fighting chance to deliver.
April 8, 2003... contracts If you drive too hard a bargain with your suppliers they could end up with margins so tight they can compromise the quality of service they are able to deliver you Julia Vowler computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk IT managers are...

Take the Three Peaks Challenge.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Demand has been high for team places in this year's Vanco Three Peaks Challenge, sponsored by Computer Weekly. The challenge sees teams of IT professionals scaling the heights of Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon - the three highest mountains...

Barclays builds Basel-busting banking.
April 8, 2003... Banking IT As the banking world gears up to face the practicalities of applying the Basel 2 standards to everyday business, one high street bank explains how it will tackle the change Barclays builds Basel-busting banking Nick Huber...

Security; Microsoft will not patch NT4 hole.
April 8, 2003... Karl Cushing karl.cushing@rbi.co.uk Users of Windows NT 4.0 have been left open to denial of service attacks after Microsoft said "architectural limitations" make it "infeasible" (sic) to patch a vulnerability on the platform - even...

Carlopio waltzes us through an IT project.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Mark Lewis reviews the latest book to provide a roadmap for IT roll-out Changing Gears seems an unnecessarily mechanical title for a book whose premise hinges upon the human element of the project management equation. Perhaps "Changing...

Should Revenue pay to woo bids?
April 8, 2003... Tony Collins Opinion The Revenue's head of IT shows how to run multibillion-pound contracts Should Revenue pay to woo bids? Whatever John Yard is paid, it is not enough. As the Inland Revenue's head of IT, he is responsible...

Do you work for a great IT department?
April 8, 2003... have your say Take part in our search for the UK's best places to work in IT, 2003 Do you work for a great IT department? Mark Lewis mark.lewis@rbi.co.uk This week sees the launch of Computer Weekly's Best Places to Work in...

online discrimination; Commission checks websites' accessibility.
April 8, 2003... Daniel Thomas daniel.thomas@rbi.co.uk The Disability Rights Commission has begun its first formal investigation into online service providers. The move could result in the closure of websites that fail to comply with the 1995...

GPRS delivers competitive advantage.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Delivery company UPS has improved customer service and gained a competitive edge over its rivals since rolling out GPRS-enabled mobile devices to its drivers. Analysts said the implementation demonstrates the viability of GPRS - wireless...

Security; Patching gets thumbs down.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Karl Cushing karl.cushing@rbi.co.uk Half of UK IT directors are concerned about the cost and time involved in managing patches for security flaws. The situation is particularly acute in enterprises with more than 5,000 employees. ...

Showcase the most exciting aspects of IT.
April 8, 2003... E-Skills UK sees the opportunities offered by the Best Places to Work in IT 2003 campaign BYLINE: Karen Price Opinion IT has always been a great, vibrant area to work in and continues to be so, despite current difficulties in the...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 8, 2003... Thirty-year-old stereotypes John Starr Your magazine is often perceptive of our industry, and never more so than this week (Computer Weekly, 20 March). Let me highlight four items: "Lap-dancing seals deals", "Poor IT investment...

ICI pays price for side-effects of IT project.
April 8, 2003... Project failure Chemicals giant ICI saw nearly 40% wiped off its share value last week because of business process problems arising from a new IT implementation ICI pays price for side-effects of IT project Antony Adshead ...

E-Skills UK aims to give small firms a voice in Whitehall and boost number of IT staff.
April 8, 2003... skills A new government initiative aims to attract 40,000 more people to the IT industry E-Skills UK aims to give small firms a voice in Whitehall and boost number of IT staff Bill Goodwin bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk The...

YOUR SHOUT; Have your say at; ComputerWeekly.com.
April 8, 2003... On the price of GPRS The pay-by-volume, by-transaction, or by-bandwidth model is the way to go for any packet data service. The pay-by-time system used for circuit switched data services simply cannot work in this case, as it leads to...

Technology will have to prove its worth.
April 8, 2003... Interview Neil Holloway, UK head of Microsoft, expects the impact of IT on business to continue to grow, and the introduction of new technologies to maintain the pace of change Cliff Saran cliff.saran@rbi.co.uk There are busy...

Lesson of ICI's plunging shares.
April 8, 2003... Last week, pound sterling400m was wiped off the share value of chemicals giant ICI. Failures in the implementation of a SAP-based supply chain management system have emerged as contributory factors - evidence, if any were needed, both of the...

Retail; Lifecycle management to increase profits by [pounds sterling]13m.
April 8, 2003... l Fashion retailer rolls out PLM softwarel Production time and stock shortfalls are cutl Sales increase 6% as a direct result of project Daniel Thomas daniel.thomas@rbi.co.uk Fashion retailer New Look hopes to increase annual...

Skills; E-Skills to tempt 40,000 into IT.
April 8, 2003... l Sector training body seeks 40,000 new recruits for IT employersl pound sterling3m funding boost and wider industry support bolster NTO's credibility Bill Goodwin bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk E-Skills UK, the public-private sector...

financial services; Global exchange bank ran out of disc space.
April 8, 2003... Nick Huber nick.huber@rbi.co.uk About 22,000 trades in Japanese yen and Australian dollars could not be settled because CLS Bank's currency system ran out of disc space at the end of last month. A glitch in the settlement system...

Basel 2; Banks face IT checks.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Nick Huber nick.huber@rbi.co.uk City watchdog the Financial Services Authority will inspect banking IT systems and staff as part of a beefed-up international banking code on risk management, companies were warned this week. Banks...

NAO slams KBR record.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Mike Simons mike.simons@rbi.co.uk Kellogg Brown & Root, the firm hired to project manage the health service's pound sterling2.3bn national IT programme, has been criticised by the National Audit Office for cost over-runs on a major...

64-bit computing; Dell to cut 64-bit costs.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... James Rogers james.rogers@rbi.co.uk Dell's plan to launch Itanium-based products running the Linux operating system later this year could knock nearly a third off the cost of 64-bit servers within the following 12 months, experts have...

College goes live on Windows 2003.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Karl Cushing karl.cushing@rbi.co.uk One of the early adopters of Windows Server 2003 is the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence, a government-led skills and training initiative in the Thames Gateway region. Roy...

High flyer 'ruined' by bank error.
April 8, 2003... Bill Goodwin bill.goodwin@rbi.co.uk A high-flying IT manager claims his health and career were ruined when his bank mistakenly posted a warning on an anti-fraud database branding him as a potential crook. He has launched legal action...

Windows 2003 'not smart enough' to be used as Unix datacentre replacement.
April 8, 2003... operating systems Stability doubts as Unisys lowers datacentre costs using Windows Cliff Saran cliff.saran@rbi.co.uk Users will have to wait years before they can replace Unix with Windows 2003, despite the introduction of a new...

public sector; Revenue pays bidders to try for EDS contract.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Tony Collins tony.collins@rbi.co.uk Officials at the Inland Revenue have confirmed that the department is to meet some of the costs of companies that bid against EDS and Accenture for Aspire, the UK's largest public-private partnership...

IT women get to check pay parity.
April 8, 2003... Employment law Equality Act lets colleagues see what others earn Mike Simons mike.simons@rbi.co.uk Female IT professionals can now use new laws to challenge inequality in the workplace. The Employment Act, which takes effect...

web services; Travel web services take open source route.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Airline ticketing giant Galileo is building an XML web services architecture based on open source systems to support the travel industry. Robert Wiseman, chief technology officer at Galileo, said, "We are looking to deploy Linux wherever...

NHS IT; Doctor buy-in doubts.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Tony Collins tony.collins@rbi.co.uk Former health minister Lord Hunt and an NHS trust chief executive have separately expressed concerns about gaining buy-in from doctors over the pound sterling2.3bn, three-year NHS IT programme. ...

Health IT chiefs baulk at aggressive NHS deadlines.
April 8, 2003... Leaked internal paper exposes rift within NHSIT programme hierarchy Unsolved technical problems may outlive the push for 2004 deadlinel Old, unreliable data must not be transferred to new systems, say IT chiefs Tony Collins ...

Caradon saves [pounds sterling]300,000 from IT budget.
April 8, 2003... contracts Annual reviews will help a UK manufacturer cut a fifth of its IT spend this year Karl Cushing karl.cushing@rbi.co.uk The benefit of regularly evaluating IT contracts has been highlighted by a UK manufacturing firm that...

B2B services offer travel information to all.
April 8, 2003... WEb SERVICES An online interface into the Galileo airline reservation system promises to open up flight information to a raft of new travel sites and information services B2B services offer travel information to all Cliff Saran ...

government contracts; ILA mess ministers' fault.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Daniel Thomas daniel.thomas@rbi.co.uk The "appalling" level of fraud and abuse of Individual Learning Accounts was caused by Department for Education and Skills ministers cutting corners in designing and managing the scheme, the...

Do you create award-winning IT?(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Large or small, it's time to enter for this year's two top IT user awards If your IT system is bringing true business value to the bottom line, then there is still time to shout about your achievements by putting yourself in for a major...

IT managers adrift on a sea of uncertainty.
April 8, 2003... NHS IT Local NHS IT managers face uncertainty over contractual control of suppliers IT managers adrift on a sea of uncertainty James Rogers james.rogers@rbi.co.uk NHS IT managers at last month's Healthcare Computing...

broadband; Price cuts herald broadband boom.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Antony Adshead antony.adshead@rbi.co.uk BT's plans to make its ADSL broadband services available to 90% of UK homes by the autumn and slash wholesale prices were cautiously welcomed last week. The company is cutting wholesale...

Inside the BCS.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... l The first three modules in a new qualification for those building careers in IT service management have been launched by the BCS IS Examinations Board. The mid-level practitioner certificate in IT service management fits between...

The ins and outs of board level IT management.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... COMPUTER WEEKLY 500 CLUB What do you really need to do to be taken seriously as an IT director? In today's tough business climate you need the right calibre to make it to the very top as an IT director. At a recent meeting of Computer...

ComputerWeekly.com - the perfect tool for IT professionals.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... ComputerWeekly.com, the online arm of Computer Weekly, delivers the very best in content and services for senior IT professionals. At its heart is all the great news, analysis and other content produced each week in Computer Weekly, in a...

If IT fails the firm will too.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Justin Urquhart Stewart Opinion Put your IT systems under the shareholder spotlight Corporate IT systems are no longer just the processing function of a business; nor are they just the accounting number-cruncher. Nowadays...

New job? Try the NHS IT tsar's tactics.
April 8, 2003... John Riley Groundswell You take a new top IT job. But as you settle in you find a cacophony of unco-ordinated, unstandardised projects with no overall business case. The task that has been set is seriously underfunded with no prospect...

public sector; Council allows users to monitor network in bid to cut support cost.
April 8, 2003... l Council to deploy network monitoring tooll End-users empowered to run network testsl Radio network roll-out to schools and libraries Cliff Saran cliff.saran@rbi.co.uk Cheshire County Council is to deploy a network-monitoring tool...

Measure up to IT risk tolerance.
April 8, 2003... COMPUTER WEEKLY INFOSECURITY USER GROUP Boards need to adopt a quantifiable business case to measure the return on IT security Stop apologising about the cost of IT security and start measuring the benefits. And keep those measurements...

How to avoid disputes in supplier contracts.
April 8, 2003... Lawyer Mark Rhys-Jones explains the best practice for managing supplier agreements Contracts to supply and implement IT systems are notorious for leading to disputes between the parties involved. Yet these are also the contracts where the...

A fashionable roll-out.(Microsoft ships Windows 2003)(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... As Microsoft gears up for its 24 April launch, in the coming weeks Computer Weekly will be assessing the impact of the new Windows 2003 operating system. Look out for a diary appearing for the next six weeks of how UK clothes designer Paul...

Will Brown deliver tax boost for IT?(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Hopes that the IT market will bounce back later this year could receive a boost tomorrow (Wednesday) when Chancellor Gordon Brown outlines his annual Budget. Industry groups have called on Brown to extend R&D tax credits. Up to 50% of R&D costs...

strategy clinic.
April 8, 2003... Where do legacy systems hide? I am preparing to streamline the IT infrastructure within my business. Can you give me any tips about how I can identify legacy systems that are lurking within our infrastructure that could safely be switched off?...

Electronic records; Medics check out open source option.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... NHS IT chief Richard Granger hinted during his keynote speech at the Healthcare Computing conference in Harrogate that open source software might have a role in the delivery of electronic patient records. The development of an electronic...

contracts Annual reviews will help a UK manufacturer cut a fifth of its IT spend this year; Caradon saves [pounds sterling]300,000 from IT budget.
April 8, 2003... renegotiating contracts is having good information about contracts and when they are up for review. Caradon has also created a new process whereby any new contracts have to be added to the database before they are approved. A key aim is to keep...

Misusing the power of the computing grid.
April 8, 2003... Cliff Saran Tech Talk Many people donate spare CPU cycles to worthy causes, but there are long-term concerns Thanks to peer-to-peer technology and the computing grid, people all over the world can donate their PCs' free time to a...

Downtime.(South Africa pulls Microsoft ads claiming product security)
April 8, 2003... Spurious Microsoft ads become extinct Red-faced Microsoft executives have been forced to pull an advertising campaign in South Africa that implied its systems were so secure they would make hackers extinct. The ad featured a hacker...

E-business; Do e-business, by another name.
April 8, 2003... Jeffrey Mann Opinion Despite protests that e-business is dead, European organisations will continue to invest in e-business projects through 2004. However, the emphasis of these projects will shift from the consolidation of 2002 to...

Competition Win the latest Apple Powerbook and strut your funky stuff.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Clothes store Harvey Nichols has been testing the use of virtual private network technology to allow its buyers to instantly upload digital photos of the latest fashions from the catwalks of Milan, Paris and New York - which means cost and time...

Potential providers kept in the dark over regions.(Brief Article)
April 8, 2003... Mike Simons mike.simons@rbi.co.uk The Department of Health has yet to decide how it will divide England when it awards five large contracts for its pound sterling2.3bn IT upgrade. Richard Granger, director general of NHS IT, said...

UPS uses GPRS for instant delivery alerts.
April 8, 2003... mobile A 2.5G network delivers competitive advantage at global courier firm UPS UPS uses GPRS for instant delivery alerts Daniel Thomas daniel.thomas@rbi.co.uk Next generation mobile technologies such as GPRS were supposed to...

How to avoid disputes in supplier contracts.
April 8, 2003... Lawyer Mark Rhys-Jones explains the best practice for managing supplier agreements Contracts to supply and implement IT systems are notorious for leading to disputes between the parties involved. Yet these are also the contracts where the...

IT people; Bank typing error destroys high-flyer's career.
April 8, 2003... for more than pound sterling10m, alleging that a member of the supplier's staff gave him a bad job reference that criticised his technical competence and suggested he had been fired from a job after fraudulently attempting to gain a mortgage....

networks; 3Com joint venture set to deliverprice cuts for network customers.
April 15, 2003... l Cheap network kit could spark a price war with Cisco l Analysts advise IT directors to look at 3Com's offering Antony Adshead antony.adshead@rbi.co.uk Network supplier 3Com has struck a joint venture marketing deal with Chinese...

NEXT MOVE.(Brief Article)
April 15, 2003... The question Finding part-time work after retirement I have 35 years' experience in software development. I started as a programmer in Assembler and Cobol and have been running software development teams, mostly in Windows and...

e-voting; Councils seek to boost election turnout by extending opportunities for electronic voting.(Brief Article)
April 15, 2003... James Rogers james.rogers@rbi.co.uk Officials at South Tyneside Council hope that e-voting will help it to achieve a 60% turnout in next month's local elections. Russ Cochrane, democratic services manager at the council, said, "We...

Win an Apple Powerbook.(Brief Article)
April 15, 2003... Competition If you think your company has used its IP network in an innovative, quirky or unusual way, write and tell us how in no more than 250 words. As an incentive, we have teamed up with Netscalibur, a specialist provider of managed...

Ability to merge business and technology strategy is most essential skill for IT chiefs.
April 15, 2003... British computer society IT leaders reveal their most important management skills John Kavanagh computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk The ability to integrate business and IT strategy is an "essential" skill for IT managers, according to a...

Present an IT united front to users.
April 15, 2003... Manage perceptions of your team to control business expectations of IT In IT, perception is reality. We are judged far more by what people think we do than by what we really do. While this may be frustrating, it could be turned to our...

Digital warfare offers a glimpse of future mobile business systems.
April 15, 2003... Antony Adshead antony.adshead@rbi.co.uk The US Fourth Infantry Division - the so-called "Digitised Division" - is using Iraq as a testing ground for the latest battlefield technology. Its campaign could provide a glimpse of what lies...

Stock exchange steals a march on Windows 2003 Server.(Brief Article)
April 15, 2003... The London Stock Exchange is setting up a new IT backbone in a move intended to further its strategy of increasing the number of its income streams. Although Microsoft Windows 2003 Server is not yet fully launched, the exchange is using its...

E-mail overload.
April 15, 2003... With inboxes full to bursting, companies are finally looking at the question of e-mail best practice. Jane Dudman spoke to five IT directors about their approach E-mail is causing real logjams in corporate IT systems. The figures are...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 15, 2003... Speak out about yourproblems in the NHS Barry James Chairman, New NHS Intranet and Internet Conference I am sorry to say that Richard Granger, the head of NHS IT, is not the first to attempt to apply the "one strike and you're...

Good for business in any language.
April 15, 2003... hot skills .net is number 23 in the CW/SSP list of top IT skills Nick Langley computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk What is it? Microsoft .net is a mixture of Microsoft's own technologies and industry standards such as XML, HTTP, Simple...

64-bit power: who needs it?(Brief Article)
April 15, 2003... Microsoft's imminent release of SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) takes us a step closer to the commoditisation of 64-bit computing. Assuming that Moore's Law holds good for a while longer, suppliers will be selling 64-bit equivalents...

Selling complex technology to the business.
April 15, 2003... Convincing business managers of the need to invest in new ITcan be fraught with challenges. IT managers must be able to demonstrate its value Julia Vowler computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk Some IT is easier to sell to business than...

Call the shots before you sign.
April 15, 2003... Lawyer Bobby Gill outlines the pitfalls of outsourcing contracts Many users enter into outsourcing agreements assuming they will automatically benefit from new technology over the life of the contract. However, unless this has been agreed...

Whitehall puts brake on public sector gravy train.
April 15, 2003... Battered IT suppliers looking to the public sector as a new gravy train are in for a rude shock. The climate there has changed drastically over the past year or two. In recent weeks, government's exasperation with the supply side has...

DB2 failure prompts bank to set up extra disaster recovery options.
April 15, 2003... business continuity After software bugs took its systems down last month, Danske Bank is reluctant to rely solely on IBM recovery tools Cliff Saran cliff.saran@rbi.co.uk Danske Bank has taken steps over and beyond industry best...

British Army radios are not secure.
April 15, 2003... Karl Cushing karl.cushing@rbi.co.uk British armed forces in Iraq have been left without a secure battlefield radio system following a series of procurement blunders by the Ministry of Defence. The pound sterling2.4bn Bowman...