Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…
If you were lucky enough to have a UK bank account before coming to live in the EU – you’re going to lose it by the end of the year.
Something tells me the UK’s National Savings and Investments organisation pulled the plug early and hoped to bury the bad news.
Six years ago, I blogged about the UK’s National Savings and Investment organisation:
The UK’s National Savings and Investments organisation – those lovely people who run the Premium Bonds – have finally woken up to the fact that it is now the 21st Century. For years, they would only do electronic transfers of prizes or payments to UK bank accounts. If you live overseas, they would send you a crossed warrant. The one time I got one of these, I trotted along to my local bank branch (now closed, for reasons of efficiency) and handed them the crossed warrant. They stared at it with a sense of wonder. Clearly, they’d never ever seen one before. It took them a while to find and fill out the requisite form to deal with it, and charged me for the privilege of doing so.
A few days ago, I received an email from the NS&I proudly announcing that they could now do electronic transfers to international bank accounts.
The reason for that blog post was the bureaucratic hurdles that the NS&I put in the way of getting access to that service. I finally got there and they acknowledged that they would use my Dutch ABN AMRO bank account with my IBAN for electronic transfers.
And the reason for this blog post is that last month I got an email from the NS&I informing me that they would be closing their international payments service from next month:
Er, hello? An “inconvenience”? They must be aware that a non-UK resident cannot open a bank account in the UK, so that suggestion of using a UK bank account is risible. Perhaps they anticipate returning to sending out paper cheques to overseas residents in place of using the international banking system.
I phoned my bank today, only to be told that they no longer process paper cheques – it’s electronic funds transfers only these days. I could hear the incredulity in the voice at the other end of the line – he was doubtless thinking, as I was, that this is now 2020, and we did away with paper and quill pens some time ago…
I really have no recourse but to cash-in my Premium Bonds, and I suspect the majority of other non-UK Bond holders will have to do the same. I have been saving with Premium Bonds since 1964, but not for much longer, and not of my choosing.
So, Ms. Andreana Carrigan, Customer Service Manager – do you see now why I consider the term “Customer Service” to be an oxymoron in your case?
Addendum 22 September 2020: And now the other shoe drops. If you were lucky enough to have a UK bank account before coming to live in the EU – you’re going to lose it by the end of the year. So the NS&I will be losing more than just my custom.
I wrote and complained, and naturally they rejected my complaint.
They took a narrow view (“your complaint is that the International Payment Service is no longer available”), whereas my complaint was threefold:
I find it astounding that the UK government’s pension service can happily continue to pay out my UK pension into my Dutch bank account using the Worldlink service, whilst it is seemingly beyond the NS&I’s capability to do so for Premium Bonds.
As I say, I assume that all of us non-UK residents will be forced to cash-in our Premium Bonds as a result, and I wonder how much that will cost the UK Treasury?
This is an old cartoon showing the organisation chart of Microsoft and its warring fiefdoms.
It was certainly true back in the day when I had business contacts with Microsoft on behalf of my employer.
And it would seem that even today, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
In this time of social-distancing, the need for an easy-to-use video-conferencing tool is self-evident. I needed to find one for our local village community committee (I’m the secretary) so that we could hold our meetings online.
I’ve been a Skype user since its introduction in 2003, and so that was my first thought. However, it was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 and the technology became enmeshed in Microsoft’s internal politics. Microsoft had its own rival technology: Windows Live Messenger, and a shotgun marriage was hastily arranged.
As a result, the evolution of Skype in Microsoft has not been smooth, and even today it looks as though it is the result of ideas that have been thrown at a wall to see if they would stick. There is also Microsoft’s Skype for Business (which, as Wikipedia points out is “Not to be confused with Skype”). Microsoft also announced in 2017 that Skype for Business would be phased out in favour of Microsoft Teams, yet another online collaboration platform.
I took a quick look at the free version of Microsoft Teams to see whether it might be suitable for use in our committee. I was not impressed. I set up a simple team of two users and found that the security hoops that you have to jump through before Microsoft Teams will accept someone into a team would try the patience of Job. It also seems as though having a Microsoft Account is essential for entry, and that is already a stumbling block for many people. I don’t think everyone on our committee has such a thing, and it would be a big ask for them to get one.
I then found that shared documents wouldn’t share – Teams would merely give me a cartoon of a melted ice-cream cone with the words “Something has gone wrong”. Not very helpful. Twenty-four hours later, it seems to have mysteriously fixed itself, but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
So the choice at the moment (in Microsoft products) is between the simpler Skype or the bells and whistles of Microsoft Teams, which is firmly aimed at business and enterprise users. The choice is not made easier by today’s announcement that Microsoft will be bringing a version of Teams aimed at home users – impinging on Skype’s turf. Skype is also under threat from non-Microsoft rivals such as Zoom. As Tom Warren says in his article in The Verge:
Microsoft wasn’t afraid of ditching the 100 million people using Windows Live Messenger years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the company try and push Skype users over to Teams in the months ahead. Like Microsoft said, “For now, Skype will remain a great option for customers who love it and want to connect with basic chat and video calling capabilities.” The “for now” part of that statement is a telling sign that Microsoft’s focus is now Teams, not Skype.
As I said: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
Addendum: I mentioned Zoom above. I see that it has rather become the victim of its own success. Because of Covid-19, the number of users has skyrocketed, and the resulting upsurge in numbers has revealed some rather worrying privacy and security issues in the product. I really don’t want to touch it with a bargepole, and will stick to Skype, thank you.
Time for yet another instalment in the long-running saga of trying to get broadband internet available in our area. Our story began five years ago when I described the connection to the internet as being like a piece of wet string. Thus began our struggle to get a fibre-optic network laid around here.
After a number of false starts, things began to look up when work finally began on laying the network in July 2018. It was a big project that has taken more than a year to complete, but a couple of weeks ago people started getting connected and using the network.
However, it soon became apparent that not all was well. Consumers can choose between two internet service providers (ISPs) on the network: Caiway and Solcon. It became clear that the only people who were receiving the internet modems and able to activate their internet services were Caiway customers. Solcon customers were (and are, at this time of writing) being told that the network was not ready for use.
It seemed odd, so I contacted the network provider, Glasvezel buitenaf, who were clear that the network was indeed ready for use, and that they had told both Caiway and Solcon that this was the case. Indeed, their contractor, BAM, had completed the work on the distribution point in our local small town on the 19th of September. Then it was up to each ISP to define the settings in the distribution point’s patch panels, so that their internet services could be delivered to their subscribers’ addresses. Caiway has done this; Glasvezel buitenaf was, and is, still waiting to hear from Solcon.
Needless to say, I had chosen Solcon as my ISP (more fool me). So on the 28th October I sent them an email to ask when I could expect to have internet services delivered. The reply (also on the 28th) was (in translation):
I see that Solcon is still waiting on the fiber optic supplier. Of course we want you to have fiber optic internet as soon as possible, however, we are dependent on when Glasvezel buitenaf reports the line is available. To date, that has not happened yet.
Yesterday, I phoned Solcon, only to get the same story (we are waiting on Glasvezel buitenaf). I said that this was very odd, since a) Glasvezel buitenaf say they are waiting on Solcon, and b) my neighbours who are Caiway customers are happily using the network.
The helpdesk person promised to investigate further and send me an email reply on what the situation was. I’m still waiting for both the reply and any visible change in the status of my request for internet services. Oh, and Glasvezel buitenaf are still waiting to hear from Solcon what the patch panel settings need to be.
I think the next stage will be to assemble the torch and pitchfork brigade – if nothing happens soon, I’ll be asking the Village Community Council to alert our Solcon customers that a mass complaint is in order.
Addendum 8th November 2019: After publishing this post, I sent another email to Solcon yesterday. This was to outline the situation as I saw it, and to point out that I was still waiting for a reply. I have to say that I quickly received a reply from the Solcon Salesdesk that actually cast some light. Apparently there are three parties in the chain, not two, as I’ve always been led to believe. There is Glasvezel buitenaf, the owner of the network, then there is (new to me) the network operator: CAIWEAS, and finally there are the companies such as Caiway and Solcon, who deliver internet services to the customer. The Solcon reply stated that indeed, Glasvezel buitenaf has said the network is ready, but that control has now been passed to CAIWEAS, and it is this party that Solcon are waiting on, not Glasvezel buitenaf, as they originally stated.
A further clue is in the name CAIWEAS I think. It sounds suspiciously close to Caiway, so I suspect that the companies are intimately connected. Which probably explains why Caiway customers appear to be first in line to receive service. I expect that Solcon customers are banished to the back of the queue. Oh well, I’ve waited five years, a few weeks more isn’t going to kill me, I suppose.
The NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) is the Dutch national passenger rail company. I have an annual subscription that entitles me to 40% discount on train fares, and up to six days free travel (keuzedagen) on the entire Dutch rail network. These keuzedagen are available to people who are 60 and above.
Yesterday, I received an email from the NS. It started promisingly enough (in translation):
We want to make our subscription offerings less complicated and more flexible for all travellers.
Well, excellent, I’m all for that. But then it goes on:
Due to the growing number of travellers, the afternoon rush hour is getting busier and the need to ensure a better spread of our travellers throughout the day. Unfortunately, we cannot maintain giving a 40% discount during the afternoon rush hour.
Eh? What was that about “less complicated and more flexible”? Introducing a period when the 40% discount doesn’t apply makes things more complicated and less flexible, surely?
Not only that, but the keuzedag free travel will magically become invalid during the afternoon rush hour. What if I am in the middle of my journey when the clock strikes four? Does the ticket inspector swoop down on me and issue a fine?
The final flourish in the email is the announcement that keuzedagen will no longer be available to people who turn 60 after 2021. I can continue to receive them as part of my annual subscription, but I’ll be part of a dwindling group as we all die off – much to the relief of the NS, I expect.
I can only reflect on the effrontery of the NS (and Tjalling Smit, director of commerce and development, who has sent out this email) and consider it a fine example of Newspeak.
Part of my working life was spent in the UK, before I moved to the Netherlands. This means that a portion of my State Pension is sourced by the UK government.
Today I received a letter from the UK’s Pension Service assuring me that my UK State Pension payments will carry on when the UK leaves the EU.
I would be reassured, except that the letter was addressed to a Mr. Geoffrey Bonne, who they appear to think resides at my address.
All previous letters I have received from the International Pension Centre in Newcastle Upon Tyne have been correctly addressed. This one came from a different department of the service based in Wolverhampton.
It would appear that an error has crept into their data systems. I have written to them stating that I would be obliged if they would correct it before consequences graver than an incorrect surname befall me.
I remain not reassured.
… that’s the title of a sobering article on what has gone wrong with the internet. Well worth reading.
The apology is necessary, but it’s too damn late – the damage is done. I’m not sure how it will ever be possible to undo the damage that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have caused. To many people, Facebook is the internet, and it is a global monopoly. And it has connected people for both good and ill. The recent Buddhist violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka is but the latest example.
That’s the title of an article about Facebook by John Lanchester. Published back in August 2017, it is eerily prescient about the shit that has now hit Facebook’s fan.
It’s a long article, but definitely worth a read. As Lanchester writes:
I am scared of Facebook. The company’s ambition, its ruthlessness, and its lack of a moral compass scare me.
His conclusion is sobering:
Automation and artificial intelligence are going to have a big impact in all kinds of worlds. These technologies are new and real and they are coming soon. Facebook is deeply interested in these trends. We don’t know where this is going, we don’t know what the social costs and consequences will be, we don’t know what will be the next area of life to be hollowed out, the next business model to be destroyed, the next company to go the way of Polaroid or the next business to go the way of journalism or the next set of tools and techniques to become available to the people who used Facebook to manipulate the elections of 2016. We just don’t know what’s next, but we know it’s likely to be consequential, and that a big part will be played by the world’s biggest social network. On the evidence of Facebook’s actions so far, it’s impossible to face this prospect without unease.
I deleted my Facebook account yesterday. I hope that I can remain outside its walled garden.
Oh dear, regular as clockwork, Microsoft opens its mouth to change feet, and creates another PR fiasco for itself.
A year ago, Microsoft announced that it would deliver unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 subscribers:
Today, storage limits just became a thing of the past with Office 365. Moving forward, all Office 365 customers will get unlimited OneDrive storage at no additional cost. We’ve started rolling this out today to Office 365 Home, Personal, and University customers.
I signed up for this, and a few months ago, my 1 TB storage on OneDrive was increased, by Microsoft, to 10 TB, at no additional charge. If I were to put all of my music, photos, home videos and documents on OneDrive, then I would currently be using about 0.7 TB. That’s still comfortably under the old 1 TB limit, but the margin shrinks every year (I’m a packrat).
It all seemed too good to be true. It was.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that there are going to be changes:
The reason for these changes is that, according to Microsoft, “a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire movie collections and DVR recordings. In some instances, this exceeded 75 TB per user or 14,000 times the average”.
It does seem a little disingenuous of Microsoft to offer “unlimited” storage at no additional cost, and then be surprised when some people take them at their word. It would seem that we are all being punished for the actions of a few. And I use the word “punished”advisedly. By Microsoft’s own admission, the average user has 5.35 GB stored in their OneDrive (75TB / 14,000). Microsoft has now reduced the free OneDrive storage from 15GB down to just 5 GB (and abolished the 15 GB camera roll bonus). So the average OneDrive user will start paying.
Lowering the free storage from 30 GB down to just 5 GB for millions of customers does seem to be a slap in the face, even if Microsoft has attempted to offer a sweetener in the form of a free one-year (only) subscription to Office 365 Personal (with its 1 TB of OneDrive storage). I suspect many of those customers will simply walk and switch to alternative Cloud services such as DropBox or Google Drive, because at a single stroke Microsoft has just made their competitors’ services cheaper than OneDrive.
Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the minds of Microsoft management…
According to an article in Forbes, delighting the customer is not just profitable, but hugely profitable. It’s a win-win situation, both for the companies who pursue ways to delight the customer, and for the customers themselves.
I’ve just been on the receiving end of the opposite experience: disappointing the customer; and the company who provided this experience was Microsoft.
When the Surface 3 was announced, I wrote that it promised to be a good machine. It would suit me very well indeed. As a result, I pre-ordered a Surface 3, and it duly arrived on the release date of the 7th May.
It is indeed a very nice machine, so where’s my disappointment? Well, Microsoft advertise the machine as including a one year subscription to Office 365 Personal. The fine print advises that the subscription is:
Available on Surface 3 with Windows 8.1 purchased prior to December 31, 2015. While supplies last. Office activation required within 6 months of Windows activation date.
As it happens, I had already purchased a one year subscription to Office 365 Personal back in February. The subscription allows Office to be installed on two machines, a PC and a Tablet (which can also be a Windows Tablet, such as the Surface 3).
On the Office site, there’s a section where you can enter a product code key to renew/extend your Office 365 Subscription. So I tried that, and entered the Office product key that the Surface 3 told me it had. Nothing happened once I clicked the “Continue” button. The expiry date of my subscription remains as February 2016.
I had a chat with Office Support, and was told that the Surface 3 Office 365 Personal subscription cannot be used to extend a current subscription; it can only be used by creating a new Microsoft Account specifically for my Surface 3.
That seems particularly pointless – I don’t want to create a new Microsoft Account for my Surface 3 – I want to use my existing Microsoft Account on all my devices, and access all my documents in my OneDrive space. The subscription offer is thus worthless to me, and seems to me to skirt close to false advertising on Microsoft’s part.
And what is really annoying is that apparently the other way round works without problems. That is, had I first set up my Office 365 Personal account using a Surface 3 product key, and then purchased a year’s subscription, the purchase would have extended my subscription by a year.
Thanks a bunch, Microsoft. Consider me very disappointed.
Paul Ford has a very good article in the New Yorker on the cut and thrust involved in the making of standards, in particular, the making of Web Standards. My post’s title is a direct quote from Stephen Walli, who is mentioned in the article as “a veteran of many such [standardisation] efforts”.
The article brings back memories (both fond and frustrating) of the time when I was embroiled in the standardization processes swirling round the OSF and X/Open groups. I got to count Stephen as one of my friends and travelling companions from that time. As Stephen wrote:
Technology standardization is commercial diplomacy and the purpose of individual players (as with all diplomats) is to expand one’s area of economic influence while defending sovereign territory.
Ah, yes, I remember it well…
A few days after I wrote about my brush with British Bureaucracy, it’s happened again. This time it’s with the UK’s Passport Office.
My UK passport is due for renewal. The last time I did this, I just trotted along to the British Consulate in Amsterdam with all the necessary forms and photos, together with my old passport, and got my new one sent to me within the week.
Now I discover that, for reasons of efficiency, no British consulates do this anymore. Passport renewal has to be done through a central passport office based in the UK. As a result, there’s now a huge backlog of nearly half a million applications waiting to be processed. Efficient? I think not. Naturally, there are long delays in turnaround times.
I went online to fill out the passport renewal form and discovered that not only do I have to send in my old passport, I also have to submit any other passports that I hold. Send in my Dutch passport, only to have it languish in an office somewhere for months until they get round to dealing with my application? I don’t think so. I know what will happen – I’ll have a family emergency with my brother in Scotland, and be unable to travel because I would be without a passport.
So I completed the form just giving the details of my UK passport and handed over my credit card details. At that point, you’re issued with a further form that you have to print out and fill in, and send off together with your supporting documentation and current passport.
I notice on this form, it softens the requirement slightly. It says, for non-British passports:
“We strongly prefer to receive the passport. However, in exceptional circumstances where you may need to retain the passport, we will accept a full colour photocopy of the entire passport (including all visa pages). We reserve the right to request the passport at a later stage as we examine your application. Please provide an explanation as to why you need to retain your passport.”
So that’s what I did – sent them a copy, and giving them the following reasons:
- My brother lives in Scotland. He is 79 years old and has recently suffered a heart attack.
- The UK has opted-out from the Schengen Agreement, thus I need to produce my passport upon entry to Scotland.
- I understand that the Passport Office currently has a large backlog of applications, and there are long delays in the processing of applications.
- There is therefore an increased risk that if another family emergency arises, I would be unable to travel to Scotland at short notice. This risk is unacceptable to me.
I have therefore enclosed a colour photocopy of my complete Dutch Passport, as required, together with a certified copy of the main page signed by a Dutch Notary. I trust that this will be sufficient to allow the processing of my British Passport renewal to proceed.
We will see.
Postscript: My new passport arrived today (21st July), five weeks after the old one was sent in. The Passport Office returned my old, now cancelled passport, and kept the certified copy of my Dutch passport. For some reason, they sent two separate packages by courier: one containing my new passport, and one containing my cancelled passport. I fail to see how this could be claimed to be more efficient; it was certainly more expensive than a single package containing both documents would have been…
The UK’s National Savings and Investments organisation – those lovely people who run the Premium Bonds – have finally woken up to the fact that it is now the 21st Century. For years, they would only do electronic transfers of prizes or payments to UK bank accounts. If you live overseas, they would send you a crossed warrant. The one time I got one of these, I trotted along to my local bank branch (now closed, for reasons of efficiency) and handed them the crossed warrant. They stared at it with a sense of wonder. Clearly, they’d never ever seen one before. It took them a while to find and fill out the requisite form to deal with it, and charged me for the privilege of doing so.
A few days ago, I received an email from the NS&I proudly announcing that they could now do electronic transfers to international bank accounts. All I needed to do was to apply for the service, and it would be added to my NS&I account details. Well, you can guess what happened next – a simple request gets changed into a maze of twisty little passages.
First, you have to log on to your NS&I account. If you have ever done this, then you will know that they have THE most convoluted sign-on mechanism that I have ever come across. It’s also time-limited. You have to complete it within five minutes. For some people, I can imagine that this will be a challenge.
Once you’re on, you fill out an electronic form with all your bank details. Then, 24 hours later, you receive an email saying that there is a secure message waiting for you in your account. Back you go, sign in again, and the “secure message” simply tells you that there is an electronic document waiting for you elsewhere in their system. You leave their message section, and enter their document section to get hold of it. It needs to be downloaded, printed out, and posted back to them, together with yet more supporting documentation.
And just what is this “supporting documentation”? For starters, they need a bank statement, less than three months old. It must be an original, or a copy of an original certified by a lawyer or notary. It cannot be a printed copy of an online bank statement. Er, hello, I haven’t had paper copies of my bank statements for years – I do all my business online – and the bank has closed my local branch, remember? So I’ve had to ask the bank specifically for a paper copy of my last statement. They were happy to oblige – just pay €5, sir, and you’ll get it within two weeks.
Then I need to send the NS&I evidence of my identity. Er, hello, I’ve been through this before – they needed it when I moved to the Netherlands. They have my account details, we’ve had subsequent correspondence via post – they know who I am and where I live.
Well, apparently the people in the NS&I’s international payments service section don’t know who I am or where I live. So I have to send them my current passport (no, I don’t think so…) or a certified copy of it, a letter or notification from my local tax authority, which must be dated within the last three months and include my name and address. Furthermore, I have to send them my tax identification number and my date and place of birth. The latter details have to be on a separate piece of paper; it is totally irrelevant that these details are also clearly given on my passport and all correspondence with the tax authority. It also appears to be irrelevant that I have done all this before.
I have an appointment with a notary next week. He will be very happy to make a certified copy of my passport for this group of British bureaucrats and charge me for the privilege – again. Once I have received my paper copy of a recent bank statement then I can assemble and send all this information off to the NS&I – again.
The irony of all this is that the email announcing the availability of this service was signed by a Ms. Jill Waters, “Assistant Director Customer Experience” of the NS&I.
I’ve sent her an old-fashioned letter pointing out that, all in all, I felt this was not a shining example of a good customer experience…
The saga of trying to get Microsoft’s Customer Support to fix an issue with Martin’s Microsoft Account rolls on. It’s been over three weeks now, and it still hasn’t got sorted. It’s not helped by the fact that the “Advocacy Specialist” assigned to the case apparently doesn’t bother to read his emails or respond to voicemails. He’s now claiming that the issue has been fixed, when it hasn’t, and so far I’m unable to reach him to disabuse him of his notion.
I’m thinking that the next step will be a formal letter of complaint plea for help to Rob Warwick in the Xbox EMEA Senior Advocacy Team. At least he managed to get a similar issue with my Microsoft Account sorted.
There’s a small village, Bredevoort, that lies about 7 kilometres distant from us. It’s a pretty little village of about 1,500 inhabitants, and it also has a disproportionate number of antiquarian bookshops in it. That’s because, since 1993, it has become known as a Boekenstad (book-town). Apart from the 20 or so bookshops, there are also regular antiquarian bookmarkets, with market stalls placed in and around the central market square.
I often go along to the bookmarkets, and when I do, one of the things I invariably see is a queue of people waiting to get cash from Bredevoort’s one and only cash machine.
Today, I read in the Volkskrant that the Rabobank, the bank responsible for the cash machine, intends to remove it from the village. According to Nicole Olde Meule, the person responsible for the bank’s consumer clients in this area, the number of transactions has fallen by 9% over the past year to 25,000 per year. And that, she thinks, is justification enough to remove the service.
She clearly needs her head examined. At a time when the Rabobank has had its image severely dented by being fined €774m for its part in the Libor scandal, she thinks its OK to heap further hardship on the village, tourists and booklovers.
She knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Stop Press: the Queen is abdicating in favour of her middle-aged son.
Nope, this is not Betty handing over the reins of the monarchy to Charlie (god forbid); it’s Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands handing the reins over to Prince Willem-Alexander.
A well-timed and sensible choice.
The Prince and Princess Maxima are well-equipped to pick up the reins and carry on. They are, like Beatrix herself, not unintelligent, understand both business and society and are well-liked by their subjects. I’m no monarchist, but I have a lot of respect for them.
Well, I certainly didn’t see that coming… Steven Sinofsky, the head of the Windows division, has left Microsoft, and the question that everyone is asking is: “did he fall, or was he pushed?” There’s clearly an inside story here, and it may come out one day. What it definitely is not, despite the many blog and forum commentators saying it, is that he was fired “because Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface are disasters”.
Much more likely is that he either left or was pushed because, under his leadership, the Windows division remained a fiefdom that refused to play nicely with the other product divisions in Microsoft. I’ve mentioned before how, during my time in Shell when I had frequent contacts with Microsoft, I was struck by the silo-like nature of the product divisions, and how the NIH syndrome ran rampant within the company. The famous cartoon of Microsoft’s organisational chart was not far from the truth. It may well be that the Windows division was the last holdout of that attitude, and now with Sinofsky’s departure, that attitude may go the way of the dinosaurs. I see that Julie Larson-Green, who now takes over the Windows division, is reported to favour cooperation over competition.
As an aside, I must say I am disappointed and disgusted at the high levels of sexist and misogynistic comments in the blogosphere that have greeted the news of her appointment. Clearly, we are not very far advanced in geekdom.
With the benefit of hindsight, of course, perhaps the signs that something was in the wind were there at the launch of Windows 8. Sinofsky’s presentation struck me as being strained, and not up to his usual standard. Of course, he might just have been having an off day.
Whatever the reasons behind Sinofsky’s departure, his division delivered Windows 8, which, contrary to the many who either hate it, or damn it with faint praise, is an astonishing engineering achievement. Things are going to get interesting.
Update: Hal Berenson has some interesting insights into the choice of Julie Larson-Green, together with some background on Microsoft’s management culture and practices. The key quote for me:
There were choices besides Julie within the Windows organization that Steve Ballmer could have elevated. … Without knowing anything about how these other executives are currently viewed it might be hard to say why he chose Julie over them, but it is very important to note that Ballmer did have choices. Julie didn’t get the position by default, Steve obviously believes in her ability to lead Windows forward.
I received an SMS message from my bank this morning telling me that my bank pass had been blocked because it had been skimmed.
This I find very strange, because I have only used it twice in the last ten days. Once at a checkout in our local supermarket, and once to load ten euros onto my OV travel card at our local town station. In both cases, the card readers looked perfectly standard, and there were no obvious signs of tampering.
There are also no fraudulent transactions showing up on my account either.
The SMS informed me that I would be sent a new bank pass within five working days. I thought that seemed a long time to wait, so I rang the bank to see what could be done in the meantime. It transpires that the only way I can conduct any business at all is to go to my nearest branch and draw out some cash. That’s all very well, but they’ve closed the branch in our local town. I’d have to travel by car to the nearest big town – 30 minutes drive – to find the nearest branch.
I asked if it would be possible to be told when and where this supposed skimming had taken place. “Oh no”, came the answer, “we don’t give out information like that”.
Frankly, I don’t believe that my card has been skimmed at all, I suspect that a glitch in the system has produced a false positive, and I’m simply the dupe who has to put up with the inconvenience.
Update: indeed, my card was not skimmed. I was in our local supermarket again today, and there were signs everywhere saying that bank pass cards may have been blocked – but the skimming took place in Doetinchem, which is a town 10 kilometres away. It looks as though the bank just decided to block all cards held by people living within a 20 km radius of the skimming, rather than just those cards that had been skimmed. That’s taking a very big sledgehammer to crack a very small nut, and simply irritates and inconveniences their customers.
As we rush towards the release of Windows 8 later this week, the number of articles in the tech (and mainstream) press on Windows 8 is increasing. Most of them are instantly forgettable, but in amongst the pap and dross is an occasional gem.
One such article is Turning to the past to power Windows’ future: An in-depth look at WinRT, by Peter Bright.
As is stated in the title, this really is an in-depth look at the software design of Windows throughout its history, and culminating in its latest incarnation: WinRT. It is a very technical article, so you’ll need to have some understanding of software design and programming to make head or tail of it. But even without that, you should be able to get a sense that the history of Windows is not just about software technology, but also organisational politics, both within and outside of Microsoft. For me, it was a trip back through memory lane, taking in some landmarks of the past. It also gave me a better understanding of the future of Windows, and the revelation that WinRT is not a replacement for traditional Windows programming libraries, since it is itself built on the same (sometimes questionable) foundations.
Another excellent article from Peter Bright.
That’s Craig Murray’s modest proposal. Truth to tell, looking at the behaviour of the banking industry over the past few years, it has a certain ring to it…
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