Rich Takes on the World

7.5 hours! It took 7.5 hours today for a so-called help desk to confirm the very first question I asked them! Lets back up a little here...this morning one of our systems that talks to a vendor's product stopped working. After a quick play around with it, I figured the password for the account that our system uses must have expired. So I rang the vendor's help desk to ask for said expired password to be reset. Having done a lot of support related work in my current position I know the danger of making presumptions about the problem without at least informing the analyst at the other end of the full details of my problem. I walked him through the issue and explained why I felt it was an expired password. He then asked me to repeat everything I done to try and fix the issue already, he made me repeat it three times. Next he didn't believe me when I said it still wasn't working. His next step was to webex into my machine (remote in over a secure connection over the web) ...

Just read an article how a British designer (Mark Noad) has redesigned the London Underground tube map. His aim was to move away from Harry Beck's classic version with straight lines and 45degrees and 90degrees bends  and move towards a map that shows how the tube lines actually fit into London at street level. In theory, this sounds great as people can actually get a realistic impression of the layout of London. But then I looked the map - see here . I've stared at the picture for a while - off and on - and am still unsure whether this is a good, modern redesign or whether it is in fact, ugly and awkward. What do you think, friend or foe?

Recently, (the other night) I started youtubing music videos for no better reason than I was bored. No matter how hard I looked I just could not find a better a video than OK, Go's video for "This Shall Too Pass", just take a look here, and remember this was done in one take! It was then I wondered what other videos they had done, and was surprised to find that all their videos were just brilliant in their own ways. Just take a look at these gems: - White Knuckles - Last Leaf - Here it goes again - Do what you want - A million ways Ok that's enough And their tunes are pretty good too !!

Another Glastonbury has been and gone. Once again it was truly, truly epic. I love the fact that there is just so much to do that 175,000 people will always find something that they will love. Whether it's circuses, the theatre, greenfields, cinemas, healing fields, and obviously the dozens and dozens of music stages. There's something about the place, the creative hive that designs the randomness and the amazing areas is just mind blowing. It's almost impossible to cover the whole of Glastonbury each time but when you go exploring, you will find hidden gems in an awesome environment where everyone is just so happy and loving life! Boy, I love that place! Glastonbury has got a lot of stick the last few years for that fact that Jay-Z and Beyonce have both headlined the pyramid stage. You know what, they are both huge artists in their owns rights and have had massive success globally. They deserved their headline slot. If people didn't want to see them they wouldn't...

I have no doubt, that running a train service is no easy task and can be riddled with problems. But still find it utterly, utterly shameful that even despite having run the Thameslink service since 2006 F*ckin First Capital Connect (to use their proper name) have thoroughly failed to deliver anything other than a disgrace of a train service. My issues with the service can be listed thus: 1.        Reliability.   2.        Cramped trains 3.        Expensive tickets and the audacity to raise price well above inflation So let’s start with my first grievance. FFCC always put posters up about 98.121257864352345% of their trains were on time last year and they were the best service in or around London. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence will immediately know that the figure is just impossible. I know because every day I am delayed. I concede that 4 times out of 5 it is usually for somewhere between 2 – 8 minutes. B...

Today, officially, King Kenny was confirmed as Liverpool FC team manager on a three year contract. This is clearly no great surprise to anyone given the turnaround in the club’s fortunes since the king and his trusty Lieutenant Steve Clarke took over on a caretaker basis. LFC has gone from around a 32% win ratio under Hodgson to nearly 68%. This is phenomenal. It would be a fool who disregarded the impact of selling Torres & Babel and purchasing Suarez and Carroll, but there is no doubt that since Daglish took over, the players appear free from their shackles and are playing without fear. Previously, the team looked to Torres and Gerrard to save games and carry the team, now the team now has many options from different areas of the pitch. I can harp on about the goals from midfield that have been prevalent, the quantity of players now hitting the box, the form of the youth players getting their chances, but to some extent, I want to keep my feet on the ground. It’s far easier to...

What would be the point of a blog if I didn’t write up about my version of events of the 2011 London Marathon? So before I forget too much about the day, I thought I would try and write up about the day and my experiences with it…(The times used are estimates and maybe a little out here and there) 6.40        Wake up at my second alarm 6.45        Breakfast consisted of one huge bowl of cereal and a little water 7.00        Quick shower to a) wake me up a little, b) I can suffer from prickly heat and often I find if I shower in the mornings I can avoid prickly heat when I run.   7.30         Grab our bags and head in the car to west hampstead station. I moan that I should have gone to the toilet before we left. 8.10        Reach London bridge station and we head to find a toilet. The gents cubicles has a queue of runners who, like me, have all been caught out. I...

In a little under one week, I, along with around 35,000 others, will be competing in the London Marathon. Since the first London Marathon in 1981, half a billion pounds has been raised for charity. This is a phenomenal amount, and proof, that when it comes down it, people can display extraordinary acts of kindness and generosity. Yet for a time I couldn't  help but wonder why it takes such a grueling and painful effort from the tens of thousands of people each year to generate such revenues for charity. I’d like to note at this point, that I have been blown away by the support of friends, colleagues & family when trying to raise the sponsorship needed for the marathon. You would always like to believe that the people around would give while you put yourself through the painful months of training but I have truly been in awe of the level of generosity that people have shown and how far they have dug into their pockets. The point, I was getting at though, was that it has taken so...

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? I’m talking of course, about idiot-proofing. This goes for having the word Diesel in big bold size 100 font stamped across your petrol cap to ensure you don’t pour anything but diesel into your diesel car. Or where you spend hours ensuring that your application can reverse an action, even ensuring that your app can handle that one buffoon out there who will click yes when asked “Are you really, really, really sure you want to delete absolutely everything – this is no going back after this !” You have sleepless nights pondering just how to ensure that 'one idiot user ' can’t manage to bring an entire trading system down by find a complete random set of keystrokes that a) you can’t predict or b) he can’t recall or reproduce. I’ve heard many times before – “Never underestimate the idiot because there is always an idiot out there who will prove you wrong!” This is one of the golden rules for any software developer. And then, just today at work, ...