This week the Insider is massively understaffed. This is half because some of us are on holiday, and half because at some point in time during the week a window came open. Sensing an opportunity to escape from the terrible conditions a lot of the full timers seized the opportunity, and made a run and a jump for it.
We are only on the second floor and more than a few of us are nicely cushioned, so the fall wasn’t so bad. The problem is, no one expected the monkeys to leap out after us, or climb into cabs and follow us all home.
One week on, and the monkeys are spreading across the country like that virus in the monkey virus outbreak monkey movie, Outbreak! What can we do? Who knows. In the meantime we’ll just keep on doing what we are good at, and in between that, this, the IT Week Insider.
News:
UK software faces a brain drain
Where have all the brains gone? Are they being sucked up into space like so
many cows? No, there are just a lot less of them these days. What can we
attribute this to? Big Brother? Celine Dion records? The film Greece? No, none
of those. Well not directly anyway. This week runners in the blame marathon are
chucking their empty paper cups at a lack of people entering computer science
courses at university. So, it’s no one’s fault directly, but something does need
to be done…
You were lucky this time Dion.
Microsoft builds bridge between
Open XML and ODF document formats
This week Microsoft extended its bejewelled hands across the ocean with the
announcement that it intends to create free open-source translation software
that can make sense of the duelling XML-based document formats. Microsoft will
work with partners to create a set of tools that will let files created in Open
XML work with ODF files and vice versa. What’s vice versa? And do we need to be
supporting it as well?
Comment:
MySpace invaders threaten
businesses
We were wondering why David “I shall be working from home this afternoon” Neal
might have been spending so much time on social networking sites – it can’t have
been to socially network. So, it was a relief to discover that it was, in part,
for work purposes. David has been baiting Celine Dion again– but we don’t blame
him for that. Especially not when he reminds us how important it is for firms to
make sure that they grab their name on the MySpace site before someone else
does. And yes, we are aware of our own fallibility.
Analysis:
Online applications take on office
tasks
One day you may be able to sit in the office and use a desktop suite to order up
a cup of tea and have it delivered to you. That’ll beat shouting across the
office at a work experience monkey anyway. Until then you have tools like Num
Sum, ZoHo, Ajax 13 and JotSpot, which may sound like cast-offs from a sci-fi
movie but are actually very useful online productivity tools. Well, that’s what
the teaboy says anyway.
More news
Take regular breaks from taking irregular breaks by clicking
here.
This week: Madeline “the Velvet Fist” Bennett talks about an investigation into anti-piracy methods, harangues Martin “Tambourine Man” Veitch about the impact of new environmental laws and threatens Dave “boot in safe mode” Bailey with violence until he considers the value of EMC's purchase of RSA Security.
Editor's blog
This week: Lem “Sand Everywhere’ in on holiday. This means we’ve all had the run
of the office. Well, we would have if anyone had actually turned up at the
office.
Gary Flood blog
This week: Gary "We all go a little mad sometimes" Flood has come over all
serious. Well, it is about time his posts matched the gravitas of his finger
pointing.
IT Sneak blog
Odds and ends from the odd end of technology. This week Sneak has been googling
Soylent Green. Why can’t he eat from the canteen like the rest of us?
Phil Muncaster blog
This week: Phil "Can you put some on my back" Muncaster is also on holiday. You
can check out the IT Week retrospective of his work
here.
David Neal blog
This week David Neal has been turned away from Debenhams.com. Well, word does
get around.
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