Recent Posts

Another baby when my wife is 57 years old ? - discuss.

My job title when I joined Siebel in April 2003 was 'Junior Architecture Specialist'. Four years later, it transpires that I am now officially entitled to call myself 'Principal Architecture Specialist'.

However, I have elected not to change my business cards and .signature as I am simply not worthy. Please remember that I have worked with some very talented individuals (past and present).

In any case, who needs more boxes of business cards gathering dust ? I rarely dispense my business card to any client as I much prefer email as the sole communication channel. This also avoids the possibility of a customer calling me on Sunday evening to assist with a Service Request escalation or go-live support. After all, 'Antiques Roadshow' is absolutely sacrosanct in our household.

Secondly, such a deluxe, overblown, Rolls-Royce description may set the client expectations unreasonably high and this may lead to dashed hopes and bitter disappointment (especially when dealing with me).

So when I cross the threshold of the modern glass-fronted offices, extracting my contact details and preparing my firm handshake, I normally introduce myself with 'Hi, I'm Norman Brightside from Expert Services. I know a little about lots.'

To be fair, this statement is unerringly accurate and leaves me with the perennial 'Get Out of Jail Free' card: 'Oh I'm sorry - but that's an area of Siebel I am not intimate with' (which I tend to use a lot).

Last March, following the Oracle takeover, our group was going to be re-branded as 'Service Delivery Engineers'. All Siebel employees were also eligible for higher rate tax relief on any dental surgery and liposuction, if required.

I was abroad in Sweden and didn't really care - after all, what's in a name ? - Expert Services actually do 'deliver services' to customers although we are not (software) engineers in the traditional sense.

However, some of my colleagues fiercely resisted this change with a vengeance (think 1990 Poll Tax riots) which left me rather bemused. The standing joke was that we would tell customers; 'Sorry I haven't got that part on the van' and suck through our teeth 'Hmm - this isn't gonna be cheap' when faced with a thorny performance problem.

I honestly wouldn't care if Oracle called me 'Overpaid, ugly code monkey' as long as my salary and benefits were preserved. In fact, when I was a mercenary contractor, I toyed with using this job title as my official occupation on my passport.

Surprisingly, the revolutionaries prevailed and the corporation ruled that we could preserve our job titles or upgrade, at no extra cost, to 'Electrolux repair man', if we so desired.

Twelve months on, my contrarian instincts are twitching so what do you think ?

• Service Delivery Engineer
• Architecture Specialist
• Technical 'Consultant'
• Amusing alternative

I always had a lot of time for the outgoing Manchester City manager, Stuart Pearce. Well his press conferences and musical tastes, anyway.

However, I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that, in seven weeks, Manchester City Football Club are going to appoint a foreign manager.

This appointment will come after the City board initially go after 'big Sam Allardyce' and offer to rename him 'MASSIVE'. City are shocked to be rejected by Allardyce who has already signed up at Newcastle and is merely arguing over additional ex-gratia payments in brown bags to be exchanged at Washington services on the A1.

Unabashed, the chairman glibly assumes that timing of Paul Jewell's resignation at Wigan is more then coincidental and quickly arranges a meeting. Paul Jewell tells him: 'Look - I am at the end of my tether. The relegation battle left me a broken man. My doctor says I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I have been advised to take a 2 year break from football. I would have to be completely mad to take over at City'. 'Oh so I take it that's a 'No' then, is it ?'

The City board of directors then appoint Francis Lee to lead the increasingly urgent hunt for Pearce's successor. His first effort is rebuffed by a City old boy - Steve Coppell. 'Err - I only lasted 6 matches in 1996 for 'personal reasons' and, in any case, I'm working for a big club now.'

In desperation, the vice-chairman suggests a radical strategy - appointing the untried Joey Barton as player manager to instil some much needed 'fighting spirit' in the team. This is opposed vehemently by City fans who conclusively vote 23-6 against in a poll conducted in the Manchester Evening News.

An emergency board meeting is convened to discuss with just two items on the agenda:

• Is Sven Goran Eriksson fully paid-up by England yet ?
• AOB - Noel Gallagher's offer.

Amusing story in Fridays Torygraph about how a Sat Nav system left a poor, helpless 20- year old female student marooned on a level crossing in the face of a high speed train.

Thankfully, this woman escaped with her life and will probably sue TomTom, her boyfriend and Carlos Tevez. However, Paula Ceely is so unbelievably stupid, hopefully she will manage to secure an early nomination for the Darwin Awards imminently.

The online version of this story omits a crucial section - the picture of the warning sign that was clearly displayed on the level crossing that was included in the newspaper edition.

1. Check that the green light shows
2. Open both gates
3. Check that the green light still shows
4. Cross quickly
5. Close both gates

RTFM.

Please update your bookmarks and feeds with immediate effect.

Many years ago, in a parallel universe, I created a Web page that proclaimed:

'The fastest, most comprehensive Web search engine - AltaVista'

With the increasing domination of Google, it really is difficult to remember life back in the days when AltaVista was the only search engine in town and you were even considering sinking 500 quid of your hard-earned into the rumoured IPO. Maybe one day, another startup will come along and usurp Google's #1 position but somehow, I sincerely doubt it.

And if that search engine company turns out to be Ask, I hereby pledge to eat my underpants and buy everyone a season ticket at Manchester City (with complimentary powder blue and white scarf).

Duncan Riley of TechCrunch already posted an excellent summary on Ask's current, abysmal marketing campaign in the UK.

Listen, if you want to get ordinary people to use your search engine, don't use some subtle, understated, pretentious campaign ('Evolve Your Search') with pictures of Neanderthal man, costing millions of dollars, dreamt up by new media luvvies, wearing black shirts and no ties.

Ordinary people don't say: 'Ooh - that looks very interesting indeed. I wonder if that advert is a cryptic reference to a new, exciting search engine technology which will undoubtedly to help me find relevant stuff quickly on the Interweb. The Ask brand has now been subconsciously planted in my mind and I simply must remember to discuss this topic with the lads at work tomorrow.'

Ordinary people say: 'God there's some rubbish adverts on TV these days. Fancy a cup of tea, love ?'

Believe it or not, technically minded people have already heard of Live, Ask and Google and all those niche search engine players (incorporating Web 2.0 semantics).

Believe it or not, those technically minded people are in a tiny minority. They don't know it but they are.

You are not trying to get their attention. There's no point. They look down their nose at you. The only time they use Ask.com is the final choice to determine how many inbound links their tiresome blog has this week.

No, you are trying to get the attention of millions of desperate housewives, builders and silver surfers who have never heard of Google and have to ask their 12 year old son to dig up that Web site for holiday cottages in the Dordorgne. These people don't use IE7 and type their searches directly into the address bar.

A much better campaign would have been:

'Trying to find something on the Internet ? Go to ask.com.'

Black text on white background. Short and to the point. Quicker and therefore considerably cheaper and it probably would have delivered better results than this report from Hitwise suggests .

Well, let's face it - my campaign couldn't have been much worse; 3.69% market share and a staggering 13% down year on year). Come on Ask, only another 62% before you overtake Google.

So, don't Ask, just Google. Like everyone else.

Henry Spencers unforgettable ‘10 Commandments for C Programmers

Once more, with feeling just for West Ham.

'He plays on the left, he plays on the right...'

MUFC > England.

Like most newly born WordPress.com bloggers, I keenly played with all the features and tirelessly experimented with the rich variety of horrendous 1, 2 and 3 column themes.

Then, I left home and bought a domain name from a geezer in the pub. The downward spiral continues into self-hosting and mixing with the wrong crowd. Inevitably, I stayed up late, dabbled in alcohol and drugs while installing every single plugin and widget ever created for WordPress.

You start taking ProPlus, pulling all-nighters and, unbelievably, start hacking PHP code.

Then, I grew up and became a man. I bought some slippers from M&S together with a pipe and grumbled away at the television ('You can't even hear what they are singing').

The stunning Barthelme theme was left unaltered. The platform was stable but you quickly run out of ready-made, cheap blogging material. Apart from a brief dalliance with pMetrics, Google Analytics silently continues to accumulate data, statistics, lies and damned statistics. You start to sleep in the afternoons and go to bed after the News.

Even the recent announcement of a WordPress statistics plugin for self-hosted blogs couldn't rouse me from my blissful slumber. Why bother with all that pesky download, upload, configuration and activation nonsense wasting valuable time and effort when Google Analytics will probably be revamped with colourful dashboards and a usable interface tomorrow ? And so it came pass. Yet another triumph for apathy.

Life was good. And then Scott Wallick had to spoil it by announcing a major overhaul of all his brilliant WordPress themes including V3.0 of the Barthelme theme. As the current version is an embryonic 1.2.2, you can't resist this temptation. After months of inactivity, you now simply have to act.

So you reluctantly risk RSI by typing on a keyboard again. You have to endure the tortuous download, upload and configuration process. Then you have to use the left side of your tiny brain to merge your changes only to discover that the blog looks exactly the same and only a CSS purist could tell the difference.

Everything that is apart from the 'Related Posts' widget which is now completely broken. You hesitate and consider conducting an exhaustive (and exhausting) search for a WordPress alternative that is compatible with Barthelme 3.0.

Then inertia holds sway, so you give up and reinstate the perfectly functional (if outdated and unfashionable) stunning Barthelme 1.2.2 and slump back in your chair.

The Guardians Rob Smyth has a fascinating article where he eats humble pie and ranks Manchester Uniteds nine Premiership titles.

Curiously enough, I have also given this matter a lot of thought over the weekend. I place this title second after Alex Ferguson's very first Premiership victory back in 1992-1993. Not because that team was better (it wasn't) but because of all the history, the expectation, the broken dreams, the false dawns in preceding 26 years and the satisfaction of lifting the title and finally knocking Liverpool off their perch.

However, I was living in hope rather than expectation for this campaign. Chelsea had won the title (easily) for the past two seasons and strengthened further with the summer acquisitions of Ballack and Shevchencko.

United had significantly paid over the odds for Michael Carrick. I questioned the wisdom of offloading Ruud van Nistlerooy and feared Paul Scholes' best days were behind him. I was convinced Ole's next goal would be in his testimonial and doubted Ferguson's assessment of Patrice Evra ability who I considered no better than Silvestre.

United had a fair share of luck in this campaign; Ferguson's squad remained injury free for the majority of the season, the goalkeeping error and Neville own goal at Everton, Vassell's missed penalty. The list goes on.

However, United did play some fantastic football this season (Fulham on the opening day, Roma, Bolton away) and Cristiano Ronaldo's first-half display against Bolton was absolutely superb. Playing and winning the United way.

Ferguson's luck deserted him towards the end of the season with injuries to a watertight defence coupled with Van der Saar's shattered nose (and confidence). The gulf between the sides in the two legged semi-final against AC Milan was embarrassing.

If Chelsea had won the title three years in a row, I think the gulf between them and the rest would have widened still further and been even harder to bridge. It's tempting to think Chelsea were decimated by injuries mid-season but they actually lost fewer games (3) than United and have an incredibly strong squad.

The various points totals from each campaign make interesting reading. United already have 88 points with two games left which is the third highest total (behind 92 points in 93-94 and 91 in 99-00). I think it illustrates how high Chelsea have raised the standards required to win the Premiership and what a fantastic achievement winning it really is.

Up The Reds !

Donncha showed me his so now I have to show him mine.

1. dixons duty free
2. andy c
3. dixons tax free
4. meaningful questions
5. virgin media v+ box
6. sky.com/anytime
7. heathrow duty free shopping
8. dixons duty free gatwick
9. duty free shopping heathrow
10. dbms_stats+siebel

Dear Paul

You are 32 years old and a fantastic footballer. You are still producing moments of breathtaking brilliance (lobbed pass for Rooney versus AC Milan).

You are one of my favourite players at Manchester United. However, let's face it. You can not tackle to save your life. If you get booked and United beat AC Milan tonight, you will miss your second European Cup Final.

This would be hard for me to take so God knows how you would feel. Remember how it felt to walk around the Nou Camp in 1999 with Roy Keane in those grey suits.

If you make two tackles, you are likely to get booked. If you make four tackles, you are certain to get booked.

So please, please have a word with Alex Ferguson and get Michael Carrick to concentrate on winning the ball and just pass it to you.

Yours faithfully

Norman Brightside (no relation)