Two Ideas for IT Sanity

I was thinking today that it is crazy that most companies employ people and let them use computers for most things but that very few insist on any formal qualifications to prove you know what you're doing. To think of the number of times something is saved in the wrong format, things that should take minutes take hours because somebody doesn't know the quick way and generally computers that should save loads of time take longer than pen or paper. I reckon any serious company should:
1) Insist on a formal qualification for the level of IT work required in a job (i.e. basic Office skills, Basic Database Operation or whatever)
2) It should be rammed home that if something is repetative and time consuming that it can be done faster using the right technology (even a few hundred pounds is cheaper than days of someones time).
One example of IT indeptness was when I used to work for a company where someone had to send out loads of letters to Doctors whose addresses were in a large book and that had to be looked up manually and typed into a template letter (100s of letters a week). I asked the person whether they had the details on disk and showed them how to mail merge. Hey presto, a 1 or 2 minute job now took 5 seconds.
Somebody told me the other day that somebody measured the productivity of a company before and after computers were introduced (over a 20 year period) and that the productivity was identical. That figures. People buy the wrong kit and don't know how to use it. To all you clever IT managers out there, work out how to use your stuff properly and you might save £1,000s!

Heating your house and saving energy

My energy bills are really low, I average £20 per month for gas and electricity. I have gas central heating and an electric oven. I wanted to share how my bills are low and suggest that many of these are within reach of a normal person in a normal house.

1. I don't run my heating to keep my house at 24 degrees. My thermostat is set to 20. I will wear a jumper before switching the heating on (although I am quite warm as a person). It might sound undesirable but honestly, it will save you a packet.
2. Make sure you have thermostatic radiator valves, the ones that are quite large and usually have red or green coloured numbers on them. They are no use if turned all the way up in every room but for instance, keep a spare room at 2, perhaps the bathroom at 4 and most rooms at 3. Why pay to heat a room you hardly use? Also, you might very well not want the bedroom at too high a temperature which will cook you when you are under the duvet.
3. Make sure you have a room thermostat that will switch off your heating when you house is warm. You might think that having loads of thermostatic radiator valves will do the job but if the boiler is still running when all the rooms are warm, you are quite simply paying to heat nothing. Honestly, this can save loads.
4. Make sure you seal any drafts around windows etc. They don't always make your house very cold but they can make it feel cold which makes you turn the heating on. Use curtains and draft excluders if required.
5. Make sure you have good loft insulation. It might seem expensive but it quickly pays back. The recommended amount is now about 250mm (almost a foot!) which can be annoying if you have a boarded loft but do what you can and make sure it looks cosy like a jumper!
6. If you have any cold rooms (or if you are like me) fix some rigid insulation to the inside of the outside walls and then plasterboard it and skim it. This works well on cavity or solid walls and can reduce some drafts as well as heat loss. It doesn't cost a massive amount and can be cheaper than cavity wall insulation (as well as not bridging the cavity and causing damp.
   

How to Calculate your Energy Consumption

It's the flavour of the day but saving the planet is all very well unless you have no idea how to work out things like energy consumption. For many people, energy consumption simply means whether the gas and electric bills are higher than expected. This is how you can calculate the energy consumption of your electrical appliances:

1. Look for a plate on the equipment that says what the maximum power requirement is. It might be in Watts, KiloWatts (1000 Watts) or in Amps.
2. If it is in watts, divide it by 1000 to find out how many units (KiloWatt Hours) it will use when running at maximum power. For instance, your fridge says 250 Watts. Divided by 1000 is 0.25 or a quarter of a unit per hour at full power.
3. If it is in Amps, multiply it by 0.23 to get the kilowatts and kilowatts over the course of an hour makes units. e.g. A 3Kw tumble dryer will use a maximum of 3 units per hour.

If you do this for a range of items, you might be surprised that things like tumble dryers and electric showers use vast amounts of power compared to things like TVs and mobile phone chargers. You might not.

After you have these, you need to work out how much is actually used. This can be hard for things like fridges which are always switching on and off and for washing machines, which only use large amounts of power when heating the water inside. You have two options to work this out:

1. For things like TVs, work out how many hours per month you use it and then multiply this by the power consumption. e.g. a TV might use 0.1 units of power and you might use it for 40 hours per month = 4 units. Again you might be surprised that low power things when used frequently add up to a lot of power.
2. For items like fridges and washing machines, their usage might be found in the instruction manual or otherwise you can measure it with the electricity meter. With everything else switched off at the mains (you can leave your clocks plugged in!) read your electricity meter and then go out somewhere for a while - do not open your fridge or turn anything else on. If your washing machine, you must obviously wait until it finishes the cycle. After the cycle finishes or perhaps 2 hours, read the meter again. Most of this amount will be your appliance (some might be things that you have not switched off like clocks, chargers etc). Divide this amount by the number of hours you have watched it for (fridge) or simply use it as an amount per cycle for the washing machine and you can then look down your list and find out where you can make savings in electricity.

Bear in mind that a washing machine uses much more power on a hot wash than a cold one so if you regularly use a hot wash, measure that and measure a 40 degree wash too.
For most people I expect that lights being left on, washing machines and tumble dryers being used too often and a poor quality fridge are where most power savings come from. I can't imagine your children will be pleased if you suggest a maximum of 5 minutes of TV every day!!

Government says no to encryption

I feel the need to rant again because of the stupidity endemic in our current government. I don't think it is a political disagreement just another example of incompetence. This article here relates how information obtained from RIPA (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers) does not require encryption as it is handled and passed around. According to our government, who of course excel in every area of IT, it would be "impractical" to require this burden and the existing systems of "physical security", "security procedures", "staff vetting" and "training" are considered suitable for the job. This again clearly demonstrates that the government have no idea what they are talking about. Most security leaks appear to be related to a common theme: humans make mistakes. They leave stuff lying around, they get their properties burglarled, things get dropped, mislaid and criminals who want this information often obtain it without any input from employees of these systems. In which cases none of the so-called adequate measures does anything. The only way to prevent accidental disclosure of information is to make it exceedingly hard to do (i.e. encryption or inability to move the data outside of a closed network). People disboey procedures to save themselves time, they often ignore the fit-for-purpose hardware and transport stuff around in the Demilitarised Zone and as for staff training and vetting, it doesn't really add security, it is small and cheap operation that actually adds very little benefit.
They also miss an important point that actually encryption is extremely simple even using free tools. Even if what they used was not US Military Spec, it would be better than nothing!
Maybe one day the government will emply someone who actually knows about the departments they are managing. I won't hold my breath!