port7 - co - uk

Reading an interesting post about community equity, some interesting thoughts there. I have been wondering myself recently about how business and community can help each other, getting involved in communities I think is a big step forward.

I may post more about this in the future….

Dear Lazyweb,

Can someone please tell me what the difference between NLPOS9 and IRES2 is? And what do I get over NLPOS9 by going with IRES2?

Is it drivers, is it admin tools, is it support agreements? What is it!!??

Is anyone aware of any Debian derivatives that are targeted to the Retail market? Looking at the current market, it seem that Novell has it cornered. That can’t be a good thing!

Got a strange task today, was asked to review a Satelite Internet Thingy for the owner of the company I am currently assigned at. Basically this guy has a boat and wants to access the company VPN and do Video Conferencing from the boat.

So while doing this we thought we would have a look at the boat it’s going on. Some people just live in a totally different world! This thing is bigger than my house!!

Working on PCI: DSS at work atm, and I getting frustrated with the wishy-washy statements from our QSA and the PCI Council, that really don’t help me in convincing the exec that we need to take this seriously. They are under the impression that the PCI Council don’t really have any ‘teeth’ and so can’t really justify the spend to become PCI compliant, and in a way I agree.

So I decided to submit a petition on the petition website to ask that the government make it a legal requirement that companies become PCI compliant.

I don’t know if it will do anything but its worth a go, so when it gets approved and I get the URL, I will let you know what it is so you can sign it

This is for the contracters out there…

Interviewer: So, Steven Crony, you are the newly appointed Minister for the Knowledge Based Economy. What exactly does that entail?

Crony: Well, John, its all very exciting. We have to encourage the flexible, knowledge-based workforce, stimulate e-commerce, and take this country forward into the 20th Century.

Interviewer: Er, 21st Century?

Crony: Is it? How time flies!

Interviewer: Um, and you yourself have considerable experience in the knowledge sector?

Crony: Well yes, for many years I worked for ScrambledEggs.com. Until they suggested I …, er I mean, I decided to move into politics.

Interviewer: So what exactly is knowledge-based working?

Crony: It’s really quite simple. You take on computer whiz-kids straight out of college and hire them out at, say, 1000 a day.

Interviewer: that would be, … er … 200,000 a year?

Crony: 200 K. Right. And you pay them a salary of, say, 25 K. They travel all over the country, visiting your clients and doing very clever stuff on those computer thingies. And every month you invoice the client and get a nice big cheque.

Interviewer: So that’s … er … 175K profit then?

Crony: No, obviously it’s not all profit. There’s expenses. Secretaries. Directors salaries. Directors Cars …

Interviewer: … Buildings …

Crony: Well, you don’t need many offices because the staff are all out working for clients …

Interviewer: … Computers …

Crony: Good God no, the clients have those. But its very expensive to run a company properly. Big board rooms, shiny oak tables, that kind of thing…

Interviewer: … I see …

Crony: … and then you have to make sure there’s some money left to pay out to the shareholders.

Interviewer: Such as yourself.

Crony: Quite.

Interviewer: Well that sounds great. But surely it can’t
be that easy. There is some risk involved?

Crony: Well, the risk is that after a few years, the whiz-kids will wonder why they are only getting 12.5% of the money they earn. Then they leave, and set up their own companies. As independent contractors they might charge as little as, oh, 60,000 to do precisely the same job.

Interviewer: But you’re not going to take that lying down?

Crony: Obviously not. As a minister, I won’t stand for it. The thing is it’s all about tax avoidance. Once they have set up their own companies, they can make all the profit. Then they can take the profits as dividends without paying any National Insurance.

Interviewer: You mean, just like any other businessman who makes a profit?

Crony: Exactly. Just as if they were real entrepreneurs!

Interviewer: Which … I suppose … they’re not?

Crony: Oh no no. These people aren’t entrepreneurs. A real entrepreneur, you see, borrows stacks of money from a bank, and hires staff to do the work. If it succeeds, he becomes a millionaire, and makes a large donation to the Labour Party. If it fails he sacks the staff, and borrows more money, from a different bank, and starts all over. Whereas these people…

Interviewer: … the independent contractors …

Crony: … the independent contractors, they do the work themselves. And they expect to be treated as real businesses!

Interviewer: And they pay less tax than if they worked for ScrambledEggs?

Crony: ScrambledEggs Dot Com. Well no, actually they pay more tax. Because obviously if they worked for us, they wouldn’t earn very much, so wouldn’t pay much tax at all. But it’s about fairness you see.

Interviewer: But some of these independent contractors say that you are going to make them pay income tax and National Insurance on the entire fee they charge to a client, and not allow them any company expenses before tax.

Crony: No that’s not true at all. We only want tax on 95% of the fee.They will be allowed 5% for all their expenses. That’s more than generous.

Interviewer: But, … let me see if I have got this straight … a company like ScrambledEggs dot com would pay PAYE and National Insurance only on that part of the fee that actually goes to the worker as salary, say 12.5%, and would pay all its running costs before tax.

Crony: Yes.

Interviewer: So won’t the independents end up paying much more tax than the large companies?

Crony: Oh, much, much more. But they don’t have our overheads. Offices, Secretaries …

Interviewer: … Shiny oak tables …

Crony: … Shiny oak tables … I think I’ve made my point. Big companies like ScrambledEggs.com can’t possibly be expected to compete if the Independents continue to operate under the same tax rules as we do.

Interviewer: And they say that you won’t let them pay their training costs before tax?

Crony: Training? … Oh, training! Well honestly, if people are going to be extravagant they can’t expect the tax man to help.

Interviewer: So to recap, the Government is concerned that these independent contractors are paying less National Insurance than a full time employee?

Crony: Much less.

Interviewer: And they’re still getting all the benefits, like sick pay, maternity pay, unemployment benefit, when they are not paying their fair share?

Crony: Well no, since they are directors of their own companies, obviously they don’t actually get any of those things. But they should be willing to contribute for those less fortunate. Its about fairness, you see.

Interviewer: But you can receive dividends from your 3.7% shareholding in ScrambledEggs.com, and not pay any National Insurance on that?

Crony: Well obviously that’s completely different (laughing). I don’t do any work. You see dividends are unearned income. Since I don’t do any of the work, I get the dividends.

Interviewer: Whereas the contractors do the work …

Crony: So it’s quite wrong that they should take dividends.

Interviewer: I see. But, er, well, some might say that it was a Labour Party principle that workers should be able to profit from their own labour?

Crony: Now there’s really no need to bring up that old Bennite nonsense. We were elected as New Labour and we will govern as New Labour. We are fully committed to capitalist principles. It’s the bosses make the profits, you see? If the workers start thinking they can do the work by themselves, without any bosses, and keep all the profits for themselves, where would we all be?

Interviewer: Mr Crony, thank you.

Currently looking at ways to reduce costs at work I am investigating using Skype for international communications.

It seems quite good though it is evil in the fact that it’s a propriety protocol. It also is quite horrible network wise, it seems like you have to open lots of outgoing ports on firewall’s for it to work sensibly. Needless to say that if I can’t find a way round that little ‘feature‘ it will not see the light of day at work!

So I have Skype installed on my iBook at home, so if anyone wants to contact me, my Skype name is portseven

Funny quote of the week, read in a document about handheld terminals….

Windows CE.NET 5.0 OS – the most open OS yet developed for Mobile Computers.  A development environment almost identical to Windows, with over 5 million application developers worldwide

Looks like someone has been at the Kool-Aid

Well it’s been over a month now in my new job, all is going reasonably well. I do think I still have a slight ‘rabbit in the headlamps’ thing about me, as its a steep learning curve.

This is quite different from my previous job, as it’s a much more mature IT Department. It is structured ITIL like, and so there is lots of procedure and documentation, as is needed in an IT department of such size. I no longer get called at the weekend when someone can’t login, it just all gets sorted by someone else! I must say I don’t miss the IT support side of the job.

The current thing is preparing the IT budget for next year, as the Technical Architecture Manager I have a big input on this. So I am currenty writing lots regards what I want to spend next year and why. Everything needs a business justification, which can be sometimes tricky given the technical nature of some projects. Still it’s all good experience, and quite interesting.

Just had my 1st day in my new job as the Technical Architecture Manager for Matalan, as with all 1st days in new job’s there was a lot to take in, and I know I will be in learning mode for a good few weeks yet.

Other than that it’s been really good, the people are nice. The infrastructure there looks reasonable, though there are a lot of servers, but thats due to porley written Windows apps. There are a bunch of cool things coming up that I am looking forward to getting involved in, such as a virtualisation trial, move of some apps from DGUX to HPUX & Solaris and an upgrade of the SUSE Retail Linux till systems.

In sad news, I am reeling from the loss of my Thinkpad. Looks like I will have to save up, I need a laptop and nothing other than a Thinkpad will do