The e-Borders Scheme and Budgets

Posted on 2010-05-172020-07-09 by bobdvb

So, in the news today was the fact that the e-Borders “RING OF STEEL” cost £1.2bn to set-up and has resulted in:

2,000 arrests
48,682 alerts
1,000 refused entry
14,000 intelligence reports

So, lets put this in context. this security mechanism designed to protect us has cost us £600,000 per arrest to date. Now, I appreciate that the initial start up costs don’t reflect the future of the system, but lets assume it takes 5 years to achieve Return on Investment (most IT systems are budgeted this way) well we have now achieved a cost of £120,000 per arrest. Bargain!

So, what will £1.2bn buy you?

12 years of funding for Welsh TV channel S4/C (which has zero viewers)
Buy Manchester United (according to forbes)
Build three new “super hospitals” (see Bristol Southmead)
Fund half of the NHS budget deficit (according to last years budget)
Fund 10% of the upgrade of the West Coast Main Line (according to the NAO)
Pay for half of Surrey County Council’s budget for one year (the 5th largest council in the UK)
Pay for 4.6% of the Government’s IT overspend (approx £26bn on key projects)
Pay for half a nuclear power station (est. cost £2.8bn)

I will leave you to decide what value the e-Borders scheme has to you, does it make you feel more safe to know this?

New HTC Touch HD

Posted on 2008-12-032020-07-09 by bobdvb

Well, after the disaster that was the HTC Touch Diamond I had a while ago, I decided I needed to call Orange and sort out my phones. I had been fancying an iPhone but I was loathed to move to O2 for it. I had been tracking the news around Orange because they were rumored to be selling the iPhone this year. But it being the end of November and there not being a press release in sight I decided just to call them and see what I could blackmail them in to providing.

I had seen the HTC Touch HD and thought, being the most expensive phone in the residential section I thought I should try it. I spoke to the nice lady at upgrades, she said she wasn’t authorised give me that for free and I should speak to “retentions”. I was duely transfered and speaking to the crack team; I mentioned that I wanted a good upgrade or an extreme downgrad. I asked about the HTC Touch HD and said I was looking for something like an iPhone. They said I had to pay £50 for it, I don’t normally pay for phone upgrades, however they offered me a halving of my line rental. So, I am now paying £22 per month for 1200 minutes, 900 texts, unlimited internet and I got a top of the line phone.Win!

The HTC Touch HD is much better than the Diamond, it is faster (although the processor is the same), it has a better display (a large 480×800 touch display) and all in all despite it’s relative weight it feels good to the touch. I was at a PR event last night for our company where our PR agency invited a group of journalists and we were discussing such devices. I bought out my phone and the considered opinion was that it was quite nice.

I think it won’t be going back and I can be quite happy with what I have.

eBay negative feedback

Posted on 2008-04-022020-07-09 by bobdvb

I am just reading an article by Bill Thompson of the BBC:

"Unfortunately, however, like many other communities that seem to be happy and relaxed but are in turmoil just beneath the surface, eBay is more like the fictional murder-prone village of Midsomer than the perfect market."

I loved that line. Apparently sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback for buyers, I am not sure if this is a good idea.

Definition of a Friend

Posted on 2008-03-252020-07-09 by bobdvb

In response to a blog entry by Euan Semple :

Since I have moved jobs my relative profile has increased, through press releases and now because I have stuck my oar in on DigitalSpy to correct some speculation about my companies future products.

I have always been a prolific tart when it comes to socialising (especially on-line), but recently I was ‘found’ on Facebook by someone who is an avid user of our products. I decided that, although this person is known to me, I would deny this ‘friend’ request just because by many measures I don`t actually know them.

Euan and I have met only very rarely in person and in our previous lives interacted on-line as part of his now famous community at the BBC. This makes me comfortable considering hm one of the loose social network of on-line friends that I have, but without some personal connection or professional relationship, if the association is too loose I don’t feel I can ‘friend’ someone.

I invite comment…

Joomap error at line 88 foreach()

Posted on 2008-01-18 by bobdvb

I encountered a rather annoying error message in this CMS when I wanted to add a Sitemap component called joomap to Mambo (to improve Google indexing ).

XML Parsing Error: junk after document element
Location: http://www.orbit.me.uk /index.php? option=com_joomap&view=google
Line Number 2, Column 1:Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in [snip] /administrator /components /com_joomap /plugins /content.plugin.php on line 88

This was a problem because it was stopping Google indexing the sitemap. So I decided to dust off my PHP and tackle the problem head on…

Continue reading “Joomap error at line 88 foreach()” →

New year, new broadband provider.

Posted on 2008-01-172020-07-09 by bobdvb

New broadband provider… a new year. Excellent:

Uptime:	0 days, 4:11:09

Modulation:	G.992.5 Annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:	1,291 / 7,264



Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:	12.0 / 18.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:	21.5 / 39.5

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:	7.0 / 6.5

Ah, heck, it might not be 24Mb but its enough for me.

Social networking

Posted on 2007-11-052020-07-09 by bobdvb

So I continue on with social networking, it's something I have taken to much better than blogging if I confess. But I am prolific, I have a linked-in account, a Facebook account and an Xing account (the latter of which is rather stagnant at the moment). But I begin to realise that my business is now more and more about conglomerations of business contacts than it is about the company I work for.

Today I was asked about how someone would setup a particular broadcast network, then another time I am asked about if I could help someone with some other activity, then someone who would have been considered an arch-rival in business until recently calls and asks if we can provide them our technology (of course, at a price). It is all just contacts and clouds of people working together to achieve someone's goals.

But the networking is not just virtual, some of these deals happened on-line, others were the result of meeting someone at an event, but it's all just networking. Someone sees the potential in you and despite the traditional barriers they ask "for the good of my business I can work with this person".

"Enterprise sans frontiers."