You didn't notice thousands of dollars of unexpected transactions on your bank statements? How rich are you?

That's how I picture Americans - if there's something you don't like, shoot it. ;)

@thanksajdotcom said:

"I understand 2014/2015 doesn't look good, but I was born into a religious cult and this was the period during which I escaped. I am now trying to put my life back together." It seems like a sound idea. Thoughts?

I don't like that. I'd never mention "religious cult" in any job application. I also don't like the term "trying to put my life back together", as that implies your life isn't currently together. It might be true, but surely you want to give the impression that the past is the past and you are now completely over it and perfect?

"Travel and personal development" is better. I'm not convinced by it, but something bland along those lines is definitely the right approach IMV.

Came across this shop whilst on holiday in Shropshire earlier this week and thought of this thread:

@ajstringham said:

I had watched his house for him while he was out-of-state

QA=Quality Assurance

I still can't believe how much you slag off your employer on a public forum (and on your blog). I think it's only a matter of time before you get caught and fired.

Dear Carnival Boy

I've used up all of my 5GB iCloud storage. My phone is full of work photos that I need backing up. Please resolve.

Regards

A. User

AFAIK, there is no corporate iCloud option, is there? So my options are:

1. Logon on to his iCloud account and use a company credit card to buy an annual iCloud plan for his personal use.
2. Get him to do it, using his own credit card, and reclaim on expenses.
3. Use an alternative backup system.

On my own phone, I've tried using OneDrive to backup my photos. It started ok. Then hung. Now the app just crashes everytime I open it. Par for the course, with Microsoft apps. I need something reliable, that works in the background.

I'm thinking about using Google Drive. Any good?

The problem is, iCloud is very good. It's reliable and I like the fact that when their phone breaks, I can just restore from iCloud onto their new device and they're away.

Advice please.

A member of my IT tech support team is moving to another part of the country. Rather than losing him, I'm hoping to let him work remotely, with the occasional on-site visit if required (maybe once or twice a month).

Although my company has lots of home and remote workers already, this is the first time I'll have managed one. Do you have any tips on how to make the arrangement as productive and pleasant as possible, in terms of how to manage him, what tools to use to communicate with him (eg slack), and how to keep him motivated and feeling part of the team. I know a number of you work from home, and some of you manage staff remotely (eg @Minion-Queen )

I'm looking forward to it as it'll give us a chance to really utilise a few online tools like Slack, Trello etc etc that are currently under-used because the team is sitting directly opposite each other and so often finds it easier to just open their mouths and talk.

@scottalanmiller said:

People ask me before using them and they don't even need to do that because I license them for certain use.

< considers where to post picture of @scottalanmiller in his pink, fluffy unicorn costume >

One thing I would like to do is have 6 weeks summer holiday when my kids are off and go travelling. But my company doesn't really like anyone taking more than 2 weeks off in a row, and we only have 5 weeks in total for the year.

When I was a kid, my dad was a University lecturer, so had 2 months over summer, and we'd travel round Europe for 4 or 5 weeks every year. Time of my life. Although he seemed to find both the cost and his annoying kids fairly stressful at times....

OK, I don't work in the enterprise space. Or in the US. Maybe the US is simpler with less statutory requirements.

Although having just implemented US Sales Tax for a client, I really wouldn't fancy developing that from scratch.

Unless you're talking a massive team and millions in development. But even then...

@scottalanmiller I don't believe that's possible. Standalone systems to handle, say, stock control, maybe. But full ERP with finance for a $51bn company - no way.

@jclambert I've developed ERP systems, also many moons ago, working for an ERP vendor. But the world has moved on, and gotten more complex.

I would never consider developing a bespoke finance system now. Not least because of modern statutory requirements. For example, in the UK, the government will only accept tax returns directly from an ERP system. Apart from the complexity that developing that requires, the rules are constantly changing. It is so good being on SaaS knowing that as the government changes the rules, Microsoft will quickly roll-out a solution, and next month the software will be automatically updated in the middle of the night and just work.

No-one is writing an ERP system from scratch and no-one wants a completely inflexible system. Microsoft has met the challenge of making a SaaS solution that allows for customisation and third-party add-ons whilst still being seamlessly upgraded to a new version every month. I'm not sure if other ERP vendors have managed this.

Dynamics is just the brand name Microsoft gives to a number of different ERP/CRM products - none of them related.

Dynamics F&O (formally AX) is their enterprise product, competing with the likes of Oracle and SAP.

Dynamics Business Central (formally NAV) is their SMB product.

I work with Business Central and think it's great. They've done a ton of work in recent years to separate out the standard code from custom code which makes upgrades very easy. If you're on the SaaS version (which is the same as the on-premise version), Microsoft will automatically upgrade to the latest version every month, even with a loads of customisations.

The product is great, if you have problems it's likely to be because of a poor partner, of which there are many. Microsoft made it too easy to be become a partner.

I've tried a few. I'm good at starting a timer but then always forget to stop it and end up getting a notification that I've been working on a 15 minute task for 22 hours non-stop.

@scottalanmiller said in Apple plans to scan your images for child porn:

@carnival-boy said in Apple plans to scan your images for child porn:

But the software doesn't have the ability. We're going round in circles.

But it does, Apple themselves said that it does. It scans the whole device looking for whatever third party non-profits (and the government) tell it to search for. They could not possibly be more up front and clear about that. They aren't hiding this. You're claims don't seem to be that Apple won't do something bad, but that Apple is lying to make itself look bad. Why are you taking a stance that Apple is a good company, but lying? It's a very weird position to take without any reason to do so.

You are saying that the government could force Apple to provide them with data held on my phone. Apple can't do this, they don't have access to the data that this software gets and holds privately on my phone. The scan results are private (until uploaded to iCloud). Apple simply don't have the means to access the scan results.

That's my last post on this, I can't discuss with someone who just calls me weird.

But the software doesn't have the ability. We're going round in circles.

@scottalanmiller said in Apple plans to scan your images for child porn:

@carnival-boy said in Apple plans to scan your images for child porn:

And the Apple link clearly says it isn't doing what the article initially says will happen.

Actually Apple's link completely confirms the concerns. Not sure what you read, but you missed Apple's statements.

"Instead of scanning images in the cloud, the system performs on-device matching using a database"

You were claiming that they only scanned cloud, but Apple says the exactly opposite, twice.

No I wasn't. I said that the scanning was done on the phone, but that Apple can't access this data. The data is private until it us uploaded to the cloud.