General

Over the years I’ve heard many things described as strategy. The word seems to have become symbolic of anything to do with a business achievement. That’s not what I have a problem with; it’s the “anything” rather than “everything”. The “anything” more often than not, includes one thing. For example, the company goal or the project plans. I have also heard budget setting or a margin percentage increase target described as “our strategy”. In this article, I will attempt to give a clear picture of what I believe a business

I came across a neat feature of Windows 10 quite by accident this weekend that will help me with my colour blindness. However, before I found it, I had a lot of frustration trying to “fix” the problem. I was typing away on my computer Friday night and it was just before 3AM when suddenly my screen turned black and white (greyscale). I looked in Windows Color Settings but that was greyed out as it is controlled by my GeForce graphics card software. I had a quick look in the

In this article I will explain how to improve your Curriculum Vitae (CV) in the Information Technology (IT) world if you are applying for a job with me. I don’t go around applying for jobs left right and centre myself, actually I’ve never really done that, but I do interview a lot of people around the world and know what I like to see in a CV and what I do not. I thought I would share this here and see what other IT managers think and it also serves

I have written before about using the time-boxing method in project management to make sure a project finishes on time and within budget but today I am going to explain how it, together with some other techniques, helps me to organise my day and enable me to get more done. In this article, I will briefly explain how my day used to be before I took charge of it and how it is now. I’m not perfect and I still work long hours but not as many as I used

I have made many software purchases over the years and have a shelf full of packages that I only used once or even not at all. I am getting better at resisting the temptation to try everything out but out of those that I did purchase this year I had three that really impressed me. These packages might be old news to some but for me 2015 was the first year that I used them even though I knew of their existence beforehand. All three are different and could be

I’ve been impressed by quite a few hardware purchases this year but none more so than the purchase I made back in May 2015 of the BT8500 Advanced Call Blocker Cordless Home Phone (Trio Handset Pack) (BT8500 Advanced Call Blocker Cordless Home Phone (Trio Handset Pack)) – single, duo and quad handset packs are also available. Apart from its obvious claim to block calls it has all the features of most other telephone and handset packs plus the sound quality, ease of use and stylish design make as good as

This article covers setting up a dual-band broadband router and managing connections. Most modern routers in the UK are dual-band meaning they operate a wireless signal at both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. I was having some problems getting devices connected to wireless but mostly it was with connections dropping. I was considering getting a signal extender to cover more of the house with thinking that my BT router wasn’t good enough and a stronger signal was needed even though connections were failing in the same room as the router.

As the year closes I’ve been looking back at the articles that I have written in 2014 and I think there are some that are worth mentioning again. So in this final piece for 2014 I’m going to briefly cover some of the previous content found in other articles. In this way I hope to remind myself where I’m up to in certain article serials that will continue in 2015 and to make others aware of some of the things they may have missed. I won’t cover every article or

The other day I was thinking about the reason that I always (well mostly) write things down. For example, I have three items to get at the shops and I write them down on a sticky note or a notepad page, put it in my pocket and go to the shops. I hardly ever never need to look at that short shopping list as it is already in my memory. In the past, I’ve maybe though I need to get these three things at the shops and by the time