In my book, DNV is a big organization. I have around 8000 colleagues spread around the globe in approximatly  200 offices. We are a true global company operating 24 hours a day. Normally me and my colleagues aren't bothered by this: our offices operate relatively independant and we communicate only if we have a cool project that are better suited for colleagues that belong to another office. So basically you get the upsides of a small company with the cool projects of a big one, with almost no downsides.

Today I discovered one downside of our company. One of my less intelligent colleagues abroad e-mailed basically the entire company that he was leaving us permanently. He mentioned that it actually wasn't his choice to leave and started to thank almost his entire office for the support during his brief working period at DNV. Unless you have won an academy award, there is no reason to thank people in such a public manner. There certainly is no reason to thank people when...

My business phone uses Vodafone, which is the second largest telco in the Netherlands. They have pretty decent coverage, but they do have their trouble, which I found out today.

It started with recieving a voicemail message. This happens more often. but this time it was almost a day late. Strange thing is thaI had dialed my voicemail a couple of hours before I recieved the SMS, and there was nothing there. It was literally that my voicemail was delayed for a day. That is extremely annoying because generally when people call, they have some pressing matter. As was with this case since somebody wanted to move a meeting. Not returning such a voicemail does lead to logistical problems.

And then the trouble really started...

First my...

A couple of days ago Apple introduced the version 2 of their Iphone, along with its Exchange interface, making it ready for business applications. I am not going to talk about the fact that competative platforms (Windows Mobile and Symbian) offer more functionality and are a better platform for independent software developers. What I am going to talk about is the things I see as important shortcommings of the Windows Mobile OS were Apple has done a better job for us, the user. As an IT professional I see a clear common theme in all shortcommings: Microsoft is feature driven while Apple is quality driven.

As a log term Windows Mobile user (almost 10 years), you learn to cope with all these little quircks in an operating system. You are conditioned to its ways to the extreme: eventually odd behaviour becomes default way of working. It requires a fundamentally different implementation to help pinpoint the idiocracies that were introduced during these years.

A huge...

The company I work for is looking to reduce its environmental footprint on a global scale. We could plant some trees and have a good feeling about ourselves, but that is only small incremenatal change that will not help us towards a sustainable future. We have to do more than that. This is challenging since real change requires us employees to stop doing things, change doing things or make us do new things. True reduction of environmental impact requires us, the employees, to start changing our behaviour on a daily basis.

As a company of around 8000 employees globally, most of them being modern nomads, our biggest environmental impact probably is travelling. On average in the BeNeLux offices, we travel between 25.000 to 40.000 kilometers per employee per year, depening on the role. That is a lot of gasoline being burned. Although...

Many people use their PocketPC as a planning tool. It is a great tool to maintain your calendar and keep it in sync with a secretary or other colleagues. One of the most prominent questions I get is about the possibility to plan meetings with smaller teams. Basically, the scenario is simple: you want to make an appointment on the spot with a customer, and you want to make sure a colleague can be there as well.

Out of the box, Microsoft can't deliver this functionality, even when you work in an all Microsoft environment. Many consider this a big flaw for the planning scenario. However, TeamCalendar has a great product tht fills that gap. For $49 a year (it is a subscription), you can access your own and others colleagues through a special viewer. The service requires a proxy, which is included in the subscription, to parse the meeting overviews on your Exchange server into something...

Just when you think the world has reached its maximum level of absurdity, something helps you realize that it can get even more absurd. As you might know, I take a Archos 704 WiFi with me, with about 120 Gb of movies. This is about 10 full days of movies, so I have plenty of choice in flights. I am quite happy with it. And then I read about the ACTA proposal: basically the movie producers want customs to check anybody to enter any country to be checked for illegal content. This includes Personal Media Player (like my Archos), iPods, iPhones, smartphones and laptops.

Besides the amazement that someone wants to let the government do their dirty work in a civil economic dispute (what copyright...

One of the telecom providers in the Netherlands (KPN) has decided to introduce digital video on mobile devices on a large scale. To view it, you need to buy a digital video antenna and a subscription (9 euro ($15) per month) and own specific high end phones as a viewer. To me it is a pricy product and I seriously doubt this product will make it through the year.

With consumer products you really have to hit that sweet spot of people that will see this as added value to their life. I have to give it to them, the timing of the introduction is quite good: with the European soccer championships, the Tour du France and the Olympics being around, many sportfans will investigate ways to watch their favorite sport even when they haven't got their own TV-set. In the Netherlands that is hard, many pubs and companies will create huge teraces to watch the games on big screens. So even when you are not at home, you can still see the games basically anywhere.

It might be a...

I am an avid user of Wireless Aceess Points when I'm abroad. GPRS roaming is rather expensive, so I like to keep its usage to a minimum. Many companies recognize this by providing free wireless access to their guests during the day. However, when you are a guest of a company abroad you generally are kept pretty busy, so usually it stays limited to downloading e-mail and news without actually having the time to do anything with it. The time...

I applaud the active approach to fight child pornography. I am a father of 2 children and the sooner this kind of filth gets removed from the planet, the more relaxed I will become. There are plenty of problems chilldren can run into, and every serious kind of trouble that gets crossed off the list is less worries for me. Having said that, I am extremely worried by the means employed in this fight. I am not the only one, at our company we deal with a lot of confidential information, and our IT security officer shares the concerns as well. This is a point where law enformcement collides with valid and legal business concenrs.

When one thinks of it longer, it isn't the search of the laptop in itself which is the problem. It is the complete lack of safeguards and protection from abuse surrounding a search which makes it problematic. The problem lies in the fact...

I don't know about you, but I have a lot of meetings with people not in my contact list. They are new customers, or customers from colleagues. Even when the persons involved are in my contact list, the number of the meeting room isn't automatically linked to my appointment. When the meeting room is virtual, the problem becomes even bigger: what number to call when the meeting starts and you need to contact them?

My secretary has the good tendency to add the numbers to my appointment, which solves the hardest part of the problem: finding the number to call. Dialing was still a hassle: you had to open the appointment, copy the number (hope you didn't copy too much), and paste it into the phone interface. A lot of hassle and not the most natural thing to do. Stupid thing is, in e-mails etc. phone numbers are actively recognized, allowing you to dial them from the e-mail.

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