Technology Tales

Software engineers have gained a reputation for being disagreeable and moody, frequently saying no to requests and believing they can perform everyone's job better than they do. This reputation stems from a fundamental disconnect in how engineers view themselves compared to how companies treat them. Whilst organisations treat engineers as builders who simply implement predetermined specifications, engineers are actually creators who became passionate about coding through the experience of building something useful from nothing. This misalignment creates resentment, particularly when engineers are expected to begin work with incomplete requirements, forcing them to make assumptions that often prove incorrect as details emerge.

The situation worsens when priorities shift frequently, interrupting the creative flow that engineers need to be productive, whilst the inherent flaw of engineers chronically underestimating task completion times compounds these problems. Engineers receive little recognition for their creative contributions and instead face immediate criticism through bug reports after completing work, all whilst being woken during the night for production issues without complaint because they care deeply about their creations. The primary driver for engineers is not financial compensation but rather the knowledge that people will use what they build, making project delays through changing requirements particularly demoralising. Creating a healthier environment requires treating engineers as co-creators by including them early in the ideation process, providing regular opportunities for creative expression through events like hack days, encouraging proper time off to prevent burnout, ensuring at least four uninterrupted hours daily for coding, and expressing appreciation for completed work before filing criticism.

The NHS National Programme for IT, a large-scale initiative aimed at modernising healthcare systems, faced significant challenges leading to its eventual cancellation. Key factors contributing to its failure included a top-down approach driven by political motives rather than practical considerations, insufficient stakeholder engagement particularly from healthcare professionals, rushed and poorly defined procurement processes, overly aggressive and one-sided contracts that placed excessive risk on service providers, complexities arising from a multisourcing model that hindered collaboration and a lack of accountability mechanisms that allowed issues to persist without timely intervention. These shortcomings, compounded by a failure to align project goals with operational realities, resulted in substantial financial and organisational costs, highlighting the importance of balanced risk management, stakeholder consultation and realistic planning in large-scale public sector projects.

The Queensland Government banned IBM from IT contracts following a critical inquiry into the failure of a payroll system project, which escalated from an initial cost of A$6.19 million to over A$1.2 billion due to governance issues, mismanagement and ethical lapses by IBM employees. IBM contested the findings, attributing much of the blame to the government’s unstable project scoping and failure to define clear requirements, while the report highlighted IBM’s untrustworthy conduct and the government’s poor decision-making in proceeding with the project despite known risks. The inquiry also noted that former officials followed advice from public servants but did not endorse their choices, underscoring broader challenges in managing large-scale IT initiatives where inadequate planning and oversight lead to significant financial and operational failures.

MailWasher is an email management tool designed to filter spam, scams and viruses before they reach a user's inbox, offering compatibility with major email services such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. It features real-time spam detection, a user-friendly interface and the ability to preview emails on the server before downloading, allowing users to inspect and delete unwanted messages. The software includes customisable filters, learning capabilities that adapt to user preferences and community-based spam protection through a shared database. Available as a free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee, it also provides a mobile version for Android and iOS devices, enabling spam-free email management on the go. Testimonials highlight its effectiveness in reducing inbox clutter and saving time, while features such as friends and blacklists, along with automatic spam deletion, contribute to a more efficient and secure email experience.

Lightroom Killer Tips is a separate platform run by Scott Kelby, author, photographer and CEO of KelbyOne, an online training company focused on Lightroom, Photoshop and photography. Articles on the site also come from Rob Sylvan, a photographer and KelbyOne's Lightroom Help Desk Support Representative. The site covers organising, editing, quick tips, Lightroom Mobile and links through to paid online courses via KelbyOne. Recent posts have covered topics such as new Lightroom features, iPhone photography and Photoshop techniques.

Lightroom Queen is an independent educational platform run by Victoria Bampton, an Adobe Community Professional and Certified Expert, active since 2007. It provides tutorials, troubleshooting guides, reference books and free downloadable guides for photographers of all levels, covering topics such as performance optimisation, photo organisation, keyword management and catalogue recovery. An active community forum allows users to ask questions and solve problems, with threads addressing practical queries such as setting default library filters. For example, one thread explains how to persist a filter preset across sessions in Lightroom by using the "Lock Filters" and "Remember Each Source's Filters Separately" options found under the File menu's Library Filters settings. The platform is supported by both free resources and premium membership options.

The Internet of Things' Dangerous Future: Bruce Schneier

This distributed system emerged from converging trends in mobile computing, cloud services, artificial intelligence and the proliferation of smart devices, yet it introduces profound security vulnerabilities because attacking these systems proves easier than defending them whilst most software remains poorly written and insecure. The market cannot solve these problems because security failures create externalities affecting people beyond the original buyers and sellers, whilst legal restrictions actually inhibit researchers from exposing vulnerabilities.

Traditional approaches to securing dangerous technologies through rigorous testing clash with the software industry's preference for rapid iteration and updates, yet the stakes now include potential loss of life rather than mere data compromise. Addressing these challenges requires government regulation through a new agency with expertise spanning multiple sectors, since existing regulatory bodies operate in isolated domains whilst internet-connected systems cut across all jurisdictions. Such oversight must mandate security practices, protect personal data, legalise responsible security research and ensure systems retain basic functionality without constant internet connectivity.

Society must also reconsider the assumption that universal connectivity benefits everyone, potentially choosing to disconnect certain systems and move towards more distributed rather than centralised architectures. Solving these problems demands public-interest technologists who understand both policy and technology, as the major debates of this century will hinge on technical literacy among those making governance decisions about how interconnected systems should operate and who controls them.

Here is a possible way of resetting the CSS definition for an HTML element, class or ID:

#reset-this-parent { all: initial;

• { all: unset; } }

Browser support for the above may vary, though.

After seeing messages like "The authenticity of host 'hostname' can't be established" during ssh connections, I decided to investigate more and came up with the following solution:

sudo chown -v $USER ~/.ssh/known_hosts

My known_hosts file had gained root ownership so I could not write to it, so changing the ownership to that of my own user account sorted the problem. An alternative could be to change the group assignment using chgrp, and setting permissions using chmod, but what I did sufficed for my needs.

When I ran into trouble with accessing my own websites using my broadband, I found that the solution was to change DNS Lookup Service to what Google offers. This was done on the router side and the IP addresses used were 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4.

Here's a way to convert DNG files to JPEG ones:

find -type f | grep DNG | parallel mogrify -format jpg {}