Phorm is, and will continue to be for some time I think a hugely divisive issue online. BBC have another story today about it, this time having spoken to the various security companies like F-Secure, McAffee etc about whether they will flag a message to the user about whether Phorm has been enabled or not.
Phorm management have come out saying "it's only a cookie", the same as many other sites use to provide tracking (such as Google Analytics), interactivity (such as shopping carts or ID maintenance on numerous retail sites), or a small amount of memory (configuration information for the BBC home page for example).
The difference, though, is that the information is being used differently because data is being shared.
This is what got the Information Commissioners Office's back up because sharing data between companies without users opting in is a breach of the Data Protection Act - "But not if it's anonymous data" say the legal eagles from Phorm - and technically they are correct. This is a case of adopting the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it.
Tim Berners-Lee came out saying he would move ISP if he found out they were using Phorm and whilst I admire his line I fear the vast majority of consumers won't care or rather just won't be bothered to switch - just see how many people actually switch bank or utilitiy companies.
For me this is a case of the slow erosion of privacy at the hands of our ISPs. In a massively competitive market where margins are being squeezed ever tighter, the sale of their user data to Phorm must have seemed like the proverbial golden goose.
It won't take long for someone to cotton onto the flip side of this and market aggressively on the privacy front. Talk Talk made huge inroads as an ISP on the back of their "The Internet should be free" campaign with regard to price (being bundled as it was with other services). Who will be the first to play the "Internet should be private" card and sign up to a deal not using Phorm or other tracking software?
In my cynical world view, I think the security firms have realised this and it is 99% of the reason for why they are looking at it all as the anti-spy, -mal and -virus software is worth billions.
In real terms Phorm isn't actually that clever a piece of technology - most of what has been achieved is in the brokering of deals between ISPs and content owners and then a bit of clever gluing in the middle.
In the end Phorm will either be a great white elephant and just slip off the radar the way many technologies and companies have done or else it may actually be a spur to drive privacy legislation forward in line with our digital behaviour - how long it will take to do this however is the question as government is typically a long way behind technology in terms of law-making.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Monday, 21 April 2008
Can Yahoo really get things so wrong?
Update - The guys at Yahoo came to our rescue after tracing through the "network" somewhat to find someone that knows someone at Yahoo to help us out. Unfortunately their techies couldn't explain why we'd been bloack listed either but we are now officially on their whitelist so big thanks to the guys for helping us out.
Yahoo are one of the original dotcoms. They've been around for a long time so they should know their business. Imagine my surprise when one of my clients starts complaining that their confirmation emails to yahoo email accounts are permanently being binned as is everything else they send - including personal communications.
Like most mail providers, free or otherwise, Yahoo have a spam policy that will look at an inbound email and then drop it in your inbox or spam folder depending on how it is classified.
As with most techies I have about a dozen email addresses at various providers in order to test exactly these sorts of issues. Especially given that the goalposts are changing all the time.
Sure enough even a personally addressed confirmation email was killed as it came into my yahoo account. "Ah ha," said I, "they've been blacklisted". So off one goes and checks the various blacklisting sites and there's nothing there. Hmmm.
It transpires that yahoo have just taken it on themselves to block that domain. Weirdly though, a personally addressed mail to me from the client with only the word "test" in the subject line is still considered Spam yet an email from some random address that doesn't reply, containing several instances each of the words "penis", "cock", "viagra" and "cialis" made it through to my inbox completely unscathed. At this point the phrase about arses and elbows definitely comes to mind.
Trying to get Yahoo to do anything about this issue is similarly problematic as there are no feedback channels to deal with this problem at all.
So overall we've just had to advise people to not use Yahoo or to check their junk mail periodically and read the mail there.
Yahoo are one of the original dotcoms. They've been around for a long time so they should know their business. Imagine my surprise when one of my clients starts complaining that their confirmation emails to yahoo email accounts are permanently being binned as is everything else they send - including personal communications.
Like most mail providers, free or otherwise, Yahoo have a spam policy that will look at an inbound email and then drop it in your inbox or spam folder depending on how it is classified.
As with most techies I have about a dozen email addresses at various providers in order to test exactly these sorts of issues. Especially given that the goalposts are changing all the time.
Sure enough even a personally addressed confirmation email was killed as it came into my yahoo account. "Ah ha," said I, "they've been blacklisted". So off one goes and checks the various blacklisting sites and there's nothing there. Hmmm.
It transpires that yahoo have just taken it on themselves to block that domain. Weirdly though, a personally addressed mail to me from the client with only the word "test" in the subject line is still considered Spam yet an email from some random address that doesn't reply, containing several instances each of the words "penis", "cock", "viagra" and "cialis" made it through to my inbox completely unscathed. At this point the phrase about arses and elbows definitely comes to mind.
Trying to get Yahoo to do anything about this issue is similarly problematic as there are no feedback channels to deal with this problem at all.
So overall we've just had to advise people to not use Yahoo or to check their junk mail periodically and read the mail there.
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Security 101 : The user should be able to authenticate
Are you listening Barclays?
I like security - particularly data security and in very particular data security that protects my personal information (unlike a certain Uk government department a few months back).
However, I've been around this game long enough, worked for a bank long enough and built more web applications capturing user data for long enough that I know there is one fundamental truth when it comes to data security and that is: pragmatism.
When I was at Uni I was told, "The only secure system is one that has no network connection, no keyboard or mouse and most of all no users" (and I apologise Dr Fekete for bastardising your phrase but you can't have done a bad job for me to remember it 15 years later!).
However the flip side of all of this was that depending on the data being protected, the security protocol should be appropriate without undue burden placed upon the user. Which is why logging into flickr is trivial but logging into your bank should and is a more arduous affair.
Banks are very secure enviroments which is good because the last thing I want is some 13 year old script kiddie making off with the tens of pounds in my bank account. Having said that, the bank should never make it difficult for me to get to the tens of pounds in my account due to security reasons.
At the moment though banks are running very scared and they are nailing the customers because of it. On my recent trip to Australia I had my card stopped no less than three times because Barclays decided that the activity looked fradulent.
Initially I thought something serious had happened but a call to Barclays got them to right the problem which was part of their new security measures. The next time it happened was because Barclays decided that it was time for me to come home and that I shouldn't be using my card in a Fraud Capital of the world like Sydney. The third time it happened though it locked my account out entirely and I was told I would have to come into a branch with identification documents to sort it all out - except there aren't any in Australia and I was leaving the next day for Hong Kong. Luckily a very understanding parent lent some cash.
I applaud Barclays' sentiments - they really were trying to protect my account, however it would appear as though client / bank trust has disappeared and I can no longer say "I want access to my money globally" without alarm systems going off all over the place. If I was backpacking I'd have been in serious trouble as without a bailout I literally had about 10c in my pocket.
Upon return to the UK Barclays' statement was along the lines of "Sorry but we're dealing with a lot of fraud and it's better to be safe than sorry". Tell this to one of my employees who just had £3K wiped out of their account due to identity theft (spent on local UK products and didn't fire off a single warning) and they are being told they have to prove it wasn't them...
In a way I feel sorry for Barclays because they are damned one way or the other - on this issue though it should just be a case of phoning and doing a vocal authentication then saying "I'm abroad for 4 weeks allow any transactions from xyz country until I say otherwise". In this manner everything other than DDs occuring in my home country should be treated as fraudulent and everything authorised abroad should be fine...
Bring on the chip in my hand is what I say...
I like security - particularly data security and in very particular data security that protects my personal information (unlike a certain Uk government department a few months back).
However, I've been around this game long enough, worked for a bank long enough and built more web applications capturing user data for long enough that I know there is one fundamental truth when it comes to data security and that is: pragmatism.
When I was at Uni I was told, "The only secure system is one that has no network connection, no keyboard or mouse and most of all no users" (and I apologise Dr Fekete for bastardising your phrase but you can't have done a bad job for me to remember it 15 years later!).
However the flip side of all of this was that depending on the data being protected, the security protocol should be appropriate without undue burden placed upon the user. Which is why logging into flickr is trivial but logging into your bank should and is a more arduous affair.
Banks are very secure enviroments which is good because the last thing I want is some 13 year old script kiddie making off with the tens of pounds in my bank account. Having said that, the bank should never make it difficult for me to get to the tens of pounds in my account due to security reasons.
At the moment though banks are running very scared and they are nailing the customers because of it. On my recent trip to Australia I had my card stopped no less than three times because Barclays decided that the activity looked fradulent.
Initially I thought something serious had happened but a call to Barclays got them to right the problem which was part of their new security measures. The next time it happened was because Barclays decided that it was time for me to come home and that I shouldn't be using my card in a Fraud Capital of the world like Sydney. The third time it happened though it locked my account out entirely and I was told I would have to come into a branch with identification documents to sort it all out - except there aren't any in Australia and I was leaving the next day for Hong Kong. Luckily a very understanding parent lent some cash.
I applaud Barclays' sentiments - they really were trying to protect my account, however it would appear as though client / bank trust has disappeared and I can no longer say "I want access to my money globally" without alarm systems going off all over the place. If I was backpacking I'd have been in serious trouble as without a bailout I literally had about 10c in my pocket.
Upon return to the UK Barclays' statement was along the lines of "Sorry but we're dealing with a lot of fraud and it's better to be safe than sorry". Tell this to one of my employees who just had £3K wiped out of their account due to identity theft (spent on local UK products and didn't fire off a single warning) and they are being told they have to prove it wasn't them...
In a way I feel sorry for Barclays because they are damned one way or the other - on this issue though it should just be a case of phoning and doing a vocal authentication then saying "I'm abroad for 4 weeks allow any transactions from xyz country until I say otherwise". In this manner everything other than DDs occuring in my home country should be treated as fraudulent and everything authorised abroad should be fine...
Bring on the chip in my hand is what I say...
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
DVD Jon strikes again
At Technology Treason we love DVD Jon or Jon Lech Johansen as he is more commonly known. This great Norwegian famously broke the DVD encryption put in place by the big firms with the release of some software primarily aimed at allowing DVDs to be played on computers and unlocking the regionality of DVDs and DVD players.
When he released DeCSS he ran afoul of the US DMCA and was almost charged, he was then indicted by Norwegian authorities acting on behalf of the US who actually did go to court twice to try and convict him of hacking. Both times they failed and decided not to go to the Supreme Court.
Imagine our complete amusement in the office when we find out he's now trying it on with Apple via iTunes.
iTunes is a love it or hate it product - if you are part of the Apple / Steve Jobs faithful it is obviously the greatest thing on earth, if you know nothing about technology it's a simple product that allows you to use one of those "fangled new digital music type thingies".
If you are a techie you see it as a proprietary lock in and try and avoid it like the plague. The main issue for most techies is you can't play your music on anything other than your PC / Mac that has iTunes installed and your iPod / iPhone / iTouch.
I've railed against lock in for time immemorial - just a quick count of my personal items puts the following music players at my disposal - mobile phone (x2 because my wife has one that can play music too), MP3 capable stereo, PC (x3 - my office, my home and laptop), PSP, Xbox, a real MP3 player and my Nokia Internet Tablet - 10 devices at my personal disposal that I want to play music from and indeed do play music from.
The thing is, I know how to do all of this so I just push the files around on memory cards or over my network (streaming from my media server for example) onto the various devices. For many people this isn't possible and Apple's enforcement of the iTunes lock ins firmly violate the right I have to play my music (or video) on whatever device I choose at whatever time I choose. I also vote with my wallet and don't buy tunes from Apple.
What DVD Jon has done with his software (available from DoubleTwist for free) is allow you to take files that are locked into iTunes and essentially it plays the file, re-encoding it into a format you can play on other devices (I haven't looked properly but presumably OGG or MP3).
Just to rub salt into the wound he's going to cause Apple and the US music industry he's decided to let you share your files with friends as well. One wonders how long it will be before a writ arrive from the RIAA and Apple... I'm sure they'll be racing to get in first.
So well done Jon - keep up the good work and keep fighting the good fight - media we have legitimately purchased is ours to use on any device we own for our personal use.
Eventually the media industry will wake up and realise where they've been going wrong. Perhaps if EMI had taken notice of the way the world was going they wouldn't have had to cull a couple of thousand staff.
When he released DeCSS he ran afoul of the US DMCA and was almost charged, he was then indicted by Norwegian authorities acting on behalf of the US who actually did go to court twice to try and convict him of hacking. Both times they failed and decided not to go to the Supreme Court.
Imagine our complete amusement in the office when we find out he's now trying it on with Apple via iTunes.
iTunes is a love it or hate it product - if you are part of the Apple / Steve Jobs faithful it is obviously the greatest thing on earth, if you know nothing about technology it's a simple product that allows you to use one of those "fangled new digital music type thingies".
If you are a techie you see it as a proprietary lock in and try and avoid it like the plague. The main issue for most techies is you can't play your music on anything other than your PC / Mac that has iTunes installed and your iPod / iPhone / iTouch.
I've railed against lock in for time immemorial - just a quick count of my personal items puts the following music players at my disposal - mobile phone (x2 because my wife has one that can play music too), MP3 capable stereo, PC (x3 - my office, my home and laptop), PSP, Xbox, a real MP3 player and my Nokia Internet Tablet - 10 devices at my personal disposal that I want to play music from and indeed do play music from.
The thing is, I know how to do all of this so I just push the files around on memory cards or over my network (streaming from my media server for example) onto the various devices. For many people this isn't possible and Apple's enforcement of the iTunes lock ins firmly violate the right I have to play my music (or video) on whatever device I choose at whatever time I choose. I also vote with my wallet and don't buy tunes from Apple.
What DVD Jon has done with his software (available from DoubleTwist for free) is allow you to take files that are locked into iTunes and essentially it plays the file, re-encoding it into a format you can play on other devices (I haven't looked properly but presumably OGG or MP3).
Just to rub salt into the wound he's going to cause Apple and the US music industry he's decided to let you share your files with friends as well. One wonders how long it will be before a writ arrive from the RIAA and Apple... I'm sure they'll be racing to get in first.
So well done Jon - keep up the good work and keep fighting the good fight - media we have legitimately purchased is ours to use on any device we own for our personal use.
Eventually the media industry will wake up and realise where they've been going wrong. Perhaps if EMI had taken notice of the way the world was going they wouldn't have had to cull a couple of thousand staff.
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Why industries can still be revolutionised on the web
I'm a bit of a cynic really. Anyone that's trawled through the depths of this blog will know that I have a fairly acid tongue when it comes to technology. I am a walking example of the phrase "familiarity breeds contempt".
One of the projects I've been involved in rececntly has started generating press just by virtue of it being better than anything that has preceded it in this particular industry - I personally would have preferred them to be commenting about the content but any press is good press as they say.
By rights I should have a nice warm fuzzy feeling about having a site people talk about and it's always great to receive recognition for a job well done - especially for my more junior staff who have worked damned hard on the site - however it is disappointing that we still exist in an age online where just applying some good design, good information architecture and some well balanced technology is enough to turn an entire sector on it's head.
Apologists will hold up their hands and say "we're a young form of media - it's going to take time". I however am not in this camp - how much time do we need?
Personally I find it untenable that there are still sites being built using non-standards based HTML and CSS, that sites beyond a couple of holding pages are built using things like Dreamweaver and not content managed, that good structural web design is something that still amazes people rather than being the norm and that information architecture still hasn't found its way to the hearts of 95% of the digital agencies that service the web.
I am constantly lamenting the state of most industries' websites generally. Take a tour around the leisure industry and find a website for a hotel anywhere in the world. Look at most ecommerce sites for even big retailers and certainly go anywhere online in the government, volunteering or political sectors and you are sure to be assaulted by bad design, bad technology and most importantly bad information architecture.
Even five years ago there were excuses that bore merit - changing web standards and platforms, variation of internet connection speeds and different levels of web penetration in different markets. These excuses don't exist any more. And to be honest why was it when I was learning my craft as a developer all those years ago that I was told about things like usability, information design and later information architecture but the junior developers and designers now are not...
This is why there are still industries to revolutionise if you have the contacts, the desire or the contracts to do it. Here is my short list of the biggest problem industries:
1. Tourism and leisure - get some good design and photos, don't use bog stanard templates and for goodness sake stop sending my credit card details in unencrypted email.
2. Holiday / travel booking - get some fuzzy logic in your scripting. If I can't fly tomorrow but I can fly the next day tell me without making me guess. Also make it easy for me to bounce back and forth between different trips without having to start again. Remember all those lectures about how to maintain the state of a system in Computer Science... this is what they were for.
3. Retail - Keep your site updated with accurate stock levels. I also shouldn't have to go to the end of the check out process to find out what the shipping charges are. Do a detection on my regional settings or IP address and take a best guess and say it's a guess. 95% of the time you'll be right and I'll stop having to go back and forth.
4. Service Media - When will you learn that a flash site turns off most people as does a splash page. At least have an alternative HTML site so I can find your phone number / contact email or address. Also remember that table based design was around in 1997 - time to get with the times guys.
5. Volunteering / politics - Yes I know you are on a budget but just because someone you know or your favourite intern just happens to have a copy of dreamweaver doesn't make them a professional web designer or developer. More harm than good is done by casual development - find some budget, find someone aligned to your cause and they'll do it cheaper or for kudos value and develop a site worth looking at.
6. Government - Just because a turd is shiny doen't make it worth anything. Above all make sure someone in the procuring department knows the difference between HTML and CSS and you won't get shafted. Government expenditure online is extortionate for the value achieved. Given the amount of paperwork done for any bit of government work it is amazing that Information Architecture isn't put right to the centre of the brief... how many people using direct.gov.uk would that help?
So get stuck in and lets see some other industries and sectors turned on their head. It's about time the biggest information resource in history got a bit of a spit polish and had all the kinks straightened.
One of the projects I've been involved in rececntly has started generating press just by virtue of it being better than anything that has preceded it in this particular industry - I personally would have preferred them to be commenting about the content but any press is good press as they say.
By rights I should have a nice warm fuzzy feeling about having a site people talk about and it's always great to receive recognition for a job well done - especially for my more junior staff who have worked damned hard on the site - however it is disappointing that we still exist in an age online where just applying some good design, good information architecture and some well balanced technology is enough to turn an entire sector on it's head.
Apologists will hold up their hands and say "we're a young form of media - it's going to take time". I however am not in this camp - how much time do we need?
Personally I find it untenable that there are still sites being built using non-standards based HTML and CSS, that sites beyond a couple of holding pages are built using things like Dreamweaver and not content managed, that good structural web design is something that still amazes people rather than being the norm and that information architecture still hasn't found its way to the hearts of 95% of the digital agencies that service the web.
I am constantly lamenting the state of most industries' websites generally. Take a tour around the leisure industry and find a website for a hotel anywhere in the world. Look at most ecommerce sites for even big retailers and certainly go anywhere online in the government, volunteering or political sectors and you are sure to be assaulted by bad design, bad technology and most importantly bad information architecture.
Even five years ago there were excuses that bore merit - changing web standards and platforms, variation of internet connection speeds and different levels of web penetration in different markets. These excuses don't exist any more. And to be honest why was it when I was learning my craft as a developer all those years ago that I was told about things like usability, information design and later information architecture but the junior developers and designers now are not...
This is why there are still industries to revolutionise if you have the contacts, the desire or the contracts to do it. Here is my short list of the biggest problem industries:
1. Tourism and leisure - get some good design and photos, don't use bog stanard templates and for goodness sake stop sending my credit card details in unencrypted email.
2. Holiday / travel booking - get some fuzzy logic in your scripting. If I can't fly tomorrow but I can fly the next day tell me without making me guess. Also make it easy for me to bounce back and forth between different trips without having to start again. Remember all those lectures about how to maintain the state of a system in Computer Science... this is what they were for.
3. Retail - Keep your site updated with accurate stock levels. I also shouldn't have to go to the end of the check out process to find out what the shipping charges are. Do a detection on my regional settings or IP address and take a best guess and say it's a guess. 95% of the time you'll be right and I'll stop having to go back and forth.
4. Service Media - When will you learn that a flash site turns off most people as does a splash page. At least have an alternative HTML site so I can find your phone number / contact email or address. Also remember that table based design was around in 1997 - time to get with the times guys.
5. Volunteering / politics - Yes I know you are on a budget but just because someone you know or your favourite intern just happens to have a copy of dreamweaver doesn't make them a professional web designer or developer. More harm than good is done by casual development - find some budget, find someone aligned to your cause and they'll do it cheaper or for kudos value and develop a site worth looking at.
6. Government - Just because a turd is shiny doen't make it worth anything. Above all make sure someone in the procuring department knows the difference between HTML and CSS and you won't get shafted. Government expenditure online is extortionate for the value achieved. Given the amount of paperwork done for any bit of government work it is amazing that Information Architecture isn't put right to the centre of the brief... how many people using direct.gov.uk would that help?
So get stuck in and lets see some other industries and sectors turned on their head. It's about time the biggest information resource in history got a bit of a spit polish and had all the kinks straightened.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
The state of Oz technology
Well rarely does an entire country entice me to start ranting (and at this point I'll point out I am in fact Australian) but by crikey Australian technology hasn't really moved in the last 5 years.
Now I appreciate this is a sweeping statement and I'll point out that the technology I'm talking about primarily is media based - mobile / web / internet. I have also had the benefit of living in London for the better part of 10 years so I've been at the hub of what is going on.
What I don't understand is why is it that for a nation that was at the forefront of new media ten years ago are we now in a position where nothing has shifted for the last 5. SMS is still massively underutilised and the idea of an SMS shortcode in Australia is a joke - 8 digits is only 2 shorter than a mobile number so is hardly short! Indeed everything to do with mobile is still more expensive, slower and less polished than we are used to in Europe. I went to Vodafone when I got here and asked for a pay as you go sim card for my phone that had pay as you go data on it... I was met with blank stares - Telstra and Optus were both the same.
General Internet access is similarly expensive and slow compared to what we are used to in Europe. Given a relatively modern telecommunications infrastructure, why telcos are flogging the ADSL route instead of fibre / cable begs the question of why so many roads were dug up in the capital cities to facilitate this in the late 80s and early 90s.
What is also interesting is the lack of FOSS out here. Linux is relatively popular but no where like it is in Europe. Indeed corporate America has it's laser telescopic sight firmly trained on the Australian market and even getting Linux hosting is no where as simple as getting a site hosted on a windows server. Linux certification and knowledge is still seen as a specialist skill.
Overall I'm disappointed that Australia hasn't maintained it's lead in internet technologies. In part people like me are to blame for starting our careers here and then being drawn to the brighter lights of the UK and the US where visas are easily come by, pay levels are higher and the ability to work on cutting edge technologies are plentiful.
Perhaps we are on the verge of a change in Australia and I hope that some of the ground lost can be regained over the next five years.
Now I appreciate this is a sweeping statement and I'll point out that the technology I'm talking about primarily is media based - mobile / web / internet. I have also had the benefit of living in London for the better part of 10 years so I've been at the hub of what is going on.
What I don't understand is why is it that for a nation that was at the forefront of new media ten years ago are we now in a position where nothing has shifted for the last 5. SMS is still massively underutilised and the idea of an SMS shortcode in Australia is a joke - 8 digits is only 2 shorter than a mobile number so is hardly short! Indeed everything to do with mobile is still more expensive, slower and less polished than we are used to in Europe. I went to Vodafone when I got here and asked for a pay as you go sim card for my phone that had pay as you go data on it... I was met with blank stares - Telstra and Optus were both the same.
General Internet access is similarly expensive and slow compared to what we are used to in Europe. Given a relatively modern telecommunications infrastructure, why telcos are flogging the ADSL route instead of fibre / cable begs the question of why so many roads were dug up in the capital cities to facilitate this in the late 80s and early 90s.
What is also interesting is the lack of FOSS out here. Linux is relatively popular but no where like it is in Europe. Indeed corporate America has it's laser telescopic sight firmly trained on the Australian market and even getting Linux hosting is no where as simple as getting a site hosted on a windows server. Linux certification and knowledge is still seen as a specialist skill.
Overall I'm disappointed that Australia hasn't maintained it's lead in internet technologies. In part people like me are to blame for starting our careers here and then being drawn to the brighter lights of the UK and the US where visas are easily come by, pay levels are higher and the ability to work on cutting edge technologies are plentiful.
Perhaps we are on the verge of a change in Australia and I hope that some of the ground lost can be regained over the next five years.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
The warm glow of site launch
I've been in this game a long time but there is still nothing sweeter than launching a site after spending a months building it with your team and the client. As a TD, site launch brings a mix of emotion - fatigue from the lack of sleep for the 10 days prior to launch, relief that the site is launching on time and on budget and the client seems happy with it all and finally worry about whether the thing will work as expected, what will everyone else think about it and by god I hope the server doesn't fall over on Day 1 under load...
My grandfather was an engineer for Philips and he described to me the same feelings when they were launching a new product so I have a sense that irrespective of discipline, team based endeavours in engineering always foster the same heady mix of emotion fuelled by relief, adrenaline and fatigue.
Whilst I am an old hand at this within this industry these days, having been here since the dawning, it is great to watch members of the team for whom this is the first of many site launches in their career and their happiness that it is done and their complete pride in their work.
Having seen photos of workers completing railways and other major constructions in the 19th and early 20th century one can't help notice the parallels of young engineers completing a job regardless of whether they are working with steel, glass or lines of code.
My grandfather was an engineer for Philips and he described to me the same feelings when they were launching a new product so I have a sense that irrespective of discipline, team based endeavours in engineering always foster the same heady mix of emotion fuelled by relief, adrenaline and fatigue.
Whilst I am an old hand at this within this industry these days, having been here since the dawning, it is great to watch members of the team for whom this is the first of many site launches in their career and their happiness that it is done and their complete pride in their work.
Having seen photos of workers completing railways and other major constructions in the 19th and early 20th century one can't help notice the parallels of young engineers completing a job regardless of whether they are working with steel, glass or lines of code.
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