Author Archive: Wolf Holzmann

Internet of things

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Internet of Things 

Are you ready for the new “Internet of Thing” (IoT)?

The Internet of Things is the networking of all physical devices such as, your vehicle/s, any home appliances and other devices with electronics embedded, various software programs, sensors, actuators, and connectivity with enabled devices that connect to the Internet and can exchange data, creating opportunities for unlimited direct integration of our physical environment into a greater computer-based system or cloud based systems.  This could increase efficiency in certain environments, economic benefits in others and reduced human intervention everywhere. Good or bad, this technology is spreading fast, people are looking for IoT developers (good as it creates jobs) and of course bad as we do not comprehend the full impact of what is to follow.

The competition has started between Google Home and Amazon Echo has started and we will see great strides in the development of these two platforms.  Both Amazon Echo and Home function as a source of entertainment, a personal assistant and a smart-home controller, but are listening to and monitoring your every word, a single word from you will get it started up and responding to your every command. They have voice recognition as the primary input method, starting music, a TV or any of the IoT devices connected within your home. With the latest IP V6 protocol that is being implemented to connect devices there will be approximately 4000 ip addresses available to each person on earth. Now that’s a lot of devices to connect.

MsProject

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MS Project: Linking Tasks 

How do task links affect the schedule?

Task links (dependencies) show the relationship in time of one task to another. Linking tasks creates task dependencies. The long chain of tasks determines the entire length and end of a project. You have both Predecessors and Successors, ones that a task relies on and those task that rely on the current one.
Project management tip As you link tasks in a project, a path of links is set up. This path determines the end of your project. Some paths that you create are paths and some are the critical paths. A critical path is that path that when any task is delayed this will make the total project late.

Link type                    Description
Finish-to-start (FS) 
The dependent task (B) cannot begin until the task that it depends on (A) is complete.
For example, if you have two tasks, “Dig foundation” and “Pour concrete,” the “Pour concrete” task cannot begin until the “Dig foundation” task is completed.
When you link tasks in Project, the default link type is finish-to-start.
This link type is the default type. If you don’t specify a link type, the Finish-to-start relationship is assumed.

Start-to-start (SS)
The dependent task (B) cannot begin until the task that it depends on (A) begins.
The dependent task can start at any time after the task that it depends on begins. The SS link type does not require that both tasks begin at the same time.
For example, if you have two tasks, “Pour concrete” and “Level concrete,” the “Level concrete” task cannot begin until the “Pour concrete” task begins.

Finish-to-finish (FF)
The dependent task (B) cannot be completed until the task that it depends on (A) is completed.
The dependent task can be completed at any time after the task that it depends on is completed. The FF link type does not require that both tasks be completed at the same time.
For example, if you have two tasks, “Add wiring” and “add plumbing,” both must be completed at the same time before any inspection can be done.

Start-to-finish (SF)
The dependent task (B) cannot be completed until the task that it depends on (A) begins.
The dependent task can be completed at any time after the task that it depends on begins. The SF link type does not require that the dependent task be completed concurrent with the beginning of the task on which it depends.
This link type is rarely used in project management. An example would be roofing a home, and the two tasks: add roofing, supervise the work. In this case, the roofing can start, but the supervisor needs to show up at some point before the end of the roofing.

Online Fraud

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Online Fraud

Online fraud costs public billions but still not a police priority!

Why you ask, and so do I.

In this day and age, when everything is about profit one would think that it was worth investing in proper securities to protect not only their clients but also their profits.

  1. It seems that it is cheaper to insure than to protect (no losses incurred by the organization that has been a victim). Losses are carried by their clients, we pay the added cost of the insurance premiums.
  2. Bill Gates said many years ago that it was his vision to see a computer on everyone’s desk to make life easier, has that happened?
    1. Yes: we have a computer on most peoples desk, well in our hand now.
    2. No: it has not made life any easier, to the contrary it has made life more difficult and controlling.
  3. It has opened up a whole new arena for the criminal and no matter what you think that you can do about it, you are wrong. There will always be someone that creates something that is meant for the good of all and someone that will pull it apart and find the flaws and weaknesses to invade your privacy and steal from you.

“The overall cost of all forms of fraud in 2016 was £10bn to individuals and £144bn to the private sector, arising from almost 2m cyber-related fraud incidents”, just think of the cost of goods today compared to just a few years ago, do you really think that this could have been possible without our wonderfully connected world? I believe not.

Another factor that comes into play is the new currencies, digging for (mining) for crypto currencies, getting nothing and calling it the new currencies of the world. One ore two people are making millions and millions are loosing money in the process by actually purchasing this nothing with our last few coins that we have.Fraud it is everywhere, keep your eyes peeled and be on your guard.

And we thought that the old gangster day’s were bad, Open your eyes and look around people.

MS Project Best Practice

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MS Project Best Practice 

Here are some Microsoft Project Best Practices to follow:

  • Always place the Project Summary task at line 0 of your Gantt Chart Entry Table, instead of placing it on line 1. You will need to enable the display of the Project Summary Task via a checkbox on the Format Tab, Show/Hide Group.
  • Link Tasks at the detail Task level rather than the Summary Task level.
  • Use Automating Task Scheduling as soon as possible to take full advantage of Project’s automatic scheduling engine.
  • Do not enter Dates for Start/Finish directly into the Entry Gantt Chart, let Project’s scheduling engine calculate them for you based on duration, linking, and resource availability.
  • Enter resources in the Resource Sheet as soon as possible,  you can then pick them from a menu on the Entry Gantt Chart or the Resource assignment, rather than entering them manually into the Entry Gantt Chart risking duplications or misspelled resources.
  • Edit the Project Calendar to include all of the company’s working days (such as Monday through Friday) and non-working days (such as weekends and company holidays), and edit individual resource calendars for vacation time specific to a particular resource.
  • On the Resource Sheet, use the Group column to enter in which department the resource belongs to assist with filtering and reporting.
  • Baseline your project to track Planned vs. Actual values, then use interim baselines to track multiple baselines.
  • Create custom filters, tables, views to report data to stakeholders in a custom formats that meet the needs of all stakeholders.
  • Use the Organizer tool to copy these custom filters, tables, views, and reports between projects.

MS Project 2016

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MS Project Tips

Why you should avoid linking summary tasks.
Linking summary tasks in MS Project has some negative consequences for project planning. Though MS Project allows summary tasks to be linked as a predecessor or successor, you may want to avoid this altogether for some of the reasons listed below.

  • can produce errors in logic
  • can artificially extend the project plan
  • can cause circular logic warning messages
  • when you link a summary task and detail task you are defining a dependency between the deliverable and tasks required to produce that deliverable, which does not make sense. This alone is reason enough to deter one from inserting summary tasks dependencies.
  • makes the effort to check if the network of dependencies is complete more difficult
  • the critical path is also more difficult to map out
  • not recommended by the Project Management Institute’s PMBOK

Links between summaries are also not advisable according to MS best practice guidelines.

Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence

How do you feel about Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

The big names in technology are so divided over AI, some good and some bad. What has normal technology done for you over the past 40 or so years?

43 years ago Bill Gates stated that he wanted to improve the quality of life by putting a computer on everyone’s desktop, since then we have almost achieved this goal. I believe that life has not got any better but worse, people stopped using their brain to store telephone number, address and a lot of other secondary information like birthdays and other related days, and moved this information to the cloud where it is being mined by every creepy person out there. In the past bank robberies were few and far between, now banks are being hacked and being defrauded every day, all good so far!

Internet security is a multi billion dollar business, and someone has to pay for this. Money is being moved around the world at incredible speeds and being used to launder money from high profile criminals.

Most people were safe from personal fraud, now things are speeding up and just being on the internet is posing a risk, Phishing attacks, personal information being stolen and used to create dummy people and drain peoples accounts of all of their hard earned cash.

And the list goes on, more security programs, better hackers to crack the new security, governments using the digital environment to monitor and track your every move.

And now AI, what is next? What do you think?

opportunity

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A Moment in Time.​​​​

There comes a moment in every life when the Universe presents you with an opportunity to rise to your potential. An open door that only requires the heart to walk through, seize it and hang on. The choice is never simple. It’s never easy. It’s not supposed to be. But those who travel this path have always looked back and realized that the test was always about the heart. …The rest is just practice.

Jaime Buckley​

technology driven

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Living in a technology driven world

 Technology has changed our lives and day to day living is really amazing and frightening at the same time, it will continue to advance at faster speeds in the future. It is thanks to advanced communication platforms like Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other networks that changes the world we live in. Internet technology that include your smart phones, laptops, tablets are changing the way we interact with each other.

We as a society are  now so used to all of these new gadgets that did not even existent just a decade ago, some as new as only a few years old. Today living without those electronic gadgets seems almost impossible to a sizeable population of entire World and the younger generations will not be able to live without this technology in the future. The workforce has now moved away from the office environment and into the home and is affecting the way families interact with each other.

Are you Ready for the connection?

Welcome

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Welcome to the new Varciti IT Solutions website.

We have moved our public facing page away from Office 365 SharePoint infrastructure to a WordPress site due to the fact that Microsoft has discontinued supporting the public site collection infrastructure in Office 365 and have partnered with some major providers to give special rates to the affected customers. Office 365 Customers public sites will now be available in either a WordPress of WIX site or even a standard HTML based Website.