Techies tend to be sidelined in key decision-making and are disconnected from the management mainstream. In effect, low-tech managers are forcing the UK economy into a low tech equilibrium.

This really pisses me off. I see this so often and hear, anecdotally from those techies, of idiotic management decisions spending orders of magnitude too much on pissy projects, and pennies on mission criticals.

I agree about the IT literacy tests. Especially in the 'jobs for life' UK Civil Service.

1415 Also posted to: Home page , cyberSaps ,  At: 10:21:00 AM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: 'Lost generation' of bosses blamed for IT mediocrity

Initial thoughts about layout.
Add a little colour...

Work them up a little, first idea.

Second idea in different colourways.

Make the first idea look like the second.

And finally... In black. Three images. Each month the image will change being something seasonal.
And finally... In grey.

1408 Also posted to: Home page , cybersaps ,  At: 4:41:39 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Government Office of the West Midlands: the visuals

"The officials from Santa Clara also have a few words of advice for their UK counterparts, suggesting a culture change in government might be needed.

"You need a strategy for e-democracy," said Mr Ajmani. "You need to get the public involved in decision-making. This takes a very long time for elected people to be comfortable with.""

Involving people? Sounds like a job for blogs :-)

1385 Also posted to: Home page , cyberSaps ,  At: 12:31:16 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: BBC: sexing up e-government

"Generating a thumbnail
Creates a thumbnail of original.jpg iff it is bigger than 100x100 in size. This also forces the aspect ratio to stay the same. Append a ! to the 100x100> to force an aspect ratio override. The convert "*" removes profile information so you end up with a smaller file.

convert -scale '100x100>' profile "*" original.jpg output.jpg

Sticking one image on another
sticks watermark.gif on top of atest.jpg starting at 20, 300 and outputs to aout.jpg. Note, the -geometry specifier has to be at the end because of a bug

composite -compose bumpmap watermark.gif atest.jpg -geometry " 20 300" aout.jpg

same thing, but orients it at the south
composite -compose bumpmap -gravity south watermark.jpg neon1.jpg aout.jpg"

1381 Also posted to: Home page . At: 8:26:27 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: mattwalsh.com: ImageMagickTips