Now Lloyds And The Co-op Drop Us In It
Captain Mainwaring would not have been amused, as yesterday Lloyds and the Co-op seem to have had system errors, or as I prefer to call them programming bugs, in their computers. It’s here on the BBC.
It may have been unrelated but one of my credit cards wouldn’t work on-line yesterday and they asked me to phone them. They said they were just rebooting the computers, and it should be OK in a couple of hours. Do we reboot computers, as we generally give them a good kicking first?
Bank Transfer Traceability
One thing that annoys me about on-line banking, is that when you pay a bill like a credit card, you often can’t trace it at both ends, as often the reference doesn’t appear for some days. So now, I usually pay them making sure the last two digits are the day of the month. That way it becomes obvious, if the transfer has been made and what it was.
It really all comes down to the fact that banks do not provide full information on their statements. And when they’ve not got it, they don’t even give you a clue!
I would be ashamed if I’d designed such a poor system.
Now Nationwide Drops A Clanger
According to this report on the BBC and a message on their site, Nationwide have processed debit card transactions twice. It didn’t affect me, as I only use a debit card to get money from a cash machine.
This should never happen.
I have said that processing and senior management should be co-located and preferably at the same place where the programmers work.
As in this Nationwide clanger over 700,000 accounts were affected, it is quite likely that several senior managers or their friends would have been effected by the error. If those managers were worth employing, they should have been straight on to those responsible to find out what had happened. Co-location puts the fear of God into operators and programmers. Try doing that if they’re halfway around the world.
But at least in this clanger, Nationwide found out what had happened quickly and rectified it within 48 hours. But how much did the whole incident cost Nationwide and its customers? And as Nationwide is a mutual, how much did it indirectly cost its members?
I always remember Bob, the guy who taught me cost accounting, said that banks had a totally different approach to the way things added up. Perhaps things haven’t changed all that much!
Computer Disasters Inc.
Some years ago, I was discussing, what we might do with someone in Metier, if the whole venture had gone bust. I suggested an idea, which keeps coming back to me called Computer Disasters Inc.
NatWorst now is in need of such a company, which I envisaged as the Red Adair of the computer industry. NatWorst will certainly be paying out fees on a scale Red Adair would have thought reasonable.
The Return of NatWorst
Some years ago, I used to do the programming and processing for a company called PressWatch, that rated the coverage of major companies in the UK printed media.
Some time before I programmed the system, NatWest had a string of bottom places and were labelled NatWorst by some financial journalists.
It would appear from its current computer problems, that along with other banks in the RBS Group, it is attempting to claim the bottom place again. Read about it here.
The article says it is a computer glitch. I would describe it as a computer disaster.
A computer glitch is what I’ve just suffered from Nationwide. They said my credit card statement would be ready online on Wednesday. It didn’t arrive until today. But at least, it didn’t cost me any money, although I did worry, that there might have been some illegal transactions, they were sorting out. Especially, as it’s the VISA card, I use for Olympic tickets. But all is now fine.
Computer Disasters Incorporated
When we were writing Artemis, and afterwards, some people asked what we would have done if it had all gone wrong.
We didn’t officially have a Plan B, but then we had organised the company, so that if we had to close it, we’d all come out with something. I can remember having a chat with the company accountant and he explained, how our system of leasing systems, meant there would always be a useful cash flow from a sale for some time.
I do remember though talking about a company called Computer Disasters Inc. Basically, it would have been a no-fix no-fee rescue company for computer systems that had gone awry. After all we had the people to sell such services and the experience to fix them.
I suspect it’s a concept that has been used successfully by others.
Visual Basic 6 Programmer For Hire
A couple of times recently, I’ve met people, who have said that my skills in Visual Basic 6 may still be needed, because in the City of London, there are still a lot of important systems written in the language. Hence this post, which is almost an advert to say that I’m looking for work.
At my age and with my hopefully sensible finances, I don’t need a permanent job, but old programmers never give up coding, even if they just do it in their mind. Living alone, I have plenty of time on my hands to spend with my therapist, but sometimes I feel I need to do something constructive. Even if it’s just to prove I still can!
So if anybody is in trouble and needs a good Visual Basic 6 programmer who still has most of his marbles, I’m here just north of the City of London, a short bus ride away.
On the legal side, I have complete sets of discs and manuals, so I would not be working outside of any licences.
Are There Any Delphi Programmers Out There?
Delphi was and in some peoples’ minds still is a visual programming system. On Wednesday, I bumped into an old friend on Moorgate. We had a coffee and I said that I was still ewriting software in a small way using Visual Basic 6.
He indicated that someone he knows, is looking for someone, who can program in Delphi.
Is this an indication that like good literature, good software systems never die?
Remember, that software is not like hardware in that it rarely has a shelf life. In fact application software usually is retired because you can’t find any hardware to run it on. At least with Windows, Microsoft seem to be providing the hooks into all new versions to run software like Visual Basic 6 and Delphi.
A few years ago, when I said to a senior executive of Microsoft, that I still programmed in Visual Basic 6, he said that Microsoft had lots of experienced programmers who still used the language, often in difficult situations, where something reliable and tricky was needed yesterday.
So perhaps, some programming languages and systems, are a bit like Shakespeare and Dickens. Not of this age, but still very much to be enjoyed.
Illustrated Computing
I just had to post this video of a computer bubble-sort algorithm, illustrated by Hungarian folk dancers.
There are more here.
Visual Basic 6 and a Gammy Left Hand
I program in Visual Basic 6 and despite the language being probably ten years old now, it still does what it says on the tin with all versions of Windows and Internet Explorer up to 7 and 8 respectively.
But also because it is such a well defined language and so easy to use, I can effectively run it one-handed, with just a little bit of help from my gammy left hand for Shift and Tab. I do all the other typing with my right. But then the sort of things you need to do with the keyboard in most programs, you can do with the mouse.
Despite my two strokes, I can still do everything I need to do! I’ve even remembered most of the code I’ve written over the years, so at least that part of the brain works, even if the hand doesn’t!
The first new program will be a 2011 version of my Daisy Presentation Browser. This program does three main things :-
- Allows you to set the size of the browser to improve your presentations based on web sites.
- Print clean copies of web pages to a pre-defined size or the maximum available on your printer.
- Copy the web page in the browser to the clipboard for pasting into another program.
My heart goes out to the genius who designed Visual Basic 6 in the first place, without whom I would be seriously suicidal!
The Anonymous Widower 