A random quest for a not so holy grail

Posted on 3/09/2009 by Rich Adams
Lab Life

The office was a hive of activity, teams were being formed and just about everyone looked confused… Yes, that’s right, last week saw our annual team based quest (MAGUS) take place.

Magus basically involves getting into teams of 4 or 5 and scouring the streets of London looking for clues and solving puzzles. Along the way we cross paths with all manner of characters, from helpful passers by to rogue agents sent by IT Lab top brass to hinder our progress – they love us really.

The object of the game is to gather clues, crack the code and locate the final destination – usually a bar stocked with enough “refreshments” to lose a second titanic in.

As we’re bounding along there’s also plenty of opportunities to gain extra points. These included photos of us in taxis, with policeman and with fruit on our heads:

After one or two amusing hours tearing round the bustling evening streets of London, the top three teams were:

QI: 148 points
Anna Payne, Tabitha Winter, James Wood, Keith Horwood

The cabbage patch kids: 80 points
Mike Bainbridge, Matt Parr, Charlotte Davis, Eric Nguyen

Team Haiku: 77 points
Robbie Miller, Richard Bowyer, Tom Malley, Ben Woodhouse

Poker league folds

Posted on 28/08/2009 by Mike Bainbridge
Lab Life

So, the Big Ideas poker league came to an end on Wednesday night with coveted final table. After 10 weeks of league games the top 8 players fought it out for a some very cool poker themed prizes…

As usual, the banter between players was great. But with reputation as well as prizes at stake, the atmosphere was a bit more serious. The overall winner was one of our newest members of staff, support engineer Eric Nuygen with Mike Bainbridge and Simon du Plessis in 2nd and 3rd place.

The popularity of the league has grown this season with a pool over of 20 players keeping the games fresh and challenging. It looks like poker in the IT Lab offices is now a firm fixture!

Working in the Deep Dark South

Posted on 24/08/2009 by Steve Devereux
Kaseya, Lab Life

Hi all, my name is Steve Devereux and I am an Engineer here at the Lab.

I have been working for ITLab now for 8 years. 5 of those have been spent working remotely from the tranquillity of Napier, New Zealand. Yes, that’s right, New Zealand! That little piece of heaven 12,000 Miles away!

What about the time zone? Working nights? The sleeping? The loneliness? I hear you ask… Well it used to be like that, definitely. As NZ is basically 12 hours ahead of GMT and working the Support Desk I naturally had to work GMT Business Hours. This plays havoc in all aspects of your life. However, these days I work as part of the Kaseya Development Team, allowing me to help maintain our Clients Servers, Workstations in the dead of night – while everyone in the UK is tucked up in their beds.

My story started in 2001 when IT Lab was a tiny operation with 4 engineers (and no Support desk to speak of.) With little experience in IT, I approached the Lab for some much needed work experience and after a week I knew the Lab was a very special place. The engineers armed me with a great deal of their knowledge in a very short time, and after a few months the Lovely HR Manager, Ms Rosa Howard, offered me a full time position working the Support Desk.

Over the next 3 years IT Lab grew and grew amassing a very large client base, a haven of some of the finest engineers and a powerful and productive management team to lead them. We moved 3 times during those 3 years as the company grew from strength to strength. Once staff came they didn’t want to leave.

With the imminent birth of our second child my wife and I decided it was time to head home to NZ after 7 years away. After having set up so many remote workers on a daily basis, I thought why not continue working the desk from NZ? All I need is a strong internet connection! So I approached Management and they had the foresight to see that this was a good idea not just short term but long term, and from there IT Lab NZ was born.

For the next 4 years it was a hard slog working nights (10pm – 5am NZT) Monday to Friday but I loved it! The hard part was no longer being in the IT Lab Office Environment, being in the middle of all the buzz and excitement. Not being able to just walk over to a colleague’s desk to help with an issue, get advice from another engineer or just have a chat, as the people are the core fun aspect of ITLab. However, the up side was my productivity would sky rocket due to lack of distraction, the 30 second commute to work (my back bedroom) was pretty good too.  I also got more family time during the day with my kids (while I wasn’t sleeping of course.)

After 4 years of remotely working the desk, the opportunity to work on the Kaseya Platform was offered to me. This would mean a complete change of hours and a lot of learning and I’ve found it a great challenge and that we are only just scratching the surface of this great product!
Life in the Devereux household is a little more normal now. It’s still a bit of a novelty looking out the window while I’m working and it not being pitch black, but I am getting well use to it. I will, however, always miss the buzz of the Lab as it’s an amazing company full of amazing people!

Cheers

What’s the Deal???

Posted on 6/08/2009 by Mike Bainbridge
Lab Life

The Big Ideas poker league is now in week 7 of the 10 week run and things are hotting up! Following my last update on the launch of a new poker league (26 June) the rivalries are starting to build. Players are becoming desperate to get a place in the top 8 and claim a coveted seat at the final table.

Our IT guru Matt Parr has had a strong run recently taking him to the top of the league.

Points are awarded to players based on the position they finish and the number of players at the table. With many serious players now reaching their 5 game score limit, everyone is looking to improve their points tally.

With a decent set of prizes available (including: poker sets, books, dvds, online shopping vouchers) there’s more than just pride up for grabs!

IT marketing speak… AAAAAAARGH

Posted on 24/07/2009 by Rich Adams
Lab Life

Now, I don’t wish to knock any other industries’ ability to churn out baffling gibberish, but I.T. is the only sector I’ve come across where it’s possible to read an entire website and still have no idea how the products work – maybe it’s all the acronyms?

From “utilising fully automated I.T. management infrastructures,” to “employing scalable network functionalisation,” the I.T. world is littered with a seemingly endless stream of clichéd nonsense. It’s as if some of these guys don’t want us to know what they do!

Even more bizarre is how some of the current crop of marketing buzzwords must have come into existence. Take ‘bleeding-edge’ for example. Did someone actually sit down and say to themselves:

“Mmm, what’s better than cutting-edge? Ah yes, bleeding-edge. It’s so cutting-edge it makes you bleed! Yeah, that’s a keeper!”

The mind boggles!

The curse of knowledge

A great deal of the blame can be placed at the feet of expertise. After years of working in one industry, and enquiring a ton of in-depth knowledge,  it’s incredibly easy to forget how to explain anything in layman’s terms.

That being said, I sometimes get the distinct impression people use buzzwords to make up for a distinct lack of knowledge rather than the other way around. Either way, I wish they’d stop.

We’re in the IT business, our clients are not!

Businesses may rely on I.T, but they are only interested in using it to help them achieve more. They want to know what a product or service can do for them quickly, with no gimmicks. That’s why we always avoid jargon and make sure we get to the point, fast.

P.S. If there is anything on this site you don’t think makes sense, please let us know.