Managing IT to deal with Climate Change
Cathryn
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Home page: http://www.cathrynsymons.com
Posts by Cathryn
New PRINCE2
112 months ago
by Cathryn
in Project Management
I first sat my PRINCE2 exams in 2004, when I was in a permanent job. They wouldn’t fund it, and so I found myself with a book, a practice exam and dates to sit the two tests. Fortunately, I’m not bad at exams, though the three hour, essay paper that was the Practitioner exam back then was quite a strain on the hand as well as the brain. That registration lasted until 2009, so I was running a little late when I decided to reregister, and sat the reregistration exam in January.
Times have changed. It’s no longer a free-form essay exam but instead, even at Practitioner level, its multichoice, and to reregister you sit a shorter version of the same exam others who are sitting for Practitioner will have, but only do 3 out of the 9 topic areas. You don’t know which three, so there is just as More >
From Architecture to Delivery
01 year ago
Over the years, I’ve enjoyed working with, been very grateful for, and occasionally frustrated by architects on projects. Whether they’re enterprise, solution or technical architects (and the titles are very fluid) they’re an essential member of the triumvirate leading project and programme teams, along with the project manager and business analyst. Ideally, the business analyst is responsible for making sure we understand what the client needs and the architect for making sure that what we’re building will meet those needs, leaving me with the simple task of making it all happen. In reality, we’re all senior IT professionals, with lots of experience delivering projects, so there’s a fair bit of overlap and teamwork. At the BCS last night, two senior Enterprise Architects from Capgemini gave us an insight into their perspective on enterprise architecture, the role it plays in their projects, and a specific case study of introducing service management More >
Google Fusion Tables
01 year ago
Do you have data with location or time information? Would you like a simple way to show that data visually, on a map, or perhaps a timeline. Google Fusion Tables may be the answer, and they were explained by Mano Marks, Senior Developer Advocate at Google, to the GIS Group at the British Computer Society this evening.
Google Fusion Tables allow you to keep tables of data in Google’s cloud, manipulate it, visualise it and present it online. If the data have a spatial element, they can be displayed on a Google Map, or, if there is a time element, as a time series or storyline. As Mano Marks put it, it’s an attempt to provide GIS functionality with the ease of use of a spreadsheet.
I Love My Backups
2My plans for the holidays had never been all that exciting, just to knuckle down and put the finishing touches to my thesis, due in at the end of January, but the day before Christmas Eve it all changed. I walked back to my desk, stumbled, and a cup of soup flew, in perfect obedience to sod’s law, straight at the laptop. Of course, I turned it off, turned it upside down, applied the hairdryer and made impassioned offerings to the gods of silicone. It may sometimes work, but it never has for me.
And that, dear reader, is how I got to spend Boxing Day restoring my files and getting myself set up on brand new laptop. Fortunately, its all back, and no harm done. My backup strategy is going to change a little, but it worked, and this post is to explain some of the things I do, More >
Rebuilding Old Hydro Schemes
0Early last century, many rural areas in the UK got most of their electricity from small hydro power schemes , which often powered entire villages. Of course, that was in the days before dishwashers and televisions in every room, but they provided a reliable source of small-scale power. Their capacity was limited and they did require regular maintenance, so when the National Grid was built in the 1930s, many of them fell into disuse. For most of the last hundred years, they’ve been the domain of enthusiasts and off-grid dwellers, and refurbishing an old Pelton Wheel found in a barn somewhere a labour of love.
The real place for these schemes has been in developing countries – Peru, Kenya, Nepal, Zimbabwe - where charities like Practical Action work with local people to build and maintain schemes in places where grid access is difficult. Setting up workshops and More >
The Need for District Heating
0District heating schemes have a mixed reputation in the UK, although they are firmly established in other Northern European countries. That’s partly because some schemes, built in the 60s and never properly upgraded, don’t work very well. Stories abound of residents whose only temperature control is to open the window, and people feeling free to use heating extravagantly because there is no individual metering. It’s also partly because, with the advent of North Sea gas in the 1980s, small, single-dwelling boilers became more popular, with all the individual control they offer. And the difficulty the UK has in funding and building city-wide infrastructures hasn’t helped either.
With climate change, the rise in gas prices and the increasing uncertainty of supply, its vital that we rethink our approach to heating our homes, particularly in cities. Piping heat through the streets, as we do our gas and water, is normal in Vienna, More >
Renewable Energy Project Manager available
0A year ago, I was an IT project manager, responsible for managing complex technology projects in large organisations. Now, after a year of study, I’ve finished an MSc in Renewable Energy, and I’m looking for a job. Ideally, I’ll find something where I can use my existing project management skills, and build on the knowledge I’ve gained from the course. Times are tough though, and of course that ideal might not happen, so I’m open to any reasonable opportunity.
If you’re reading this because I’ve sent you my CV, please feel free to browse and get an idea of who I am and what I can do. If you’ve landed here for some other reason, please do take a look, and I’d be very grateful if you’d think of me if you hear of any likely roles.
Who Manages the Heat?
0Vertical borehole ground source heat pumps use heat stored in the ground, and groundwater. That heat comes from the sun, and, to a far lesser extent, heat generated within the earth as well as human-generated heat from buildings, underground railways and other constructions. It may also come from a cooling system, where heat from a building is discharged through boreholes to be stored underground during the summer before being extracted the following winter.
This heat can affect the underground environment including the geochemistry of the aquifer and microbiological ecosystems. When there are multiple systems in an area, they may interfere with each other, particularly if there is groundwater involved. Therefore there are two main policy concerns here – protection of the underground environment, and equitable use of the heat storage resource. With increasing numbers of these systems being installed in London(1), and their inclusion in the Renewable Heat Incentive, More >
A few tips for using Quantum GIS
11 year ago
I’ve been teaching myself to use Quantum GIS, an open source geographic information system, by using it to build the maps for a practical assignment to do a feasibility study of a small windfarm.
You can get a copy of the software at the QGIS website, and there are tutorials and introduction documents around the web. This post is to pick up a few things that took me a while to figure out. They’re notes for me, and they might be handy for someone else.
All that Paper
0The policemen are getting younger, the music’s too loud and what are those young people wearing?? I think I’m getting old, which surely beats the alternatives, especially as some things are so much better than they were back in the day. Who would want to go back to old ways of managing notes and reading?