Readers’ comments
Your views and feedback from email and the web
Mapped out
In response to the recent article on Ordnance Survey’s (OS) response to Covid-19 ( see issue 311, p122), I would like to provide clarity on how OS is supporting the nation at this difficult time. In response to the pandemic, OS created a temporary data licence that provides free access to all OS data. The data, already in use by government agencies, the NHS and emergency services, allows local authorities, businesses, developers and hundreds of OS customers to create and augment services and products that can assist in the fight against the virus. Since March, OS has supported more than 150 organisations in their response plans.
Far from gating access to this data, as is suggested in the article, OS has entirely removed barriers and promoted the temporary licence via direct contact with custo mers, webinars and blogs. That the temporary licence was not mentioned at all in the article is surprising, but I welcome the opportunity to direct readers to the assets mentioned above.
OS takes the topic of transparency very seriously. I feel it is important to clarify that the information redacted in the article does not reflect any insistence on the part of OS to withhold information and is rather an editorial choice. Use cases for OS emergency data are available in the public domain and include identifying:
supermarkets with large car parks to help with screening and/or testing locations areas with a high proportion of care homes or with a more vulnerable ageing population
green spaces in towns and cities to help with efforts around mental health issues
To support the response, OS produced a number of data packages, generated from OS products, around the key questions customers that were asking. These are accessible for anyone working on the response to the pandemic.
Opening up OS data in response to the Covid-19 pandemic is entirely in keeping with our long history of assisting the nation at its time of need. I welcome the readers of PC Pro to further explore our activities in this regard by visiting the OS website.
Rob Andrews, Ordnance Survey
Parallel lives
I was just reading the article on using Windows on a Mac ( see issue 311, p32) p32 and thought I’d chip in as a user of Windows and Mac, and Parallels and Bootcamp.
I have a couple of MacBooks and need to use Windows for some medical and noise-monitoring equipment, the software for which is Windows-only. Also, Outlook in macOS is useless compared to the Windows version. I’ve used Parallels for a while and found the perfect route is to install Windows in Bootcamp and access that via Parallels, the third option you mentioned.
The main reason for not installing Windows into Parallels directly is that I’ve done it before and had problems where Windows and macOS fight over USB connections, despite setting a connection to one OS or the other. My audiometer software refuses to acknowledge the physical audiometer with Windows in Parallels – even when Parallels says it’s connected to Windows – but in Bootcamp and accessed via Parallels, it works fine. Installing to Bootcamp first seems to give more reliable connections for external equipment.
Bootcamp also gives a fallback safety net. If things go wrong, I can boot into a pure install of Windows and see if anything needs sorting out there, quickly identifying if it’s a Windows problem or a Parallels one.
If Apple does indeed lose Bootcamp with their own chips and rely on Parallels or other similar routes, that will be a bit of retrograde step and could even force me to blow the dust off my old Windows laptop, which is in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Adam Jackson
Social media distancing
I read your article about how to switch off social media ( see issue 310, p28), and how to continue to use it safely with interest. I find Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Facebook useful for work, but you missed two great tips for how to use them in a more healthy way.
The most important is that I switched off all notifications on my phone for everything except email. Now, rather than having social media screaming for my attention, it only gets it when I’m prepared to go to it.
For Twitter and LinkedIn, I use auto-posting services such as OneUp and Hootsuite, and an auto-poster on my website to help keep followers up to date with articles, information, help and advice without having to interact with, or even view, the social media sites myself. This “professional distancing” from social media also helps keep me sane. Mike Halsey
Windows woes
Barry’s recent column ( see issue 310, p24) crystallised a significant issue with Windows that’s slowly been driving me mad. Like a lot of PC Pro readers, I run a small business and provide “support” to a wide circle of family and friends. Back in the day, digging around with settings in Windows 95, 98 and onwards may or may not have been fun, depending on the challenge, but it was engaging, entertaining and enlightening.
Slowly but surely one built up a background knowledge of what lay under the bonnet. But, somewhere
Today, I just want the damn thing to work when I want it to and that’s basically all day, every day
down the line, things have gone awry and Microsoft has destroyed that investment of time I made. As the use of computers grew ever wider, the vast increase in the number of uses basically sucked up the time I may previously have had available for “playing around” and understanding the workings. Today, I just want the damn thing to work when I want it to and that’s basically all day, every day.
Simultaneously, updates seem to have ever more unpredictable results and Microsoft has seemingly delighted in hiding controls in odd places and changing the names of things. Now, not only do I not automatically know how to fix a problem, but it also takes ages to dig into a swamp of settings and terminology. Large businesses can afford professional support, but small businesses and personal users can’t and so find themselves marooned and frustrated.
It’s no wonder Chrome OS is on the rise for both personal and professional use and I’ve so valued the articles you’ve run on this. Thank you for saving my sanity. Jon Gregory