Quicksilva thoughts...

I am inclined to agree with the sentiments expressed by the British Medical Association's leaders:

"[The proposed review website] would put doctors into a meaningless popularity contest that told patients nothing about medical skill"

Websites inherently hide people away from good old face-to-face contact and result in freedom to say more than normally said in person. This can be a good thing, but in my experience it often opens the door to exaggeration of opinion in a negative way. In the article, the NHS' research shows a relatively balanced spread of comments. However it is often said that the negative weighs more heavily on the brain than the positive, hence the reality will likely be a perceived negative imbalance which may undermine trust in the local GP. Comments are also likely to be based more upon staff manner than medical skill, and therefore portray a distorted view of the health care provided.

I believe the NHS should be trusted to ensure high standards are met so that we can have faith in our local GP, without the need to pick and choose based upon reviews.

Quicksilva thoughts...

I remember the last time I used the London underground, it was a fairly quiet if not slightly cramped experience, whilst being serenaded by a man singing Wonderwall and playing a banjo. The journey took about 15 minutes and it made a pleasant change from taking the bus, which generally involves a lot of people shouting on mobile phones.

With the rollout costing £750 million, the idea behind it is that it hopes to attract financial firms to Glasgow and away from Canary Wharf. It will be interesting to see if the firms would be willing to turn their back on the prestige of having offices in London over the ability to phone their employees for an extra 15 minutes a day.

The transport authorities in London have been attempting to bring a mobile phone reception to the underground for years, and if successful in Glasgow, it might be the final push and the appeal to move north of the border will be back where it was before.

The effect to the public is that instead of the commuter just being suffocated by someone's armpit, they can now be deafened, thanks to the invariable part of human nature, which seems to dictate that when the person on the other end of the phone can't hear you, shout louder!

Quicksilva thoughts...

The report has re-affirmed the need to produce secure and well designed and tested software applications. They have produced a list of the "Top 25 most dangerous programming errors", and the list reads as a set of do's and don'ts applicable to all programmers. In a time where more and more of us use the internet for purchases and banking, and when more and more of our personal information is to be stored online, it becomes essential for software developers to heed these warnings. It is of particular importance when applied to sensitive personal data such as medical records.

SANS director Mason Brown stresses the importance of good secure programming practices and training, and goes on to say:

"Then we need to make sure every programming team has processes in place to find and fix these problems [in existing code] and has the tools needed to verify their code is as free of these errors."

A detailed and rigorous testing infrastructure is therefore also vital in proving the security of your system. Quicksilva invest much time in their testing, both by developing many testing applications and suites in-house and by employing a wholly dedicated and highly trained testing team. Add to that Quickilva’s quality assurance processes and code review procedures and we can be confident of avoiding the mistakes listed in the article.

Quicksilva thoughts...

I have to say since having children this is one of the most important things I feel I can pass onto them - basic hygiene.

It always amazes me when I use public toilets the amount of people that don't wash their hands - men and woman, not that I frequent both sets of toilets, but I am reliably informed on many occasion, by my husband, especially at his work place.

It has been suggested that to wash your hands properly you should soap them thoroughly for at least 20 seconds and if you need a timer try sing happy birthday twice through!

Just think, if we all just took a little bit more time with our own personal hygiene could we reduce the amount of colds, viruses or flu that are passed around?

I'll leave you with that question - and don't forget you can always sing happy birthday to yourself - why just leave it to one day in the year, why not celebrate everyday of your existence?