Archive for 2008
The first organisations to be approved IITT Authorised Qualification & Assessment Centres have been announced by the Institute of IT Training today.
Train and Certify Limited is one of the first companies to gain approval to become an IITT Approved Centre.
The Trainer Performance Monitoring and Assessment Service, which is authorised, governed and monitored by the IITT, is a record of the training professional’s quality of performance in a live environment aligned to national standards – a real quality benchmark of your trainers.
Adrian Ince, Managing Director of Train and Certify Limited commented “We are pleased to be able to demonstrate our 100% commitment to the Trainer Performance Monitoring and Assessment programme by being one of the first centres appointed.”
Train and Certify will identify four assessors to be certified by the IITT, and have specifically written a Train the Trainer course to map onto the TPMA standards. Training will include assessment of all delegates, and assessment only sessions will also be scheduled.
You can read the full IITT press release here.
In an open letter published in the national press today a coalition of the UK’s most senior businessmen and union leaders called on UK employers not to slash staff training in a bid to cut costs as the effects of the recession are felt.
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) chairman Sir Mike Rake together with Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Marks & Spencer and Business in the Community, Mervyn Davies, Chairman of Standard Chartered plc, Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, and Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, urge employers to sustain or even increase their investment in training, saying: “Now is precisely the time to keep investing in the skills and talents of our people. It is the people we employ who will get us through. When markets are shrinking and order books falling, it is their commitment, productivity and ability to add value that will keep us competitive. Investing now in building new skills will put us in the strongest position as the economy recovers.”
You can read the UKCES press release here.
The Institute of IT Training today announced the launch of its new Trainer Performance Monitoring & Assessment Service (TPMA) programme.
‘The role of the trainer is constantly changing and evolving,” explained the IITT’s chief executive Colin Steed.
‘The Institute of IT Training has recognised the need for training managers to become empowered to assess, monitor and benchmark the performance of their own trainers, the outcome of which is contributory to the achievement of an accredited qualification, as recognised on the Qualifications and Credit Framework.”
Trainers will be assessed in a live environment by organisations appointed by the IITT.
Trainers are scored using Key Performance Indicators against each of the 10 Competency Measures. This allows measurement of each trainer’s performance and development, setting benchmarks for trainers and highlighting areas for development. Key Development Indicators outline areas for improvement, and can be used as part of an organisation’s appraisal process.
The assessors report can be used to obtain the IITT Certified Trainer Certificate and an optional National Award (PTLLS). This nationally-recognised Award, through the Qualifications Credit Framework, is portable.
To find out more, read the full IITT press release.
Since I last looked (around 9 months ago, I think) the Magento web store project seems to have shaped up nicely. It is certainly prettier than OSCommerce, but more importantly they have kept the code and the presentation separate using – of course – CSS.
It is written in PHP, and has a growing collection of add-ins, so I’ll be seriously evaluating it as an alternative to OSC for the Oriental Food Shop.
Not sure why I haven’t come across this before, but a great source of free fonts;
dafont.com
PayPal have more or less admitted that there are problems for some users logging in to complete payments, either direct or using the eBay flow. There are many threads on the eBay forums about this problem, for example;
Can’t login to PayPal
(Remember, PayPal, Skype and eBay are the same beast.)
It is faintly amusing that every time somebody reports the problem, PayPal ask for browser, operating system, screenshots, etc. – delaying tactics, I’m sure that they have identified a cause already.
There is a history of similar problems going back to April, and Grace’s theory is that it is a result of the changes to the eBay look-and-feel at around this time.
But I have worked out a solution – a bit sneaky, but works for both eBay and PayPal – use the mobile sites from your usual browser.
To login, bid and pay from eBay: eBay mobile site – this works for UK accounts too.
To pay for an item through PayPal: PayPal mobile site – you will need to know the item number if paying for an eBay item, or the email address of the recipient for another payment. Again, this works OK for UK accounts.
If you are running Skype v3 or later, there is a registry change (provided by Skype for Universities etc.) that reportedly prevents your PC becoming a supernode. I say reportedly, because whilst I have been a guinea pig for the last week I haven’t noticed being a supernode, but of course Skype may not have tried. If you aren’t running the latest version of Skype yet you should probably upgrade (Help, Check for updates), because later versions allow you to edit previous messages, and voice quality is improved.
If you think that being a supernode may cause you problems, try editing the registry as shown in the code below. (WordPress security doesn’t allow this file to be uploaded). You will need to reboot your PC for it to take effect.
This is the edit:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Skype]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Skype\Phone]
"DisableSupernode"=dword:00000001
I have come across an old article in the Observer (2005) titled “If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn’t everyone in Asia have a headache?” which discusses the fifth flavour – umami – and glutamate, commonly referred to as Mono Sodium Glutamate or MSG.
As the presence of MSG is often a criticism of Chinese take-away food – we don’t bother stocking it for sales to home chefs – the most fascinating part of this article is the list of foods containing glutamate (and therefore giving that umami taste) including:
parmesan and other cheeses (seems obvious)
tomatoes
soy sauce
mushrooms
I’d have to agree with the conclusion of the article though – if you want to enhance flavour, add one of these “natural” sources of glutamate, rather than reaching for the MSG.
