ICTS Service at UCT

Or lack thereof: I marvel how an academic institution that aspires to be a leading African University can tolerate such a bunch of incompetent IT people going under the name ICTS (Information and Communication Technology).

It is not the first time the network has been brought to a standstill by a virus. What's more amazing is that this time, the virus in question was already a couple of weeks (if not months) old. Oh, said a spokesperson who is fairly senior in the ICTS cogs, "McAfee didn't pick it up". No sh*t Shurlock. The virus took my friends computer out for at least a morning. Fortunately I picked it up and cleaned the virus off before it had a noticeable impact on their work.

Almost a week after it was cleaned off the friends computer, they got a mail saying they (ICTS) now knew what the problem was. These people are real rocket scientists! It also took out all the computers in their department; but those people weren't lucky enough to have an IT guy on-hand and had to wait for ICTS to send someone to fix it. So the wait began.

Now get this. Despite paying huge sums to McAfee, no doubt, ICTS responded that the free AVG, was able to detect this virus and that all staff should download and install AVG on their computers to avoid the risk of a re-infection while ICTS mopped up. So, on goes AVG. Then a week later, the affected person asks why AVG updates are not coming through, only to be told that ICTS has blocked AVG updates because they don't want people using it! So now they resort to updating AVG in the evening from their broadband connection.

Network
For the past 2 months, the person in question has complained that on some days, they have no network at work; other days no Internet. But this does not apply to all staff in the same department. Some do, some don't. Then on other days it may be the reverse. They have Internet, others don't.

Log a call they're told! Great. Here's to another long wait. And I thought Telkom was incompetent. In addition, what with TENET doing the switch from some Telkom service to SANREN or some other provider, Internet is so slow it's not worth using. Some (and I suspect many) have resorted to buying a 3G modem and data bundles which they use at work; off their research grants. That way they've got Internet when they need it. No cr*p with ICTS. Sure, they're not protected by a firewall or have a proxy (which forces them to log in first - sometimes also not working properly), but they can at least get on with their real work. In other cases, departments have multiple ADSL connections and a complex setup of rotating the accounts when they reach their cap.

Email
An IT organisation worth it's salt has now got spam scanning down off-pat. I mean, 1 spam per week is just acceptable. This person gets about 30 to 50 a day. No, they do not sign up their email address all over the show! Like others, this person has resorted to giving out a Gmail email address instead of the official UCT one and is assured of getting less spam that way.

The upshot. They work from home more often now, as they can still get email. They've resorted to get IT support from me (as this stage at no charge) if need be, they don't not have to log onto the network, or put up with ICTS nonsense at every turn. They are thus more productive.

I guess the the question then is: Why is nothing done about ICTS at UCT? Is it because the big cheeses get a 'different' level of service to the rest of the University and are oblivious of this sort of non-service? Perhaps it's because there's some political wrangling with the ICTS department - hey, corruption is not limited to government officials :-)

Finally, if ICTS employees were paid badly, I could half understand. However, I know that ICTS people on the whole are paid more than people in the industry. How do I know this? Because I was put forward for a position with them through an agent. No, I did not take it. And no, I am not bitter. I had to ask myself this question:

"Did I want to be associated with a department/division that is literally the laughing stock of the rest of the university?"

Could I live with myself, getting up in the morning knowing that today I could contribute nothing to the greater good of the organisation?

And perhaps this is the nub of the problem: which competent IT professional would want to tarnish their reputation working for ICTS. The good people that do work there are so dis-empowered to make a difference they loose the will to want to.

In the end, I turned down an interview (which I may add, I only received confirmation of almost a month and a half after my CV was submitted - the HR department at UCT! but that's a story for another blog). I had reservations from the start with the personnel agent, but this has all been confirmed by events surrounding this virus thing.

It's well understood now that having excellent IT facilities is what will make business competitive into the future; but academic progress is just as dependent upon good IT infrastructure. Poor IT services on the other hand leads to organisations being left behind....

VC, DVC and heads of faculties - please take note and do something before this leading African University becomes a dinosaur in our history books.

Xenophobia in SA

Politics We're facing a shameful time in our history of building a new Rainbow Nation. Clearly the rainbow does not encompass all the colours - only those colours that are deemed from South Africa originally. But where does this all start....and more importantly how does it all end?

We have indeed become a mob.....

I stand back and look at the mob tactics used by the followers of one of our leaders at a rape trial in 2006. Little if nothing was done to stop or address that (amazingly it's really hard to find any 'official' press reports about the violence). The infighting prior to the Polokwane conference where a mob mentality prevailed. The ANC Youth League congress where violence erupted; the congress was eventually 'suspended' (at who's cost?) due to the violence that erupted. The continual infighting between Zuma and Mbeki factions. The mob that attacked and stripped naked a woman at a taxi rank for wearing a miniskirt....And now we have mob violence against foreigners. This is most shameful!

How did it all start?

Perhaps it was the fact that Mbeki in his lack of action on the crisis in Zimbabwe has left Zimbabwe to sort out it's own problems. Clearly this is impossible for the people - so they flee to....SA. The land of milk and honey.

Perhaps it's this constant Zuma vs Mbeki feud that seems not to be resolved (there's a lot written on this subject!). If our leaders can't shake their differences for the sake of betterment of the nation, how do we expect that people who have conflict in their townships (really close to home) will be able to handle this conflict. With rising food prices, cost of transport, and repo rate etc. people are feeling the pinch....Every cent they get needs to be counted and the disparity between the have's and the have-nots grows into anger and frustration. Tito - re-read the Harvard Group report and take note!

Perhaps it is the fact that the fat-cats in their bling lifestyle are not interested in the poor - as long as they continue to vote for them in 2009. So they'll kiss up (Zuma seems to be kissing up to everyone who has a brain small enough not to remember his prior kissing-up flow of drivel to a different audience) to them in the run-up - no doubt with a great deal of rhetoric about what they've done for them, or will do for them or how bad the opposition is, etc. etc. (if that fails, they'll resort to dredging up apartheid, race or colonialism). And once the voting is done, we'll have a new bunch of bling-less leaders who want to join their bling-filled compatriots. And will the problems be resolved or even addressed? No. Unlike Mandela who (though he no doubt has his faults) lead his people, our current leaders (and no doubt our incoming leaders) are simply governing the people. A high-and-mightly approach as evidenced by the Mbeki years.

Perhaps it's the fact that after 14 years of democracy, we still see (the majority of) people who are living below the minimum wage or no wage at all. These people probably have lost hope of bettering themselves, and see little or no hope of bettering the lives of their children. Would I not be bitter at the thought of that! Absolutely.

Finally perhaps it's the fact that immigrants who come to our country are ready to work; eager to put in long hours if need be to better themselves. Often they are better educated than local South Africans and thus able to fill positions to satify the employment equity quotas. Even those that don't hold white-collar positions are industrious; making things from wire to sell at the lights, opening shops, getting an education. Sure, there will be a criminal element too, but that goes for every country that has unemployment at the level we have.

Do I condone the mob tactics? Under no circumstances! However I do understand why people are frustrated and the foreigners are just the latest scapegoat.

But how to stop this?

Leaders need to take a stand on this. Groups and churches need to mobilise to protest that the leaders do something, even advertising campaigns by both government and the private sector. Our public leaders extending the hand of friendship publicly to those who are bearing the brunt of the violence. Stop the infighting between our leaders! Do something about the crisis in Zimbabwe, improve border controls to stop the influx of people into SA. Look at alternatives to simply raising the repo rate to curb inflation and the government actively looking at how to reduce unemployment.

And most of all...tackle the mob mentality of resorting to violence to bring about change or to oppose the other guy, or simply to make a point!