SolutionMania

Timeboxing - Keeping Meetings on Track

Timeboxing is a great tool which can be applied to meetings to help make sure you cover everything on your agenda, finish on time, and stay on-topic.

Here's how it works...

The first rule is that every meeting needs two things - an Agenda and a Time Limit. The second of these isn't usually an issue - most meetings are scheduled to start and end at a given time. The first is sometimes an issue. I'm sure most people have, at some point, been to a meeting with no agenda, or just a vague topic to discuss.

The Future of the High Street

It would appear that it's not an easy time to be a retailer. Stories of familiar high street names going into administration, or at least severely struggling, are becoming ever more frequent. Blacks, La Senza and Hawkin's Bazaar have all gone into administration following a disappointing Christmas shopping season.

Whilst the current economic climate is clearly a large part of the problem, the rise in internet sales can only be adding salt to the wounds. Figures from an IBM study show an increase in UK online sales of 21.5% from November 2010 to November 2011.

It's not unreasonable to conclude that internet sales represent the single biggest challenge the high street has ever faced.

Base32 Encoding and Decoding in VB.NET

Like the more common Base64 encoding, Base32 encoding is a method for turning binary data into a string composed of a small, defined set of ASCII characters. Base64 takes advantage of the entire alphabet in both upper and lower case, the digits 0 to 9 and the '+' and '/' symbols. This can be problematic where, for example, the encoded data needs to be used as part of a URL where the '+' and '/' symbols have special meaning and where case-sensitivity can cause problems.

Base32 addresses these issues by using a further reduced set of characters - the entire alphabet (but only one case) and the digits 2 to 7. The digits '0' and '1' are ommitted due to their similarity to the letters 'O' and 'I'. This makes Base32 even more useful in situations where human readability is a concern.

More information about Base32 can, of course, be found on the Base32 Wikipedia page.