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SILICON SILIC CHIP www.siliconchip.com.au Publisher/Editor Nicholas Vinen Technical Editor John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.) Technical Staff Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc Bao Smith, B.Sc Tim Blythman, B.E., B.Sc Technical Contributor Duraid Madina, B.Sc, M.Sc, PhD Art Director & Production Manager Ross Tester Reader Services Ann Morris Advertising Enquiries Glyn Smith Phone (02) 9939 3295 Mobile 0431 792 293 glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au Regular Contributors Dave Thompson David Maddison B.App.Sc. (Hons 1), PhD, Grad.Dip.Entr.Innov. Geoff Graham Associate Professor Graham Parslow Ian Batty Cartoonist Brendan Akhurst Founding Editor (retired) Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD Silicon Chip is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. ACN 626 922 870. ABN 20 880 526 923. All material is copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Subscription rates (12 issues): $105.00 per year, post paid, in Australia. For overseas rates, see our website or email silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au Editorial office: Unit 1 (up ramp), 234 Harbord Rd, Brookvale, NSW 2100. Postal address: PO Box 139, Collaroy Beach, NSW 2097. Phone (02) 9939 3295. E-mail: silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au ISSN 1030-2662 * Recommended & maximum price only. Editorial Viewpoint The paperless office . . . and working from home When I took over the publication of SILICON CHIP two years ago, I didn’t want to make many changes to the magazine or the way it was run. But one thing that I did straight away was to change from a paper-based filing system to an electronic system. One reason for this is that it was quite a bit of work shredding all the filed paper that we no longer needed to keep. And during the five to seven years or so that we had to keep them, the files took up quite a bit of space (six or so tall filing cabinets worth). By comparison, electronic records take up no real space and deleting them takes no time at all. Storing the files in paper form also made them harder to search; since I didn’t do the filing, I couldn’t find documents easily. The Australian Tax Office decided some time ago that virtually all tax-related records can be kept in electronic form. Since my personal tax affairs became much simpler after switching to electronic storage, I decided to do the same with SILICON CHIP. That decision paid off quite nicely when we decided to work from home starting in late March, when the Australian government advised that workers should stay home if possible, to curb the spread of COVID-19. Because we were already handling financial documents like invoices as digital files, and almost all our bills were coming in via e-mail, running the business remotely was not too difficult. Another great benefit of communicating via e-mail and archiving all e-mails became apparent recently. My accountants asked me for details of various bank transactions that occurred during the business takeover. I couldn’t remember the reason for most of them. But searching back through e-mail correspondence at the time allowed me to quickly figure out the purposes of all those transactions. The only things we print these days are article proofs for checking and letters to send out to subscribers who either don’t have e-mail, haven’t told us their e-mail address or who ignore e-mails that their subscription is about to expire. And now that we’re mostly working from home, we rarely even print article proofs. So our office printers are seeing little action. It is somewhat easier to mark up printed proofs, but I do proofreading on-screen quite regularly. And there are several applications which allow documents (in our case magazine articles) to be shared amongst staff and marked up “on screen” if required. So we are using much less paper and ink than we used to (except perhaps for the magazine itself!). I’m also happy to report that moving to a distributed workforce was not too difficult. As luck would have it, since I have young children and I have to take care of them sometimes, I had already set up our computer systems so that I could work from home. All I had to do was use the same systems to give other employees access to our office resources remotely, so they could use their home computers on our network and/or they could take their computers home and work remotely in an almost seamless fashion. Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge when everyone is working from different locations is communication. But we all have e-mail and can hold discussions and exchange files quite easily. We also have the phone for those times that e-mail is just too awkward. This has all helped us keep the magazine going as-normal even through this current crisis. I’m glad to report that SILICON CHIP will remain as strong as ever as life (hopefully) slowly returns to normal. Printing and Distribution: Nicholas Vinen 24-26 Lilian Fowler Pl, Marrickville 2204 2 Silicon Chip Australia’s electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au