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If the latter requires the former, then sure... why not? In a world of IP-KVM and power outlets you can cycle remotely, I absolutely want someone (besides me) that's responsible for handling the late-night maintenance windows, the rack-and-stack, and any other layer-1 concerns.

I guess it just depends on the size of your company and whether there's managerial accountability for any screw-ups. I voice my opinion based on working at a company with > $95 billion of annual revenue. Were I working for a much smaller company with a more generalist instead of specialist workforce model, I might be inclined to agree with you. _________________________________
http://techdojo.org/

True that. I'm a network engineer and during the course of troubleshooting, I'd start pinging something and forget about it. 40,000 pings later, I'd have dropped about 400 pings during my cable-modem days. I switched to Verizon FIOS and when I'd do the same thing, I'd have dropped ZERO packets.

Likewise, we're using a VOIP solution in our house and when I was doing the cable-modem thing, for some reason, my ATA would lock up and I'd have to power cycle it at least once per week. When I switched to FIOS, the problem went away. I have no idea why it would make any difference, but it really has. Knowing what I know now, even if the prices and speeds were the same, I'd still switch to FIOS.

My only frustration is that I've got 5Mbps upstream and the places I try to upload to cap their downstream (cough)HOSTROCKET(cough) so I'm still pushing content at 1Mbps. This is despite their swearing that they aren't rate-limiting... That kind of stuff may have been OK in 2004, but five years later, I'm a whole lot less forgiving.

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Ah, yes... The "anything goes" mentality. Who decides whether or not someone gets hurt? Or should we decide that anything goes there, too?

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I don't know that legislation is the answer, but you are SO RIGHT about mini-USB. At least my Nokia phones all had the same charger between models OR a mini-USB jack. I have one Samsung phone and my wife has another. Instead of using mini-USB, they use some crack-whore flat-style connector. The kicker? THEY'RE DIFFERENT BY 1/16th OF AN INCH.

You look into the connector and see an array of 10 to 20 pins. Mysteriously enough, there are FOUR on the other end. EVERY TIME. It doesn't matter if you put 100 pins on the end of the cable, it will STILL BE FOUR ON THE OTHER SIDE. If there is circuitry you have to put in the cable that modifies the signal and splits it out, you need to fit that in the phone itself.

AGH!

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There's two other options... you can stick with the one that's made with union labor and costs $300 or use the one constructed by illegal immigrants and costs $15. Both equate to human rights violations, to any person that can see beyond their own wallet.

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All these people accessing a shared medium at 60 Mbps? That's not exactly a recipe for success... I know there's acceptable oversubscription ratios, but this has to blow those out of the water.

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http://techdojo.org/

Sensationalism is moving like hot-cakes!

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http://techdojo.org/

While traveling, I signed up for the tethering plan on a Samsung Glyde. It was expensive, but when I was in an EVDO with at least one or two bars, I had no trouble consisently getting ~680Kbps down.

I have to admit, their network really is better. My brother picked up an iPhone and the voice quality sucks and he's constantly dropping calls. My wife also has AT&T and doesn't have the voice quality issues, but still has dead spots and dropped calls.

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...doesn't necessarily make you stronger. This is yet another in a series of reports of diminished productivity from things ranging from multi-tasking to ridiculous levels of text messaging.

None of this should surprise anyone that can actually see the forest through the trees.

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I find it amusing that after Microsoft used their app (Windows) to edge out Netscape, Google is using their apps to edge out Microsoft.

Capitalism at it's finest! The best sword is a double-edged one, says I.

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That's the great irony of our goverment:
The the good thing is that it is representative of the people.
The bad thing is that it is representative of the people.

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http://techdojo.org/

Best advice I can give... don't. Seriously, there's nothing special or magical about computers. Kids will pick it up quickly and there's no hurry. You don't want them to turn into the imaginationless kids that can't entertain themselves. Technology should enhance your life, not become it. If you rush this, your kid will likely have difficulty realizing that.

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Mechanical anything is pretty much toast. I'll look forward to having thumb-drive size movie rentals and a PC with no moving parts. Size, price, and noise will plummet together.

Off with their heads, says I.

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Not nearly as interesting as Barbara and Jenna's. :)

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http://techdojo.org/

I would've bought this, no questions asked before I actually became a parent. I am a total geek. I have programmed since I was little, "geeked-out" when I probably should've policed myself and added other constructive activities, and am totally immersed in tech from hardware to culture, five out of seven days per week. What I've come to realize:

1) Kids pick this stuff up so quickly, it's not only pointless to introduce it at a young age, it's detrimental.
2) The important stuff to teach them are the productivity aspects: desktop publishing, multimedia editting, and maybe some basic scripting. The virtual hangouts, games, funny video clips, and social Web 2.0 sites are pure fluff that will come easily, once the foundation is in place.
3) Teaching life lessons via computer interaction instead of face-to-face human interaction hampers their personal development.
4) Barring special circumstances (and I will grant you there are some,) most children's educational software is a parental cop-out.

No way does my eight-year old need a facebook account. Where would you want your kid to go? Play a pickup game of basketball in the park or hang on out Myspace, a "new public hangout for teens." The thought that you're not helping your kid you're hindering him is absurd. Technology is meant to enhance your life, not consume it.

Develop your kid's social ability through traditional activities, accelerate them through structured tutelage, and as they grow up, turn them loose and watch them fly.

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I'd start by asking them what other IT skills they have that are secondary to the position you're interviewing for. A network engineer that's configured Apache, knows more operating systems than just windows, and has good presentation skills (translation: you don't have to hide him from upper management) will likely morph into whatever the day-to-day job requirements dictate.

While we're on the subject, how do you prove the opposite? Case in point... I've seen people retire that have decades of experience and still suck at their job. They've talked about volunteering at a non-profit organization, performing the same function. That's noble enough, but if it's so bad that it'd be doing the organization a dis-service, then it'd really be nice if there were a way to spot the bad apples.

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You know, I've been a Norton fan for years and watched my PC slow down as a result. I switched to Avast this year and yesterday was presented with the first XP blue screen I've seen in a while. When the PC came back up, it claimed it was due to anti-virus software.

At least with MS touting anti-viral capabilities, there will be less finger-pointing capability. Company X didn't use the right hooks/API's! MS didn't document them well! Company X should've blocked this! MS shouldn't have been vulnerable to it!

Personally, I have to give MS props for stepping up. The potential PR vulnerability dwarfes the OS exposure.

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I'm no fan of the heavy-handed tactics, but I have to admit that at least the music distribution portion is slowly catching on. I said for so long that if I could put together my own CD and pay $1.00 per song, I'd buy a lot more music. Then, I said if I could do it DRM-free, I'd buy a lot more music. I'm shocked to find that those things have actually come to pass.

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At first blush this struck me as similar to the printers that revealed a specific device by a faint set of dots printed on each piece of paper. On further thought, it occurs to me that the difference would be that the dot-tracking was shady where-as this is a triumph of statistical observation. The former being slimy and the latter sheer brilliance.

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