Why are you so interested in getting people into IT? Is it because you want to keep your department alive, or perhaps to keep your own job?
It still sucks out here, and now with the continuing "do more with less or I ship your job off to the Ukraine" attitude, I wouldn't want anyone to go into IT, must less from a community college. And that's the key! I think that you'd have to be very, very passionate about CS, much less general IT, and go to a regular four-year school to make it right now. As many previous posters have said, they wouldn't give someone from a community college a second look; but I'll add to that if they got a certification in a non-CS part, like system administration, I might consider them for entry-level apprentice to someone that's been around a while.
I really hope that IT folks are not going the way of other perceived-as-commodity professions, such as nursing and K-12 teachers, where there's a huge demand but nobody going to pay a living wage. That would truly stink.
There are better places and ways to bust your butt than in IT right now.
One thing to consider is that the Internet is becoming so much a part of life, not only with the minor stuff like website URLs for movies, but being able to apply for benefits from natural disasters like Katrina. As soon as the government makes it so that you have to use the Internet for getting benefits, it is now (here comes the fun part) up to the government to make sure that everyone has access.
Now whether that means that it will fall on the libraries to have public terminals (and if so, they need to be subsidized, otherwise they're bearing the brunt) or that the government puts up Internet cafes (without the cafe part), that's up to the government. But when the government saves money or streamlines operations to put things on the Internet, then the government best make sure that everyone has access. The word disenfranchise comes to mind, but that's for suffrage. But the effect is somewhat the same, almost equivalent to the old poll taxes.
I'm somewhat surprised that not too many people haven't already been squawking about this. But the poor frequently don't have a loud enough voice.
Don't forget that with Yahoo! Mail Plus you can archive your online email back to your computer. It sends you a.zip file with one.eml file per message.
I just don't want to go out to movies anymore. I like a nice quiet evening at home with a rented movie. I'm fine with waiting for a few months before I can rent the movie that just came out. I don't like sticky floors, hot-headed teens that throw popcorn, screaming babies, and too-tall people in front of me that block my view. I like playing back the part that I didn't hear correctly, playing the ending back over again, and stopping in the middle for a bio break.
For those überlong coding sessions, I would recommend a catheter. That way you don't have to get up so often for, ah, nature. For the, um, other thing you'll have to modify your chair somewhat.
There's always other friends, and besides, children would probably be better served growing up in a rural area vice a city, with all the problems that they come with.
You. Are. So. Full. Of. Dung.
My stepson got lured to rural Maine by his biodad, one of the promises being it was a small community, and thereby much safer and far away from the drug problems in suburbia. So what does he see? The other high school kids smoking dope on the school bus. Welcome to the safe community, yo.
My wife and I are employed at the same company... Does that mean I don't have to talk to her anymore afterwork?
No, but it means that if she sleeps with a co-worker, you'll be the last to know, and everyone else will, which will make work that much more fun for everyone but you. Seen it happy too many times. Best to keep your professional and personal lives separate.
Oh yeah, if there's a company-wide layoff or a site closure, it would truly suck if you lost both incomes.
(doesn't anyone remember that MS actually lost the antitrust lawsuit?)
Oh really, I hadn't noticed. Nobody else noticed either, I don't think.
The only innovation I can think of was when they added the ability to install viruses from the browser and email. Nice.
Now that's where I have a problem with Microsoft going into the anti-virus and anti-spyware business. They get us to pay for their mistakes. But that could also just be clever marketing on their part. Then again, we know who we're talking about, don't we? (unfortunately, nobody else seems to)
...BECAUSE IT WAS INCLUDED FOR FREE IN EVERY OS IN 95% OF THE COMPUTERS.
I think that something that a lot of the technorati/digirati/techno-snobs are forgetting is that Ma and Pa Kettle -- the unblessed mundanes that buy a lot of computers these days -- are not going to go out and download another Internet browser when they already have one that works, and there's nobody around to tell them that they should download another one.
I hardly see using the default browser an overwhelming vote for the superiority of MSIE.
And that's why I work so hard at home to keep the family away from MSIE, pop-ups, and "free" screen savers. I have to use MSIE now and then, but I'm careful and exit it when I'm done an not browse anywhere else.
Especially if you work for a small company, having a tech know when to say when is a Good Thing. My adventure with our tech here gives a kind of nightmare condition where their zeal and exuberance can actually be a detriment.
The response to that post said it well (and I repeat it here if you don't want to hit the link):
A famous general once said that there are four types of people:
(1) The lazy and smart kind, like him.. These are the thinkers and the leaders.
(2) The lazy and stupid kind. These are the grunts, the soldiers, the factory workers. The world is mostly these kind and the world needs them. They are valuable.
(3) The smart and hardworking kind. These people are the glue that bind organizations together and make civilization function. They are the lieutenants, managers and designers, the people who push things forward.
(4) But beware, said the general, of the fourth kind, the stupid and hardworking man. For he shall certainly be the death of you.
We've been having that same problem in the office where I work, too. Each installation needs to be baby-sat with Office installation CDs at the ready. And I guess we're at the point where Symantec is so big that it just doesn't care, even with Microsoft's own anti-virus software on the horizon. Symantec already has your money, why fix anything? Duh.
At home, Symantec's been slowing down my machines for a couple years now. As their virus signature definitions come up for renewal, I just go to Grisoft and install AVG. Since their SOHO 2-license deal is good, I have one machine on the free version until my last Symantec license expires on the other box, then I'll buy AVG for those two.
Probably not good even then. Both experience and research suggest that crunch mode doesn't work.
Ah, but, as cynical as it sounds, that's freakin' beside the point. One thing that software development has is an astonishing lack of measurable metrics as far as effort goes, and when you have to prove to someone with hire-and-fire powers over you that you're doing all that you can in order to get a project completed as fast as possible, under budget, blah, blah, blah, overworking your salaried worker-bees is a measurable (at least to MBA types) way that you're taking your tardiness in delivering seriously, even though it's the wrong thing to do.
Now I know other folks that say that abusing people for a limited time, say two months, is doable before they start compensating and reducing their output to par or below-par compared to a 40-hour week, but that's never stopped PHBs from covering their asses for months at a time. A guy I know that managed an OS/2 team spent more than a year in crunch mode, and he is damn proud of it. He thinks that my losing my entire last summer working weekends to deliver two late (by design) software products was child's play.
I am not saying college is easy, nor that the education is valueless. I AM saying that graduates, precisely because of their lack of experience, have an unrealistically high opinion of their own abilities, and often make the sorts of costly (and embarrassing) mistakes that more experienced programmers don't make.
I have a buddy, over 50 I have to add, that was about ready to head over to Sandia for a job, but then a new guy took over and decided that he'd hire 4.0s out of college instead of seasoned veterans. I guess he's going to get what he paid for... he may as well have outsourced his development for the hassle he's going to have with the kids.
Another buddy said of the current crop of kids, "bright, cannot program, big egos." Only good if they can put in the 80 hours that I hear kids out of school and without families can do.
If I were a hiring manager, and I've been there before but not for this job, and told to hire codemonkeys out of school, I'd ask them if they ever took a projects (software engineering) course, and what they thought about it as far as it being something that they'd like to do, say, for the rest of their professional lives.
I thought for sure that Intel was going to buy Texas Instruments since TI is such a one-trick-pony these days after they sold off all the cool stuff back in the 90s and watched their stock lose 2/3 of its value (figures: they sell 2/3 of the company so the stock price goes down...).
Of course, they could just wait for TI stock to wind down into the single digits before they buy it. Such a deal!
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It still sucks out here, and now with the continuing "do more with less or I ship your job off to the Ukraine" attitude, I wouldn't want anyone to go into IT, must less from a community college. And that's the key! I think that you'd have to be very, very passionate about CS, much less general IT, and go to a regular four-year school to make it right now. As many previous posters have said, they wouldn't give someone from a community college a second look; but I'll add to that if they got a certification in a non-CS part, like system administration, I might consider them for entry-level apprentice to someone that's been around a while.
I really hope that IT folks are not going the way of other perceived-as-commodity professions, such as nursing and K-12 teachers, where there's a huge demand but nobody going to pay a living wage. That would truly stink.
There are better places and ways to bust your butt than in IT right now.
DT
I was thinking that using the Scotch tape to hold down the left shift key would have helped, too.
DT
DT
Microsoft Rose. The new name for the Microsoft online florist shop.
DT
You said "evolve". Please turn in your Kansas citizenship card on your way out of the state. Now.
DT
I think that we can extrapolate on that and declare the United States broken.
DT
Now whether that means that it will fall on the libraries to have public terminals (and if so, they need to be subsidized, otherwise they're bearing the brunt) or that the government puts up Internet cafes (without the cafe part), that's up to the government. But when the government saves money or streamlines operations to put things on the Internet, then the government best make sure that everyone has access. The word disenfranchise comes to mind, but that's for suffrage. But the effect is somewhat the same, almost equivalent to the old poll taxes.
I'm somewhat surprised that not too many people haven't already been squawking about this. But the poor frequently don't have a loud enough voice.
DT
Duh.
DT
DT
Try Slashmail (no relation to /. btw). It's all https, all the time. But it's all text (no formatting) all the time, too. Boring, but secure.
DT
You. Are. So. Full. Of. Dung.
My stepson got lured to rural Maine by his biodad, one of the promises being it was a small community, and thereby much safer and far away from the drug problems in suburbia. So what does he see? The other high school kids smoking dope on the school bus. Welcome to the safe community, yo.
DT
Amen to that! I still have a lot of my old textbooks since, for example, Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science hasn't changed all that much.
Besides I still prefer the dead-tree version since I can scribble notes in the margins. IMHO, online is best for reference, not for in-depth learning.
DT
No, but it means that if she sleeps with a co-worker, you'll be the last to know, and everyone else will, which will make work that much more fun for everyone but you. Seen it happy too many times. Best to keep your professional and personal lives separate.
Oh yeah, if there's a company-wide layoff or a site closure, it would truly suck if you lost both incomes.
DT
DT
Oh really, I hadn't noticed. Nobody else noticed either, I don't think.
The only innovation I can think of was when they added the ability to install viruses from the browser and email. Nice.
Now that's where I have a problem with Microsoft going into the anti-virus and anti-spyware business. They get us to pay for their mistakes. But that could also just be clever marketing on their part. Then again, we know who we're talking about, don't we? (unfortunately, nobody else seems to)
DT
You just think you did.
DT
I think that something that a lot of the technorati/digirati/techno-snobs are forgetting is that Ma and Pa Kettle -- the unblessed mundanes that buy a lot of computers these days -- are not going to go out and download another Internet browser when they already have one that works, and there's nobody around to tell them that they should download another one.
I hardly see using the default browser an overwhelming vote for the superiority of MSIE.
And that's why I work so hard at home to keep the family away from MSIE, pop-ups, and "free" screen savers. I have to use MSIE now and then, but I'm careful and exit it when I'm done an not browse anywhere else.
DT
The response to that post said it well (and I repeat it here if you don't want to hit the link):
A famous general once said that there are four types of people:
(1) The lazy and smart kind, like him.. These are the thinkers and the leaders.
(2) The lazy and stupid kind. These are the grunts, the soldiers, the factory workers. The world is mostly these kind and the world needs them. They are valuable.
(3) The smart and hardworking kind. These people are the glue that bind organizations together and make civilization function. They are the lieutenants, managers and designers, the people who push things forward.
(4) But beware, said the general, of the fourth kind, the stupid and hardworking man. For he shall certainly be the death of you.
Oh yeah.
DT
At home, Symantec's been slowing down my machines for a couple years now. As their virus signature definitions come up for renewal, I just go to Grisoft and install AVG. Since their SOHO 2-license deal is good, I have one machine on the free version until my last Symantec license expires on the other box, then I'll buy AVG for those two.
Time to vote with your feet, folks!
DT
Ah, but, as cynical as it sounds, that's freakin' beside the point. One thing that software development has is an astonishing lack of measurable metrics as far as effort goes, and when you have to prove to someone with hire-and-fire powers over you that you're doing all that you can in order to get a project completed as fast as possible, under budget, blah, blah, blah, overworking your salaried worker-bees is a measurable (at least to MBA types) way that you're taking your tardiness in delivering seriously, even though it's the wrong thing to do.
Now I know other folks that say that abusing people for a limited time, say two months, is doable before they start compensating and reducing their output to par or below-par compared to a 40-hour week, but that's never stopped PHBs from covering their asses for months at a time. A guy I know that managed an OS/2 team spent more than a year in crunch mode, and he is damn proud of it. He thinks that my losing my entire last summer working weekends to deliver two late (by design) software products was child's play.
DT
I have a buddy, over 50 I have to add, that was about ready to head over to Sandia for a job, but then a new guy took over and decided that he'd hire 4.0s out of college instead of seasoned veterans. I guess he's going to get what he paid for... he may as well have outsourced his development for the hassle he's going to have with the kids.
Another buddy said of the current crop of kids, "bright, cannot program, big egos." Only good if they can put in the 80 hours that I hear kids out of school and without families can do.
If I were a hiring manager, and I've been there before but not for this job, and told to hire codemonkeys out of school, I'd ask them if they ever took a projects (software engineering) course, and what they thought about it as far as it being something that they'd like to do, say, for the rest of their professional lives.
DT
Of course, they could just wait for TI stock to wind down into the single digits before they buy it. Such a deal!
DT
DT
Now it's, "Don't hire anyone older than 30."
DT