Clearly you haven't been around, but that's exactly what the right-wing is trying to do in the US--remove human rights that we hold onto which prevents us from competing effectively with a country that has none.
Being on slashdot I hope you know why you're asked to restart the computer. If not, I'll give some examples of when and why I've asked people to restart the computer.
The simple answer is: restarting a computer fixes 99% of the problems 99% of the time. It's also sometimes the easiest thing to tell a user to do. Yes, really. It's easier to tell a user to reboot the computer than it is to ask them to log off and log on.
#1. Windows group policies are applied at startup and logon. Logon scripts are only run, you guessed it, during logon. Which means a user needs to log off and on again in order to get a new policy or to fix a logon-script issue (mapped drives, mapped printers). Explaining to the user to "log off" is alien to most of them. It takes longer to explain how to use the "Log Off" option than it does to simply say "oh, restart your computer!" For computer policies, you actually need to restart the whole computer.
#2. Simple network issues can be fixed by rebooting. DHCP pool out? User's ethernet cable not plugged in all of the way? Malfunctioned switch caused some ports in the data room to go down? All of these issues are fixed "behind the scenes" and then asking users to reboot fixes the issues. Do you really want to explain to every single user how to use 'ipconfig/release' and 'ipconfig/renew'? No, didn't think so.
#3. 100% CPU usage/frozen process/frozen browser tab/"slow application" usually fixable with a reboot.
When you have armies of people who don't want to pay taxes this is what you get. Networking training is not cheap, understanding it is not cheap. Finding people with enough knowledge combined to work across these systems is difficult and comes with a price.
You must not follow phone hardware all that often, but for those of us that remember and built through the desktop improvements of the early late 90s and early 2000s, the new thing right now is the "phone" and "tablet" market.
So yes, every 1.5 years is justified for the most part, particularly as applications come out to take control of features specific to the latest device that they couldn't realize before.
Dual cores in an iPhone? This is one of the greatest evolutions in iPhone history and will make a whole new class of applications that are must-haves (for the phone) yet won't work or work nearly as well on the older devices.
IE is relatively secure as long as your sys admin (you have sys admins? right?) provides a proper update schedule and enforces update policies to occur.
As noted by this article and many countless before it--MOST problems are solveable (well over 99% of them) by merely having a proper update policy.
No, it's called shitty application developers that don't want to leverage the tools Microsoft provides for securing their applications.
I've gotten arguments from developers who SWEAR they can do it better--and by better, I mean "I should be able to put my application anywhere on the system and the system shouldn't be exploitable by any bugs in my code."
I shit you not, we argued over this for a while.
Microsoft provides developers every tool they need to make a Windows application that can operate on least privilege but they REFUSE to use it.
Easy: Virtualize the management system used to manage these cards, throw it in a VM that is not used for general everyday computing (its sole purpose is managing the DRACs)
Contact Dell to see if an update exists that would allow you to use a newer version of Java.
If the hardware is too old, look into a replacement plan due to aging.
Putting a satellite into space is cheaper than putting a human into space. I mean, if you want to go there, nearly anyone could throw a "capsule" up into orbit provided they have enough money--but is that capsule capable of supporting a human being?
And you can't even compare a capsule to the shuttle--a freaking giant flying space-bound airplane that lets you *land it* and return safely.
SpaceX has yet to put a person into space, let alone to the ISS, let alone returning safely, let alone a person on the moon.
All of this talk about how "SUPER CHEAP AND AWESOME IT CAN BE WHILE BEING PRIVATIZED" means NOTHING until they show that they can do it safely and repeatedly with a human being.
On a purely knowledge-level alone aside from pay and career track I would highly recommend taking an IT job for a couple of years, but at the same time you need to keep up your programming skills--which involves picking up side contracts for development work. All of the rage right now is web development (Java, PHP, hell even ASP.NET--if you don't know C#, you need to learn).
In this manner, nobody can say you didn't "work in the programming field" while maintaining an IT day job. I recommend this because you will learn things your peers will NOT know. You will learn to understand how the systems are used interconnectably, what happens when a server goes down, how do the client machines behave? What kinds of interruption to work flow occurs? You will take an entirely different viewpoint on how your software should work in an environment.
I know IT guys that are better software architects than the software developers I've met, yet I've met very few going in the opposite. Ask any "real" software developer how TCP works in an environment and when they would use something else in their application? They wouldn't be able to tell you. Granted, there are those that are out there, but unless you specifically work on socket programming, there's a good chance you won't know. Yet understanding the difference between say, TCP and UDP, and say, what SIP does is something that is a VERY BASIC understanding of computer system connectivity.
If you're looking for job security and stability, you should focus in is "management". As much as this sucks, most companies are more likely to higher American managers than they are to hire American programmers. Get into the "lead" oles when you can, and take Management courses, a secondary degree in Business may help with this. This way you can get a higher paying job and maintain it. Throw in some of your application "design" and "architecture" experience and you'll have a much higher paying job, though this ultimately means you'll be doing less on the ground coding as well.
But they have been, or did you forget the US Supreme Court verdict that allowed companies to prevent you from arbitrating them with class action lawsuits?
Most of them have no idea, and it's only something you learn when spending enough time in the region to truly see how sickening it is.
I interviewed with a few "contracting" companies here and there and demanded even half of what I get in full time positions of *private* companies (that may do government contracts), and they looked at me like I was crazy.
Replace $federal with $null, and you have a much closer approximation.
And if you think it has anything to do with skillset as to why a government agency goes "outside", you *really* need to take a step back and look at things, because that is so far from the truth.
If you knew anything about the relationship between government and contractors here in the DC region you would know that most of those things do not apply to the individual.
As an individual IT worker, you yourself do not have to worry about personal coverage. In fact, typically speaking you will get at least some coverage from the company you "work for" (i.e. Best IT Government Solutions, LLC). It will be significantly less most of the time than your average FT position *anywhere* will cover.
For the most part, when people mention "government contractors" here, it USUALLY means "full-time job without any of the benefits". And that's really all it comes down to.
While I don't have a summary on the other defrag tools, Microsoft has a very good write-up on defragmentation with Windows 7, I suggest it as a good read.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly you haven't been around, but that's exactly what the right-wing is trying to do in the US--remove human rights that we hold onto which prevents us from competing effectively with a country that has none.
Being on slashdot I hope you know why you're asked to restart the computer. If not, I'll give some examples of when and why I've asked people to restart the computer.
/release' and 'ipconfig /renew'? No, didn't think so.
The simple answer is: restarting a computer fixes 99% of the problems 99% of the time. It's also sometimes the easiest thing to tell a user to do. Yes, really. It's easier to tell a user to reboot the computer than it is to ask them to log off and log on.
#1. Windows group policies are applied at startup and logon. Logon scripts are only run, you guessed it, during logon. Which means a user needs to log off and on again in order to get a new policy or to fix a logon-script issue (mapped drives, mapped printers). Explaining to the user to "log off" is alien to most of them. It takes longer to explain how to use the "Log Off" option than it does to simply say "oh, restart your computer!" For computer policies, you actually need to restart the whole computer.
#2. Simple network issues can be fixed by rebooting. DHCP pool out? User's ethernet cable not plugged in all of the way? Malfunctioned switch caused some ports in the data room to go down? All of these issues are fixed "behind the scenes" and then asking users to reboot fixes the issues. Do you really want to explain to every single user how to use 'ipconfig
#3. 100% CPU usage/frozen process/frozen browser tab/"slow application" usually fixable with a reboot.
#4. Memory leaks? fixable with a reboot.
16GB of RAM? Are you stupid or something?
4GB of RAM is more than enough for "mom". Hell, even 2GB is more than enough for "mom".
As a whole you only see these features turned off if you use the lower end CPUs.
The i7 2600K has all of the bells and whistles enabled. Except maybe ECC memory...
When you have armies of people who don't want to pay taxes this is what you get. Networking training is not cheap, understanding it is not cheap. Finding people with enough knowledge combined to work across these systems is difficult and comes with a price.
In Windows land:
IIS 7.5 (2008R2) and at least Windows 7 are required to support TLS 1.1 and 1.2.
In Linux Land:
Apache's mod_ssl does not support TLS 1.1 and 1.2, you need to use mod_gnutls, which is not default on many webservers.
You must not follow phone hardware all that often, but for those of us that remember and built through the desktop improvements of the early late 90s and early 2000s, the new thing right now is the "phone" and "tablet" market.
So yes, every 1.5 years is justified for the most part, particularly as applications come out to take control of features specific to the latest device that they couldn't realize before.
Dual cores in an iPhone? This is one of the greatest evolutions in iPhone history and will make a whole new class of applications that are must-haves (for the phone) yet won't work or work nearly as well on the older devices.
Look into the Windows ImageX utility, and make sure to *sysprep* your machines.
IE is relatively secure as long as your sys admin (you have sys admins? right?) provides a proper update schedule and enforces update policies to occur.
As noted by this article and many countless before it--MOST problems are solveable (well over 99% of them) by merely having a proper update policy.
No, it's called shitty application developers that don't want to leverage the tools Microsoft provides for securing their applications.
I've gotten arguments from developers who SWEAR they can do it better--and by better, I mean "I should be able to put my application anywhere on the system and the system shouldn't be exploitable by any bugs in my code."
I shit you not, we argued over this for a while.
Microsoft provides developers every tool they need to make a Windows application that can operate on least privilege but they REFUSE to use it.
Company's going to have fun on the Mac environment....(word: it's worse)
Easy: Virtualize the management system used to manage these cards, throw it in a VM that is not used for general everyday computing (its sole purpose is managing the DRACs)
Contact Dell to see if an update exists that would allow you to use a newer version of Java.
If the hardware is too old, look into a replacement plan due to aging.
Putting a satellite into space is cheaper than putting a human into space. I mean, if you want to go there, nearly anyone could throw a "capsule" up into orbit provided they have enough money--but is that capsule capable of supporting a human being?
And you can't even compare a capsule to the shuttle--a freaking giant flying space-bound airplane that lets you *land it* and return safely.
SpaceX has yet to put a person into space, let alone to the ISS, let alone returning safely, let alone a person on the moon.
All of this talk about how "SUPER CHEAP AND AWESOME IT CAN BE WHILE BEING PRIVATIZED" means NOTHING until they show that they can do it safely and repeatedly with a human being.
On a purely knowledge-level alone aside from pay and career track I would highly recommend taking an IT job for a couple of years, but at the same time you need to keep up your programming skills--which involves picking up side contracts for development work. All of the rage right now is web development (Java, PHP, hell even ASP.NET--if you don't know C#, you need to learn).
In this manner, nobody can say you didn't "work in the programming field" while maintaining an IT day job. I recommend this because you will learn things your peers will NOT know. You will learn to understand how the systems are used interconnectably, what happens when a server goes down, how do the client machines behave? What kinds of interruption to work flow occurs? You will take an entirely different viewpoint on how your software should work in an environment.
I know IT guys that are better software architects than the software developers I've met, yet I've met very few going in the opposite. Ask any "real" software developer how TCP works in an environment and when they would use something else in their application? They wouldn't be able to tell you. Granted, there are those that are out there, but unless you specifically work on socket programming, there's a good chance you won't know. Yet understanding the difference between say, TCP and UDP, and say, what SIP does is something that is a VERY BASIC understanding of computer system connectivity.
If you're looking for job security and stability, you should focus in is "management". As much as this sucks, most companies are more likely to higher American managers than they are to hire American programmers. Get into the "lead" oles when you can, and take Management courses, a secondary degree in Business may help with this. This way you can get a higher paying job and maintain it. Throw in some of your application "design" and "architecture" experience and you'll have a much higher paying job, though this ultimately means you'll be doing less on the ground coding as well.
IT is certainly not "maintenanace" of computer systems.
But they have been, or did you forget the US Supreme Court verdict that allowed companies to prevent you from arbitrating them with class action lawsuits?
This is merely an extension of that.
In the US it is 100% legal.
Most of them have no idea, and it's only something you learn when spending enough time in the region to truly see how sickening it is.
I interviewed with a few "contracting" companies here and there and demanded even half of what I get in full time positions of *private* companies (that may do government contracts), and they looked at me like I was crazy.
That said, the pay is usually pretty damn good.
Replace $federal with $null, and you have a much closer approximation.
And if you think it has anything to do with skillset as to why a government agency goes "outside", you *really* need to take a step back and look at things, because that is so far from the truth.
If you knew anything about the relationship between government and contractors here in the DC region you would know that most of those things do not apply to the individual.
As an individual IT worker, you yourself do not have to worry about personal coverage. In fact, typically speaking you will get at least some coverage from the company you "work for" (i.e. Best IT Government Solutions, LLC). It will be significantly less most of the time than your average FT position *anywhere* will cover.
For the most part, when people mention "government contractors" here, it USUALLY means "full-time job without any of the benefits". And that's really all it comes down to.
God forbid we give people paid vacation time, sick days, holidays, and basic healthcare coverage. What has this world come to!?
A good way to do this would be to come up with a reputation-based system that filters down.
For example, CAs would need a higher reputation than that of sites and services.
This model won't work with the existing CA business model, however.
It will defrag whenever there's idle time to do it, it does not have to be on a Wednesday night.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/01/25/disk-defragmentation-background-and-engineering-the-windows-7-improvements.aspx
While I don't have a summary on the other defrag tools, Microsoft has a very good write-up on defragmentation with Windows 7, I suggest it as a good read.