Because that shit is hard and Humanities, Philosophy and Liberal Arts are easy to fake your way through a 4-year degree.
When all you need is a piece of paper with BA or BS written on it to be above the unemployment problem in the US, why study something hard? Although the unemployment rate in the US hovers around 9%, it's 20% for those without a college degree, and something like 3% for those with a degree.
More information is required to process your post. If we are to believe your claims, then ONLY Blackberries and full disk encrypted laptops would be used in businesses, but that's obviously not the case. Are you saying everyone else is breaking the law, or could you possibly be overstating the requirements of the law in your post?
I've worked in military intelligence as a government employee, and as a contractor. Care to guess who has more restrictive security policies? That's right, the contractor with the faux sense of importance and terabytes of fictional "trade secrets" they are trying to protect. As if anyone would ever steal ideas from the lowest-bidder government contractor...
Not at all. Supporting whatever crap you bring to the office isn't in my job description.
Going through IT to get my iPhone on the corporate network, however, IS in my job description, as in "you must go through IT if you want to use your personal devices on the corporate network."
So by proxy, it is in the IT guy's job description, even though you guys are always "too busy" to know what's in your job description. Maybe you could read it during one of your 17 smoke breaks you take a day?
Furthermore, unless you're the CEO or my boss in some other way, you don't get to add every single piece of technology under the sun to the list of things I'm required to support for you.
So you've never heard of the concept of a "stakeholder"? They are kind of like your "customer", but internal to your organization. In other words, they are your customer. Without them, you don't have a job. If stakeholder Bob needs a portable projector, and you don't have one for him, he damn well better get support for his personal one he buys and brings in...unless you want to cover the $X million dollar contract he didn't land because he couldn't do something as simple as project a sales pitch to a room full of old rich white guys looking to spend money.
The other problem I have heard in the past is the lack of ability to provision the phones and apps in bulk instead of having to setup 100 different iTunes account for 100 devices -this is one of the things that probably gives IT departments (and procurement) nightmares.
Sorry, this is just wrong. There is no such "lack of ability to provision phones and apps in bulk". The solutions are cross-platform as well, so no "but you have to buy a Mac" argument either.
I lost track of how many times I've let my coworkers use my iPhone to fill out our timecards while traveling because our corporate Blackberry and laptop VPNs won't work with the hotel wireless.
One of IT's legitimate gripes is that we're often asked to turn consumer-grade technology into business-grade technology with a wave of our magic wands.
Um, they probably should master the business-grade technology tasks they are responsible for first before griping about all the consumer stuff that we consumers can support ourselves.
Only the person who owns the machine gets the profits of it.
And the sales guy who sold the machine, and the receptionist at the company where the sales guy works, and the engineer who designed the machine, and the workers who manufactured the machine (or the engineers who designed the automation of the manufacturing of the machine), and the programmer who programmed the machine, and the software engineer who designed the programming, and the tech writer who wrote the tech specs, and the trainers who trained the product, and the all of those peoples' managers.
You would greatly increase the job market (and raise the median income significantly) in this country with every one burger flipper replaced by technology.
Not to mention, invent, design, assemble, engineer, deploy, maintain, program, etc. For every machine that takes one human job, several human jobs are created, and most of them pay very nicely.
I'm an instructional designer and an education technologist. Slashdot is a pretty homogenous group of users, most of whom are berating the use of computers in school. To you, I simply say that there are several different preferred learning styles. Making a movie as a mechanism for learning about history is a valid instructional design for some students. It just happens that you lot here tend to prefer different learning mechanisms. Engaging a non-nerd, non-intellectual into learning about a subject he or she has no interest in is not accomplished by telling them they need to be motivated about learning and they should just go out and learn it, like you all do on here.
In other words, the problem is far bigger than your nerd-centric worldview. The world's problems are not solved by implementing the quasi-aspie, anti-social, hyper-intellectuals' policies.
I worked in the Defense industry for nearly 20 years. The software that the big contractors produce is terrible and many years behind private industry. Saying that the software will be capable of doing all this killing in an automated fashion is never going to happen as long as the current procurement processes are in place.
Why would you have a higher likelihood of needing to call the police if you have expensive property. Property crime rates are much higher in low-income neighborhoods than rich ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Because that shit is hard and Humanities, Philosophy and Liberal Arts are easy to fake your way through a 4-year degree.
When all you need is a piece of paper with BA or BS written on it to be above the unemployment problem in the US, why study something hard? Although the unemployment rate in the US hovers around 9%, it's 20% for those without a college degree, and something like 3% for those with a degree.
I'm a contributing member of society. Hard work is over rated.
So then there's no problem with employees causing the IT Nightmare scenario outlined in this story and discussion thread.
Good luck having an "IT function" without any employees who need to use it.
Phew. Good thing I'm not in the UK.
More information is required to process your post. If we are to believe your claims, then ONLY Blackberries and full disk encrypted laptops would be used in businesses, but that's obviously not the case. Are you saying everyone else is breaking the law, or could you possibly be overstating the requirements of the law in your post?
This is an awesome post.
I've worked in military intelligence as a government employee, and as a contractor. Care to guess who has more restrictive security policies? That's right, the contractor with the faux sense of importance and terabytes of fictional "trade secrets" they are trying to protect. As if anyone would ever steal ideas from the lowest-bidder government contractor...
... that extra "few minutes" times 50 users adds up quickly.
Wouldn't want to have to skip one of those 17 smoke breaks the IT guys take a day now would we?
User support is an important issue, but the least of the issues that IT faces.
Without users, IT doesn't have a job. I'd move that up your important list a tad.
100% support, oh NOES!!!! I could never imagine having to do 100% of my job.
Not at all. Supporting whatever crap you bring to the office isn't in my job description.
Going through IT to get my iPhone on the corporate network, however, IS in my job description, as in "you must go through IT if you want to use your personal devices on the corporate network."
So by proxy, it is in the IT guy's job description, even though you guys are always "too busy" to know what's in your job description. Maybe you could read it during one of your 17 smoke breaks you take a day?
Furthermore, unless you're the CEO or my boss in some other way, you don't get to add every single piece of technology under the sun to the list of things I'm required to support for you.
So you've never heard of the concept of a "stakeholder"? They are kind of like your "customer", but internal to your organization. In other words, they are your customer. Without them, you don't have a job. If stakeholder Bob needs a portable projector, and you don't have one for him, he damn well better get support for his personal one he buys and brings in...unless you want to cover the $X million dollar contract he didn't land because he couldn't do something as simple as project a sales pitch to a room full of old rich white guys looking to spend money.
You really are new to this aren't you?
No I think he's been doing it the "IT way" for several years now, which gets to the crux of the problem. Keep up, IT, or be left behind (and jobless).
How do I control your phone?...How do I control what goes on the phone? ...How do I block certain apps on the phone?
Oi, this says it all.
The other problem I have heard in the past is the lack of ability to provision the phones and apps in bulk instead of having to setup 100 different iTunes account for 100 devices -this is one of the things that probably gives IT departments (and procurement) nightmares.
Sorry, this is just wrong. There is no such "lack of ability to provision phones and apps in bulk". The solutions are cross-platform as well, so no "but you have to buy a Mac" argument either.
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/
Nothing is hard to justify over using a Blackberry.
I lost track of how many times I've let my coworkers use my iPhone to fill out our timecards while traveling because our corporate Blackberry and laptop VPNs won't work with the hotel wireless.
One of IT's legitimate gripes is that we're often asked to turn consumer-grade technology into business-grade technology with a wave of our magic wands.
Um, they probably should master the business-grade technology tasks they are responsible for first before griping about all the consumer stuff that we consumers can support ourselves.
"From each according to ability, to each according to need" will become a workable proposition. I wish it would come in our lifetimes.
"Socialist!"...oh wait, for once Fox News talking point actually sticks!
Somebody has to invent, design, manufacture and maintain those machines, ya know?
Only the person who owns the machine gets the profits of it.
And the sales guy who sold the machine, and the receptionist at the company where the sales guy works, and the engineer who designed the machine, and the workers who manufactured the machine (or the engineers who designed the automation of the manufacturing of the machine), and the programmer who programmed the machine, and the software engineer who designed the programming, and the tech writer who wrote the tech specs, and the trainers who trained the product, and the all of those peoples' managers.
You would greatly increase the job market (and raise the median income significantly) in this country with every one burger flipper replaced by technology.
Not to mention, invent, design, assemble, engineer, deploy, maintain, program, etc. For every machine that takes one human job, several human jobs are created, and most of them pay very nicely.
I'm an instructional designer and an education technologist. Slashdot is a pretty homogenous group of users, most of whom are berating the use of computers in school. To you, I simply say that there are several different preferred learning styles. Making a movie as a mechanism for learning about history is a valid instructional design for some students. It just happens that you lot here tend to prefer different learning mechanisms. Engaging a non-nerd, non-intellectual into learning about a subject he or she has no interest in is not accomplished by telling them they need to be motivated about learning and they should just go out and learn it, like you all do on here.
In other words, the problem is far bigger than your nerd-centric worldview. The world's problems are not solved by implementing the quasi-aspie, anti-social, hyper-intellectuals' policies.
I worked in the Defense industry for nearly 20 years. The software that the big contractors produce is terrible and many years behind private industry. Saying that the software will be capable of doing all this killing in an automated fashion is never going to happen as long as the current procurement processes are in place.
Why would you have a higher likelihood of needing to call the police if you have expensive property. Property crime rates are much higher in low-income neighborhoods than rich ones.