For me to feel sorry for Apple, they'd first have to allow other products to buy stuff from their iTunes store. The whole reason Apple has been marginalized is because they tried to make people get everything through them.
The result -- everyone bought machines that didn't force them to get everything from one source. MS might learn a few lessons from Apple's screwed up playbook if they want to avoid future heartache.
Of course, it wouldn't hurt for Apple to learn how to build a decent mouse. Most people really like the two button design. Maybe Apple could increase their coolness factor by removing the keys from the keyboard.....
It's hard to give people reasons to switch from something that works, even when the new thing is BETTER than the current one.
I wonder how many linux users prefer the Dvorak key layout even though it's far superior and has been supported for many years? Once a base level of functionality is reached, most people aren't interested in messing with something that seems good enough for practical purposes.
Normal people shouldn't care any more about what OS their computer uses any more than they care what OS is in their phone, VCR, car computer, or whatever.
I could use linux on the desktop, but don't because there are too many problems I'd have to work around. On the other hand, I strongly prefer it for servers because it's more versatile and easier to maintain than MS.
Do you give that lecture to every child who hugs her teddy bear? Small kids should not be expected to understand the same things as older kids and adults. If a small child tortures a bear believed to be real, she should be in big trouble and the parents should be very concerned about figuring out what is going on.
Do you believe that violence and cruelty in entertainment and video games is OK if people think the characters are real? What entertainment value is there in watching people suffer or get killed? What can possibly be learned? Watching a virtual character die will not improve your ability to comprehend the border between life and death.
Although encrypting the entire disk is definitely useful for protecting data on stolen laptops, it won't do a bit of good against inside jobs, hardware key loggers, social engineering based attacks, and a lot of low tech approaches that don't require breaking encryption to work.
Encryption is an important tool, but I won't be surprised when news stories emerge because enormous amounts critical data was lost because encrypted files could not be read due to efforts by a disgruntled worker or ineptness.
As others have suggested, centralizing where data is kept, focusing on making that as secure and reliable as possible, and not implementing bonehead security mechanisms (such as impossible to remember passwords) that leave systems more vulnerable than before.
Yeah, empathy is a bitch. Empathizing with things that don't have feelings makes no sense. It is cruel to torture living things, even insects. But computers and software are tools. They are not alive and do not feel.
If people empathize with computer characters who are tortured, violence in video games, tv, and movies, really should be reined in. If people really relate that closely to virtual reality, it should not be such a sick, violent place.
When people respond to a computer character the same way they would a person or a living thing, it's a sign that people relate a bit too closely to the virtual world.
I hear people talking about TV and movie characters (i.e. actors pretending to be people who don't exist in the first place) as if they are real. People pay real money for virtual goods. However, I've also heard soldiers (particular pilots) compare real combat to video games. It seems like the line between virtual reality and actual reality is pretty dim for some.
But given the amount of time people spend on TV, in front of computers, or playing video games, this is hardly surprising.
Many, many billions were thrown at this when Reagan was still in the White House (this was affectionately referred to as "Star Wars" in the press since security was going to be provided by a bunch of satellites that could shoot down incoming missiles).
Over the years, the focus has moved from a space based platform to land based, and they still pour billions into the project. It still not ready to deter an attack, even one consisting of a single missile.
A lot of/.-ers complaining that Amiga is vaporware. Not yet. Amiga is still used in existing installations especially in the music/theater world for DMX/MIDI and other computer-controlled light- and music sets as well as real-time effects on lights, video and music. There are also people who still use all kinds of old hardware. Just a couple years ago, we migrated one of our services off a 20 year old VAX machine. Having said that, I wouldn't characterize the longevity of that system as being based on a great OS and great hardware.
Instead of the Amiga, they need to revive the Vic-20, the most powerful computer in the world. This wonder computer was produced by the same company a full 5 years before the Amiga. Come to think of it, I knew a lot more people that worked with the Vics and C64s than the Amigas even though everyone liked them.
At least then people will know why their email never got through. So many people use HTML email without being aware of it and don't realize that's what makes formatting possible.
Although the focus is on Outlook, it seems like there's an outside chance there may be other clients and web interfaces (namely all of them) that are vulnerable to most of the same problems....
Of course, the nice thing with an open source ILS is that there is one problem that cannot be solved with money: if your vendor happens to go out of business, or decides to stop supporting your product, or decides to hike your fees immensely and you don't have a good means of exporting all of your data (including serials and acquisitions) to another system, then you're basically screwed...... Open source at least gives you the assurance that you are not locked in with a given product; you own your data, and you can extend or enhance the system if you have the skills in-house or are willing to fund the skills....
And what makes more sense: having one hundred libraries paying $10K - $25K or more per year in basic support fees to vendors, or investing those same funds (or equivalent resources) towards a common library system that can be shared freely? Acquisitions and serials are tricky, sure, but you can make a lot of headway with that kind of common resource available.
Vendors do go out of business, and they do drop support outright. However, someone usually steps in to create a product to migrate the old customer base to the new product. Also, it is possible to get data out of proprietary structures (I've had to do this myself), though it is a PITA.
BTW, 10-25K per year is CHEAP unless you are a small library -- it's not that hard to spend over 100K in vendor maintenance in a year if you are large. But, when you consider the cost in FTE for doing real in house maintenance, that can be quite costly. There is a real benefit in being set up almost exactly the same way as someone else. That way your local systems wiz takes another job, the library isn't in real trouble because the only person who knew what was going on is no longer available. For one of the organizations I do volunteer work for, I have to maintain a bunch of legacy code that was written more than 10 years ago. There are lots of old dependencies that cause constant problems. It was probably very impressive when it was first written, but I cringe every time there is a problem report because I know the solution will be something screwball unless I want to rewrite everything.
I think there is enough talent out there to create and maintain a good open source ILS, and few would be more happy than I if Evergreen takes over the library world the way Apache took over web servers. However, Evergreen needs other libraries to invest real time and money into the project. Collectively, they can make a better product cheaper and maybe the small libraries can free ride, but for this to work, we need more than a handful of geeks at one place working on this. They've got a great start but libraries need to think of this not as free software, but as a collaborative project that will benefit everyone if enough people help.
The hard part about running an ILS isn't getting it up and running, but maintaining it after technologies and patron needs have moved on. Evergreen is dependent on many different technologies. What if one of them quits being maintained? Even very popular technologies can be abandoned and there's no to predict what will still be used in 20 or more years.
Most of these ILS were state of the art at one time, but decisions made many years ago have limited what they can do now. Don't get me wrong. I am fascinated by Evergreen and may even contribute to it sometime. I think it's a great idea, and think they have made some innovative design choices (many of which are not discussed in the article)
But we need to honest about what's going on here. A handful of clever people have got a very basic system up. It has no acquisitions or serials modules -- i.e. the harder part to write which isn't visible to the public but which is critical for wide scale implementation. The project must move forward very carefully, or someone will wind up reverse engineering all this stuff later.
If you run a library, you have to KNOW you'll be able to run the system because your entire operation and years worth of data depend on it. Turnkey systems may have all kinds of problems and be expensive, but the problems can be solved with money. There may be librarians with very strong IT skills, but there are few enough of them that you can't count on being able to hire at least one of them.
It makes more sense to me to put them in copy stores, like Kinko's, where it's peoples' job to make machines run smoothly and collect money for copies. Libraries aren't good at either. My second choice would be bookstores. I seem to remember that 6 or 7 years ago, Barnes and Noble announced that they would be selling PoD books from their brick and mortar stores. I think the idea was to reduce distribution costs and make more titles available. I wonder what happened with that.
That's true for academic libraries, but some public libraries have incredible circulation rates -- 4-6 times [ca.gov] their total collection per year. Some of the books don't circulate at all, and some rarely spend time on the shelf. Point taken, but that's largely because public libraries effectively "specialize" in pop literature. It is possible that people who just want something to read and dump/recycle could be enticed with PoD for the right price.
I can't seriously believe this will work unless at least some bestsellers are available in addition to works in the public domain. Then again, you can already buy popular literature at reasonable prices from Amazon and you don't have to go to the library to pick it up. If you to read something for free, you have to wait for it to be available at the library (or in some cases pay a very low "rental" fee)
Given that librarians have enough trouble with ordinary printers, copiers, etc when trying to print patron materials, forms, labels, etc, I wonder how reliable these will work out to be.
Neller predicts that within about five years On Demand Books will be able to reproduce every volume ever printed I wonder how much this Neller dude actually reads? Maybe the capacity will exist, but this prediction won't come to pass -- ever seen library circ statistics? In a large library, only a small percentage of books get checked out at all within a year, and many never get checked out over a period of decades.
People who can't get past the "books = good" logic seem hell bent on the idea that technology will change how libraries work. Electronic books have been around for years, and they've gone nowhere. After years of overhyped claims how they will transform services, the obsolete readers are unused.
There are a number of legit publishers and booksellers that already use PoD -- it's been around for years. It has its uses, but PoD is not a replacement for regular publishing which provides marketing, packaging, durable binding, and other services that are relevant to selling a quality product that people want.
If technology is the solution, why don't we access all books over the web with our credit cards at much lower cost than buying a book? There has been plenty of drivel about how you can reach everyone in the world with a web page. While technically true, something needs to happen for them want to read it in first place.
The only question is, what is the best approach to encourage more honorable folks to run for office? Perhaps the terms of office should be limited? Be aware that people who are even less sophisticated than the idiot who tried to pay attrition.org are making laws that supposedly will make the country safer from computer based attacks.
It just so happens that I provide services for a state legislature and was one of the technical people consulted when they passed a law last term relating to electronic government documents.
Terms definitely should not be limited. It takes time to learn how to do things. How do you think the shareholders would react if all the big corporations fired all the CEOs with more than a certain amount of experience? Managing government and setting public policy is very complicated. What job can you think of where not knowing what you're doing is an asset?
Try reading some laws on any topic and see how easy it is to understand. Legislators are ordinary people and rarely have expertise on legislation they are voting on. In order for them to do good, they have to understand the process and you can't do that if you have nothing but newbies who can easily be manipulated by experts with an interest in particular laws (a.k.a. lobbyists)
People hate lawyers, but it really wouldn't be a bad idea for people making the law to understand something about it. Think of the projects you've worked on where nontechnical people make technical decisions -- you get some pretty screwed up results. There's a similar dynamic when it comes to making public policy. You need people who actually know something, not just "nice" or "honorable" individuals.
The whole problem with computers is that they're too damn complicated and they don't work that well. OSes aren't anywhere near what people need.
When the car was first invented, you needed to be a mechanic to drive one (or you needed to have your own mechanic). However, nowadays, they run quite well if you just put gas in them and keep the fluids and filters clean. You don't need to know anything about setting fuel/air ratios, maintaining the transmission, or even repacking bearings since that stuff's all sealed now. You can subject this complex box of moving parts and electronics to harsh conditions for years on end, and practically no maintenance is necessary.
With computers, we are still in the stage where everyone has to be a mechanic. You have to screw around with linux to make it do what you want and it's hard to find any two installations that work the same. Windows and OSX may look pretty, but it's easy to mess up a computer and you have to know what you're doing to make things right. Most people don't want to spend their time wondering about the intricacies of how their hardware and software work. They just want the gizmo to do its job. They're not stupid -- they want to have a life in the real world.
No one should care what the OS is in their computer any more than they should care who manufactured the compressor for their refrigerator or the blower on their furnace. Until the computer can be made as easy to use and reliable as just about every other product, we can look forward to perpetual squabbles over whether option A or B is better when the reality is that they both leave much to be desired.
Although there are many very effective antispam techniques, some common methods are worse than the problem they are attempting to solve.
Content filters are code that effectively say "I know spam when I see it." Given that people can't say exactly what spam is, why would they trust code written by humans to do the same. Likewise, blacklists are dangerous. We have a mail list machine that hosts hundreds of thousands of subscribers. A lot of people classify any email they don't want as spam, so we occasionally get blacklisted, because a handful of people weren't expecting something (though many ISP's have whitelisted us).
We deal constantly with people who lose email because they set antispam measures as paranoid as possible (alternatively, their mail admins do this for them without their knowledge). This inevitably intercepts a certain amount of legitimate email. Then they get upset because they presume email is 100% reliable and mission critical communications are getting lost.
Only accepting mail from trusted senders is hopeless unless you already know everyone you need to communicate with. Frankly, anyone who knows everyone who needs to be in touch lives in a pretty closed world......
I'm not sure IT people are qualified to make such judgments. I'll bet most chicks would rather smooch a dog than a computer geek. This comment got me marked as a troll by 70%. Sheesh guys, ever heard of a joke? BTW, chicks dig guys who make them laugh. They like sensitive men, if you get your knickers in a twist over stuff like this they'll just think you're whiny and insecure.
This means they'll pick the dog over you every time.....:)
...drinking a moderate amount of alcohol -- up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women -- reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent... Yet we are told that 100% of humans eventually die from something. If the risk of every cause of death (which by definition must include alcohol related ones) is reduced by 18%, that difference must go somewhere.
Dogs are digusting, and so are their owners. I'm not sure IT people are qualified to make such judgments. I'll bet most chicks would rather smooch a dog than a computer geek.
I also think Laika has more business in this list than Pavlov's dogs or Ham. Peabody beats everyone on the list, hands down.
The gov't can read my e-mail all they want Considering some of the simple things the government can't seem to do, I'm seriously wondering about their practical capabilities. It takes a lot of time (a.k.a. money) to look through email closely enough to find much of interest -- email analysis is a lot more than throwing some keywords and grep statements at gigabytes of data.
I get a few hundred spams each day. Anyone who can even find the real stuff will be supremely bored. It's not even interesting to me, so if someone else wants to, more power to them.
For super secure applications, sure. We have a few people that deal with large amounts of very sensitive data.
However, for most people, what's the point in having a powerful machine with incredible software that can do everything, if all the functionality is locked out? It's like buying satellite TV and then locking out all the channels.
Having IT be a gatekeeper for determining what users "need" can do enormous damage to productivity. With few exceptions, we give staff admin permissions because we don't understand what they need their machines to do as well as they do. Nor do we have the time to dink with their setups until they are perfect -- that is their responsibility.
However, we make it crystal clear there is zero tolerance for proprietary software that we can't provide license information for or running rogue servers. They know they will be in big trouble if they install recreational software that interferes with the operation of their machines or which launches an attack.
We will rebuild a machine once, but if it was due to failure to follow policy, the machine gets totally locked down. People seem to "get it," problems are extremely rare, and the admin load is less than it would be for strong security. We find that people are much more open with us and don't subvert policies if we work with them.
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For me to feel sorry for Apple, they'd first have to allow other products to buy stuff from their iTunes store. The whole reason Apple has been marginalized is because they tried to make people get everything through them.
The result -- everyone bought machines that didn't force them to get everything from one source. MS might learn a few lessons from Apple's screwed up playbook if they want to avoid future heartache.
Of course, it wouldn't hurt for Apple to learn how to build a decent mouse. Most people really like the two button design. Maybe Apple could increase their coolness factor by removing the keys from the keyboard.....
I wonder how many linux users prefer the Dvorak key layout even though it's far superior and has been supported for many years? Once a base level of functionality is reached, most people aren't interested in messing with something that seems good enough for practical purposes.
Normal people shouldn't care any more about what OS their computer uses any more than they care what OS is in their phone, VCR, car computer, or whatever.
I could use linux on the desktop, but don't because there are too many problems I'd have to work around. On the other hand, I strongly prefer it for servers because it's more versatile and easier to maintain than MS.
Do you believe that violence and cruelty in entertainment and video games is OK if people think the characters are real? What entertainment value is there in watching people suffer or get killed? What can possibly be learned? Watching a virtual character die will not improve your ability to comprehend the border between life and death.
Although encrypting the entire disk is definitely useful for protecting data on stolen laptops, it won't do a bit of good against inside jobs, hardware key loggers, social engineering based attacks, and a lot of low tech approaches that don't require breaking encryption to work.
Encryption is an important tool, but I won't be surprised when news stories emerge because enormous amounts critical data was lost because encrypted files could not be read due to efforts by a disgruntled worker or ineptness.
As others have suggested, centralizing where data is kept, focusing on making that as secure and reliable as possible, and not implementing bonehead security mechanisms (such as impossible to remember passwords) that leave systems more vulnerable than before.
If people empathize with computer characters who are tortured, violence in video games, tv, and movies, really should be reined in. If people really relate that closely to virtual reality, it should not be such a sick, violent place.
When people respond to a computer character the same way they would a person or a living thing, it's a sign that people relate a bit too closely to the virtual world.
I hear people talking about TV and movie characters (i.e. actors pretending to be people who don't exist in the first place) as if they are real. People pay real money for virtual goods. However, I've also heard soldiers (particular pilots) compare real combat to video games. It seems like the line between virtual reality and actual reality is pretty dim for some.
But given the amount of time people spend on TV, in front of computers, or playing video games, this is hardly surprising.
Many, many billions were thrown at this when Reagan was still in the White House (this was affectionately referred to as "Star Wars" in the press since security was going to be provided by a bunch of satellites that could shoot down incoming missiles).
Over the years, the focus has moved from a space based platform to land based, and they still pour billions into the project. It still not ready to deter an attack, even one consisting of a single missile.
Instead of the Amiga, they need to revive the Vic-20, the most powerful computer in the world. This wonder computer was produced by the same company a full 5 years before the Amiga. Come to think of it, I knew a lot more people that worked with the Vics and C64s than the Amigas even though everyone liked them.
Then again,
Interesting concept. Aggravate the cell phone user directly, and then s/he won't want to use a cell phone while driving or at the movies.......
That aside, I wonder how many products the military already uses send HTML email. Not all email originates from ordinary mail clients.....
At least then people will know why their email never got through. So many people use HTML email without being aware of it and don't realize that's what makes formatting possible.
Although the focus is on Outlook, it seems like there's an outside chance there may be other clients and web interfaces (namely all of them) that are vulnerable to most of the same problems....
Vendors do go out of business, and they do drop support outright. However, someone usually steps in to create a product to migrate the old customer base to the new product. Also, it is possible to get data out of proprietary structures (I've had to do this myself), though it is a PITA.And what makes more sense: having one hundred libraries paying $10K - $25K or more per year in basic support fees to vendors, or investing those same funds (or equivalent resources) towards a common library system that can be shared freely? Acquisitions and serials are tricky, sure, but you can make a lot of headway with that kind of common resource available.
BTW, 10-25K per year is CHEAP unless you are a small library -- it's not that hard to spend over 100K in vendor maintenance in a year if you are large. But, when you consider the cost in FTE for doing real in house maintenance, that can be quite costly. There is a real benefit in being set up almost exactly the same way as someone else. That way your local systems wiz takes another job, the library isn't in real trouble because the only person who knew what was going on is no longer available. For one of the organizations I do volunteer work for, I have to maintain a bunch of legacy code that was written more than 10 years ago. There are lots of old dependencies that cause constant problems. It was probably very impressive when it was first written, but I cringe every time there is a problem report because I know the solution will be something screwball unless I want to rewrite everything.
I think there is enough talent out there to create and maintain a good open source ILS, and few would be more happy than I if Evergreen takes over the library world the way Apache took over web servers. However, Evergreen needs other libraries to invest real time and money into the project. Collectively, they can make a better product cheaper and maybe the small libraries can free ride, but for this to work, we need more than a handful of geeks at one place working on this. They've got a great start but libraries need to think of this not as free software, but as a collaborative project that will benefit everyone if enough people help.
The hard part about running an ILS isn't getting it up and running, but maintaining it after technologies and patron needs have moved on. Evergreen is dependent on many different technologies. What if one of them quits being maintained? Even very popular technologies can be abandoned and there's no to predict what will still be used in 20 or more years.
Most of these ILS were state of the art at one time, but decisions made many years ago have limited what they can do now. Don't get me wrong. I am fascinated by Evergreen and may even contribute to it sometime. I think it's a great idea, and think they have made some innovative design choices (many of which are not discussed in the article)
But we need to honest about what's going on here. A handful of clever people have got a very basic system up. It has no acquisitions or serials modules -- i.e. the harder part to write which isn't visible to the public but which is critical for wide scale implementation. The project must move forward very carefully, or someone will wind up reverse engineering all this stuff later.
If you run a library, you have to KNOW you'll be able to run the system because your entire operation and years worth of data depend on it. Turnkey systems may have all kinds of problems and be expensive, but the problems can be solved with money. There may be librarians with very strong IT skills, but there are few enough of them that you can't count on being able to hire at least one of them.
I can't seriously believe this will work unless at least some bestsellers are available in addition to works in the public domain. Then again, you can already buy popular literature at reasonable prices from Amazon and you don't have to go to the library to pick it up. If you to read something for free, you have to wait for it to be available at the library (or in some cases pay a very low "rental" fee)
Given that librarians have enough trouble with ordinary printers, copiers, etc when trying to print patron materials, forms, labels, etc, I wonder how reliable these will work out to be.
People who can't get past the "books = good" logic seem hell bent on the idea that technology will change how libraries work. Electronic books have been around for years, and they've gone nowhere. After years of overhyped claims how they will transform services, the obsolete readers are unused.
There are a number of legit publishers and booksellers that already use PoD -- it's been around for years. It has its uses, but PoD is not a replacement for regular publishing which provides marketing, packaging, durable binding, and other services that are relevant to selling a quality product that people want.
If technology is the solution, why don't we access all books over the web with our credit cards at much lower cost than buying a book? There has been plenty of drivel about how you can reach everyone in the world with a web page. While technically true, something needs to happen for them want to read it in first place.
It just so happens that I provide services for a state legislature and was one of the technical people consulted when they passed a law last term relating to electronic government documents.
Terms definitely should not be limited. It takes time to learn how to do things. How do you think the shareholders would react if all the big corporations fired all the CEOs with more than a certain amount of experience? Managing government and setting public policy is very complicated. What job can you think of where not knowing what you're doing is an asset?
Try reading some laws on any topic and see how easy it is to understand. Legislators are ordinary people and rarely have expertise on legislation they are voting on. In order for them to do good, they have to understand the process and you can't do that if you have nothing but newbies who can easily be manipulated by experts with an interest in particular laws (a.k.a. lobbyists)
People hate lawyers, but it really wouldn't be a bad idea for people making the law to understand something about it. Think of the projects you've worked on where nontechnical people make technical decisions -- you get some pretty screwed up results. There's a similar dynamic when it comes to making public policy. You need people who actually know something, not just "nice" or "honorable" individuals.
The whole problem with computers is that they're too damn complicated and they don't work that well. OSes aren't anywhere near what people need.
When the car was first invented, you needed to be a mechanic to drive one (or you needed to have your own mechanic). However, nowadays, they run quite well if you just put gas in them and keep the fluids and filters clean. You don't need to know anything about setting fuel/air ratios, maintaining the transmission, or even repacking bearings since that stuff's all sealed now. You can subject this complex box of moving parts and electronics to harsh conditions for years on end, and practically no maintenance is necessary.
With computers, we are still in the stage where everyone has to be a mechanic. You have to screw around with linux to make it do what you want and it's hard to find any two installations that work the same. Windows and OSX may look pretty, but it's easy to mess up a computer and you have to know what you're doing to make things right. Most people don't want to spend their time wondering about the intricacies of how their hardware and software work. They just want the gizmo to do its job. They're not stupid -- they want to have a life in the real world.
No one should care what the OS is in their computer any more than they should care who manufactured the compressor for their refrigerator or the blower on their furnace. Until the computer can be made as easy to use and reliable as just about every other product, we can look forward to perpetual squabbles over whether option A or B is better when the reality is that they both leave much to be desired.
Although there are many very effective antispam techniques, some common methods are worse than the problem they are attempting to solve.
Content filters are code that effectively say "I know spam when I see it." Given that people can't say exactly what spam is, why would they trust code written by humans to do the same. Likewise, blacklists are dangerous. We have a mail list machine that hosts hundreds of thousands of subscribers. A lot of people classify any email they don't want as spam, so we occasionally get blacklisted, because a handful of people weren't expecting something (though many ISP's have whitelisted us).
We deal constantly with people who lose email because they set antispam measures as paranoid as possible (alternatively, their mail admins do this for them without their knowledge). This inevitably intercepts a certain amount of legitimate email. Then they get upset because they presume email is 100% reliable and mission critical communications are getting lost.
Only accepting mail from trusted senders is hopeless unless you already know everyone you need to communicate with. Frankly, anyone who knows everyone who needs to be in touch lives in a pretty closed world......
This means they'll pick the dog over you every time
*sniff* not my karma! *sniff*
...drinking a moderate amount of alcohol -- up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women -- reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent... Yet we are told that 100% of humans eventually die from something. If the risk of every cause of death (which by definition must include alcohol related ones) is reduced by 18%, that difference must go somewhere.Must be reincarnation......
I also think Laika has more business in this list than Pavlov's dogs or Ham. Peabody beats everyone on the list, hands down.
I get a few hundred spams each day. Anyone who can even find the real stuff will be supremely bored. It's not even interesting to me, so if someone else wants to, more power to them.
For super secure applications, sure. We have a few people that deal with large amounts of very sensitive data.
However, for most people, what's the point in having a powerful machine with incredible software that can do everything, if all the functionality is locked out? It's like buying satellite TV and then locking out all the channels.
Having IT be a gatekeeper for determining what users "need" can do enormous damage to productivity. With few exceptions, we give staff admin permissions because we don't understand what they need their machines to do as well as they do. Nor do we have the time to dink with their setups until they are perfect -- that is their responsibility.
However, we make it crystal clear there is zero tolerance for proprietary software that we can't provide license information for or running rogue servers. They know they will be in big trouble if they install recreational software that interferes with the operation of their machines or which launches an attack.
We will rebuild a machine once, but if it was due to failure to follow policy, the machine gets totally locked down. People seem to "get it," problems are extremely rare, and the admin load is less than it would be for strong security. We find that people are much more open with us and don't subvert policies if we work with them.