Hi! Good points, but I'm going to argue with you. =)
You've got a couple of issues here.
First, you've got a problem because that junior admin wasn't comfortable coming to you to seek approval/advice to set up the FTP server. That's not good. People are not comfortable going to you with issues.
Suppose the person didn't know that setting up the FTP server was a bad thing, or that they needed approval. Then you made a mistake by failing to document policy about setting up a new "supported" service and advertising that policy.
Finally, it's your job to be an enabler of users and other administrators. It's not you're job to horde the HTTP server -- it's your job to give it's functionality away. If the junior admin didn't know it was a service that he could use, or it wasn't convenient to use, then you've failed to meet his needs. It's not a problem that the admin is trying to do his job, that's an opportunity to help the organization succeed!
You forgot -- the admin doesn't work for you. YOU WORK FOR HIM. It's management's job to support their staff and you've failed to advertise that support.
Often as IT departments grow, there needs to be mentoring and internal infrastructure groups that serve the front line admins by giving them support, tools, and guidance to help manage the work load. This is a level of management.
Finally, I should note that I agree with you about supporting services. This is why I encourage the groups that I work with to maintain a list of "supported services" that we are approved by funding management to support. If it's not on that list, people know that we are going to need to seek funding approval to support it, because supporting anything means more resources to support it.
It also makes it easy to tell Bob in accounting that I won't help him install his Logitech webcam because it isn't supported, nor is his attempts to set up an armature porn studio in his office.
You know the other guy who set up AD and left the company? Perhaps he jumped on the clue train and left for a better place. You might consider doing the same.
First quarter of the year is a good time to be looking for work, and I know there are jobs out there. I'm looking for one myself. Two of my peers recently quit after finding better jobs. The IT department at the company I work for has awful management, and that's beyond my ability to fix -- you can't fix stupid. Best to just leave and work for someone who you can be productive for, instead of being fed self-induced problem after problem by witless, unsupportive, personnel managers.
It sounds like you did the right thing, so I'm confused to why you are not happy. As long as they pay you for the next two weeks, everything is good.
If you had some personal info that you wanted to get from computer systems, you can still request that someone get it for you, but you really should have thought about this before you let them know that you were leaving.
Terminating access immediately upon notice of intent to leave is an okay thing to do for some organizations, but it's up to them.
How they handle your resignation has a lot to do with how you feel.
Remember that great quote, "Don't mistake for malice what is easily explained for by stupidity." They probably don't hate you for quitting -- they just want to cover their butt. They might be a little scared and confused. And if they do hate you for quitting... well, you did the right thing by quitting, because they suck!
I would be very interested in having a reference of all negative things Microsoft has done. Is there such a thing? I've googled around for a few minutes, but have not yet found anything that lists it all.
This isn't bad -- this is GREAT! This is an investigators dream; documented evidence of the social structure of a drug ring. They know who's friends with who and have leads galore.
Touchpads versus Touchpoints(eraser point)
on
Laptops Outsell Desktops
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Am I the only one who dreadfully hates touchpads and prefers touchpoints (eraser points, or whatever else you want to call them)?
IBM still uses the touchpoints, but they are really expensive. I really liked Dell laptops, until they went el-cheapo a year or two ago and removed the old legacy ports and the touchpoints at the same time. A few laptops, especially those angled at the business market, still have touchpoints, but they are few, more expensive, and lack the features that I desire.
I saw dozens of dead IBM DeathStar drives and experienced several here at home. Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive business after that huge disaster. Along with it, they bought the bad name. I won't trust Hitachi drives for a long long time.
Performance is irrelevant against the validity of data in a permanent storage device such as a hard disk drive.
"Barrett, who taught at Stanford University before joining Intel in 1974, turned 65 last month, reaching the Santa Clara firm's mandatory retirement age for the office of CEO."
You can't force a person into retirement because of their age. That's age discrimination! He is going willingly, or unwillingly because he is being forced out. In this case, I fully believe that it is willingly.
Three years ago I worked for a computer gaming firm and we put out a well-known MMO product. It, unfortunately, ran on Windows 2000 systems because the server software was written to run on Windows. This exact same problem plagued our systems, where the servers would refuse to allow UDP sessions to be opened and closed after approximately 50 days! Bad stuff would start to happen overall, and the system would become unstable. We had to reboot systems every 30 days in the middle of the night. It was a real pain. For all of this time, I had no idea what was causing the bug!
I have a saying for this. "You can't force someone to take the red pill". It goes for alternative operating systems, and many things in general. If they aren't ready, giving it to them isn't going to help.
On the 27th of last month, the author of the Courier mail system, Sam Varshavchik, announced that Sender ID would not be supported by his MTA software due to the Microsoft patent problems, but that SPF would be. The following is a copy of that eMail.
--
The purpose of this message is to clarify my plans for any deployment of the Sender-ID specification in Courier (http://www.courier-mta.org).
Microsoft has made certain patent claims on the Sender-ID specification. Microsoft has issued the IPR disclosures and royalty free license required by the IETF. It appears that IETF's contemporary policies do not prevent the sponsor/advocates from including patented IP material into standards-track specifications, without even requiring the sponsor to actually enumerate and identify their intellectual property; a mere claim of the existence of some nebulous IP rights is sufficient, which can be revealed at any point in the future, at the sponsor's discretion.
The current development version of Courier implements the original SPF-classic specification, that predates Sender-ID. This will be rolled into a forthcoming release. I'm quite pleased with the results so far -- there are a lot of classic SPF records in existence, as witnessed by my mail logs:-)
It will not be possible for me to implement Sender ID in Courier. Courier is licensed under the GPL. The FSF already flatly stated that Microsoft's IP license is not GPL compatible. I reviewed the most recent version of Microsoft's proposed IP license, and I've reached the same conclusion. For this reason Sender ID cannot be implemented in Courier; Courier's implementation will be limited to the unencumbered SPF-classic.
If you are referring to the actual "ATI Radeon" card, you're nuts to even try gaming on it -- too old/slow. I am aware that ATI users had more video related issues than NVidia users for Horizons. I can't say exactly why that is. I can say that there were many who used ATI video cards with absolutely no problem, including myself.
* Was it actually possible to unlock the new races from launch, or was the game shipped before the races were even in the game?
Yes, I believe it was. They had at least some of the Satyr and other race content in when it shipped. It was always a switch that AE had to throw though -- there was no ability for the gamers to initiate the unlock without action taken by AE on the server side.
* Do you think they'll pull out of chapter 11 and turn a profit?
Sorry, won't answer that question right now.
* Have the show-stopping bugs been fixed? (ati issues, gui issues, etc)
Yes. You have to remember the perspective of the publisher. Just because you as an individual have a show-stopping problem doesn't mean that everyone else does too. The client really was in pretty good shape when the game shipped. The real quantity of show-stopping support requests that we got was pretty low, and the majority of them I would categorize under "customer on crack" rather than an actual bug. The quantity of people who try to play graphic intensive games using a Pentium 200 and S3 Savage 4 video card no longer amazes me.
Here in Mesa Arizona, where Horizons was made, we have SCORPIONS. And the scorpions climb up to your second story apartment and start climbing up your walls. The good news is that only the "potentially deadly" scorpions can climb walls.
Hi. I am a former Artifact Entertainment (Horizons) employee. I was a systems administrator for their production server and networking equipment. If you have questions, post them and I will answer, so long as it won't get me into trouble.
I have a conspiracy theory. I noted when AT&T came out with the Nokia 6800, the precursor to the 6820. I even went to an AT&T store to check one out, and the 6800 phone in the AT&T store said that it was compatible with "AT&T" "Cingular" and "TMobile", under the services section of the Nokia OS. Now the 6820 has been released and at almost the same exact time, TMobile has released the 6800 as one of their products. I am willing to water that AT&T paid a good sum to Nokia to have exclusive rights to sell this phone along with service in the United States. It won't stop you from buying a phone from Nokia directly or eBay, but I bet that in almost exactly a year, TMobile will have this phone available for their network.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think you should have been modded troll, because based on your post history I think you were being honest.
That said, I totally disagree with you. You are a fool. Put the koolaid down.
Hi! Good points, but I'm going to argue with you. =)
You've got a couple of issues here.
First, you've got a problem because that junior admin wasn't comfortable coming to you to seek approval/advice to set up the FTP server. That's not good. People are not comfortable going to you with issues.
Suppose the person didn't know that setting up the FTP server was a bad thing, or that they needed approval. Then you made a mistake by failing to document policy about setting up a new "supported" service and advertising that policy.
Finally, it's your job to be an enabler of users and other administrators. It's not you're job to horde the HTTP server -- it's your job to give it's functionality away. If the junior admin didn't know it was a service that he could use, or it wasn't convenient to use, then you've failed to meet his needs. It's not a problem that the admin is trying to do his job, that's an opportunity to help the organization succeed!
You forgot -- the admin doesn't work for you. YOU WORK FOR HIM. It's management's job to support their staff and you've failed to advertise that support.
Often as IT departments grow, there needs to be mentoring and internal infrastructure groups that serve the front line admins by giving them support, tools, and guidance to help manage the work load. This is a level of management.
Finally, I should note that I agree with you about supporting services. This is why I encourage the groups that I work with to maintain a list of "supported services" that we are approved by funding management to support. If it's not on that list, people know that we are going to need to seek funding approval to support it, because supporting anything means more resources to support it.
It also makes it easy to tell Bob in accounting that I won't help him install his Logitech webcam because it isn't supported, nor is his attempts to set up an armature porn studio in his office.
You know the other guy who set up AD and left the company? Perhaps he jumped on the clue train and left for a better place. You might consider doing the same.
First quarter of the year is a good time to be looking for work, and I know there are jobs out there. I'm looking for one myself. Two of my peers recently quit after finding better jobs. The IT department at the company I work for has awful management, and that's beyond my ability to fix -- you can't fix stupid. Best to just leave and work for someone who you can be productive for, instead of being fed self-induced problem after problem by witless, unsupportive, personnel managers.
It sounds like you did the right thing, so I'm confused to why you are not happy. As long as they pay you for the next two weeks, everything is good.
If you had some personal info that you wanted to get from computer systems, you can still request that someone get it for you, but you really should have thought about this before you let them know that you were leaving.
Terminating access immediately upon notice of intent to leave is an okay thing to do for some organizations, but it's up to them.
How they handle your resignation has a lot to do with how you feel.
Remember that great quote, "Don't mistake for malice what is easily explained for by stupidity." They probably don't hate you for quitting -- they just want to cover their butt. They might be a little scared and confused. And if they do hate you for quitting... well, you did the right thing by quitting, because they suck!
Here is what I found so far...
o ft/microsoft.pdfs liking_micro.html. 9399:_foray_into_the_Internet_and_other_venues
http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/
http://archive.corporatewatch.org/profiles/micros
http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/03/di
http://www.salon.com/tech/special/microsoft/
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#1995.E2.80
http://uk-linux.news-view.co.uk/topic-6268.html
Unfortunately, I didn't find a comprehensive timeline of Microsoft's misdeeds.
I would be very interested in having a reference of all negative things Microsoft has done. Is there such a thing? I've googled around for a few minutes, but have not yet found anything that lists it all.
mod up.
Mod this up. IBM made a name for itself, and Hitachi bought it -- all of it.
This isn't bad -- this is GREAT! This is an investigators dream; documented evidence of the social structure of a drug ring. They know who's friends with who and have leads galore.
http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=25618. 0
Am I the only one who dreadfully hates touchpads and prefers touchpoints (eraser points, or whatever else you want to call them)?
IBM still uses the touchpoints, but they are really expensive. I really liked Dell laptops, until they went el-cheapo a year or two ago and removed the old legacy ports and the touchpoints at the same time. A few laptops, especially those angled at the business market, still have touchpoints, but they are few, more expensive, and lack the features that I desire.
Why is it that I have that Ren & Stimpy song playing it my head?
Done. TV free for over eight years now. As for PBS, they have a website.
No inscentive to ever pay for TV again.
I saw dozens of dead IBM DeathStar drives and experienced several here at home. Hitachi bought IBM's hard drive business after that huge disaster. Along with it, they bought the bad name. I won't trust Hitachi drives for a long long time.
Performance is irrelevant against the validity of data in a permanent storage device such as a hard disk drive.
I didn't have a reason to own a DVD writer before this. Crud, now I have to spend money.
Specifically, this is the hostperm.1 file in your profile directory.
Mine looks kinda like;
# Permission File
# This is a generated file! Do not edit.
host install 1 texturizer.net
host install 1 mozdev.org
host install 1 mozilla.org
Check this quote:
"Barrett, who taught at Stanford University before joining Intel in 1974, turned 65 last month, reaching the Santa Clara firm's mandatory retirement age for the office of CEO."
You can't force a person into retirement because of their age. That's age discrimination! He is going willingly, or unwillingly because he is being forced out. In this case, I fully believe that it is willingly.
Is this actually on paper though?
Three years ago I worked for a computer gaming firm and we put out a well-known MMO product. It, unfortunately, ran on Windows 2000 systems because the server software was written to run on Windows. This exact same problem plagued our systems, where the servers would refuse to allow UDP sessions to be opened and closed after approximately 50 days! Bad stuff would start to happen overall, and the system would become unstable. We had to reboot systems every 30 days in the middle of the night. It was a real pain. For all of this time, I had no idea what was causing the bug!
I have a saying for this. "You can't force someone to take the red pill". It goes for alternative operating systems, and many things in general. If they aren't ready, giving it to them isn't going to help.
On the 27th of last month, the author of the Courier mail system, Sam Varshavchik, announced that Sender ID would not be supported by his MTA software due to the Microsoft patent problems, but that SPF would be. The following is a copy of that eMail.
:-)
--
The purpose of this message is to clarify my plans for any deployment of the Sender-ID specification in Courier (http://www.courier-mta.org).
Microsoft has made certain patent claims on the Sender-ID specification. Microsoft has issued the IPR disclosures and royalty free license required by the IETF. It appears that IETF's contemporary policies do not prevent the sponsor/advocates from including patented IP material into standards-track specifications, without even requiring the sponsor to actually enumerate and identify their intellectual property; a mere claim of the existence of some nebulous IP rights is sufficient, which can be revealed at any point in the future, at the sponsor's discretion.
The current development version of Courier implements the original SPF-classic specification, that predates Sender-ID. This will be rolled into a forthcoming release. I'm quite pleased with the results so far -- there are a lot of classic SPF records in existence, as witnessed by my mail logs
It will not be possible for me to implement Sender ID in Courier. Courier is licensed under the GPL. The FSF already flatly stated that Microsoft's IP license is not GPL compatible. I reviewed the most recent version of Microsoft's proposed IP license, and I've reached the same conclusion. For this reason Sender ID cannot be implemented in Courier; Courier's implementation will be limited to the unencumbered SPF-classic.
--
Sam Varshavchik
http://www.courier-mta.org
* Why didn't it run properly on Radeons?
If you are referring to the actual "ATI Radeon" card, you're nuts to even try gaming on it -- too old/slow. I am aware that ATI users had more video related issues than NVidia users for Horizons. I can't say exactly why that is. I can say that there were many who used ATI video cards with absolutely no problem, including myself.
* Was it actually possible to unlock the new races from launch, or was the game shipped before the races were even in the game?
Yes, I believe it was. They had at least some of the Satyr and other race content in when it shipped. It was always a switch that AE had to throw though -- there was no ability for the gamers to initiate the unlock without action taken by AE on the server side.
* Do you think they'll pull out of chapter 11 and turn a profit?
Sorry, won't answer that question right now.
* Have the show-stopping bugs been fixed? (ati issues, gui issues, etc)
Yes. You have to remember the perspective of the publisher. Just because you as an individual have a show-stopping problem doesn't mean that everyone else does too. The client really was in pretty good shape when the game shipped. The real quantity of show-stopping support requests that we got was pretty low, and the majority of them I would categorize under "customer on crack" rather than an actual bug. The quantity of people who try to play graphic intensive games using a Pentium 200 and S3 Savage 4 video card no longer amazes me.
http://www.opendreams.net/jesse/images/20040722_ar izona_bark_scorpion/
Hi. I am a former Artifact Entertainment (Horizons) employee. I was a systems administrator for their production server and networking equipment. If you have questions, post them and I will answer, so long as it won't get me into trouble.
That's "wager", not "water". I am not going to water myself any time soon if I can help it.
I have a conspiracy theory. I noted when AT&T came out with the Nokia 6800, the precursor to the 6820. I even went to an AT&T store to check one out, and the 6800 phone in the AT&T store said that it was compatible with "AT&T" "Cingular" and "TMobile", under the services section of the Nokia OS. Now the 6820 has been released and at almost the same exact time, TMobile has released the 6800 as one of their products. I am willing to water that AT&T paid a good sum to Nokia to have exclusive rights to sell this phone along with service in the United States. It won't stop you from buying a phone from Nokia directly or eBay, but I bet that in almost exactly a year, TMobile will have this phone available for their network.
I am a TMobile customer.