Here's the problem. Go to the web site. Okay, what does this company do. I see a lot of buzz words, after reading for a minute I still have no idea. "The Bobs" would have a field day with this company.
If I owned the company and was paying you salary, sure, I'd go for it. Free Labor for all. Need more incentive? I've got a roll of stock to hand out.
Seriously, in a shop your size, it's a good short term solution, but hard to pull off long term. Dell, IBM, Compaq and the ilk have an advantage that they spec out thier Mobo's exactly. They can have a single driver install that works for 100 models of computer.
Back in the days I did break fix I came across too many systems that people have put together that were hard to support. You'd get odd errors, but nothing would ever check out as bad no matter how you tested it.
The worst problem was no system was like another. You'd go to a desk. Windows is iritiating itself to support. Let alone trying to figure out what's inside with out cracking the case. With a big name you look at the front of box.
You might want to see if you can go somewhere down the middle. First, call around to several business electronic resellers. Tell them how many manchines you're looking for, and what ballpark range price you want. Also let them know you're calling around to several vendors. Sometimes you can find bargins. In Particular these days in the Cel 1Ghz area. Which is more than 2x than your currect crop of computer. Companies like insight and CDW. Might not hurt to check out the likes of TigerDirect.
If that fails, local IT shops might be able to puts something together for you. The fact that you're looking at 15+ machines means you can most likely deal. Your support costs may not be all that lower, but there is a chance you'll be able to get a replacement part quicker. At the very least you'll save time over having to do it yourself.
Last resort is doing it all yourself. Sure at home, you don't want no stink'n pre-built. Specially a consumer one from a retail store. But at work you have...well...work, and it's doubtful you have the work bench to setup 15 computers at one like an asembly line.
Perhaps it's the EE's I've run into. They seem like a pretty bright lot that have to take just as much school, but start out in the high 20's to low 30's instead of the 40's that many CS people snagged. In fact one company I worked on the college recruiting team (technical interviews), we paid 52K right out of school.
Well, to be honest, I've only met a couple project managers out there who could actually manage a project. Those are the types who document, centralize, and instead of getting in the way of the programmer, act as a shield from various business interests.
My problem is the vast number of PMs I've run into who are BA MIS people who dropped out of BS CS program in college because they couldn't cut it. The idea that the people who couldn't cut it in school doing what I do are now telling me how to do my job, and how long my job should take. Anyone else see the irony?
It should be noted that Embedded programmer, just like Electrical Engineers, get the shaft big time. Experienced web programmers (non-Microsoft), and many IT positions (like Oracle DBA's) can grab six figure salaries. It's a shame really because I have a great deal of respect for the low level guys, who really have to have a much bigger grasp of logic than those of us working on the higher levels. There are of course exceptions, senior engineers, and managing engineers, but most shops that deal with embedded and EEs have one or two top dogs to a dozen or so poorly (relatively speaking) peons.
I don't find out of country work a problem though. They just don't perform as well as the lazy American counter parts. The money you save in labor costs disappears as when you have a much longer bug/enhancement cycle. Most of which is caused by a culture/language gap.
Outsource to India can work well if you have a product that you have specific bug fixes that need to be done. But new products that require a really good analyst to have face side with the business and really hammer out details. Business like working face to face with someone who knows the lingo and can instill confidence. And they are willing to pay two to three times as much for that fuzzy feeling.
This is really sad. Radlight was a really nice mpeg viewer. One of the few that handles 16:9 aspect displays well. I remember emailing one of the developers about a bug once, not only did they ack the bug, but they sent me a follow up when the release with the fix was out. Freak'n Microsoft was never half as good. What ever happened to using the traditional shareware model? Look at companies like JASC, start small, make quality products and grow big.
Eva could never go main stream, with the exception of Encore Action Network. Encore is the only national network that shows uncut anime. And they don't even show it all that often, plus no one really watches the network much. (If you live on the west coast there are some cool PBS stations, and if you can speak japanese you could get TV Japan on Dish Network)
Eva deals directly with religious symbolism. Even mild religious references are a no-no for Cartoon Network. Screening rights would not be cheap, Anyone big enough to afford it wouldn't want to play it.
Besides ADV is more than happy to sell yet another set to people.
It's nice to see the PUC take some action when it comes to highspeed services, but the FCC is pushing hard to have control over all Telco based broadband services. The CA ruling falls on the tails of the MN PUC getting involved with the Qwest.net customer transfer to MSN. MN brokered a settlement that allowed people to get out of MSN. Which Qwest and MSN had made very hard to do.
The problem is, MN didn't have standing to regulate the DSL deal between Qwest and MSN. They had limited standing involving consumer issues mostly regaurding how the new service was advertized. These issues were taken by the Attorny Generals office. Which in MN is extremely agressive.
Insiders in the case and most of the board memebers knew that they no longer had the ability to regulate DSL in the way a non-enhanced service would be. And Qwest/MSN was very quick to point out that the PUC had no authority. What the PUC lacked in standing, they made up for in the ability of being a major pain in the ass. It was cheaper to settle for Qwest and MSN.
Qwest/MSN would have won most likely in federal court to make it an FCC matter. (The FCC takes months/years to hear a case) But, in the unlikely event that they lost, MSN could be considered a "Retail communications seller". Extremly bad for MSN because they aren't a DLEC or CLEC. The fine would be in the millions.
At any rate, CPUC can say they have the right to do this or that. But the LEC decides it wants to get them out of the picture for enhanced services they will win.
Cost effective for what? The companies that buy customer info have their own systems.
As far as cost effective...well, you're pointing to a product that doesn't mention a price range on it's web page. Other than saving on sun hardware, there's nothing to show that this is anymore cost effective than some of the larger turn key web reporting systems. And the larger turn key product have all the reporting and datamining pre-done.
This thing only takes care of a small part of the back end. Let's think about this. What kind of data are you going to mine? Anything simple no one wants. There are already companies that compile web site hits and sell the data. You've got some serious data modeling to do, and a couple SQL statements isn't going to do it. You need some serious Math and IT power to finish the project.
I stand by my original post because I've been there at a National ISP that does sell user traffic, and it's not done via the traffic caches. A 3rd part company puts a box in at the POP and sniffs the traffic. It's not like comcast is the only one. If you use a large national ISP thance chances are VERY HIGH that your traffic is sniffed. The thing is you will NOT know it's happening. It's 100% transparent.
I've worked at a national ISP that did a trail of this hardware. The goal is to take the heat off upsteam link. It's fairly useful in a small market were your upstream has to cross a LATA incurring long distance charges.
The logs generated for this device is not anonymous. It's pretty much reads like an Apache log. Source and destination IPs for every request. I remeber wanting to get some sample data to see if we needed to take the Cache log into account for looking at out admin server traffic reports. Small town USA pretty much surfs over 50% porn.
At any rate. It's doubtful they use the cache box to collect internet traffic stats. Why? Well, basically, it's a money issue. Once you have the data great...except it's a freak'n huge sh*tload of data. If you want useful reporting you need to keep data for a year. Your're looking putting almost 500K into disk, CPU, and software. It's not worth it because you'd never recoup the money.
This does NOT mean your ISP doesn't sell your data. An ISP can make some serious cash by selling your data. ISP's can and DO enter into agreements with companies that collect data. However, the ISP wash their hands of the actual process. They let a 3rd party drop a Switch or a Bridge into a POP that directs traffic to a machine that will totally transparently collect data and start collecting checks.
Point is, the Cache is exactly what it appears. A Cache. It does collect data, but I've never heard of a National ISP use that data. They let a 3rd party company do all the work and collect the checks.
People who sign with VC's make a deal with the devil. Sometimes they run a company to the ground (ArsDigita), other times they turn the company into money making machine (Cisco). In ALL cases the VC has an end goal of taking control of the company and either a) Pushing the founders out, or b) if the founder is a figure head valued for marketing, taking away all power.
PBS did a great Documentary on VCs in the tech industry back in the 90's. I still remember the the VC who funded Cisco bluntly talking about how It's the VC's responcibility to push the founders out the company.
The dot-com VC rush pretty much matches up with the silicon valley tech rush back in the early 80's. And the success rate between the two is actually pretty similar.
I think the problem bringing in a VC is the same as brining in any new management team. If you bring in a new team you've basically saying we have to change everything. This can work well if things are truely broken. But in this case the comapny wasn't broken. What it needed was someone to stay the course and manage the expansion.
Managing expansion is a very tricky business. Expand too far, leverage too much, you leave yourself open for failure. All of a sudden a small bump in the market looks like a tidal wave. A one point raise in interest rates could make you default you loans. Very few business manage this well, let alone greedy VC's.
It's a gamble. So when looking at all the money waved in front of your face read "Cryptonomic" and ask yourself "Ever danced with the devil in the shaddow of the moonlight?"
The problem is Qwest doesn't direct customers to the qdslonline.com web page for the transfer. There is a set of CGI apps with verbage defined by the contract between Qwest and MSN.
And basically, there are several problems. The worst is that they imply MSN is a similar service for a similar ammount of money. At no point is it disclosed:
MSN does not support Front Pag Extentions for Web Pages
MSN does not have any news service
MSN does not support non-ms mail packages
MSN does not support non-ms OS's (Although they attempt to determine Mac)
QWEST does not disclose that your DSL circuit is being placed on your bill as under "Gift Billing" and that you will not longer have the ability to make changes to your DSL other than calling MSN.
Finally, in Minnesota, certain aspects of the MSN switch and changes to the text on the QDSLONLINE.COM web page violate an agreement U S West had with the state and the local ISPs in MN.
However, Qwest is banking that they can say it's an FCC issue. The FCC of course won't do squat.
For most years, yes, Hollywood has more big flashy productions than you could shake a stick at. However, because of the various strikes, or threats of strikes this year saw a historic level of indie film purchasing by the major distributors. So, froma standpoint of content, 2002 will be the year of the small production. I expect 2003 to go back to "normal".
Peter Jackson is a master of gross out special effects. Such master works such as Dead Alive and Bad Taste have FX so icky that the films lose about 20 minute of footage to get a R rating.
From what I've heard Jackson filmed the action like he would any other film and just kept cutting it down until he had the rating the studio wanted.
But all bets are off for the DVD, and there is a good chance you'll see a restored DVD version with a lot more gore. That would be my hope at least.
It's not just a 24/7 support. It's someone to blame 24/7. Which is the way things really work in the fourtune 500.
Now, compared to IBM and HP, Microsoft support sucks. This is what my last contact with "premier support" was like:
Me: I have such and such problem.
MS: I'd found a solution it's in Hotfix XXXX.
Me: That's a 10 meg file, what's fixed in it.
MS: Well, it's really more like a service patch.
Me: What's fixed in it?
MS: I don't have any information on it. The Engineers do document Hot fixes for that product line.
Me: How am I supposed to evaluate the risks in rolling this out?
MS: I'm sorry sir I can't help you there......
This goes around and around. I call the Global Account Manager at MS who grovels for a while and sets up a confrence call with the product manager. The product manager skips the call, and I get to hear three MS people bitch about internal politics for 30 minutes and do some more groveling.
IBM, HP, document everything, in detail. It's one of those things you get from real IT componies that understand the technical needs of a large client.
For full time employees in large companies, that is usually the case. Exceptions being CCNAs, and other super hot skills. For contractors and consultants, not a chance.
This is all very logical. The problem is while many people with a degree will follow the six points you listed, there are also many who do not. Some people play well with other, some don't. It's a dice game, the only way to get a a real feel on these is when you actually talk to the person.
A good example is getting IT people to document systems/code/etc. It's like hurding cats. Too many people leave it out of their estimate, or don't make time for it, or (my personal favorite) say I should hire a Technical Writter. It doesn't get any better degree or not.
This goes back to my original point, just because someone has a four year degree doesn't mean anything. It COULD mean they will be a good fit, on the other hand it might not. The only way to really figure it out it to interview. I want to talk to canidates, find out what they know, and find out where I think they'll be going.
While there are some good point on what you can learn about college, it's the idea that if you compare two people on paper with similar skills, one with college and one without you'd want the person with college. I get irriated with HR when college CS is the only thing they look at before sending me canidates.
I agree for many people they need the education. What I don't agree with is that it has to be a four year degree. Over the years I've found some very good people out of two year technical degree programs. The education tends to be more real world because the teachers tend to be IT professionals.
And I would recommend a two year program is the ask Slashdot person wanted to increase his education.
A three hour Quiz? If someone can't figure out how to write a "hello world" in 10-15 minutes I don't want them touching my source code!
The simple fact is a CS degree does not mean someone is actually going to be any good at IT. I've come across many people who look really great on the transcript, but ended up being...well... dumb. You can certainly "learn how to learn" but you can't learn to be creative. Some solutions can't be looked up in a book and aren't going to come from class notes.
If all you are is a good researcher that places you in a career path in help desk. Perhaps hitting a management track one day.
This is NOT to say there isn't talent comming out of a 4 year college. I would wager that a very high number of grads out of MIT or Standford are creative, talented, and have huge real world experience, however, I don't get those grads in the midwest. But here's one to think about. As a per cent, I find those who come out of a good two year technical school have a better real world education. They require less training when hired. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the teachers in those programs are usually highly experienced IT professionals who are working this as a second job.
You can call it twisting. I look at the bottom line. It's better for me to have a grad with more real world experience. I can start them off at a higher salery, can get them started on real work quicker, and have less down time for education. Plus this type of canidate will tend to have a better retention rate. I'm in the business of making money, not making people feel warm and fuzzy about having a degree.
College doesn't make you good in the IT field. I've worked for large companies all my professional career. I've interviewed dozens of college grads for IT. Just because they have a 3.9 in CompSci doesn't mean they have what it takes to be a great designer/programmer/analyst. College or not it comes down to this. You either have "it" or you don't have "it".
Too many people come out of college with no idea about the low level computer operation. 75% may know how to use vi and write a "hello world" in ADA, but only 25% could tell me what/etc/services does. If I'm going to hire a programmer they better know what's going on under the hood of the OS.
For my money I look for people who are creative. Not someone who can do book work well. And from what I've found the ones who are like this and have a CS didn't learn the skills from a class, they learned it on their own.
I ask questions like:
Have you ever written a program on your own outside of class?
Have you ever installed Linux or similar Unix on your computer?
And the final test would be to give them a lanuage they didn't know. Perl, C, Awk, something like that. Give them five pages of the manual/man page and ask them to write a hello world program. If they can't figure out how to write the program header and print statement they shouldn't be a programmer nor sysadmin.
I would treat someone with professional training like a vendor Unix class with the same respect as a person with a four years of college.
This is not to say someone who doesn't have "it" and a 3.9 can't work out at the company. I just think at that point they make a better Business Analysis or Jr. Project Manager at that point. But at the same time I've seen grads with liberal arts degrees work out just as well in those positions.
My personal opinion is college is overrated. A good grade may reveal a good work ethic and organizational skills, but nothing more. I myself don't have college, command a 6 figure salary and have worked for some of the largest companies in the US.
Other than being in a neat and tidy consumer package I don't see a lot that Tivo or Replay do that hasn't been in a professional editing and presentation equiptment. At least when you look at the basics. Think Monday Night Football. Pause, Fast-Forward, Rewind, Slo-mo all in a tidy digital package. No comercial skip though.
Don't get me wrong, there may be some specific PVR functions both Tivo and Replay have valid patents for. But from the looks of things it will be a wash if they try to sue each other. Both companies would be better off entering into a cross lisencing agreement and let the better product/marketing win. Instead I can see Tivo and Replay tossing tons of subscriber money down the Toilet we call corporate law, thus depriving consumers of good R&D.
What's the deal with Alsa? I mean Suse has been behind it for quite some time now. The code seems fairly mature these days. People have been talking about merging it into the Kernal for years. What's the deal? Has OSS really jumped ahead recently in features, or does Alsa have a lot of bugs we don't know about?
Because there are only a couple chipsets that do it in the first place. And it appears that getting datasheets, let alone actual product is almost impossible with out signing your life away.
I've tried getting stuff from Teralogic for a while with no luck. If there is enough HDTV sales though it might be possible to see some imports from China and Tiawan that are a bit more lax on the content protections (ala Apex).
But at this moment it's slim to none you can pick up a digikey catalog and order all the parts.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the problem. Go to the web site. Okay, what does this company do. I see a lot of buzz words, after reading for a minute I still have no idea. "The Bobs" would have a field day with this company.
If I owned the company and was paying you salary, sure, I'd go for it. Free Labor for all. Need more incentive? I've got a roll of stock to hand out.
Seriously, in a shop your size, it's a good short term solution, but hard to pull off long term. Dell, IBM, Compaq and the ilk have an advantage that they spec out thier Mobo's exactly. They can have a single driver install that works for 100 models of computer.
Back in the days I did break fix I came across too many systems that people have put together that were hard to support. You'd get odd errors, but nothing would ever check out as bad no matter how you tested it.
The worst problem was no system was like another. You'd go to a desk. Windows is iritiating itself to support. Let alone trying to figure out what's inside with out cracking the case. With a big name you look at the front of box.
You might want to see if you can go somewhere down the middle. First, call around to several business electronic resellers. Tell them how many manchines you're looking for, and what ballpark range price you want. Also let them know you're calling around to several vendors. Sometimes you can find bargins. In Particular these days in the Cel 1Ghz area. Which is more than 2x than your currect crop of computer. Companies like insight and CDW. Might not hurt to check out the likes of TigerDirect.
If that fails, local IT shops might be able to puts something together for you. The fact that you're looking at 15+ machines means you can most likely deal. Your support costs may not be all that lower, but there is a chance you'll be able to get a replacement part quicker. At the very least you'll save time over having to do it yourself.
Last resort is doing it all yourself. Sure at home, you don't want no stink'n pre-built. Specially a consumer one from a retail store. But at work you have...well...work, and it's doubtful you have the work bench to setup 15 computers at one like an asembly line.
Perhaps it's the EE's I've run into. They seem like a pretty bright lot that have to take just as much school, but start out in the high 20's to low 30's instead of the 40's that many CS people snagged. In fact one company I worked on the college recruiting team (technical interviews), we paid 52K right out of school.
Well, to be honest, I've only met a couple project managers out there who could actually manage a project. Those are the types who document, centralize, and instead of getting in the way of the programmer, act as a shield from various business interests.
My problem is the vast number of PMs I've run into who are BA MIS people who dropped out of BS CS program in college because they couldn't cut it. The idea that the people who couldn't cut it in school doing what I do are now telling me how to do my job, and how long my job should take. Anyone else see the irony?
It should be noted that Embedded programmer, just like Electrical Engineers, get the shaft big time. Experienced web programmers (non-Microsoft), and many IT positions (like Oracle DBA's) can grab six figure salaries. It's a shame really because I have a great deal of respect for the low level guys, who really have to have a much bigger grasp of logic than those of us working on the higher levels. There are of course exceptions, senior engineers, and managing engineers, but most shops that deal with embedded and EEs have one or two top dogs to a dozen or so poorly (relatively speaking) peons.
I don't find out of country work a problem though. They just don't perform as well as the lazy American counter parts. The money you save in labor costs disappears as when you have a much longer bug/enhancement cycle. Most of which is caused by a culture/language gap.
Outsource to India can work well if you have a product that you have specific bug fixes that need to be done. But new products that require a really good analyst to have face side with the business and really hammer out details. Business like working face to face with someone who knows the lingo and can instill confidence. And they are willing to pay two to three times as much for that fuzzy feeling.
This is really sad. Radlight was a really nice mpeg viewer. One of the few that handles 16:9 aspect displays well. I remember emailing one of the developers about a bug once, not only did they ack the bug, but they sent me a follow up when the release with the fix was out. Freak'n Microsoft was never half as good. What ever happened to using the traditional shareware model? Look at companies like JASC, start small, make quality products and grow big.
Eva could never go main stream, with the exception of Encore Action Network. Encore is the only national network that shows uncut anime. And they don't even show it all that often, plus no one really watches the network much. (If you live on the west coast there are some cool PBS stations, and if you can speak japanese you could get TV Japan on Dish Network)
Eva deals directly with religious symbolism. Even mild religious references are a no-no for Cartoon Network. Screening rights would not be cheap, Anyone big enough to afford it wouldn't want to play it.
Besides ADV is more than happy to sell yet another set to people.
Take a weekend trip to Singapore. All the Anime you need at prices that beat US. Well, if you're taking into account the currency conversion.
It's nice to see the PUC take some action when it comes to highspeed services, but the FCC is pushing hard to have control over all Telco based broadband services. The CA ruling falls on the tails of the MN PUC getting involved with the Qwest .net customer transfer to MSN. MN brokered a settlement that allowed people to get out of MSN. Which Qwest and MSN had made very hard to do.
The problem is, MN didn't have standing to regulate the DSL deal between Qwest and MSN. They had limited standing involving consumer issues mostly regaurding how the new service was advertized. These issues were taken by the Attorny Generals office. Which in MN is extremely agressive.
Insiders in the case and most of the board memebers knew that they no longer had the ability to regulate DSL in the way a non-enhanced service would be. And Qwest/MSN was very quick to point out that the PUC had no authority. What the PUC lacked in standing, they made up for in the ability of being a major pain in the ass. It was cheaper to settle for Qwest and MSN.
Qwest/MSN would have won most likely in federal court to make it an FCC matter. (The FCC takes months/years to hear a case) But, in the unlikely event that they lost, MSN could be considered a "Retail communications seller". Extremly bad for MSN because they aren't a DLEC or CLEC. The fine would be in the millions.
At any rate, CPUC can say they have the right to do this or that. But the LEC decides it wants to get them out of the picture for enhanced services they will win.
Cost effective for what? The companies that buy customer info have their own systems.
As far as cost effective...well, you're pointing to a product that doesn't mention a price range on it's web page. Other than saving on sun hardware, there's nothing to show that this is anymore cost effective than some of the larger turn key web reporting systems. And the larger turn key product have all the reporting and datamining pre-done.
This thing only takes care of a small part of the back end. Let's think about this. What kind of data are you going to mine? Anything simple no one wants. There are already companies that compile web site hits and sell the data. You've got some serious data modeling to do, and a couple SQL statements isn't going to do it. You need some serious Math and IT power to finish the project.
I stand by my original post because I've been there at a National ISP that does sell user traffic, and it's not done via the traffic caches. A 3rd part company puts a box in at the POP and sniffs the traffic. It's not like comcast is the only one. If you use a large national ISP thance chances are VERY HIGH that your traffic is sniffed. The thing is you will NOT know it's happening. It's 100% transparent.
I've worked at a national ISP that did a trail of this hardware. The goal is to take the heat off upsteam link. It's fairly useful in a small market were your upstream has to cross a LATA incurring long distance charges.
The logs generated for this device is not anonymous. It's pretty much reads like an Apache log. Source and destination IPs for every request. I remeber wanting to get some sample data to see if we needed to take the Cache log into account for looking at out admin server traffic reports. Small town USA pretty much surfs over 50% porn.
At any rate. It's doubtful they use the cache box to collect internet traffic stats. Why? Well, basically, it's a money issue. Once you have the data great...except it's a freak'n huge sh*tload of data. If you want useful reporting you need to keep data for a year. Your're looking putting almost 500K into disk, CPU, and software. It's not worth it because you'd never recoup the money.
This does NOT mean your ISP doesn't sell your data. An ISP can make some serious cash by selling your data. ISP's can and DO enter into agreements with companies that collect data. However, the ISP wash their hands of the actual process. They let a 3rd party drop a Switch or a Bridge into a POP that directs traffic to a machine that will totally transparently collect data and start collecting checks.
Point is, the Cache is exactly what it appears. A Cache. It does collect data, but I've never heard of a National ISP use that data. They let a 3rd party company do all the work and collect the checks.
People who sign with VC's make a deal with the devil. Sometimes they run a company to the ground (ArsDigita), other times they turn the company into money making machine (Cisco). In ALL cases the VC has an end goal of taking control of the company and either a) Pushing the founders out, or b) if the founder is a figure head valued for marketing, taking away all power.
PBS did a great Documentary on VCs in the tech industry back in the 90's. I still remember the the VC who funded Cisco bluntly talking about how It's the VC's responcibility to push the founders out the company.
The dot-com VC rush pretty much matches up with the silicon valley tech rush back in the early 80's. And the success rate between the two is actually pretty similar.
I think the problem bringing in a VC is the same as brining in any new management team. If you bring in a new team you've basically saying we have to change everything. This can work well if things are truely broken. But in this case the comapny wasn't broken. What it needed was someone to stay the course and manage the expansion.
Managing expansion is a very tricky business. Expand too far, leverage too much, you leave yourself open for failure. All of a sudden a small bump in the market looks like a tidal wave. A one point raise in interest rates could make you default you loans. Very few business manage this well, let alone greedy VC's.
It's a gamble. So when looking at all the money waved in front of your face read "Cryptonomic" and ask yourself "Ever danced with the devil in the shaddow of the moonlight?"
The problem is Qwest doesn't direct customers to the qdslonline.com web page for the transfer. There is a set of CGI apps with verbage defined by the contract between Qwest and MSN.
And basically, there are several problems. The worst is that they imply MSN is a similar service for a similar ammount of money. At no point is it disclosed:
MSN does not support Front Pag Extentions for Web Pages
MSN does not have any news service
MSN does not support non-ms mail packages
MSN does not support non-ms OS's (Although they attempt to determine Mac)
QWEST does not disclose that your DSL circuit is being placed on your bill as under "Gift Billing" and that you will not longer have the ability to make changes to your DSL other than calling MSN.
Finally, in Minnesota, certain aspects of the MSN switch and changes to the text on the QDSLONLINE.COM web page violate an agreement U S West had with the state and the local ISPs in MN.
However, Qwest is banking that they can say it's an FCC issue. The FCC of course won't do squat.
For most years, yes, Hollywood has more big flashy productions than you could shake a stick at. However, because of the various strikes, or threats of strikes this year saw a historic level of indie film purchasing by the major distributors. So, froma standpoint of content, 2002 will be the year of the small production. I expect 2003 to go back to "normal".
Peter Jackson is a master of gross out special effects. Such master works such as Dead Alive and Bad Taste have FX so icky that the films lose about 20 minute of footage to get a R rating.
From what I've heard Jackson filmed the action like he would any other film and just kept cutting it down until he had the rating the studio wanted.
But all bets are off for the DVD, and there is a good chance you'll see a restored DVD version with a lot more gore. That would be my hope at least.
It's not just a 24/7 support. It's someone to blame 24/7. Which is the way things really work in the fourtune 500.
Now, compared to IBM and HP, Microsoft support sucks. This is what my last contact with "premier support" was like:
Me: I have such and such problem.
MS: I'd found a solution it's in Hotfix XXXX.
Me: That's a 10 meg file, what's fixed in it.
MS: Well, it's really more like a service patch.
Me: What's fixed in it?
MS: I don't have any information on it. The Engineers do document Hot fixes for that product line.
Me: How am I supposed to evaluate the risks in rolling this out?
MS: I'm sorry sir I can't help you there......
This goes around and around. I call the Global Account Manager at MS who grovels for a while and sets up a confrence call with the product manager. The product manager skips the call, and I get to hear three MS people bitch about internal politics for 30 minutes and do some more groveling.
IBM, HP, document everything, in detail. It's one of those things you get from real IT componies that understand the technical needs of a large client.
For full time employees in large companies, that is usually the case. Exceptions being CCNAs, and other super hot skills. For contractors and consultants, not a chance.
This is all very logical. The problem is while many people with a degree will follow the six points you listed, there are also many who do not. Some people play well with other, some don't. It's a dice game, the only way to get a a real feel on these is when you actually talk to the person.
A good example is getting IT people to document systems/code/etc. It's like hurding cats. Too many people leave it out of their estimate, or don't make time for it, or (my personal favorite) say I should hire a Technical Writter. It doesn't get any better degree or not.
This goes back to my original point, just because someone has a four year degree doesn't mean anything. It COULD mean they will be a good fit, on the other hand it might not. The only way to really figure it out it to interview. I want to talk to canidates, find out what they know, and find out where I think they'll be going.
While there are some good point on what you can learn about college, it's the idea that if you compare two people on paper with similar skills, one with college and one without you'd want the person with college. I get irriated with HR when college CS is the only thing they look at before sending me canidates.
I agree for many people they need the education. What I don't agree with is that it has to be a four year degree. Over the years I've found some very good people out of two year technical degree programs. The education tends to be more real world because the teachers tend to be IT professionals.
And I would recommend a two year program is the ask Slashdot person wanted to increase his education.
A three hour Quiz? If someone can't figure out how to write a "hello world" in 10-15 minutes I don't want them touching my source code!
The simple fact is a CS degree does not mean someone is actually going to be any good at IT. I've come across many people who look really great on the transcript, but ended up being...well... dumb. You can certainly "learn how to learn" but you can't learn to be creative. Some solutions can't be looked up in a book and aren't going to come from class notes.
If all you are is a good researcher that places you in a career path in help desk. Perhaps hitting a management track one day.
This is NOT to say there isn't talent comming out of a 4 year college. I would wager that a very high number of grads out of MIT or Standford are creative, talented, and have huge real world experience, however, I don't get those grads in the midwest. But here's one to think about. As a per cent, I find those who come out of a good two year technical school have a better real world education. They require less training when hired. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the teachers in those programs are usually highly experienced IT professionals who are working this as a second job.
You can call it twisting. I look at the bottom line. It's better for me to have a grad with more real world experience. I can start them off at a higher salery, can get them started on real work quicker, and have less down time for education. Plus this type of canidate will tend to have a better retention rate. I'm in the business of making money, not making people feel warm and fuzzy about having a degree.
College doesn't make you good in the IT field. I've worked for large companies all my professional career. I've interviewed dozens of college grads for IT. Just because they have a 3.9 in CompSci doesn't mean they have what it takes to be a great designer/programmer/analyst. College or not it comes down to this. You either have "it" or you don't have "it".
/etc/services does. If I'm going to hire a programmer they better know what's going on under the hood of the OS.
Too many people come out of college with no idea about the low level computer operation. 75% may know how to use vi and write a "hello world" in ADA, but only 25% could tell me what
For my money I look for people who are creative. Not someone who can do book work well. And from what I've found the ones who are like this and have a CS didn't learn the skills from a class, they learned it on their own.
I ask questions like:
Have you ever written a program on your own outside of class?
Have you ever installed Linux or similar Unix on your computer?
And the final test would be to give them a lanuage they didn't know. Perl, C, Awk, something like that. Give them five pages of the manual/man page and ask them to write a hello world program. If they can't figure out how to write the program header and print statement they shouldn't be a programmer nor sysadmin.
I would treat someone with professional training like a vendor Unix class with the same respect as a person with a four years of college.
This is not to say someone who doesn't have "it" and a 3.9 can't work out at the company. I just think at that point they make a better Business Analysis or Jr. Project Manager at that point. But at the same time I've seen grads with liberal arts degrees work out just as well in those positions.
My personal opinion is college is overrated. A good grade may reveal a good work ethic and organizational skills, but nothing more. I myself don't have college, command a 6 figure salary and have worked for some of the largest companies in the US.
Other than being in a neat and tidy consumer package I don't see a lot that Tivo or Replay do that hasn't been in a professional editing and presentation equiptment. At least when you look at the basics. Think Monday Night Football. Pause, Fast-Forward, Rewind, Slo-mo all in a tidy digital package. No comercial skip though.
Don't get me wrong, there may be some specific PVR functions both Tivo and Replay have valid patents for. But from the looks of things it will be a wash if they try to sue each other. Both companies would be better off entering into a cross lisencing agreement and let the better product/marketing win. Instead I can see Tivo and Replay tossing tons of subscriber money down the Toilet we call corporate law, thus depriving consumers of good R&D.
What's the deal with Alsa? I mean Suse has been behind it for quite some time now. The code seems fairly mature these days. People have been talking about merging it into the Kernal for years. What's the deal? Has OSS really jumped ahead recently in features, or does Alsa have a lot of bugs we don't know about?
Not that I think the broadcast networks have a leg to stand on, but 80% of the US population get the big three via cable or DBS.
Because there are only a couple chipsets that do it in the first place. And it appears that getting datasheets, let alone actual product is almost impossible with out signing your life away.
I've tried getting stuff from Teralogic for a while with no luck. If there is enough HDTV sales though it might be possible to see some imports from China and Tiawan that are a bit more lax on the content protections (ala Apex).
But at this moment it's slim to none you can pick up a digikey catalog and order all the parts.
Aztech,
Who does the chipset for the DVB boards in the UK? If it's teralogic, then the drivers for the DVB might work as a base for HDTV cards here in the US.
Cheers