What do you think is happening any time someone gets killed by disease? Heck, even when someone is run over by a semi. Natural selection will shape us forever unless we conquer death itself.
You can restrict access with a whitelist or a blacklist, as someone has already mentioned.
Another option is to install software to track which websites the student accesses; you could factor their research process into the grading and penalize those who access forbidden sites. If you do this, be very explicit about which kinds of sites are OK and which aren't so you don't have too much of a battle on your hands after the exam.
So much of our commercial world is dictated by one idea: people don't know what they want. You think you're perfectly happy with your TV... until we make it better.
The thing is this IS a subjective problem. I can't think of a single quantitative measure that can be used to determine productivity of a developer. Trying to turn a subjective problem into an objective one doesn't really work. Again, if that doesn't work then the problem isn't the strategy, but your management hierarchy itself. You're worried about managers picking favorites and gaming the system to the point of invalidating reported performance? Wow. Sounds like you've got a bigger problem than how to measure the success of a developer. The strategy I've mentioned is used to manage the development team I'm on and I've seen it work wonderfully. Perhaps you need new managers? Managers who actually care about rewarding people for doing work that contributes to the success of the company and, therefore, rate peoples' performance accordingly?
The problem there isn't the performance measurement strategy, it's over-extension of management. If your manager:managed ratio is such that it isn't an effective strategy then you have too few managers for the number of developers you have.
Or you could just communicate with your developers, be aware of the work they're doing and judge their performance based on their effective productivity from your perspective. I've heard this called "management" before, but I know that word has been twisted to mean something more sinister as of late.
If all you're using the 98 install for is one or more compilers that require it, have you considered using WINE? For a while at work I was playing around with using VC++'s compiler run under wine through the bash command line for easy integration into build scripts on my Ubuntu box. Slight trickery required, but an entire OS required for a simple build step could be cut out.
~~ Alex
I think the idea is good, but some form of haptic feedback would really complete it. I remember reading about some research into tricking us into feeling like we're getting solid tactile feedback when in reality it's a slight vibration.
That kind of change could also make playing Mario Kart Wii with the wii-wheel slightly less horrible.
When I read about it the tech was being applied to touch screen cell phones so it felt like you were really pressing a raised button instead of a flat screen.
Slashdot Mirror
What do you think is happening any time someone gets killed by disease? Heck, even when someone is run over by a semi. Natural selection will shape us forever unless we conquer death itself.
Sounds like you might be interested in this video about filter bubbles: http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
Fire extinguisher flamethrower? Worst prank ever.
You can restrict access with a whitelist or a blacklist, as someone has already mentioned. Another option is to install software to track which websites the student accesses; you could factor their research process into the grading and penalize those who access forbidden sites. If you do this, be very explicit about which kinds of sites are OK and which aren't so you don't have too much of a battle on your hands after the exam.
So much of our commercial world is dictated by one idea: people don't know what they want. You think you're perfectly happy with your TV... until we make it better.
The thing is this IS a subjective problem. I can't think of a single quantitative measure that can be used to determine productivity of a developer. Trying to turn a subjective problem into an objective one doesn't really work. Again, if that doesn't work then the problem isn't the strategy, but your management hierarchy itself. You're worried about managers picking favorites and gaming the system to the point of invalidating reported performance? Wow. Sounds like you've got a bigger problem than how to measure the success of a developer. The strategy I've mentioned is used to manage the development team I'm on and I've seen it work wonderfully. Perhaps you need new managers? Managers who actually care about rewarding people for doing work that contributes to the success of the company and, therefore, rate peoples' performance accordingly?
The problem there isn't the performance measurement strategy, it's over-extension of management. If your manager:managed ratio is such that it isn't an effective strategy then you have too few managers for the number of developers you have.
Or you could just communicate with your developers, be aware of the work they're doing and judge their performance based on their effective productivity from your perspective. I've heard this called "management" before, but I know that word has been twisted to mean something more sinister as of late.
I'm a fan of combining search, rules to drop email in folders and smart mailboxes. These things aren't mutually exclusive, you know.
Sure is a good thing they'll have this registry to track down everyone who doesn't comply! Oh wait...
If all you're using the 98 install for is one or more compilers that require it, have you considered using WINE? For a while at work I was playing around with using VC++'s compiler run under wine through the bash command line for easy integration into build scripts on my Ubuntu box. Slight trickery required, but an entire OS required for a simple build step could be cut out. ~~ Alex
I think the idea is good, but some form of haptic feedback would really complete it. I remember reading about some research into tricking us into feeling like we're getting solid tactile feedback when in reality it's a slight vibration. That kind of change could also make playing Mario Kart Wii with the wii-wheel slightly less horrible. When I read about it the tech was being applied to touch screen cell phones so it felt like you were really pressing a raised button instead of a flat screen.
...keep all of our best and brightest in one location. What could possibly go wrong?