Years ago, when I was first out of college, IT guys worked round-the-clock. My guys work basically 9 to 5, so I find it interesting that people are complaining. The other big reason that people have left is flexibility. We have moderate flexibility. We do not have work-from-home arrangements all the time, only occasionally. The younger people want full flexibility.
So essentially they're not willing to work unpaid overtime, and they want flexibility, which you won't give them, but other employers will. So they leave. And the manager is shocked. He even admits he knows all this. He even goes on to say:
They don't have the same notion that you go to one place and you stay there for five, 10 or 15 years. But the incentives to do that aren't there anymore because there are fewer pension plans and less profit sharing.
So he's also aware that profit sharing and pension plan improvements would help retain workers. These are easy things to implement (they require some paperwork but it's not like making a massive cultural change level of difficulty). In summary: the manager knows why his people won't stay (they want to work sane hours, be able to work from home, have pensions and profit sharing), but he is unwilling to make these concessions, so people leave after one year. He tops this all off by saying:
The biggest point is to get them aware of and engaged in the new business opportunities here.
How is it a business opportunity for the worker if they don't have profit sharing or a pension? And are expected to work unpaid overtime?
It seems like every time I see a link to a site on hostgator from Slashdot or Reddit I always get the "this account has been suspended by hostgator for exceeding bandwidth use" or whatever, so no thanks. Something that can't handle a simple slashdotting or redditing is kind of useless.
I imagine when textbooks came out, the same argument was had. Most teachers rely VERY heavily on technology whether they want to admit it or not. Most teachers, without a textbook, would be up the creek without a paddle. I'm looking forwards to teaching my kids all the stuff schools fail miserably at (things like conflict avoidance and resolution, management skills, time and task management, cooking, information theory, etc.).
Well:
Google says...
"Iron Mountain has lost a backup tape belonging to GE Money with approximately 650,000 JC Penney customer records on it, and 150,000 of those records include customer social security numbers."
Among others.
Here's a hint: the developers use git, which identifies all commits by their SHA1 value, so changing the contents of a commit will cause the SHA1 sum to mismatch which would cause git to howl and complain. So they then build a tarball and upload it to the server. They also upload signatures:
So unless they manage to compromise the Kernel signing key any changes would be immediately noticeable (assuming people check the signatures, which they do).
This is one of the reasons I go with Apple for my phone/tablet, on the phone side they have consistently supported phones for 3 or more years and on the tablet side it looks like it will be similar.
Well you gotta draw the line somewhere, but the premise that "User is familiar with PC, ergo the iPad will be a disaster and require training" is pretty obviously false.
Just because you've dumped money into it doesn't mean you should continue. Bad money after good and all that.
Second, it's more capable.
Define capable. Can it run more programs, and is generally better for content creation type activities as opposed to simply consuming (reading email, reading web pages, etc.), well sort of. On the other hand my iPad is so small and light, has instant on, has WiFi and 3G connectivity and the battery life is such that it lives in my bag and I just pull it out to use it quickly more than I ever did when I carried my laptop. Plus because it's light and has long battery life I'm not constantly having to leave it at home to charge or give my shoulder a break. So I'd generally agree that my laptop/PC is more capable, but I don't carry it anymore so it's a moot point.
Third, your end-users are already familiar with it
So? There is a reason the iPad doesn't ship with a users manual. It doesn't need one. I found it intuitive. I gave my mother my old iPad 1, she has used PC's running DOS/Windows since the late 80's and at first asked for the manual, told here there wasn't one and that she wouldn't need it, and 2 days later she agreed with me (via email, "sent from my iPad"). She has since grown to love it.
Anecdotal sure, but this seems to be the general consensus. I think the iPad has a lot more legs int he corproate world then anyone suspects because once you get used to it, being at all mobile (even room to room) makes a PC (laptop/netbook/etc.) feel like sh*t compared to an iPad.
Who's your secondary/tertiary MX provider in case you are offline for updates/etc? How do you do offsite backups? How do you handle password resets? Account compromises? Running reliable email infrastructure is a lot more work then just dropping a server on a static IP.
Brain is hard wired to do a lot of things, some of which are: recognize other humans, read their body language and assess their mood/threat level. Your brain does this in fractions of a second. It's why you flinch if someone raises a hand while moving towards you suddenly.
I suspect the brain's thought process goes something like this when it encounters something that has a semi-human but obviously not real human appearance: "oh something that looks a bit like a human but obviously isn't, ok let's figure out if it's a threat (is it showing teeth? is it bigger than me? etc.)".
But when we enter uncanny valley territory I suspect the thought process goes like this "Oh wow that looks like another human, I wonder what they're intention is... HOLY S*IT BALLS IT'S NOT A HUMAN! Ok something obviously not human is trying very hard to look human. Sure there's probably a lot of innocent explanations but I can't think of one right away so I'm going to go with insanely dangerous predator trying to mask itself, Time to alert the tribe, kill it with pointy sticks and burn the corpse with fire.
So in Canada we've only ever had streaming for $8 a month. So what's the big deal? "Basic" cable is around $60 a month now. HBO is another $12 a month. etc.
I'm sure it will "run" in the sense that it boots up and is functional. But "run" in the sense of running well... who knows. Also what compelling reason is there to upgrade from 7 to 8? The only reason I know most people are using 7 is for the 64 bit support, now that we have that we're good for another couple of years.
If you are "indispensable" in the sense that without you the IT services can't be maintained/fixed then the company is f**ked regardless. You may go on vacation, get sick, get hit by a car, have a heart attack or simply get a new job. This is true of any job function, but seems especially true of IT, I suspect in large parts because each IT build-out is pretty much a custom job with all sorts of gotchas, exceptions and internal workarounds to address issues, and the system is rarely documented properly.
I find this especially strange since most companies now rely upon IT to carry out basic functions (telephone, email, workflow, etc.) but fail to treat it as a critical service (single points of failure, especially with respect to personal are more the rule than the exception). Oh well.
If it's a state run lottery then the bad guys are effectively paying taxes to launder their money. This may be a factor in allowing them to continue (nothing like paying a sin tax so you can sin).
Ease of use. Apps can be free (check out the apple store, lots of good free apps). Things like my bank, Netflix, etc all make free apps to make their products more attractive to us iDevice users. You may have no problem finding source, compiling, installing dependencies, etc. but 99% of the world just wants their computer(s) to work. Also in theory it makes comparing software easier as you'd have rankings/etc. I know when I go look at Mozilla plugins I appreciate the interface somewhat, comparing the last plugin update, number of downloads, etc. all help me make a choice as to which plugins to give a try,
Slashdot Mirror
Quoted from the interview:
Years ago, when I was first out of college, IT guys worked round-the-clock. My guys work basically 9 to 5, so I find it interesting that people are complaining. The other big reason that people have left is flexibility. We have moderate flexibility. We do not have work-from-home arrangements all the time, only occasionally. The younger people want full flexibility.
So essentially they're not willing to work unpaid overtime, and they want flexibility, which you won't give them, but other employers will. So they leave. And the manager is shocked. He even admits he knows all this. He even goes on to say:
They don't have the same notion that you go to one place and you stay there for five, 10 or 15 years. But the incentives to do that aren't there anymore because there are fewer pension plans and less profit sharing.
So he's also aware that profit sharing and pension plan improvements would help retain workers. These are easy things to implement (they require some paperwork but it's not like making a massive cultural change level of difficulty). In summary: the manager knows why his people won't stay (they want to work sane hours, be able to work from home, have pensions and profit sharing), but he is unwilling to make these concessions, so people leave after one year. He tops this all off by saying:
The biggest point is to get them aware of and engaged in the new business opportunities here.
How is it a business opportunity for the worker if they don't have profit sharing or a pension? And are expected to work unpaid overtime?
The amount of fail here is staggering
It seems like every time I see a link to a site on hostgator from Slashdot or Reddit I always get the "this account has been suspended by hostgator for exceeding bandwidth use" or whatever, so no thanks. Something that can't handle a simple slashdotting or redditing is kind of useless.
Disclaimer I'm the author. I covered this in my June 2011 column: http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Issues/2011/127/Security-Lessons-Bufferbloat/%28kategorie%29/0 direct link to the PDF http://www.linux-magazine.com/w3/issue/127/058-059_kurt.pdf. In a nutshell: my link latency at home is usually ~50ms to seifried.org, but with one single outbound file transfer to saturate my uplink ping times go to over 1000ms (1 second) reliably (which completely breaks VOIP/games/etc.).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents.
Security updates. http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=android - There are 89 CVE entries or candidates that match your search.
I imagine when textbooks came out, the same argument was had. Most teachers rely VERY heavily on technology whether they want to admit it or not. Most teachers, without a textbook, would be up the creek without a paddle. I'm looking forwards to teaching my kids all the stuff schools fail miserably at (things like conflict avoidance and resolution, management skills, time and task management, cooking, information theory, etc.).
Well: Google says... "Iron Mountain has lost a backup tape belonging to GE Money with approximately 650,000 JC Penney customer records on it, and 150,000 of those records include customer social security numbers." Among others.
Does the kid get another? Do they have to pay? What a mess.
Could you maybe give the name of this or provide a link to it? Thanks.
Here's a hint: the developers use git, which identifies all commits by their SHA1 value, so changing the contents of a commit will cause the SHA1 sum to mismatch which would cause git to howl and complain. So they then build a tarball and upload it to the server. They also upload signatures:
patch-3.0.4.bz2 29-Aug-2011 20:57 94K
patch-3.0.4.bz2.sign 29-Aug-2011 20:57 249
patch-3.0.4.gz 29-Aug-2011 20:57 107K
patch-3.0.4.gz.sign 29-Aug-2011 20:57 249
patch-3.0.4.sign 29-Aug-2011 20:57 249
So unless they manage to compromise the Kernel signing key any changes would be immediately noticeable (assuming people check the signatures, which they do).
This is one of the reasons I go with Apple for my phone/tablet, on the phone side they have consistently supported phones for 3 or more years and on the tablet side it looks like it will be similar.
That's about 1224 kilometers or 760.5 miles. In three freaking minutes. That's normally a 1-2 hour plane ride. Or an 11 hour drive. In three minutes.
Well you gotta draw the line somewhere, but the premise that "User is familiar with PC, ergo the iPad will be a disaster and require training" is pretty obviously false.
First, it's a sunk cost.
Just because you've dumped money into it doesn't mean you should continue. Bad money after good and all that.
Second, it's more capable.
Define capable. Can it run more programs, and is generally better for content creation type activities as opposed to simply consuming (reading email, reading web pages, etc.), well sort of. On the other hand my iPad is so small and light, has instant on, has WiFi and 3G connectivity and the battery life is such that it lives in my bag and I just pull it out to use it quickly more than I ever did when I carried my laptop. Plus because it's light and has long battery life I'm not constantly having to leave it at home to charge or give my shoulder a break. So I'd generally agree that my laptop/PC is more capable, but I don't carry it anymore so it's a moot point.
Third, your end-users are already familiar with it
So? There is a reason the iPad doesn't ship with a users manual. It doesn't need one. I found it intuitive. I gave my mother my old iPad 1, she has used PC's running DOS/Windows since the late 80's and at first asked for the manual, told here there wasn't one and that she wouldn't need it, and 2 days later she agreed with me (via email, "sent from my iPad"). She has since grown to love it.
Anecdotal sure, but this seems to be the general consensus. I think the iPad has a lot more legs int he corproate world then anyone suspects because once you get used to it, being at all mobile (even room to room) makes a PC (laptop/netbook/etc.) feel like sh*t compared to an iPad.
There may be more blocking/filtering prior to actual attempted email delivery, i.e. blacklists of IPs, grey listing, DNS/IP based reputation, etc.
Who's your secondary/tertiary MX provider in case you are offline for updates/etc? How do you do offsite backups? How do you handle password resets? Account compromises? Running reliable email infrastructure is a lot more work then just dropping a server on a static IP.
BREACH OF TRUST - Find out why you can’t trust your web browser or certificate authorities.. Covered in Slashdot - Become an SSLAdmin In a Few Easy Steps.
Brain is hard wired to do a lot of things, some of which are: recognize other humans, read their body language and assess their mood/threat level. Your brain does this in fractions of a second. It's why you flinch if someone raises a hand while moving towards you suddenly.
I suspect the brain's thought process goes something like this when it encounters something that has a semi-human but obviously not real human appearance: "oh something that looks a bit like a human but obviously isn't, ok let's figure out if it's a threat (is it showing teeth? is it bigger than me? etc.)".
But when we enter uncanny valley territory I suspect the thought process goes like this "Oh wow that looks like another human, I wonder what they're intention is... HOLY S*IT BALLS IT'S NOT A HUMAN! Ok something obviously not human is trying very hard to look human. Sure there's probably a lot of innocent explanations but I can't think of one right away so I'm going to go with insanely dangerous predator trying to mask itself, Time to alert the tribe, kill it with pointy sticks and burn the corpse with fire.
So in Canada we've only ever had streaming for $8 a month. So what's the big deal? "Basic" cable is around $60 a month now. HBO is another $12 a month. etc.
I'm sure it will "run" in the sense that it boots up and is functional. But "run" in the sense of running well... who knows. Also what compelling reason is there to upgrade from 7 to 8? The only reason I know most people are using 7 is for the 64 bit support, now that we have that we're good for another couple of years.
If you are "indispensable" in the sense that without you the IT services can't be maintained/fixed then the company is f**ked regardless. You may go on vacation, get sick, get hit by a car, have a heart attack or simply get a new job. This is true of any job function, but seems especially true of IT, I suspect in large parts because each IT build-out is pretty much a custom job with all sorts of gotchas, exceptions and internal workarounds to address issues, and the system is rarely documented properly.
I find this especially strange since most companies now rely upon IT to carry out basic functions (telephone, email, workflow, etc.) but fail to treat it as a critical service (single points of failure, especially with respect to personal are more the rule than the exception). Oh well.
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According to Amazon it's $65
If it's a state run lottery then the bad guys are effectively paying taxes to launder their money. This may be a factor in allowing them to continue (nothing like paying a sin tax so you can sin).
Ease of use. Apps can be free (check out the apple store, lots of good free apps). Things like my bank, Netflix, etc all make free apps to make their products more attractive to us iDevice users. You may have no problem finding source, compiling, installing dependencies, etc. but 99% of the world just wants their computer(s) to work. Also in theory it makes comparing software easier as you'd have rankings/etc. I know when I go look at Mozilla plugins I appreciate the interface somewhat, comparing the last plugin update, number of downloads, etc. all help me make a choice as to which plugins to give a try,