Well, we just pulled out of Telstra Bigpond because we had noticed a decrease in speed.
Also, it should be noted that they did cap the speed to 45kb/s... and then they put a hard limit of 3GB on the amount of traffic per billing period.. all round badness.
A good site for any Australian boradband user, or potential user to check out is Whirlpool
I'm just throwing this out in the Slashdot arena as a stray thought -
Is the IT industry as a whole acting like a prima donna? I work for a large international organisation and last year the IT head honcho for the world came out to visit. During the lunch the IT team shared, he and I had an interesting debate about whether IT *is* the business or not.
Now, the company I work for uses technology to make it's products, but frankly, they've made these products for a very long time - before computers. Of course, now that they use computers, they get a different level of product.
However, if for any reason the company's infrastructure failed, the product could actually still be made and the company could still make money.
So, from my point of view, IT is here to serve it's clients in the best way possible, and to make it easier for my clients to do business. But it struck me as being very arrogant to say that without IT, the company would be dead in the water, and so that therefore IT *is* the business.
At the end of the day, I believe it comes down to the people. It's the people of a company that make it a success or not.
So anyway, IT seems to take itself really serious to it's importance to a business. I realise that some companies would absolutely sink without computers (i.e. banks...)but I don't believe it is true for all companies (cos the computers will be replaced in time..they're just not essential to keep the company alive).
For me, the difference between paying for a site and just visiting free sites is like paying for access to a BBS or not.
I don't know much about how Slashdot is funded. Obviously, they are owned by Andover. However, if more funds were made available via subscription, perhaps they would be able to bring on more writers?
I visit Slashdot every day, but am not an active poster. I'd pay the $30/year just because I think the effort that has gone into the site deserves reward and I'd love to see it progress. I don't know in what way, but if it would guarantee that Slashdot stays around in the future, that's a good thing.
Well, it depends on your budget here, but since I used to work as a service delivery manager for IBM, I know a bit about how their support agreements work.
The client I was SDM for had IBM as the first point of contact for *all* of their software stuff. I had to negotiate "back to back" service level agreements and maintenance contracts from the other vendors.
So basically, you could get the 2 products you wanted - DB2 and AIX - and skip on the websphere, and go *through* IBM for whatever product you wanted - and ask them to provide support.
It may be that their support will really only be providing the same easy one-number contact for you for that product, and then IBM calling the vendor on your behalf. With service level agreements in place between yourself and IBM, and IBM and the vendor, it should mean that the back to back agreement is essentially transparent to you.
At the end of the day, my experience with IBM is basically that if you are willing to pay for it, they can provide the support.:)
This subject goes beyond just one study. I think that it would take many studies to get the "big-picture". But, I would like to make these points:
Women only began voting approx. 100 years ago. Women only began to work less than that time. And an active encouragement to be educated in anything remotely scientific only truly began in the last 30 years. My mother remembers that she did not have to take maths (physics biology and any other science subject) past the time she was 13. So, I think we really need a bit more time to see if the equal opportunity programs that many countries have implemented have worked.
It has been my personal experience that being a "geek girl" has been, well, lonely dammit. I don't know many other girls that like to talk about computing, and if I start talking to a bunch of guys, the topic can often turn to cars, girls, sport,.. stuff that doesn't interest me.
Optusis only new and therefore only in some areas, but there's a price war on. Getting Bigpond advance insalled costs about $100, and it's $65 per month - unlimited download BUT the spead has been software capped to 400kbps as for Optus.. I don't know the prices etc, but I have hard reports of higher speeds than those of Telstra BPA so far..
I used to live in Wellington, New Zealand. And that's a nice city - but small, only 400K.
At the start of last year, I moved across the Tasman, to Melbourne. Melbourne is just a really nice place to live - great culture, night life, and the job scene seems to be going strongly.
I've found it pretty easy to settle in here, and meet people. There is always something to do. As for jobs.. try these sites:
Umm.. I don't have links for what's on around the city, but some great stuff happens, apart from the good club scene - there's the formula 1 grand prix, if you like noisy loud things that go fast, moonlight cinema is a good thing in summer - outdoor movies. It's just really kind of relaxing and nice.
Melbourne is just really livable and has a good public transport system Victrip
Hope this helps.. and don't forget, I'm a kiwi saying this about Melbourne:)
So I have to agree, it's a horrible idea, in general. I'm all for Megan's Law however.
However, it should be pointed out that this Perth-based company formed by an ex-police member, is getting the information that they need for their databases from Australian Newspapers and court records.
I don't know about the court records (who can read them etc) but the newspaper based information was public domain anyway. I guess they are just making it much easier.
It should also be noted that they list serious crimes only.
I'm not sure what this means, really. I tend to take a pretty harsh view of anyone who commits a serious crime that involves violence or sex offender. I generally think that people who commit a serious fruad crime are pretty dumb.
In case this gets to Wave America, I want to say that your ideals are admirable.
But you are going about it in a way that will alienate the students you are trying to reach.
Please, teach students that to tease, bully, and ridicule another student based on differences (race, religion, the way they look, or the things they like) is wrong.
Students that wear all black, or are angry.. well, teenagers are filled with angst. They just need to find out who they are and where they relate to the rest of the world, in their own way.
You are creating a weapon for some students to "dob" in another person based on a subjective view from a person who doesn't understand the person they are dobbing in.
Personally, I think that a lot of the difference comes in the different hobbies/sports/interests that people have as kids.
Someone posted earlier saying that girls aren't told to go play with their dolls anymore, but it scares me when I look at the toy stores to see stuff like a Barbie kitchen, or a play kitchen, or even computer software that pretends to be a kitchen.. bizarre! And all this stuff comes in pink. There's a "blue" workbench.
Now, Ms. Borg commented that when people make decisions in the workforce, all that makes up that person helps to make that decision. Imagine having years of "pink" persuading to help you choose your major?!
I've chosen not to attend university any further. Working in the IT industry, I've come across a lot of women who have flicked their hair, and batted their eyelashes. But the amount of serious women techs is low. Discouraging.
Ms Borg didn't really ake any suggestions on how to encourage women, but I really think that it needs to be a group of people in a school (promary, secondary level) who pro-actively encourage girls as well as boys to use and gain an interest in computers. If enough girls are encouraged, the group numbers will equalise, and girls will feel more comfortable.
A lot of people have made comments that are specific to Slashot, or to the Net. But I think that what really needs to be pointed out, that this idea of inclusion does not just affect online activities. It's out in the real world as well. The comment about the Braves pitcher not wanting as many "foreigners" in NYC or the States.. It's beng said in Australia and New Zealand as well. I think we really need to open up to all walks of life... I like to think of that old motto "live and let live". (there are exceptions, please don't get pedantic, but don't say stuff like gay people should be jailed or something dumb) Now, as from my own perspective... I've been on the net since the early nineties 91 or 92, I forget. "As a woman" I have found many interesting attitudes. The weirdest one to me, is when I talk to other women, and they try to tell me that there is nothing out there that needs to be worked on. But depsite that, the representation of women within Online communities or within the industry remains low. Personally, I think this comes down to the way our society as a whole is dealing with women gaining equality. In a lot of ways, we are almost there. But sadly, we continue to think of this as womens' rights. When it is really human rights we need to think of - as I said before, opening up to all walks of life, despite gender, race, religion. Faced with a group of the same type of people, anyone is going to feel that it is daunting - this is my first post to Slashdot, and I've been reading for a year! I do have some practical suggestions: Have a newbie area You know how the newspapers in the person columns (no, I haven't been looking!!) say reply to box 333, and then they keep the replies for the person who placed the ad? Maybe that is how Slashdot could do it. That is, make the person known and traceable to Slashdot only, and if anyone wants to get in touch with a person who posted, Slashdot can forward on the mail. This would acheive two things: 1. People can remain anonymous enough. i.e. the general public won't know who a poster is, but the poster is traceable by slashdot (thereofre meaning they can revoke rights... maybe make it so the person only has read access, no write access) 2. Oh, and I said it in 1 already - can crack down on flamers.. Well, sorry that I rambled, I better go work now. Michelle Peglar
Slashdot Mirror
Argghh.. sorry. Got the speed wrong (was thinking of something completely different...) It's been capped at 512kbps...
eeeeep...
Michelle
----
Well, we just pulled out of Telstra Bigpond because we had noticed a decrease in speed.
... and then they put a hard limit of 3GB on the amount of traffic per billing period.. all round badness.
Also, it should be noted that they did cap the speed to 45kb/s
A good site for any Australian boradband user, or potential user to check out is Whirlpool
Michelle
----
I'm just throwing this out in the Slashdot arena as a stray thought -
Is the IT industry as a whole acting like a prima donna? I work for a large international organisation and last year the IT head honcho for the world came out to visit. During the lunch the IT team shared, he and I had an interesting debate about whether IT *is* the business or not.
Now, the company I work for uses technology to make it's products, but frankly, they've made these products for a very long time - before computers. Of course, now that they use computers, they get a different level of product.
However, if for any reason the company's infrastructure failed, the product could actually still be made and the company could still make money.
So, from my point of view, IT is here to serve it's clients in the best way possible, and to make it easier for my clients to do business. But it struck me as being very arrogant to say that without IT, the company would be dead in the water, and so that therefore IT *is* the business.
At the end of the day, I believe it comes down to the people. It's the people of a company that make it a success or not.
So anyway, IT seems to take itself really serious to it's importance to a business. I realise that some companies would absolutely sink without computers (i.e. banks...)but I don't believe it is true for all companies (cos the computers will be replaced in time..they're just not essential to keep the company alive).
Michelle
----
For me, the difference between paying for a site and just visiting free sites is like paying for access to a BBS or not.
I don't know much about how Slashdot is funded. Obviously, they are owned by Andover. However, if more funds were made available via subscription, perhaps they would be able to bring on more writers?
I visit Slashdot every day, but am not an active poster. I'd pay the $30/year just because I think the effort that has gone into the site deserves reward and I'd love to see it progress. I don't know in what way, but if it would guarantee that Slashdot stays around in the future, that's a good thing.
Well, it depends on your budget here, but since I used to work as a service delivery manager for IBM, I know a bit about how their support agreements work.
:)
-
The client I was SDM for had IBM as the first point of contact for *all* of their software stuff. I had to negotiate "back to back" service level agreements and maintenance contracts from the other vendors.
So basically, you could get the 2 products you wanted - DB2 and AIX - and skip on the websphere, and go *through* IBM for whatever product you wanted - and ask them to provide support.
It may be that their support will really only be providing the same easy one-number contact for you for that product, and then IBM calling the vendor on your behalf. With service level agreements in place between yourself and IBM, and IBM and the vendor, it should mean that the back to back agreement is essentially transparent to you.
At the end of the day, my experience with IBM is basically that if you are willing to pay for it, they can provide the support.
Chrisom.
-------------------------------------------------
This subject goes beyond just one study. I think that it would take many studies to get the "big-picture".
.. stuff that doesn't interest me.
But, I would like to make these points:
Women only began voting approx. 100 years ago. Women only began to work less than that time. And an active encouragement to be educated in anything remotely scientific only truly began in the last 30 years. My mother remembers that she did not have to take maths (physics biology and any other science subject) past the time she was 13. So, I think we really need a bit more time to see if the equal opportunity programs that many countries have implemented have worked.
It has been my personal experience that being a "geek girl" has been, well, lonely dammit. I don't know many other girls that like to talk about computing, and if I start talking to a bunch of guys, the topic can often turn to cars, girls, sport,
I forgot to mention the only cable people in melbourne:
Bigpond Advance (Telstra) and
Optus
Optusis only new and therefore only in some areas, but there's a price war on. Getting Bigpond advance insalled costs about $100, and it's $65 per month - unlimited download BUT the spead has been software capped to 400kbps as for Optus.. I don't know the prices etc, but I have hard reports of higher speeds than those of Telstra BPA so far..
I used to live in Wellington, New Zealand. And that's a nice city - but small, only 400K.
:)
At the start of last year, I moved across the Tasman, to Melbourne. Melbourne is just a really nice place to live - great culture, night life, and the job scene seems to be going strongly.
I've found it pretty easy to settle in here, and meet people. There is always something to do. As for jobs.. try these sites:
IT Jobs site by Fairfax
Seek
Monster
As for other sites of interest, check out:
Immigration site
Autralian Taxation Office
Domain a great place to search for share accomodation
The Age newspaper
Umm.. I don't have links for what's on around the city, but some great stuff happens, apart from the good club scene - there's the formula 1 grand prix, if you like noisy loud things that go fast, moonlight cinema is a good thing in summer - outdoor movies. It's just really kind of relaxing and nice.
Melbourne is just really livable and has a good public transport system Victrip
Hope this helps.. and don't forget, I'm a kiwi saying this about Melbourne
So I have to agree, it's a horrible idea, in general. I'm all for Megan's Law however.
However, it should be pointed out that this Perth-based company formed by an ex-police member, is getting the information that they need for their databases from Australian Newspapers and court records.
I don't know about the court records (who can read them etc) but the newspaper based information was public domain anyway. I guess they are just making it much easier.
It should also be noted that they list serious crimes only.
I'm not sure what this means, really. I tend to take a pretty harsh view of anyone who commits a serious crime that involves violence or sex offender. I generally think that people who commit a serious fruad crime are pretty dumb.
In case this gets to Wave America, I want to say that your ideals are admirable.
But you are going about it in a way that will alienate the students you are trying to reach.
Please, teach students that to tease, bully, and ridicule another student based on differences (race, religion, the way they look, or the things they like) is wrong.
Students that wear all black, or are angry.. well, teenagers are filled with angst. They just need to find out who they are and where they relate to the rest of the world, in their own way.
You are creating a weapon for some students to "dob" in another person based on a subjective view from a person who doesn't understand the person they are dobbing in.
Chrisom ______________________________________________
Personally, I think that a lot of the difference comes in the different hobbies/sports/interests that people have as kids.
Someone posted earlier saying that girls aren't told to go play with their dolls anymore, but it scares me when I look at the toy stores to see stuff like a Barbie kitchen, or a play kitchen, or even computer software that pretends to be a kitchen.. bizarre! And all this stuff comes in pink. There's a "blue" workbench.
Now, Ms. Borg commented that when people make decisions in the workforce, all that makes up that person helps to make that decision. Imagine having years of "pink" persuading to help you choose your major?!
I've chosen not to attend university any further. Working in the IT industry, I've come across a lot of women who have flicked their hair, and batted their eyelashes. But the amount of serious women techs is low. Discouraging.
Ms Borg didn't really ake any suggestions on how to encourage women, but I really think that it needs to be a group of people in a school (promary, secondary level) who pro-actively encourage girls as well as boys to use and gain an interest in computers. If enough girls are encouraged, the group numbers will equalise, and girls will feel more comfortable.
That's one suggestion. Any more?
Chrisom.
--
A lot of people have made comments that are specific to Slashot, or to the Net. But I think that what really needs to be pointed out, that this idea of inclusion does not just affect online activities. It's out in the real world as well. The comment about the Braves pitcher not wanting as many "foreigners" in NYC or the States.. It's beng said in Australia and New Zealand as well. I think we really need to open up to all walks of life... I like to think of that old motto "live and let live". (there are exceptions, please don't get pedantic, but don't say stuff like gay people should be jailed or something dumb) Now, as from my own perspective... I've been on the net since the early nineties 91 or 92, I forget. "As a woman" I have found many interesting attitudes. The weirdest one to me, is when I talk to other women, and they try to tell me that there is nothing out there that needs to be worked on. But depsite that, the representation of women within Online communities or within the industry remains low. Personally, I think this comes down to the way our society as a whole is dealing with women gaining equality. In a lot of ways, we are almost there. But sadly, we continue to think of this as womens' rights. When it is really human rights we need to think of - as I said before, opening up to all walks of life, despite gender, race, religion. Faced with a group of the same type of people, anyone is going to feel that it is daunting - this is my first post to Slashdot, and I've been reading for a year! I do have some practical suggestions: Have a newbie area You know how the newspapers in the person columns (no, I haven't been looking!!) say reply to box 333, and then they keep the replies for the person who placed the ad? Maybe that is how Slashdot could do it. That is, make the person known and traceable to Slashdot only, and if anyone wants to get in touch with a person who posted, Slashdot can forward on the mail. This would acheive two things: 1. People can remain anonymous enough. i.e. the general public won't know who a poster is, but the poster is traceable by slashdot (thereofre meaning they can revoke rights... maybe make it so the person only has read access, no write access) 2. Oh, and I said it in 1 already - can crack down on flamers.. Well, sorry that I rambled, I better go work now. Michelle Peglar