That just isn't true. Plenty of very well respected people live quite modestly. The only people I've ever heard considered freeloaders are welfare cases or perhaps people on disability. If the people you hang around would consider you lazy or a freeloader for not being driven by material wealth, you need to find new friends/peers. Seriously.
I actually saw this neat contraption that would cool a can in seconds. You just put some ice in the tray, lay the can down over the ice, and turn a crank which turns the can over the ice. You wouldn't think it could do it, but the can would get ice cold in seconds. It was impressive because it was so low tech.
Of course, real men don't drink beer from cans nor do they drink beer that needs to be that cold, so it was of little use to me.;-)
I want one right now! That thing looks awesome, and dangerous =)
I dunno. I was thinking it looked a little slow. I mean, they had the fast paced music and all and tried to make it seem "Xtreme" as if they were showing clips from the X-Games, but it was going like 7mph or something. And THEN they showed it in slow motion as if the board wasn't going slow enough already!
Do you know what kind of software they are using to extract IM source/destinations? I guess they can use their own SMTP logs to keep track of mail (assming the "terrorist" uses the ISPs mail servers), but it would be a lot of work to extract meaningful data out of any given TCP/UDP flow at the appplication layer.
Indeed it would be quite unreasonable to simply log all packets. What you'd want to do (and many ISPs do) is keep a log of "flows." In other words, each connection, its source and destination, number of packets sent, etc. That is much more reasonable. Although I don't know how useful it is for anything other than gathering statistics on network usage.
I'm going to argue that drive letter mapping is a good thing. I'll agree with you that it doesn't matter which letter gets mapped. F: could easily become Y:, H: could easily become X:, (in my case, E: could easily become the W: drive.)
You (or someone) mapped a user network drive to E:!!!??? Brilliant work. First, fire that person if they still work there. Then continue your search for a USB device hack. I had assumed that it was F: that was getting in the way (which can be changed without affecting users).
Could I change the drive mappings for 2,000 users to accommodate the 100 power users that bring in USB sticks or hook up digital cameras? Sure I could. Would another 100 of them be pissed because all their OLE links between documents broke? Sure would. Is that your problem? No, I guess not.
My point is that we are not talking about just any old drive mapping. We are talking about the F: (SYS volume) drive in particular which, on modern systems, serves no useful purpose to your average user. It certainly shouldn't contain user documents!
But whatever. This is yet another reason why I got out of the Windows desktop nightmare years ago. The whole idea of drive letters has to be the dumbest DOS throwback ever. Well, that and 8.3 default file naming.
But since that will cause not only political fallout, but problems with older, in-house custom applications that rely on specific drive mappings,
I understand that applications can depend on specific drive mappings. Not just custom software. But we are not talking about just any drive mapping. We are talking about F: in particular which maps to teh SYS volume. Do your applications specifically depend on F:? Why?
Anyway, I'm sorry that you work in an environment where making trivial changes is an uphill battle. I would quit such a job in a heartbeat. I can't imagine anything more stifling in an IT environment. I'm accustomed to being in a position where I can implement trivial changes at will if it means fixing a problem.
The submitter, (that would be me), did make a point of saying that he couldn't change the drive lettering. I also mentioned that this was a solution,
No offense, but I have met many people who reject the simple solution for no good reason. Possibly because they are afraid of trying to fix the overly complex mess they've created over the years of being a poor (group of) admin.
"The fix so far has been to manually remap the memory key to a free letter, such as B:, and this has to be done on every machine. Either that, or switch your first mapped drive, which is more of a problem in most environments"
The first mapped drive (F: by default) has not been significant since the days of DOS where you needed to access LOGIN.EXE and the MAP command and all that from SYS:PUBLIC. Also, F: is mapped to SYS. There should be no significant user related data there. If your users depend on F:, that is your problem. Not USB memory sticks. Not Windows XP. Not Netware. I have worked in several Netware environments and not ONE of depended on F: since "upgrading" to Windows 95. Sorry, I'm not buying this "switching your first mapped drive is more of a problem in most environments" garbage. Maybe it is a problem in YOUR environment. In which case you should give more details.
I'm sorry that you have a shitty job full of politics that won't allow you to do the right thing. The submitter should have been much more clear about his/her political/technical situation instead of making it sound like there is no known solution to this problem. The solution is clear. Besides, who is storing important application data on F: (SYS) anyway?
There is nothing magic about the F: drive and Netware. It just happens to be the traditional default mapping. There is no reason why you need to accept that the default. Simply modify the login script(s) and/or the client settings on the computers. Geez. Was this REALLY worthy of an "Ask Slashdot?"
Well duh! Of course privacy isn't an issue. Who said it was? The problem is that a *school* is talking about holding kids responsible for these things said there. Pardon me, but isn't that just a little bit out of their jurisdiction? Let them monitor the blogs all they want. But the minute they try to punish students for things on the blog, well, that is just going too far. If the information is so incriminating, let the police handle it. I used to live just a couple miles from Liberyville, IL and I know that the police there don't have a whole lot better to do. Or just tell the parents. Let the parents know what their kids are doing online. That should probably be enough in a lot of cases. I know I don't want my mom reading half the things *I* say on the Internet.
A plane crashing while demonstrating some new safety features would be (mildly) ironic. Any random plane crashing is just unfortunate. It takes a little bit more than "something unexpected" to get irony.
No, he was right. Isn't the person who got suspended in his example also a student?
Well, in the somewhat contrived example, the "student" was playing the role of a teacher.
Thus they still took a student out of school when the expected result would be fewer students out of school. Situational irony.
Ok, but it would have been much more ironic if the whole class was suspended.
Your point that it was hypocritical of the school is much less sound, but probably also supportable.
The hypocrisy I was refering to was on the part of the teacher (student, really) of the class. He didn't practice what he preached. First rule of "staying in school" is to not piss off the school by doing something like holding a class in the gym without getting permission.
However since he didn't reserve the gym, he gets caught and suspended for unauthorized assembly. That's a good example of Irony of Fate?
No, that is an example of hypocrisy. It would be Irony of Fate if the students in the "How to stay in school 101" class somehow got suspended. The intended effect of the class was to help students stay in school, but the result was just the opposite. Also known as tragic irony.
I blame Alanis Morissette for all the confusion. Nothing in that song "Isn't it Ironic?" is ironic. It's all just unfortunate.
Yeah, and THAT is ironic. It is especially clever, assuming Allanis knew what she was doing, because the idea of irony itself is being used as a mechanism for irony. Then again, maybe Allanis is just ignorant and nobody clued her in before she released the song.:-)
Well, at that point he should be thanking his school, because you're not getting irony either.
Very well written, but every dictionary I have available to me says you are quite wrong. "References" for your little rant consist of a television cartoon series and an etymology dictionary which doesn't have much to say on the subject. Basically what you are saying is "trust me, I know what I am talking about. Dictionaries of the world be damned." Please provide some credible and meaningful references for your claims.
Repeat after me: Irony Is A Form Of Wordplay.\
Verbal irony is a form of wordplay, but there are several different forms of irony.
Do you also remember after she died they did an autopsy and found that her brain had essentially turned to mush over the years? No drug was going to bring her back. Who knows, maybe if a drug was available when she first entered the vegetative state. But after that many years, the only reasonable thing to do was to "pull the plug."
In my many years of experience managing heterogenous environments (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD desktops and servers), I have not found complexity to be a problem at all. What happens is that you miss out on some more advanced features that you might get from going all Microsoft or all Apple. For example, you can't effectively run Exchange and get all of the features that a lot of end users seem to like. Users get accustomed to using more generic protocols like IMAP and POP for email and maybe some web based calendar system that you install.
In many ways a heterogeneous environment is actually LESS complex than a homogeneous environment. You either end up using very simple, common protocols or you isolate your users. Put the Windows users on a Windows server and Mac users on an OS X server, for example, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Usually Mac and Windows users have different organizational roles anyway and the LInux users don't like the Mac and Windows users. Everyone is happy.;-)
Seriously, it isn't bad. And people are happy using the desktop of their choice. But sometimes I guess you really need the kind of "features" that only a monoculture can bring. It's a trade off, for sure.
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That just isn't true. Plenty of very well respected people live quite modestly. The only people I've ever heard considered freeloaders are welfare cases or perhaps people on disability. If the people you hang around would consider you lazy or a freeloader for not being driven by material wealth, you need to find new friends/peers. Seriously.
-matthew
But a plane crashing *isn't* unexpected. Although rare, it happenes.
-m
I actually saw this neat contraption that would cool a can in seconds. You just put some ice in the tray, lay the can down over the ice, and turn a crank which turns the can over the ice. You wouldn't think it could do it, but the can would get ice cold in seconds. It was impressive because it was so low tech.
;-)
Of course, real men don't drink beer from cans nor do they drink beer that needs to be that cold, so it was of little use to me.
-matthew
Yeah, the things are so slow that you'll lose your voice from contantly saying "on your left" as you walk past them.
-matthew
I want one right now! That thing looks awesome, and dangerous =)
I dunno. I was thinking it looked a little slow. I mean, they had the fast paced music and all and tried to make it seem "Xtreme" as if they were showing clips from the X-Games, but it was going like 7mph or something. And THEN they showed it in slow motion as if the board wasn't going slow enough already!
-matthew
Do you know what kind of software they are using to extract IM source/destinations? I guess they can use their own SMTP logs to keep track of mail (assming the "terrorist" uses the ISPs mail servers), but it would be a lot of work to extract meaningful data out of any given TCP/UDP flow at the appplication layer.
-matthew
Indeed it would be quite unreasonable to simply log all packets. What you'd want to do (and many ISPs do) is keep a log of "flows." In other words, each connection, its source and destination, number of packets sent, etc. That is much more reasonable. Although I don't know how useful it is for anything other than gathering statistics on network usage.
-matthew
I'm going to argue that drive letter mapping is a good thing. I'll agree with you that it doesn't matter which letter gets mapped. F: could easily become Y:, H: could easily become X:, (in my case, E: could easily become the W: drive.)
You (or someone) mapped a user network drive to E:!!!??? Brilliant work. First, fire that person if they still work there. Then continue your search for a USB device hack. I had assumed that it was F: that was getting in the way (which can be changed without affecting users).
-matthew
Could I change the drive mappings for 2,000 users to accommodate the 100 power users that bring in USB sticks or hook up digital cameras? Sure I could. Would another 100 of them be pissed because all their OLE links between documents broke? Sure would. Is that your problem? No, I guess not.
My point is that we are not talking about just any old drive mapping. We are talking about the F: (SYS volume) drive in particular which, on modern systems, serves no useful purpose to your average user. It certainly shouldn't contain user documents!
But whatever. This is yet another reason why I got out of the Windows desktop nightmare years ago. The whole idea of drive letters has to be the dumbest DOS throwback ever. Well, that and 8.3 default file naming.
-matthew
But since that will cause not only political fallout, but problems with older, in-house custom applications that rely on specific drive mappings,
I understand that applications can depend on specific drive mappings. Not just custom software. But we are not talking about just any drive mapping. We are talking about F: in particular which maps to teh SYS volume. Do your applications specifically depend on F:? Why?
Anyway, I'm sorry that you work in an environment where making trivial changes is an uphill battle. I would quit such a job in a heartbeat. I can't imagine anything more stifling in an IT environment. I'm accustomed to being in a position where I can implement trivial changes at will if it means fixing a problem.
-matthew
The submitter, (that would be me), did make a point of saying that he couldn't change the drive lettering. I also mentioned that this was a solution,
No offense, but I have met many people who reject the simple solution for no good reason. Possibly because they are afraid of trying to fix the overly complex mess they've created over the years of being a poor (group of) admin.
"The fix so far has been to manually remap the memory key to a free letter, such as B:, and this has to be done on every machine. Either that, or switch your first mapped drive, which is more of a problem in most environments"
The first mapped drive (F: by default) has not been significant since the days of DOS where you needed to access LOGIN.EXE and the MAP command and all that from SYS:PUBLIC. Also, F: is mapped to SYS. There should be no significant user related data there. If your users depend on F:, that is your problem. Not USB memory sticks. Not Windows XP. Not Netware. I have worked in several Netware environments and not ONE of depended on F: since "upgrading" to Windows 95. Sorry, I'm not buying this "switching your first mapped drive is more of a problem in most environments" garbage. Maybe it is a problem in YOUR environment. In which case you should give more details.
-matthew
I'm sorry that you have a shitty job full of politics that won't allow you to do the right thing. The submitter should have been much more clear about his/her political/technical situation instead of making it sound like there is no known solution to this problem. The solution is clear. Besides, who is storing important application data on F: (SYS) anyway?
-matthew
Two of the programs required client reinstalls in order to use the new drive letters so it quickly became a pain in the ass.
HOw in the world does changing drive mapping require a client reinstall?
-matthew
eDirectory.
Why is that even necessary though? Are people really that stuck on using F: for Netware mappings?
-matthew
There is nothing magic about the F: drive and Netware. It just happens to be the traditional default mapping. There is no reason why you need to accept that the default. Simply modify the login script(s) and/or the client settings on the computers. Geez. Was this REALLY worthy of an "Ask Slashdot?"
-matthew
Well duh! Of course privacy isn't an issue. Who said it was? The problem is that a *school* is talking about holding kids responsible for these things said there. Pardon me, but isn't that just a little bit out of their jurisdiction? Let them monitor the blogs all they want. But the minute they try to punish students for things on the blog, well, that is just going too far. If the information is so incriminating, let the police handle it. I used to live just a couple miles from Liberyville, IL and I know that the police there don't have a whole lot better to do. Or just tell the parents. Let the parents know what their kids are doing online. That should probably be enough in a lot of cases. I know I don't want my mom reading half the things *I* say on the Internet.
-matthew
A plane crashing while demonstrating some new safety features would be (mildly) ironic. Any random plane crashing is just unfortunate. It takes a little bit more than "something unexpected" to get irony.
-matthew
No, he was right. Isn't the person who got suspended in his example also a student?
Well, in the somewhat contrived example, the "student" was playing the role of a teacher.
Thus they still took a student out of school when the expected result would be fewer students out of school. Situational irony.
Ok, but it would have been much more ironic if the whole class was suspended.
Your point that it was hypocritical of the school is much less sound, but probably also supportable.
The hypocrisy I was refering to was on the part of the teacher (student, really) of the class. He didn't practice what he preached. First rule of "staying in school" is to not piss off the school by doing something like holding a class in the gym without getting permission.
-matthew
However since he didn't reserve the gym, he gets caught and suspended for unauthorized assembly. That's a good example of Irony of Fate?
:-)
No, that is an example of hypocrisy. It would be Irony of Fate if the students in the "How to stay in school 101" class somehow got suspended. The intended effect of the class was to help students stay in school, but the result was just the opposite. Also known as tragic irony.
I blame Alanis Morissette for all the confusion. Nothing in that song "Isn't it Ironic?" is ironic. It's all just unfortunate.
Yeah, and THAT is ironic. It is especially clever, assuming Allanis knew what she was doing, because the idea of irony itself is being used as a mechanism for irony. Then again, maybe Allanis is just ignorant and nobody clued her in before she released the song.
-matthew
Well, at that point he should be thanking his school, because you're not getting irony either.
Very well written, but every dictionary I have available to me says you are quite wrong. "References" for your little rant consist of a television cartoon series and an etymology dictionary which doesn't have much to say on the subject. Basically what you are saying is "trust me, I know what I am talking about. Dictionaries of the world be damned." Please provide some credible and meaningful references for your claims.
Repeat after me: Irony Is A Form Of Wordplay.\
Verbal irony is a form of wordplay, but there are several different forms of irony.
-matthew
Correction: "Never GNU/Knew that"
-The real RMS
Not if they foul their pants!
Do you also remember after she died they did an autopsy and found that her brain had essentially turned to mush over the years? No drug was going to bring her back. Who knows, maybe if a drug was available when she first entered the vegetative state. But after that many years, the only reasonable thing to do was to "pull the plug."
-matthew
In my many years of experience managing heterogenous environments (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD desktops and servers), I have not found complexity to be a problem at all. What happens is that you miss out on some more advanced features that you might get from going all Microsoft or all Apple. For example, you can't effectively run Exchange and get all of the features that a lot of end users seem to like. Users get accustomed to using more generic protocols like IMAP and POP for email and maybe some web based calendar system that you install.
;-)
In many ways a heterogeneous environment is actually LESS complex than a homogeneous environment. You either end up using very simple, common protocols or you isolate your users. Put the Windows users on a Windows server and Mac users on an OS X server, for example, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Usually Mac and Windows users have different organizational roles anyway and the LInux users don't like the Mac and Windows users. Everyone is happy.
Seriously, it isn't bad. And people are happy using the desktop of their choice. But sometimes I guess you really need the kind of "features" that only a monoculture can bring. It's a trade off, for sure.
-matthew