This article has only served to remind me what an old fart I am. How many people out there are posting that this is invasive and looking at the contents of students drives? How many of those posting such messages actually understand how this works?
I re-read the article thinking that I missed something, and then I re-read the editorial. Nope didn't miss a thing.
Folks, viruses and P2P apps open ports on your computer. Those ports do things. Well known things. Any network admin worth their salary can tell you what your box is doing just by watching the traffic coming from and going to your computer, and don't get me started on active port scanning.
The University can do all of this without ever acessing the contents of the students hard drive. You want complete privacy? Unplug your network connection.
So Students can't play games any more. Cry me a river. For $100 bucks they can buy a switch, some patch cables and throw a lan party (which would be more fun anyway). So you feel that you're stuck in an ISP monopoly that is so unfair? Cry me a river. Get a dial up ISP if you have to get your fix. In the real world we don't always have a high speed ISP option either. Got a CS project? Then justify your use. OSS project? Host it off campus.
There are rules. You learn to play by the ones you have to, and to work around the ones you have to. Stop complaining and get to work damnit.
What kind of intellectual environment is there at a university that intimidates students from conducting research?
So you want to complain about it? How about offering a valid solution? P2P apps soak up bandwidth. Viruses soak up bandwidth. Johnny Student is sharing 500 gigs of dvd's from his PC, and Jane Student has every virus known to man on her PC. Those two students alone are soaking up the available bandwidth and denying other students the ability to conduct legitimate research.
What kind of intellectual environment does not monitor their network to ensure that it remains available for legitimate use? If you want unhindered P2P, get a private connection. If you can't be bothered to protect your computer from viruses, get a private connection. Why shouldn't people face the consequences for their actions? Why should the truely innocent users pay for the abuse of those who can't be bothered to think of anyone but themselves?
There is only one body that can ensure that the campus network remains viable for all students. That's the campus body that runs the networks.
It's no surprise that any research requiring an inordinate amount of resources has to be justified. If the student is really researching something and they require more bandwidth, they should either justify it to the university or get their own private connection.
They may be paying for use of the network, but so are the hundres (or thousands) of other students. Bandwidth is not unlimited and the campus agency responsible for it has to make sure it's available for legitimate purposes.
Open source is not free. The cost to your boss for running open source software is the time it takes for you to support it. He also needs you, or someone like you, to make sure that his systems keep running etc. This is why many companies shy away from open source solutions, the perceived lack of support.
So by inference, if you buy closed source software you don't have to worry about having someone on hand to support it and keep it all running. As we all know Microsoft products require absolutely no on site support and attention from the IT staff.
Sarcasm: The weapon of choice for those who understand that assault and battery generally come with jail time.
I won't argue that OSS dosen't require support personnel, but then again so does non-OSS. Those costs remain the same, the difference is that with OSS you don't have large, recuring licensing fees. So if you remove the costs that are the same between OSS and non-OSS, all that's left is the cost of the software. The difference between $0 and $500/seat for each application is significant for any business.
Companies benefiting from OSS should donate some money to the OSS developement teams to help keep things going. I'd like to know if that is actually happening.
Congratulations, you found a way to complain about the fact that Comcast is increasing bandwidth at no extra cost. Anyone here think that's a little negative?
Not really. If you consider the fact that @Home gave me that speed to start with and between ATT and Comcast they've raised my rates twice. Once because I own my cable modem instead of renting theirs, and the second time because I don't want cable TV.
I'll view this as positive when my rates go down. Don't be fooled. Most people don't use the full bandwidth available to them. This is just a marketing ploy to make you think you're getting more. Did you consider that cable is a shared network? If eveyone on your node is downloading the latest RedHat iso's do you really think you're going to see anything close to that 3MB/sec?
The only positive thing about this is the hope that the telco's will get scared and upgrade their DSL equipment so I can actually be their customer.
This article seems to have such a pro-Mac stance that I didn't bother reading past the first couple of paragraphs. It's OS/wars all over again.
Granted it's been a few years since I was a Level 1 Tech for Apple Resellers, but let's not forget that for many years Macintosh (and specifically Mac-OS) reigned supreme as the simplest platform for which to write viruses. And virus writers certainly took advantage of it.
So, Windows Today is just as virus prone as Mac of three years ago? Macs run code whenever a CD is inserted. This was obviously such a bad idea that Microsoft never did anything like that.
Nice try. There have been Mac viri, but never the quantity that Windows has been blessed with. Ever. This is a really poor attempt to draw attention away from the point of the article.
The point is: of modern consumer operating systems (ie. things you can go to the store and buy off the shelf right now.), Microsoft's are the most vulnerable right out of the box.
But of course you just skimmed the first couple of paragraphs, saw "Macintosh" and went into Microsoft Certified Disinformation Mode. Good thing you didn't get to the place where they mentioned "Linux" or all traces of even looking at the article might have been automatically removed from your memory.
I'm really getting tired of Microsoft appologists. "Well yeah, but look at the other guys, they got a virus three years ago!"
Really, there isn't. They make some great products. If they weren't so great, why does the rest of the industry copy them?
I've always bought Macs for my own use, even when I was a poor student, because they just work better. I'm not impressed by huge volumes of crappy applications. I simply want to get my work done. The Mac does that without getting in the way.
You can, and will, find people for whom the Mac gets in the way all the time. However you will also find people driving on the streets who shouldn't be allowed to even think about owning a car. That being said, I've NEVER used a version of Windows that integrated as fluidly with my work as my Macs. The OS should never get in the way of getting the work done. Windows frequently intrudes into my work space.
Why are most Mac Users insanely loyal? Because there is nothing else out there that works this well. Now that OS X has a BSD core, it's even better suited to me. In fact, I've been considering replacing my Employer provided PC with a Mac out of my own pocket, because my PC interferes with my work flow too much. Linux is almost there. I'd be using it on my work PC right now if I could get Lotus Notes to run, but Wine doesn't work for anything much beyond mail in Notes 6. However, there is a version of Notes for OS X.
You can have my Macs when you pry them from my cold dead hands.
You've got something else wrong with your system. There is no reason transfering a 17 Meg file should take that long, even on an old machine. I could do a comparison from my 7500, but I reloaded it with NetBSD a couple years ago and don't have a bootable OS 9 disk....
Odds are you are already paying for this. My carrier increased it's fees last year stating that it was to cover the costs of system upgrades to support phone number portability.
But then I realized you probably meant the serial ports on the Newtons were different, in which case you were wrong. There's no such thing as a "Windows only" or "Mac only" Newton.
The only difference was the serial cable sold with the unit. The Mac version had a DIN-8 connecter on the cable for the Mac. The PC had a DB-9 connector on the cable for the PC.
The Newton side of the connection is the same because the unit is exactly the same. Duh. Read the comment again, I never said there were two different versions of the Newton. Just one package was sold for PC and one was sold for Mac. The only difference between them being the serial cable.
Correct me if I am wrong, but can't you only sync a Newton with a Mac.
Okay, you're wrong. The Newton was designed to sync with both Mac and Windows. Shipped with the software for it and in fact was sold in two different versions due to differences in serial ports being different between the two platforms.
Why buy a Newton? I bought my 2100 over a palm because the screen was twice the size and I didn't have to learn a new language to enter data. I don't want something that will fit in my shirt pocket, I want something that could completely replace my daytimer. The Newton did, and still does that.
The meetings I attend now, all the palm guys bring collapsable keyboards to enter data. Me, I scribble notes in my own handwriting, just like I used to do with my daytimer, and convert them to text and email them out later. Unlike my daytimer I let the Newton convert my scribbling and it does just fine.
When my Newton dies I'll be going back to the daytimer.
While it may be true that a good band can be made better through expensive equipment, engineers and producers, I can't help but wonder why so many "popular" bands absolutely suck live.
Oh yeah, it's all that expensive equipment, engineering and producing. Unfortunately they don't have all that when they do a live show and have to rely on their own ability to produce quality music.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but it's also allowed a large number of artists to get by without putting in the time to practice and become truely good at what they do. On the flip side, the bands that do it themselves have to be good. If I go see a band at a local show and they rock, I'll buy their CD. It's not a garantee that the CD will be good, but generally CD's are better than live in terms of sound quality.
Live Show Good = CD Good CD Good != Live Show Good
Produing and Engineering have had a side effect of making bands better than they really are, extremely so in some cases. I'd rather have music that dosen't need producing or engineering.
The Palm became popular because it is not a computer. It is a high tech replacement for the "little black book." It was designed to hold dates, addresses and short notes. It was designed to have all of this information added from a desktop PC. True you don't need a desktop PC to use a Palm, but it's useability as a stand alone platform is worse than the Newton.
The Newton was sold as a PDA, but in its final incarnation was a successful stand-alone device. It can be used easily without ever connecting to a host computer thanks to the handwriting recognition and the large input area (i.e. the entire screen).
I don't think Apple should compete with a PDA like the Palm. For starters, let Palm and MS beat each other to a pulp in that market.
What I need is a replacement for my Newton. I need the larger screen area, the easy handwriting recognition for notes and data entry, the instant on/off, and the battery that will last more than a week on a single charge and daily heavy use. I still have, and use, a battered Newton 2100. It's smaller than the Daytimer I used to carry everywhere, and more useful. I want a computer larger and more useable than a Palm, but smaller with far better battery life than a laptop.
The Newton is still the only handheld system that performs well in those constraints.
Very few users that I know have dropped the floppy. The ones that have are generally the much more advanced computer users, not the average user.
Umm, I hate to burst your bubble but every mac user for quite a while now has dropped the floppy. My mom bought a USB floppy with her (now 5 year old and still running) iMac because she thought she would need it. I think it's still shrinkwrapped in the box.
Oh wait a second, you mean all Mac users are advanced computer users? Why thank you!
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, believe it or not, and it's Bill Gates.
I should know better by now, but it still knocks me for a loop that popular media still idolizes Gates and Microsoft. In the same article where they state that Microsoft has cost consumers billions they go on to say that Microsoft will be their savior!
Give me a fscking break!
This is the same problem that's gone on for years. Microsoft has been so successful at integrating themselves into the psychie of America that no one thinks there could ever be an alternative. Here's what we have to thank Microsoft for:
The Blue Screen of Death.
Lousey human interface design.
Draconian EULA.
Thanks to Microsoft crashing computers and daily reboots are accepted as normal by the public! How many Slashdotters can testify that they've had to reboot servers because Management, clueless though they usually are, has bought the idea that servers just have to be rebooted every now and then to function? I sure as hell can. Software crashes and Operating System crashes mean that something is wrong! Fix it damnit! But the first thing Microsoft will have you do if you call them for support is reboot your server. "Oh, you're using that version of Windows? That's your problem, the latest version is so much better." I hear this so often it make me want to puke. Give me a stable OS the first time around. Give me stable applications the first time around. Up time should be measurable in months, not hours. Thank you Microsoft!
Don't tell me that the software is too complicated, that's just an excuse for bad practices. I've got an installation of NetBSD running at home that's been running ever since I moved in. Don't tell me that Free OS' can do this because they aren't full featured. I've got an OS X box which is in the same boat. Uptime measured in months and it's a commercially available OS.
Face the music people, interface design counts and Microsoft has always been behind the curve. Apple's studied it an their results show. Adding a plethora of widgets does not make a good interface. Moving those widgets around constantly means that people have to relearn every new release. Consistent interface design counts. Most people are users, not geeks. They just need it to work reliably and repeatably. When systems work reliably and repeatably you don't have to think about how you do your work, you can just do it.
Finally, the next revolution that Microsoft is bringing the masses, software leasing. No you don't own the software and if you don't continue to pay them money annually your software stops working. Your data will be held hostage. Let me repeat that, your data will be held hostage! If you want access to your data, pay up. Sound far fetched? It's not. This is the direction they've been moving the whole time.
You want to know what steams me the most? It's our fault. Yeah, that's right. The geeks in the trenches. Most of us just accept what comes out, thinking that we don't have a choice but to submit. What a bunch of fscking sheep. Get involved with your management and make yourself part of the decision making process. If you let yourself be rolled then you will be. If you submit to bad software then who's fault is it really?
Is this a rant? Definitely. Is this a troll, possibly. Do I believe I don't have to submit to, or thank, Microsoft for anything? You bet your fscking life I do. No one holds my data hostage.
Gates and Microsoft are not the saviors. They are part of the problem and as long the public lets them get away with it, they will.
As plot devices go that's up there with destroying an Alien battle fleet with a PowerMac and Word Macro Virus
What? You haven't seen all those Intel commercials featuring Pentiums powering alien spacecraft? You laugh now, but that Word Macro Virus is going to save this planets collective ass someday...
Um, you can already get organizers the size of a credit card. If that's what you want, buy one. Personally I want a larger screen than what's available on most PDA's.
I wasn't in management directly, but when I was lead tech whenever I had a number of tasks to do I told my team I needed one less volunteer. I always picked up the task that no one else wanted to do and ran with it myself.
Personally I'm way more motivated when my management not only knows what I do, but can do it too. Not to realistic in today's corporate culture, but maybe it should be. At least it's true in the company I work for now.
Dating for Dummies is available for those lacking in Life skills. I know it's not O'Reilly, but they're probably still trying to decide what animal to put on the cover...
Like all good students I started off in college with a major I thought would get me a good job. Mechanical Engineering. However half way through calculous 2, when I took one look at the mid term exam my eyes glazed over and I started drooling. So the next day I dropped that class and changed my major to German. It finally dawned on me that I was paying a lot of money to torture myself, that's just stupid.
I've always enjoyed languages and cultures, so this made the rest of my college career far more enjoyable. Now before you discount my geekiness, I'm a Technical Specialist for a growing company specializing in disaster recovery. I've worked with big Unix boxen, 100+ node IBM SP's, and other IBM and Sun boxen. I'm going to have the opportunity to learn HP boxen as well.
I didn't jump from school into this spot, not with just a German degree. I worked in a small computer store as a bench tech, they were going out of business and their regular guys were finding other jobs. They needed cheap help, and I needed experience. Good match.
When they went out of business I got a job working phone support for Winblows. I did that for 3 years, one of the better techs in the company. I paid my dues there, did a good job and when the opportunity came to move to a Unix Admin team, they were desperate for help and I, having very little unix experience at the time, was very cheap to employ. I paid my dues there too, learned my trade fast and took advantage of all the training I could get my hands on. When the time came, I took my skills elsewhere and bumped my salary a good bit.
*Note to employers* Good employees can be found cheap if you're willing to train, but once they have the skills, if you don't compensate them they will take those skills elsewhere. I'm talking about working 300+ overtime hours in an under staffed department, earning a top review on my yearly and being told there was no money left for raises. In a fortune 500 company that was making money, go figure.
The moral of this story? Study what you like. Find out what you want to do with your life and then work hard to achieve it. Could I have gotten into the computer field a lot faster with a computer degree? Sure. But I would have enjoyed college a whole lot less and at the time I didn't even know what Unix was.
You get a word file. Open it in something that does not read word files. You should still see some text in there. Save the file in an open format of your choice, including all the nastiness that word puts in there. Why should you clean it up? They sent it to you that way. Then send the file back.
I've been doing that with a writing group I'm involved with. I open their files, read what I can, make my comments, than save as rtf to send back to them. I recently had a reply from one of them asking what was up with the file because he didn't send it to me that way. I simply explained that I don't use word and that he did in fact send it to me that way.
RTF looks nice enough for most folks I deal with, the problem with it is that like everything else MS has "embraced and extended" the format. So RTF files from MS don't always work elsewhere.
Whiners complaining about jobs: If you want the job, do what it takes to get it. If your hungry and about to be evicted from your home, complaining that the company you want to work for only accepts word files is stupid. Get over it.
Actually, they say they will credit you 2 days for every 1 day of downtime. So, since my connection has been down since Saturday, I should be credited 6 days now. Small comfort to a net junkie, but it at least gives me a reason to be patient.
Of course it would have been nice if they had their network up and running before they turned off excite...
Yes they are willing to replace parts, but in my experience their parts are not up to snuff. Case in point: I had 2 cpu modules die in a E10K. No problem, FE brings replacements, he brought 4 cpu modules with him. He used all four and had to order 2 more before we got the system working again. That's 4 DOA cpu modules in a row, and that's not the first time...
Slashdot Mirror
This article has only served to remind me what an old fart I am. How many people out there are posting that this is invasive and looking at the contents of students drives? How many of those posting such messages actually understand how this works?
I re-read the article thinking that I missed something, and then I re-read the editorial. Nope didn't miss a thing.
Folks, viruses and P2P apps open ports on your computer. Those ports do things. Well known things. Any network admin worth their salary can tell you what your box is doing just by watching the traffic coming from and going to your computer, and don't get me started on active port scanning.
The University can do all of this without ever acessing the contents of the students hard drive. You want complete privacy? Unplug your network connection.
So Students can't play games any more. Cry me a river. For $100 bucks they can buy a switch, some patch cables and throw a lan party (which would be more fun anyway). So you feel that you're stuck in an ISP monopoly that is so unfair? Cry me a river. Get a dial up ISP if you have to get your fix. In the real world we don't always have a high speed ISP option either. Got a CS project? Then justify your use. OSS project? Host it off campus.
There are rules. You learn to play by the ones you have to, and to work around the ones you have to. Stop complaining and get to work damnit.
So you want to complain about it? How about offering a valid solution? P2P apps soak up bandwidth. Viruses soak up bandwidth. Johnny Student is sharing 500 gigs of dvd's from his PC, and Jane Student has every virus known to man on her PC. Those two students alone are soaking up the available bandwidth and denying other students the ability to conduct legitimate research.
What kind of intellectual environment does not monitor their network to ensure that it remains available for legitimate use? If you want unhindered P2P, get a private connection. If you can't be bothered to protect your computer from viruses, get a private connection. Why shouldn't people face the consequences for their actions? Why should the truely innocent users pay for the abuse of those who can't be bothered to think of anyone but themselves?
There is only one body that can ensure that the campus network remains viable for all students. That's the campus body that runs the networks.
It's no surprise that any research requiring an inordinate amount of resources has to be justified. If the student is really researching something and they require more bandwidth, they should either justify it to the university or get their own private connection.
They may be paying for use of the network, but so are the hundres (or thousands) of other students. Bandwidth is not unlimited and the campus agency responsible for it has to make sure it's available for legitimate purposes.
So by inference, if you buy closed source software you don't have to worry about having someone on hand to support it and keep it all running. As we all know Microsoft products require absolutely no on site support and attention from the IT staff.
Sarcasm: The weapon of choice for those who understand that assault and battery generally come with jail time.
I won't argue that OSS dosen't require support personnel, but then again so does non-OSS. Those costs remain the same, the difference is that with OSS you don't have large, recuring licensing fees. So if you remove the costs that are the same between OSS and non-OSS, all that's left is the cost of the software. The difference between $0 and $500/seat for each application is significant for any business.
Companies benefiting from OSS should donate some money to the OSS developement teams to help keep things going. I'd like to know if that is actually happening.
Not really. If you consider the fact that @Home gave me that speed to start with and between ATT and Comcast they've raised my rates twice. Once because I own my cable modem instead of renting theirs, and the second time because I don't want cable TV.
I'll view this as positive when my rates go down. Don't be fooled. Most people don't use the full bandwidth available to them. This is just a marketing ploy to make you think you're getting more. Did you consider that cable is a shared network? If eveyone on your node is downloading the latest RedHat iso's do you really think you're going to see anything close to that 3MB/sec?
The only positive thing about this is the hope that the telco's will get scared and upgrade their DSL equipment so I can actually be their customer.
I've been to Utah, it's really quite nice.
Everything else about the article is dead on.
So, Windows Today is just as virus prone as Mac of three years ago? Macs run code whenever a CD is inserted. This was obviously such a bad idea that Microsoft never did anything like that.
Nice try. There have been Mac viri, but never the quantity that Windows has been blessed with. Ever. This is a really poor attempt to draw attention away from the point of the article.
The point is: of modern consumer operating systems (ie. things you can go to the store and buy off the shelf right now.), Microsoft's are the most vulnerable right out of the box.
But of course you just skimmed the first couple of paragraphs, saw "Macintosh" and went into Microsoft Certified Disinformation Mode. Good thing you didn't get to the place where they mentioned "Linux" or all traces of even looking at the article might have been automatically removed from your memory.
I'm really getting tired of Microsoft appologists. "Well yeah, but look at the other guys, they got a virus three years ago!"
Really, there isn't. They make some great products. If they weren't so great, why does the rest of the industry copy them?
I've always bought Macs for my own use, even when I was a poor student, because they just work better. I'm not impressed by huge volumes of crappy applications. I simply want to get my work done. The Mac does that without getting in the way.
You can, and will, find people for whom the Mac gets in the way all the time. However you will also find people driving on the streets who shouldn't be allowed to even think about owning a car. That being said, I've NEVER used a version of Windows that integrated as fluidly with my work as my Macs. The OS should never get in the way of getting the work done. Windows frequently intrudes into my work space.
Why are most Mac Users insanely loyal? Because there is nothing else out there that works this well. Now that OS X has a BSD core, it's even better suited to me. In fact, I've been considering replacing my Employer provided PC with a Mac out of my own pocket, because my PC interferes with my work flow too much. Linux is almost there. I'd be using it on my work PC right now if I could get Lotus Notes to run, but Wine doesn't work for anything much beyond mail in Notes 6. However, there is a version of Notes for OS X.
You can have my Macs when you pry them from my cold dead hands.
You've got something else wrong with your system. There is no reason transfering a 17 Meg file should take that long, even on an old machine. I could do a comparison from my 7500, but I reloaded it with NetBSD a couple years ago and don't have a bootable OS 9 disk....
Odds are you are already paying for this. My carrier increased it's fees last year stating that it was to cover the costs of system upgrades to support phone number portability.
Okay, you're wrong. The Newton was designed to sync with both Mac and Windows. Shipped with the software for it and in fact was sold in two different versions due to differences in serial ports being different between the two platforms.
Why buy a Newton? I bought my 2100 over a palm because the screen was twice the size and I didn't have to learn a new language to enter data. I don't want something that will fit in my shirt pocket, I want something that could completely replace my daytimer. The Newton did, and still does that.
The meetings I attend now, all the palm guys bring collapsable keyboards to enter data. Me, I scribble notes in my own handwriting, just like I used to do with my daytimer, and convert them to text and email them out later. Unlike my daytimer I let the Newton convert my scribbling and it does just fine.
When my Newton dies I'll be going back to the daytimer.
I think it's safe to say the orifice those numbers came from was not randomly determined.
While it may be true that a good band can be made better through expensive equipment, engineers and producers, I can't help but wonder why so many "popular" bands absolutely suck live.
Oh yeah, it's all that expensive equipment, engineering and producing. Unfortunately they don't have all that when they do a live show and have to rely on their own ability to produce quality music.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but it's also allowed a large number of artists to get by without putting in the time to practice and become truely good at what they do. On the flip side, the bands that do it themselves have to be good. If I go see a band at a local show and they rock, I'll buy their CD. It's not a garantee that the CD will be good, but generally CD's are better than live in terms of sound quality.
Live Show Good = CD Good
CD Good != Live Show Good
Produing and Engineering have had a side effect of making bands better than they really are, extremely so in some cases. I'd rather have music that dosen't need producing or engineering.
The Palm became popular because it is not a computer. It is a high tech replacement for the "little black book." It was designed to hold dates, addresses and short notes. It was designed to have all of this information added from a desktop PC. True you don't need a desktop PC to use a Palm, but it's useability as a stand alone platform is worse than the Newton.
The Newton was sold as a PDA, but in its final incarnation was a successful stand-alone device. It can be used easily without ever connecting to a host computer thanks to the handwriting recognition and the large input area (i.e. the entire screen).
I don't think Apple should compete with a PDA like the Palm. For starters, let Palm and MS beat each other to a pulp in that market.
What I need is a replacement for my Newton. I need the larger screen area, the easy handwriting recognition for notes and data entry, the instant on/off, and the battery that will last more than a week on a single charge and daily heavy use. I still have, and use, a battered Newton 2100. It's smaller than the Daytimer I used to carry everywhere, and more useful. I want a computer larger and more useable than a Palm, but smaller with far better battery life than a laptop.
The Newton is still the only handheld system that performs well in those constraints.
True to /. form.
RTFL. (Read The F***ing Link)
Then you might know what happend. Meet Mr. Clue stick. (WHAM!) The cashiers check was counterfit.
How do I know that? Because I RTFL.
Umm, I hate to burst your bubble but every mac user for quite a while now has dropped the floppy. My mom bought a USB floppy with her (now 5 year old and still running) iMac because she thought she would need it. I think it's still shrinkwrapped in the box.
Oh wait a second, you mean all Mac users are advanced computer users? Why thank you!
=P
I should know better by now, but it still knocks me for a loop that popular media still idolizes Gates and Microsoft. In the same article where they state that Microsoft has cost consumers billions they go on to say that Microsoft will be their savior!
Give me a fscking break!
This is the same problem that's gone on for years. Microsoft has been so successful at integrating themselves into the psychie of America that no one thinks there could ever be an alternative. Here's what we have to thank Microsoft for:
Thanks to Microsoft crashing computers and daily reboots are accepted as normal by the public! How many Slashdotters can testify that they've had to reboot servers because Management, clueless though they usually are, has bought the idea that servers just have to be rebooted every now and then to function? I sure as hell can. Software crashes and Operating System crashes mean that something is wrong! Fix it damnit! But the first thing Microsoft will have you do if you call them for support is reboot your server. "Oh, you're using that version of Windows? That's your problem, the latest version is so much better." I hear this so often it make me want to puke. Give me a stable OS the first time around. Give me stable applications the first time around. Up time should be measurable in months, not hours. Thank you Microsoft!
Don't tell me that the software is too complicated, that's just an excuse for bad practices. I've got an installation of NetBSD running at home that's been running ever since I moved in. Don't tell me that Free OS' can do this because they aren't full featured. I've got an OS X box which is in the same boat. Uptime measured in months and it's a commercially available OS.
Face the music people, interface design counts and Microsoft has always been behind the curve. Apple's studied it an their results show. Adding a plethora of widgets does not make a good interface. Moving those widgets around constantly means that people have to relearn every new release. Consistent interface design counts. Most people are users, not geeks. They just need it to work reliably and repeatably. When systems work reliably and repeatably you don't have to think about how you do your work, you can just do it.
Finally, the next revolution that Microsoft is bringing the masses, software leasing. No you don't own the software and if you don't continue to pay them money annually your software stops working. Your data will be held hostage. Let me repeat that, your data will be held hostage! If you want access to your data, pay up. Sound far fetched? It's not. This is the direction they've been moving the whole time.
You want to know what steams me the most? It's our fault. Yeah, that's right. The geeks in the trenches. Most of us just accept what comes out, thinking that we don't have a choice but to submit. What a bunch of fscking sheep. Get involved with your management and make yourself part of the decision making process. If you let yourself be rolled then you will be. If you submit to bad software then who's fault is it really?
Is this a rant? Definitely. Is this a troll, possibly. Do I believe I don't have to submit to, or thank, Microsoft for anything? You bet your fscking life I do. No one holds my data hostage.
Gates and Microsoft are not the saviors. They are part of the problem and as long the public lets them get away with it, they will.
What? You haven't seen all those Intel commercials featuring Pentiums powering alien spacecraft? You laugh now, but that Word Macro Virus is going to save this planets collective ass someday...
Um, you can already get organizers the size of a credit card. If that's what you want, buy one. Personally I want a larger screen than what's available on most PDA's.
Yeah I'm a Newton 2100 holdout, bite me.
I wasn't in management directly, but when I was lead tech whenever I had a number of tasks to do I told my team I needed one less volunteer. I always picked up the task that no one else wanted to do and ran with it myself.
Personally I'm way more motivated when my management not only knows what I do, but can do it too. Not to realistic in today's corporate culture, but maybe it should be. At least it's true in the company I work for now.
For those of you who didn't know...
Dating for Dummies is available for those lacking in Life skills. I know it's not O'Reilly, but they're probably still trying to decide what animal to put on the cover...
...maybe sheep...
Like all good students I started off in college with a major I thought would get me a good job. Mechanical Engineering. However half way through calculous 2, when I took one look at the mid term exam my eyes glazed over and I started drooling. So the next day I dropped that class and changed my major to German. It finally dawned on me that I was paying a lot of money to torture myself, that's just stupid.
I've always enjoyed languages and cultures, so this made the rest of my college career far more enjoyable. Now before you discount my geekiness, I'm a Technical Specialist for a growing company specializing in disaster recovery. I've worked with big Unix boxen, 100+ node IBM SP's, and other IBM and Sun boxen. I'm going to have the opportunity to learn HP boxen as well.
I didn't jump from school into this spot, not with just a German degree. I worked in a small computer store as a bench tech, they were going out of business and their regular guys were finding other jobs. They needed cheap help, and I needed experience. Good match.
When they went out of business I got a job working phone support for Winblows. I did that for 3 years, one of the better techs in the company. I paid my dues there, did a good job and when the opportunity came to move to a Unix Admin team, they were desperate for help and I, having very little unix experience at the time, was very cheap to employ. I paid my dues there too, learned my trade fast and took advantage of all the training I could get my hands on. When the time came, I took my skills elsewhere and bumped my salary a good bit.
*Note to employers* Good employees can be found cheap if you're willing to train, but once they have the skills, if you don't compensate them they will take those skills elsewhere. I'm talking about working 300+ overtime hours in an under staffed department, earning a top review on my yearly and being told there was no money left for raises. In a fortune 500 company that was making money, go figure.
The moral of this story? Study what you like. Find out what you want to do with your life and then work hard to achieve it. Could I have gotten into the computer field a lot faster with a computer degree? Sure. But I would have enjoyed college a whole lot less and at the time I didn't even know what Unix was.
You get a word file. Open it in something that does not read word files. You should still see some text in there. Save the file in an open format of your choice, including all the nastiness that word puts in there. Why should you clean it up? They sent it to you that way. Then send the file back.
I've been doing that with a writing group I'm involved with. I open their files, read what I can, make my comments, than save as rtf to send back to them. I recently had a reply from one of them asking what was up with the file because he didn't send it to me that way. I simply explained that I don't use word and that he did in fact send it to me that way.
RTF looks nice enough for most folks I deal with, the problem with it is that like everything else MS has "embraced and extended" the format. So RTF files from MS don't always work elsewhere.
Whiners complaining about jobs: If you want the job, do what it takes to get it. If your hungry and about to be evicted from your home, complaining that the company you want to work for only accepts word files is stupid. Get over it.
Actually, they say they will credit you 2 days for every 1 day of downtime. So, since my connection has been down since Saturday, I should be credited 6 days now. Small comfort to a net junkie, but it at least gives me a reason to be patient. Of course it would have been nice if they had their network up and running before they turned off excite...
Yes they are willing to replace parts, but in my experience their parts are not up to snuff. Case in point: I had 2 cpu modules die in a E10K. No problem, FE brings replacements, he brought 4 cpu modules with him. He used all four and had to order 2 more before we got the system working again. That's 4 DOA cpu modules in a row, and that's not the first time...