Earplugs give me a headache. Music is as distracting as the accounting group sitting all around me. What saved me were white noise mp3s. I put on noise reducing headphones and pipe ocean or rain sounds through them. My productivity went way up. At the end of the day I wasn't completely wiped from trying to focus on my work so I was able to have a social life. I am also much less irritable during the day.
Many people have auditory processing and other disorders that cause them to react strongly to distracting noises.
In the end it should be up the to profession programmer to decide what makes him most productive.
It does not affect my decisions at all. Businesses aren't in business to push programming ideology. They are in business to make money. If I need an application I'm going to get the application that does the job for the least amount of money (all the caveats about it not being poorly written and being moderately open to possible future expansion, etc.. apply). If I need bare-metal code then I'll get a guy to do that. If VB will do the job then I'm going to get a guy to do that and probably a bit cheaper. I don't care what the language is. I care that the problem is solved adequately for the least amount of overhead possible.
I live in the south in the middle of the Bible Belt and doubt very seriously that it would be a problem. Granted this is all anecdotal but pretty much any answer on this topic will be:
1. Most developer positions are in the bigger cities which are much more cosmopolitan than the rural areas. Most of the people I've worked for and with were from the west coast, up north or Florida.
2. While I have met a few fundamentalists in my career its pretty rare. There ain't a lot of "snake-handlers" doing OO programming.
3. The Christians I have worked for have been very open about hiring. They wanted people who could do the job regardless. The only requirement was that their personal beliefs didn't get in the way of doing the job and cause contention at the office. I've not seen a problem yet.
4. Most of the people I know who live in sticks (a lot of my family included) and would be considered "fundies" just because of their association with the Bible Belt would find you interesting and would probably invite you to their weekly poker night.
5. I think you would have just as much trouble finding a job in the south after working for a gambling concern as you would in the north after working for the Southern Baptist Convention.
Amen to this. People seem to get all wide-eyed over getting root access and such. Personally, I don't want any more access than is necessary to do my job so I can earn my paycheck and go home. You want to take away some access from me. Fine. Here is how I can do my job with these limits. You decide.
Once when I was brand new in the IT field I found the salary information for the company I was working for. Well, my curiosity got the best of me. It was quite anti-climactic and was probably the event that I need to realize that I really don't care about most of what is out there. 15 years later I'm the IT director of a company with root access to every router, database and server. I didn't care what anyone made. I had years to look at any information in the payroll system or anywhere else and didn't care. On the day that I left (not on the best terms) the guy who took my place called me at home and asked me to fix something on one of the routers that evening. I did using the same password I'd used the day before. I never tried again to see if worked or had been changed. It's been years. I still know it, it may still work and I still don't care.
On a few occasions I was asked by those with authority to do so to examine a some systems to see if there was any evidence of criminal activity. During that time I saw stuff that the system's users might not want me to know and uncovered some unethical (but not illegal) activity. I told those in authority only the information they had asked me for, left the rest of it alone and didn't tell anyone else about it. Again, I don't care. Want me to design your database or set up your server room? OK. Want me to get involved in high school office politics and get me on you office "team?" Stop wasting my time and go hump someone else's leg.
I recall a time when I suspected fraud on my account. I must have called 20 times and no one would talk to me. The is a supposedly a fraud department that you can leave a message for (but can't be transfered to) but no one there called me back either.
One of my bosses left 3 messages for the Dell sales rep telling him/her that he was interested in buying 100 computers. 3 months later no call had been returned. We bought IBM instead.
A friend ordered a Dell laptop online. The order didn't go through. There was no history of the order available. She placed it again and three days later was charged for two laptops.
I had a job interview with Dell and the manager was well aware in advance of my resume. I was put through the standard interview process where someone decided that my resume didn't fit the skill set required (Duh the manager knew that.)
I have yet to have an interaction with Dell in which their crappy internal processes have not been revealed.
Dell sucks!!! I don't care how inexpensive their computers are I will never buy one. As an IT manager, at any company I work for I will attempt to divert them from buying Dell. I tell everyone not to buy Dell. Don't buy Dell.
As someone who has been in the IT world for many years I can tell you this. One day it is likely you aren't going to want to be a computer geek anymore. Even going to the LA college you will still be able to get a job in computer geekery. You will also be better prepared for the day you decide that you are tired of programming.
>> With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million >Close, only 270 million Actually it is closer to 300 million now and he made his prediction before Roe v Wade. There have been roughly 50 million abortions since then.
Caring about spying and believing the federal government is secretive: these are not mutually exclusive beliefs. I can believe the federal government is secretive and not care. Or I can believe the government is open and care a lot.
That's easy. Either say something positive about MS, Bush, and capitalism or something negative about Linux, whoever-is-against-Bush, and socialism and you will be -1 before you know it.
Let this post be an example to you as it heads for the bottom.
I had that one. It was my favorite for many years. Like all of my kits I learned to assemble it without the instruction. I think (hope) it is still in my mom's basement. I'd like to give it to my kids one day.
"You want to know why you are struggling to keep costs down? Your 400 person company has a VP of IS, a Director IT and god knows how many other people in the IT dept!"
Oh, I don't deny that but that wasn't my decision. I had to work with the environment I was given.
And as far as the rest of your post is concerned I will happily concede that you are a far superior IT guy than I and probably better looking as well.
It would not have saved money. All of those debates were had amongst the staff including the VP of IS who is a big Linux user and advocate. I'm perfectly fine with an all Linux environment but it this case it could not be justified. So to bring this back around to the IE discussion, ultimately, IE ended up being the way to go.
That is true and in that environment I would have made a different decision about what browser to standardize on. The point being that the proxy war between Open Source and Microsoft being fought out in the browser debate has no relevance on the decision to standardize on one browser or another. I don't care if MS thinks Open source people are a bunch of socialists or that open-source people think that MS is a corporate fascist. I care about doing my job under budget using the tools available. In my case it was IE. Your mileage may vary, of course. I can't justify using my company's money to implement something I don't need just for the sake of sticking a finger in Microsoft's eye. That isn't my problem.
As an IT director I had to make this decision for my 400 person company. Firefox may be more secure than IE but so many things bundle IE for rendering and presentation that one must still consider it from a security point of view. Therefore installing Firefox doesn't eliminate that problem.
When writing and deploying internal web apps we don't need to be spending the time (i.e. money) to make them work on multiple browsers and multiple versions. IE of some form is installed on all the desktops by default. This eliminated development time and saved the company money.
Firefox was installed on most desktops but there were always a few that didn't have it for some reason. IE is always there.
For security reasons most users are not given admin rights on their desktops (so they can't install every spyware and trojan loaded gizmo on their systems.) This means the firefox updates cannot be installed by them. While we certain could have come up with a solution to do this it really doesn't make sense to spend the time on it when IE is there and is automatically updated by WSUS giving us a consistent platform to work on.
My job was to give the users the ability to use the web and intranet at the lowest cost with the least IT overhead. IE was the way to go. Firefox is installed if they want to use it but it isn't the default nor will it be any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
This has nothing to do with Google. This is because some people are stupid. Removing Google from the equation won't make them less stupid.
I think anyone in this district who interacts with law enforcement should twitter accusations of police brutality and prosecutorial malfeasance.
I mean, as long as were making public unproven allegations both sides should suffer the same consequences.
Earplugs give me a headache. Music is as distracting as the accounting group sitting all around me. What saved me were white noise mp3s. I put on noise reducing headphones and pipe ocean or rain sounds through them. My productivity went way up. At the end of the day I wasn't completely wiped from trying to focus on my work so I was able to have a social life. I am also much less irritable during the day.
Many people have auditory processing and other disorders that cause them to react strongly to distracting noises.
In the end it should be up the to profession programmer to decide what makes him most productive.
Your manager is an idiot.
I changed my default search engine to (shudder) bing.com. I hate having to choose between fecal matter and something that stinks really bad.
It does not affect my decisions at all.
Businesses aren't in business to push programming ideology. They are in business to make money. If I need an application I'm going to get the application that does the job for the least amount of money (all the caveats about it not being poorly written and being moderately open to possible future expansion, etc.. apply). If I need bare-metal code then I'll get a guy to do that. If VB will do the job then I'm going to get a guy to do that and probably a bit cheaper. I don't care what the language is. I care that the problem is solved adequately for the least amount of overhead possible.
I live in the south in the middle of the Bible Belt and doubt very seriously that it would be a problem. Granted this is all anecdotal but pretty much any answer on this topic will be:
1. Most developer positions are in the bigger cities which are much more cosmopolitan than the rural areas. Most of the people I've worked for and with were from the west coast, up north or Florida.
2. While I have met a few fundamentalists in my career its pretty rare. There ain't a lot of "snake-handlers" doing OO programming.
3. The Christians I have worked for have been very open about hiring. They wanted people who could do the job regardless. The only requirement was that their personal beliefs didn't get in the way of doing the job and cause contention at the office. I've not seen a problem yet.
4. Most of the people I know who live in sticks (a lot of my family included) and would be considered "fundies" just because of their association with the Bible Belt would find you interesting and would probably invite you to their weekly poker night.
5. I think you would have just as much trouble finding a job in the south after working for a gambling concern as you would in the north after working for the Southern Baptist Convention.
Personally, I think it sucks.
Amen to this. People seem to get all wide-eyed over getting root access and such. Personally, I don't want any more access than is necessary to do my job so I can earn my paycheck and go home. You want to take away some access from me. Fine. Here is how I can do my job with these limits. You decide.
Once when I was brand new in the IT field I found the salary information for the company I was working for. Well, my curiosity got the best of me. It was quite anti-climactic and was probably the event that I need to realize that I really don't care about most of what is out there. 15 years later I'm the IT director of a company with root access to every router, database and server. I didn't care what anyone made. I had years to look at any information in the payroll system or anywhere else and didn't care. On the day that I left (not on the best terms) the guy who took my place called me at home and asked me to fix something on one of the routers that evening. I did using the same password I'd used the day before. I never tried again to see if worked or had been changed. It's been years. I still know it, it may still work and I still don't care.
On a few occasions I was asked by those with authority to do so to examine a some systems to see if there was any evidence of criminal activity. During that time I saw stuff that the system's users might not want me to know and uncovered some unethical (but not illegal) activity. I told those in authority only the information they had asked me for, left the rest of it alone and didn't tell anyone else about it. Again, I don't care. Want me to design your database or set up your server room? OK. Want me to get involved in high school office politics and get me on you office "team?" Stop wasting my time and go hump someone else's leg.
I just want to do job I'm assigned and go home.
but here it goes anyway.
You mean there are sysadmins out there who would spend hundreds to thousands on RAID and not at least by a cheap UPS for their server?
and was told that it is not.
I recall a time when I suspected fraud on my account. I must have called 20 times and no one would talk to me. The is a supposedly a fraud department that you can leave a message for (but can't be transfered to) but no one there called me back either.
One of my bosses left 3 messages for the Dell sales rep telling him/her that he was interested in buying 100 computers. 3 months later no call had been returned. We bought IBM instead.
A friend ordered a Dell laptop online. The order didn't go through. There was no history of the order available. She placed it again and three days later was charged for two laptops.
I had a job interview with Dell and the manager was well aware in advance of my resume. I was put through the standard interview process where someone decided that my resume didn't fit the skill set required (Duh the manager knew that.)
I have yet to have an interaction with Dell in which their crappy internal processes have not been revealed.
Dell sucks!!! I don't care how inexpensive their computers are I will never buy one. As an IT manager, at any company I work for I will attempt to divert them from buying Dell. I tell everyone not to buy Dell. Don't buy Dell.
As someone who has been in the IT world for many years I can tell you this. One day it is likely you aren't going to want to be a computer geek anymore. Even going to the LA college you will still be able to get a job in computer geekery. You will also be better prepared for the day you decide that you are tired of programming.
I'd mod you up if I had any points. Seems like I never have them when I need them.
>> With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million
>Close, only 270 million
Actually it is closer to 300 million now and he made his prediction before Roe v Wade. There have been roughly 50 million abortions since then.
Caring about spying and believing the federal government is secretive: these are not mutually exclusive beliefs. I can believe the federal government is secretive and not care. Or I can believe the government is open and care a lot.
A link to National Review. The collective head of slashdot just might explode.
That's easy. Either say something positive about MS, Bush, and capitalism or something negative about Linux, whoever-is-against-Bush, and socialism and you will be -1 before you know it.
Let this post be an example to you as it heads for the bottom.
...memory management.
I had that one. It was my favorite for many years. Like all of my kits I learned to assemble it without the instruction. I think (hope) it is still in my mom's basement. I'd like to give it to my kids one day.
"You want to know why you are struggling to keep costs down?
Your 400 person company has a VP of IS, a Director IT and god knows how many other people in the IT dept!"
Oh, I don't deny that but that wasn't my decision. I had to work with the environment I was given.
And as far as the rest of your post is concerned I will happily concede that you are a far superior IT guy than I and probably better looking as well.
When you can do a Cost-Benefit analysis on who "knows" let me know.
It would not have saved money. All of those debates were had amongst the staff including the VP of IS who is a big Linux user and advocate. I'm perfectly fine with an all Linux environment but it this case it could not be justified. So to bring this back around to the IE discussion, ultimately, IE ended up being the way to go.
That is true and in that environment I would have made a different decision about what browser to standardize on. The point being that the proxy war between Open Source and Microsoft being fought out in the browser debate has no relevance on the decision to standardize on one browser or another. I don't care if MS thinks Open source people are a bunch of socialists or that open-source people think that MS is a corporate fascist. I care about doing my job under budget using the tools available. In my case it was IE. Your mileage may vary, of course. I can't justify using my company's money to implement something I don't need just for the sake of sticking a finger in Microsoft's eye. That isn't my problem.
As an IT director I had to make this decision for my 400 person company. Firefox may be more secure than IE but so many things bundle IE for rendering and presentation that one must still consider it from a security point of view. Therefore installing Firefox doesn't eliminate that problem.
When writing and deploying internal web apps we don't need to be spending the time (i.e. money) to make them work on multiple browsers and multiple versions. IE of some form is installed on all the desktops by default. This eliminated development time and saved the company money.
Firefox was installed on most desktops but there were always a few that didn't have it for some reason. IE is always there.
For security reasons most users are not given admin rights on their desktops (so they can't install every spyware and trojan loaded gizmo on their systems.) This means the firefox updates cannot be installed by them. While we certain could have come up with a solution to do this it really doesn't make sense to spend the time on it when IE is there and is automatically updated by WSUS giving us a consistent platform to work on.
My job was to give the users the ability to use the web and intranet at the lowest cost with the least IT overhead. IE was the way to go. Firefox is installed if they want to use it but it isn't the default nor will it be any time soon.
See my reply to the other guy.
You're number two.