WOW, way to go IT techs for ebay! I find it fascinating reading articles on the removal of bottle necks. Its interesting the tools and methods that are used to monitor specific parts of the company's IT System (servers, network, applications and more).
It is interesting how one bottle neck is overcome only to find yet another bottleneck. Very cool.
The Earth has been cooling for the last several years as solar activity has been lessening.
Not trolling, just pointing out scientific data that disputes that temperatures on earth are cooling. I will put the links here and everyone can form their own opinion. I personally had not seen this before so chances many others have not either.
(Note the chart was posted in 2006 yet does not show temperatures from 2000 - 2008. Some might find this disturbing, however I would suggest that the trend in the graph would suggest that the temperature is probably even warmer, not cooler.)
This quote from the above link makes me believe these numbers are in reality more realistic as they increase the area of the earth covered over time. Mental note to self, if other posts about temperature are made, are they reducing sampling area or increasing sampling area by their choice of areas to cover.
After testing several cut offs, it was decided to exclude regions with a normalized sampling error of 0.5. The amount of global area excluded is greatest in the 19th century, when it is 20%-30%. For the 20th century the area excluded is 20% or less, and after 1950 it is less than 15%.
Even more on topic...
P.S. I came across the Temperature Anomaly chart from 1860 through 2000 in this document on Solar Current Feedback by M.A. Vukcevic MSc. I found his article on Evidences of a multi resonant system within solar periodic activity very interesting. Check out his conclusion where he states that while it cannot be conclusively proven, it should be a matter of further scientific consideration.
I think it is amazing what Einstein (and many others even today) can prove with just mathematics. So often these great individuals come up with theories that are so out there, that they are derided by other jealous scientists. How many theories are here today that many are making fun of that will prove to be correct 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years from today?
Unlike scientists today, Einstein did not have access to the computers that we have today...imagine if he had, had access to computers.
Some believe that Bell's Theorem proves something, others believe it does not. One of the reasons cited is the inability of current science to monitor all the photons in the 1997 experiment, thus extra assumptions were required. I prefer not to look at it all as black or white, rather accept the results as phenomenal as they are with the caveat that more is left for science to explain. Who knows, perhaps it will tie in to String theory, Quantum theory of Gravity or some other theory related to either time, speed or mass.
All in all, its pretty interesting stuff IMO so I decided to share the links, enjoy.
...From what I hear now that's one of those distant memories. Maybe that's why I didn't have a very high turnover and most of that was promotions within the company....
Sounds to me you were a good manager that put their people first.
Early in my career I managed the labs (we had labs all over campus in different departments, with two of the labs being 24 / 7) for students, faculty and staff in a University environment while I was considering going for a Masters...wish I had now. Might still one day.
I let my student lab assistants do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as they put it down and helped the users when required. They always did. Most did homework, computer programming especially, but I remember games of Diplomacy, Chess and Risk as well as Spades being paid from time to time.
I visited every lab at least once per day if not more often, spent time making sure my employees had the tools they needed, even helping users as needed. I never asked anyone to do anything that I would not do myself. I never had complaints from users, though I did have complaints from one coworker who was of the typical mindset that nothing good could come from learning new things, playing a game, any downtime for any reason. He seemed to have very little trust in others and always assumed that others were taking advantage. He even tried to berate me for smiling too much, how pathetic is that.
He did not even want the student assistants doing their own homework on the labs time, even when they were not assisting users. Considering the university paid minimum wage and everyone could get $2 - $4 more per hour by working in a nearby research center, that was a big mistake on his part.
When I left, within a year, I stopped back by to say Hi, only one student assistant was left. My turnover rate was high (due to min wage), but not that high. Seems many companies only pay lip service to turn over. I would imagine in the call center industry where the company is only willing to pay a very low and very narrow pay range that they factor turnover into their business model. Keeps the pay rates down plain and simple. IBM determined years ago that they could save around $50 per hour in benefits and more by outsourcing, i.e. using consultants. I would expect the same to be true for the call center industry where utilizing home workers reduces not just their hourly overhead, but also their per desktop costs as well. That would explain where a call center might pay an employee at their location $10 - $12 per hour, but someone working from home $25 - $30 per hour. What are the typical call center rates these days?
When I left that coworker took over and proceeded to implement more restrictive policies (it was a university environment for goodness sakes) and thus drove them all away, except one. In one of the largest labs they even had their own closed door (windows all around) so they could see out and users could see in. The manager who replaced me filled it full of computers and printers and made it a storage room (covered the windows with printouts). The one student assistant that was left told me that he would not let them do anything and tried to over-control everything. Thus everyone left, except this guy that was close to finishing his degree that term and already had a job lined up. He said most of the student assistants left the next semester because of the poor manager.
The other 20% was spent training, updating, researching, whatever. But they had 20% of their day when they didn't have to answer the phones.
I agree with you, downtime is very necessary and is very constructive, granted no one I know plays games to excess at work. And if my direct reports are getting their work done, often doing extra, why not allow them to have some down time to learn new tools, new skills and over time become more valuable to the company. Most manage
I once looked into providing support as additional income from home while I attempted to get my own hosting company off the ground. The only reason I did not go for it, even given the low pay, was the few companies I contacted required a separate telephone line. That was a deal breaker for me.
My question to you, is given the capabilities to setup VPNs via high speed access, why do such companies still require a separate hardwired telephone line before they will work with you?
I understand the need for metrics, but also know that these metrics can be captured and sent over the same hi speed pipe that I am using (DSL or Cable or Fiber - in my dreams).
DD-WRT and the ability to band shape traffic should remove most if not all objctions...
FYI, When I was a System Admin for a telco, they only had a call center support of about 50 desktops, after a merger, that number climbed into the thousands however I had already left the company for a better opportunity. The few times I provided support for the call center, they did not seem very happy and it was true that the smokers (friends though I did not smoke) did know were all the bodies were buried.
Re:Finally have tools to monitor...
on
The Quietest Sun
·
· Score: 1
Thank you and I mean that. You have provided a lot of information in not just an intelligent way but informative and for me humorous (I figure if I can't laugh at myself...).
I have not decided on a spellchecker for OpenOffice.org Writer yet, obviously I need to pick one, add the words that I have a problem with and start using it to avoid these mistakes in the future. I did start a list of words that I intend to add into the spell checker I choose. Allot, alot and a lot will all be in there in hopes of saving myself. I also have trouble with then and than, if I do not refresh the usage, before using I will often use the wrong form without realizing it.
Sadly I will need the spell checker as a crutch to over come many, many years of using it the wrong way.
I miss WordPerfect... probably should double check if it is available for Linux or not.
With Linux, I know that whatever spell checker I choose I can make sure it is available as the default spell checker for almost all my applications - which I obviously need.
Nod to defnoz and Theoboley
For all others, he (me) can be taught, lol.
Re:Finally have tools to monitor...
on
The Quietest Sun
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I should have said know allot...oh well here is some additional information for those seriously interested:
I am by no means an expert, much less an advanced knowledgeable person when it comes to this stuff, I just find it interesting and hope some of you will as well.
I read an article over a year ago about how they could not get good measurements of solar flares because the instruments were not good enough and to get some measurements you needed at least two observation points some distance apart. (probably related to measuring gamma rays) It is my understanding that the earth finally has the right kinds of instruments up there to get very accurate measurements of the sun, solar flares and etc.... I searched around and have provided a few links. I believe you will really like the Youtube video, very cool. Enjoy!
The Solar/SMO was planned for 2003 and was finally launched on February 7, 2008. It is designed to measure solar radiation with wavelenghts from 200 nanometers - 100 micrometers. This covers the near-ultraviolet, visible and infrared areas of the spectrum. Here is NASA on Solar / SMO.
Hinode launched in September 2006 has a three year mission to explore the magnetic fields of the sun. Specifically the investigates the interaction between the Sun's magnetic field and its corona. A consortium including Japan, US, UK and Norway worked together to measure the effects of "magnetic fields thought to be the source of solar flares" Three instruments are used, they are the SOT (Solar Optical Telescope, the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). The first images were captured on October 28.
HESSI renamed RHESSI launched on February 5, 2002, captures solar flares, X-rays and gamma ray flashes. Prior to the launch of RHESSI, we only had the GOES spacecraft which only measured X-ray flux and to classify the size of solar flares. YouTube on HESSI / RHESSI; A solar flare video - no sound. Here is a great video that shows the various instruments in action, one right after the other. From 10/18/03 through 11/07/03; AR 10486 & AR 10488.
From the Wiki,
The most powerful flare of the last 500 years is believed to have occurred in September 1859: it was seen by British astronomer Richard Carrington and left a trace in Greenland ice in the form of nitrates and beryllium-10, which allow its strength to be measured today (New Scientist, 2005).
Prior to the above launches, the Ulysees was pretty much it for measuring from space, before Ulysses there was only observations from the ground.
Ulysses (17 year mission) - was equipped with instruments to characterize fields, particles, and dust, and was powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Launched in 10/6/90 through 7/1/08; through "through triangulation (or, more specifically, multilateration). Each spacecraft has a gamma-ray detector, with readouts noted in tiny fractions of a second. By comparing the arrival times of gamma showers with the separations of the spacecraft, a location can be determined, for follow-up with other telescopes. Because gamma rays travel at the speed of light, wide separations are needed." Additional discoveries: Additional discoveries: [15] 1) Ulysses discovered that the Sun's magnetic field interacts with the Solar system in a more complex fashion than previously believed. 2) Ulysses discovered that dust coming into the solar system from deep space was 30 times more abundant than previously expected.
You have some valid points, however some of the information you posted appears dated and probably needs to be updated.
Except for Microsoft Specific games (I don't like apps like WINE that just slow me down) most of what a newbie user needs works out of the case, plug and play, as the millions of new ultra notebooks sold at $399 since before last Xmas show. I am hoping to run MS on top of Xen / Linux, thus controlling the security problems by putting MS in its own sand box that I can control - probably a pipe dream, no pun intended.
Not only am I using an utlra notebook now, even though I have access to many other towers and PCs, I have some kids and some friends converted to use them as well. Why buy one machine for one person, when you can buy three for three people with the same amount of money? The kids only complaint is not being able to run the Microsoft games. They surf the net just fine and can do their homework without issues.
As for Silverlight and NBC, I just watched the Olympics on HDTV. They don't give me a non MS option, I find a different source, problem solved.
Silverlight becomes a non issue as there are always more sources available for any information online, as applications move to servers on the internet (aren't you glad I did not say those fluffy white things that float around the sky) it becomes even more of a non issue. The future looks bright!
Finally have tools to monitor...
on
The Quietest Sun
·
· Score: 1
I just think it is cool that we finally have a few satellites gathering data on the sun.
If there is a mass ejection in our direction it will not matter anyway. Since the new satellites were launched with equipment to monitor the sun from outside our atmosphere, all the really large ejections have been away from us. Give it 10 - 20 years and we should no allot more then we do today.
For the record I use M$, MS, Micro$oft and Microsoft interchangeably.
I am sure many might jump on the band wagon and mistakenly follow your suggestion to send me to
Proceed to karma hell!
I am going to trust as the guide said that when I joined, that while some people will like what I say and mark me down, others will see the logic or humor in it and will mark me up...over time it should work out, shouldn't it?
LOL, someone just marked me as a FOE, lmao. And they don't even know me.
For the record, If I have marked anyone as a friend, its because I actually read what they wrote and marked them as a friend because I liked what they said.
Please don't hold them responsible for my impending Karmic doom.
Does this mean that the one person who marked me as a foe was one of the three Anonymous Cowards that instead of arguing against the facts in a post, argued against my poor grammar use of M$ or Micro$oft instead of Microsoft.
Please disagree with what I say and not me as a person, that I can respect. And if you make a good argument, you just might find that I agree with you.
Heck I know I am not right all the time, but I can get opinionated.
Sometimes its easier to just type in M$ rather then Microsoft. Sometimes I type in MS too, don't really think about it much.
Sometimes I type it as Micro$oft to indicate that Microsoft costs more then Linux...why is this offensive?
Since you attacked my spelling M$ rather then any of the facts in my post, I site you for argumentum ad hominem. That is considered faulty logic you know.
...Next week should be nastier than last week for the soft, ring the bell and watch them go to zero. No product, no value, game over.
That is a very cool tool, thank you for posting it!
It was cool to slide the bar in the chart and look at how a particular stock did during specific days during our current financial crisis.
For M$ specifically I was surprised that their stock had not been higher then it was over the last year to year and a half. I mistakenly thought it had gotten pretty high per share but not in 2007 or 2008. Very cool tool, thank you very much.
...but in the end, Microsoft's... Tool suffers the same problem... they don't work.
From personal experience of over 10 years with M$ Windows, (I have over 25 years of experience in IT) this is straight out of their play book. This is business as usual. And we use to say that IBM meant I have Been Mislead.
New product released...
New product does not work as advertised...
M$ has NO FIX for new product and knows it...
marketplace does not like to hear that M$ can't fix
M$ provides BS troubleshooting tool (i.e. General Protection Fault, GPF, Troubleshooting Guide (Windows running on top of DOS) was my first business as usual experience with M$ BS). Windows 95 helped, but it still happened. This new PC Repair tool is more of the same.
M$ hopes market will buy BS and not switch forever to another operating system; they want to keep you around and will promise you exactly what they think you want to hear, promising the next release of the software will be better.
They understand once a user switches to current Linux systems (they have improved so much) and users discover what they can do with it (most general users will work with it out of the box without problems) that the users will not be there for the next version of M$ operating system. Especially when you can get it so cheap, a subnotebook for $399 that lets you do almost everything....so many options available...
Not trying to flame or bait anyone, just stating facts as I have experienced it since the days of DOS 2.0. Yes I remember when there was NOT a M$ company out there. Mod me as you wish, but this experience is first hand. If you had wasted days going through that BS 30 - 60 page GPF troubleshooting guide as many of us System Administrators did back in the day, all the while M$ phone support (company paid for it) stating that it had worked for them, therefore it should work for us and they could not understand what was wrong....perhaps you need to reinstall the operating system yet again....
I went through that guide, page by page, line by line twice before I said forget it. It never could have worked and M$ knew it. At my location, I had almost 50 servers (file & domain, OS2, NT, Solaris; email, Lotus Notes and print servers) and 400+ desktops (It was at a telco so the desktops were primarily DOS/Windows, OS/2, Windows 95/98/NT Windows; we had some Sun and SparcStations also - of course they did not run M$ apps) and I did not have multiple days to waste on lies....Don't even try to defend them, they lied out and out. And I KNOW IT because I was forced to live it.
One M$ support person had the audacity to state unequivocally that it worked for him, therefore I must be doing something wrong...that's why I tried the guide a second time, I was pissed and wanted to make sure I had not made some stupid rookie mistake... I HAD NOT!
I would have respected them more if they would have just told me the truth (that they did NOT have an answer or a fix that worked) so that I would not have wasted my time. They could have said sorry, we will have a fix with the next release, in the meantime just remind your users to periodically save their data and reboot their systems. That was the truth.
I know, I know, the marketplace is less forgiving...but is that really a good excuse?
Even with the MacIntosh (my Mac usage was years ago) I would save frequently and now with Linux, I still save frequently...I hate redoing work even if its just a paragraph in a word processing document.
Eventually that was the solution, after the PC was tweaked as well as it could be, to just remind the users to back up their data periodically and reboot when their PC locked up. By the time NT 3.51 & Windows 95 came around you could pretty much count on not having problems if you shut your PC off at lunch and booted back up when you returned. Win 98 and W
why I gave them up forever. Of course they are gouging you while they can, they see the writing on the wall, they know the party can not continue forever and ever treating customers as they all do - bad.
They all suck. Don't take my word for it, google it yourself...
Google the name of the provider + other descriptive words. Verizon, scam is an example. Cingular, scam, fraud. TMobile, fraud or T-Mobile, fraud. etc.... Sprint, sms, scam, fraud, problems, billing, etc.... use your imagination.
I did not bother to do any of those again, having done it in the past and finding poor or no customer service in all cases....
None of them are any good.
Vote with your feet, it does work, find a good VoIP provider and never look back. Sure people will have to leave you a message when you are not at home or the office or a WiFi FREE hotspot (they are all over the city and the software is free so that you can open your own FREE WiFi HotSpot, which in turn allows you to use many other hotspots around the world for free. Just do not tell your service provider as they try to make this activity illegal and will cancel you if they can prove it. You can even make money as your WiFi hotspot can give someone a free 5 - 15 minutes and charge them a fee if they need more. Heck look at all the TMobile and Verizon hotspots where they charge you $5.95 for like 5 minutes....)
If you need an emergency phone, get a prepaid phone and NEVER GIVE OUT THE NUMBER TO ANYONE! That way if you are in a bind, you can make a phone call. Protects you from creditors if you are ever unlucky enough to lose your job to no fault of your own...never give out the number and no one can call you, but you can call out. (And your prepaid minutes should last for a full year minimum, they are out there, look around).
Once you decide that others can leave a message and you can get it later (it use to be considered rude to answer the phone in public or at home when you have company) you can get all the service you need for less then $100 per year.
PER YEAR is correct! I pay less then $8.40 per month (for over 3 years now - I know it works) and am loving it. I get more then 80% of my phone calls and messages at either home or work anyway, so a few people have to wait to hear from me, it won't kill them and with my savings I can buy a new ultra notebook computer every year if I want!
If a company insists on being able to call you 24/7 and you agree to this without some additional pay for the inconvenience to your life...well you are crazy. Time is money, (respect of your personal time by your work is priceless) if you do not force them to pay you extra for such interruptions you might just as well tell them that your time is not very expensive. At least force them to pay for the service, i.e. they buy the phone and pay the bill, its the least they can do.
With the four different cellular providers I have experienced, they all provided an 800 number that you could call from a land line phone and retrieve the messages for free.
Yea what a racket they have...legalized extortion... Trying to force you to use your minutes to retrieve messages...that sucks.
Heaven help you if you run into credit problems and they (creditors) start calling, multiple times per day, at least 1 minute per call if not more can really put a dent into your monthly plan over the course of 30 days.
I'm lucky to be using Softbank - all SMS messages and calls between customers are free. Since the majority of my friends are Softbank users, it works out very cheap for me. $10 a month for the plan.
I got screwed over by two different providers with overcharges that should not have been on my bill. They were both major players and their customer no service departments would not do anything for me. Seven year (w/ mergers) positive track record paying my bill on time for the first company and three year positive track record paying the bill with the second one...they don't care even if you are a GREAT customer! Cellular companies just don't care about any of us, and we should not care about them!
The second company ate up my Voice minutes, then charged me excessively even though I had a all I can eat messaging plan that I paid an extra $39.99 per month for. Even after one customer no service person realized my plan had been set up wrong, and promised to fix it, they did not. In other phone calls the customer no-service departments no matter who I talked to they all said there was nothing that they could do and that I had to pay the illegal bill. (Illegal because I did not make the calls and/or should not have been charged for the mistakes they made, but they mistakenly think that they can do anything.) They said, "Customer X you must pay the bill".
The heck I did...I paid my normal bill, then walked away, (I had been month to month, no plan for years in both instances) when they cut off my phone for non payment two months later, I laughed, started using Skype and have never looked back. You should too, you will be glad, as I am, that you did. At this point those ba$tards can go out of business, they will NEVER see another penny of my business. They had their chance, they blew it...if we all did this, there would be no such thing as a customer no service department. You have to vote with your wallets and say see ya!
I will never give any cellular company a third strike, for me it was two strikes and I was out of their market.
Skype (VoIP) costs me less then $100 per year, less then $8.40 per month with a SkypeIn 10 digit phone number and unlimited calling to North America. I have been using it now for over 3 years and have never looked back. All my friends can message me via Skype or Google, so its all I need. No hidden charges, no bull$hit fake taxes...I LOVE IT!
With my savings I can afford to purchase a new Linux ultra notebook every year...
Does Softbank give you a 10 digit phone number for that price, if not you would be better off with Skype?
mod parent up, labour are one step away from outsourcing governance to an Indian telephone exchange tbh.
Whew, what a relief...at least they are outsourcing to potential family. Though they could not inherit anything without being officially recognzed...oops, not even then, dang.
Now if the outsourcing was in South America, not sure if England has tried to Empire Build down there as much as India we might have cause to worry.
If your machines and your "roommate"s machines are on the same subnet then traffic between them will never hit the IP stack in the router and hence can't be filtered by it.
Holy freaking crap. I never knew this. : (
(I just ran a little experiment that confirms what you're saying.)
And if you tunnel your server out to the internet your ISP provider can't completely control that either. Of course they can do worse. They can spoof your packets with a Kill, (drop, reject, etc...) so that your communication stops and they can slow down your communication based on some arbitrary set of rules only beneficial to them.
Not sure why that hasn't made Slashdot yet. It's huge.
Far bigger than just a satellite spying on us.
I do not blame you for posting as AC.... I know that even though I post this information for others to look at and decide for themselves, just by posting it a certain percentage will label me a conspiracy nut and I might even get modded as trying to cause problems when I am just acknowledging that I too have heard about (article) this and am providing additional information for people to chew on and think about.
I heard Alex Jones on Coast to Coast, here is a link to his website
infowars. Supposedly he predicted not just the current collapse over two years ago, but nailed the reason as sub-prime markets...I need to find the document with the date he first made the prediction. My Realtor and mortgage broker friends knew the Real Estate bubble would burst over 2 years back. As a Notary/Signing Agent we talked about what was going on. As a person who participated in the RTC bailout, I am not surprised that it is happening again. My friends 2 to 2 1/2 years ago did not tie the bubble bursting to the sub prime market as Alex supposedly did.
Per the show, Alex got interested in how the government worked in High School and has actively looked into many issues for well over 20 years. The amount of information he has is incredible...again, check it out for yourself.
Not only did he sound very, very credible, he stated that there is so much dis-information being put online much in his name that he sometimes has 50 - 100 utube videos removed that are slandering him, all posted in the same 24 hour period. If you listen to the recorded show you will hear it in his words, but he basically is very well known at utube and once they verify it is him, the videos are instantly yanked. When someone is attacked so ardently as he obviously is, someone does not want you and I to know or think too much about what he is saying. Again listen yourself and form your own opinion.
I ask myself, what do they NOT want me to know. There is a reason they distract us from what is really going on with other things.
Supposedly he has a document that shows the Banking groups' plans that they are currently following now...supposedly leaked by someone when they left the Federal Reserve system. I need to look for it and provide a link. He stated on the show, that they are not doing anything in secret but instead are following a well thought out and detailed plan. This same template has been used to take the physical assets of other countries using that country's own banks and currency to do it. The documents state that the countries were expected to default on the loans the group of banks provided. I believe the details are in this video End Game, however I am not a subscriber so I have not watched it yet.
I also admit that I currently do not have three or more sources for this information, so it is up to you to decide for yourself.
I personally don't believe there are as many coincidences as many would like for us to believe. I find it very coinci
I read with interest the posts from individuals that had worked in some capacity with this type of technology. They all know the capability is better then most of the public believes it is. I for one believe them!
An added thought, the technology exists to see in a variety of spectrums (infrared, through clouds, ultra violet, etc...) and through a variety of obstacles...who knows what additional instruments are on our governments surveillance satellites. I would not be surprised if they could listen to the sounds inside my house, read what I am typing on my computer screen and see through multiple floors and/or walls directly into my house. I just feel sorry for them, how boring it would be to listen in, lol.
It does surprise me that others are surprised. So many people, even scientists are treated skeptically, treated as quacks, conspirators or frauds only to be vindicated years later.
A college friend's father worked for AT&T before the breakup of the baby bells. While he could not go into specifics, he did state that I would be shocked what was in his lab, on his drawing board - technology wise. He said most of it would not be made public for years in the future.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
I applaud your trust, however sadly believe that your attitude is naive. Allow me to explain...its sad because you are doing nothing wrong, you are actually showing a level of trust we all should have in reality. Wouldn't it be nice if you could honestly trust everyone, a person and their word...as it should be. However others do not have our best interest at heart.
We see this with certain entities, governments, churches, societies and corporate cultures come to mind. Remember that only those obsessed with controlling others would use that argument to diminish your freedoms and take away your inalienable rights.
Here is a rational thought..., if they deserved the trust you are placing in them, they would by definition trust you just as much, thus there would NEVER be a reason to take anything away from you. No matter how well meaning or how well their intentions may seem to be. They have their own agenda and for your family's sake don't trust them. Actions do speak LOUDER then words.
Just in making the attempt to deprive you of anything, their actions betray their words!
I prefer innocent until proven guilty. Yes I know good luck with that!
As soon as my kids were old enough to use the internet I told them to be careful what they posted online and consider how it might reflect on them. I showed them an article where an individual had been denied employment due to a picture she posted online while in college. The college aged girl was under the legal drinking age in that state, was holding a plastic cup and the HR person on the show stated that she was not hired as the employer assumed it was an alcoholic beverage. That the underage drinking showed poor judgment on her part. That poor judgment was a risk that the company was unwilling to assume. I don't have the article in front of me at the moment and can not remember if it was just an article or an article and a show. I remember the HR representative stating that 100% of large businesses use networking and community sites to do background searches on applicants. I shared this information with my kids in the hopes they would avoid similar mistakes. And remember there is guilt by association as well.
As for my kids, I simply told them not to post anything online that might embarrass them if their grandmother saw it. Sure it illicit ed a chuckle, more importantly it got the point across.
(They also have heard the story about how their grandma washed my mouth out with soap when I was their age for saying one curse word that she overheard, soap does not taste good.)
Too many people give away their freedoms, their rights, their life for nothing. In an ideal society we would have nothing to fear. Being good, fair minded, caring about others, taking personal responsibility, taking care of my family and plain hard work would, should be enough! We really should not have anything to fear but fear itself.
However anything that might make a negative impression on anyone else and impact me financially, preventing me from providing for my family is very much worth hiding. Even if you and I would agree that the information is not objectionable at all.
Let's face it, there is always someone out there that will jump to some unreasonable conclusion about something you and I know is n
. . . There was a case a few years ago where someone was actually hit in the foot by a small meteor. No harm done.
I so wanted this to be true...lol, can you imagine, the odds, being hit by a meteorite and surviving, yet my guess it would be harder to win the lottery, err, okay harder for me to win the lottery as I can't imagine that happening either. But one can dream... (funding and working on an open source project while being able to pay the rent and put food on the table would be nice!)
Here is the link that shows not only the object that hit the 14 year old back in 2002; but shows an analysis of the object by someone knowledgeable. They are stating
...that this was not a meteorite. I am 100% certain this is a piece of iron smelting slag, which can be found all over the countryside. It is the refuse of former iron smelting activities, some even dating back to medieval times.
I admit that I was thinking, when I read about the incident, that it was waste from a toilet from an airplane.
Regardless, if I were her, I would still put it in a scrapbook somewhere.
Any organization can be used for good or evil, of course its easier when good people don't stand up and do nothing to prevent the evil from occurring.
The majority of Americans (me too sometimes) are guilty of not standing up when we should today...protecting our freedoms is a prime example of many, many others....
Personally I don't believe the Red Cross is evil, but they have unfortunately been associated with questionable acts that many would classify as 'evil'. This is an example of one. (I would suggest that the good that the Red Cross does, far, far out weighs the bad! I also suggest that our history is our history and refuse to be ashamed of it. Besides the history of other countries and entities around the world is far, far worse by comparison. Facts are facts..)
I wish well meaning individuals who are weak and feel threatened would stop using negative labels against others that shake their foundations weather historical, political, sexual or religious...Please give it a rest and learn your own history and the facts surrounding an issue, most important remember that we are not all right 100% of the time, so graciously admit when you are wrong...as we all our from time to time...
...off my soapbox, now about this story that I know many will find interesting where you could label the Red Cross allowing themselves to be used by evil doers...
The weather channel recently ran a history on the great flood When weather changed history; the episode that I am referring too can be found: Full Version: Flood of 1927. I am not sure if this will take it straight to it or if you will have to select Full Version: Flood of 1927. Just one of many historical events here in the US, where while some shined and did the right thing, others acted in a way that many would describe as "evil".
A group of black share-croppers were 'not' rescued as the Plantation Owners were afraid that if they were rescued they would not return to the plantation once the flood waters subsided.
Instead of being rescued, the plantation owners used their influence at the US Government level to ensure that not only would the share croppers not be rescued, but that they, stuck on their strip of land surrounded by water (top of a portion of a levee), would become the primary distribution point for red cross relief to the area. The share croppers were not only forced to work for free, they were charged, by the plantation owners, for their Red Cross Relief (think company stores and you get the idea). So basically the share croppers were put further in debt in order to be controlled by their overlords (one could say the same was being done to all of us today with the many business and bank failures...)
The share croppers were also 'tagged' and their movement was restricted by national guard troops who patrolled the camp in armed groups. There were some white, albeit very poor, flood victims in the same camp, of course segregated. The white survivors were not restricted in their movement; were not forced to work for free distributing red cross supplies; were not charged for red cross supplies; and received better food rations then the share croppers.
Per the special, word of what was happening at the one Red Cross Camp circulated among other Red Cross Camps. So there was awareness of what was going on by many, including those in government and those in the Red Cross.
So while the Red Cross, IMO, is NOT evil and I do support them, even a great organization like them can be used in a more 'evil' way by those with their own agendas that many would call [them] evil.
BTW, I am white with no ax to grind one way or the other, however, I do not deny the facts of history as o
I've seen situations that otherwise look like benign layout bugs, where two or more hyperlinks or other clickable objects end up being overlay ed on each other. It's not clear which one would be activated until you click. I...which page was doing the exploit.
I have seen this too, since I use Linux and FireFox (FF) I just assumed that the web designer had done something that was Internet Explorer (IE) and/or Active X specific. And therefore was not rendering correctly in other browsers FireFox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, etc... after all there are more then 13 browsers out there for use and I know that many designers don't test even on one additional browser, but good designers (and testers) do.
I have seen this on the news pages when linking from one article to what I believe to be background and related information from another article, while usually on the same website, occasionally the URL shows another website. I admit that I don't always trust the URL displayed as I understand how the status line of the browser can be changed.
It was irritating to have the text, menus, images overlaid and I figured it was simply poor web design and poor web coding practices with inadequate cross browser testing. Now I am starting to wonder if it was something more!
I have to admit it reminds me of a couple of well known sites that 'scroll' a box as you read an article trying to get you to do something. I hate those things and avoid them like the plague. If there is an alternative news source I stop using sites that use those coding techniques.
My favorite technique for getting rid of these boxes, admittedly does not work if a new tab is not created, is when there is a new 'tab' in my PC's action bar at the bottom of my screen. I point to this new tab with my mouse + right-click and select CLOSE. I stopped using the X CLOSE Box option on any object that either pop-ups or appears when I learned that they can be reprogrammed to do other nasty things while not showing you anything on the status line of the browser.
One site , 0 and catch (one word) is a free site that lets people put up websites for free as long as they accept advertising on their sites. I checked it out over 8 years ago, but did not use it for the reason I am about to tell you here. Initially the site allowed you to select between popup ads and advertising buttons at the top or bottom. You did not have to select both. Later they forced popup ads on anyone using free accounts. You could pay and the advertisement would supposedly be removed. While I still believe a free use for advertising model can work, the idea of forcing popups without being able to op out of them sucks. We all hate popup advertising, the only thing worse then popups are those dang dynamic ads that lock up your browser while they fly information across the screen...I really hate those. Like I need to see Tinker Bell fly across my screen anyway....NOT. Anyway on the 0 + catch site I saw a popup ad, but instead of the X CLOSE box performing a close as advertised and expected, when you looked at the status line in the browser it was going to run some executable (.exe) file on your computer. It was over six years ago so I don't remember whether or not that executable had been downloaded or if it would have downloaded itself. I did not know back then, what I know now about browser objects, thankfully the scammer / phisher / cracker that had written it did not change the status message or I might have accidently hosed myself by clicking the X to close the popup. To this day I will not TRUST a close button on any website, rather using my browser's method of closing any object that I want to get rid of.
I wish I had a list of sites that others could check to see what I saw, but did not bother writing any of them down. My guess is that if you are using IE you may not see the overlays, but now I wonder. I suppose that might be one way to know if it is poor web design versus phishing and scamming, but who
What's with these new hand sets locking you in to one provider or another, they could provide a hand set that gives you both WiFi and VoIP, but of course then they would make less money wouldn't they! However having full browser capability opens up the possibility of richer content then could be offered on a smaller cellphone screen size!
I love my Nokia N800. Full browser, 8 GB in storage, FM chip, WiFi built in w/ SkypeIN I only pay about $100 per year for unlimited calling to North America, webcam, and a screen that is a little bigger then just cell phone size.
Since I use WiFi (not cellular) and VoIP w/ Skype (sound is crystal clear - you can hear a pin drop...no latency issues!) I do not have a monthly cellular plan. Think back to the 'beeper' days, if I am not in a WiFi hot zone, the caller can leave me a message. I don't get paid extra to be at anyone's beck and call!
If I did have a cellular handset, I would want a phone that would allow for both VoIP and Cellular. That way I could use WiFi while at work and at home which would probably account for 80% or more of my usage without using any minutes. I would only use the Cellular minutes when I am traveling and not in a WiFi hot zone.
By selecting VoIP over Cellular, I save allot of money! Have been loving it for well over 3 years now!
Since I only pay $100 per year (my total cost) for my phone service, I save between $300 - $600 each and every year. (Metro PCS - other cellular providers). With the new ultra linux laptops going for $90; $199; $299 and $399 respectively I can purchase a new laptop with my savings each year.
I even used part of one 4 GB mini storage card (2 x 4 GB = 8 GB of storage; 1 internal, 1 external) for additional swap memory space when running applications on my Linux Nokia N800 hand held device! (Allot more apps available to me thanks to that!)
While not a laptop replacement, I do have full browser capability and can do more then what a small cellphone screen will allow you to do! In a pinch I can actually surf the web and check email!
These new phones should let you select between VoIP and Cellular mode! Of course they want to charge you for minutes, don't they!
Triggers (extra checks) should not cause a problem if someone is honestly qualified. Of course that would mean that the approval is not guaranteed either.
While I agree it might not hurt to double check I would be concerned about any hard/fast black/white time frames.
I suppose they remind me too much of 'mandatory' sentencing. I would prefer for the expert (the judge) to make an 'informed' decision based on their experience and the individual circumstances rather then be 'forced' into some arbitrary time frame that might not fit the circumstances.
As I write this I realize the court analogy is a poor analogy, as the expert in the real estate situation cannot be considered an impartial third party. The mortgage broker definitely has incentive to make the loan don't they! And that incentive does not work in the consumer's favor does it.
...which takes three weeks, which I know is longer than the home-buying process...remember, the approval is guaranteed...
I would suggest that triggers to approval might be fine, however the time frame would depend on the expert and their firms work load. If the trigger-approval is valid, then no problem, however if the trigger-approval is NOT valid then that process needs to be changed to make it valid.
Mine is probably just as poorly worded, so I will apologize on the front end this time.
Another thought:
You could argue that a lending institution that is going to hold the paper (loan) internally might be trusted more. Since they are not going to 'sell' it to anyone else they are assume more risk. (Thus they have more incentive to make good loans)
A lending institution that never holds any of the paper (they always sell the loan to a third party) might NOT be trusted as much for its loan and might be subjected to more rigid controls and oversight.
If taxpayer money is used (and it will have to be for the economy to be stabilized) I agree that tax payers should benefit down the road as these companies profit.
I have always believed that a portion of our taxes should be 'invested' for our future needs to offset inflation among other factors. Every 'citizen' should have a private fund, invested in this country appropriately for their age (more risk when young, less risk when older) to offset health care costs, retirement, social security, etc.... This fund should be able to be 'passed' to whoever one decides, via a will, last testament or other legal document. Absolutely NEVER should we be taxed a second, third, fourth or more time when we pass away!
Heck pass the Fairtax and most of our problems will be taken care of. The FairTax has been stuck by both the Democrats and Republicans (both House and Congress) in committee since 1996. Why have they prevented it from coming to a floor vote by holding it in committee for 10 years? Ask yourself why you did not know about it until you read this? Time to get it out and pass it for the country's benefit! (It will create jobs! The FairTax Replaces the entire current tax code with 8 pages of easily understood tax rules and regulations! The FairTax will provide more money for the government, but not necessarily more from each of us - illegal activities will result in taxes being paid. You really need to check it out and talk to your representatives - they know about it even if you do not!)
If any elected official attempts to miss use the funds of any appropriation (make a grab for the money for any other purpose as they usually do), could you not argue that they are violating their oath to 'protect the constitution' while in office.
I am assuming, like the president, their 'oath of office' stipulates that they protect the constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
WOW, way to go IT techs for ebay! I find it fascinating reading articles on the removal of bottle necks. Its interesting the tools and methods that are used to monitor specific parts of the company's IT System (servers, network, applications and more).
It is interesting how one bottle neck is overcome only to find yet another bottleneck. Very cool.
The Earth has been cooling for the last several years as solar activity has been lessening.
Not trolling, just pointing out scientific data that disputes that temperatures on earth are cooling. I will put the links here and everyone can form their own opinion. I personally had not seen this before so chances many others have not either.
(Note the chart was posted in 2006 yet does not show temperatures from 2000 - 2008. Some might find this disturbing, however I would suggest that the trend in the graph would suggest that the temperature is probably even warmer, not cooler.)
Here is the link to Global Temperature Anomalies.
This quote from the above link makes me believe these numbers are in reality more realistic as they increase the area of the earth covered over time. Mental note to self, if other posts about temperature are made, are they reducing sampling area or increasing sampling area by their choice of areas to cover.
After testing several cut offs, it was decided to exclude regions with a normalized sampling error of 0.5. The amount of global area excluded is greatest in the 19th century, when it is 20%-30%. For the 20th century the area excluded is 20% or less, and after 1950 it is less than 15%.
Even more on topic...
P.S. I came across the Temperature Anomaly chart from 1860 through 2000 in this document on Solar Current Feedback by M.A. Vukcevic MSc. I found his article on Evidences of a multi resonant system within solar periodic activity very interesting. Check out his conclusion where he states that while it cannot be conclusively proven, it should be a matter of further scientific consideration.
This reminded me of Albert Einstein's, spooky action at a distance which he studied and postulated on from 1935 - 1955 and Bell's theorem which he published in 1964, yet it was not until June 1997 when Dr. Nicolas Gisin and colleagues of the University of Geneva was able to show that a connection did exist between two photons over 6 miles apart.
I think it is amazing what Einstein (and many others even today) can prove with just mathematics. So often these great individuals come up with theories that are so out there, that they are derided by other jealous scientists. How many theories are here today that many are making fun of that will prove to be correct 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years from today?
Unlike scientists today, Einstein did not have access to the computers that we have today...imagine if he had, had access to computers.
Some believe that Bell's Theorem proves something, others believe it does not. One of the reasons cited is the inability of current science to monitor all the photons in the 1997 experiment, thus extra assumptions were required. I prefer not to look at it all as black or white, rather accept the results as phenomenal as they are with the caveat that more is left for science to explain. Who knows, perhaps it will tie in to String theory, Quantum theory of Gravity or some other theory related to either time, speed or mass.
All in all, its pretty interesting stuff IMO so I decided to share the links, enjoy.
...From what I hear now that's one of those distant memories. Maybe that's why I didn't have a very high turnover and most of that was promotions within the company. ...
Sounds to me you were a good manager that put their people first.
Early in my career I managed the labs (we had labs all over campus in different departments, with two of the labs being 24 / 7) for students, faculty and staff in a University environment while I was considering going for a Masters...wish I had now. Might still one day.
I let my student lab assistants do pretty much whatever they wanted as long as they put it down and helped the users when required. They always did. Most did homework, computer programming especially, but I remember games of Diplomacy, Chess and Risk as well as Spades being paid from time to time.
I visited every lab at least once per day if not more often, spent time making sure my employees had the tools they needed, even helping users as needed. I never asked anyone to do anything that I would not do myself. I never had complaints from users, though I did have complaints from one coworker who was of the typical mindset that nothing good could come from learning new things, playing a game, any downtime for any reason. He seemed to have very little trust in others and always assumed that others were taking advantage. He even tried to berate me for smiling too much, how pathetic is that.
He did not even want the student assistants doing their own homework on the labs time, even when they were not assisting users. Considering the university paid minimum wage and everyone could get $2 - $4 more per hour by working in a nearby research center, that was a big mistake on his part.
When I left, within a year, I stopped back by to say Hi, only one student assistant was left. My turnover rate was high (due to min wage), but not that high. Seems many companies only pay lip service to turn over. I would imagine in the call center industry where the company is only willing to pay a very low and very narrow pay range that they factor turnover into their business model. Keeps the pay rates down plain and simple. IBM determined years ago that they could save around $50 per hour in benefits and more by outsourcing, i.e. using consultants. I would expect the same to be true for the call center industry where utilizing home workers reduces not just their hourly overhead, but also their per desktop costs as well. That would explain where a call center might pay an employee at their location $10 - $12 per hour, but someone working from home $25 - $30 per hour. What are the typical call center rates these days?
When I left that coworker took over and proceeded to implement more restrictive policies (it was a university environment for goodness sakes) and thus drove them all away, except one. In one of the largest labs they even had their own closed door (windows all around) so they could see out and users could see in. The manager who replaced me filled it full of computers and printers and made it a storage room (covered the windows with printouts). The one student assistant that was left told me that he would not let them do anything and tried to over-control everything. Thus everyone left, except this guy that was close to finishing his degree that term and already had a job lined up. He said most of the student assistants left the next semester because of the poor manager.
The other 20% was spent training, updating, researching, whatever. But they had 20% of their day when they didn't have to answer the phones.
I agree with you, downtime is very necessary and is very constructive, granted no one I know plays games to excess at work. And if my direct reports are getting their work done, often doing extra, why not allow them to have some down time to learn new tools, new skills and over time become more valuable to the company. Most manage
My question to you, is given the capabilities to setup VPNs via high speed access, why do such companies still require a separate hardwired telephone line before they will work with you?
I understand the need for metrics, but also know that these metrics can be captured and sent over the same hi speed pipe that I am using (DSL or Cable or Fiber - in my dreams).
DD-WRT and the ability to band shape traffic should remove most if not all objctions...
FYI, When I was a System Admin for a telco, they only had a call center support of about 50 desktops, after a merger, that number climbed into the thousands however I had already left the company for a better opportunity. The few times I provided support for the call center, they did not seem very happy and it was true that the smokers (friends though I did not smoke) did know were all the bodies were buried.
I have not decided on a spellchecker for OpenOffice.org Writer yet, obviously I need to pick one, add the words that I have a problem with and start using it to avoid these mistakes in the future. I did start a list of words that I intend to add into the spell checker I choose. Allot, alot and a lot will all be in there in hopes of saving myself. I also have trouble with then and than, if I do not refresh the usage, before using I will often use the wrong form without realizing it.
Sadly I will need the spell checker as a crutch to over come many, many years of using it the wrong way.
I miss WordPerfect... probably should double check if it is available for Linux or not.
With Linux, I know that whatever spell checker I choose I can make sure it is available as the default spell checker for almost all my applications - which I obviously need.
Nod to defnoz and Theoboley
For all others, he (me) can be taught, lol.
I am by no means an expert, much less an advanced knowledgeable person when it comes to this stuff, I just find it interesting and hope some of you will as well.
I read an article over a year ago about how they could not get good measurements of solar flares because the instruments were not good enough and to get some measurements you needed at least two observation points some distance apart. (probably related to measuring gamma rays) It is my understanding that the earth finally has the right kinds of instruments up there to get very accurate measurements of the sun, solar flares and etc.... I searched around and have provided a few links. I believe you will really like the Youtube video, very cool. Enjoy!
The Solar/SMO was planned for 2003 and was finally launched on February 7, 2008. It is designed to measure solar radiation with wavelenghts from 200 nanometers - 100 micrometers. This covers the near-ultraviolet, visible and infrared areas of the spectrum. Here is NASA on Solar / SMO.
Hinode launched in September 2006 has a three year mission to explore the magnetic fields of the sun. Specifically the investigates the interaction between the Sun's magnetic field and its corona. A consortium including Japan, US, UK and Norway worked together to measure the effects of "magnetic fields thought to be the source of solar flares" Three instruments are used, they are the SOT (Solar Optical Telescope, the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). The first images were captured on October 28.
HESSI renamed RHESSI launched on February 5, 2002, captures solar flares, X-rays and gamma ray flashes. Prior to the launch of RHESSI, we only had the GOES spacecraft which only measured X-ray flux and to classify the size of solar flares. YouTube on HESSI / RHESSI; A solar flare video - no sound. Here is a great video that shows the various instruments in action, one right after the other. From 10/18/03 through 11/07/03; AR 10486 & AR 10488.
From the Wiki,
The most powerful flare of the last 500 years is believed to have occurred in September 1859: it was seen by British astronomer Richard Carrington and left a trace in Greenland ice in the form of nitrates and beryllium-10, which allow its strength to be measured today (New Scientist, 2005).
Prior to the above launches, the Ulysees was pretty much it for measuring from space, before Ulysses there was only observations from the ground.
Ulysses (17 year mission) - was equipped with instruments to characterize fields, particles, and dust, and was powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). Launched in 10/6/90 through 7/1/08; through "through triangulation (or, more specifically, multilateration). Each spacecraft has a gamma-ray detector, with readouts noted in tiny fractions of a second. By comparing the arrival times of gamma showers with the separations of the spacecraft, a location can be determined, for follow-up with other telescopes. Because gamma rays travel at the speed of light, wide separations are needed." Additional discoveries: Additional discoveries: [15] 1) Ulysses discovered that the Sun's magnetic field interacts with the Solar system in a more complex fashion than previously believed. 2) Ulysses discovered that dust coming into the solar system from deep space was 30 times more abundant than previously expected.
You have some valid points, however some of the information you posted appears dated and probably needs to be updated.
Except for Microsoft Specific games (I don't like apps like WINE that just slow me down) most of what a newbie user needs works out of the case, plug and play, as the millions of new ultra notebooks sold at $399 since before last Xmas show. I am hoping to run MS on top of Xen / Linux, thus controlling the security problems by putting MS in its own sand box that I can control - probably a pipe dream, no pun intended.
Not only am I using an utlra notebook now, even though I have access to many other towers and PCs, I have some kids and some friends converted to use them as well. Why buy one machine for one person, when you can buy three for three people with the same amount of money? The kids only complaint is not being able to run the Microsoft games. They surf the net just fine and can do their homework without issues.
As for Silverlight and NBC, I just watched the Olympics on HDTV. They don't give me a non MS option, I find a different source, problem solved.
Silverlight becomes a non issue as there are always more sources available for any information online, as applications move to servers on the internet (aren't you glad I did not say those fluffy white things that float around the sky) it becomes even more of a non issue. The future looks bright!
I just think it is cool that we finally have a few satellites gathering data on the sun.
If there is a mass ejection in our direction it will not matter anyway. Since the new satellites were launched with equipment to monitor the sun from outside our atmosphere, all the really large ejections have been away from us. Give it 10 - 20 years and we should no allot more then we do today.
For the record I use M$, MS, Micro$oft and Microsoft interchangeably.
I am sure many might jump on the band wagon and mistakenly follow your suggestion to send me to
Proceed to karma hell!
I am going to trust as the guide said that when I joined, that while some people will like what I say and mark me down, others will see the logic or humor in it and will mark me up...over time it should work out, shouldn't it?
LOL, someone just marked me as a FOE, lmao. And they don't even know me.
For the record, If I have marked anyone as a friend, its because I actually read what they wrote and marked them as a friend because I liked what they said.
Please don't hold them responsible for my impending Karmic doom.
Does this mean that the one person who marked me as a foe was one of the three Anonymous Cowards that instead of arguing against the facts in a post, argued against my poor grammar use of M$ or Micro$oft instead of Microsoft.
Please disagree with what I say and not me as a person, that I can respect. And if you make a good argument, you just might find that I agree with you.
Heck I know I am not right all the time, but I can get opinionated.
Sometimes its easier to just type in M$ rather then Microsoft. Sometimes I type in MS too, don't really think about it much.
Sometimes I type it as Micro$oft to indicate that Microsoft costs more then Linux...why is this offensive?
Since you attacked my spelling M$ rather then any of the facts in my post, I site you for argumentum ad hominem. That is considered faulty logic you know.
...Next week should be nastier than last week for the soft, ring the bell and watch them go to zero. No product, no value, game over.
That is a very cool tool, thank you for posting it!
It was cool to slide the bar in the chart and look at how a particular stock did during specific days during our current financial crisis.
For M$ specifically I was surprised that their stock had not been higher then it was over the last year to year and a half. I mistakenly thought it had gotten pretty high per share but not in 2007 or 2008. Very cool tool, thank you very much.
...but in the end, Microsoft's ... Tool suffers the same problem ... they don't work.
From personal experience of over 10 years with M$ Windows, (I have over 25 years of experience in IT) this is straight out of their play book. This is business as usual. And we use to say that IBM meant I have Been Mislead.
New product released...
New product does not work as advertised...
M$ has NO FIX for new product and knows it...
marketplace does not like to hear that M$ can't fix
M$ provides BS troubleshooting tool (i.e. General Protection Fault, GPF, Troubleshooting Guide (Windows running on top of DOS) was my first business as usual experience with M$ BS). Windows 95 helped, but it still happened. This new PC Repair tool is more of the same.
M$ hopes market will buy BS and not switch forever to another operating system; they want to keep you around and will promise you exactly what they think you want to hear, promising the next release of the software will be better.
They understand once a user switches to current Linux systems (they have improved so much) and users discover what they can do with it (most general users will work with it out of the box without problems) that the users will not be there for the next version of M$ operating system. Especially when you can get it so cheap, a subnotebook for $399 that lets you do almost everything....so many options available...
Not trying to flame or bait anyone, just stating facts as I have experienced it since the days of DOS 2.0. Yes I remember when there was NOT a M$ company out there. Mod me as you wish, but this experience is first hand. If you had wasted days going through that BS 30 - 60 page GPF troubleshooting guide as many of us System Administrators did back in the day, all the while M$ phone support (company paid for it) stating that it had worked for them, therefore it should work for us and they could not understand what was wrong....perhaps you need to reinstall the operating system yet again....
I went through that guide, page by page, line by line twice before I said forget it. It never could have worked and M$ knew it. At my location, I had almost 50 servers (file & domain, OS2, NT, Solaris; email, Lotus Notes and print servers) and 400+ desktops (It was at a telco so the desktops were primarily DOS/Windows, OS/2, Windows 95/98/NT Windows; we had some Sun and SparcStations also - of course they did not run M$ apps) and I did not have multiple days to waste on lies....Don't even try to defend them, they lied out and out. And I KNOW IT because I was forced to live it.
One M$ support person had the audacity to state unequivocally that it worked for him, therefore I must be doing something wrong...that's why I tried the guide a second time, I was pissed and wanted to make sure I had not made some stupid rookie mistake... I HAD NOT!
I would have respected them more if they would have just told me the truth (that they did NOT have an answer or a fix that worked) so that I would not have wasted my time. They could have said sorry, we will have a fix with the next release, in the meantime just remind your users to periodically save their data and reboot their systems. That was the truth.
I know, I know, the marketplace is less forgiving...but is that really a good excuse?
Even with the MacIntosh (my Mac usage was years ago) I would save frequently and now with Linux, I still save frequently...I hate redoing work even if its just a paragraph in a word processing document.
Eventually that was the solution, after the PC was tweaked as well as it could be, to just remind the users to back up their data periodically and reboot when their PC locked up. By the time NT 3.51 & Windows 95 came around you could pretty much count on not having problems if you shut your PC off at lunch and booted back up when you returned. Win 98 and W
...Their anti-customer policies are ...
why I gave them up forever. Of course they are gouging you while they can, they see the writing on the wall, they know the party can not continue forever and ever treating customers as they all do - bad.
They all suck. Don't take my word for it, google it yourself...
Google the name of the provider + other descriptive words. Verizon, scam is an example. Cingular, scam, fraud. TMobile, fraud or T-Mobile, fraud. etc.... Sprint, sms, scam, fraud, problems, billing, etc.... use your imagination.
I did not bother to do any of those again, having done it in the past and finding poor or no customer service in all cases....
None of them are any good.
Vote with your feet, it does work, find a good VoIP provider and never look back. Sure people will have to leave you a message when you are not at home or the office or a WiFi FREE hotspot (they are all over the city and the software is free so that you can open your own FREE WiFi HotSpot, which in turn allows you to use many other hotspots around the world for free. Just do not tell your service provider as they try to make this activity illegal and will cancel you if they can prove it. You can even make money as your WiFi hotspot can give someone a free 5 - 15 minutes and charge them a fee if they need more. Heck look at all the TMobile and Verizon hotspots where they charge you $5.95 for like 5 minutes....)
If you need an emergency phone, get a prepaid phone and NEVER GIVE OUT THE NUMBER TO ANYONE! That way if you are in a bind, you can make a phone call. Protects you from creditors if you are ever unlucky enough to lose your job to no fault of your own...never give out the number and no one can call you, but you can call out. (And your prepaid minutes should last for a full year minimum, they are out there, look around).
Once you decide that others can leave a message and you can get it later (it use to be considered rude to answer the phone in public or at home when you have company) you can get all the service you need for less then $100 per year.
PER YEAR is correct! I pay less then $8.40 per month (for over 3 years now - I know it works) and am loving it. I get more then 80% of my phone calls and messages at either home or work anyway, so a few people have to wait to hear from me, it won't kill them and with my savings I can buy a new ultra notebook computer every year if I want!
If a company insists on being able to call you 24/7 and you agree to this without some additional pay for the inconvenience to your life...well you are crazy. Time is money, (respect of your personal time by your work is priceless) if you do not force them to pay you extra for such interruptions you might just as well tell them that your time is not very expensive. At least force them to pay for the service, i.e. they buy the phone and pay the bill, its the least they can do.
...Which I'll have to spend airtime listening to.
With the four different cellular providers I have experienced, they all provided an 800 number that you could call from a land line phone and retrieve the messages for free.
Yea what a racket they have...legalized extortion... Trying to force you to use your minutes to retrieve messages...that sucks.
Heaven help you if you run into credit problems and they (creditors) start calling, multiple times per day, at least 1 minute per call if not more can really put a dent into your monthly plan over the course of 30 days.
I'm lucky to be using Softbank - all SMS messages and calls between customers are free. Since the majority of my friends are Softbank users, it works out very cheap for me. $10 a month for the plan.
I got screwed over by two different providers with overcharges that should not have been on my bill. They were both major players and their customer no service departments would not do anything for me. Seven year (w/ mergers) positive track record paying my bill on time for the first company and three year positive track record paying the bill with the second one...they don't care even if you are a GREAT customer! Cellular companies just don't care about any of us, and we should not care about them!
The second company ate up my Voice minutes, then charged me excessively even though I had a all I can eat messaging plan that I paid an extra $39.99 per month for. Even after one customer no service person realized my plan had been set up wrong, and promised to fix it, they did not. In other phone calls the customer no-service departments no matter who I talked to they all said there was nothing that they could do and that I had to pay the illegal bill. (Illegal because I did not make the calls and/or should not have been charged for the mistakes they made, but they mistakenly think that they can do anything.) They said, "Customer X you must pay the bill".
The heck I did...I paid my normal bill, then walked away, (I had been month to month, no plan for years in both instances) when they cut off my phone for non payment two months later, I laughed, started using Skype and have never looked back. You should too, you will be glad, as I am, that you did. At this point those ba$tards can go out of business, they will NEVER see another penny of my business. They had their chance, they blew it...if we all did this, there would be no such thing as a customer no service department. You have to vote with your wallets and say see ya!
I will never give any cellular company a third strike, for me it was two strikes and I was out of their market.
Skype (VoIP) costs me less then $100 per year, less then $8.40 per month with a SkypeIn 10 digit phone number and unlimited calling to North America. I have been using it now for over 3 years and have never looked back. All my friends can message me via Skype or Google, so its all I need. No hidden charges, no bull$hit fake taxes...I LOVE IT!
With my savings I can afford to purchase a new Linux ultra notebook every year...
Does Softbank give you a 10 digit phone number for that price, if not you would be better off with Skype?
mod parent up, labour are one step away from outsourcing governance to an Indian telephone exchange tbh.
Whew, what a relief...at least they are outsourcing to potential family. Though they could not inherit anything without being officially recognzed...oops, not even then, dang.
Now if the outsourcing was in South America, not sure if England has tried to Empire Build down there as much as India we might have cause to worry.
If your machines and your "roommate"s machines are on the same subnet then traffic between them will never hit the IP stack in the router and hence can't be filtered by it.
Holy freaking crap. I never knew this. : ( (I just ran a little experiment that confirms what you're saying.)
And if you tunnel your server out to the internet your ISP provider can't completely control that either. Of course they can do worse. They can spoof your packets with a Kill, (drop, reject, etc...) so that your communication stops and they can slow down your communication based on some arbitrary set of rules only beneficial to them.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/24/army/print.html
Not sure why that hasn't made Slashdot yet. It's huge. Far bigger than just a satellite spying on us.
I do not blame you for posting as AC.... I know that even though I post this information for others to look at and decide for themselves, just by posting it a certain percentage will label me a conspiracy nut and I might even get modded as trying to cause problems when I am just acknowledging that I too have heard about (article) this and am providing additional information for people to chew on and think about.
The USA is slowly being turned into a police state so that we can be controlled, systematically taking away freedoms from Americans. This site suggests there are over 800 camps around the USA. Here is a video about a FEMA camp in Indiana, supposedly closed in 1933, but has received funding within the last two years as a amtrak - train maintenance facility.
I heard Alex Jones on Coast to Coast, here is a link to his website infowars. Supposedly he predicted not just the current collapse over two years ago, but nailed the reason as sub-prime markets...I need to find the document with the date he first made the prediction. My Realtor and mortgage broker friends knew the Real Estate bubble would burst over 2 years back. As a Notary/Signing Agent we talked about what was going on. As a person who participated in the RTC bailout, I am not surprised that it is happening again. My friends 2 to 2 1/2 years ago did not tie the bubble bursting to the sub prime market as Alex supposedly did.
Per the show, Alex got interested in how the government worked in High School and has actively looked into many issues for well over 20 years. The amount of information he has is incredible...again, check it out for yourself.
Not only did he sound very, very credible, he stated that there is so much dis-information being put online much in his name that he sometimes has 50 - 100 utube videos removed that are slandering him, all posted in the same 24 hour period. If you listen to the recorded show you will hear it in his words, but he basically is very well known at utube and once they verify it is him, the videos are instantly yanked. When someone is attacked so ardently as he obviously is, someone does not want you and I to know or think too much about what he is saying. Again listen yourself and form your own opinion.
I ask myself, what do they NOT want me to know. There is a reason they distract us from what is really going on with other things.
Supposedly he has a document that shows the Banking groups' plans that they are currently following now...supposedly leaked by someone when they left the Federal Reserve system. I need to look for it and provide a link. He stated on the show, that they are not doing anything in secret but instead are following a well thought out and detailed plan. This same template has been used to take the physical assets of other countries using that country's own banks and currency to do it. The documents state that the countries were expected to default on the loans the group of banks provided. I believe the details are in this video End Game, however I am not a subscriber so I have not watched it yet.
I also admit that I currently do not have three or more sources for this information, so it is up to you to decide for yourself.
I personally don't believe there are as many coincidences as many would like for us to believe. I find it very coinci
Yes, so people are 1 pixel.
Objects are closer then they appear! Tank or Apache or here or the classic example: Jurassic Park.
I read with interest the posts from individuals that had worked in some capacity with this type of technology. They all know the capability is better then most of the public believes it is. I for one believe them!
An added thought, the technology exists to see in a variety of spectrums (infrared, through clouds, ultra violet, etc...) and through a variety of obstacles...who knows what additional instruments are on our governments surveillance satellites. I would not be surprised if they could listen to the sounds inside my house, read what I am typing on my computer screen and see through multiple floors and/or walls directly into my house. I just feel sorry for them, how boring it would be to listen in, lol.
It does surprise me that others are surprised. So many people, even scientists are treated skeptically, treated as quacks, conspirators or frauds only to be vindicated years later.
A college friend's father worked for AT&T before the breakup of the baby bells. While he could not go into specifics, he did state that I would be shocked what was in his lab, on his drawing board - technology wise. He said most of it would not be made public for years in the future.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
I applaud your trust, however sadly believe that your attitude is naive. Allow me to explain...its sad because you are doing nothing wrong, you are actually showing a level of trust we all should have in reality. Wouldn't it be nice if you could honestly trust everyone, a person and their word...as it should be. However others do not have our best interest at heart.
We see this with certain entities, governments, churches, societies and corporate cultures come to mind. Remember that only those obsessed with controlling others would use that argument to diminish your freedoms and take away your inalienable rights.
Here is a rational thought..., if they deserved the trust you are placing in them, they would by definition trust you just as much, thus there would NEVER be a reason to take anything away from you. No matter how well meaning or how well their intentions may seem to be. They have their own agenda and for your family's sake don't trust them. Actions do speak LOUDER then words.
Just in making the attempt to deprive you of anything, their actions betray their words!
I prefer innocent until proven guilty. Yes I know good luck with that!
As soon as my kids were old enough to use the internet I told them to be careful what they posted online and consider how it might reflect on them. I showed them an article where an individual had been denied employment due to a picture she posted online while in college. The college aged girl was under the legal drinking age in that state, was holding a plastic cup and the HR person on the show stated that she was not hired as the employer assumed it was an alcoholic beverage. That the underage drinking showed poor judgment on her part. That poor judgment was a risk that the company was unwilling to assume. I don't have the article in front of me at the moment and can not remember if it was just an article or an article and a show. I remember the HR representative stating that 100% of large businesses use networking and community sites to do background searches on applicants. I shared this information with my kids in the hopes they would avoid similar mistakes. And remember there is guilt by association as well.
As for my kids, I simply told them not to post anything online that might embarrass them if their grandmother saw it. Sure it illicit ed a chuckle, more importantly it got the point across.
I personally believe as did the signers of the Declaration of Independence deemed it a "self evident truth" that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Tough for those that do not believe that their is a creator...that is way off topic!
Too many people give away their freedoms, their rights, their life for nothing. In an ideal society we would have nothing to fear. Being good, fair minded, caring about others, taking personal responsibility, taking care of my family and plain hard work would, should be enough! We really should not have anything to fear but fear itself.
However anything that might make a negative impression on anyone else and impact me financially, preventing me from providing for my family is very much worth hiding. Even if you and I would agree that the information is not objectionable at all.
Let's face it, there is always someone out there that will jump to some unreasonable conclusion about something you and I know is n
. . . There was a case a few years ago where someone was actually hit in the foot by a small meteor. No harm done.
I so wanted this to be true...lol, can you imagine, the odds, being hit by a meteorite and surviving, yet my guess it would be harder to win the lottery, err, okay harder for me to win the lottery as I can't imagine that happening either. But one can dream... (funding and working on an open source project while being able to pay the rent and put food on the table would be nice!)
Here is the link that shows not only the object that hit the 14 year old back in 2002; but shows an analysis of the object by someone knowledgeable. They are stating
...that this was not a meteorite. I am 100% certain this is a piece of iron smelting slag, which can be found all over the countryside. It is the refuse of former iron smelting activities, some even dating back to medieval times.
I admit that I was thinking, when I read about the incident, that it was waste from a toilet from an airplane.
Regardless, if I were her, I would still put it in a scrapbook somewhere.
Wait, when did the Red Cross become evil?
Any organization can be used for good or evil, of course its easier when good people don't stand up and do nothing to prevent the evil from occurring.
Personally I don't believe the Red Cross is evil, but they have unfortunately been associated with questionable acts that many would classify as 'evil'. This is an example of one. (I would suggest that the good that the Red Cross does, far, far out weighs the bad! I also suggest that our history is our history and refuse to be ashamed of it. Besides the history of other countries and entities around the world is far, far worse by comparison. Facts are facts..)
...off my soapbox, now about this story that I know many will find interesting where you could label the Red Cross allowing themselves to be used by evil doers...
The weather channel recently ran a history on the great flood When weather changed history; the episode that I am referring too can be found: Full Version: Flood of 1927. I am not sure if this will take it straight to it or if you will have to select Full Version: Flood of 1927. Just one of many historical events here in the US, where while some shined and did the right thing, others acted in a way that many would describe as "evil".
A group of black share-croppers were 'not' rescued as the Plantation Owners were afraid that if they were rescued they would not return to the plantation once the flood waters subsided.
Instead of being rescued, the plantation owners used their influence at the US Government level to ensure that not only would the share croppers not be rescued, but that they, stuck on their strip of land surrounded by water (top of a portion of a levee), would become the primary distribution point for red cross relief to the area. The share croppers were not only forced to work for free, they were charged, by the plantation owners, for their Red Cross Relief (think company stores and you get the idea). So basically the share croppers were put further in debt in order to be controlled by their overlords (one could say the same was being done to all of us today with the many business and bank failures...)
The share croppers were also 'tagged' and their movement was restricted by national guard troops who patrolled the camp in armed groups. There were some white, albeit very poor, flood victims in the same camp, of course segregated. The white survivors were not restricted in their movement; were not forced to work for free distributing red cross supplies; were not charged for red cross supplies; and received better food rations then the share croppers.
Per the special, word of what was happening at the one Red Cross Camp circulated among other Red Cross Camps. So there was awareness of what was going on by many, including those in government and those in the Red Cross.
So while the Red Cross, IMO, is NOT evil and I do support them, even a great organization like them can be used in a more 'evil' way by those with their own agendas that many would call [them] evil.
BTW, I am white with no ax to grind one way or the other, however, I do not deny the facts of history as o
I've seen situations that otherwise look like benign layout bugs, where two or more hyperlinks or other clickable objects end up being overlay ed on each other. It's not clear which one would be activated until you click. I...which page was doing the exploit.
I have seen this too, since I use Linux and FireFox (FF) I just assumed that the web designer had done something that was Internet Explorer (IE) and/or Active X specific. And therefore was not rendering correctly in other browsers FireFox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, etc... after all there are more then 13 browsers out there for use and I know that many designers don't test even on one additional browser, but good designers (and testers) do.
I have seen this on the news pages when linking from one article to what I believe to be background and related information from another article, while usually on the same website, occasionally the URL shows another website. I admit that I don't always trust the URL displayed as I understand how the status line of the browser can be changed.
It was irritating to have the text, menus, images overlaid and I figured it was simply poor web design and poor web coding practices with inadequate cross browser testing. Now I am starting to wonder if it was something more!
I have to admit it reminds me of a couple of well known sites that 'scroll' a box as you read an article trying to get you to do something. I hate those things and avoid them like the plague. If there is an alternative news source I stop using sites that use those coding techniques.
My favorite technique for getting rid of these boxes, admittedly does not work if a new tab is not created, is when there is a new 'tab' in my PC's action bar at the bottom of my screen. I point to this new tab with my mouse + right-click and select CLOSE. I stopped using the X CLOSE Box option on any object that either pop-ups or appears when I learned that they can be reprogrammed to do other nasty things while not showing you anything on the status line of the browser.
One site , 0 and catch (one word) is a free site that lets people put up websites for free as long as they accept advertising on their sites. I checked it out over 8 years ago, but did not use it for the reason I am about to tell you here. Initially the site allowed you to select between popup ads and advertising buttons at the top or bottom. You did not have to select both. Later they forced popup ads on anyone using free accounts. You could pay and the advertisement would supposedly be removed. While I still believe a free use for advertising model can work, the idea of forcing popups without being able to op out of them sucks. We all hate popup advertising, the only thing worse then popups are those dang dynamic ads that lock up your browser while they fly information across the screen...I really hate those. Like I need to see Tinker Bell fly across my screen anyway....NOT. Anyway on the 0 + catch site I saw a popup ad, but instead of the X CLOSE box performing a close as advertised and expected, when you looked at the status line in the browser it was going to run some executable (.exe) file on your computer. It was over six years ago so I don't remember whether or not that executable had been downloaded or if it would have downloaded itself. I did not know back then, what I know now about browser objects, thankfully the scammer / phisher / cracker that had written it did not change the status message or I might have accidently hosed myself by clicking the X to close the popup. To this day I will not TRUST a close button on any website, rather using my browser's method of closing any object that I want to get rid of.
I wish I had a list of sites that others could check to see what I saw, but did not bother writing any of them down. My guess is that if you are using IE you may not see the overlays, but now I wonder. I suppose that might be one way to know if it is poor web design versus phishing and scamming, but who
What's with these new hand sets locking you in to one provider or another, they could provide a hand set that gives you both WiFi and VoIP, but of course then they would make less money wouldn't they! However having full browser capability opens up the possibility of richer content then could be offered on a smaller cellphone screen size!
I love my Nokia N800. Full browser, 8 GB in storage, FM chip, WiFi built in w/ SkypeIN I only pay about $100 per year for unlimited calling to North America, webcam, and a screen that is a little bigger then just cell phone size.
Since I use WiFi (not cellular) and VoIP w/ Skype (sound is crystal clear - you can hear a pin drop...no latency issues!) I do not have a monthly cellular plan. Think back to the 'beeper' days, if I am not in a WiFi hot zone, the caller can leave me a message. I don't get paid extra to be at anyone's beck and call!
If I did have a cellular handset, I would want a phone that would allow for both VoIP and Cellular. That way I could use WiFi while at work and at home which would probably account for 80% or more of my usage without using any minutes. I would only use the Cellular minutes when I am traveling and not in a WiFi hot zone.
By selecting VoIP over Cellular, I save allot of money! Have been loving it for well over 3 years now!
Since I only pay $100 per year (my total cost) for my phone service, I save between $300 - $600 each and every year. (Metro PCS - other cellular providers). With the new ultra linux laptops going for $90; $199; $299 and $399 respectively I can purchase a new laptop with my savings each year.
I even used part of one 4 GB mini storage card (2 x 4 GB = 8 GB of storage; 1 internal, 1 external) for additional swap memory space when running applications on my Linux Nokia N800 hand held device! (Allot more apps available to me thanks to that!)
While not a laptop replacement, I do have full browser capability and can do more then what a small cellphone screen will allow you to do! In a pinch I can actually surf the web and check email!
These new phones should let you select between VoIP and Cellular mode! Of course they want to charge you for minutes, don't they!
While I agree it might not hurt to double check I would be concerned about any hard/fast black/white time frames.
I suppose they remind me too much of 'mandatory' sentencing. I would prefer for the expert (the judge) to make an 'informed' decision based on their experience and the individual circumstances rather then be 'forced' into some arbitrary time frame that might not fit the circumstances.
As I write this I realize the court analogy is a poor analogy, as the expert in the real estate situation cannot be considered an impartial third party. The mortgage broker definitely has incentive to make the loan don't they! And that incentive does not work in the consumer's favor does it.
...which takes three weeks, which I know is longer than the home-buying process...remember, the approval is guaranteed...
I would suggest that triggers to approval might be fine, however the time frame would depend on the expert and their firms work load. If the trigger-approval is valid, then no problem, however if the trigger-approval is NOT valid then that process needs to be changed to make it valid.
Mine is probably just as poorly worded, so I will apologize on the front end this time.
Another thought:
You could argue that a lending institution that is going to hold the paper (loan) internally might be trusted more. Since they are not going to 'sell' it to anyone else they are assume more risk. (Thus they have more incentive to make good loans)
A lending institution that never holds any of the paper (they always sell the loan to a third party) might NOT be trusted as much for its loan and might be subjected to more rigid controls and oversight.
If taxpayer money is used (and it will have to be for the economy to be stabilized) I agree that tax payers should benefit down the road as these companies profit.
I have always believed that a portion of our taxes should be 'invested' for our future needs to offset inflation among other factors. Every 'citizen' should have a private fund, invested in this country appropriately for their age (more risk when young, less risk when older) to offset health care costs, retirement, social security, etc.... This fund should be able to be 'passed' to whoever one decides, via a will, last testament or other legal document. Absolutely NEVER should we be taxed a second, third, fourth or more time when we pass away!
Heck pass the Fairtax and most of our problems will be taken care of. The FairTax has been stuck by both the Democrats and Republicans (both House and Congress) in committee since 1996. Why have they prevented it from coming to a floor vote by holding it in committee for 10 years? Ask yourself why you did not know about it until you read this? Time to get it out and pass it for the country's benefit! (It will create jobs! The FairTax Replaces the entire current tax code with 8 pages of easily understood tax rules and regulations! The FairTax will provide more money for the government, but not necessarily more from each of us - illegal activities will result in taxes being paid. You really need to check it out and talk to your representatives - they know about it even if you do not!)
If any elected official attempts to miss use the funds of any appropriation (make a grab for the money for any other purpose as they usually do), could you not argue that they are violating their oath to 'protect the constitution' while in office.
I am assuming, like the president, their 'oath of office' stipulates that they protect the constitution.