I wish more people would understand that. I've been to so many machines over the years, where the OS (whatever it is) is crashing or just behaving weird. People just don't want to believe that the $399 PC they bought is really crap, made with substandard parts. I waited longer for mine, spent the money on brands that experience told me I could trust, and I rarely have any OS glitches. It just.. runs stably.
One of my first places that I worked in IT, took a tour of the place. Found post-it notes with "PASSWORD: " and what it was.. on monitors.. in the Financial Audit department.
This is all too common in many places. One company I worked for, about.. 1/3 to 1/2 of the users used some form of their name, and a number incrementation. I freaked out one who was *-18 asking him.. "so, you've been here a year and a half?" He had no idea how I did the math on that one.
Eventually, we put in place a very, very restrictive password policy. No incrementing numbers, no password similar to last month's password, etc. You wouldn't believe the riots in the streets. But, we held firm, and eventually, the noise died down, and everyone finally is using more secure passwords.
They're still in business, not doing as well as they *could* be due to other factors. For the most part it was an excellent company to work for, and I would again - except for the internal audits that get in the way of me doing my job effectively!
And I wouldn't leave raw eggs there. I don't burn bridges.:)
I worked for a company that went from wide open to proxy. As I was the most internet-experienced tech on the support team, anything that needed to be researched fell to me. Also, I browse with multiple sessions of a browser open. Always have. Next thing I know, I'm getting called into the IS Director's office and given a list of where I've been. I pointed out each url and explained exactly why I'd been there, all work related. Their reply, "well.. this looks like you're not working, so don't do this again." Basically, they were asking me to not do my job. Until I left, I spent more time worrying about if I looked like I wasn't working.
Next company was wide open. Sure I had AIM open, bounced ideas off some techs I knew on IRC once in a while, but the pressure was off and I got more done.
Too many in the career to count.. but one recent one comes to mind. Customer has a laptop, brought it in for a format/rebuild due to some nasty viruses and a pile of spyware. He had the HD filled up about.. 75% full with porn images. We rebuild, and he goes on his (merry) way. Two weeks later, he brings it back.. "yeah.. I got a virus or two again, and since then it's acting funny" Guess what his HD is full of again.. ? You guessed it - he's been on the free porn sites again.
You think he'd learn. At leasts we've learned to use a Lysol handi-wipe on his keyboard before working on it. I'm almost glad I don't do much hardware work lately:)
I feel Craig made the stronger argument - as it was plain and simple. Although I found it interesting that both referred to how the net is *now* as being what they believe it should be. Craig believes it's free now and should remain so. Scott Cleland seemed to say that it's open now, and to keep it open, close it down. Odd that..
That's what came to mind when I first read TFA.. it comes across as.. "hey.. this new thing is out, and it's going to affect all of us - let's get competitive".
An indirect analogy comes to mind.. such as when a large retailer prices at a loss to force out other competition, then brings prices inline with the rest of the chain. How is this different than a large group got together, lowered prices, and forced the competition out?
It was tagged flamebait, but is a valid point. IT support jobs are unique in the industry. If it all goes right, you never know we exist. If it all goes to hell, it's our fault. Mix in with that, that IT Support is an area of business that rarely if ever turns a profit. Management doesn't like that.
Referring to the article - a look at job postings tells you what people are looking for. Someone who lives for their job. A recent posting here hear listed the descriptions of several different careers under the heading of one job. They wanted a Cisco certified person, who would also fix all the computers, printers, etc at the location, and in their spare time, program for their in house application and support their web page entirely. Anyone who takes that job isn't lazy - they're burning out and overworked.
I'm finding a hard time finding a (better) job than I am in now, because frankly, I make my wife and kids my priority in life. I won't make it a common practice to put in 50+ hour work weeks. I don't mind the occasional weekend work or night work, but I flatly refuse to live for my job. I live for my wife and kids, and any employer who refuses to understand that is in my opinion, not worth working at.
We've got lots of hobbies, just none that involve a console or PC. We have two dogs, which require care and attention. We have a garden we plant every year, and the kids love it. We go exploring, we go *out* which is the key. I used to game quite a bit and still play one now and then, but when given a choice, the front door wins every time.
How about those that have no desire for a console (*GASP*) We had a PS2... we were so busy with other things, we sold it. New console comes out.. meh.. so what. I've got every day things to keep me busy - wife n kids. And I don't think we'll be buying them a console anytime soon. Why would I want to have my kids spend their lives in front of a blinking box? There's a whole interactive world I'd rather have them in, and I feel they're better for it!
You give someone a choice between 5 ISPs and they then ask their current ISP, "What do I do now?" Where I live, AOL and the other major national ISPs don't provide local access numbers - so local ISPs like where I work, foot all the questions on a daily basis. Same goes for offering more than one media player, or whatever on a PC. Offer one - any more than that confuses the man on the street too much. Trust me on that one.
The customer that buys an XPS is usually knowledgable enough to remove that crap on their own. The average person on the street buys the major cheap price point - the Dimension desktop. Now.. if you tell me Dell is offering a Dimension series with no extra installs on it - you'd have my attention.
I'd love to.. but where I live, I have one phone company option, CenturyTel. I am too far from any CO to get DSL, too far from a wireless broadband tower (Motorola Canopy), and Time Warner does not provide cable service. The only option is Dishnet, and it is not worth the cost. Not even mentioning the latency issues coming off a satellite.
What we need is more options for where a good portion of the population lives. Hint: It's not the city.
Are you hiring, and can I work from home? Investigative stuff like this is very intreguing to me, and I have a computer I could easily set up for this.
Some don't care, some don't understand...
on
Return of the Web Mob
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Most law enforcement I've worked with are great at their job.. if they can see it. Example - someone commits a crime, they can investigate and arrest. However I'd say about 1/2 of general law enforcement people do not grasp the concepts of the "virtual" world, through no fault of their own.
While Opping on irc, I noted a person claiming to sell laptops at 1/2 retail cost.. new ones. I pretended interest, and got some contact info.. forwarded this on to law enforcement for his area... within a week, the detective emailed me to say they'd busted a fraud ring. It was tangible, they could deal with it:)
Internet crimes still deal a lot in the virtual world, and if you haven't been trained on how to.. visualize and understand it, it's a tough concept. Not everyone gets it.
As with a lot of things, the key would be training. You're probably not going to get a small town sheriff trained, however some of the larger sheriff's departments would be excellent centers for this.. keep it to county level, forward to state or federal if needed.
Volume sales of those books are much lower than say.. the latest from a NY Times best seller. They're priced higher to get a return on investment for the printer, etc. Not saying I like it or agree with it.. it is what it is.
In my field (desktop support) there's good and bad techs..and some are REALLY bad. They know a script of things to ask, but anything outside that and they are totally lost.. they can't work "out of the box" to coin the phrase.
I've also worked with some excellent techs that I've tried to learn from as much as possible, and I try to emulate as I work with customers. These are the ones that see a problem and dig in and try and solve it. Yeah, it takes time but the knowledge base built up can be helpful.
So.. on a database like this.. who's to watch the submissions to select if it's a real tested and found solution, versus something else that doesn't really work? And who's to say the solution provided is from an actual PC tech and not an armchair one? If I had a dime for every time a "friend that knows lots about computers" screws one up..
Apologies for missing your/sarcasm in the post - and for the name calling. I was judging by your post, which I interpreted incorrectly. I just have no patience with racists, and I misread your comment.
*offers handshake of apology*
And you do have an excellent point - the Dubai Port deal was much ado about nothing, and I wish it would have gone through, if nothing else to show the general US Public that it was indeed no big deal.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish more people would understand that. I've been to so many machines over the years, where the OS (whatever it is) is crashing or just behaving weird. People just don't want to believe that the $399 PC they bought is really crap, made with substandard parts. I waited longer for mine, spent the money on brands that experience told me I could trust, and I rarely have any OS glitches. It just.. runs stably.
One of my first places that I worked in IT, took a tour of the place. Found post-it notes with "PASSWORD: " and what it was.. on monitors.. in the Financial Audit department.
This is all too common in many places. One company I worked for, about.. 1/3 to 1/2 of the users used some form of their name, and a number incrementation. I freaked out one who was *-18 asking him.. "so, you've been here a year and a half?" He had no idea how I did the math on that one.
Eventually, we put in place a very, very restrictive password policy. No incrementing numbers, no password similar to last month's password, etc. You wouldn't believe the riots in the streets. But, we held firm, and eventually, the noise died down, and everyone finally is using more secure passwords.
They're still in business, not doing as well as they *could* be due to other factors. For the most part it was an excellent company to work for, and I would again - except for the internal audits that get in the way of me doing my job effectively!
:)
And I wouldn't leave raw eggs there. I don't burn bridges.
I worked for a company that went from wide open to proxy. As I was the most internet-experienced tech on the support team, anything that needed to be researched fell to me. Also, I browse with multiple sessions of a browser open. Always have. Next thing I know, I'm getting called into the IS Director's office and given a list of where I've been. I pointed out each url and explained exactly why I'd been there, all work related. Their reply, "well.. this looks like you're not working, so don't do this again." Basically, they were asking me to not do my job. Until I left, I spent more time worrying about if I looked like I wasn't working.
Next company was wide open. Sure I had AIM open, bounced ideas off some techs I knew on IRC once in a while, but the pressure was off and I got more done.
Without "Q", there would be no FAQ. Unless you never read that sort of thing.. ;-)
Too many in the career to count.. but one recent one comes to mind. Customer has a laptop, brought it in for a format/rebuild due to some nasty viruses and a pile of spyware. He had the HD filled up about.. 75% full with porn images. We rebuild, and he goes on his (merry) way. Two weeks later, he brings it back.. "yeah.. I got a virus or two again, and since then it's acting funny" Guess what his HD is full of again.. ? You guessed it - he's been on the free porn sites again.
:)
You think he'd learn. At leasts we've learned to use a Lysol handi-wipe on his keyboard before working on it. I'm almost glad I don't do much hardware work lately
I feel Craig made the stronger argument - as it was plain and simple. Although I found it interesting that both referred to how the net is *now* as being what they believe it should be. Craig believes it's free now and should remain so. Scott Cleland seemed to say that it's open now, and to keep it open, close it down. Odd that..
That's what came to mind when I first read TFA.. it comes across as.. "hey.. this new thing is out, and it's going to affect all of us - let's get competitive".
An indirect analogy comes to mind.. such as when a large retailer prices at a loss to force out other competition, then brings prices inline with the rest of the chain. How is this different than a large group got together, lowered prices, and forced the competition out?
It was tagged flamebait, but is a valid point. IT support jobs are unique in the industry. If it all goes right, you never know we exist. If it all goes to hell, it's our fault. Mix in with that, that IT Support is an area of business that rarely if ever turns a profit. Management doesn't like that.
Referring to the article - a look at job postings tells you what people are looking for. Someone who lives for their job. A recent posting here hear listed the descriptions of several different careers under the heading of one job. They wanted a Cisco certified person, who would also fix all the computers, printers, etc at the location, and in their spare time, program for their in house application and support their web page entirely. Anyone who takes that job isn't lazy - they're burning out and overworked.
I'm finding a hard time finding a (better) job than I am in now, because frankly, I make my wife and kids my priority in life. I won't make it a common practice to put in 50+ hour work weeks. I don't mind the occasional weekend work or night work, but I flatly refuse to live for my job. I live for my wife and kids, and any employer who refuses to understand that is in my opinion, not worth working at.
I thought I found it!
We've got lots of hobbies, just none that involve a console or PC. We have two dogs, which require care and attention. We have a garden we plant every year, and the kids love it. We go exploring, we go *out* which is the key. I used to game quite a bit and still play one now and then, but when given a choice, the front door wins every time.
You mis-interpret - I'd rather have them *outside* in the world, not inside in front of a TV their entire life.
How about those that have no desire for a console (*GASP*) We had a PS2... we were so busy with other things, we sold it. New console comes out.. meh.. so what. I've got every day things to keep me busy - wife n kids. And I don't think we'll be buying them a console anytime soon. Why would I want to have my kids spend their lives in front of a blinking box? There's a whole interactive world I'd rather have them in, and I feel they're better for it!
No, I am not. I like linux, but haven't had the free time to play around with it in nearly 10 years. I'm an equal opportunity technician
You give someone a choice between 5 ISPs and they then ask their current ISP, "What do I do now?" Where I live, AOL and the other major national ISPs don't provide local access numbers - so local ISPs like where I work, foot all the questions on a daily basis. Same goes for offering more than one media player, or whatever on a PC. Offer one - any more than that confuses the man on the street too much. Trust me on that one.
The customer that buys an XPS is usually knowledgable enough to remove that crap on their own. The average person on the street buys the major cheap price point - the Dimension desktop. Now.. if you tell me Dell is offering a Dimension series with no extra installs on it - you'd have my attention.
I'd love to.. but where I live, I have one phone company option, CenturyTel. I am too far from any CO to get DSL, too far from a wireless broadband tower (Motorola Canopy), and Time Warner does not provide cable service. The only option is Dishnet, and it is not worth the cost. Not even mentioning the latency issues coming off a satellite.
What we need is more options for where a good portion of the population lives. Hint: It's not the city.
Are you hiring, and can I work from home? Investigative stuff like this is very intreguing to me, and I have a computer I could easily set up for this.
Most law enforcement I've worked with are great at their job.. if they can see it. Example - someone commits a crime, they can investigate and arrest. However I'd say about 1/2 of general law enforcement people do not grasp the concepts of the "virtual" world, through no fault of their own.
:)
While Opping on irc, I noted a person claiming to sell laptops at 1/2 retail cost.. new ones. I pretended interest, and got some contact info.. forwarded this on to law enforcement for his area... within a week, the detective emailed me to say they'd busted a fraud ring. It was tangible, they could deal with it
Internet crimes still deal a lot in the virtual world, and if you haven't been trained on how to.. visualize and understand it, it's a tough concept. Not everyone gets it.
As with a lot of things, the key would be training. You're probably not going to get a small town sheriff trained, however some of the larger sheriff's departments would be excellent centers for this.. keep it to county level, forward to state or federal if needed.
Volume sales of those books are much lower than say.. the latest from a NY Times best seller. They're priced higher to get a return on investment for the printer, etc. Not saying I like it or agree with it.. it is what it is.
In my field (desktop support) there's good and bad techs..and some are REALLY bad. They know a script of things to ask, but anything outside that and they are totally lost.. they can't work "out of the box" to coin the phrase.
I've also worked with some excellent techs that I've tried to learn from as much as possible, and I try to emulate as I work with customers. These are the ones that see a problem and dig in and try and solve it. Yeah, it takes time but the knowledge base built up can be helpful.
So.. on a database like this.. who's to watch the submissions to select if it's a real tested and found solution, versus something else that doesn't really work? And who's to say the solution provided is from an actual PC tech and not an armchair one? If I had a dime for every time a "friend that knows lots about computers" screws one up..
Apologies for missing your /sarcasm in the post - and for the name calling. I was judging by your post, which I interpreted incorrectly. I just have no patience with racists, and I misread your comment.
*offers handshake of apology*
And you do have an excellent point - the Dubai Port deal was much ado about nothing, and I wish it would have gone through, if nothing else to show the general US Public that it was indeed no big deal.
Way to be a racist! Go you!
Translation: You're an asshat
We have a crapload of good PC Manufacturers here in the states, and our government instead orders 16,000 PCs from a Chinese manufacturer?