While Microsoft would LOVE to have enforced this, and I'm sure they would have made a lot of money, they would piss off so many companies, it's not even funny. Take my company for example. We have 2500 computers. We only use OEM licensing for Windows. We would have had to probably bought ~500 licenses to cover us till we could migrate. 500*$300+500*(90) = $195000 to cover us for that ONE year of lack of overlap. Sure, MS makes off good, but once we are pissed off, my company might look at using Open Office instead of MS Office. 2500*$300 = $750000 to fully license office for my company.
Can also be done with Samba, but what's the point? All printers are TCP/IP network printers. I never quite understood why people would use print servers for network printers. (Except maybe in huge environments and/or with special printers having a high cost per page)
While I don't know if Samba does this, the main reason to setup a network queue on a Windows Server is driver management. You can install the drivers on the server and then users can just add the printer very easily. You can even set it up so they can install the printer without admin rights (driver and all) from the server. It makes things so easy an end user can often do it with no help.
Okay, so you are in a unique situation. You've got no investment yet, and a small number of machines to manage. Why use antiquated software that at best will detect non zero day viruses and almost no malware (seriously, does any AV vendor find a significant amount of malware???). The solution is to switch from a blacklisting approach, and move to a white list approach. Instead of using a piece of software to look for bad stuff, just tell your computer what good stuff can be run. There are a ton of vendors that sell white listing apps. I don't know if there is one that is scaled for your size. Lumension has a decent product, as does core trace. Those may be overkill. Faronics has a simpler solution that may be worth looking at. I'm sure there are dozens more out there, but those are just the ones I've looked at.
A stamp? Don't be stupid. Stamps could be forged, peeled off, or transferred to untrusted devices. You have to go with standardization of make, model, color, and size. Before inserting the USB drive, each employee must check the specifications with the master list (which you have posted in a visible location).
They are closing the only way people currently have to purchase a brand new OEM license of Windows XP. The only way to install XP on any computer you don't currently have licensed is to purchase an incredibly expensive software assurance plan from Microsoft. SA isn't always a bad thing, but considering most people have been using the same OS for 7-8 years and have no intention of changing...It's not a good deal to get SA. If you bought XP in 2002, purchased the open license for $200 (guesstimate), and then paid the $66 a year for SA (assumes SA at 1/3rd price of the product)...You would have paid $662 for what you could have gotten for $200. SA only makes sense if you upgrade every 3 years or less, but the truth is, even if your new OS didn't suck, businesses don't like massive change, and changing OS version is exactly that, massive change.
Microsoft said they weren't going to sell XP after Vista came out, but they eventually caved and allowed the so-called downgrade. I really want to use the couple hundred Windows XP bulk upgrade licenses my company has. I long for the day that I can make the argument that Windows XP is an upgrade to Windows Vista/7 in front of a judge.
Truth be told, if you install Windows XP right, there is no way that Microsoft can tell the difference between our copy of XP and an OEM copy of XP preinstalled (except for the lack of !#$( on the HD). Having said that, doing this without having licenses to back you up...that's a good way to screw your company over. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to make a phone call, and you'll have auditors so far up your ass you wont know where you end and the auditor begins. Lets just hope that for your sake the rest of your software is in order, as they will check most of the major vendors software as well.
This is kind of like asking, what's wrong with taking a dollar out of the cash register every night I work. Sure, you may not get caught right away, but when your manager sees you pocket that dollar, you are going to be looking for a job.
Don't forget that you MUST also purchase an OEM license of Windows with the computer, so you can't buy a computer loaded with Linux or FreeDOS to save a buck. So basically you spend money for the OEM license, money for the open license, and then you pay $90/pc/year. Of course you don't have to buy the open license but once, but you will have to buy the OEM license with every computer.
I'll bet 100 mod points that Windows XP will be available at least a year after Windows 7 release. Microsoft barks a loud bark, but in the end, they tend to buckle under pressure from their biggest supporters.
"While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a fixed cost,"
More accurately:
While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a rising cost,
The term "Fixed Cost" and "Rising Cost" are not mutually exclusive.
I'm not stupid enough to believe 90% of the bullshit that comes out of ANY politicians mouth. The other 10% that comes out of their mouths is still bullshit, but it's in their best financial interest to get it done. The political parties are just fantasies used to divide a country into chunks of people that the politicians believe they can get the majority to vote for them. Our political system isn't what was taught in your Political Science course, unless you had a cynical teacher.
Have you ever been assessed for a road being put in? My friend just got a $2000 bill from his city for his portion of the road in front of his house. I know some places just tax you in your property taxes, ($2000 over 10-20 years isn't that bad), but apparently his does not.
The sad thing is that although school enrollment is going down, education taxes are going up. So the schools are getting more money to teach less students. While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a fixed cost, (i.e. the incremental cost of teach 1 extra child is much less than the funding money received for that 1 extra child), I still find this a little alarming. There has to be a place to cut costs. Administration, I'm looking at you.
I couldn't understand how she was re-elected. It just reestablishes my belief that the vast majority of people vote party line, and don't really care who is running for their respective party. I know there may be a few people who could be swayed, but in general, I find the philosophy of both parties to be pretty incompatible. I question anyone's sanity who can switch back and forth on a whim.
Cars especially should be free. Limitation of mobility is the biggest negative externality. By restricting people's mobility, GM is making everyone else suffer, because lack of mobility ruins everything.
You must be new here. Many of the worse case offenders live here. It sounds like you are pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you really think you can take on the pirates, good luck. If you figure out how, please don't tell the RIAA.
Go to dice.com. Do a search in a location you are interested in. Look at the job requirements. What percentage list Masters degrees as a requirement? If not many, I would not get my Masters. My understanding is that a Masters is a great way to get promoted, but it can actually hurt you to get hired. If I had to choose two people for a job, everything identical except for masters vs B.S., I would pick the B.S. most of the time. Why? Because I can pay him less and he wont feel (as) insulted. There is a thing called being "overqualified" and it is a place you do NOT want to be.
My advice is to look for a job, work for a year, and reevaluate. I don't know what a Masters will cost you in your neck of the woods, but around here (Michigan State University), it's somewhere around $18k a year just for the schooling. I wouldn't spend $40k on something unless I thought I needed it or that I would get my investment back. I was personally looking at getting a Masters in Information Security, but in my area, I've never seen a job posting for an InfoSec job. Closest is a Network Admin who also does security. So I decided to not do that for now.
You wouldn't say that if you had looked at an e-ink screen. It's nothing like an LCD. It uses no power to display, only to "change the page". This means that you can go through 2000 pages on a single charge. Try that on a netbook! The nice thing is this, if you use DRM free books, you can still keep a copy on your netbook, your laptop, your desktop, your online storage location, etc. You are free to do what ever you want! But I promise you, if you had used an e-ink device, you would choose to use an e-ink device to view your electronic books.:-)
I bought a Sony E-Reader last November. I travel a lot for work, and I thought it would be nice to take books with me on the plane. I like reading computer books, and most of them are about the size of the Chicago phone book. Carrying a 5-10lb book around in my backpack "in case" I feel like reading is not something I wanted to do. It is amazing how many computer manuals come with PDF copies of the books on CD. If I have to choose between two books, I will always go for the one with the PDF copy, even if I feel the one without it is a little better. A mediocre book I will use is much greater than a good book I won't.
As far as purchasing electronic books, I've never done it yet. I don't plan on it. I'd be telling a lie if I said I had never pirated an eBook, but in my defense 95% of them have been books that I already own. I am more likely to buy the book and then pirate the electronic format than to buy the electronic format. Call me old fashioned, but I like having the book around, even if I never need to open it. I wont buy an ebook unless the price comes down significantly from the paper version AND the DRM is removed or significantly transparent and portable.
I am a huge Discworld fan. I got hooked in the 90's after I played the Discworld PC game. I went through his books like crazy, and I now own every Discworld book. I purchased many of them from the UK when Pratchett was having difficulties with US publishers. While I support Terry Pratchett, I don't intend on repurchasing his books. I hope he can understand and forgive me for seeking alternate means of acquiring his materials. If I said I felt guilty, I would be telling a lie.
I looked at taking a train from Michigan to Florida once. It cost more than a plane ticket, and it was over 24 hours solid. The same flight takes 3 hours (Detroit to Miami).
Current trains blow. That's why hardly no one uses them. Sure, they SOUND like a good idea, until you actually take one. Until you realize that since they are the smallest train, they have to stop CONSTANTLY to let freight trains pass them. And if that wasn't bad enough, there will be a city stop every 20 minutes to a half an hour. Sure, that's great for people in little towns, but for people in a hurry, each stop wastes precious minutes.
It costs me more to take the train than it does to drive. It takes me longer to take the train than it does to drive. If I have passengers, the train price goes up proportionally to the number of extra people, while a car price difference is negligible. Flying? A car can beat a plane over shorter distances. 100 mile flight and the car will win EVERY time (based on waiting time, flight time, taxiing time, collect baggage time). And when you drive, you have your car at your destination! I don't see people leaving their cars home unless the train is either a gateway to a longer trip (Think 100 mile train ride to a major hub airport and then a long distance flight) or if the travellers are alone or don't want a car at their destination.
I fly a lot. The city I live in has a small airport that has three major routes to hubs in large nearby cities. I am CONSTANTLY hearing how the airlines HATE little cities like mine, and that they want to drop them. They don't make as much money on the 90 mile trip as they do on longer flights, but I don't want to drive to Detroit, deal with traffic, pay a ton for parking, and then have long lines everywhere. So, what is the alternative? My plan has been to incorporate high-speed rails into the airport infrastructure. Imagine all of these smaller airports could have a rail terminal opened inside them. Now, they could have a rail line that goes from Grand Rapids -> Lansing -> Ann Arbor -> Detroit in a little over an hour. It would all but eliminate the small airports, but their infrastructure could continue to be used (Rental cars, parking, restaurants, ticketing, etc). Imagine having a travel itinerary that you purchased from an airline that includes train travel. That is my dream.
I know this isn't relevant to the post, since R2 is still in Beta at the moment, but I've been looking at some of the new features in R2 and they look pretty nifty. Particularly Branch Cache, Core parking, Offline domain joins, Live migration, Direct Access and Active Directory recycle bin feature. I'm sure these features will piss off a lot of people who have already purchased Server 2008 (and aren't on maintenance), but they are still pretty nifty. Of course half of them require Vista Enterprise to use the features.
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While Microsoft would LOVE to have enforced this, and I'm sure they would have made a lot of money, they would piss off so many companies, it's not even funny. Take my company for example. We have 2500 computers. We only use OEM licensing for Windows. We would have had to probably bought ~500 licenses to cover us till we could migrate. 500*$300+500*(90) = $195000 to cover us for that ONE year of lack of overlap. Sure, MS makes off good, but once we are pissed off, my company might look at using Open Office instead of MS Office. 2500*$300 = $750000 to fully license office for my company.
- Have easy central printer queues
Can also be done with Samba, but what's the point? All printers are TCP/IP network printers. I never quite understood why people would use print servers for network printers. (Except maybe in huge environments and/or with special printers having a high cost per page)
While I don't know if Samba does this, the main reason to setup a network queue on a Windows Server is driver management. You can install the drivers on the server and then users can just add the printer very easily. You can even set it up so they can install the printer without admin rights (driver and all) from the server. It makes things so easy an end user can often do it with no help.
Okay, so you are in a unique situation. You've got no investment yet, and a small number of machines to manage. Why use antiquated software that at best will detect non zero day viruses and almost no malware (seriously, does any AV vendor find a significant amount of malware???). The solution is to switch from a blacklisting approach, and move to a white list approach. Instead of using a piece of software to look for bad stuff, just tell your computer what good stuff can be run. There are a ton of vendors that sell white listing apps. I don't know if there is one that is scaled for your size. Lumension has a decent product, as does core trace. Those may be overkill. Faronics has a simpler solution that may be worth looking at. I'm sure there are dozens more out there, but those are just the ones I've looked at.
A stamp? Don't be stupid. Stamps could be forged, peeled off, or transferred to untrusted devices. You have to go with standardization of make, model, color, and size. Before inserting the USB drive, each employee must check the specifications with the master list (which you have posted in a visible location).
They will allow downgrades longer than 6 months.
They are closing the only way people currently have to purchase a brand new OEM license of Windows XP. The only way to install XP on any computer you don't currently have licensed is to purchase an incredibly expensive software assurance plan from Microsoft. SA isn't always a bad thing, but considering most people have been using the same OS for 7-8 years and have no intention of changing...It's not a good deal to get SA. If you bought XP in 2002, purchased the open license for $200 (guesstimate), and then paid the $66 a year for SA (assumes SA at 1/3rd price of the product)...You would have paid $662 for what you could have gotten for $200. SA only makes sense if you upgrade every 3 years or less, but the truth is, even if your new OS didn't suck, businesses don't like massive change, and changing OS version is exactly that, massive change.
Microsoft said they weren't going to sell XP after Vista came out, but they eventually caved and allowed the so-called downgrade. I really want to use the couple hundred Windows XP bulk upgrade licenses my company has. I long for the day that I can make the argument that Windows XP is an upgrade to Windows Vista/7 in front of a judge.
It wouldn't matter. You would still need a copy of some OS before you can use your open license.
Truth be told, if you install Windows XP right, there is no way that Microsoft can tell the difference between our copy of XP and an OEM copy of XP preinstalled (except for the lack of !#$( on the HD). Having said that, doing this without having licenses to back you up...that's a good way to screw your company over. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to make a phone call, and you'll have auditors so far up your ass you wont know where you end and the auditor begins. Lets just hope that for your sake the rest of your software is in order, as they will check most of the major vendors software as well.
This is kind of like asking, what's wrong with taking a dollar out of the cash register every night I work. Sure, you may not get caught right away, but when your manager sees you pocket that dollar, you are going to be looking for a job.
Don't forget that you MUST also purchase an OEM license of Windows with the computer, so you can't buy a computer loaded with Linux or FreeDOS to save a buck. So basically you spend money for the OEM license, money for the open license, and then you pay $90/pc/year. Of course you don't have to buy the open license but once, but you will have to buy the OEM license with every computer.
I'll bet 100 mod points that Windows XP will be available at least a year after Windows 7 release. Microsoft barks a loud bark, but in the end, they tend to buckle under pressure from their biggest supporters.
"While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a fixed cost," More accurately: While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a rising cost,
The term "Fixed Cost" and "Rising Cost" are not mutually exclusive.
Why can't technology make education more efficient?
I'm not stupid enough to believe 90% of the bullshit that comes out of ANY politicians mouth. The other 10% that comes out of their mouths is still bullshit, but it's in their best financial interest to get it done. The political parties are just fantasies used to divide a country into chunks of people that the politicians believe they can get the majority to vote for them. Our political system isn't what was taught in your Political Science course, unless you had a cynical teacher.
Have you ever been assessed for a road being put in? My friend just got a $2000 bill from his city for his portion of the road in front of his house. I know some places just tax you in your property taxes, ($2000 over 10-20 years isn't that bad), but apparently his does not.
The sad thing is that although school enrollment is going down, education taxes are going up. So the schools are getting more money to teach less students. While I do understand that many of the costs of education are a fixed cost, (i.e. the incremental cost of teach 1 extra child is much less than the funding money received for that 1 extra child), I still find this a little alarming. There has to be a place to cut costs. Administration, I'm looking at you.
I couldn't understand how she was re-elected. It just reestablishes my belief that the vast majority of people vote party line, and don't really care who is running for their respective party. I know there may be a few people who could be swayed, but in general, I find the philosophy of both parties to be pretty incompatible. I question anyone's sanity who can switch back and forth on a whim.
Cars especially should be free. Limitation of mobility is the biggest negative externality. By restricting people's mobility, GM is making everyone else suffer, because lack of mobility ruins everything.
You must be new here. Many of the worse case offenders live here. It sounds like you are pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you really think you can take on the pirates, good luck. If you figure out how, please don't tell the RIAA.
Go to dice.com. Do a search in a location you are interested in. Look at the job requirements. What percentage list Masters degrees as a requirement? If not many, I would not get my Masters. My understanding is that a Masters is a great way to get promoted, but it can actually hurt you to get hired. If I had to choose two people for a job, everything identical except for masters vs B.S., I would pick the B.S. most of the time. Why? Because I can pay him less and he wont feel (as) insulted. There is a thing called being "overqualified" and it is a place you do NOT want to be.
My advice is to look for a job, work for a year, and reevaluate. I don't know what a Masters will cost you in your neck of the woods, but around here (Michigan State University), it's somewhere around $18k a year just for the schooling. I wouldn't spend $40k on something unless I thought I needed it or that I would get my investment back. I was personally looking at getting a Masters in Information Security, but in my area, I've never seen a job posting for an InfoSec job. Closest is a Network Admin who also does security. So I decided to not do that for now.
You wouldn't say that if you had looked at an e-ink screen. It's nothing like an LCD. It uses no power to display, only to "change the page". This means that you can go through 2000 pages on a single charge. Try that on a netbook! The nice thing is this, if you use DRM free books, you can still keep a copy on your netbook, your laptop, your desktop, your online storage location, etc. You are free to do what ever you want! But I promise you, if you had used an e-ink device, you would choose to use an e-ink device to view your electronic books. :-)
I bought a Sony E-Reader last November. I travel a lot for work, and I thought it would be nice to take books with me on the plane. I like reading computer books, and most of them are about the size of the Chicago phone book. Carrying a 5-10lb book around in my backpack "in case" I feel like reading is not something I wanted to do. It is amazing how many computer manuals come with PDF copies of the books on CD. If I have to choose between two books, I will always go for the one with the PDF copy, even if I feel the one without it is a little better. A mediocre book I will use is much greater than a good book I won't.
As far as purchasing electronic books, I've never done it yet. I don't plan on it. I'd be telling a lie if I said I had never pirated an eBook, but in my defense 95% of them have been books that I already own. I am more likely to buy the book and then pirate the electronic format than to buy the electronic format. Call me old fashioned, but I like having the book around, even if I never need to open it. I wont buy an ebook unless the price comes down significantly from the paper version AND the DRM is removed or significantly transparent and portable.
I am a huge Discworld fan. I got hooked in the 90's after I played the Discworld PC game. I went through his books like crazy, and I now own every Discworld book. I purchased many of them from the UK when Pratchett was having difficulties with US publishers. While I support Terry Pratchett, I don't intend on repurchasing his books. I hope he can understand and forgive me for seeking alternate means of acquiring his materials. If I said I felt guilty, I would be telling a lie.
I looked at taking a train from Michigan to Florida once. It cost more than a plane ticket, and it was over 24 hours solid. The same flight takes 3 hours (Detroit to Miami).
Current trains blow. That's why hardly no one uses them. Sure, they SOUND like a good idea, until you actually take one. Until you realize that since they are the smallest train, they have to stop CONSTANTLY to let freight trains pass them. And if that wasn't bad enough, there will be a city stop every 20 minutes to a half an hour. Sure, that's great for people in little towns, but for people in a hurry, each stop wastes precious minutes.
It costs me more to take the train than it does to drive. It takes me longer to take the train than it does to drive. If I have passengers, the train price goes up proportionally to the number of extra people, while a car price difference is negligible. Flying? A car can beat a plane over shorter distances. 100 mile flight and the car will win EVERY time (based on waiting time, flight time, taxiing time, collect baggage time). And when you drive, you have your car at your destination! I don't see people leaving their cars home unless the train is either a gateway to a longer trip (Think 100 mile train ride to a major hub airport and then a long distance flight) or if the travellers are alone or don't want a car at their destination.
I fly a lot. The city I live in has a small airport that has three major routes to hubs in large nearby cities. I am CONSTANTLY hearing how the airlines HATE little cities like mine, and that they want to drop them. They don't make as much money on the 90 mile trip as they do on longer flights, but I don't want to drive to Detroit, deal with traffic, pay a ton for parking, and then have long lines everywhere. So, what is the alternative? My plan has been to incorporate high-speed rails into the airport infrastructure. Imagine all of these smaller airports could have a rail terminal opened inside them. Now, they could have a rail line that goes from Grand Rapids -> Lansing -> Ann Arbor -> Detroit in a little over an hour. It would all but eliminate the small airports, but their infrastructure could continue to be used (Rental cars, parking, restaurants, ticketing, etc). Imagine having a travel itinerary that you purchased from an airline that includes train travel. That is my dream.
I know this isn't relevant to the post, since R2 is still in Beta at the moment, but I've been looking at some of the new features in R2 and they look pretty nifty. Particularly Branch Cache, Core parking, Offline domain joins, Live migration, Direct Access and Active Directory recycle bin feature. I'm sure these features will piss off a lot of people who have already purchased Server 2008 (and aren't on maintenance), but they are still pretty nifty. Of course half of them require Vista Enterprise to use the features.