BT have been doing this for years with their home hubs, with BT FON. It's enabled by default, but you can disable it, although you have to disable it on their account management site, and they then tell the router to disable it (sounds a bit wierd to do it that way, but there you go). I use my own router though, and BT are happy for me to do so, which stops any potential issues anyway.
On my few trips to the US, there's something I've always been a bit wary of, yet it seems common practice... When I pay for things at the checkout, I hand over my credit card, they give it back to me, then I sign for it without having my signature checked to see if it matches the card.
Over here (UK), I know we have Chip & Pin now, but before then, the cashier would keep your card and check your signature against the one on the card before handing it back.I used to do that job, once had a guy sign nothing like the one on the card, claimed it was his boyfriend's card. As per company policy, I rang the bank's authorisation phone number, they told me to destroy and return the card to the bank!
I've worked for my current company for 6 and a half years, the last 3 years and 10 months as IT Manager, and IT Assistant before that. On day 1 in the job, I was "Monkey Boy" to the one and only other IT staff... The IT Manager..., basically doing all the crappy jobs, and redeveloping the company website.
Over time, our parent company demanded more time of the other guy for their needs, meaning I had more responsibility to the "child" company that actually employed us. At one point, I ended up writing his reports while he (or sometimes both of us) presented them to senior management. He then got "promoted" (the p-word is an in joke between the two of us!!) to IT Manager for the parent company full time, and so I got promoted to his old job. I took on a new assistant under me, and over time recruited another.
I'm blowing my own trumpet by saying I'm well trusted by the senior management to do a good job and to ensure my team do a good job, and sometimes I don't feel I deserve the position because I never specifically worked towards it. But I guess that at least some of them saw that I could take charge of running a large company's IT infrastructure, managing change, and trying to make the best technical decisions even in times of crisis (like today when a server almost died).
If you're up to the challenge of those last three points, go for it - You obviously feel you can do the job, and if this makes you stop job-hopping so much, it'll make you happier (and a happy employee is a hard-working, long-lasting employee!) It just sounds like you'll have to force the natural progression a bit more than I did!!
Our corporate users are forced to come up with "complex" passwords (well, more complex than some people) because our auditors demanded it - minimum 7 characters, must have mixed case and numeric digits, and I put an easter egg in the code if you try to change your password to anything with the word 'password' in it:-)
The auditors haven't found the egg yet in the last few years, but they're back again in January....
Not a computer, but didn't Garth in Wayne's World (can't remember if it was 1 or 2) have a book titled Unix Administrator's something-or-other? And I think he even talked to a girl about Unix for a brief second.
I think people like to "forget" all the other times they're being tracked (or do something with the potential to be tracked). For example, any time you apply for credit and the company so a search on you, it gets logged permanently on your credit history (dunno about other countries, but it does here in the UK).
At work I can bring a customer's credit history up just like that, and tell you how much in arrears he/she is with their home shopping catalogue, or how much they borrowed to do the house up with from the loan they had three years ago.
Some people default (not pay) their loans, and don't care, but they forget it's tracked!!! And then they wonder why no-one else will give them a loan.
But back to the topic... I have a store loyalty card myself. I don't care they know what I buy or where I live, but I get some nice money off coupons every three months which gets me some nice savings on my petrol bill. Occasionally get some beer vouchers too:-)
I know that feeling well!! Our Managing Director has a habit of ringing from home on a day off, asking for something, adding "but it's not urgent" at the end of the conversation, and then booming "why isn't it done?" if we don't do it by the next day.
Therefore, in order to get it done, we do a quick job. We avoid getting complained at, and if he ever says "why wasn't it done properly" (although it's not like he can actually read our code), we'll say that we weren't given enough time! Voila!
With reference to GoToMyPc.Com, I completely agree!!! If anyone can get to their networked office PC over the 'net, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the firewall setup!
I can just see it now, some goon (or 11-year old "hax0r") decides to logon to my PC while I'm using it, and copies bank details from over 11,000 customers on our database (or worse, my personal details by watching my Internet banking session!)
It should be renamed GoToMyPersonalInfoAndBankruptMe.Com
It's the same sort of thing with me, I work for a finance company, developing in-house software for the other staff... It's great seeing them using systems you've developed, usually with little input from other members of the team who are working on other programs, but with various suggestions from the staff you're developing for.
The other week, I overheard one guy on the phone to one of our dealers saying that we have the best car repossession system in the country. I went home with a warm fuzzy feeling inside (yes, I wrote that!)
I work for a car finance company with a bought-in piece of loan management software.
About a fortnight ago, me and the boss discovered a switch in the command line which, when applied liberally, allows full, unadulterated, non-stop access to everything, including a few features intended for support (like changing the user limit on the licence...)
And all it took was five minutes with a hex editor:-)
Some of us actually work hard (I got runner-up in the Employee of the Year compy in our company because of all the hard - yes, HARD - work). By the sounds of it you don't need to work as you've obviously got soooo much money you get to laugh at us poor workers who need bonuses to do stuff like save up for important things (like my upcoming wedding).
Or are you just pi$$ed that you can't read Slashdot at work because your IT dept blocked it?
I usually do small jobs for people I know for free or "you owe me one down the pub", and I unexpectedly get a few £20 notes instead.
Now, this woman my mum works with mentioned she couldn't get some CD burning software working (no other details of what the problem was), and she knew I was "good with computers". So, mother dearest brought the program home. I didn't have a CD writer.
Anyway, I installed the software (can't remember what it was, but it was one I'd never heard of), and it installed OK, but obviously it complained that I didn't have a writer installed when I tried to use it. So I said to my mum "Tell her it works fine on my computer, but I can't test it because I don't have a CD writer".
Mum passes on the message the next day (and not in a chinese whispers sort-of way), and the reply from the woman was "Well, he obviously doesn't know what he was doing!".
Pah! Next time, it's £50 an hour for her regardless of what it is!
I got a Higher National Diploma in Business Management, following which I did a really crappy job for the local council. Six weeks later, my mate rings up from the web-design company he works for saying if I'd like an interview. One week later, and bye-bye council! (Cheers, Fozz!!!)
Six months later, I left (well, got made redundant but luckily had a job offer during my notice) to be a VB programmer and general IT Support for a vehicle finance company. Best move I ever made:-)
Ahhh yes, I remember the days (circa '96) when this sort of thing made up the whole of the web!
And yet, it was SO COOL!!!
You could go to Altavista, search for something, and the first page it would list was someone's homepage which would also have a link to something completely unrelated such as the dancing naked llama!
Now, the first thing on AV that gets listed is either pr0n (even if you don't search for it) or megacorporation.com.
"If we went this way, we would be one step closer to NT."
The way I see it, Microsoft tried to graphicalise the OS too much, and my personal opinion is that servers don't need GUIs. Besides, as CLI applications such as Midnight Commander shows, you don't need a flashy SVGA interface to be useful and powerful - Plus, CLI apps generally help keep memory and CPU usage down rather than their GUI counterparts.
Lynx and Pine instead of Mozilla anyone??
Slashdot Mirror
BT have been doing this for years with their home hubs, with BT FON. It's enabled by default, but you can disable it, although you have to disable it on their account management site, and they then tell the router to disable it (sounds a bit wierd to do it that way, but there you go). I use my own router though, and BT are happy for me to do so, which stops any potential issues anyway.
On my few trips to the US, there's something I've always been a bit wary of, yet it seems common practice... When I pay for things at the checkout, I hand over my credit card, they give it back to me, then I sign for it without having my signature checked to see if it matches the card.
Over here (UK), I know we have Chip & Pin now, but before then, the cashier would keep your card and check your signature against the one on the card before handing it back .I used to do that job, once had a guy sign nothing like the one on the card, claimed it was his boyfriend's card. As per company policy, I rang the bank's authorisation phone number, they told me to destroy and return the card to the bank!
For some people, I imagine the most popular is actually Tools -> Start Private Browsing :-)
In that case my house is safe... my entire town hasn't been put onto street view yet.
I've worked for my current company for 6 and a half years, the last 3 years and 10 months as IT Manager, and IT Assistant before that. On day 1 in the job, I was "Monkey Boy" to the one and only other IT staff... The IT Manager..., basically doing all the crappy jobs, and redeveloping the company website.
Over time, our parent company demanded more time of the other guy for their needs, meaning I had more responsibility to the "child" company that actually employed us. At one point, I ended up writing his reports while he (or sometimes both of us) presented them to senior management. He then got "promoted" (the p-word is an in joke between the two of us!!) to IT Manager for the parent company full time, and so I got promoted to his old job. I took on a new assistant under me, and over time recruited another.
I'm blowing my own trumpet by saying I'm well trusted by the senior management to do a good job and to ensure my team do a good job, and sometimes I don't feel I deserve the position because I never specifically worked towards it. But I guess that at least some of them saw that I could take charge of running a large company's IT infrastructure, managing change, and trying to make the best technical decisions even in times of crisis (like today when a server almost died).
If you're up to the challenge of those last three points, go for it - You obviously feel you can do the job, and if this makes you stop job-hopping so much, it'll make you happier (and a happy employee is a hard-working, long-lasting employee!) It just sounds like you'll have to force the natural progression a bit more than I did!!
Our corporate users are forced to come up with "complex" passwords (well, more complex than some people) because our auditors demanded it - minimum 7 characters, must have mixed case and numeric digits, and I put an easter egg in the code if you try to change your password to anything with the word 'password' in it :-)
The auditors haven't found the egg yet in the last few years, but they're back again in January....
Not a computer, but didn't Garth in Wayne's World (can't remember if it was 1 or 2) have a book titled Unix Administrator's something-or-other? And I think he even talked to a girl about Unix for a brief second.
I think people like to "forget" all the other times they're being tracked (or do something with the potential to be tracked). For example, any time you apply for credit and the company so a search on you, it gets logged permanently on your credit history (dunno about other countries, but it does here in the UK).
:-)
At work I can bring a customer's credit history up just like that, and tell you how much in arrears he/she is with their home shopping catalogue, or how much they borrowed to do the house up with from the loan they had three years ago.
Some people default (not pay) their loans, and don't care, but they forget it's tracked!!! And then they wonder why no-one else will give them a loan.
But back to the topic... I have a store loyalty card myself. I don't care they know what I buy or where I live, but I get some nice money off coupons every three months which gets me some nice savings on my petrol bill. Occasionally get some beer vouchers too
So, to all the whingers.... There IS an upside!!
I know that feeling well!! Our Managing Director has a habit of ringing from home on a day off, asking for something, adding "but it's not urgent" at the end of the conversation, and then booming "why isn't it done?" if we don't do it by the next day.
Therefore, in order to get it done, we do a quick job. We avoid getting complained at, and if he ever says "why wasn't it done properly" (although it's not like he can actually read our code), we'll say that we weren't given enough time! Voila!
With reference to GoToMyPc.Com, I completely agree!!! If anyone can get to their networked office PC over the 'net, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the firewall setup!
I can just see it now, some goon (or 11-year old "hax0r") decides to logon to my PC while I'm using it, and copies bank details from over 11,000 customers on our database (or worse, my personal details by watching my Internet banking session!)
It should be renamed GoToMyPersonalInfoAndBankruptMe.Com
It's the same sort of thing with me, I work for a finance company, developing in-house software for the other staff... It's great seeing them using systems you've developed, usually with little input from other members of the team who are working on other programs, but with various suggestions from the staff you're developing for.
The other week, I overheard one guy on the phone to one of our dealers saying that we have the best car repossession system in the country. I went home with a warm fuzzy feeling inside (yes, I wrote that!)
I work for a car finance company with a bought-in piece of loan management software.
:-)
About a fortnight ago, me and the boss discovered a switch in the command line which, when applied liberally, allows full, unadulterated, non-stop access to everything, including a few features intended for support (like changing the user limit on the licence...)
And all it took was five minutes with a hex editor
Some of us actually work hard (I got runner-up in the Employee of the Year compy in our company because of all the hard - yes, HARD - work). By the sounds of it you don't need to work as you've obviously got soooo much money you get to laugh at us poor workers who need bonuses to do stuff like save up for important things (like my upcoming wedding).
Or are you just pi$$ed that you can't read Slashdot at work because your IT dept blocked it?
I usually do small jobs for people I know for free or "you owe me one down the pub", and I unexpectedly get a few £20 notes instead.
Now, this woman my mum works with mentioned she couldn't get some CD burning software working (no other details of what the problem was), and she knew I was "good with computers". So, mother dearest brought the program home. I didn't have a CD writer.
Anyway, I installed the software (can't remember what it was, but it was one I'd never heard of), and it installed OK, but obviously it complained that I didn't have a writer installed when I tried to use it. So I said to my mum "Tell her it works fine on my computer, but I can't test it because I don't have a CD writer".
Mum passes on the message the next day (and not in a chinese whispers sort-of way), and the reply from the woman was "Well, he obviously doesn't know what he was doing!".
Pah! Next time, it's £50 an hour for her regardless of what it is!
I got a Higher National Diploma in Business Management, following which I did a really crappy job for the local council. Six weeks later, my mate rings up from the web-design company he works for saying if I'd like an interview. One week later, and bye-bye council! (Cheers, Fozz!!!)
:-)
Six months later, I left (well, got made redundant but luckily had a job offer during my notice) to be a VB programmer and general IT Support for a vehicle finance company. Best move I ever made
Ahhh yes, I remember the days (circa '96) when this sort of thing made up the whole of the web!
:(
And yet, it was SO COOL!!!
You could go to Altavista, search for something, and the first page it would list was someone's homepage which would also have a link to something completely unrelated such as the dancing naked llama!
Now, the first thing on AV that gets listed is either pr0n (even if you don't search for it) or megacorporation.com.
The web seems somehow less fun right now...
5) Cowboy Neal ;-)